Back in August, in a VDARE article entitled "No Real Solution -- Arnold Schwarzenegger's Algebra for Dummies," I explained that the new California policy mandating that all 8th graders take Algebra I was kind of stupid.
Now the Brookings Institute agrees, although under a slightly less provocative title: The Misplaced Math Student: Lost in Eighth Grade Algebra. The LA Times reports:
The new study, released today by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., looked at who is taking eighth-grade algebra and how they are doing.
On average, there are at least two students in every eighth-grade algebra class with second-grade math skills. That number rises in urban school systems where these students are more likely to attend overcrowded schools with teachers who are less experienced and less likely to have math degrees or college-level advanced math. These students also are disproportionately low-income minorities.
And there was some ostensibly good news. Nationwide, more students are taking algebra than before. Over five years, the percentage of eighth-graders in advanced math -- algebra or higher -- went up by more than one-third. In total, about 37% of all U.S. students took advanced math in 2005, the most recent year in the analysis.
Yet some 120,000 of these students -- about 8% -- are scoring in the lowest 10% on the eighth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress. Many thousands more are performing well below grade level.
And when students perform poorly in a math course where they don't belong, no one benefits, said Tom Lawless, a senior fellow at Brookings.
Across the country, "you have 120,000 kids sitting in algebra and geometry classes and they don't know how to multiply and divide," Lawless said. "That's an absurd situation. They're not going to learn anything. And the kids who are sitting next to them, who are well prepared, are not going to learn anything either" because their learning will be slowed down.
For many, algebra has become a civil rights issue. Students who take algebra early have a leg up on college and career. And minorities and the poor have a glaringly lower enrollment rate in early algebra. But just taking the course is not enough.
As evidence, Lawless pointed to the District of Columbia, which rates near the top in eighth-grade algebra enrollment and dead last on the math portion of the eighth-grade national assessment. Near the top in math achievement are Vermont and North Dakota, which enroll a comparatively small percentage of students in advanced math. There is no correlation nationwide between eighth-grade algebra policies and performance in algebra, Lawless said.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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56 comments:
What do Vermont and North Dakota have in common different from DC that causes them to have high math achievement? There's gotta be something - the cold maybe? Cold makes people good at algebra?
"What do Vermont and North Dakota have in common different from DC that causes them to have high math achievement?"
The answer must be something really really complicated.
"What do Vermont and North Dakota have in common different from DC that causes them to have high math achievement?"
As Moynihan pointed out, students who are closer to Canada do better in school.
Why are you lot so obsessed with race? In the UK the great majority of people who can't do algebra are White; there is no evidence that this rather large subset (people who can't do algebra) differs significantly in that respect from the whole population.I find it hard to believe that typical White Americans are any better.
In the UK a lot of people who are considered well-educated (arts graduates) can't do maths and are proud of it; does that exist in the US?
I suspect that a lot of the enthusiasm for "New Maths" in the teaching profession comes from those who never really mastered old maths and think with NM they'll start equal with those who did.
For many, algebra has become a civil rights issue.
Steve: I can't believe you let that pass.
Somehow, I have the feeling that the nuns making us chant the times tables daily in first grade wasn't a bad idea.
Beating us up if we didn't pass in the long division homework probably kept me from being homeless.
Would it work in urban schools? Your guess is as good as mine.
"In the UK a lot of people who are considered well-educated (arts graduates) can't do maths and are proud of it; does that exist in the US?"
Yes, though I'm not sure the surfeit of arts graduates does much for the nation other than provide Starbucks with employees.
"Why are you lot so obsessed with race?"
Why is the whole country so obsessed with race, to the point of denying obvious reality staring them in the face?
On average, there are at least two students in every eighth-grade algebra class with second-grade math skills. That number rises in urban school systems... But just taking the course is not enough. As evidence, Lawless pointed to the District of Columbia, which rates near the top in eighth-grade algebra enrollment and dead last on the math portion of the eighth-grade national assessment...
This is surrealistic.
No - it's insanity.
Welcome to the future.
PS: This would be like asking a child to read Proust who couldn't conjugate être or avoir.
It really is insane.
In the UK a lot of people who are considered well-educated (arts graduates) can't do maths and are proud of it; does that exist in the US?
I think this is an effect of the class system, so no, I doubt it exists in the US, which was, and still is, more culturally a land of self-made merchants.
In England we have had an established wealthy aristocracy - old money - which has controlled the top schools. When the successful merchants sent their kids to the top schools, knowledge of classics was indoctrinated into the new elite to the loss of science.
That's the class system, and when the conditions are right it's self-perpetuating. In the status games played by the English upper class knowledge of Latin and Greek literature is a greater badge of honour than knowledge of science.
Why? On a small, over-populated island it's easier to separate yourself from the unwashed masses through what you know than by your distance from them. There is an extra cost (in time and money) required to learn Latin and Greek as well as that which puts bread on the table - science.
Put another way, one way to identify a wealthy mate with intelligent genes has been to see how much utterly useless knowledge has been educated into them. It's the charming, bumbling English archetype.
Remember, those gags in the 'Yes Minister' TV series? Sir Humphrey (and the top civil servants who run the country) knew nothing about science but everything about the Classics. This contrasted with the befuddled Prime Minister, Jim Hacker, who was educated at the LSE and knew nothing about the classics.
