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As a black person...I really really really don't want HBD to be true
This doesn't mean I think it's wrong. It's just that I think that the conclusions you'd have to draw from it being correct are just so awful for me.
I view it as nothing short of tragic that a people who suffered so much due to being viewed as inferior, who struggled for so long to be viewed as equals and treated with dignity, who endured all kinds of injustices in the hope that we would overcome...only for science to prove that it was fruitless all along. It's so dispiriting the possibility that all the problems in our community: crime, poverty, ignorance, are intransient. How are you supposed to deal with that without becoming utterly nihilistic?
I'll probably have a longer more essay-type post for next week's thread but I just want to get my raw emotions about it out here before then.
It's just so unfair. It fills me with anger and sadness and rage and I can't stop thinking about it. I don't want it to be true...I don't want it to be true. It's so unfair
I'll be honest, I agree with @Ben___Garrison below that this post is just a little too pat, reads just a little bit too much like someone trying to flatter the preconceptions of certain Motters, and indicates just a little too much awareness of those issues to be someone new here. And there are a few other flags I won't discuss publicly that make me suspect you are a return guest.
That said, we prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, and if you are sincere and who and what you say you are, I apologize for the suspicion, but understand that we deal with trolls and LARPers regularly. But I would earnestly encourage you to engage and talk more.
As to your actual point, as someone who believes HBD has much explanatory power (but I'm not a "hard HBDer," meaning I don't believe black people are just genetically predestined to always be an underclass or that it's evidence we should divide and segregate ourselves racially), I would echo what other people below say, that first of all, being a member of a group that is, on average, disadvantaged does not necessarily say anything about you as an individual, and that secondly, there's no reason to think that average gap can't be narrowed over time, and third, even if it is permanent and unfixable, we are all human beings and the goal should be to give everyone the opportunity to live their best lives, with equal justice under the law. Sounds hokey, I know, but I really believe it.
I've commented before (much to the derision of the some of the other HBDers) that I think one problem with HBD is that even if it is true to the fullest extent, it does not present a clear course of action, because "push all the races apart and create bantustans for the inferior ones" is morally repugnant, and also it would be nearly impossible to get the "inferior" ones to just accept that yes, they suck and it sucks to suck and they should accept their lot.
So, as an (alleged, sorry, I am still suspicious) black man, what would you suggest should be the message to the black community, if you really believe that the worst implications of HBD are true?
It's morally repugnant socially (I can't speak on the roots of your personal belief) because we believe that the bantustans are the outcome of white neglect and oppression (even if we place the blame far back in the past or through some dubious logic : e.g. "white flight" where white people just ruin neighborhoods by...leaving)
If tomorrow we just accepted that Black neighborhoods aren't bad because white people took the secret suburb sauce but because low-IQ blacks (disproportionately large group compared to other races) ruin them in a variety of ways then the entire situation changes.
Even if white people were not inclined to abandon blacks, it would be a totally different relationship - certainly there'll be less apologizing for enforcing the law. And things like desegregation and white flight can now be reframed - white people were simply trying to escape the predictable consequences (violence, destruction of legitimately earned wealth) and so on.
White people are then victims, and the fact that the entire federal apparatus is causing excess deaths and loss of opportunity for white people for simply being genetically lucky is what's morally repugnant.
This is exactly the argument the DR makes.
That's the motte.
The bailey is something more like literal bantustans which are kept in a state of immiserated oppression and subjugation, with little chance of escape even for the hardworking and conscientious, because "they deserve it" and because you despise them.
That is what I think all DR projects would actually lead to, no matter how high-minded and reasonable they pretend they want to be.
I don't think it's going to be good (because many normal people have their own spiteful ideas) but if we ever hit this hypothetical (re)acceptance of this theory, it won't be DR Twitter accounts running the show.
YMMV by region I suppose.
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