February 13, 2019

"When Rachel Dolezal was unmasked as a white woman who misrepresented her racial and ethnic identity..."

"... in part to bolster her professional bona fides as a voice of the disenfranchised, she was penalized—heavily. She went from rising media star to late-night punchline, unemployable and impoverished. I don’t wish poverty on Warren, but I don’t understand how her only punishment for a similar fraud seems to be that she may become president."

From "Women of Color Shouldn’t Trust Elizabeth Warren/With affirmative action on the chopping block, we can’t afford to back a candidate whose fraud played into ugly stereotypes about programs to boost diversity and equality" by Keli Goff (The Daily Beast).

So... that's there. But I can't read the whole thing because it's got a $100/year paywall after the first few paragraphs. Who would pay $100 a year to get into the back pages of The Daily Beast?! That's more than The New Yorker (which is much, much better, has a fantastic archive, and sends you a paper copy in the mail).

90 comments:

mccullough said...

Dolezal seemed sincere in identifying as black. No different than Bruce Jenner identifying as a woman.

Warren was not sincere. She didn’t go live on a reservation or deal blackjack at a casino. It’s like those guys who said they were gay to avoid the draft.

Unfair to Dolezal.

Achilles said...

Warren will go down because she stole someone else’s racial spoils.

J. Farmer said...

Who would pay $100 a year to get into the back pages of The Daily Beast?!

Barry Diller is probably desperate to recoup his investment after getting hornswoggled by Tina Brown.

Bay Area Guy said...

Blackface meets Paleface!

Achilles said...

Democrats replaces slavery with eugenics and Jim Crow.

Democrats replaced eugenics with planned Parenthood.

Democrats replaced Jim Crow with affirmative action.

Democrats resegregated our public schools.

Same people. Same racism. Same results.

Same racism.

Achilles said...

Autocorrect fail.

Doug said...

Warren's campaign has the stench of failure all over it. Not to worry.

Bay Area Guy said...

Liz Warren gamed the academy to get to Harvard and reap those benefits; Dolezal gamed the system, ends up on welfare.

Both were/are blond, white, middle-class women.

The Common Denominator? Weird left-wing ideology.

bagoh20 said...

I feel that Warren needs to be sacrificed as one of those wonderful things they call a "teachable moment", so that other frauds (or should we say "honesty-challenged) will be dissuaded from robbing minorities of the unfair advantage given to them by this discriminatory practice put in place by the white patriarchy.

And I mean it! We can all learn from her. Does she not want to teach us about this terrible travesty against Native Americans in general and the one in particular that she knowingly robbed of a substantial life-changing opportunity?

I think I'm getting good at this leftism stuff.

rhhardin said...

Keep whites out of the free stuff offerings.

Sebastian said...

"we can’t afford to back a candidate whose fraud"

Stop right there: they are all frauds--T-Bone Booker, Jamaican-Tamil-Canadian "black" Kamala who screwed her way into office, "moderate Amy Klobuchar, Ralph Blackface Northam of the Gillespie-is-a-racist smear, named-after-Edmund Hillary the proud New Yorker who unintentionally set up a private server to evade federal law, Joe Hands Biden the repeat plagiarist, and so on and so forth.

"played into ugly stereotypes about programs to boost diversity and equality"

What stereotypes? That people with a drop of the right blood get massive advantages? That discrimination is rampant in higher ed? That it pays to claim minority status? Those "stereotypes"?

Earnest Prole said...

Kamala Harris' people will soon convince the Left that it hates fake Indians every bit as much as the Right.

StephenFearby said...


Jacques Mallet du Pan (1749 – 10 May 1800)

"...is known for coining the adage "like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children,"[1] which originally appeared as "A l'exemple de Saturne, la révolution dévore ses enfants" in his widely circulated 1793 essay Considérations sur la nature de la Révolution de France, et sur les causes qui en prolongent la durée."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Mallet_du_Pan

Members of the Left Party are now chomping away with gusto.

bagoh20 said...

