RACE-RELATED:

A comment from a reader on the recent affirmative action parody at Southern Methodist University where blacks were offered cheaper cookies: "It doesn't surprise me that SMU shut down that bake sale. I've visited the campus there many times; sitting in on lectures and talking to some of the PoliSci faculty. I almost went there for my degree simply because it is such a prominent school, but realized after the first semester that I wasn't learning anything - I was being indoctrinated. Views from the "right" are NOT tolerated; students expressing conservative viewpoints are openly ridiculed in the classroom by instructors and then pointedly ignored."

Sowell says: "The most dramatic rise of blacks out of poverty occurred before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. That's right -- before. But politicians, activists and the intelligentsia have spread so much propaganda that many Americans, black and white, are unaware of the facts" He also points out that he and many other blacks got their university degrees long BEFORE Affirmative action.

Mike Tremoglie reminds us of an excellent story: "Liberals like to call conservatives racist, sexist and homophobic. What is unusual is for the media to note that liberals often do not abide by their own rules. During Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's confirmation hearings, GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch asked her if a company located in a mostly minority area would be considered guilty of discrimination if it did not employ the same percentage of minorities as were in the general population. Ginsburg replied that it would be. Hatch then informed Ginsburg that her staff was mostly white, although she was an employer in the mostly black city of Washington, D.C. Ginsburg exemplifies liberal hypocrisy. The rules are meant for others, not them. It is perfectly fine for a white liberal judge to allege that a small-business owner is discriminating. But the judge can do the same thing without thinking twice."

Writing in a widely-read academic journal, Wickett, Vernon & Lee (2000) show that cranial capacity (how big your brain is) is a strong predictor of 'g' (general intelligence) and Rushton & Ankney (2000) also show that cranial capacity is lower among blacks. Cranial capacity is not the whole story, of course. As Burns, Nettelbeck & Cooper (2000) and many others show, the speed of the brain's electrical response to stimulation is a major physical factor behind IQ.

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