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David Ziffer's avatar

The question you do not discuss here is whether Africans and their American descendants (as a group) actually have the potential that we imagine for them. Until we deal with that question honestly, there will be no answers. But tread carefully, because few want to ask or answer it: "Solving Our Systemic Racism Problem": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/solving-our-systemic-racism-problem

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In This Dimension's avatar

Yeah. I left out discussion on IQ, a map of global IQ, whether intelligence is heritable, current research on ancient DNA. Wanted to have it read more widely and in a more positive note… I figure the inventions graphic was as far as I needed to go in this piece.

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David Ziffer's avatar

I understand your point here - but your point is the essence of our problem. We "conservatives" keep dancing around the IQ issue out of fear of ostracism and/or a desire for greater readership. So we end up with more readers and still nobody has any answers. In fact it's worse: people who ostracize the troublesome part of the Black population for failing to meet expectations that they cannot possibly meet exacerbate the situation by supporting the popular idea that such expectations can and should be met. If the public believes that the Black and White populations are the same except in superficial appearance, then obviously Black people who are consistently not meeting expectations must be the victims of systemic oppression that is woven into the very fabric of our society: someone, obviously a White someone, must be sticking a boot in their face every day. As I point out at the end of my article, Democrats capitalize on this because it supports their Systemic Racism myth, which is the source of their political power. SO .. by dancing around the real issue, we empower those who capitalize on public ignorance and stoke public disunity. We authors must make a decision here: either we maximize unoffended readership or we seek solutions. The longer we keep going the "readership" route, the longer the Democrats will keep everyone in the dark and on the road to a race war. I'm afraid my route is the only way out.

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In This Dimension's avatar

Point taken. Will apply in future.

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David Ziffer's avatar

And then, compounding the problem is this: "There’s nothing crazy about the Democrats’ agenda: Every Democrat policy is designed to build the party’s voting coalition": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/theres-nothing-crazy-about-the-democrats

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Mary Jo Nieson's avatar

$ money talks

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Willyjp's avatar

Don't disagree with your main thesis, but your cultural origins chart is not entirely correct. The Chinese, I believe, get credit for rockets and paper (with some sharing by the ancient Egyptians on the latter.) And, I have to say, EVERY "invention" stands at the end of a long chain of human observations and idea, many if which occurred across multiple cultures.

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