If she gets that far, her opponents in the primary will crucify her with this. They are a mean and nasty group when they compete. Remember Hillary: Obama birther, Bernie robber, "deplorables". It's like a pack of hyenas in that Savannah.

Fernandinande said...

In an age in which the current occupant of the White House bragged about sexual assault,

So the article was written between Jan 20, 1993 and Jan 20, 2001.

Don't they have anything more current? That was back when Liz was potty-training Indians.

Chuck said...

I actually did not know that Rachel Dolezal had become "unemployable and impoverished." Is that really true? As President Donald J. Trump would say, "Nice."

Bill Peschel said...

I found at a library book sale The New Yorker on CD-Rom in a beautiful package. Covers from 1925 to 2005. I've been meaning to see if there are more Dorothy Parker reviews not covered in my collection.

Fernandinande said...

You can't handle the ugly stereotypes!

FIDO said...

'Members of the Left Party are now chomping away with gusto.'

And I am happily passing out bottles of Frank's Hot Sauce. They put that shit on everything!

Lucid-Ideas said...

"ugly stereotypes about a program used to boost diversity and equality" by living up to the ugly stereotypes about a program used to boost diversity and equality.

That is so rich, its wealthy.

Jupiter said...

Stop dead-racing poor Rachel.

Fernandinande said...

JVC makes a very ugly type of stereo.

Jupiter said...

Which reminds me, why is it OK when that sewer rat Shaun King does it? Do we have a fatwa on that? Who issues racial identity fatwas, anyway, the NAACP?

tim in vermont said...

Played into or exemplified?

Republicans pounce!

tim in vermont said...

I thought Trump was bragging about how easy it was to get consent "when you're a star."

Gahrie said...

The fact is, the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action have been White women anyway.

Jupiter said...

And how come it's OK to use DNA tests to decide whether you're Afro_Remerican, but not whether you're Native-Premarican?

Drago said...

Alot of folks have been unmasked in the last couple of years.

LLR's hardest hit.

Robert Cook said...

"Dolezal seemed sincere in identifying as black. No different than Bruce Jenner identifying as a woman.

"Warren was not sincere. She didn’t go live on a reservation or deal blackjack at a casino. It’s like those guys who said they were gay to avoid the draft.

"Unfair to Dolezal."


I see it the completely opposite way. Dolezal knew she was white but wanted to pass as black, perhaps for sincere personal reasons of her own, but she knew she was white. Warren, as far as we know, sincerely believed her family's stories that they had Indian ancestry. She marked this on a box, no doubt because she felt it might help her in some way, but she wasn't, as far as we know, making a claim to ancestry she knew was a lie, and she never tried to pass in public as Indian and never made any claims other than that she had Indian ancestry according to what she had been told in her family.

Unfair to Warren.

Retail Lawyer said...

Rachel was convicted of some type of welfare fraud, so maybe she's not impoverished just yet

tcrosse said...

Unfair to Warren.

Wait until the rest of the field start scuffling in earnest. You ain't seen nothing yet.

Achilles said...

Robert Cook said...

Unfair to Warren.

Cook sees nothing wrong with rich white woman stealing racial spoils from poor minorities.

Unfair!

Ralph L said...

I think we all know what kind of marker Goff put on Warren, if females do that.

Bay Area Guy said...

@Robert Cook sez:

I see it the completely opposite way. Dolezal knew she was white but wanted to pass as black, perhaps for sincere personal reasons of her own, but she knew she was white. Warren, as far as we know, sincerely believed her family's stories that they had Indian ancestry. She marked this on a box, no doubt because she felt it might help her in some way, but she wasn't, as far as we know, making a claim to ancestry she knew was a lie, and she never tried to pass in public as Indian and never made any claims other than that she had Indian ancestry according to what she had been told in her family.

You are a certainly a valued voice in the Commentariat, but sometimes you get it exactly backwards.

