Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Neo-Prejudice; what do you make of this?

So, I was on this forum site and I found this post. The topic was: Do blacks deserve to move into predominately white neighborhoods? I know, this seems strange, but it is for a research paper I am writing for a class. I believe that people who believe studies done by "noteworthy experts" only do because they want to justify their prejudice towards African Americans. I believe that the historical reasoning gets left out, and as a result we have ignorance. The post that follows is trying to use "scientific journals" to justify the claim. What are your thoughts? Do you agree that it is neo-prejudice or that the argument is valid? Comment!!

Post:
CLAIM: Blacks ruin everything

"Evidence":
Facts

Though only about 13% of the U.S. population, Blacks commit more than half of all rapes and robberies and 60% of all murders in the U.S.

Blacks adopted into middle-class White families had IQs averaging 89.4, just slightly above the average of 88 for Blacks of the North Central U.S. region from which they originated. This was 9 IQ points below the average of the adopted Black/White
hybrids (98.5) in the same families, 16 points below the adopted Whites (105.6), and 20 points below the White biological offspring (109.4).

Black males are twice as likely than white males to have MAOA-L which has been linked to crime, violence and aggression in scores of studies. Black males are also 13.5 times more likely to have a rare version of the gene associated with extreme violence and extreme aggression.

Welfare by race 38% white / 37% black. But, blacks make up only about 13% of the U.S. population. While there are more whites on welfare than blacks,
the percentage of the black population on welfare is greater than the percentage of the white population on welfare.

One in three food stamp households is headed by an African American. More than a third of food stamp benefits are issued to African-Americans.(According to Census data, African Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population.)

Asians score higher on tests of mental ability than do Whites, both within the U.S.A. and in Asia, whereas Africans and Caribbeans score lower. Asians populations in East Asia and North America typically have mean IQs falling between 101 to 111. White populations in Europe, South Africa, Australasia, and North America have mean IQs of from 85 to 115, with an overall mean of 100. Black populations living south of the Sahara, in the Caribbean, in Britain,and in North America, average IQs of from 70 to 90.

Speed of decision making (reaction time) in 9 to 12-year olds, in which children decide which of several lights stands out from others,shows that the racial differences in mental ability are not restricted to paper and pencil tests. All children can perform the task in less than one second, but more intelligent children, as measured by traditional IQ tests, perform the task faster than less intelligent children. Asian children from Hong Kong and Japan were faster on average in decision time (controlling for movement time) than were White children from Britain and Ireland, who in turn were faster than Black children from South Africa. Using the same decision time tasks, the same racial ordering in California school children.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), has confirmed the White/Black difference. The preponderance of evidence from studies using different techniques, conducted by different researchers, on different samples, confirms the conclusion that the brains of Asians and their descendants average about 17 cm3 (1 in3) larger than those of Europeans and their descendants whose brains average about 80 cm3 (5 in3) larger than those of Africans and their descendants.

Black\White IQ differences have been demonstrated repeatedly by every test ever conducted by every branch of the U.S. Military, every state,county, and local school board, the U.S. Dept. of Education, etc.

With an average I.Q. of 85, only 16% of Blacks score over 100, while half the White population does. The Negro overlap of White median I.Q.'s ranges from 10 to 25 percent, equality would require 50 percent.

The U.S. government's PACE examination, given to 100,000 university graduates who are prospective professional or administrative civil-service
employees each year, is passed with a score of 70 or above by 58% of the whites who take it but by only 12% of the Blacks. Among top scorers
the difference between Negro and White performance is even more striking: 16% of the white applicants make scores of 90 or above, while only
one-fifth of one percent of a Black applicants score as high as 90--a White/Black success ration of 80/1.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Breaking the Silence

Breaking the silence? What is meant by that statement? Breaking the silence in dating, in conversation, in class on the first day of school? No, it is referring to learning how to break shyness.

I, being a very shy person, have a difficult time being the first person to talk. This simply being because I do not want to be put on the spot, like most shy people. That, having its negative effects such as: coming off as a mean, boring, or arrogant person. I really do not enjoy the thought that people may believe that I am any of those things. I also do not like to think that people will merely see me as a dreadfully shy girl. So, why? Because, everyone has a reason for what they do and the way that they act. So, I know that maybe no one reads these, but I you did know me, you will know me even better.

Growing up, I lived away from my family. I did not know my mother and I barely knew how my father and siblings were. When i finally learned the truth about where and who I came from, I felt like and outsider immediately. I knew that my family loved me very much, but not being able to live with my direct family really did a number on me.

When my mother (my father's second cousin) passed away, my whole life when downhill. I completely closed myself away from everyone and everything. With no one to talk to and no one to encourage me to talk, I had nothing. I had no friends and I never had the courage to ask people for help, so my grades fell short. All in all life was very lonely and difficult. My days consisted of going to school, going straight to my room, and that just about sums that up. I had no contact with people and I did not attempt to.

Once I transferred from my old school, I started to show signs of wanting friends, but not necessarily knowing how to make them. One of theses reasons being because, I felt like I might make a fool of myself or that no one would like me. The main reason for that was because when I was in the fifth grade a boy named David ridiculed everything about me, as well as other boys that did not really like me. The world is always cruel when you don't really ask for it.

Anyway, people were always into their own trends and friends. I had no basis in which to relate to them. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. Was there? By the time I reached the eighth grade, people wanted to be my friend because I seem like I was smart. The thing is, I am not "smart", rather I try to put as much effort in the things that I do even if they are daunting. Soon, I learned that they were not real friends. the friends that I did make,however, were very genuine and open to listen, instead of making assumptions.

Though the high school that I went to was pretty terrible, I did make substantial progress. I joined the debate team and made loads of friends and learned more than I ever could in a regular class. I only hoped that......

To be finished later...

Monday, February 14, 2011

Your Thought Matters

So what is the deal with thinking? Are we not allowed to think what we want to think? There are no mind controlling devices telling us what to think! Or are there? Have we not progressed far enough to accept each other’s opinions? When we have to question this, there is seriously a problem! Why does this matter? This is BIG because it is about knowledge. Thus, “All that we know will be all that we ever will know.
Today, I had an intriguing conversation with a young man. The topic was 9/11. He was probably from Africa, but I did not want to get into that. Let’s just say he is not from America. The topic raised a lot of controversy in his mind. He, not being American, did not see the topic in the typical “American point of view”. He thought about things that Americans do not concern themselves with. He also probably had his own preconceptions about the event. But, regardless of the two, he did not feel that he wanted to voice his opinions in his class. He did not want to say things that may not be acceptable.
This came across as troubling to me because any time that someone does not feel comfortable with speaking out their ideas, it is never right. Why? Because, any instance when our opinions cannot be spoken, it is a direct threat to knowledge, sophistication, and freedom. Why? Because there is no sense in only knowing what we already know. The beauty of new ideas is that there is new knowledge to be sought and new points of view to acknowledge. What should anyone ever get this sense?
Personally, I see this as a loss to anyone if no one felt that they were free to speak their mind. I want to see things in a new way, but it will be impossible when there are people who believe that they mustn’t. Why do they think this? Because of narrow minded people who do not want to seek truth beyond what they know.