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| Sankofa:
Adinkra symbol which means "go back and fetch it.". Credit: The
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On Race, IQ and the African Concept of Intelligence
By Grisso
I think Black people
everywhere recognize The Bell Curve for what it is: an attempt to put down Black people as inferior. Murray says
basically that facts are facts ... there are racial differences in IQ scores, and further, that a large part of
the racial differences have to be accounted for by racial inheritance, or genetics. In Race and IQ, Heredity and Oppression, my friend and
colleague, J. P. Farr says basically that the score difference could better be accounted for by environment rather
than racial inheritance, and points, among others, to the legacy of slavery and oppression. What I would argue,
basically, is that IQ is not an adequate measure of "intelligence". Intelligence is in any case not a
sufficient determinant of "success", which in any case can be defined differently for different individuals,
also for different races. If different outcomes are observed with regard to "success", therefore, it
really doesn't mean a thing ... just different folks marching to different drummers, and differential access to
the parade. And it surely doesn't mean that any individual is superior to another, except in a trivial sense I
will discuss; and even less does it mean that any race is superior to another.
Let's get the politics out of the way
first. Anyone who thinks that we are dealing here purely with empirical science, which leads where it leads, impartially
and objectively, is naive. All I would say on that score is that it has been a recurring theme in European science
to try to prove the inferiority of the supposed inferior races. There is a clear political motive for that. If
you build an empire based upon trickery, deceit and theft under threat of violence ... I'm thinking of European
colonization here ... one way to justify your criminal action is to rationalize it in terms of your own superior
worth, virtue, civilization, intelligence, manifest destiny, white man's burden, or what have you. This continuing
quest to assert the superiority of the white man could also stem from a deep-seated sense, rather, of inferiority, as Dr. Mary Cress Welsing,
a psychiatrist, has argued in the "Isis Papers". Be that as it may, crime in America is made to wear
a Black face, and there is an attempt to "fight crime" by jailing an ever-increasing numbers of young,
Black males. More draconian measures are urged in cities everywhere... calls for the death penalty, stiffer sentences,
three-strikes laws, mandatory sentencing, and so on. There is a sense that America eased up on its oppression of
Blacks after 1964, and look at what has been the result! The solution: ratchet back up the oppression, put the
"niggers" in their place. To rationalize this new wave of oppression, it is, as always, the time-honored
gambit of the oppressor to demonize and dehumanize the oppressed. The Bell Curve book is part of this evil agenda,
which is once again to assert the inferiority of Blacks, this time bending supposedly dispassionate SCIENCE to
the cause. That's the politics as I see it.
Now, for the science. The science is
actually pretty slim, but it will undoubtedly fool a lot of people. The whole of it is based on the premise that
IQ actually measures intelligence. There is a second, deeper and unspoken premise which is that intelligence is
a measure of the inherent worth of any of God's creatures, i.e. the more "intelligent" the creature,
the more worthy in some sense. So it's okay to eat tuna, but we must save the whales and the dolphins. Similarly,
it's okay to enslave an inferior race, or to exterminate them (the Hitlerian approach), or, as in America, to apply
the law differently to poor, Black men than to anyone else. I leave aside this second premise... that's another,
different, discussion.
Let's take the first premise, that the
IQ test measures intelligence. Here, the absurdity lies in thinking that it is meaningful to use a one-dimensional
linear scale to measure something that is manifestly many-dimensional. It's like trying to pinpoint position on
the globe, and all you have, if that, is the line of longitude... it can't be done. It doesn't take more than a
little common-sense to realize that the kind of intelligence that produces a great novel is different from the
kind that is possessed by a great rocket scientist, or artist, or composer of music, or athlete, or general, or
chief executive. The point simply is that intelligence exists on many dimensions, and if you come up with a scale
that supposedly measures intelligence in some aggregate or general way, I don't think, a priori, that it's very
meaningful.
More than that, success in life is determined
by a whole lot besides raw talent. Talent comes to nought unless matched first by opportunity. After opportunity,
talent can still come to nought unless matched by practice and perseverance. I'm reminded of the old joke: One
person comes up to another on the street, apparently lost. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" is the
question. The second person thinks for a while, then says, "Practice, practice, practice". And from where
comes perseverance? We get into qualities of mind/body/spirit, also of the soul and the entire soul memory, if
you want to answer that question fully. Some of the attributes that come to mind are will, courage, fortitude,
pluck, luck ... you name it.
