Those racist scholars that try to link brain size to intelligence ignore or downplay the fact that environmental factors are at least as important as genetics in determining brain size. Children receiving bad nutrition and little social interaction with their parents have clear decreases in brain size. Moreover, children facing stress and diminished educational opportunities tend to have lower I.Q. scores.
In 1996, a study was conducted among 483 Black and White children five years old and younger. The researchers looked at the children‟s families‟ financial standing, neighborhood environment, family organization, and whether family members encouraged children to learn. According to the May 13, 1996 issue of JET Magazine, p. 39:
Black children‟s scores were about 15 points lower than White children‟s scores. But the study showed that more of the Black children lived in persistent poverty and had difficult home environments, which explains the lower scores. After those factors were considered, the gap between the children‟s IQs closed to 3 points, which is statistically an insignificant number. (The study was conducted by Jeanne Brooks-Gunn of Columbia University, Greg Duncan of Northwestern University, and Pamela Klebanov of Columbia. It was published in the April 1996 issue of Child Development.)
The researchers of this study also maintained that poverty and other home environmental factors could account for 80% of the IQ differences between Blacks and Whites. In another small scale study drawing upon a nationally representative population of grade school students, other researchers discovered that racial differences in IQ scores were more influenced by divorced parents and even gender than by race.
Indeed, for years African American males have been insisting upon the importance of Black male role models in the lives of Black boys. (According to some studies, the father‟s role in White families is about five times more important than the mother‟s in determining children‟s academic success. However, bonding with the mother is also crucial.) One study found that Black and White students in nuclear families were virtually equal in intelligence. However, in divorced families, Black male students performed more poorly than White male students from divorced families. On the other hand, White daughters with divorced parents performed equally to Black daughters with divorced parents.
U.S. servicemen have long fathered children in other parts of the world. During WW II, Black and White servicemen produced children with White German women. As in most such cases, the men returned to the U.S. leaving the women to raise the children. It was found that the children of Black men and White men tested equally on IQ tests.
In 1976, Sandra Scarr and Richard Weinberg conducted a study of 130 Black and mixed race children that had been adopted as infants by White families. They found that the average IQ of these children was 106 - higher than the average for White children.
In an excellent article from The City Sun, a now-defunct newspaper from Brooklyn, New York, Ralph R. Reiland, an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh, responded to The Bell Curve:
What's wrong with all this is that it's the same thing that was said about the Chinese in America earlier in this [20th] century, and now Chinese Americans lead the IQ pack.
David M. Kutzik, professor at the Center for Applied Neurogerontology at Drexel University, states:
During the 1920s, the IQ testers pegged the Chinese at the bottom of the intelligence pile: average IQ between 65 and 70. By the 1950s, Chinese Americans were scoring on a par with whites and 20 years later they were scoring higher than whites. (“The Truth About IQ: Albert Einstein Vs. Charles Murray,” November 30 - December 6, 1994, p. 29.)
Reiland went on to quote from Andrew Hacker, professor of political science at Queens College. Hacker noted:
It was common for Swedes, Scots and English in America to consider the Poles, Italians and Irish to be genetically challenged. Today, the median income of Polish Americans is $2,600 higher than the income of Swedish families in the United States and the Irish in the United States out-earn the Scots. (ibid.)
In April 2009, Asian Americans, who are only about 12% of California‟s population, accounted for a whopping 40% of all undergraduates in the University of California system„s nine campuses.
University officials decided to change the admissions process by 2012 to make it “more fair.”
Asian Americans balked, because the new standards were expected to greatly decrease the numbers of Asian Americans while resulting in little change for the numbers of Black and Latino students.
However, a huge gain for Whites was expected.
USATODAY.com reported on the story on its site on April 27, 2009: “I like to call it affirmative action for whites,” said Ling-chi Wang, a retired professor at UC Berkeley. “I think it‟s extremely unfair to Asian-Americans on the one hand and underrepresented minorities on the other.” (“University of Calif. Admissions rule angers Asian-Americans,” By Terrence Chea, Associated Press.)
Though race scholars invariably complain about how affirmative action lowers standards and creates resentment when it benefits “unqualified minorities,” not a peep was heard from them on this issue. Moreover, they are predictably silent when schools throughout the nation use affirmative action for White males to make up for the fact that girls and women are outperforming them academically.
This is just more evidence - as though more were needed - that the race scholars are tendentious and always looking to solidify White male privilege.