Race is a social construct

[supergee]

When the liberal says "race is a social construct," he is not being a soft-headed dolt; he is speaking an historical truth. We do not go around testing the "Irish race" for intelligence or the "Southern race" for "hot-headedness." These reasons are social. It is no more legitimate to ask "Is the black race dumber than then white race?" than it is to ask "Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?"

--Ta-Nehisi Coates. Read the whole thing..

Comments

[andrewducker]

Except that there are different genetic clusterings going on in different groups, some of which line up on what might be referred to as a racial basis. So, for instance, Ashkenzi Jews have higher intelligence (along with a bunch of other genetic clusterings): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

[kaffy_r]

Except that we come right smack-dash against the big rocky question of what on earth any of us mean by "intelligence". People with different genetic markers may have a tendency to have to deal with various genetic ailments; they may have a tendency to be tall or short. (And "tendency" is as far as I'd go, because the rarity or profusion of outliers is lying there ready to sucker punch me if I make the mistake of dealing in absolutes.)

But until someone comes up with something that quantifies a term that appears to be inherently unquantifiable, I'm going to leave "intelligence" way the hell out of the conversation.