A Terrible Thing to Waste by Harriet A. Washington

Unless we choose to intervene.” Part II: The Brain Thieves Chapter 2: The Lead Age “When it comes to exposure that limits cognition, race as a social construction becomes race as biological fate. Asians, too, harmed by the model minority myth: stress & pressure → suicide risk, resentment from other groups, traits of intelligence/good at math & science → too calculating/not creative/no interpersonal skills.

Similarly, grouping Latinos and Hispanics masks a much more diverse composition.Especially mis-fitting bc so much unacknowledged mating between black and white Americans.Based on physical appearance and laws before emancipation, but often conflated with actual genetic/ancestral groupings.Race = social construction, but has real-world, biological consequences.IQ designed explicitly not as a predictive test, which is how it is used today, but to measure weakness of students already underperforming.Idea of comparative IQ scores is really only applicable within group of people with equivalent opportunities, motivation.Intelligence is notoriously hard to define, and not the same as the cognitive skills measured by IQ.Failure to acknowledge that racial IQ gap is not innate/hereditary, but rather very dependent on geographic & environmental factors → robs us of a tool to close the gap (and help people).Part I: Color-Coded Intelligence? Chapter 1: The Prism of Race Jeremy Bentham → “The plea of impossibility offers itself at every step, in justification of injustice in all its forms.”.Addressing this injustice will be a very effective way to close racial IQ gap, thus benefitting all of America.Lack of adherence in US to precautionary principle, that we should expose people to chemicals if we aren’t sure they’re safe.Bc more likely to live in sacrificial zones assaulted by poisons and hazards.African Americans & other marginalized communities of color = preferentially affected by environmental toxins thought to lower IQ.

A Terrible Thing to Waste by Harriet A. Washington