Dolezal - clumsy thief, gets busted for stealing a pretzel.

Warren - sophisticated embezzler, white collar criminal.

Of course, Warren did not walk around Harvard Square in a head-dress, with a tomhawk, jeez! She figured out a way to move from Rutgers to Harvard, by claiming "American Indian" status which white, liberal, faculty "diversity pimps" began to celebrate.

Why was this important? Well, Duh. Law Professors at Rutgers don't march very far in life; Law Professors at Harvard often go far and earn a lotta dough. (See, Kagan, Elena on SCOTUS).

Warren, as far as we know, sincerely believed her family's stories that they had Indian ancestry.

Yeah, right. Did she also sincerely believe in the Tooth Fairy, as a source of earned income under the pillow the next morning?

We all have family lore. We all have funny stories about our grandparents. Do we slyly ACT on them to game the system for professional advancement and huge income boosts?

Rosalyn C. said...

IMO what Warren did was worse -- she didn't really believe she was Native American, didn't go to tribe meetings or join Native American organizations, she didn't talk to people about it, she just checked off some boxes on some forms. She wasn't doing any of it to help Native Americans, just herself.

What Dolezal did involved more fraudulent action but she was trying to help people in need with whom she identified. Probably she's more of a mental case. That's not a recommendation for Warren.

n.n said...

Diversity refers to a sociopolitical doctrine and predisposition to color judgments including racism.

n.n said...

Democrats replaced eugenics with planned Parenthood.
...
Democrats replaced Jim Crow with affirmative action.


Same concepts, liberal labels. Wicked solutions in principle and practice... it depends on how you define dignity, value, reconciliation, science, fitness, and, of course, life.

Yancey Ward said...

Given the politics of today, I feel sorrow for Doleazal. Men can claim to be women, and women can claim to be men according to the Left's rules, so what exactly was it that Doleazal did that is so bad from the perspective of the Left? I mean, I thought she was extremely foolish and I wouldn't have even believed she was black had I met her on the street, but the more important point would be that I wouldn't really even give a shit what she claimed. So why did the Left feel the need to throw her under the bus? I find myself more or less agreeing with the excerpt- what Warren did is arguably much worse than what Doleazal was doing because Warren's play seems far more cynical to me- I can at least believe Doleazal has some mental issues and is deserving of far more sympathy.

Yancey Ward said...

And if Warren wanted sympathy from people like me, then when she got that DNA test last Fall, she should have right then did a full and unambiguous mea culpa. However, that isn't what she did- she tried to claim justification for her previous claims, and even then has continued to tell lies about it.

J. Farmer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
J. Farmer said...

Elizabeth Warren isn't the problem, but the SJW crowd is trying to make her the problem to distract from the real problem: affirmative action. Don't hate the player, hate the game. And of course, the really dark secret of America is that without affirmative action, blacks would be even more underrepresented than they already are. In any meritocratic system, blacks will be at the bottom. And barring some extreme advance in cognitive science or genetics, this gap will persist indefinitely. America's immigration policies over the last half century have helped create a society where whites, Jews, and East Asians form a technocratic overclass while blacks and Hispanics form a permanent underclass. Diversity is not our strength.

n.n said...

Did she choose an ethnicity or color?

glenn said...

Rachael and Lizzie did what they did for exactly the same reason. To jump the line. Lotta people who are fundamentally dishonest do it.

JaimeRoberto said...

If she promised to kill affirmative action I'd consider voting for her. I probably wouldn't consider it very long, because she'd probably be lying, but I'd still consider it.

Gahrie said...

In any meritocratic system, blacks will be at the bottom. And barring some extreme advance in cognitive science or genetics, this gap will persist indefinitely.

Unfortunately this is true. The issue is...what do we do about it?

Bay Area Guy said...

There is one huge sympathy factor for Ms. Dolezal.

She group up in a weird abusive family, and was a victim of pretty horrific spousal abuse from her hubby, who happened to be black.