It is a little strange, is it not, that
in areas of endeavor where the fruits of talent and perseverance cannot be denied -- athletics, music -- Blacks
have come to do well, while it is in the areas where opportunity is easily denied, or aspirations easily squelched
-- academics for one -- that Blacks do less well. I say "have come to do well", because Blacks did not always "do well" in athletics
and music, -- I am speaking of modern post-Maafa times -- simply because they were at one time denied opportunity.
In academics, it is sadly very easy to discourage young Blacks from participating. For one thing, the IQ test in
itself is used invidiously as a sorting device to regulate access to learning. For another thing, there are all
kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle ways that racism acts to shape expectations, and therefore outcomes.
Finally, there are cultural values: the
enterprise that is academics is not value-neutral. Much of math/science is value-directed by the European cultural
worldview toward reshaping the world, mastering the environment. The fruits of this enterprise are all around us in the material rewards of this culture. However,
the folly is only just
becoming evident: environmental damage on the outside, and internal damage to our bodies and souls on the inside,
in the form of ill-health -- physical, mental, and spiritual -- made manifest in all of the ways that bespeak a
sick society, including crime, addiction, and all the illnesses that stem ultimately from alienation, the mirror-image
of the value dynamic that seeks to control and master "the other". Blacks come from a live-and-let-live
culture that traditionally has sought harmony with nature and "the other", rather than mastery over it,
and so, perhaps, tend to feel a sense of alienation within the Western academic enterprise.
Deplorable though it may seem, there
is a sense in which
at least the sociological
context in which the academic enterprise is pursued, is "white" ... and alien to that which Blacks give
value: group harmony, group belonging, live-and-let-live, hanging out with friends, etc. The Western academic enterprise,
the way it is pursued in the latter part of the 20th century, is by contrast, dry, divisive, motivated not by the
enjoyment of a thing done for its own sake, but by a drive to acquire status and position, by a fear of "flunking
out", and by a whole host of emotions/needs/desires that are completely antithetical to the qualities valued
by Black folk of harmony and balance and belonging. For those of us Blacks who have persevered within it, there
is indeed a strong psychic price to be paid. For those who choose not to pay the price, it is not always or necessarily
for lack of "intelligence", just the result of a choice, sometimes unconscious, that is at root driven
by a conflict of values.
So, to sum up, I'm fully prepared to
accept that IQ test scores exhibit individual and racial variation. But I'm not prepared to accept that IQ tests
say very much about what any individual will make of his life, about the superiority or inferiority of one individual
over another, and even less that IQ tests say anything whatsoever about the relative superiority/inferiority of
one race over another.
Having said that, it would be stupid
to say that we are all equal. Some individuals among us are clearly superior. But not because that's what an IQ
test says. Such superiority is demonstrated through accomplishment ... usually in a narrowly defined area of human
endeavor. That is always to be encouraged. Mandela is a superior individual. So was Mother Theresa. So is Michael
Jordan. But their superiority is not generalized in any way ... they are not interchangeable in their superiority.
Mother Theresa could not do what Jordan does, and I do not look to Michael Jordan to be prepared to spend 27 years
in prison, like Mandela did, in the fight to free his people. To assert the superiority of superior people is not
to diminish anyone else in any way. That is the beauty of true superiority: it is clear, it is unquestioned, and
the rest of us find it easy to give it credit. In fact, we take joy in the superior individual, it's an honor to
shake her hand. Conversely, the superior individual does not need to put down anybody else in order to assert her
own superiority. And finally, the superior individual does not exact tribute from her inferiors: such tribute is
freely given ... we all willingly pay to see the very best do what the very best do. Contrast that with the scientific
contortion that one must go through to try to establish the superiority of one race over another based on a measure
as flimsy and inadequate as the IQ test score.
I would not be one to deny racial differences.
They clearly exist. Blacks do dance better, run faster, are more musically creative, among others. If that's stereotyping,
so be it. Let's respect, even enjoy, racial differences. But let's put to rest the evil agenda of those who seek to assert some generalized
superiority of one whole
race over another when it can't even be done -- except in narrow areas of human endeavor, as discussed -- for individuals.
