Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: ramsys jockey is ram Jah.
Speaker 2: I am to warden. You are tuned into so exciting.
Speaker 1: As you are, and we've got a lot people to
Speaker 1: stick around for Today. We're gonna be talking about some
Speaker 1: some stuff that comes up in life, and in particular
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks, we've had to have some
Speaker 1: really strange conversations and we've also kind of encountered some
Speaker 1: stuff on the Internet that let us know that common
Speaker 1: sense is not all that common, not even kind of
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and that's okay because we're here to learn.
Speaker 1: So we're not picking anybody apart, We're not, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to tear anybody down. But again, stay tuned. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about this strange question. You know, are
Speaker 1: our white people smarter than black people? Or are black
Speaker 1: people less intelligent than white people? You know, and there
Speaker 1: are people who sincerely feel like they have the full
Speaker 1: story because they have test scores or whatever whatever it
Speaker 1: is that they think that they have to kind of
Speaker 1: validate that belief, and we're going to talk about that today.
Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about what we call code switching.
Speaker 1: But basically, we're going to talk about how black people
Speaker 1: in this country are inherently bilingual. I think that was
Speaker 1: something that I heard a comedian said once upon a time.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so we have to you know, I heard
Speaker 1: a non black woman recently said that when she was
Speaker 1: growing up, black people used to speak jive to her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that tells you when she's shout out to the seventies. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: sixties and shout out to Cheryl. She's a sweetheart. And
Speaker 1: we got a whole lot more fee to stick around
Speaker 1: for as well. But first and foremost, we'd like to
Speaker 1: start at the top with what we like to call
Speaker 1: Ebny excellence. Cute we shall, all right, So this week's
Speaker 1: Ebony Excellence is sponsored by Hip Hop Weekly Media and
Speaker 1: the article comes from Marine Times.
Speaker 2: It's not a.
Speaker 1: Subject we talk about all that off them show, so
Speaker 1: you know, taking any too many dives in the Military Times.
Speaker 1: So the article reads, one marine will make Core history
Speaker 1: by becoming the first black by becoming the first black
Speaker 1: woman to serve as a two star general in the service.
Speaker 1: President Joe Biden appointed Brig. Jen Lorna Maylock to the
Speaker 1: grade of Major General Dependinggon announced on December sixth, and
Speaker 1: the Senate confirmed her recently. Maylock is the Deputy Director
Speaker 1: of Cybersecurity for Combat Support at the National Security Agency
Speaker 1: at Fort Meade, Maryland. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Maylock immigrated
Speaker 1: to Brooklyn, New York at the age of seventeen nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five. According to a biography written by Marquette University,
Speaker 1: she enlisted in the Marine Corps three months later and
Speaker 1: became an air traffic controller. She received her commission through
Speaker 1: the Women Marines Association. She has amassed multiple higher degrees,
Speaker 1: including two master's degrees and strategic studies from the US
Speaker 1: Army War College and the Naval Postgraduate School. Marine Corps
Speaker 1: Times previously reported Maylock nominated to the grade of brigadier
Speaker 1: general in twenty eighteen, and she became the first black
Speaker 1: woman to achieve that rank. One of the smallest military branches,
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps has the lowest percentage of women among
Speaker 1: its troops at nine percent. Only three women in the
Speaker 1: corep history have picked up the rank of lieutenant general,
Speaker 1: and all three of them are retired. So today we
Speaker 1: are going to highlight you and applaud you. Lorna Maylock
Speaker 1: for making black history and for being a shiny example
Speaker 1: of e any excellence.
Speaker 2: Keep going gay, General Lorna Maylock. That's incredible. Indeed it is.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's talk about.
Speaker 2: How smart we are. Isn't that weird? That's a weird
Speaker 2: thing to talk about. I talk about how smart RAMS is. Stop.
Speaker 2: So I don't think it's very strange at all.
Speaker 3: Okay, So we Uh, basically, for today's segment, we had
Speaker 3: to pull some back and forth stuff off of the
Speaker 3: Internet just to kind of help paint a picture.
Speaker 2: But before we get there, I want to get your
Speaker 2: early thoughts on this topic, Q. I mean, sure, go
Speaker 2: for it. So my early thoughts on which topic, well.
Speaker 1: Specifically specifically whether or not black people are less intelligent
Speaker 1: than white people or Asian people.
