Explain why racism is wrong...

[Kantor]

Immortal said:

Now, just humor me for a second. I don't mean this at all, personally. Suppose there is objective evidence that suggests that the average person of African descent scores 20 IQ points lower on an IQ test than the average person of European descent, adjusted for different environmental factors and such. This kind of research can never be foolproof or conclusive of course, but we've got as close to hard evidence as we're gonna get. With this in mind, would it become alright to say that, on average, people with black skin are less intelligent than people with white skin?

Under the circumstances I presented, saying that Africans are black is as objectively true as saying that they are less smart. So, I guess my real question is, the validity of these claims aside, is it still racist to point out "inferiorities" in other races? Of course, the thing is, calling something "inferior" is a value judgement. That is very easy to condemn. On the other hand, by simply making the statement, "Black are, on average, not as smart whites," are you necessarily doing something wrong, even if it could somehow be proven that this is the truth?

I think the first thing to note is that racism is voluntary. You cannot be involuntarily, or unknowingly, racist. If somebody holds prejudicial views, that's still bad, and the person is ignorant and prejudiced, but racism implies malice as well as ignorance. So if you have to (sincerely) ask if something you say is racist, then while what you're saying may be racist, you yourself are not a racist.

As for your evidence: IQ is not really a measure of intelligence, because intelligence, unlike height or weight or 100m sprint speed, is not really a single characteristic. It has many forms. Based on a number of these studies, however, you would be able to state that white people were better at IQ tests than black people, which could potentially stretch to "better at mathematical logic" depending on the consistency and content of the tests. That would not be inaccurate or ignorant, and certainly not racist.

The trouble with obtaining such a study is that black people are, on average, considerably less well-off than white people. It is far from easy to find a sample that controls for everything except race.

It is also worth noting that the majority of scientific and technological innovation in the last millenium or so has come from Europe and North America, but this is getting onto pretty unsteady and speculative ground, so I'll leave it there.