This issue of the "Interracial Books for Children Bulletin" contains a special section focusing on the film called, "The Speaker". This film purports to deal with an assault on the First Amendment and with the necessity for eternal vigilance in defense of U.S. Constitutional freedom. The setting is an integrated high school…

Raises issues for consideration in responding to the genetically based differences in intelligence suggested by "The Bell Curve." The author articulates several theories of intelligence supporting the environmental (nurturing) paradigm and argues why labeling and categorizing according to IQ scores is professionally unethical and…

A brief historical resume outlining the relationship between economics, racism, and intellectual justification for racism begins this paper, which notes that the I.Q. argument is a racist ideology in exactly the same way that Christianity, Darwinism, and Equality have been systems of justifications for America's racism. It fits the definition of…

Key components of human behavioral genetics and Sandra Scarr's work of the past two decades are critically reviewed based on scholarship in animal neuropsychology and clinical and educational psychology. Scarr's opinion that interventions to enhance intellectual development are ineffectual for children from abuse- and neglect-free backgrounds is…

"The Bell Curve" by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles A. Murray has ignited a fierce academic debate. They assert that IQ as measured by tests has replaced family wealth and status in determining jobs, income, class, and place in American life; that whites average 15 IQ points higher than blacks; and that high-IQ ruling elites, with…

That there is a significant degree of observable average difference in the intelligence quotients of blacks and whites is an established fact. The explanations for this offered by Herrnstein and Murray ("The Bell Curve," 1994) ignore the equally well-established facts of discrimination and disadvantage over centuries. (SLD)

This book is designed to give readers enough information to question the depictions of blacks that have become standard in newspapers and television and radio news. Chapter-by-chapter, it provides facts about the African-American community that often run counter to prevailing ideas. Americans of different races still tend not to live together or…

"The Bell Curve" by Richard Herrnstein and Charles E. Murray has created a great deal of controversy because of its assertion that the key to explaining inequality and social problems in the United States is stratification by a unitary entity called intelligence, or cognitive ability, as measured by the intelligence quotient (IQ). Their…

Once again intelligence tests are being used as the major basis to establish the genetically determined limitations of minority and economically disadvantaged groups. By reviewing the arguments regarding the I.Q. test and the hereditability of intelligence, the author compares these with two sets of phenomena: the I.Q. test scores and the…

Responds to two opening articles by Parham ("Cycles of Psychological Nigrescence") and Helms ("Considering Some Methodological Issues in Racial Identity Counseling Research"). Argues that Black or African identity is not a developmental reaction to social oppression, but is a core personality trait, essential to healthy…

The egalitarian dogma, the belief that blacks and whites are genetically equal in cognitive ability, has been perpetuated through intimidation and pious thinking. Data on racial differences and the corruption of scholarship that causes them to be ignored are discussed. (SLD)

Examines Black social scientists' intellectual efforts, starting in the 1920s, to challenge research conclusions about the innate mental inferiority of Blacks, disclaim the validity of intelligence tests used, and demonstrate the influence of environment on test performance. Finds irony in Black intellectuals' use of the mental tests they…

Two studies investigated how social class and race are associated with mathematical thinking. The first study compared poor Black preschoolers with a group of both Black and White middle-class children; the second study compared Black and White children of lower- and middle-class status. Children were drawn from both preschool and kindergarten…

Intelligence tests were administered twice to 426 members of 93 transracial adoptive families, once when the adopted children's ages averaged 7 years and again when they averaged 17 years. Correlations suggest that influences on intellectual development in this sample of black and interracial adoptees reared in white families are similar to those…

Responds to Dunn's monograph on Hispanic-Anglo differences in IQ scores. Reviews studies of between-group variance in IQ scores for Blacks, Anglos, and Hispanics; concludes that sociocultural factors are major contributors to such variance. Presents an IQ assessment system that develops sociocultural norms via multiple regression. Contains 24…