From the Water-Cooler:
Out-performing American blacks is not remotely impressive, at least in America.
In any case, yes, culture matters. Thomas Sowell has pointed out that both American blacks and Southern whites are basically infected with “redneck culture” derived from the Scotch-Irish in the British Isles, with various malignant attitudes and behavioral patterns.
However, genes matter too. African immigrants to the US (like those from South Asia, by the way) are heavily selected for IQ by the heavy expense and cognitive burden of attaining the credentials and income necessary to get a visa, permission to work here, and a flight. We’re skimming the cream to an extreme degree, getting a drastically unrepresentative slice of those countries that is distorting our perception of the vast bulk of those people (“surely if Dr. Malik is so smart, than all the other people still in Pakistan or Ghana must be brilliant too! Let’s let them in by the millions!”)
Until the post-Mao era, 20th century Chinese suffered drastic malnutrition, and those who did not die like flies by the tens of millions in the various famines and horrible wars had their growth stunted. Tall men in such a country would be extremely rare, but in such a vast land, there were enough for Mao to dragoon into a ceremonial honor guard of giants to impress Nixon for his historic 1972 visit. It would have been idiotic for Nixon to have concluded that the 1970s Chinese are a tall people from that sight.
On top of which, our skimming the cream of Africa and South Asia is to the detriment of both ourselves and their areas of origin. Because not only do those places desperately need their cognitive elite far more than we do, we, by undercutting our own advanced degree earners with cheap Third World knock-off imported people, do ourselves damage in the big picture and long run. White American med and law and engineering school grads who are unemployed or underemployed, only to have their plight dismissed with withering scorn, brutal contempt, and zero empathy, serve as a harsh example to other whites not to bother with academically difficult courses of study in the absence of rewarding careers to follow. Then, of course, the resulting “shortage” of med school students and such is used as an excuse to flood us with even more Third Worlders .. “jobs Americans won’t do!” in an endless accelerating spiral.
On top of which is long term damage to our politics and cultural unity. The first generation is usually grateful to be allowed to be here, and if not enthusiastically pro-America and pro-West is at least focused on quietly earning a living and keeping their heads down. But their children and so forth are quickly radicalized into heavily hostile, alienated, left types relentlessly working against the interests of the core white population, against the national security of the nation as a whole, against the history, heritage, heroes, holidays, and texture and flavor of daily life.
On top of THAT is the phenomenon of regression to the mean. Thus, while a tall Japanese is more likely than other Japanese to have tall children, he is still less likely to do so than an equally tall white man. Put another way, a tall Japanese, coming from a shorter ethnic group, has a non-literal but de facto “tug of gravity” pulling his descendants down to a shorter level than a tall Dutchman or Dinka, coming from taller ethnic groups.
That’s why, in the long (multi generational) run, high-IQ blacks and South Asians are not going to have the same beneficial effect on the economy etc as high-IQ whites and East Asians. The descendants are not going to all be as smart.
Finally, it is highly questionable just how intelligent these imported Third Worlders truly are. Does anyone really think that universities in black Africa are as rigorous? That universities in the Mideast South Asia are freer of rampant cheating and corruption? Amid extremely intense pressure to do diversity hires, the incentive to just take in anyone with a nominal advanced degree from Durka Durka U is overwhelming.
