the aural:
dengue fever - ethanopium

Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is now accused of reviving the politics of eugenics by publishing the research which concludes that low IQ levels, rather than poverty and disease, are the reason why life expectancy is low and infant mortality high. His paper, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, compares IQ scores with indicators of ill health in 126 countries and claims that nations at the top of the ill health league also have the lowest intelligence ratings.

i really don’t even know what to make of this article. it reeks of racism disguised in the rags of so called academia. what’s next? mr. kanazawa is going to start measuring cranium sizes to make claims about intelligence as it pertains to “race”? yes, there’s a reason i put that word in quotations. this past weekend, a lot of conversations regarding race were somehow revolving around me. it’s disturbing how people only see in simply black and white. no human factor to it at all. simply black and white. and no, don’t get me wrong, this is not some kumbaya bullshit that slights the history of race and race relations. all i’m trying to say is that “race” is simply a social construct. there is hardly anything genetically different between me and the next blue eyed, blond swede. within the historical/economic/political context, however, race becomes a mechanism whereby one group of human beings is classified differently from another; where one group feels entitled to a right to oppress, and another is put in a subjugated position for another’s advantage.

for me, “race” does not exist. it’s not real. sadly, however, there are very real consequences from this assumed concept of race that still manifest themselves in hideous manners to this day.

going back to the article, though … i’m disturbed that some still insist on giving this “researcher” some legitimacy, and *gasp*, even encouragment:

Philippa Atkinson, who chairs the LSE student union’s 85-strong Africa Forum and teaches in the school’s Department of Government, said the paper ‘reflects the now discredited theories of eugenics, which should have been left behind’.

‘Eugenics was a very influential discourse for centuries,’ she said. ‘It’s the discourse that colonialism and racism in America until the Sixties were based on, and was part of the basis of apartheid too. Nobody could prove that there are racial or national differences in IQ. It’s very, very controversial to say that national IQ levels are low in Africa, and completely unproven. It’s a surprise that the odd person would try to bring it back,’ she said.

However, she said the research contained some interesting ideas and merited serious consideration, and stressed that academics such as Kanazawa should not be deterred from exploring controversial subjects.

ok, controversial subjects is one thing, but this is absolute idiocy. first of all, i’d love to know exactly what kind of test was conducted to measure the iq of a continent of such diverse peoples and cultures. i have an unsettling certainty that they actually used the same test across the board … a test that has no logical context within the mindframe of people who could care less about what goes on at the london school of economics. are these people absolutely mad? and then to have the galls to claim that the reason some people are impoverished is because they have a low iq?!? this just stinks of the same racist bullshit that continues to decorate history with slavery, oppression, and marginalization.

i heard a friend casually say it this weekend, much to the white guy’s confusion, but from now on, i’ve decided to refer to “white people” as “persons of color.”

i’m done here. i’m going to have some lunch now: black beans with white rice.