racist rhetoric

[Larry Gorbet]

Gabriella Modan <modang at gusun.georgetown.edu> wrote

>On Fri, 8 Sep 2000, Larry Gorbet wrote:
>
>>  Ronald Kephart <rkephart at unf.edu> wrote:
>>
>>  >And in any case, Celso has beaten me to to the
>>  >punch with the above, which for me defines the root of the problem I
>>  >have with much of evolutionary psychology, and indeed much of
>>  >psychology in general.
>>  >
>>  >The hypotheses that these folks construct about "race" and
>>  >"intelligence," or "race" and whatever, seem to always accept folk
>>  >categories ("race," "intelligence") as analytic categories. For
>>  >example, they take "black" and "white" to be real biological
>>  >entities, they look at some "IQ" test scores, and conclude that they
>>  >have found genetically determined differences between genetically
>>  >determined groups on a genetically determined trait.
>>
>>  This characterization of evolutionary psychology is outrageously
>>  inaccurate.  What Kephart has done is take the views of a *minority*
>>  of evolutionary psychologists and attributed them to all.  In other
>>  words, he has very inaccurately stereotyped, presumably based on
>>  those who get the most media publicity?  Of the half dozen or so
>>  folks at my institution I might call evolutionary psychologists (in
>>  departments of anthropology, biology, and psychology), exactly zero
>>  accept, for example, the biological category of "race" for modern
>>  humans.
>>
>>  If anybody out there believes what Kephart has written, what evidence
>>  supports your view?
>>
>  > - Larry
>
>Maybe Ron's characterization of evolutionary psychology is inaccurate (not
>knowing any evolutionary psychologists, I can't speak to this issue), but
>it is *exactly* the characterization which is promoted in Brown's article
>on Salon.com.

Very hard to believe.  I have the article in front of me.  It
consists of 28 paragraphs.  Of these, 18 have absolutely nothing to
do with the content of evolutionary psychology (they are about the
dynamics of the list, which is what the article is about).  Of the
remainder, at least 5 do not mention anything that has to do with
human differences (individual or group, genetic or cultural) ---
they're about things common to humans.  Of those that even *mention*
the subject of racial differences, every single one is at least
implicitly negative about the positions mentioned.

Because there's been a paucity of what I would consider real
evidence, I am going to permit myself the liberty of quoting in
entirety three of the latter paragraphs.  It is inconceivable to me
that a half competent reader of English could interpret either as
promoting the genetic reality of significant human racial groupings
*or* the notion that evolutionary psychologists support that belief.

"And all this came out of a spam.  When Pitchford set up the list in
1998, he sent an announcement to at least 20,000 people:  all the
academic addresses he could find at which people might be interested.
The first thing he had to do was fight off a blizzard of racist spam
himself:  'There was a man who called himself Gobineau, who sent me
70 messages over two days, all arguing that blacks are inferior
because they have smaller frontal lobes than whites.'

"If there had been only one message, he says, he might have published
it.  He does let through messages such as Rushton's latest, which
reports on a paper he has had published in a British psychological
journal, which claims from a survey of American Army data that blacks
have on average a cubic inch less of brain volume than whites, who in
turn have smaller brains than Asians.  'Substantial evidence has
shown that brain volume bears a strong relation to cognitive
ability,' wrote Rushton.  But immediately, another member of the list
proposed the alternate explanation that the heads of Europeans and
Asians grew less elongated and more spherical as a way to conserve
heat in colder climates.  That they grew roomier at the same time was
a side effect.  Of course, the real point at issue is whether big
brains are, on average, better brains; and arguments about that seem
interminable.

"Pitchford's relationship to this kind of argument is interesting.
He bounces a certain number of messages from the believers in
significant racial differences.  When I asked the list why it was so
civilized, Whitney [Glayde Whitney, earlier identified as a "racist
scientist"] wrote to me: 'The list "actually works" by having a
moderator who screens out most of the "controversial" or "politically
incorrect" contributions, thus maintaining a non-flamed milk toast
liberal left happy set of campers.'"

