Responses to Common Arguments Against Race Realism

YOU'RE A RACIST.

This is by far the most common and immediate response I get when I voice my views on racial differences. It is, of course, not really a rebuttal so much as it is a personal attack, so permit me to give a rather personal response:

There are plenty of definitions of what a racist is. To be more than fair, I'll allow no fewer than three definitions for the purposes of addressing the accusations of my racism. Let us agree that a racist is one who holds unsubstantiated beliefs on differences between races, considers people of one race to be intrinsically superior to people of another race, and/or harbors hatred or contempt for a group of people on the basis of their race.

I do not hold any beliefs about racial differences that are not supported by scientific evidence.

I do not consider any race to be "superior" to any other. Having different cognitive abilities does not make one any more or less of a good person. The world is full of dimwitted saints and brilliant sadists. And if science ever does prove that some races are prone to be less moral than others the same way some people may be born with inclinations towards sociopathy, it would not be due to any fault of their own.

In my lifetime, I have lived around people of every conceivable race and ethnicity. I have considered them my colleagues, classmates, coworkers, cohorts, and, yes, friends. The only times I couldn't help but feel contempt towards others with their race being a factor was due to a culture clash, or their demonstrating their incompetence at a job which they had probably obtained due to affirmative action laws. In other words, I knew in the back of my mind that the blame didn't actually fall on them so much as on the powers that be that demanded a diverse and multicultural society.

So in spite of all the beliefs I have elaborated upon here, I personally do not consider myself to be a racist. Of course, I doubt this will have any effect on the multitudes of people who see fit to dismiss the arguments of race realists with that sole accusation.

If we are to spread our message, we cannot be cowed into silence by such name-calling. Instead of wasting our efforts on trying to prove we are not racist to those who probably will not be convinced otherwise, perhaps our best strategy is to offer a different response:

"Maybe so, but can you refute my claims?"


WHITES ARE IMPERIALISTS WHO DESERVE TO DIE OUT.

Genghis Khan, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, General Butt Naked. Unit 731, The Barbary slave trade, the Rape of Nanking. The Caucasian race hardly holds a monopoly on imperialism, oppression, and crimes against humanity. So why are they so often presented as such? One possibility is that whites are currently the most ostensibly successful of all the races, so from the race denialist's point of view, their success must be due to their theft of services and resources from others (as it simply cannot be due to whites inherently being more able to thrive).


WHITES CONTINUE TO OPPRESS AND EXPLOIT PEOPLE TO THIS DAY.

Again, this is true to some extent of many races, but whites are the only race taking flak for it. Perhaps the reason is ironically because they were and are the most altruistic.

Much of the criticism of whites is from nonwhites living in historically nonwhite countries, having managed to obtain their citizenship through their welcoming immigration laws. By contrast, there are nonwhite countries such as Japan. The Japanese are notorious for their hostility to foreigners in their country, so much so that few immigrants gain Japanese citizenship, and thus there are few complaints from Japanese citizens not of Japanese ancestry regarding how they are treated.

And as for the descendants of slaves living in the United States? The slaves in question were treated quite decently, or at least when compared to slaves in other areas of the world. Arabs would often have their male slaves castrated -- which is presumably one of the reasons there are no descendants of Arab slaves demanding reparations.

So before nonwhites complain about how they are treated, maybe they should stop and consider who saw fit to allow them into white countries in the first place.


DIFFERENCES IN SKIN COLOR ARE SIMPLY THE RESULT OF CLIMATE AND HAVE NO IMPACT ON ONE'S MENTAL FACULTIES.

As ludicrous as it may seem, I have actually heard this used as a serious argument. Race realists have never claimed anything of the sort. We only posit that there are different groups of people with different genetic traits: some mental differences, and some visible genetic markers such as skin color. Since these groups of people evolved separately from one another, these traits tend to correlate.

This argument is akin to claiming that apples and oranges can't have different flavors because flavor is not related to the color of a fruit's skin or flesh.


PEOPLE OF SOME RACES ONLY APPEAR TO BE LESS SUCCESSFUL OR EDUCATED DUE TO THEIR CULTURE AND SOCIOECONOMIC BACKGROUND.

Here we have a chicken-and-egg conundrum. It's true that in terms of race, the average tested IQ of is correlated with the standard of living. East Asians live in technologically advanced metropolises, while sub-Saharan Africans live in squalid and septic conditions, often suffering from scarcity of food and other resources. So could it be possible that their respective IQs are the way they are because of their backgrounds, instead of their backgrounds being what they are because of the respective IQs of their ancestors?

There is extremely little evidence of such causation, and plenty of evidence (e.g., the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study) that suggests the other way around is true.


IQ TESTS ARE INHERENTLY BIASED.

It seems as though every single reputable IQ test devised thus far places people of different races in bell curves apart from each other, and in roughly the same distance. Many such tests simply rely on pattern recognition, with no language used whatsoever. What is more likely: That every IQ test ever made just happens to be biased in almost exactly the same way, or that they are more or less accurate and the apparent conclusion of differences in intelligence among races is legitimate?


THE CONCEPT OF INTELLIGENCE IS TOO COMPLEX TO BE MEASURED IN A LINEAR FASHION -- PEOPLE ARE SMART AND GIFTED IN THEIR OWN WAYS.

Hold it. Think about what you're saying here. Isn't this really an argument AGAINST affirmative action and racial quotas, and perhaps even multiculturalism as a whole?