Unlike Warren, she didn't quite make it to Harvard.

J. Farmer said...

@Gahrie:

Unfortunately this is true. The issue is...what do we do about it?

Probably nothing we can do except for whites to play identity politics. And even that probably won't make much difference. There are no real solutions that are morally tenable, which is why I am fond of saying...America is doomed.

Jupiter said...

J. Farmer said...
"In any meritocratic system, blacks will be at the bottom."

Actually, from a racial perspective, everyone is well-represented at the bottom. It's just that there are damned few blacks at the top.

J. Farmer said...

@Bay Area Guy:

There is one huge sympathy factor for Ms. Dolezal.

Good point. It seems that Dolezal, at some point in her life, came to believe that her father was not her real father and that her actual father was a black man.

Drago said...

Robert Cook: "Unfair to Warren."

Native American women of color can't catch a break.

J. Farmer said...

@Jupiter:

Actually, from a racial perspective, everyone is well-represented at the bottom. It's just that there are damned few blacks at the top.

Every race is represented at every point in the bell curve. The question is one of percentages. So while 15% of whites have IQs below 85, around 50% of blacks do.

One thing we could do as a society is to help ensure that people with limited cognitive skills can still earn a living and have a form of self-respect. Unfortunately, that is impossible with globalization when you force those people to compete with people all over the world.

Bay Area Guy said...

"In any meritocratic system, blacks will be at the bottom."

I don't buy this. I think the better approach is to develop a society and culture that provides opportunity for upward mobility for all. I think some really horrific public policies developed by President Johnson's Great Society in the 60s, really stunted the upward mobility of blacks. The huge welfare apparatus wrecked a lot of good incentives, literally drove black men out of the nuclear family, and greatly normalized out-of-wedlock births.

Good intentions gone horribly wrong.

So, I would start by undoing that.

Earnest Prole said...

The Netflix documentary reveals Dolezal’s story to be far more interesting and complex than you might imagine, involving her becoming a foster parent to her (genuinely) black adopted brother after allegations of child abuse against her Christian fundamentalist parents.

Michael K said...

The huge welfare apparatus wrecked a lot of good incentives, literally drove black men out of the nuclear family, and greatly normalized out-of-wedlock births.

Yup. Disaster,

FIDO said...

There was this fellow in Canada. He was sick and tired of paying an unfair amount for car insurance so he got a note from his doctor saying his patient considered himself a woman.

Then he called his insurer and demanded to be given Women's rates. Fairly and legally so. This is where the stupidity of the Left has brought us.

Hearing this, first I fell out of my chair laughing and then I group texted my son, demanding that he 'identify' as a African American woman so he could cut in line for his college program.

My daughters were appalled. "DAD! He isn't really a woman!"

"Neither are your transgendered friends, but you stick up for THEIR rights!"

I am expecting to be offered up as Soylent Green by my daughters when I get feeble enough.

J. Farmer said...

@Bay Area Guy:

Good intentions gone horribly wrong.

I agree regarding the perverse incentives the welfare system created (i.e. rewarding women for having kids and not marrying the fathers). I agree with you about upward mobility and made a similar point in my comment directly above yours.

Nonetheless, the differences in average IQs between whites and blacks means that there will likely be immutable gaps between blacks and whites in educational achievement, college acceptance, careers, and earnings. These differences will continue to be held up as examples of the effects of slavery and Jim Crow and there will be ever greater calls for something "to be done" about it.

Bay Area Guy said...

@J. Farmer,

Nonetheless, the differences in average IQs between whites and blacks means..

I hear ya. And I did read the Bell Curve, and, regrettably, I think the data is reasonably solid.

Emotionally, it's one of those inconvenient truths that hurts feelings, so I try to shy away from it. Perhaps, I am getting softer as I move thru life.

J. Farmer said...

@Bay Area Guy:

Emotionally, it's one of those inconvenient truths that hurts feelings, so I try to shy away from it. Perhaps, I am getting softer as I move thru life.

