maurice hemingway

In at article published by the Psychology
Today blog(May 11'), Dr Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics, wrote that black women are less attractive and intelligent than women from other racial groups.In so doing, he exposes himself as ignorant, insensitive, and bigoted.
Fortunately, the blog was removed before it could attract more attention than
it did. Enough attention was received along with vigorous protest which caused
the blog to be removed. The damage, however, had already been done.

Kanazawa first shows his ignorance by grouping all women
with dark skin as black or African. Notice his comments: “Black women are on average much heavier than nonblack women. However, this is not the reason black women are less physically attractive than nonblack women …Because they have existed much
longer in human evolutionary history, Africans have more mutations in their
genomes than other races.” One wonders where the good doctor has been the
last sixty or more years to not have gotten the word about races. He makes
reference to genomes and follows that up with a reference to race. The human
genome project resulted in finding that only once race of humans exist, and
that humans the world over are 99.95% alike.

Everything Kanazawa says about race and black women is bogus because he never defines his subjects. Scientists since the middle 1940 have agreed that the word race is no
longer useful in identifying various groups of people. The word ethnicity or
ethnic group is deemed more accurate in identifying the variety of people in
the human family. All people have ethnic and cultural identities, so to
identify someone’s identity as being a color, such as black or nonblack, is to
deny them their unique identity. To not be apprised of that information is called
ignorance. For someone to be proficient in his or her field such as social
science, that information is a necessary. For someone to base his entire thesis
on the use of terms like black, nonblack, and race shows a gross lack of
knowledge of the subject. Therefore, everything said based on that lack of
information should be disregarded and trashed. All knowledgeable scientists
know the saying “garbage in, garbage out.”

The charge of Dr. Kanazawa being insensitive is based on the fact that he
deliberately tries to paint all women with the same brush without regards to
their feelings. Ignorant people throughout the world place labels of beauty and
intelligence on women based on a variety of tangible elements like size,
complexion, hair, eyes, lips, and ethnicity. For Kanazawa to make the statement
“that black women are less attractive and intelligent than women from
other racial groups” is to make a value judgment that black women are less
attractive and intelligent than women from other racial groups that disrespects the uniqueness of each individual woman. In addition, the fact that beauty is a relative and subjective term is totally disregarded by the good doctor. Fortunately, since
everything he says is unreliable and bogus no specific emotions are damages except maybe his for showing himself to be ignorant and ill prepared to deal with a subject he know little to nothing about.

Intelligence can be measured to a certain degree given specific parameters; that is, if two people have similar experiences then they can be tested relative those
experiences. However, to bring someone into the mix that lacked the same
experiences of the first two, his or her test result will not be comparable to
the first two. In other words, intelligence as well as attractiveness must be
defined before it can be appropriated. If they are not defined, then
appropriating them has no value. Beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder,
and intelligence is considered one’s capacity to acquire and apply knowledge effectively.

With respect to Kanazawa’s overall presentation, bigotry stands out as the most prominent feature. His lack of definitions and generalities make his comments irrelevant and ineffective. His sense of values is evidently based on a culture for which he is partial, because he does not take into consideration the cultural norms
of people from other ethnic groups. He set himself up as the final orbiter or
judge of beauty and intelligence of all women, but especially so-called black
and non black women. Articles like his do more harm than good because they raise
questions and suspicions about the writer, who is supposed to be a professional
and the publishing source that is supposed to be professional. One questions
the creditability of both the writer and the source when a nonsensical and
biased article is published as quality work.

Other aspects of Kanazawa’s article only further the ridiculous, preposterous,
insensitive, and bigoted ideas regarding his opinions relative to race and
gender. The mere fact that he uses colors to identify people, black and nonblack
as if they were constants, creates serious problems in everything he says. In
essence, once he situates himself in the race box, all creditability goes out
the window. Also, his take on scholarship is greatly lacking when he refers to
African women as having been in existence longer than other women. If he really
believes that African women have been in existence longer than other women,
then where does he think the other women came from? If other women came from
mother Africa, then all women are from Africa. If all women are from Africa,
but not all women are considered black or nonblack, where do the races come
from? If he says that mutations caused the differences in the variety of women,
how does he account for the fact that the human genomes scientists report that
all people the world over vary only .05%?

When someone presumes to have information about a subject but in the process of
presenting that information shows little or no control of the subject, most
intelligent people can recognize the fool behind the mask. In the process of
presenting the bogus information the fool is exposed. Graphs, charts, and pictures
that purport to support the claims are nothing more than stage props signifying
nothing of value. Once again, garbage in, garbage out.