Speaker 2: What hasn't all the research already proven that we are
Speaker 2: by far the lesser of the intelligent creature.
Speaker 1: This is sarcasm, ladies and jail. This is sarcasm.
Speaker 2: I thought, that's what it is. Sarcasm. This is sarcasm. Well,
Speaker 2: you know what. I to your point, Q, if you
Speaker 2: grew up.
Speaker 1: In the US, and uh, you weren't educated in a
Speaker 1: way that prevents a lot of how would I describe
Speaker 1: it cultural? And uh, let's be honest, white supremacist based
Speaker 1: ideals to take root in your brain, you might think that, right.
Speaker 1: I know this is true for me. Once upon a
Speaker 1: time I found myself I always took tests well, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I got good, more in class and all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, and eventually they start kind of
Speaker 1: separating you from the people that are your age into
Speaker 1: smaller classes where you have there's less students and you
Speaker 1: get more intense education.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more engaging.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure they call it. When I got to high school,
Speaker 1: they would call it honors classes. But you know, this
Speaker 1: has kind of been a story of my life. They
Speaker 1: would take me out of my normal classroom setting and
Speaker 1: put me into a special class for gifted kids. Right,
Speaker 1: And every time they did that, I found that there were.
Speaker 2: Less even less.
Speaker 1: People of color, and that was a norm for you
Speaker 1: know school. You know, that was just kind of normal
Speaker 1: how it went. And I guess if I were to
Speaker 1: take that and just accept it as face value, I
Speaker 1: would think that overwhelmingly white children are more intelligent than
Speaker 1: black and brown children.
Speaker 2: Right, But that's not the full story.
Speaker 1: And it's strange that you're taught that, and it's strange
Speaker 1: that people push back against things like critical race theory.
Speaker 1: When I talked about earlier on, I mentioned that white
Speaker 1: supremacist ideals and institutions that kind of bolster and fortify
Speaker 1: these notions. They don't this attack on CRT, which is
Speaker 1: effectively American history that seeks to tell the whole story
Speaker 1: and paints a fuller picture so that people get the
Speaker 1: nuance and they understand, Okay, opportunities exist in these areas
Speaker 1: and they don't exist to the same degree in these
Speaker 1: other areas, and then you have results that reflect that
Speaker 1: in society. Without that, you end up kind of like me,
Speaker 1: just thinking that, oh, this is normal, I am in
Speaker 1: rare air in this classroom.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So I'll read a bit from the online conversation that
Speaker 1: we were having. The question was posed, don't most black
Speaker 1: people have lower IQ than whites? And then it goes
Speaker 1: on to say that, you know, if you believe in evolution,
Speaker 1: black folks look different as do Asians and Caucasians. Evolution
Speaker 1: doesn't stop with skin pigment. In other words, black people
Speaker 1: are less evolved, right, And it's again, maybe these ideas
Speaker 1: are the result of a person being hateful ignorant, you
Speaker 1: know whatever. But maybe a person who draws a conclusion
Speaker 1: like this is simply trying to state their reality in
Speaker 1: playing terms, and they may not question why their reality
Speaker 1: is the way that it is, which is what we
Speaker 1: seek to do on this show. Why were we born
Speaker 1: to be poor and get beat up by the police?
Speaker 2: Are we criminal?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like you go to Africa,
Speaker 1: It's not like that, you know, Are we whatever stereotype
Speaker 1: you think that is true of black people, There's different
Speaker 1: circumstances in this country that shape outcomes, and those circumstances
Speaker 1: are often overlooked, which is why on this show at least,
Speaker 1: we really fought very hard and continue to fight to
Speaker 1: make sure that the whole story is told and that
Speaker 1: education includes American history and the origins of the origin
Speaker 1: story of black people in this country and everything in between.
Speaker 1: All Right, So we'll go down to the answer, because
Speaker 1: now that the question is post, the irony here is
Speaker 1: extremely painful, suppressing urge to engage in ad hominem. Thomas
Speaker 1: Soul discovered old military mental test results. Now, just so
Speaker 1: you know, Thomas Soul is not a person I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of. I don't agree with a lot of
Speaker 1: his thinking. But just so you know some context, he's
Speaker 1: a black conservative, very educated man, and just has of
Speaker 1: what I believe to be a flawed belief system, you know.
Speaker 1: But he I wouldn't say that he doesn't love his people.