This is how it used to work because of the class system, and my family is an example.
My grandfather was born poor but became a wealthy merchant. Did he have good algebra, I don't know but with his 'new money' he sent my dad to a top public school, where he studied the Classics from an early age (eight?).
My dad often showed off his Latin. He could never help me with my algebra homework though, even when repeatedly asked.
I didn't go to a public school, I went to a sub-urban comprehensive. Although my sister, who went to the same school, is exceptional, my algebra is non-existent. Why?
1. Gene/s for algebra? True, I'm not mathematically gifted. This is self-evidently true or I would already have taught myself. But people who don't have mind boggling IQs can do higher algebra. My intelligence could be verbally-loaded but I play golf, squash, can map read upside down, beat my spatially -work oriented friends at chess. My intelligence is not a sufficient explanation.
2. Lack of interest. Not true for me. I'm still interested. It just drives me crazy and makes me feel stupid.
3. Poor school. School wasn't the worst. My sister went through the same school, but she is exceptional and I'm pretty sure we share 50% of our genes.
4. Poor teaching. Don't think it was bad.
5.
And the ones who are capable of learning algebra at that age won't benefit from having the other kids dumped, against their will, into their Algebra I classrooms.
I can attest to this from my personal experience.
As someone always interested in lessons, I was affected by math class sizes (33) and disruptive pupils. I needed more help: my parents couldn't give it, and my sister was too busy with her own homework to help me. I needed to ask questions to a teacher who wasn't there or was otherwise preoccupied.
Having low performing students in your class is a big hassle. It forces the teacher into more of a 'law and order' role than actual question and answer teaching.
Also if you are in a class full of stupid people it can be humiliating to ask the teacher for help in front of your friends, and thereby concede you know as much as the idiots.
In my case the entire class was white. One wonders what it would have been like in around hyperactive kids in an urban school. A bigger challenge, no doubt.
I have to say that John of London raises a very important point.
The "race realists" on this blog point to racial differences to explain the pathologies in the USA.
The cold hard truth is that in the UK the underclass is made up of whites. And the minorities tend to outperform those whits overall, across all measures.
The race realists really can't fit the UK within their worldview so they tend to ignore it
see how it works?
Either
a) NAM inability to do math is a "civil rights" issue and thus our problem -- non-NAMs are on the hook morally and fiscally
b) OR as "john of london" tries to frame it, as an aracial issue and we are "obsessed" with pointing out the race/IQ angle
This is called limiting the parameters of the debate. The likes of john of London would never get on TV to shout down a civil rightser for being "obsessed with race" even though they are the ones on offense here.
"Why are you lot so obsessed with race?"
I know that Europeans don't really understand, but race in America is a national obsession. Been that way since the beginning and not likely to change any time soon.
"In the UK the great majority of people who can't do algebra are White."
Uh...
"John of London said...
Why are you lot so obsessed with race?"
Because it explains a great deal about the United States. There are aspects to our society that you europeans may be unaware of. For example. Were you aware that blacks commit over half of all the murders in the U.S. - and this from a group that is only about 1/8th of the population. Europeans always seem mystified that America has a murder-rate double that of Canada - they assume it must be due to guns. The numbers I mentioned before, however, show that it is mostly due to blacks, not guns.
"In the UK the great majority of people who can't do algebra are White; there is no evidence that this rather large subset (people who can't do algebra) differs significantly in that respect from the whole population.I find it hard to believe that typical White Americans are any better."
The UK is still about 90% white, or more. In the US, its about 70% or less (thanks to massive illegal immigration, we don't really even know how many people live here). As your country becomes more demographically enriched (i.e., as you and your kind are displaced) you may see some changes. And as to there not being any evidence - is that true? Are Jamaicans in Britain (as a group, I mean) no different from whites in terms of academic achievement, ciminality, welfare usage, etc.? Really?
"In the UK a lot of people who are considered well-educated (arts graduates) can't do maths and are proud of it; does that exist in the US?"
Yes it does. We're not talking about the ability to understand group theory, just simple algebra. Not even that - we're just talking about the ability to sit through a course in Algebra for a year and make a respectable score, regardless of whether anything about it is remembered in the long run.
What you need to understand is this. Most of us don't welcome these facts. We're not dancing in glee at the continued failure of inner-city blacks. We're not a bunch of neo-nazi skin-heads, shouting "White Power". We're just regular guys who have come to realize that certain things are probably true, and truths, no matter how much you may disapprove of them, remain true. And the willfull ignoring of such truths leads to bad policies and the distortion of our whole society in pursuit of goals that are sheer fantasy.
Skipping the whole "adding and subtracting" stage for the sake of hustling everyone into algebra seems mighty dumb.
Number of times I use adding and subtracting in my post-school life: every few days.
Total number of times I've used algebra in my adult life: zero.
john of London - a lot of the people in the US who cant do algebra are white too. The thing to look at is the proportions. Certain groups are per capita worse at algebra.
Hey John, the great majority of PEOPLE in the UK are white. Appears only 2% of your population is black. Makes sense that most of those weak in algebra would be white.