Having rejected the "no difference"
hypothesis as a general defense against the contentions The Bell Curve, let me hasten to add that, no, we are not
less intelligent, no matter what the IQ tests say. As earlier mentioned, I deny that IQ tests provide an adequate
measure of the quality we call "intelligence", and I attempt now to elaborate. The Dogon, for example,
have knowledge, and more importantly, ways of knowing, that would baffle Nobel prize-winners of the West. Their
wisdom systems are so deep, that IQ testing, and the shallow theory of "intelligence" that is its basis,
looks tawdry by comparison, a shallow exercise in left-brained tricknology. Ultimately, clever cannot compete with
wise -- see, for example, the article African
Cosmology, within these pages -- as is known only too well within
holistic African spiritual systems, which sees intelligence as manifesting in myriad aspects of the spirit, only
one of which, and relatively
low down on the totem-pole of spiritual attributes, is ever exercised in an IQ test. I quote from another of my
articles -- Egyptian Science,
the Greeks, and Mathematical PROOF -- that came up in another context:
But man is not robot. Syllogistic reasoning, which is the
chief stock-in-trade, though not the only one, of
mathematical science, is in any case not the supreme
intellectual accomplishment of which we humans are capable.
Far from it. And there is evidence that the Egyptians put
it fairly low in the totem pole of human accomplishment.
They saw man as being a spiritual being, with a spirit
having seven divisions, in each of which the consciousness
performed different types of functions, as follows:
1 - Ba, the ability to experience omnipresence
based on the existence of the universal spirit
2 - Khu, ability to intuit the truth of a
logical premise, the oracular faculty of
prophets
3 - Shekem, ability to affect nature through
the use of spiritual power
4 - Ab,
+ the ability to see the interdependence
between all things, to love
+ the ability to analyze, to see the
abstract difference between things
+ the ability to think circumspectly, i.e.
to coordinate the activity of all the
faculties of the spirit, to reason.
5 - Sahu,
+ imagination and congregative thinking--
aesthetic
+ syllogistic, logical and segregative
thinking
+ memory and imitative faculty, learning
6 - Khaibit, the animal soul, emotions, sense
perception, the sensual, physical movement
7 - Khab, the physical body which gives us the
illusion that we are separate beings
... if we accept the essential
claim that this hierarchical structuring of the spirit is
due to the ancients, then it reveals a clear understanding
of syllogistic reasoning which is the foundation of the
axiomatic method attributed to the Greeks. It also puts it
rather low in the totem pole of human activity. He who can
do more can also do less, as Diop is fond of saying.
Therefore, the axiomatic method of syllogistic reasoning
appears to fall well within the wisdom systems developed by
the Egyptians, and to suggest that they fell short in that
area therefore seems unreasonable. It also suggests that we
of the 20th century who fall far short of levels 1, 2 and 3
above in accomplishment, may not yet have the ability to
appreciate fully the achievements of the ancients.
No, I assert that there are aspects of
intelligence that IQ testers have not yet even dreamt of that have been mastered by such as the Dogon, and before
them by the Black African people who were the ancient Egyptians. The Bell Curve is laughable by comparison, sustained
only by the tricknologist's capacity for conceit and for self-delusion. Specifically, the IQ testers address at
best only the latter two aspects of Sahu, only one of seven divisions of the spirit, all of which are aspects of
intelligence. Moreover, these latter two aspects of the Sahu division of the spirit are reckoned as being fairly
low down in the totem pole of achievement. Few of us are aware of this fundamental inadequacy of IQ testing. Along
with deluding themselves the IQ testers have also deluded many of us. We need to wake up and reclaim that which
is ours. A word to the wise: sankofa.
Be all that as it may, no good comes
from denying clear reality, and it is clearly the case that racial differences exist, and are inherited, whatever
may be the truth of the matter regarding the correlation, or lack, between race and intelligence. True superiority,
however, is effortless, never petty as we see with Apartheid, Jim Crow and other products of racism and racists,
and never contorted, as we see with The Bell Curve.
 Grisso
©
1999 TheAfrican.Com®
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