Speaker 1: I can't say he might not, but I don't know
Speaker 1: that to be true. I just believe that he and
Speaker 1: I would certainly take different paths to get to the
Speaker 1: same results. In other words, I'm allowing this moment for him,
Speaker 1: because even a broken clock is right, you know, twice
Speaker 1: a day. All right, let's go on. Differences in mental
Speaker 1: test scores among different racial and ethnic groups were taken
Speaker 1: as proof of genetic differences in innate mental ability during
Speaker 1: the progressive era in the early nineteenth and sorry, in
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, Progressives regarded the fact that the
Speaker 1: average IQ test score among whites was higher than the
Speaker 1: average among blacks as conclusive proof of genetic determinism. Right,
Speaker 1: So again, if you just take those test scores at
Speaker 1: face value, well, women lie, men line numbers don't lie.
Speaker 2: Right, that's one way to put it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But as we know, and I wouldn't be talking
Speaker 1: about this if it weren't true. That's not the whole story.
Speaker 1: In fact, often enough, when there are numbers, there is
Speaker 1: a much deeper story there, because we've learned on this
Speaker 1: show that numbers can be made to look any kind
Speaker 1: of way, especially if you don't tell the whole story.
Speaker 2: So I'll continue.
Speaker 1: A closer look at mental test data, however, shows that
Speaker 1: there were not only individual blacks with higher IQs than
Speaker 1: most whites, but also whole categories of whites who scored
Speaker 1: at or below the mental test scores of blacks.
Speaker 2: H All right, let's keep going.
Speaker 1: Among American soldiers given mental tests during the First World War,
Speaker 1: for example, white soldiers from Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi
Speaker 1: scored lower on mental tests than black soldiers from Ohio, Illinois,
Speaker 1: New York, and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Okay, so by that time there was access to education.
Speaker 2: It was okay to learn how to read, It was
Speaker 2: not still illegal to teach either current or former slaves anything,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: It's a progressive time, and of course the black people
Speaker 1: were from progressive cities, right and again the white soldiers
Speaker 1: from Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, you know what I mean, Their
Speaker 1: education system may not have matured to the point where
Speaker 1: it could be competitive with the education system in a
Speaker 1: big city where the black folks you scored higher than
Speaker 1: those white folks. So what you're seeing now is a
Speaker 1: perhaps geographical correlation with these test scores that is more profound,
Speaker 1: certainly more striking, and more.
Speaker 2: Telling.
Speaker 1: Then Okay, black people scored lower, white people scored higher. Right,
Speaker 1: And from this alone you can see the direction that
Speaker 1: this is going. And I'm going to say the rest
Speaker 1: of this reading just for a bit, but you can
Speaker 1: draw your own conclusions. And for those who may not
Speaker 1: be able to draw the conclusions all the way out,
Speaker 1: I'm going to help both Q and I are going
Speaker 1: to help. So if from that we can agree that
Speaker 1: where you grow up has an effect on your education,
Speaker 1: then perhaps there's something to do with the quality of education. Right,
Speaker 1: because again, in progressive cities, you know, the school systems
Speaker 1: seem to educate people better than in more rural areas,
Speaker 1: less developed you know, states and parts of the country.
Speaker 1: So again the quality of the education matters. Right, But
Speaker 1: let's take it a step further. How is education funded. Well,
Speaker 1: education is funded with property taxes, right, So you pay
Speaker 1: your property taxes on your house, that goes to your
Speaker 1: local education, you know, your school board, and on and on.
Speaker 2: Right, So.
Speaker 1: It stands to reason that if you have a neighborhood
Speaker 1: we'll call it, you know, or a part of town
Speaker 1: where it's more affluent, the houses are nice, her text
Speaker 1: at a higher rate, etc. Schools are nicer, that that
Speaker 1: quality education might be more prevalent in the test scores.
Speaker 2: It might be reflected in the test score.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, on the other side of town, where maybe folks
Speaker 1: are making less money, maybe those people are working longer hours,
Speaker 1: maybe those people are dealing with other social issues, socioeconomic issues,
Speaker 1: et cetera, the education received by the students might be inferior.
Speaker 1: Add to that that, you know, I knew a teacher
Speaker 1: for some years who worked in a rough part of town,
Speaker 1: and she was a high school too, and she used
Speaker 1: to ask me, you know, once upon a time, I
Speaker 1: used to get closed in shoes given to me because
Speaker 1: I was on the radio, you know, and the companies
Speaker 1: would send out boxes of shoes.