The demographics are quite a bit different over here. We face a significant problem concerning the learning/skills gap between minority and white students. Many people cry bloody murder about the widening income gap yet political correctness prevents any honest discussion of where the problem springs from. This website offers an opportunity to discuss statistical trends that never appear in the MSM due to the PC pressure. It IS possible to discuss race without being a racist you know.
How ironic it is that education policy is so dominated by fallacious reasoning.
Any education effort that results in any sort of performance credential has at least two relevent aspects for future employers. First it demonstrates some mastery of the specific content - in this case algebra. And secondly it speaks to the general ability or motivation of the student.
So an employer who is presented with an array of C average students will likely be impressed by the one who took algebra as an elective rather than the one who chose to take shop. This is true even if the prospective job doesn't require algebra.
At this point some education theorist notices that those who took algebra in school have better job prospects than those who didn't. That expert will conclude that the way to improve the attractiveness of students to employers is to make everyone take algebra.
When everyone is someone, then no one's anybody". G&S.
Living in DC, it is clear to me that Vermont and North Dakota are states, and if DC gained statehood, it would then improve its math scores.
John,
We have something called the NAEP (mentioned in the LAT article Steve excerpted), a set of four standardized tests in math, science, reading, and writing. By state, the lowest average white score in math is in West Virginia (270). The highest average black math score is in the state of Washington (265). So, in aggregate numbers comprising state populations, the least endowed whites outperform the most endowed blacks. You are perpetrating a myth by insinuating that there is parity here. There is none.
What about the other half of the bell curve?
In Georgia, where I grew up, bright students were allowed to take algebra in the seventh grade itself. We took first year calculus in our junior year at school and multivariable calculus/differential equations our senior year at Georgia Tech.
Only 20 students in our entire class (which was large) was allowed to do this.
It was very good policy.
John of London --
Blacks in the UK seem to be drawn on average from higher a IQ strata of their home Carribean or other countries. On average. (though it is true that a lot of the increase in gun and other violent crime esp. in London can be laid at the feet of Jamaican immigrants, is it not?) It's rather like subcontinent Indians in the US -- we draw a lot of doctors and dentists and software engineers, and yeah some motel owners too. Meanwhile the average Indian IQ back home is in the low 80s. Not the slice we've so far gotten here. Though with the US policy of extended family reunification immigration priority, that can be expected to change over not so much time going forward.
Now if we shared a thousands of miles border with India, or had a near open borders policy due to post colonial policies/guilt, they both each effect things greatly, those to different degrees.
Why are you lot so obsessed with race? In the UK the great majority of people who can't do algebra are White; there is no evidence that this rather large subset (people who can't do algebra) differs significantly in that respect from the whole population.
Seems the average Brit can't do logic, either. WTF is that jumble of nonsense supposed to mean? I mean really, it's a train wreck; it starts out badly, and just gets worse from there.
I find it hard to believe that typical White Americans are any better.
In my case the entire class was white.
Dude, I was nodding my head through your post, thinking "here's one who's been there," then I read the punchline; all white!
OMFG man, you have no clue. I don't mean that in a bad way, either - you're luckier than you know.
The race realists really can't fit the UK within their worldview so they tend to ignore it.
Not true. You just need to look harder. Start here.
Isn't it strange that two of America's leading race realists are from the UK, yet the Britons who haven't spent that much time in this country still think American RRs are "obsessed"?
Who do you think had better predictions of what would happen to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe after Mugabe took over ... a Rhodesian or rural Finn? Comforting lefty myths about race are most comforting when the truth doesn't demand that you learn it ... the hard way.
(I just realized that before Oliver Cromwell, all of Britain's retarded people were gentile.)
"By state, the lowest average white score in math is in West Virginia (270). The highest average black math score is in the state of Washington (265)....You are perpetrating a myth by insinuating that there is parity here. There is none..."
You're right, there is no parity concerning whites in WV vis-a-vis VT and SD. This brings up interesting questions, such as; why? White is white is white isn't it?
Could it be that West Virginians have lived under a stigma of intellectual inferiority for so long that it has become a self-fulfiling prophecy? Could it be quantum physics and the physical manefestation of collective thought? Inquiring minds would like to know, and I can only assume that most of you must be interested as well.
Dude, I was nodding my head through your post, thinking "here's one who's been there," then I read the punchline; all white!...OMFG man, you have no clue.
Svigor, and I intend this completely as constructive criticizm and not snark; intellectual snobbery from a (presumed) grown man who utilizes 'dude' and 'OMFG man' in his posts, really does not present him in a positive light.
The cold hard truth is that in the UK the underclass is made up of whites.
Aren't the Pakistanis on the very bottom?
The cold hard truth is that in the UK the underclass is made up of whites. And the minorities tend to outperform those whits overall, across all measures.
I hate to be so blunt, but ... you're lying.
Only 20 students in our entire class (which was large) was allowed to do this.
It was very good policy.
You might have profited more from Management 201 (business communications, including grammar) at UGA.
White is white is white isn't it?
Hardly. Read Albion's Seed. The "border British" who populate West Virginia and much of the South are very different from the descendants of the Puritans and Quakers and the later immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia.
Why are you lot so obsessed with race?
Hmmm. Per the data I gave on another post:
Arizona's murder rate is 8.5 (per 100,000); Utah's is 2.3.
