uhg! I am so tired of the OMG BLACKS AND SLAVERY!!! Seriously. Blacks enslaved black in Africa long before whites did ... and nearly every country has some history of slavery. For gods sake MY grandmother was a slave. A WHITE SLAVE LESS THAN 70 years ago! My IQ does not have anything to do w/ the fact that she was a slave.
I wasn't saying it was a competition. Relax. What I was saying was that my grandmother was poor, she was incredibly poor. She was forced into slavery and when WW II ended she fled. She fled and by herself she worked her way up, she learned 7 languages, her husband was a waiter all his life. She didn't live a privileged life. a few generations out our lifestyle is very different from hers, yes, and the fact that I may have grown up in a much more privileged atmosphere than her may very well play a big part in how I do on standardized tests. This is not about slavery, this is about cultural differences.
Of course not, b/c you and your parents haven't subsequently been subjected to continued discrimination. If you had, things might be different.
This comic is also trying to make the distinction between actual real intelligence, and the values that show up on tests. I'm sure you're aware that no test can perfectly measure the underlying reality, and instead is filtered by the cultural biases of the people who write the tests, and of the experiences of the people who take the tests. If we asked people in low income communities to write a list of questions they'd ask to find out how smart a person is, chances are that I (middle class professional) wouldn't do as well on it as I do on traditional IQ tests.
A more tangible example is that a friend of mine a couple years back was studying the Massachusetts state standardized English exam and how students from different demographics groups performed on different questions. There was one question where she found that black students did much better on the question than white students. She went and looked up what the actual question was, and it turned out to be a reading comprehension question where they had to define the word "ebony" - which besides meaning "black" is also the name of a popular magazine targeting an African American audience. Does this mean that the black students were smarter than the white ones, at least in this respect? No, it just meant that their life experiences colored how they did on the exam.
Of course not, b/c you and your parents haven't subsequently been subjected to continued discrimination. If you had, things might be different.
naturally, but i think that's sort of the point - harping on slavery mainly distracts from the much-more-significant effects of recent and ongoing racist (or otherwise discriminatory) practices.
How do you know my parents aren't discriminated against, first off? Hell I know my mom is to some degree. She is a lunch lady... in a public middle school. 3/4 of the employees are Hispanic immigrants and the majority refuse to speak English (most know, not all, but when management is Hispanic the 3 non-Hispanic women are outcast). I would also like to explain that I went to a school that was, 20% across the board, in my classes I could very well be one of the few white students - in some classes I was continually discriminated against, because I wasn't an Asian in AP class.
If this comic is saying - Our government is run by a bunch of really rich white guys who don't believe in public health care b/c they have enough money where that isn't a worry, etc. then sure. But the fact that this is specifically calling on black slavery as the entire reason they score worse then I call it BULLSHIT. If it is major cultural differences, then great I get it.
Recently on the radio I heard a guy say "The only reason Jewish people were known for being intelligent financers was because they were cast into that role, and if you could do it you could survive - survival of the fittest so to speak"
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 02:37 am (UTC)For gods sake MY grandmother was a slave. A WHITE SLAVE LESS THAN 70 years ago!
My IQ does not have anything to do w/ the fact that she was a slave.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 04:44 am (UTC)What I was saying was that my grandmother was poor, she was incredibly poor. She was forced into slavery and when WW II ended she fled. She fled and by herself she worked her way up, she learned 7 languages, her husband was a waiter all his life. She didn't live a privileged life. a few generations out our lifestyle is very different from hers, yes, and the fact that I may have grown up in a much more privileged atmosphere than her may very well play a big part in how I do on standardized tests. This is not about slavery, this is about cultural differences.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 02:53 am (UTC)This comic is also trying to make the distinction between actual real intelligence, and the values that show up on tests. I'm sure you're aware that no test can perfectly measure the underlying reality, and instead is filtered by the cultural biases of the people who write the tests, and of the experiences of the people who take the tests. If we asked people in low income communities to write a list of questions they'd ask to find out how smart a person is, chances are that I (middle class professional) wouldn't do as well on it as I do on traditional IQ tests.
A more tangible example is that a friend of mine a couple years back was studying the Massachusetts state standardized English exam and how students from different demographics groups performed on different questions. There was one question where she found that black students did much better on the question than white students. She went and looked up what the actual question was, and it turned out to be a reading comprehension question where they had to define the word "ebony" - which besides meaning "black" is also the name of a popular magazine targeting an African American audience. Does this mean that the black students were smarter than the white ones, at least in this respect? No, it just meant that their life experiences colored how they did on the exam.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 03:04 am (UTC)naturally, but i think that's sort of the point - harping on slavery mainly distracts from the much-more-significant effects of recent and ongoing racist (or otherwise discriminatory) practices.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-28 04:52 am (UTC)If this comic is saying - Our government is run by a bunch of really rich white guys who don't believe in public health care b/c they have enough money where that isn't a worry, etc. then sure. But the fact that this is specifically calling on black slavery as the entire reason they score worse then I call it BULLSHIT. If it is major cultural differences, then great I get it.
Recently on the radio I heard a guy say "The only reason Jewish people were known for being intelligent financers was because they were cast into that role, and if you could do it you could survive - survival of the fittest so to speak"