Let us suppose that people of different races are all equally intelligent and talented, albeit in unique ways. Given the way evolution works, we can conclude that their unique gifts are due to the environment in which they and their ancestors have been raised, and render them suited to that specific region. Therefore, it is in the best interests of people to remain in the place where their race has historically spent the most time, and not to attempt to migrate to different environs. In order to thrive, races should remain separate and segregated.

And affirmative action certainly doesn't make any sense. Many skilled traits require competence and expertise in a specific field. If someone does not appear to be as qualified a candidate for such a position than someone else of a different race, perhaps that means they are intelligent "in their own way," and should certainly not be hired for a job that calls for a different variation of intelligence.

A widely referenced quote, (probably falsely) attributed to Einstein, states that "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Maybe that's true. But are there laws demanding that fish be hired for jobs that entail climbing trees? Are governments ordering fishbowls to be placed in treetops to ensure diversity?


THERE ARE NO CLEAR DEFINITION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES A RACE.

What exactly does this mean? That there cannot be any correlation between race and ability if the classification of races is debatable? Just because modern science is unable to provide the proper means of measuring and quantifying a variable, it does not mean the variable does not exist.

If this is your argument, here is something to consider. Suppose humans evolved separately from one another for thousands of generations. The human species was divided into several groups, one on their own continent, each with their own visible genetic markers rendering them identifiable as their respective race, with no interbreeding between the groups. If this were the case, would you agree that there may be correlations between race and mental ability?

If your answer is no, you must admit this argument carries little weight.

If your answer is yes, then suppose further that some members of these races travel from their respective continents and interbreed with other races, and some races splitting apart and breeding separately, evolving different traits from one another. You must acknowledge that, even if the race of each person is not as readily classifiable as it once was, genetic difference in abilities would still exist.


THERE IS MORE GENETIC DIFFERENCE WITHIN RACES THAN BETWEEN THEM.

This is an argument favored among the more intellectual of the race deniers, as its underpinning seems to be scientific. Yet there are multiple problems with it, the most glaring of them being that it contains an implicit admission that some differences within races do exist. This negates any previous claims of race being a social construct. But furthermore, this argument uses preconceived definitions of race that contradict itself, hinging on a subjective system of classification.

Modern science places fungi like mushrooms and mildew into its own kingdom, alongside plants and animals. However, given the more immediately noticeable characteristics of fungus such as its immobility, it was often considered a type of plant.

Now, suppose you put forth the claim that plants and animals are different, even aside from their external appearances. Suppose further that I dismiss your claims, as I, considering fungi to be a type of plant, reply that there is more difference within the plant kingdom than between it and the animal kingdom, as the group of "plants" known as fungi are incapable of photosynthesis. You would counter that I was using an arbitrary taxonomy, and measuring biological difference using this flawed metric.

Let us assume this argument is at its surface correct. Then, let us suppose we will take these groups of people that are genetically different but are still within a single race, and then reclassify them into different races. Would that mean that there would be differences between races then?


HUMANS DID NOT SPEND ENOUGH TIME EVOLVING APART FROM EACH OTHER TO EVOLVE DIFFERENT BRAINS.

The human brain is considered the most complex organic structure known to science, which would logically mean it is the most susceptible to minute changes. Humans have lived in separate groups long enough to evolve different skin tones, skeletal structures, centers of gravity, and cranial capacity. Why not brains as well?


NEARLY ALL SCIENTISTS CLAIM THAT RACE IS INCONSEQUENTIAL.

Which is to be expected, given what happens to scientists who claim otherwise. After Nobel laureate James Watson suggested that Africans may be less intelligent than other races, he was ostracized by the scientific community and stripped of many honorary titles.

One must wonder whether today’s scientists have ulterior motives for denying any link between race and mental characteristics.


THE CONCEPT OF RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN MENTAL TRAITS IS ROOTED IN THE SAME SCHOOL OF THOUGHT THAT BROUGHT US PHRENOLOGY AND OTHER LONG-DEBUNKED THEORIES.

The ancient Greeks believed that all matter in the universe could be classified as one of a number of substances with a unique set of immutable properties known as "elements"... that number being five.

The dismissal of a claim simply due to its past association with other, disproven claims is referred to as the genetic fallacy.


EVEN IF THERE'S ONLY THE SLIGHTEST CHANCE THAT ALL RACES ARE OF EQUAL ABILITIES, DOESN'T THAT MEAN THE FAIR THING TO DO IS TO GIVE THEM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT?

Absolutely. But that's not what is going on right now.

Right now, less-qualified candidates are being hired for jobs, as it is assumed that some races are underrepresented in certain career fields due to systemic racism and nothing else, resulting in a less competent workforce. Right now, funding for education is being diverted from advanced placement courses for gifted children to extra education for minority students, as it is assumed that said minorities are not performing as well as other students due to systemic racism and not because of racial differences in ability, resulting in the most intelligent students not receiving resources useful to help them become the next generation's great innovators. Right now, open borders policies causing some races to dwindle in population compared to others, as it is assumed that all races are identical in terms of mental abilities so it does not matter, resulting in the possible diminishing of races that are vital for the welfare of humanity.

This is not what a meritocratic society looks like. If there is a chance that all races truly are equal in ability, the solution is not to enforce policies that artificially inflate the success of underperforming races, but to create a level playing field where every race is given the chance to succeed, letting the chips fall where they may. Only then can we race realists be proven wrong.