What's the difference between the two? No...freakin...idea. Both are Western states, right next to each other, where large fractions of the population own guns. Both have the death penalty.
So I have no idea, but I'm absolutely certain that the fact that Utah is 82.9% white while Arizona is only 59.7% white has absolutely nothing to do with it.
In fact, if you just look at Utah's white murder rate, it's lower than Britain's, lower than Sweden's, and comparable to Australia and New Zealand's.
Arizona? Nothing to do with race. It must have something to do with all those crazy American's living there.
As for our "obsession" with race? It is the minorities and their fellow travellers on the left who are responsible for that, my good friend. They operate and fund the race agitating organizations, like the NAACP, La Raza, MALDEF, Nation of Islam, LULAC, and, quite literally tens of thousands of other groups committed to 1) claiming that all racial disparity is a result of racism; 2) demanding equality of outcome for every different ethnic group; 3) silencing people like us who show that the emperor has no clothes.
"Not true. You just need to look harder. Start here."
Steve-O, you are my favorite blogger but I'd never read that very interesting post of yours until now. The reasons you laid out for the higher crime rate in England among whites:
Religion
Culture
Guns
Lack of Federalism
Speed
Class vs. Race
In other words: Nurture.
I would be very interested to read your thoughts, in retrospect, three years later on this piece as to why you feel that nurture causes a crime rate in England 40% higher than that in the much blacker US.
I once had a similar querry to someone who posted on AMREN.com. His result could be summarized like this:
"Well, the close proximity to blacks and black culture (nurture) is making whites in America more criminal, slothful, hedonistic, than they were 50 years ago."
To which I asked "why is it that nurture can makes whites stupider, but cannot make blacks smarter?' As you can imagine, his only responce was "well, that's just the way it is?"
"In fact, if you just look at Utah's white murder rate, it's lower than Britain's, lower than Sweden's, and comparable to Australia and New Zealand's."
Bit of a Bon Mot for you here; Utah also has the highest welfrare rate in the US.
"Hardly. Read Albion's Seed."
So you're saying the genetically 'dumb whites' moved to West Virginia and the genetically 'smart whites' moved to Vermont? And also that this is true to the point that 240 years later there are still huge class and income disparities between the two groups?
"Hardly. Read Albion's Seed."
"So you're saying the genetically 'dumb whites' moved to West Virginia and the genetically 'smart whites' moved to Vermont? And also that this is true to the point that 240 years later there are still huge class and income disparities between the two groups?"
You REALLY should read Albion's Seed. It doesn't matter if the regional patterns of behavior and values are due to nature or nurture, what makes Albion's Seed such a fascinating book is that hundreds of years after different groups of Britons settled in America, their cultural differences persist.
As for your query why negative traits are easily transmitted by nurture but positive traits are not-- As Lyndon Johnson put it, its easier to knock down a wall than to build one. Entropy is a bitch.
a previous poster stated
""
Bit of a Bon Mot for you here; Utah also has the highest welfrare rate in the US.
""
can someone explain what he means - does he mean that a family on welfare in utah gets MORE money than a family on welfare anywhere else in the usa
or does he mean that a greater percentage of families in utah are on welfare than any other place in the usa ?
bey -- Now THAT'S what I call moving the argument forward.
Bit of a Bon Mot for you here; Utah also has the highest welfrare rate in the US. - "Truth" [LMAO]
Really? Source please.
So you're saying the genetically 'dumb whites' moved to West Virginia and the genetically 'smart whites' moved to Vermont? And also that this is true to the point that 240 years later there are still huge class and income disparities between the two groups?
Actually time has probably only enhanced the differences. The people who left had something better to do with their lives than mine coal - John Nash, Homer Hickam, etc., etc. The ones who stayed, by and large, did not. (Modern transportation, communications, the immigration invasion, etc., might be working to reverse that, however - time will tell.)
The impression I get from many who think as you do is that Black folk, no matter what their IQ, aren't Americans and don't deserve to be, but for some reason, despite the many "Anon" tags and so-called straight talk, no one actually goes the final step.
Perhaps the reason no one suggests that "final step" is that no one wants to go the "final step."
Based on my observations, most people who frequent this site simply want to do away with quotas, affirmative action, subsidizing black (and white) misbehavior, school busing, million dollar lawsuits for not seating a customer at Denny's, and the assumption that racial disparity can result only from racial discrimination rather than innate racial differences.
As for the idea of returning blacks to Africa: if anyone here believes that you may call them what you will, but the fact is that there were thousands of distinguished Americans who turned the ground red with their blood in their devotion to the abolitionist cause who thought that was a pretty swell idea.
The reasons you laid out for the higher crime rate in England among whites: Religion, Culture, Guns, Lack of Federalism, Speed, Class vs. Race
Culture and circumstance can certainly augment nature. The regulars here at iSTeve often forget that, and tend to be too dismissive of culture, I think.
In the UK the great majority of people who can't do algebra are White
At my church, the great majority of people who can't do algebra believe in God. Britain is still about 90% white. Britain's minorities are mostly of the better type - Hindu and Sikh Indians. Afro-Caribs and Paki Muslims do worse than whites.
