At risk of opening up the maximum-nasty, un-PC can of worms, let’s refer again to Murray et. al.’s, “Bell Curve”. While we’ve all had encounters with very smart, very talented, very capable, high-attainment black people, the hard data from conventional intelligence testing –properly-designed to null-out “cultural factors”, malnutrition, etc.– consistently shows them to have likely emerged from the tiny minority at the far right edge of the distribution curve… with the mean IQ for African-Americans actually about 85 (compared to about 75 for sub-Saharan Africans!). I don’t think IQ is the be-all and the end-all, and G-d knows it doesn’t corroborate even slightly with basic human decency or individual moral worth. Of course the relevant professional societies are in total public denial on this, claiming that intelligence is not genetically determined or racially indicative: nothing to see here folks, move right along. Well, it’s not impossible that they’re right, but who amongst us really believes that?
So what about the realities of the US job market? Labor intensive agriculture is gone forever from our shores, as is mass-employment in unionized unskilled/semi-skilled industrial labor. Meanwhile the collapse of institutional racism/segregation has allowed most role-model high achievers to escape the ghetto.
Even with the best of intentions on all sides, and the most genuine commitment to take on paternal responsibility, what options are really out there for the inner city underclass?
I have a high school junior daughter with considerable gifts in the arts and the humanities, where she has excelled by any standards. But she’s just not hard-wired to make sense out of advanced algebra, and I’ve seen her give it her best shot over two semesters and still come out with a D- in the end.
Does Jack Brennan’s school in the Bronx take everybody in the neighborhood who walks in the door? Or can it rigorously select (or does its student body self-select) from the thin right edge of the bell curve?
