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Monday, December 16, 2019

The racist logic of Steve Sailer

Many have called Steve Sailer a racist. For example:
  • Rightwing watch: "Steve Sailer, an unabashedly racist columnist for the white nationalist site VDARE"
And Malcolm Gladwell, while debating Steven Pinker, noted:
I wondered about the basis of Pinker’s conclusion, so I e-mailed him, asking if he could tell me where to find the scientific data that would set me straight. He very graciously wrote me back. He had three sources, he said. The first was Steve Sailer. Sailer, for the uninitiated, is a California blogger with a marketing background who is best known for his belief that black people are intellectually inferior to white people. 
But in 2014, HBD Chick would have you know the bar is very high to declare someone a racist, and she feels that Steve Sailer does not meet that (my highlight):
some people seem to be under the impression that being interested in human biodiversity is somehow racist. they couldn’t be more wrong. 
first of all, what is racism? merriam-webster* tells us that racism is:
“A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” 
so there are TWO criteria there that have to be fulfilled to meet the definition of racism: you have to think that 1) race is the primary determinant of human traits, and 2) racial differences inevitably mean that one race is superior to the others. 
with regard to the first one, i can’t think of any serious hbd blogger or commenter in the hbd-o-sphere that thinks that biological differences between the races are the primary determinant of “human traits and capacities.” far from it, in fact. i certainly don’t (see: the entirety of this blog). i’m sure, too, that steve sailer doesn’t think that. nor does john derbyshire. not greg cochran. not henry harpending. not razib either. i know that neither jayman nor super misdreavus think that. and on down the list, etc., etc. ..
Sailer wrote an article for the white supremacist VDARE (he's a very frequent contributor) explaining just how important he thinks intelligence is and how unevenly it is distributed among "races":
Q. Are there differences in average SAT scores among racial groups?
A. Yes. Ashkenazi (European) Jews appear to average the highest—maybe around 110-112—followed by Northeast Asians (105), and then by gentile white Europeans and North Americans (100). The world mean is around 90, Hispanic-Americans are at 89. African-Americans traditionally average around 85 and Africans in Sub-Saharan Africa around 70.
So Steve Sailer thinks that intelligence is very important and he thinks different "racial groups" have different innate levels of intelligence although, as is common to race science promoters, he gives a small nod to environment.

But to get a true understanding of what Steve Sailer considers the innate characteristics of black people, there is this, also in the VDARE article:
Q. But I see all these black people on TV being highly entertaining. They look pretty lively upstairs. Could IQ tests be missing something? 
A. Yes. IQ test questions, by their nature, must have fixed, objective answers. If African Americans are better at subjective, improvisatory responses than they are at objective problem-solving, then IQ will fail to predict fully their patterns of success in the real world. And, indeed, we see much evidence for that every time we turn on the TV (e.g., Oprah).  
Unfortunately, there aren't nearly as many jobs being entertainment or sports superstars as black youths seem to assume, so, overall, IQ remains a quite accurate predictor outside of the tiny sliver of celebrities.
We can infer from this that Steve Sailer believes that black people are not innately good at "objective problem-solving" and this is a serious problem because their innate "subjective improvisatory responses" are not as valuable on the job market. Which of course implies something about black employment and black financial well-being.

If you look at Steve Sailer's Unz Review column it's clear that Sailer is obsessed with race (which is likely the reason his career is supported by wingnut welfare from people like Ron Unz) and that he employs racist logic when it comes to people of color. This is obvious in his December 13 post:
How long until Ava DuVernay, director of “When They See Us” about the Central Park Five, is hired by Netflix to concoct a five part miniseries on how the Morningside Park Three’s beautiful black baby bodies were framed by whites?
This is the very quintessence of a racist mind. Sailer believes that because some black teenagers in 2019 are suspects in the murder of a white woman, it therefore proves that black teenagers - who were exonerated - were guilty of an attack on a white woman in 1989.

Even a thirty-year separation in time cannot convince Steve Sailer to look at them as two separate groups of individuals.

That is how the mind of a racist works: those people are all the same.

Only a total crackpot like "HBD Chick" would claim that Steve Sailer is not a racist.

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