Hooray racism
Oct. 19th, 2007 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tgiesOne of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
[...]
Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
Senile old scientist makes unfounded racist remarks; closet racists of the world take it to heart because HE'S A SCIENTIST SO IT'S SCIENCE
Basically what Mr. Watson here is saying goes something like this:
- Darkies is hella dumb, don'tcher know
- Our economic policies in Africa are failures because we expect jibber-jabbering bushmen to be as intelligent as the white man
- Someday I hope someone will come up with some sort of proof that supports this.
Internet racists do not see anything wrong with this, and immediately jump on their chance to cite My Personal Experiences™, Just Listen To How They Talk™ and Well They Evolved To Just Run Around In The Jungle I Mean Come On™ in defense of the idea that black people is dum
Let's deconstruct this gradually
I could go into the whole thing where "intelligence" as an enumerable quantity is a pretty fucking sketchy idea to begin with, as is a lot of this sort of application of the idea of "race", but I don't think I should really have to explain that
Let's instead start with the part where WHAT THE FUCK IS A "BLACK PERSON" ANYWAY. An important news flash is that not all dark-skinned people are sub-Saharan Africans! I'm not sure why nobody realizes this, but uh. First off, you have your obvious African-American types, who are pretty genetically diverse by now, representing as they do genotypes from all over Africa in addition to quite a lot of European shit. So suggesting that even the whole African diaspora share just a whole lot of genetic traits is pretty sketchy. Then you have sub-Saharan Africans, West Africans, various groups in Oceania, your Ethiopians, your dark-skinned Southeast Asian folks, your Bantu, and so on. One interesting point I've seen made is that, for instance, the Bantu and the Ethiopians are more genetically distinct from each other than any given two subsets of the Caucasian race (which is more broadly defined than people seem to be aware). So the whole (unfortunately pretty popular!) idea that there is such a thing as a "black" genotype is just a little bit more retarded than deciding that Middle Europeans and Southeast Asians are the same because they both tend to be light-skinned. Everyone manages to avoid knowing this.
Of course, everyone knows that black people MUST be dumb, because they evolved running around the jungle until the white man came and rescued them from their unsophistication. Never mind that Africa was home to some of the richest civilizations in history and invented a lot of the concept of trade as we know it now and shit
Plus of course black people are ruining music because I don't like rap. We should remove all black influence from modern music. Oops, there goes anything which has any sort of rock sensibility to it. In addition to drums.
Also I'm getting preeeeeeeetty tired of explaining to otherwise rational people that black vernacular English is not actually any more or less valid than ""Proper"" English and using it doesn't mean you're stupid. If you're going to do that, you should probably go ahead and condemn all English speakers. I mean, English is just a horrible horrible messy result of the Celts being Too Dumb to Properly Speak the Germanic languages of the Saxons and the Angles when they, together with the Jutes, started running the show in Europe.
I find it pretty fucking hilarious that if a scientist says it, it's automatically science. If I ever become notable in Th' Science World, I'm going to have to exploit that little trick for my own amusement
but yeah don't mind me just keep exploiting your unique position to enable the marginalization of a whole sweeping class of people because the lady you hired to answer your phones has a funny accent
I think I'm actually developing some sort of prejudice against white people now maybe if white people would shut up we wouldn't have this problem
In closing: Round up all the white American heterosexual males posting on the Internet about how the man is actually keeping THEM down and in addition black people are dumb because they all totally came from the jungle, and, uh, well, to start, we could throw them in the jungle for a few years; that would be hilarious
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Date: 2007-10-19 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:09 pm (UTC)You clearly need to stop hanging around so many parts of the internet with a high density of idiots. That or your parents have been saying something about Dr Watson that's made you stabby, in which case I give my comisserations.
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Date: 2007-10-19 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-20 06:08 am (UTC)also it's like evil smart
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Date: 2007-10-20 06:06 am (UTC)Hahahaha oh wow
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Date: 2007-10-20 06:07 am (UTC)everyone can shut ALL the way up
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Date: 2007-10-20 06:11 am (UTC)then you call your black friend "nigga" and he yells at you and you post about it on the SA forums
(1) What
(2) Why do you even care
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Date: 2007-10-20 06:11 am (UTC)I mean now you can't say "I'M NOT RACIST (I HAVE BLACK FRIENDS!) BUT [RACIST REMARK]"
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Date: 2007-10-19 06:38 pm (UTC)OMG REVERSE RACISM
You really should make this post public -- the good folks of
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Date: 2007-10-19 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 07:58 pm (UTC)what
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Date: 2007-10-19 10:26 pm (UTC)2. Our economic policies in Africa are failures because we expect jibber-jabbering bushmen to be as intelligent as the white man
3. Someday I hope someone will come up with some sort of proof that supports this.
4. Q.E.D.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 10:33 pm (UTC)The lack of oppuntunities affording to black people in particular means they tend to actually do less well in western society at the moment. This is no reflection on intelligence at all.
I think he was genuinely trying to start a debate on different kinds of intelligence whilst making the mistake of lumping "black people" into a group, though. His subsequent explanation makes it clear he's a slightly controvesial old man, not a massive racist.
He is a homophobe as well though. Seen his comments on gay genes and abortions? I laughed and then realised he was serious.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-22 03:57 am (UTC)