HBD Books

Why Race Matters

By Michael Levin

415 pp. New Century Foundation 2005

Behind all the muddle, there are two main questions when it comes to the the topic of whether races have important inherent behavioral and cognitive differences.  Is it true, and if yes, so what?  Do such findings have any place in public discourse or policy making?  That’s what City University of New York philosophy professor Michael Levin set out to answer over ten years ago in Why Race Matters.  

The naïve among us can be forgiven for thinking that social scientists and policy makers would want any and all information available about whether their theories are true or their goals feasible.  That is not the case.  A writer in Nature magazine explicitly says that research on race and IQ shouldn’t be allowed.  John Judis of the liberal New Republic says that of all the taboos we have racial differences are “the most deserving of retention.”  An economist interviewed on the New York Times blog who claims to be studying poverty says he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know about the connection between IQ and wealth.

Meanwhile, PBS, a barometer of mainstream thought if there ever was one, lists the modern income gap between American blacks and whites next to slavery and lynchings as part of the history of American discrimination.  We are subject to federal programs to close racial gaps between whites and minorities in everything from home ownership to test scores.  At the time Why Race Matters was first published all such programs had failed.  If anything has changed since the publication of that work, it’s only that the number of eligible victims has grown due to Hispanic immigration and these programs have increased in number and intensity.  Steve Sailer makes the convincing case that affirmative action lending is what caused the economy to collapse.  

When it comes to blacks, many must look at their bad situation, see the poverty and failure and not want to feel mean; to put it in the most blunt way possible, admitting that their problems are due to bad genes strikes some as uncivilized and downright nasty.  Unfortunately,  the rhetoric of the left and federal government’s crusade for equality don’t allow any self-respecting white man or honest citizen who cares for the truth to remain silent.  As Levin puts it in his introduction…

The topic of racial variation is admittedly disturbing, and in an ideal world might be passed over in silence, but accusations against whites have made such indiscretion impossible.  The right of the accused to present his case includes the right to raise issues that distress his accuser.  A plaintiff demanding damages for a broken leg cannot ask at the same time that his leg not be talked about, nor take offense when the defendant presents evidence that the injury was congenial…Claiming racial harm has opened the topic of race differences.

Why Race Matters is still Whitey’s best defense.

“Stereotypes,” Reality and Ethics

Most readers of HBD Books probably don’t need another review of the evidence for IQ and behavioral differences between races and why these differences certainly have a genetic basis.  From the side of the science, there isn’t much new here that one wouldn’t find in J. Philippe Rushton’s Race, Evolution and Behavior, Hernstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve or any of the fine works of Richard Lynn.  Part 1 deals only with the empirical case and can be skipped by the convinced race realist who is short on time.

Parts 2 and 3 are called Values and Implications and tie what we know from science to current policy.  Let’s start with crime.  Blacks, whatever the reason, are simply on average significantly more violent than whites.  Based on statistics from the 1990s, a black was 12 times more likely than a non-black to have committed a robbery and 9 times more likely to have committed a murder.  One sometimes hears complaints about the danger blacks face in the South but reality is at odds with that perception.  To take Georgia as an example, blacks were 26.5% of the population but between 1973 and 1979 but committed 67% of all murders.  Michelle Obama once said that Barack, as a black man living in America, could get killed going to the gas station.  What she didn’t mention was that if he did, statistically it would’ve been most likely to have been at the hands of another black male.  In the weeks following that comment I couldn’t find a mainstream conservative author or pundit who pointed out what is simply a statistical fact.  If one did, it wouldn’t have been the case of a person bringing up race just to pick on black people but defending White America against an (unjustified) accusation of causing blacks to live in fear for their physical safety.  Pointing out that the inverse is true is not considered acceptable discourse.

Beyond answering accusations of white wickedness, there is the question of what behavior is justified in our daily lives.  A woman is hitchhiking alone at night.  She refuses a ride from a man but takes one from another woman based on the knowledge that a ride with a man is more of a risk.  No one would think that she was “sexist” for doing so and no one would feel the need to point out that not all men are rapists or that there are some women more violent than most men.  By the same logic, it is not “racist” for a woman to feel safer in the presence of a white man than a black man.  Those who take the simplistic view that stereotypes are wrong should be logically consistent and demand that walking through a dark alley at night we be just as afraid of a group of teenage girls as a group of teenage boys.  Professor Levin and his wife once wrote a letter to The New York Times defending the right of shop owners that engaged in “racial profiling”: refusing to open their doors in certain situations out of fear that the young blacks outside would rob them.  He pointed out the inconsistency of the Times in worrying about innocent black victims of this policy while never showing the least bit of concern for white victims of affirmative action.  

