In fact, blacks in America have never had any choice but to face such “truths.” Theories of blacks’ innate intellectual inadequacy provided much of the rationale for slavery and for Jim Crow, They also accomplished something equally pernicious, and continue to do so today: they caused many blacks (if only subconsciously) to doubt their own abilities-and to conform to the stereotype, thereby confirming it.
Long before Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray came along, race and IQ was a touchy topic. Many of the early testing experts, by today’s standards, were racists. They frankly promoted the notion, W.E.B. Du Bois once observed, that blacks were “absolutely beyond the possibility of civilization.” The fact that blacks, on average, did worse than whites on such tests gave such prejudice the cover of science. “The Bell Curve " is certain to provide similar cover for people who have always known the “truth” about black intellectual inferiority. It is also likely to exasperate liberals ‘Who yet again find themselves having to defend black potential-and programs, designed to develop it. However, those who will really feel the consequences of this debate will be those blacks who grow up equating their color with incompetence. Like Stepin Fetchit comedy and Gangsta Rap music, the message will seep into the culture, fueling the belief that disadvantaged blacks, by and large, are only fulfilling their destiny.
Of course, Herrnstein and Murray scrupolously avoid suggesting that all blacks are intellectually inferior. Indeed, they note that many more are considerably more intelligent than most whites. The fact remains, however, that for all the requisite clucking about individual distinctions, we tend to treat people (and to define ourselves) based on our perceptions of the group.
We may tell a young black man that he should not worry if most people who share his skin color are presumed to be thugs, since he knows that he is not. But his merit means little to the cop or to the shopkeeper who refuses him admittance. He is treated, at least initially, as a member of an undesirable group. By the same token, if we tell a bright African-American kindergartener that blacks do basketball instead of math, we should not be surprised if he begins to question the point of developing his brain. His only alternative may be to decide that he does not really belong to such a non-achieving group.
One of the many problems with research on genetics,intelligence and race is that investigators often assume, because there is no scientific way to quantify the effects, that cultural messagesabout black inferiority have no impact on intellectual development. But what if they do? How can we control for the effects of environment when being identifiably black in America automatically puts one in a different environment than whites?
A well-known study of transracial adoption found that blacks and biracial children adopted as infants by upper-middle-classwhites tested very much like privileged whites. When the researchersretested the children 10 years later, the scores had dropped. Though many of the youngsters, especially the interracial ones, were doingwell, many others, especially those with two black birthparents, werenot. Richard Weinberg, the lead researcher, saw the results as evidence that IQ scores could be substantially altered by environment.Others saw the drop in scores as confirmation that even blacks raised in ““white’’ environments tend ultimately, because of geneticlimitations, to regress to the black norm.
An alternative explanation is that somewhere along the line many of those children learned what it means to be black inAmerica; that even though they were raised in ““white’’ environments, they were not infused with ““white’’ expectations, and, for reasons that have little to do with genetics, they lived up (or down) to the world’s perceptions of them.
In truth no one can say with any precision how much of a role genetics plays in test differences among racial groups. For one thing, no good genetic definition of ““race’’ exists. And even if it did, unless we discover a genetic marker for intellect, the mystery is likely to remain unsolved.
To admit that we still don’t know what certain racial differences mean (includ-ing differences among ethnic-group IQ scores) can be maddening to egalitarians and elitists alike. So people instead tend to find validation for whatever truths they seek. For those who, like my correspondent, look at blacks and see mediocrity, evidence of that is easy to come by. Ironically, it may be the obsession with finding such evidence that created the mediocrity in the first place.
