SOCIAL COMMENTARY

The Poverty of Racism

Racism is a sign of unintelligence

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Racism comes in a variety of forms. And, there are a variety of ways in which people seek to justify it. You can point to systemic racism and list the number of ways in which this historically manifests in society. We know Black people — and BIPOC in general — in the US are discriminated against in a variety of ways, from jobs to the ways in which they are treated more harshly in the criminal justice system.

One of the most bizarre ways people try to justify their racism is by trying to ground their racism in appeals to science or intrinsic intelligence. This isn’t exactly a new or profound way of justifying racism. We have constantly seen racists and the prevailing power structures attempt to justify the maltreatment of non-white people through pseudoscientific means. We don’t need to go too far back in history to see phrenology being used to justify racism or even attempts to justify the racial hierarchy through taxonomic language.

All of these are complete nonsense. However, they serve a powerful ideological purpose. They cloak the lies of racism and superiority in pseudo-science.

We see the exact same manifestations today when people try to use IQ or intelligence as a means to justify their racist policies. Stefan…