No Child Left Behind, Unwelcome Messenger
There is an ugly fact that we have been trying to hide in every way we can. Because it concerns race, the most painful subject and the most searing division in American society, we usually don't talk about it at all, and when it can't be avoided, we quickly brush it aside with an excuse. Scientists are strongly dissuaded from studying the subject, but a few have braved the wrath of the public and many now know the truth, but because public utterance of it is not allowed, they talk about it only among themselves. Not only do academics and the media denounce this truth as false, but also the truth teller is branded as racist and despicable. Even a casual reference to it can mean loss of a professorship or the end of a journalism career. In this way, the comfortable fiction of racial equality is preserved and the ugly fact of large racial differences is suppressed.
Racial differences were once accepted as obvious. When Muslim Arabs entered sub-Saharan Africa in the 700s, they were shocked by the poverty, promiscuity, and cannibalism of the natives, and when Europeans visited Africa somewhat later, they wrote of the poverty and low intelligence of the Africans. You might think their reaction was simply cultural chauvinism, but consider that when Europeans first visited China, they were very impressed by the advanced form of government and elegant culture they found there. Marco Polo wrote that the Chinese must be the most intelligent race on earth. For almost two and half millennia, racial differences were non-controversial. Aristotle, Plato, Voltaire, Hume, Darwin, Freud, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, Truman, and almost everyone else whose opinions are known believed that the races differ in mental ability. The 1914 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica stated it as a matter of fact.
It was not until the 1920s that a few psychologists began to spread the doctrine that all racial and gender differences are superficial,... [continues]
There is an ugly fact that we have been trying to hide in every way we can. Because it concerns race, the most painful subject and the most searing division in American society, we usually don't talk about it at all, and when it can't be avoided, we quickly brush it aside with an excuse. Scientists are strongly dissuaded from studying the subject, but a few have braved the wrath of the public and many now know the truth, but because public utterance of it is not allowed, they talk about it only among themselves. Not only do academics and the media denounce this truth as false, but also the truth teller is branded as racist and despicable. Even a casual reference to it can mean loss of a professorship or the end of a journalism career. In this way, the comfortable fiction of racial equality is preserved and the ugly fact of large racial differences is suppressed.
Racial differences were once accepted as obvious. When Muslim Arabs entered sub-Saharan Africa in the 700s, they were shocked by the poverty, promiscuity, and cannibalism of the natives, and when Europeans visited Africa somewhat later, they wrote of the poverty and low intelligence of the Africans. You might think their reaction was simply cultural chauvinism, but consider that when Europeans first visited China, they were very impressed by the advanced form of government and elegant culture they found there. Marco Polo wrote that the Chinese must be the most intelligent race on earth. For almost two and half millennia, racial differences were non-controversial. Aristotle, Plato, Voltaire, Hume, Darwin, Freud, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, Truman, and almost everyone else whose opinions are known believed that the races differ in mental ability. The 1914 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica stated it as a matter of fact.
It was not until the 1920s that a few psychologists began to spread the doctrine that all racial and gender differences are superficial,... [continues]
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