<<right-thinking people (like yourself) have repressed such a decay of the American ideal and have accordingly and hypocritically come up with IQ pap and other behaviorist nonsense to rationalize the misfortunes of the ill-fated Negro and his fellow Cracker.....>>
I agree with you in part, there has been a significant failure on the part of the American Dream for all people. But I do disagree on your main tenant, that "hard work" will not get you ahead in life.
I tend to disagree with "The Bell Curve" and Mr. Conrad's contention that IQ is primarily genetic.(There are statistical, comparative flaws in The Bell Curve) My personal experiance growing up was that intelligence has far more to do with societal pressure and parenting than it does with whose sperm you come from.
I had to fortune to have grown up both poor and disabled, a particulary crippling mix in the fast paced American society. But, fortunately I was intelligent, and have used this to leverage myself an education doing high-pay, sedintary work.
While growing up, I lived in several neighborhoods of, and associated with, working class whites and minorities. The very people for whom the American Dream seems to have failed. My observation of the reason for their failure is one that does not fit well in the eternal class struggle idea.
The reason none of my high school chums have achieved anything is that they did not form the proper self-identity as children. I myself was guilty of this, having nearly failed out of high school.
The identity that was formed by my black and lower class white friends was the stereotypical "they owe me" attitude. They were unwilling to pursue hard work or advanced education, because they spent too much time waiting for someone else to do it for them. This attitude is exemplefied by the "tough" black attitude, and the laisse-faire white trash attitude.
My feeling is that this attitude fostered by the same welfare state that our mothers relied on to raise us. Since we grew up watching mom get food stamps and AFDC to pay for everything - we learned that the government is there to take care of us, so long as we don't work too hard.
The reason minorities in America are test less intelligent than the majority because they chose to be. Being smart does not fit into a young black man or women's sense of personal identity. In fact, being smart can be a significant hazard to your personal safety in your adolescent years - and such traits need to be hidden; or masked with the threat of extreme violence.
I discovered at college that this is not the norm with suburbanite children. Although being intelligent was often ridiculed; most people were aghast to learn that I had once dated a girl who was raped for being the "smart kid" in class. How encouraged do you think she was to continue showing the fact that she was a high IQ black woman? |
