Abraham Arriaga

Intelligence

The division of human beings can be taken back to European’s attempt to justify slavery using science to explain racial differences. Scientists aimed to classify human beings and attribute them traits in a process known as taxonomy. European scholars such like Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray attached intelligence capacity in races that were soon to be widely accepted in whitened America. Pilar Ossorio’s RACE: The Power Of An Illusion, uses mtDNA testing to distinguish any clear biological similarities within races and ultimately discovered that there is nothing embedded within our genes that distinguishes race. Although slavery has ended and biological differences in races have been discredited, there continues to be a clear belief in the distinction of races in our society, such like in the testing of intelligence.

Race as a scientific concept originally was created to form a hierarchy based on phenotypic differences and was credible based on biology. Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve use biology in order to prove white superiority by claiming “intelligence is quantifiable … [by measuring] IQ through intelligence testing”(Golash-Boza, 43). Herrnstein and Murray come to this conclusion that, “the average white person tests higher than about 84 percent of the population of blacks” (Herrnstein and Murray, 269). Using the theory of the bell curve, they divide races into categories.“We may call them "ethnic groups" instead of races … nonetheless [ethnic groups] differ ... intellectually on the average” (297). They make a claim based on data that completely disregards the disadvantages the black community have had for generations.

Biology could be considered as the seed of racial division and the beginning of racial formation. Race as a sociological concept could be better understood through the influence of racial projects at institutions and at an individual level. It is clear that professors in college campuses have attributed prejudice beliefs when in a study of African American students by Daniel Solorzano “...faculty maintained low expectations” and “...seemed to instill a sense of self-doubt” in African American students (Daniel Solorzano 66). Although The Bell Curve’s ideas of biological intelligence has been discredited, it is clear that the belief continues to remain engraved in our educational systems. These racial projects clearly affect the public when assumptions are made of scholarships being in sports:  “...a lot of people don't accept the fact that … I got a scholarship for academics ... not in sports” (67).

Pilar Ossorio’s film showed students testing mtDNA testing and we were able to disprove theories of DNA similarities within race. Through his findings he was able to find that, “There’s as much or more diversity and genetic difference within any racial group as there is between people of different racial groups”. Ossorio’s film ultimately shuns the belief that traits like intelligence are attributable to races through biology.

I identify as a Mexican American and see myself as a born and raised American with a Mexican background. In the United States it is confusing to say what my race is because what I claim to be my race is known as an ethnicity in the Census Bureau. I do not identify with the categories that are given and have a hard time narrowing it down because I am not white nor am I black. Race is simply something we observe phenotypically that has been attributed throughout history in order to distribute resources and to have losers and winners.

References

Daniel Solorzano; Miguel Ceja; Tara Yosso https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/the-bell-curve.pdf

Golash-Boza, Tanya Maria. (2015). Race & racisms : a critical approach. New York :Oxford University Press,  

Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray

http://www.unco.edu/cebs/diversity/pdfs/crtmicroaggressions.pdf