I agree that it is an unpleasant topics, and people who I respect have made arguments that it's best to just ignore the subject. I don't agree with that argument, but I do see its merits. John McWhorter wrote a thoughtful piece about it, and he and Glenn Loury discussed it in a Bloggingheads.

Gahrie said...

I agree that it is an unpleasant topics, and people who I respect have made arguments that it's best to just ignore the subject

The problem is, not only do we have to deal with the problem of low IQ, we have to deal with the pathologies of Black culture which only exacerbate the problem. Since we can't "fix" the problem of low IQ, we have to at least fix the problem of dysfunctional Black culture if we're going to help these kids at all.

Wince said...

Who would pay $100 a year to get into the back pages of The Daily Beast?!

I would pay $20 for the Daily Breast.

Anonymous said...

Women of color shouldn't trust Elizabeth Warren? No American should trust Elizabeth Warren. Her bankruptcy research was described as fraudulent over 20 years ago while she was still just a Harvard Law School professor, who obtained such professorship in pertinent part by misrepresenting her racial/ethnic background in the same way she did to the Texas Bar. Thank you for the insight, Ray Nimmer. Rest in peace.

J. Farmer said...

@Gahrie:

The problem is, not only do we have to deal with the problem of low IQ, we have to deal with the pathologies of Black culture which only exacerbate the problem. Since we can't "fix" the problem of low IQ, we have to at least fix the problem of dysfunctional Black culture if we're going to help these kids at all.

Agree that there are a lot of pathologies within African-American culture, but there aren't a lot of tools at our disposal for changing that culture. It's likely going to have to come from the bottom up. But I think the problems are far deeper than culture. Take a look at the UN's Human Development Index map. Sub-saharan Africa and the African diaspora (e.g. the Caribbean) are far behind the rest of the world.

J. Farmer said...

The funny thing about the Warren brouhaha is that she was also criticized by the SJW left for relying on DNA testing to demonstrate her ancestry. The notion that racial identity can be found in the genes is verboten to SJW's prevailing dogma that race has no physical basis and is merely a social construct. But then, if that is true, who is to say that Elizabeth Warren is not Native American. Or that Rachel Dolezal is not black for that matter.

MB said...

"in part to bolster her professional bona fides as a voice of the disenfranchised"
So being a voice for the disenfranchised is a profession now, and having the right racial and ethnic identity is part of the job description? Nice career if you can get it!

Milwaukie guy said...

Re: Differing IQs.

The U.S. Army did IQ tests on all recruits in WW1 and WW2. In WW1, Eastern Europeans, those of the most recent immigrant wave, scored well below native born American whites. By WW2, these same "immigrant" groups scored 10 points higher.

There is a cultural aspect to IQ.

J. Farmer said...

@Milwaukie Guy:

There is a cultural aspect to IQ.

From the APA's Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns:

"There was a long-standing 15 point or 1 standard deviation difference between the intelligence test scores of African Americans and White Americans, though it might have narrowed slightly in the then recent years. The difference was largest on those tests, verbal or non-verbal, that best represented the general intelligence factor (g). Controlled studies of the way the tests were formulated and administered had shown that this did not contribute substantially to the difference. Attempts to devise tests that would minimize disadvantages of this kind had been unsuccessful. The scores predicted future achievement equally well for Blacks and Whites."

From 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology:

Fortunately, many researchers have studied the possibility that IQ test scores are biased against women or minorities. Two panels assembled by the National Academy of Science (Hartigan & Wigdor, 1989; Wigdor & Garner, 1982) and a Task Force of the American Psychological Association (Neisser et al., 1996), each of which contained individuals representing a diverse range of expertise and opinions, reached the same conclusion: There’s no evidence that IQ tests or other standardized tests, like the SAT, underpredict the performance of women or minorities. Today, most experts agree that the question of IQ test bias has been settled about as conclusively as any scientific controversy can be (Gottfredson, 1997, 2009; Jensen, 1980; Sackett et al., 2001; Sackett, Borneman, & Connelly, 2008).