Speaker 2: I'd get for five pairs of shoes, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: wear these.
Speaker 1: They's sent me a bunch of clothes I'm not gonna wear,
Speaker 1: all in my size, And I would donate a lot
Speaker 1: of these to this teacher. Well, she just asked me
Speaker 1: for it because I was, if I'm honest, probably bragging
Speaker 1: one day, like, man, I got all this stuff and
Speaker 1: never gonna wear it. And she says, give it to me.
Speaker 1: I can give it to my students. And she said,
Speaker 1: in particular, I have one student who has to wear
Speaker 1: the same thing every day, and he's embarrassed to come
Speaker 1: to school, so he doesn't come because he only has
Speaker 1: you know, he won't tell me about his home life
Speaker 1: because he's weared it it'll get worse. So I don't
Speaker 1: know his circumstances, but I know he's always hungry and
Speaker 1: he always wears the same clothes. And so I says, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: here you go, right, And that turned into me giving more,
Speaker 1: and really it turned into her having a conversation with me,
Speaker 1: and she says, Ramses, a lot of the students that
Speaker 1: I teach are constantly in mode that is their reality.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent of it is survival mode. They don't
Speaker 1: have room for education. They don't care what the you know,
Speaker 1: the Pythagoram theorem of you know, a triangle and the
Speaker 1: isosceles and you know, none of that they don't care
Speaker 1: about any of that. They worry about where they're going
Speaker 1: to eat because they didn't eat yesterday, and they're hungry
Speaker 1: right now and they can't focus, and they spent all
Speaker 1: last night crying, and they haven't been home in four days.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And it's not every student that comes from that environment,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot more.
Speaker 2: For it's not it's not one or two, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean like, it's not every, but it's a lot, right.
Speaker 1: And she believed, just like the United Negro College Fund,
Speaker 1: that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. And
Speaker 1: she saw the potential in these students because she was
Speaker 1: a teacher. She could see that they had the the
Speaker 1: base level intelligence upon which you can build a brilliant mind.
Speaker 1: It just needed the knowledge. The framework was all there,
Speaker 1: but she couldn't pour into a mind that wasn't focused
Speaker 1: and that was hungry. You know, your brain is a
Speaker 1: funny thing. I had to learn this, you know, partially
Speaker 1: through her, but you know, my own studies kind of
Speaker 1: revealed a lot of this to me.
Speaker 2: And that's that.
Speaker 1: You know, your mind is built to protect itself. Your
Speaker 1: mind will protect itself even if you are under attack.
Speaker 1: Your physical body is under attack, your mind will just
Speaker 1: turn off to protect itself from getting damaged, and you
Speaker 1: need to be awake, you know what I mean. Your
Speaker 1: mind will it's a higher functioning part of you. It's
Speaker 1: the mind brain. And if that's not in alignment with
Speaker 1: your agenda, then you're you're going to lose that fight
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of a time.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So with that said, we can still recognize that environment
Speaker 1: and resources have a lot to do with this, right
Speaker 1: if we're using test scores as the metric. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: also account for the fact that in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world they center education very differently than we do
Speaker 1: in this country. Indeed, right, education is of the utmost
Speaker 1: importance in other parts of the world, in particular in
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia, where you know,
Speaker 1: their test scores are often compared to the scores of
Speaker 1: you know, US students, and and then.
Speaker 2: Typically higher across the board of race or gender.
Speaker 1: Sure, and again that is a reflection of some cultural
Speaker 1: differences there. Bear in mind that in this country, the
Speaker 1: education system I'm drawing from memory now, but the education
Speaker 1: system was largely built as a result of John D.
Speaker 1: Rockefeller's expansion of his empire. In New York City. He
Speaker 1: needed workers to build those skyscrapers, and those workers had
Speaker 1: to have certain skills, certain knowledge, And this is where
Speaker 1: you get the beginnings of standardized testing. You know, once
Speaker 1: upon you think of little house on the prairie, there
Speaker 1: was a schoolhouse. All the kids were in the same school,
Speaker 1: all different ages and grades or whatever, all doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. Well, John D. Rockefeller comes along and says, look, man,
Speaker 1: I need people to know these skills so that you
Speaker 1: know these buildings are built properly.
