"For Whom The Bell Curves"

by Dr. Jonathan Farley

Our outrage over the student's political incorrectness aside, are African-Americans less intelligent than whites? As an African-American who graduated summa cum laude in mathematics with the second-highest grade point average in his class at Harvard, I would have to say, Yes. Because the hypocrisy on the part of black Americans is stunning and self-defeating: Black Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer has written a research paper stating that African-Americans are less intelligent than whites.

In "Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children," Fryer writes that "the results of our analysis do not preclude a possible role for a genetic contribution to racial differences in intelligence for a number of reasons." He goes on to give three arguments in favor of the "genetic story" that the difference in IQ between blacks and whites comes down to A, C, T, and G.

Instead of being excoriated by blacks, Fryer is celebrated, with black Harvard alumna Soledad O'Brien even interviewing Fryer for her CNN series, Black in America; she calls Fryer a "great guy." Fryer's family sold crack, and he personally sold marijuana, stole money from McDonald's, and nearly murdered a white man. At a meeting organized by Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree about reducing the number of young black men in prison, the 1,000-person, mostly black audience convulsed with laughter when Fryer joked that he once thought of going into the pharmaceutical industry, street-side.

Imagine the uproar by blacks if a white professor had made a joke about having once poisoned black children.

This is not the only area where African-Americans exhibit an appalling tolerance when the offending individual is black:

A black former peddler of crack cocaine gets rewarded by becoming the driver and then the "gatekeeper" of the black governor of New York―who also used cocaine "a couple of times".

Another former Harvard law student writes, "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," and freely admits to using "blow". But it's okay because he is the first African-American president of the United States. Black siren Beyoncé Knowles even glamorizes gangsters in song: I need a soldier: Gotta know to get dough, and he betta be street.

Imagine if a white man, an aide of the governor of Maine or Vermont, had choked a black woman, or shot and killed a black Harvard student. Black preacher Al Sharpton would have been hosting press conferences in Harvard Yard within hours. Sharpton, whose clout in the African-American community is such that he can convene "black leadership summits," despite having been caught on videotape discussing a major cocaine deal with a man he did not realize was an undercover cop.

In Sharpton's defense, he may have been considering a run for mayor of D.C.

Should the Harvard law student be expelled for her stupid, offensive, and easily refuted views? Certainly. But more harmful than the email is the contemporary African-American community's customary cowardice―the Harvard Black Law Students Association "has not taken an official stance" on the email that implies blacks are Untermenschen―and its propensity to elevate monsters and call them heroes. That's simply "precious."

I realize one should not throw stones, particularly when the glass housing market is in a slump. The Black Panthers sold marijuana to fund their early escapades, and Malcolm Little was a lost soul. But the point remains: When African-Americans blame whites for the destruction of black America, while extolling blacks who embody, or participated in, that destruction, one can only question their intelligence.

• Kenisha -- In addition to the points raised by Dr. Farley, it's important to remember that --unless I've been misinformed-- Romans and Africans didn't promote forced breedings among their slaves, then routinely disrupt families and/or would-be families by selling or murdering the bucks, does, or their spawn; neither did they forbid the formal education of their slaves. The point about contextualizing information is understood, but in aligning Roman, African, and American systems of slavery, an apples and oranges comparison is made. Being the property of another human is (almost) nobody's idea of a good time, but those systems were not the same.
• Mansa -- The term "black" is not a relatively new term in recent linguistic history. In Elizabethan England, the term was used routinely as is evidenced in Shakespeare's play Othello. The term used for blacks in general was "black-a-moor" and there are references of such in the literature. In ancient times Greek authors such as Herodotus and Aristotle used the term "black" to refer to the inhabitants of Egypt, Nubia and Clochia. The Greek word was "melanchroes" --which actually translated as "black skinned". In contemporary times the term "African American" was adopted mainly for the reasons of consistency--to match analogical terms such as Hispanic American, Asian American, Native American, Irish American and Italian American. The term "negro" is not used today by many because of its association with the period during which Africans were enslaved then suffered under the laws of segregation. In this connection "negro" is considered a pejorative term.
• einhverfr -- I would agree that 'racial' groups might differ cognitively in subtle ways for genetic reasons and that this might skew tests. However, "intelligence" as you note is a problem term and my own thinking is that I see no reason to suppose that a current test gap addresses the key issue which is real-world intelligence-based performance (not just in education but in professional careers as well).
• Deborah Sherman de Santo -- What I don't understand is how we came to value genetic intelligence over integrity, compassion for one's fellow man, a solid work ethic and all the other attributes that make living with other human beings a tolerable experience. History is full of brilliant sadists psychopaths. What have any of them contributed beyond an excellent example of how not to act?
• Mansa -- The word "Negro" was not coined by English speakers. The term was first used by Portugese traders who sailed to the West coast of Africa looking for gold and eventually people--as captives who were then transported to Portugal to work as captive labor. The word then entered the English language. Africans do not generally refer to each other as "black" but as being of a particular ethnic group. The term in its generic sense is therefore alien to any African language. Similarly, "black" and "African" are terms first used by Europeans to describe the continent and its inhabitants. The same applies to the racist term "sub-Saharan Africa"--a euphemism for the Western term "black Africa".

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  Graphic above: Lion collage by jH
  

  
  In 2005, Seed Magazine named Dr. Jonathan David Farley one of “15 people who have shaped the global conversation about science”. He is the 2004 recipient of the Harvard Foundation’s Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award, a medal presented on behalf of the president of Harvard University in recognition of “outstanding achievements and contributions in the field of mathematics.” He obtained his doctorate in mathematics from Oxford University in 1995, after winning Oxford’s highest mathematics awards in 1994. Jonathan Farley graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1991 with the second-highest grade point average in his graduating class.
  Dr. Farley’s mathematical work has been profiled in The Chronicle of Higher Education, in Science News Online, in The Economist Magazine, in USA Today, on Fox News Television, and on Air America Radio. In 2001, Ebony Magazine named Dr. Farley a “Leader of the Future.” He has also been profiled in Jet Magazine, in Upscale Magazine, in Black Enterprise Magazine, and on the cover of the NAACP’s Crisis Magazine.
  Dr. Farley has been an invited guest on BBC World News Television, BBC Radio, and U.S. National Public Radio. On November 18, 2001, Dr. Farley was an invited speaker at the “Stop the War” demonstration in London, which drew 100,000 people. His essay, “My Fellow Americans: Looking Black on Red Tuesday,” appeared in Beyond September 11: An Anthology of Dissent, which also featured essays by Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky. Dr. Farley has written for Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian newspaper, Essence Magazine, and the hip hop magazine The Source.
  The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts (home to both Harvard University and MIT) officially declared March 19, 2004 to be “Dr. Jonathan David Farley Day”.
  Dr. Farley and the publisher met in 2001 as incipient members and officials of the Green Party of Tennessee and have maintained personal and professional communications as he moved recently to a professorship in Austria from Stanford in California. They also share a certain level of separation anxiety about their personal belongings. His work has appeared in ACR previously (see Up-To-Date Archives or Key Search for listings).
  "For Whom the Bell Curves" is republished with author permission from the Huffington Post.
  

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