Milwaukie guy said...

Love to talk more about this but just got up from a nap and now I'm off. Sorry Farmer.

Gahrie said...

There is a cultural aspect to IQ.

IQ tests on South African college students produced the same disparities in IQ as tests in the United States.

FIDO said...

we have to at least fix the problem of dysfunctional Black culture if we're going to help these kids at all.

Here you are 100% wrong. Not only is there no moral imperative, but there is a huge downside to external interference to what they now demand is a strictly tribal matter.

So while I am very sympathetic, anything even the best meaning of white lady meddling is mischaracterized and attacked as patronizing.

Okay. They got to hit bottom and throw that bottle of dysfunction away themselves.

What else can on do (or in this case, not do) in such a toxic environment?

Though this discussion makes Obama's transcripts even more tantalizing in their revelations.

Gahrie said...

Agree that there are a lot of pathologies within African-American culture, but there aren't a lot of tools at our disposal for changing that culture. It's likely going to have to come from the bottom up. But I think the problems are far deeper than culture. Take a look at the UN's Human Development Index map. Sub-saharan Africa and the African diaspora (e.g. the Caribbean) are far behind the rest of the world.

I'm trying really hard to come up with an answer different from Margaret Sanger.


Gahrie said...

Here you are 100% wrong. Not only is there no moral imperative,

I believe there is a moral imperative to help our fellow Americans. That's what being a nation, a people, a society is. I believe in E Pluribus Unum.

Ralph L said...

Mixed marriages, or at least mixed breeding.
In some communities, black women try to have the lightest babies they can.

Jupiter said...

Bay Area Guy said...
"I think the better approach is to develop a society and culture that provides opportunity for upward mobility for all."

Setting aside the question of how one "develops" a specific sort of society and culture, what do you mean by "upward mobility for all"? Are you thinking Lake Woebegone?

Jupiter said...

J. Farmer said

'These differences will continue to be held up as examples of the effects of slavery and Jim Crow and there will be ever greater calls for something "to be done" about it.'

Why, exactly? Held up by whom? From what throats will these ever greater calls issue? Are you saying that history has an arc, and it curves towards whining?

Jupiter said...

J. Farmer said...
"The funny thing about the Warren brouhaha is that she was also criticized by the SJW left for relying on DNA testing to demonstrate her ancestry. The notion that racial identity can be found in the genes is verboten to SJW's prevailing dogma that race has no physical basis and is merely a social construct."

You haven't got that quite right, but I don't blame you. It's a very "nuanced" situation. It turns out that genes make you white, or black, but being on a tribal register makes you a member of a tribe. So Warren was criticized for thinking she could bust into a tribe with a DNA test, whereas Dolezal was criticized for thinking she could bust into a tribe without one. It depends upon the tribe. But I still don't understand why Shaun King gets a pass.

J. Farmer said...

@Jupiter:

Why, exactly?

Because it is verboten to admit that disparities between the races has a biological component.

Held up by whom? From what throats will these ever greater calls issue?

From the same people who have been saying it for the last 50 years. In that time frame the US has spent billions and billions of dollars trying to close the white-black development gap.

Are you saying that history has an arc, and it curves towards whining?

I am saying that as the country becomes even more ethnically diverse in the coming decades, you can expect the ethnic tensions, animosities, and resentments to get even worse than they are now.

J. Farmer said...

@Jupiter:

So Warren was criticized for thinking she could bust into a tribe with a DNA test

That is not actually true. Warren made a point of distinguishing between Native American ancestry and tribal membership and never claimed to be a member of a tribe.

Jupiter said...

J. Farmer said...
"John McWhorter wrote a thoughtful piece about it ..."

If you are referring to what that race-hustler John McWHorter wrote in National Review, he basically said that he is in denial on the subject and you should be too.

Jupiter said...