Speaker 2: Who amongst you can do this? Right? Okay? I need
Speaker 2: all y'all to come with me, right.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And he partnered with the Board of Education, or
Speaker 1: really established the Board of Education in New York, which
Speaker 1: was then replicated elsewhere in the country to where we
Speaker 1: ended up with what we have.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This wasn't always the case. It's always been the case
Speaker 1: in our lifetime, sure, but it wasn't the case since
Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds. That just isn't the way this has
Speaker 1: come about. And you know the result of that is
Speaker 1: that the education system had to be.
Speaker 2: Built around seasonal work.
Speaker 1: A lot of young people still had to go in
Speaker 1: the summers and harvest with their families because a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, work in farms. This is why
Speaker 1: we get summers off. In other countries, they don't. They
Speaker 1: go to school year round.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: They treat school like its work, not like it's something
Speaker 1: that you have to do in order to you know,
Speaker 1: not go to jail.
Speaker 2: It's work.
Speaker 1: You work hard, and you create opportunities for yourself, right
Speaker 1: and in a lot of these places when you get out,
Speaker 1: you don't even have those opportunities, Like you know, this
Speaker 1: is the land of opportunity, they're the land of education.
Speaker 1: And it's it's strange how that kind of fleshed out.
Speaker 1: But again, we're talking about test scores, which is the
Speaker 1: I guess, the accepted method of determining who's smart and
Speaker 1: who's not.
Speaker 4: So it's a lot trickier then it's a simple method.
Speaker 4: It's an very very olderly simplified, sophisticated method of trying
Speaker 4: to determine who's smarter who's not. So let me jump
Speaker 4: back in and read a little bit more here. Among
Speaker 4: other groups of whites, those with average mental test scores
Speaker 4: no higher than the average mental test scores among blacks
Speaker 4: included those in very various isolated mountain communities in the
Speaker 4: United States, those living in the Hebrides Islands off of Scotland,
Speaker 4: and those in isolated canal boat communities in Britain. Looking
Speaker 4: at achievements in general, people living in geographically isolated environments
Speaker 4: around the world have long lagged behind the progress of
Speaker 4: people with a wider cultural universe, regardless of the race
Speaker 4: of the people in these isolated places. When the Spaniards
Speaker 4: discovered the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, they found
Speaker 4: people of a Caucasian race living at a stone age level.
Speaker 4: And then the conversation and here goes on I which
Speaker 4: you want to read this because I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: That's all I'm willing to give you on this question.
Speaker 4: Using common sense.
Speaker 1: You will only be able to determine this properly if
Speaker 1: everyone is equally given a good education that is consistent
Speaker 1: across the board and over a substantial period of time.
Speaker 1: And I don't think we have ever seen that. There
Speaker 1: are definitely many, many, many black people with higher IQ's
Speaker 1: than you. I like the sass at the end of that,
Speaker 1: but also like, yeah, it was, it was. It was
Speaker 1: petty in the perfect way.
Speaker 2: Very specifically petty.
Speaker 1: But you know, this is Uh, this is something that's it.
Speaker 1: A lot of people need to challenge themselves because I
Speaker 1: know that you've heard this que and I've heard it certainly, you.
Speaker 2: Know I like you. It's your people heard oh you talk.
Speaker 2: I've heard those words specifically, show an exact word that
Speaker 2: you said.
Speaker 1: I believe it. And you know, oh you? Why you
Speaker 1: talk so nice? Why can't everybody you know talk like you?
Speaker 1: Why don't your people talk like you?
Speaker 2: That's give an example of a conversation like that to
Speaker 2: a white co worker today, right that we end up
Speaker 2: in these rooms where that's the conversation that we're being had.
Speaker 2: And we talk about the over simplification of determining who's smart.
Speaker 2: I heard someone say it. I can't credit the right
Speaker 2: person because it's not top of mine right now. But
Speaker 2: if you judge the intelligence of a fish on its
Speaker 2: ability to fly, every.
Speaker 1: Fish would fail and it been its whole life thinking
Speaker 1: it's stupid. And this is an injustice to six year
Speaker 1: old Ramses having lived a life thinking that we were
Speaker 1: just supposed to be poor. And you know, I was
Speaker 1: a person that got lucky.
Speaker 2: Who knows. We're going to give you guys more on
Speaker 2: this topic. I want us to look over this interview
Speaker 2: that Nildigrass Tyson did just on the basis of racism
Speaker 2: and anthropology, so we'll follow up on that on another episode. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'm pretty excited to do that as well.