Could it be that West Virginians have lived under a stigma of intellectual inferiority for so long that it has become a self-fulfiling prophecy?
West Virginians place a much higher value on religious observance, hard work, loyalty, and martial spirit than they do on IQ (Clearly they weren't impressed with Obama's education creditenials), so I doubt they perceive any stigma associated with their IQ deficiency. Are you suggesting that they suffer from the bigotry of low expectations?
Mu'Min M. Bey said...
So, my question to you Martin is-OK, all that we know about Black Americans is true.
Now what?
Salaam
Mu
1. Put an end to welfare.
2. End mass immigration. I'm willing to share the US with one historic minority, but not everyone on the entire planet. In fact, if current immigration trends continue then the Civil War 2 that Tom Chittum wrote about may happen.
3. Consider legalizing drugs, although this one is a big IF.
4. Have a school system that does a better job training for blue collar jobs.
5. Reform the child-support system so it isn't so easy for a woman to walk out of a marriage with the kids and part of a man's paycheck.
6. End handgun licensing laws that restrict the ability of adults without felonies to defend themselves. This specifically includes DC and Chicago.
"in aggregate numbers comprising state populations, the least endowed whites outperform the most endowed blacks. "
Perhaps, but why aggregate by states? Taking the whole population, the statement is absurd.
Incidentally, "can't do" may not be a simply a deficit of intellectual capacity. I think a lot of White British kids from "working class" families in particular, are unable to really try or concentrate. I don't know if this is just because they don't want to or they lack the mental strength - maybe the same as will power.Or maybe it's fear - if you don't try you can't fail. Many of these later acquire manual skills and make decent money, so maybe they're right. It seems foolish to keep them in school against their will where they disrupt those who do want to learn. In the UK raising the schoool-leaving age is mainly used to reduce unemployment figures.
I think a lot of White British kids from "working class" families in particular, are unable to really try or concentrate.
It seems foolish to keep them in school against their will where they disrupt those who do want to learn. In the UK raising the schoool-leaving age is mainly used to reduce unemployment figures.
Yes, it's foolish, but try telling that to some child-hating educrat with fantasies of control through social and mental conformity. It's easier to make artificial ghettos for youth than to train them to be productive and responsible.
Children are individuals, and they have different goals, potentials, needs, and such. Trying to mold every one of them into Frank Meriwell clones is a tragic waste of potential.
West Virginia is way down below the other 49 states on most measures of education and achievement among whites. Whereas other states that used to be down with it, like North Carolina and Georgia, are doing fine today, and others like Arkansas are doing a little better, West Virginia appears to be sinking.
If you look at the map, you can see that West Virginia is close to a lot of places that have been very prosperous in the past -- e.g., Pittsburgh and Cincinnati -- or prosperous today -- Research Triangle and the DC area.
There's just not a lot in West Virginia to keep smart people home, so it continually loses natives who go to college. In turn, that dumbifies the local culture, making it even less attractive to smart people. So, make up a list of smart people born in West Virginia -- John Nash, Chuck Yeager, Jerry West, etc. Not too many of them still live there.
"West Virginians place a much higher value on religious observance, hard work, loyalty, and martial spirit than they do on IQ."
1) Does West Virginia have the reputation as an overly religious state? (I'm asking as I've spent very little time there, but I've never read anything that would suggest this.)
2) Yet the class and Achivement distinctions are very real, so that would mean that their priorities (nurture) are the cause of these distinctions (From what I ascertain from your post.)
"), so I doubt they perceive any stigma associated with their IQ deficiency. Are you suggesting that they suffer from the bigotry of low expectations?"
We've all heard enough dumb redneck jokes to last a lifetime, haven't we?
"1. Put an end to welfare."
Starting with the corporate variety? Rich white business owners tend to be Republicans during good times and communists when things go sour.
"2. End mass immigration."
Then who will have kids to pay taxes? White nations will go out of business via low birthrate much faster than immigration.
"3. Consider legalizing drugs"
I completely agree.
"4. Have a school system that does a better job training for blue collar jobs."
And also training pilots because the graduates will have to move to China or Bangladesh to work. There are no more blue collar jobs here.
"5. Reform the child-support system so it isn't so easy for a woman to walk out of a marriage with the kids and part of a man's paycheck."
Are you suggesting that men should not have to pay child support? Good luck with that one, Sport.
"6. End handgun licensing laws that restrict the ability of adults without felonies to defend themselves."
Great, except that statistically, most white people are killed by white people they know.
"If you pay attention to the discussion, you will see that it has nothing to do with genes or IQ. It is about math achievement."
So you're saying that math achievement has nothing to do with genes or IQ?
Now what?
Now:
1) Reinstate freedom of association (e.g., an end to anything and everything falling under the aegis of "anti-discrimination").
2) End wealth transfer from group x to group y (that should be illegal even under current law, since it violates the "disparate impact" law, yes?).
"1) Does West Virginia have the reputation as an overly religious state? (I'm asking as I've spent very little time there, but I've never read anything that would suggest this.)"
Though I'm sure the state has its share of back-sliders, Huckabee did win the Republican primary.
Then who will have kids to pay taxes? White nations will go out of business via low birthrate much faster than immigration.
Suggestion: let's try it and see!