J. Farmer said...

"I am saying that as the country becomes even more ethnically diverse in the coming decades, you can expect the ethnic tensions, animosities, and resentments to get even worse than they are now."

Exactly. Now, why do you think that will lead to white people being ever more willing to put up with being shat upon? Or do you think the Mexicans and Asians are going to demand their fair share of being shat upon?

J. Farmer said...

@Jupiter:

If you are referring to what that race-hustler John McWHorter wrote in National Review, he basically said that he is in denial on the subject and you should be too.

Yes, I am referring to the National Review piece. No, I do not consider McWhorter a "race-hustler." No, that is not what he said. No, I was not convinced by his argument, as I mentioned in my original comment.

J. Farmer said...

@Jupiter:

Exactly. Now, why do you think that will lead to white people being ever more willing to put up with being shat upon?

Where exactly did I say that they would be more willing?

Jupiter said...

J. Farmer said...
"Warren made a point of distinguishing between Native American ancestry and tribal membership and never claimed to be a member of a tribe."

At different times, Warren made a point of different things. But at the time she published her DNA results, she was criticized by various tribal representatives on the specific grounds that DNA tests are not dispositive on the question of who is an Indian. They want to maintain their own version of the one-drop rule, because it enables them to control certain funding sources. It has nothing to do with the SJW claim that "race doesn't exist". Note that Warren's actual claim was to "Indian blood", which presumably means Indian DNA. But the Indians say that having Indian DNA doesn't mean you have Indian DNA, and all right-thinking people agree. I mean, they would know, wouldn't they?

J. Farmer said...

Jupiter:

But at the time she published her DNA results, she was criticized by various tribal representatives on the specific grounds that DNA tests are not dispositive on the question of who is an Indian.

I am aware of the criticism, and I never thought it was valid or that Warren owed them an apology. Of course, those are the SJW ties that bind. But when the DNA results were released, Warren specifically denied that she was claiming any tribal membership.

It has nothing to do with the SJW claim that "race doesn't exist".

"She is also reinforcing one of the most insidious ways in which Americans talk about race: as though it were a measurable biological category, one that, in some cases, can be determined by a single drop of blood."
-Elizabeth Warren Falls for Trump's Trap and Promotes Insidious Ideas About Race and DNA

Fen said...

Cook: "She marked this on a box, no doubt because she felt it might help her in some way, but she wasn't, as far as we know, making a claim to ancestry she knew was a lie"

Then why did she abandon the lie when it was no longer useful to her?

Fen said...

Bay Area Guy: "I think the better approach is to develop a society and culture that provides opportunity for upward mobility for all."

Jordan Peterson explains why that's not possible:

https://youtu.be/5-Ur71ZnNVk

Short version: 1 in 10 people don't have the cognitive abilities to function in our society. A meritocracy will throw 10% of the population out into the street. Approximately 34 million Americans. That's not acceptable.

Peterson's logic contradicts the conservative philosophy of a meritocracy that I've always believed in. But its something we should consider.

The Army won't take amyone witb an IQ of 83 or lower because they can't be trained to do anything useful. That's one in ten. What does society do with them?

J. Farmer said...

@Fen:

Peterson's logic contradicts the conservative philosophy of a meritocracy that I've always believed in. But its something we should consider.

It's always worth remembering that when Michael Young coined the phrase in his 1958 book The Rise of the Meritocracy, he was describing a dystopian society.

J. Farmer said...

p.s. Peterson's 1 in 10 figure, which represents people with IQs of 80 and under, presumes a mean of 100. Black Americans are a full standard deviation below that.

Mary Beth said...

Native American women should wonder why one woman got punished for pretending to be black while another got rewarded for pretending to be Native American.

Hey Skipper said...

Unfortunately this is true. The issue is...what do we do about it?


Treat people as individuals?

Just a thought.

dbp said...

I was able to see the whole article by outlining it (which only gave me a part) then hitting the back button. It was too long to paste the whole thing in here though.