New Onion

If any of Dr. Brown’s race consultants were at all interested in actually understanding “white privilege” that results in racial disparities in test scores, wealth, income, IQ, life expectancy, etc then they would do research on children’s life outcomes of those adopted at birth by black/white families… and the results are not kind to the view espoused by many in the PLP… but then neither are the opinions of people like Thomas Sowell.

Reparations for slavery are a bit of a joke because they ignore that fundamentally human capital is what matters (which is why Germany and Japan are wealthy countries today despite being completely bombed to the ground 60 years ago).

All things point one way – focus on taking care of children and families, then let natural (positive) consequences follow. However at this point the government has spent all of its political capital and it is now impossible for many to believe the government is capable of good faith or of successfully managing anything beyond the most basic administrative achievements.

Sadly, any data based view of achievement and performance attribution in life outcomes is very likely beyond the ability of the current government… and is very easily twisted by people who have an agenda and a desire to paint honest people in a bad light – like the PLP in campaign mode.

At the risk of igniting a shit storm, I came across an article that does a decent job of summarising findings on IQ differences between blacks and whites in the USA. The basic point of all good research done is that all brains are the same colour, but differences in environmental factors produce differences in IQ between blacks and whites. However, since life outcomes are strongly influenced by IQ there may be a 900 pound gorilla in the demographic closet.

Link: All brains are the same colour

A superior adoption study — and one not discussed by the hereditarians — was carried out at Arizona State University by the psychologist Elsie Moore, who looked at black and mixed-race children adopted by middle-class families, either black or white, and found no difference in I.Q. between the black and mixed-race children. Most telling is Dr. Moore’s finding that children adopted by white families had I.Q.’s 13 points higher than those of children adopted by black families. The environments that even middle-class black children grow up in are not as favorable for the development of I.Q. as those of middle-class whites.

When we look at racial differences in present day achievement IQ is a potentially very material factor.

In the end it all comes back to social mobility. School lunches, daycare, and some other programs have shown excellent return on investment in terms of future life outcomes.

I’ve decided to have a quick run through of the proposed draft off the Workforce (in)Equity Act 2007 (another Orwellian name for a law that explicitly promotes inequality). My quick and dirty marked up copy is here. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV.

As one would fear this is a poorly drafted law rife with inconsistencies, poorly defined, cheaper to circumvent than implement, probably unenforcible, implies anti-white Bermudian discrimination (in ways that the drafters probably don’t understand), and will almost by definition fail in its demographic goals.

It’s a loser in every way possible and will simply draw attention from the cultural, educational, social, and economic headwinds that are the real source of inequality.

But now on to the law…

Stuff I wrote before giving up because I’d be at it all day and it’s nice and sunny today:
- Implies that Bermudian employees can’t quit and move to another firm if they are poorly treated.
- Implies that CURE and the Human Rights Act don’t work.
- Assumes unequal opportunity in the workplace on a racial basis. Objective (non-anecdotal) data does not exist and is not presented to support this conclusion if one controls for education, experience, and other factors that are correlated to both race and life outcomes (working hours, attitude, age of pregnancy, income level of parents, smoking, obesity, etc.) In addition, this already falls within the boundaries of the Human Rights Act. What the data does support is differences in educational achievement – which is really just an argument for school vouchers, charter schools and up to 100% government subsidy of further education (based on financial need) – much of this happens to be the UBP platform.
- Achieving equality requires unequal treatment.
- Bermuda labour is defined as all of Bermuda’s workforce, which includes non-Bermudians. Therefore, in order to achieve the stated aim of equal representation of black Bermudians in any given occupational group as exists in the greater labour pool it is also necessary to ensure that black Bermudians are not over-represented (as this will imply a deficit elsewhere). Since the act explicitly states that its provisions apply to the Bermuda Government department it is therefore necessary for a resignation of a portion of the Senate and Cabinet Office and replacement by equally qualified whites to ensure that companies have sufficient black Bermudians to have a chance to be compliant (yes, that’s absurd, but a mathematical truism).
- Implies that smaller (local) companies or government don’t hire more blacks (who are on average less well educated thanks to public schooling), as this would make section 4(b) mathematically impossible.

The only way that this law is the government “bending over backward” is that they appear to be pretty far back compared to businesses and by extension, the people of Bermuda, who will be bent over and ravaged.

Recommended standards for compliance.
Ensure that a new legal entity is created for each 39 people – then enter into a services contract with the master company. This should circumvent data collection and reporting requirements.
Alternatively, ensure that there are no more than 39 “key” people in Bermuda necessary to establish mind and management – it may be possible using this strategy to almost entirely avoid any direct impact of either the 6 year work permit policy (as key people are exempt) and the Racial Quota Act as turnover will be low and available positions will have sufficiently narrow requirements as to sidestep both.

If neither of these solutions is practical then the act relies on a dual definition of “Black Bermudian” – The objective definition includes all humans as we are all of “black African origin” based on DNA evidence collected around the world. The subjective definition is a self-report by the employee of racial status, and therefore all Bermudian employees should classify themselves as “black” and if necessary dress like Vanilla Ice, or alternatively Ali G.

The crux is this: In order to support this law, one must by definition lack the basic critical thinking skills necessary for almost any professional position. I think that’s perhaps the real problem – the people proposing and drafting these laws have not been able to succeed in the professional world because they lack the necessary skills and then blame their lack of advancement on skin colour, rather than their own weaknesses.

From the New Onion Department of Perspective:

Link

The most recent ancestor of all males living today was a man who lived in Africa around 59,000 years ago, according to an international team of researchers.

“You can ultimately trace every female lineage back to a single Mitochondrial Eve who lived in Africa about 150,000 years ago,” said Dr Spencer Wells of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, UK, who was part of the team.

Still busy.

Let’s fight bad theories with more bad theories! Bring balance to the force!

At some point I’m going to sit down and talk about the actual factors that predict incomes, happiness, social mobility, and general life success… there is good research on this, and no need to resort to journalism professors to do the work of economists and psychologists.