I'm not exactly certain, but Europe had a population growth rate either near zero or even negative during the 14th Century. Come AD 1400, Europe was still there and still white. Populations and their growth rates change constantly. Usually, they manage to get by. The invention of nuclear weapons and their possession in astounding numbers by white Western nations pretty much means that no one can conquer us if we don't want them to.
Truth's responses to responses to my question "Now what?" are something that I thin we ought not dismiss. Real solutions to these problems requires more than mere boilerplate and hyperbole.
For example, I fully agree w/getting rid of Welfare; it has always been my firm view that more than anything else-more than Jim Crow, more than the Ku Klux Klan, the single biggest destroyer of the Black Family since Slavery has been Welfare since the Great Society. Yet, th question for me becomes, how do we change hearts and minds, ie behavior, in arguably the most private area of all our lives, the sexual area? I for one am not a fan of bringing gov't in to promote Marriage and the like; as we see now wrt Markets, the gov't ain't too good at solving problems of this scope and type. So, after Welfare is gone, then what?
This ties in to the other suggestion, that of essentially getting rid of No Fault Divorce, thereby forcing the wife to have to contend w/the hubbie. Again, I don't disagree, for I feel that far too many women in our time take easy and frequent advantage of Big Daddy Gov't to come to their rescue. The problem, however, is in how we enforce this. Again, the last place I'm looking to do so is the very one that brought this whole thing about to begin with. Moreover, looking to the nascent and in so many ways, impotent Men's Rights Movement is not something that is anywhere near viable at this point. So, as Truth said, we're gonna need lots of luck to fight the Child Support Machine-and come out on the winning side.
Illegal Immigration is, in theory, a no brainer. Shut the borders, and possibly send back all illegals. OK-but who pays for it, assuming such a thing is possible-and at what price to all our civil liberties? Sure, if we do a kind of Soviet-Communist China police state deal, we could probably get the job done-but who among us wants to live in Beijing or Moscow? Don't everyone stand up all at once now.
As Truth points out, White folk generally kill other White folk, despite all the flapping and flailing about wrt how Blacks kill Whites. Not discounting that fact, they should be harshly punished, but it really doesn't advance the discussion in terms of real solutions.
Btw, I fully support the 2nd Amendment.
Focusing on the Trades is no doubt a good thing, but unlike Truth, I take a different tack; I don't think the issue is a lack of jobs, but a particular kind of mindset that has set in over the past few decades, where anyone who works in the Blue Collar sector is subhuman, a "prole" and not worthy of respect or dignity. And this kind of mindset has seeped into just about every area of our society, to such an extent that the word "professional" is ubiquitous in nearly every resume' (even the overuse of resumes is telling!) form. It is for this reason that I think Todd Palin's presence this campaign season, while he's not running himself, is important.
As for Affirmative Action, I've said it before, and it bears repeating: the key issue w/it isn't that Black and Brown folk are gettin' over, its the fact that WHITE WOMEN ARE, and the loudest voices raging against AA refuse to get serious about fighting its number one benefactor. Case in point: Larry Summers. As Sailer himself notes, one could count the number of prominent men who came to his aid. And as we all know, the chances of some Black or Brown guy or gal, taking a high level White guy's job is slim to none. We all know who is much more likely to do it.
Don't we?
Holla back
Salaam
Mu
mu'min m. bey said...
"be it via (forced) immigration back to Africa"
mumin, I enjoy reading your posts, as opposed to "The Truth" you actually think abut things and are reasonable, though I imagine a lot of things here do not suit you. I'm from South Africa, so I'm one of those evil Afrikaner "racists". But I spent a lot of time with blacks at work and in the military down there. I always tried to help them because I felt it was my Christian duty and the price we had to pay for running the show. But it was on a personal level, not as a group effort.
I remember one black guy who came straight from a hut which was located next to the tunnel which we were driving our super-modern German engineered Tunnel Boring Machine into. He was a nice fellow so I took a liking to him. The colored guys were bullying him because you see coloreds and blacks enforce much more of a hierarchy than whites.
So I took care of him and rotated the shifts to keep him from the mob. 2 colored brothers were pretty good at IT as well. They were Afrikaans speaking so essentially Afrikaans and not black. I sent the black fellow to a Technicon. I'm sure he made a good site engineer. The other students were basically not engineering material but I felt a little more education would have done them good. At least to the point where it hurts and no further. It helps when the site guys can actually read and write when they monitor important gauges in the tunnel or on machines.
I think you need to deal with these things on a personal basis in addition to the obvious group issues. Dealing with the black fellow personally gave him confidence but in a white class he would have been denigrated and probably dropped engineering. And I cannot understand why American blacks are not keen to go back to Africa and build themselves a fortune. The place is bristling with land and minerals, and the climate is easy. In addition you have the right skin color. The Afrikaners showed the world how wealthy Africa is. All of it could look like the old South Africa. That would also help you guys flee the endless humiliation of living with whites and being the subjects of the condescending largesse of the Left. In fact if you guys made the big-time in Africa you could have whitey coming begging for your Gold and food.
I mean all of this in good faith and not sarcastically.
"In fact if you guys made the big-time in Africa you could have whitey coming begging for your Gold and food."
Hey, why not, it worked for Saddam Hussein.
"Mu'Min M. Bey said...