The logic extends to the state.  Nobody would claim that because cops arrest more men than women or act on their belief that men are more likely to be violent they are behaving unfairly.  The Obama administration considers ending racial profiling a top priority.  When the black crime rate goes up we can expect more complaints about the indifference to the plight of inner city youth.

“It Disproportionately Affects Minorities”

As of May 24th, 2009 putting the phrase “disproportionately affect(s) minorities” into Google yields 5,380 results.  If you try the search by using “effect(s)” instead you get an extra 255.  Let’s say you have to choose between policy A and policy B.  If both drop the GDP per capita by the same amount, but policy B costs “minorities” less, then that is considered an argument for policy B.  Since whether something disproportionately affects minorities tells us nothing about the justice of the said policy the “disproportionate impact” card can only be played on a philosophical/political playing field that considers whites second class citizens with interests less legitimate than those of any other group.

Putting “disproportionately affect(s) whites” yields only 304 and the misspelled version “effect(s)” adds 4.  Looking at the first 10 of the “affects” page, all but one are about medical conditions and the political one is a state attorney general saying that a policy disproportionately affecting whites is an argument in favor of it.  Amazingly, many of the commentators on the site call him a racist against blacks.

This rhetorical card has real life consequences besides spitting in white faces.  Levin lists all kinds of otherwise sensible policies that can’t be implemented or are under attack.  

Bell (1983) suggests imprisonment quotas.  One federal court overturned an anti-crack law on the grounds that crack is used disproportionately by blacks (London 1991)…The Black and Puerto Rican Caucus of the New York State Legislature opposes anti-scofflaw measures lest they “target minorities” (Pierson 1993), and the American Civil Liberties Union opposes a crackdown on public urination as “unfair to poor minorities” (Rutenberg 1993).

In the field of education, the policies in question are “strengthening academic standards, grouping children by ability and asking that college athletes pass their courses.”  

Blacks are on average more criminal, less moral, less intelligent, less considerate of the future and worse behaved than whites by any measure and in any situation where one cares to check.  What Levin doesn’t say is that where these facts (regardless of whether they are have genetic causes or not) plus the logic of disproportionate impact eventually lead to is an assault on any policy that rewards good behavior or punishes bad behavior i.e., pragmatic policy making and the concept of justice itself.  Hence a society that needs to debate whether we should take a stand against urinating in public.

Levin sees this partly and speculates whether the reason that modern Caucasian society is the first ever unable to condemn teenage sexual activity is because of the fear of having standards that blacks can’t meet.  We could also point to gangsta rap “music” as something that would be condemned by all reasonable people if it wasn’t for the fear of being called racist. This is a fascinating topic that deserves a more in-depth discussion.  We always hear about blacks adopting or rejecting white norms and relatively little about how it works the other way around.

A Fresh Dose of Common Sense

Michael Levin’s book is a priceless contribution and must reading for anybody with an interest in America’s race question.  With so much name calling and muddle surrounding this topic some of the most mundane observations will strike the reader as refreshing ways of looking at things.

For example, you often here that minorities can’t be racist and the usual justification given is that they don’t have the power to be.  This is as absurd as saying that Hitler wasn’t anti-Semitic until he became Chancellor of Germany.  If we define a racist as someone who thinks one race is superior to another, then the real reason that most people agree that blacks can’t be racist, while whites need to be brainwashed not to be, is that it’s hard to believe that anyone could think that blacks were superior to whites.

Levin also takes Afrocentrists and other black intellectuals seriously enough to reply to them.  We are sometimes told that Europeans “stole” African inventions.  This doesn’t explain why Africans would’ve forgotten them.  Such accusations tell us more about the intelligence of the people making them than they do about history.

The Most Thorough Treatment of the Race Issue Available

If you’re trying to convince somebody that important race differences exist, give them Rushton’s Race, Evolution and Behavior. It’s easy to read, available for free online and short enough that the person you’re talking to might actually read it.  After that, if your friend wants a philosophical work about the race issue from every conceivable perspective give him Michael Levin’s Why Race Matters.