Newshoggers Comments
I'm not sure that quoting David Blunkett in support of your belief that Browne is racist actually counts for much.
Actually, Blunkett says Browne is practically a fascist. I say he is a racist and a bigot. The proof for that is the content of his own writings, I need no help from Blunkett. However, when a British Home Secretary says something in the Commons it very much becomes a matter of public record and therefore worth the mention in passing.
Regards, C
I noted this nugget in your article:
"it is true. Africans do tend to have low IQs.
The average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans in Africa has been studied many times over many decades. It keeps coming out almost two standard deviations below that of Europeans and nearly two and half standard deviations below that of Northeast Asians."
Is this true? If so, it would explain Nigeria vs Japan, Sierra Leone vs Korea, Cameroon vs Taiwan, sub-Saharan Africa vs China.
If not true, would you provide links to supporting references.
Well, Allan, that's what happens when you skim an article and don't really read it.
That passage is a quote from the Center For American Unity, a group I certainly don't agree with but Browne appears to. If you follow the link to the V-Dare site you can see if they provide references for their racism but don't ask me to provide such for them!
Mind you, coming from Fife, I am open to being convinced that Aberdonians have a lower IQ than other Scots 
(JOKE!!! fer Chrissakes!)
Regards, C
Actually, on re-reading your comment Allan - are you really asking me for references to counter the assertion that sub-saharan Africans have lower IQ's? Are you for real? Did you move to Aberdeen when they kicked you out of South Africa or are you really just an example of the kind of Scot the rest of us wish didn't exist?
-C
I simply put the question about a paragraph which appeared in your article. If you don't know the answer or do not wish to answer, just say so. You clearly disagree with the statement which appeared in your piece but you didn't say why.
NB. I'm not agreeing with that statement but then I didn't cite it.
The Myth of Race: America's Original Science Fiction
http://www.bioethics.umn.edu/
afr...mythofrace.html
INTELLIGENCE AND RACE: THE HOUSE OF CARDS
http://www.cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.u...yc/newpsy?
10.64
IQ and the Wealth of Nations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Lis...countries_by_IQ
Weird Science
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/0...5030/
450021.stm
I cannot believe I actually had to Google that stuff for someone.
Regards, C
Cernig, you're jumping the gun a bit on that IQ one. There is some evidence of lower IQ averages in Africa and, equally, higher ones in East Asia; although the evidence is far from perfect, it's pretty much all there is from what I hear.
The proper points that one should make about what the VDARE article says is: (1) the potential for cultural bias of an IQ test is at its widest when the subject is a third world African; and (2) it's questionable whether IQ is anything more than test of a very narrow definition of intelligence.
As for Anthony Browne, you might not like the guy, but I think you've got a lot further to go before you can prove him a bigot.
Oh, and before you even dare suggest I'm a racist, note that I said "in Africa" - the point is about national averages, not ethnic groups. That weak evidence is presented in, among others, the Wiki page you link to (which you put up as I commented).
Hi Blimpish,
Browne's friendly letter to people like the V-Dare volks does all the proving on it's own, IMHO.
If I were writing friendly letters to Islamic extremist imams saying how terrible it was that I was being attacked for being an Islamic extremist it would be difficult for me to say I wasn't a part of their camp, now wouldn't it?
Regards, C
Cernog writes: "I cannot believe I actually had to Google that stuff for someone."
Why not? The issue of (possible) racial differences across races was raised by you when you cited an article which stated that there were differences. You then dismissed the statement but didn't say why. I'm sure that when you 'googled' you found links which supported the statement but didn't display them. As is the case on the internet, there are all sorts of links for and against everything and this is one such contentious issue. However, the contentious statement mentioned apparent disparities in IQ between Asiatics (Japan, Korea, China) and Africans (Nigeria, Niger, Zimbabwe) and their respective performances in science and economics immediately comes to mind.
I consider that there are differences in IQ between African and oriental populations, caused mainly by diet (directly linked to poverty) and education (again, directly linked to poverty). Poor diet does not enhance the IQ of a population, and Japan/Korea/Taiwan and increasingly China are all educational hothouses which may increase IQs in the same manner as exercise increases cardiovascular capacity.
A leftist kneejerk (Are you for real? Did you move to Aberdeen when they kicked you out of South Africa or are you really just an example of the kind of Scot the rest of us wish didn't exist?) doesn't do much for dealing with Africa's real problems.
I'm no fan of The Times (that's The Times, not the non-existent London Times - it's a UK newspaper, for god's sake, not a local one), but given the existence of the Daily Mail, I think it's a bit much to claim that The Times was "by far the biggest cheerleader for the Nazis".
That's not to say that it wasn't an actively pro-Nazi paper, but it wasn't the only one, and it wasn't significantly more voiciferously pro-Nazi than the Daily Mail.
Other than those glaring errors, this was a very interesting piece.
Interesting indeed. And without prejudice to any of the rest of the piece, either agreeing or disagreeing with it, one sentence of yours caught my attention as particularly interesting:
"All they have done is shift the focus of their hate from skin to religion."
Hating someone because of their skin colour is bad; the colour of your skin isn't something you choose, nor is it something that gives any rational grounds for discrimination. But hating someone because of their religion is different; my religion is my choice, and which religion I choose, if any, gives rise to many more of my characteristics and actions.