Then what? I mean, what is to be done about the murder rate. Simply locking up more and more Black men, while certainly possible, doesn't to my mind seem a viable solution over the longterm."
I don't know. Certainly something worked in this regard prior to the 1960's, and I don't think it had to do with segregration.
You see Martin, and I've been saying this elsewhere on the Web, my distinct impression is that there are a good number of guys like yourself, who, unlike your stated view, DOES take a kind of glee in the fact that Black folks are just straight out geneticall inferior to White folks, but stop short of proposing a kind of "final solution". But if one thinks about it, it would make perfect sense, right? If Black folk are that bad a drain on America, then why not advocate for wholesale "cleansing", be it via (forced) immigration back to Africa, etc, even stronger police-state actions in Black areas, stricter segregation practices (even though technically its against the law), etc. The impression I get from many who think as you do is that Black folk, no matter what their IQ, aren't Americans and don't deserve to be, but for some reason, despite the many "Anon" tags and so-called straight talk, no one actually goes the final step. Because if you truly believe all of these things about Black folk enmasse, what other conclusion is there? There certainly is little point in trying to intergrate them into American society, right?"
First of all, you don't know what I believe - at least not entirel. I never said that blacks are inferior - I said that they account for over half of all the murders in the U.S. This is simply a demostrable fact.
I think you vastly overestimate the number of people who wish some kind of "final solution" when it comes to blacks. Probably, the overwhelming number of race realists harbor no exterminationist leanings. Historically, such visceral hatred is reserved for groups one considers to be - or suspects to be - superior, not inferior. Genocide is almost always that way - germans/jews, Hutu/Tutsi, Turks/Armenians, Khymer Rouge / Anybody who wore glasses, etc. Then again - there is this answer. Why not some final solution? Why? Because it would be evil. Because we would be evil to do it. You can dislike someone - even hate them - and still not wish them dead.
Also, you mention more "police-state" tactics in order to combat black crime. However, by ignoring the often real source of crime, police-state measures are imposed on whites - I'm referring here to the inclination to blame crime on "guns", and use that as an excuse to limit the second amendment. Samuel Francis referred to this, quite aptly, as anarcho-tyranny - i.e. the imposition of ever more laws on the law-abiding in order to say that we're doing something about the lawless, without actually offending them, or - in the case of England for example - inconveniencing the policeman with the tedium of actually doing his duty.
"So, my question to you Martin is-OK, all that we know about Black Americans is true."
So what should we do? Damned if I know. Some of the suggestions put forth by others seem like a good start - an end to AA, cutting off welfare cold (for whites and blacks, and anyone else for that matter), a return to freedom of association (though state-mandated segregation), an end to the anti-white bias in the media - a bias which is becoming screamingly obvious even after an hours casual watching of modern television or movies.
And, quite simply, an end to the BS. Don't expect me to mouth platitudes that I don't believe or even know to be false. Don't expect me to think it's cool that a guy gets fired, after a lifetime of hard work, because he let slip an inapt comment or two.
I hope I have, at least in part, addressed some of your comments, Mu'min. I've enjoyed your posts in the past. You raise good points, and this post was no exception.
Regards.
"Truth said...
"6. End handgun licensing laws that restrict the ability of adults without felonies to defend themselves."
Great, except that statistically, most white people are killed by white people they know."
True, but I have some control over the category "people I know". If I think they may be dangerous, I can choose not to know them any longer.
I have little or no control over the category "people I do not know", and if I were to be killed by someone I don't know, the chances are much greater that that someone is black, than in the example you gave above.
And when it comes to me not getting murdered....every little bit helps.
Martin, & the Fellow from SAFR,
Thanks for the feedback. I think one of the biggest problems in America is that people of differing views and appearances don't talk to each other. No real solutions can happen when people don't talk.
Let me be very clear on something. Perhaps more than anyone here, I know firsthand what the Great Society has done to my people. I know what its like to live in an area where Black men are gunned down by other Black men daily. I know what its like to live next door to Shaniqua and her five babies by five baby daddies. I know what it's like to leave out for work-in a Blue Collar field, mind you-from can't see in the morning till can't see at night-and when I get back, the layabouts are sitting on my stoop as if they own it. So, none of this is theoretical for me. I know it firsthand.
Having said that, let me also say, that I for one take the concerns of many White males seriously. No man likes to feel that he's been given a raw deal, the shaft, being made to be a scapegoat. Lots of White men feel that were it not for Affirmative Action, their own dreams and aspirations could be realized.
My problem with both sides, is the refusal to be honest. Black folks don't wanto own up to the fact that it cannot continue in any real way w/so much out and out dysfunction. We can blame Bennet and Gingrich and Bush all we want, but the reality is it ain't Bush or Bennett or Gingrich that's refusing to work, that's having umpteen babies by as many daddies, and that's conducting drug wars in civilian zones.
And no matter how much White guys rail on about Affirmative Action and Illegal Immigration, nothing will change the fact that White Women have fundamentally changed the way business is done in America for you, and the real kicker is, many of you not only went for it, you gave her the keys to the shop. Now that you don't like it, but still want some nookie, you gotta take it out on someone. The nearest Black or Brown, will do.