>So Larry, why do you go out of your way to criticize Ron's
>characterization, while you neglect to raise this criticism of the article
>itself, or respond to Celso's original critique of the article, since
>you've been encouraging us to participate in this discussion based on what
>the article says.  As John, Rudi, Celso and Ron have already stated, the
>text we've been discussing promotes both stereotypes and inaccurate
>science (race as a biological/genetic category), without deconstructing
>either later on.  Furthermore, Ian's excerpting of the beginning of the
>article in his message on this list in order to prompt us to read the
>article is the same marketing strategy that Brown, the article author,
>uses.  Given that the questions ("Are Blacks genetically programmed...")
>are problematized neither in Ian's message nor in Brown's article itself,
>to my mind reading the article doesn't provide a particularly different
>viewpont from which to engage this discussion, so I don't think whether or
>not someone's read the article turns out to be relevant to the points
>we're discussing.

I criticized Ron's posting because it *claims* things about
evolutionary psychologists which are pretty clearly false.  Isn't
that enough?  If I said that sociolinguists didn't know as much about
biology as the "C" students in a freshman intro course, I ought to be
called on it.  Isn't that part of the normal academic process?
Forgetting overt claims, I submit that the Brown article doesn't
*imply* anything about any group that is false, so why should I
criticize it?  It doesn't imply, even weakly (given its content, its
situation, and its intended audience --- surely linguistic
anthropologists should be the first to consider those!) that Blacks
constitute a racial (in the biological sense) grouping *or* that
Blacks, as any kind of grouping, have any particular behavioral or
cognitive characteristic.  Obviously, others here disagree, but I
have seen precious little evidence even suggestive of their
conclusions, and those who haven't read the article can't even
credibly *claim* to know what it (even it's small-type lead-in)
implies.  You say the text (of the article) "promotes...stereotypes",
but in fact, there are really only three characterizations of human
groups in the entire article, one is only *mentioned* once, the other
is rather strongly implied to be generally rejected by the list
membership, and only the third (of "racists") is negative, so where's
the promotion?

As for the contention that the mention of the question (in the
article lead-in and in the quotation from it in the message from
Pitchford) is promoting an affirmative (or at least
presupposition-granting) position on it in order to advertise the
list, I have two simple and similar questions:  what plausible
motivation would Brown have for promoting the list to racists or
potential racists?  And what plausible thought process would lead
Pitchford to believe that a bunch of literate linguistic
anthropologists might be attracted to a racist hum-along?   What is
plausible to me, for Pitchford, is that that lead-in question would
make you wonder who was asking it and why.  Notice the structure of
the lead-in paragraph sent by Pitchford:  3 controversial questions
(only *one* about human differences).  3 statements about
evolutionary psychology.  2 statements about the dynamic of
discussing those questions (actually, obviously, *arguing* them)  and
the Internet.

I just don't get it.  I don't get why a bunch of linguistic
anthropologists would jump into  paper-thin descriptions of what is
really a pretty innocuous article in a small-circulation venue.  But
I get even less why they would vigorously defend such
superficially-based attacks on it.  Since I don't know most of you
who have written at all, I can only guess, but it sure seems like
your assessment of the "meaning" of the Brown article followed a
filter that said "topics that I care about are real important, topics
that bore me don't exist."  If that is unfair, I apologize.  I just
think that linguistic anthropologists should treat language in their
workplaces as though it had the properties that they claim language
as their object of study has.  And focusing on, effectively, written
words in isolation fails that test for me.  Given the wide divergence
of interpretation of what the article is about, what would be wrong
with letting somebody who isn't into *either* the politics of power
and manipulation *or* evolutionary biology read it and tell you what
they think it's about?  Frankly, I don't think it's about race or
even human biology; I think it's about the dynamics of a list.

- Larry