Even if race science were true, it would still be bad, and here’s why:
Show this thread
-
My skin, which is “tattooed” not merely on my forehead, but on the rest of my face, my arms, my legs, my torso, my fingers, my toes, my back and backside, crotch, neck, and anything as yet unmentioned. It is acceptable to take my skin into account, in thinking about intelligence.
Show this thread
It is acceptable because we think that race and racism are somehow more natural, more inevitable, more normal than tattooing someone’s IQ on their forehead. In reality, both are socially constructed, both are arbitrary, both are imposed, both are “unreal.”
-
-
It is racism, and only racism, that causes us to think one is less of a moral outrage than the other.
Show this thread -
And someone will ask: why then, is it alright to stereotype white people as racist, with reasoning that is clouded by racism? And my answer is, because there is a solution to that historically-grounded pattern of behavior: anti-racism!
Show this thread -
Perhaps there is some sci-fi future in which it would be important to determine precisely the extent to which genetics affects one’s IQ, so that, for instance, IQ improving drugs could be distributed equitably to erase this genetic (dis)advantage.
Show this thread -
But at present, we live in no such world. Instead, we live in a world where accepting race as a relevant predictor of intelligence is no more morally acceptable than tattooing IQ on every child’s skin; in fact, the former is probably less acceptable, whether it is true or not.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.