Why aren't more African Americans going back to Africa to rebuild? I'm not sure, but I'll tell you why I'm not. It's simply because, I'm an American, first and last. This is my home. My people have bled to be here, have staked it all on this place, often when we weren't wanted or desired. I deserve every right to be here, to pursue happiness, to secure prosperity for my progeny, to get all that America has to offer. And I'm willing to work, very hard, harder than many of you, to get it.
Does that mean that I don't care about Africa? Certainly not. But don't get it twisted: America comes first for me.
I think our friend from SAFR is on it when it comes to solving many of these problems. Simply put, we gotta take these things on for ourselves, man. If we don't, we deserve what we get. Everything.
I'm constantly on brothas about doing the right things, and I'm not talking about taking on the world either, just real simple, basic stuff. Go to work. Pay your taxes. Vote. Be a bit more discriminating in your sex life. Don't drink or smoke. Put the gun down. Take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Stuff like that.
We gotta get to a point where we ain't afraid to talk to each other, and tht includes pulling someone to the side and setting them straight. And it takes some heart and backbone and balls to do that.
Even on the Web.
Let me say this and then I'm out: I don't have any problem whatsoever w/the Race & IQ Debate. Nor do I see what the big deal is about it. It just makes sense to me that everyone can't be born Mensas, nor does it seem to me that the world will blow up because of that fact. My thing is, what do we do about it?, and that's what I like about Sailer. At least he's given some serious thought about the so-called left side of the bell curve. From where I sit, I'm not surrounded by John Nashes, but Rashids, and Jamals, and Ray-Rays, and the issue there is simply about getting them into productive work, everyday, so they can support the kids they've made and make wives of their baby mommas and contribute to the tax base instead of leeching off of it. All the other ways of squaring the circle have not worked. I know. I see it all day, everyday.
More later. Time to punch the clock.
Salaam
Mu
"So what should we do? Damned if I know. Some of the suggestions put forth by others seem like a good start - an end to AA,"
As I asked in another post, does this include corporate welfare? If you pick up the newspaper this week, you will see the interesting spectacle of the richest, whitest, Republicans in America turning into Trotskyites before your very eyes.
"a return to freedom of association (though state-mandated segregation),"
If it is 'state mandated, is it freedom?
an end to the anti-white bias in the media - a bias which is becoming screamingly obvious even after an hours casual watching of modern television or movies.
There are 1,738 television stations in America right now according to the National Association of Broadcasters. Black people own exactly 8 of them. So the question is, is it 'bias' or is it 'creative license' when whites do it to each other? (and no, they're not all Jews.) How exactly would one combat anti-white bias from a white media, white Holllywood, with money from white bankers, backed up by white insurance companies, displayed in white-owned movie theatres (and by logical extension, white owned professional sports leagues with their white owned network contracts).
I guess the only possible way to do this would be to open the USAFMRWP (United States Association for the Fair Media Representation of White People). That Martin is why politics is such an incredibly difficult game, you call yourself a conservative but you've been president for 5 minutes and have already gree-lighted corporate welfare, and created two new government agencies; one to enforce segregation and one to protect white on TV:
Welcome to the Democratic party, Mr. Kuchnich!
(BTW, your point on Genocide flowing upward was very thought provoking.)
"Mu'Min M. Bey said...
And no matter how much White guys rail on about Affirmative Action and Illegal Immigration, nothing will change the fact that White Women have fundamentally changed the way business is done in America for you, and the real kicker is, many of you not only went for it, you gave her the keys to the shop. Now that you don't like it, but still want some nookie,...."
In answer to this, I can say nothing except that...you are of course right. The entry of women into the worlds of work and politics has changed our society in very deep ways, not all of them good (and perhaps not even most of them good). The chief advantage I see in it is that women are far less enthusiastic about war then men, especially the massive, bloody, fratricidal wars that have plagued western civilization for the last few hundred years.
And, as you pointed out, most men have not come to terms with this, and those of us who have, suspect that our women folk would cut off parts of our anatomy if we brought it up. Interestingly, a few women (Ann Coulter, for example) have openly dealt with this.
I'm glad that we can have this discussion - I enjoy reading your posts.
Best regards,
- Martin
"Truth said...
"So what should we do? Damned if I know. Some of the suggestions put forth by others seem like a good start - an end to AA,"
As I asked in another post, does this include corporate welfare? If you pick up the newspaper this week, you will see the interesting spectacle of the richest, whitest, Republicans in America turning into Trotskyites before your very eyes."
Yes, I'd like to see an end to welfare for rich guys too, like the $ 700B the Congress is fixing to give to Wall Street. And as far as I can tell, most people who post here and who consider themselves conservatives, don't much like the Republican party anymore. It was never really a conservative party, and it certainly isn't one now.
I wouldn't exactly characterize them as Trotskyists though. They still believe in private wealth. They just believe that more of your wealth and mine ought to become theirs.
"There are 1,738 television stations in America right now according to the National Association of Broadcasters. Black people own exactly 8 of them. So the question is, is it 'bias' or is it 'creative license' when whites do it to each other?"
You are right that the anti-white bias, which I mentioned, is no fault of blacks. It is an overwhelmingly white media which is responsible for it. And I have no answer as to how to combat it, other than to point it out to people I know.
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