Now I'm definitely not saying that religious discrimination is right (or that it's wrong). My point is simply that it's quite a different kettle of fish from racial discrimination. Just because one is wrong doesn't imply that the other is also wrong, or that they are uncontroversially comparable.
I'm from Elgin near Aberdeen and I'm not thick......
1920s/1930s Daily Mail and Lord Rothermere and much of the British Establishment (ie toffs) far worse than Times. Browne entitled to his opinion or do you only want left wing opinions printed? At least the Mail lets Galloway sprout his rubbish every Sunday.
Until Islam has a Reformation and comes into the modern world with regards to treatment of all races, gays, women etc then we all need to be wary.
The message of "don't blame Muslims" is good but they can do a darned sight more to sort the problem than non Muslims ever can.
"And this guy has the nerve to attack the guardian for employing an intern who was a member of an Islamic extremist group?"
Think you just shot your own case down in flames there.....the Guardian was attacked and has got rid of Aslam and their news editor because they let articles go out by a biased writer with an agenda and did not tell their readers so they could make a choice about how much credence to give the article.
If, as you say Browne is a racist (is that not libellous by the way?) then IF I agreed that this was so then I could take his articles with the requisite bucket of salt. The Guardian did not give their readers that chance - THAT is why they were criticised.
"But saying Islamic extremists are like the Nazis is a great smokescreen when you are already a bigot making senseless generalisations and want to hide your bigotry under a smokescreen of faux concern."
And finally: delete 'Islamic extremists' in the sentence above and insert 'George Bush' and you get the Democratic Party and moveon.org....
And the last word goes to Scott Burgess:
"Simon Goodley begins today's Diary with a smear-by-association of Times Europe correspondent Anthony Browne. Mr. Browne seems to have angered the former with his excellent recent piece in the Times, which took the Guardian to task for "giv[ing] space to MAB to promote sanitised versions of its Islamist views."
../The diarist strongly implies racism by association, castigating Mr. Browne for contributing to the American anti-immigration website V-Dare, which (well after Mr. Browne's meager two contributions were posted) ran a piece by a seemingly well-credentialed psychologist claiming that Africans have lower IQs than non-Africans.
Mr. Goodley gleefully quotes the "Newshog weblog" - which specifically, and in my view libellously, refers to Mr. Browne as "a known racist" - as his source, and points to another smoking gun of racism, one which irrefutably marks the publication and all who contribute to it as bigots of the very worst sort:
"Browne enters into friendly correspondence with V-Dare, an online journal of the Centre For American Unity," it reveals, "where you will find such gems as 'black men have on average three to 19 percent more testosterone than white men'."
It is unfortunate that Mr. Goodley, in his eagerness to get on with the character assassination, didn't take the trouble to check the V-Dare site, where he would have discovered that the statement is actually a quote - one which originates from another odious racist in the Times' stable; namely, one Andrew Sullivan:
"Several solid studies, published in publications like Journal of the National Cancer Institute, show that black men have on average 3 to 19 percent more testosterone than white men. This is something to consider when we're told that black men dominate certain sports because of white racism or economic class rather than black skill."
The offending passage comes from a well-known KKK propaganda rag called The New York Times. I trust Mr. Goodley will be exposing Mr. Sullivan and other NYT contributors as being the vile racists they so obviously are."
Oops. You might need to apologise before Browne sues you. A case in point to show that regardless of your views you always need to consider just WHAT you are saying before you actually say it. I enjoy much of what is on this blog as an alternative viewpoint to many I read but you do your case no favours here.
Hi dave t,
Mr Browne would, I am afraid, be looking for slim pickings as I have no money.
I simply write my thoughts in an online journal and people come read them if they wish to.
Regards, C
C:
Quite true and I enjoy reading your thoughts but if I wrote a book saying the same thing and then said people are welcome to read it or not, then the libel lawyers would be thinking about selling my dear old Mum/house/shed anything available...
Carry on! But watch yer bum! It is not like the USA you know where I can say Michael Moore is a big fat etc etc....then again THAT particular statement is true.. 8-)
Something which I plucked from the comments section in The Daily Ablution:
"From the (British) National Cancer Institute, at their website http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cance...net/
305029.html
2. Androgen levels generally parallel prostate cancer risk in various populations of men. Although there are conflicting data, a number of studies have demonstrated that levels of testosterone and, especially dihydrotestosterone, are highest in black males, of intermediate levels in white males, and lowest in native Japanese.[10-12] The risks for prostate cancer in these ethnic groups directly parallel these androgen levels."
Does C consider that all races are identical in all respects and is the very fact of questioning this belief, and posting evidence which undermines this belief, clear racism which would deem the bearer of such evidence to be a racist?
This is really tangential to this discussion. But I recently read (maybe it was on the Daily Grail?) that IQ scores are rapidly rising, generation by generation, in America.
Why? Some posit that evolution can happen just that fast, that for 3 or 4 generations IQ has been more desirable than it used to be and so smarter people are being bred.
That might be true but I think it has more to do with interactive gaming and other new technologies.
Cheers!
I wouldn't take much notice of Blunkett's views on Browne. Didn't he abolish uniforms in Sheffield schools on the grounds that they produced societies like Pinochet's Chile and apartheid South Africa ?
(Twenty years later he voted for the reintroduction of uniform at his child's state school).
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