RACE, CULTURE & IQ
In a recent hangout on You Tube, Negromanosphere Editor & Chief, Oshay Duke Jackson moderated a panel on the IQ Gap between blacks and whites. The panel proceeded to lead off with morbid statistics on IQ scores and the decaying family structures inside of Black America, based on the mating choices of Black Women. The topic seemed more eugenics based than anything else. The narrative was based on the undeniable ugliness prevalent inside of an emerging permanent under class in the black community. This panel went on to collapse the totality of black culture inside of a 40-yr slow rotting of the black family. The question was asked; Is White Culture better than Black Culture?
Most of the panel answered yes. The answers seemed to revolve around: IQ tests, Urban Decay and the sexual desires of black women. But the most important question was never asked. That being, whether or not the socially decadent anti-intellectual culture that reigns in Black America is really Black Culture? Very few people on the panel made any serious analysis of Black Culture inside of a historical context. Instead, they focused on self fulfilled prophesies of black subordination to global white domination inside of the last 300 years.
But is this really Black Culture? The answer, according to Black Economist Thomas Sowell, is no. In his Magnum Opus, Black Rednecks, White Liberals, Sowell argues that the anti-intellectual culture of black america is a culture inherited by contact with cracker (poor white) culture in the South. A lawless and admittedly anti-social culture that immigrated from parts of the British Isles and Ireland. He further notes that this culture in black america was legitimized by 60's black militant politics, and institutionalized into prominence by white liberals. Black Rednecks contains a litany of historical records and statistical analysis to validate his argument. And while there are serious contentions of some of his premises (which I will not cover here), his argument is not without merit.
But, we must ask: what is white culture? The answers given by the panel were ones that contained a clear economic influence. This then, begs another question. Is affluence or economic advantage the only determinant of the superiority of one culture over the another? And as a result, explain the IQ gap? Of Course, this question was never explored by the panel. But if we ask this question inside of American society, we must make some very startling confessions. First, accepted white culture inside of America is a smooth blend of both black and white cracker culture. A comparison of music and literature as subsets of white culture then necessarily presents some serious problems for the IQ question.
Take for example, the musical tradition of country music. Country music has the ethos and the oral traditions of poorly educated white Americans in the isolated rural areas of the American South and Midwest. The music is filled with lyrics about sexual promiscuity, gratuitous violence, and an un-abiding devotion to simple pursuits that don't involve any empirical analysis. What is even more interesting is that this music directly descends from the most anti-intellectual sectors of rural White America. As Sowell argues, these people share the same type of dysfunction as the black underclass discussed in the hangout. Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson (who I actually like), as well as others are involved in an aspect of "cracker culture" that according to savingcountrymusic.com, celebrates authenticity and dysfunction. All of the above listed have been arrested for either drug or violent crimes.
If one looks at mainstream literature such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, or Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, the one thing that is immediately noticeable is the cultural language and tastes of white America. These novels contain no shortage of dysfunctional characters that indicate a less than stellar IQ to say the least. But yet they are literary classics inside of American culture. How would they be any different from Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, or James Baldwin; whose characters also come from the same aforementioned dysfunction?
NOW NOW NOW! This is not a white people do it too argument. The point here is that there is no superiority of White Culture over Black Culture. What these people really meant to say is that white suburban America is more clean and orderly than the hood. Thus, they are celebrating the triumph of patriarchy in those communities in direct contradiction to the nightmarish consequences of matriarchy in the Black Community.
Now I know the discussion was about IQ. But the implication given was that culture was evidence of this superior IQ. Admittedly, while studies have put the average IQ of whites above that of blacks, the question remains which whites are they talking about? The ones that fall into cracker culture? Clearly it can't be the ones represented in American popular culture as evidenced above.
The argument proposed by the panel was one that was really based on eugenics in general, and who black women are screwing more than anything else. Granted, choosing the right person to have children with is of extreme importance. It cannot be denied that this makes the difference between raising happy well adjusted children or violent anti-intellectual psychopaths. Thus, we arrive at the real culprit of the IQ gap: vibrant black families. (DUH!) It is axiomatic that vibrant families create prosperous communities. Children from these families more often than not, have access to the very factors that determine high or even average IQs.
But if one were to use culture as an indication of IQ, it would lead him/her to a quagmire of contradictions. If the IQ of White America has as its basis, celebrated "cracker culture", as evidenced by its' literature and music, then how can it be held to be better than Black "cracker culture?" Dare we say that there is genius in dysfunction? Since both cultures are anti-intellectual, what is the basis of the gap? And finally, which white people are we talking about? The average? And if so, what group of white people make up the study? I'll keep my guesses to myself. What do you think? In the mean time, this is real Black Culture. It's roll call time Y'all.
TONY MACEO is a senior blogger at the Negromanosphere and the Chief Blogger at Power & Strategy.com. Like, share and subscribe to the website. Also become a Patron @powerofstrategies. Till next time, I'll holla!
