Stalking the wild taboo

[Sundance508]

'Race is a subject that has been talked about to the point of weariness, if not nausea. Yet most discussions consists of little more than wishful thinking, contradiction, and outright malice.

You know the refrain:

All the races are equal, but Whites oppress everyone else . . . then again, race doesn’t really exist, which is why we must strive for greater racial diversity!

It is understandable that so many are confused by and sick of the entire subject—especially White people, the targets of so much blame and hostility.

It need not be this way.'

Race—Stalking the Wild Taboo

 

[usmbguest5318]

Oh, Lord....I'm amazed that in 2017 you've deigned to cite an author who cites Charles Murray's widely discredited book of the 1990s. That takes real gall.

From the article:

Though races differ in countless areas, one of the most obvious and instructive is athletic performance. Ordinary sports fans cannot help notice that certain sports, as well as specialties within sports, are dominated by persons of a particular race. African-Americans, for instance, comprise 75 percent of the National Basket Ball Association and upwards of 90 percent of NBA “All Stars.

Yes, and the next time you go to an regatta, I suspect you won't need two hands to count the number of non-white world class competitors. AFAIK, there are seven black F1 drivers, one of whom, Lewis Hamilton, is at the pinnacle of the sport. I don't know how many other non-white drivers there are. Similarly few minorities are in the top ranks of skiing and other winter sports, polo, golf and tennis. I can assure you that genetic differences among races have nothing to do with that being the case.

Devlin and Spencer note physiological traits typical of different races, and to some extent they do exist, due to relative homogeneity, with regard to Far East Asians. In comparing and contrasting blacks in general with whites in general, however, one does not find the same narrow range of altitudinal variability. Looking at specific subgroups of blacks and whites -- Dutch, Norwegians and Nilotics, for instance -- one may find more pronounced differences. (See also: The Tallest People in the World)

Average height of men and women, by country

​

The reluctance to discuss—or even to admit to—the existence of racial differences is commonly motivated by fear of possible invidious distinctions between “superior” and “inferior” races.

Commonly? Perhaps. Among bright people (i.e, people who are at once innately intelligent, well educated, and given to apply rigorously both qualities to matters they consider and discuss) however, there is no "reluctance to discuss—or even to admit to—the existence of racial differences." In that community, what there is, is a keen and dispassionately logical understanding of what racial differences are both intrinsic and causally pivotal in producing observed outcomes. Outside of an expressly didactic setting, it's hard to imagine why any bright person would indulge a conversation on race with individuals who aren't similarly prepared to discuss race, though I suppose masochists of a certain sort may find doing so entertaining.​

 

[Sundance508]

In Defense of the Bell Curve..............................In Defense of the Bell Curve: The Reality of Race and the Importance of Human Differences