Talk:Racial realism

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A google search will verify the absolute opposition between the Derrick Bell and the Chris Brand versions of racial realism. I restored the opposition. In effect, there seem to be two independent traditions of what the term means that are however linked by a common sense that racial distinctions aren't going to fade away.

Jim Kalb

Hi Jim Kalb. I think we may be able to improve the intro sentence:
"The view that racial distinctions are socially constructed but enduringly important because society insists that they be so. "
I think this sentence currently can be interpreted as 'racial distinctions are important because society says they are,' which, from a philosophy of logic point of view, doesn't seem like a support for the previous statement. I think we mean 'because society continually reinforces them' or 'doesn't want them to change.'
Also, 'racial realism' originated as a response to stances that don't believe in racial distinctions, so I think instead of ' society insists they endure,' we mean ' significant portions of society insist they endure.'--Nectarflowed 10:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at what I did with the sentence.

Jim Kalb

I very much wonder why professot Bell has not invented a word of his own for his politically motivated doctrine. The term Racial Realism was first used for the theories like the one of Arthur Jensen. I understand it is question of an orwellian re-use of terms for the opposite what the term originally meant. But must Wikipedia support this kind of orwellian use of words. JAA (a user of finnish wikipedia) 1 April 2006

Chris Brand (Edinburgh) here:
I coined the term 'race realism' in 1996.
The term 'scientific racism' had long been used by the hysterico-intellectual left* to smear the position of psychologists (from Galton and Spearman to Jensen, Eysenck, Rushton and Lynn) who reckoned there were substantial and important genetic differences in psychological characteristics between races. In 1996, after the publication of my book about intelligence, 'The g Factor,' I had agreed to U.K. journalists that I (like any other known supporter of the London School) could be called a 'scientific racist.' By saying this, I meant to do only what the 18th-century Country Party had done when accepting the derogatorily intended nickname 'Tory' (offshore Irish Catholic bog-dweller -- from Tory Island); or what the 18th-century Court Party had done when accepting the similarly ill-intended nickname 'Whig' (Scottish cattle rustler in the Borders, presumably Protestant); or what one British regiment had done in the First World War when proudly accepting the Kaiser's nickname for it, the 'Old Contemptibles'; or what American Negroes had done in the 1960s when agreeing to accept the then-rude term ‘Blacks.’
Alas for my wee joke, the term 'racist' had (unknown to me – I had no TV in those academic days) been so thoroughly demonized in the late-twentieth-century years of multicultural propaganda and growing peecee tyranny that my effort to stand jocularly proud for 'scientific racism' did not amuse. Even the brave Phil Rushton preferred at that time to be called just a 'race scientist.'
So on went the thinking cap and (helped by a pal – thanks, Stuart!) I came up with 'race realism,' which has proved more acceptable -- even though I believe it may have enjoyed some degree of usage among Italian Fascists of the 1930s.
I have never come across 'racial realism.'

[edit] Merge

"Racial realism" appears to be identical to "racialism". The former (and sometimes the latter) is merely the term preferred by those with political agendas. Flash94 (talk) 22:09, 23 February 2008 (UTC

I take "racial realism" (better is "race realism") to mean the belief that there are natural differences among the races. Racialism is a political project that seeks to advance racial interests--black or white separatists, for example, could be called "racialists." So you can be a race realist without being a racialist. No matter what terms you eventually decide on, there is a clear distinction here that ought to be reflected in Wikipedia entries. Any scheme of organization that lumps together rigorous, scientific work on racial differences and the demented ravings of the White Aryan Resistance party is a slur on the former.
Jobling3 (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)jobling3
I was just looking again at the racialism entry, which is useless and defamatory. In the body, there are references to work on research on racial differences in intelligence, height, and susceptibility to disease. In the sidebar on Discrimination, you have links to the entries on ethnic cleansing, genocide, police brutality, blood libel, and what not. The effect is to associate the scientific study of racial differences with mass murder and other horrors. There is no necessary connection between the two sets of phenomena. Islam and Protestantism have formed the basis for discriminatory regimes, but if you attached that sidebar to those entries, you would have Muslims and Protestants up in arms, and rightly so. Moreover, what discussion of racial differences there is in the entry on racialism is superficial, unsystematic, and tendentious. A discussion of the study of racial differences that makes no mention of Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton is a travesty.
So, not only should this entry not be combined with the one on racialism, but the latter should be deleted. I'll post the comment over there too.
Jobling3 (talk) 15:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)jobling3

What Jim Kalb says above is perfectly true: Derrick Bell doesn't belong in this entry. There is an extensive and distinguished body of work documenting the reality of racial differences, not just in IQ, but in personality traits and genetics as well, that deserves its own entry. Jobling3 (talk) 15:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)jobling3