Gulnur Kakabayeva

ENG-102-77

Are IQ tests racist?

Professor Ibram X. Kendi believes IQ tests are racist because they were designed by

“eugenicists” whose main purpose was “to prove that people of color and poor people and

women were intellectually inferior” to white males. The fact that African Americans score lower

than whites on IQ tests proves to him that “the problem isn’t with these test takers; the problem

is with the tests themselves” (300). There are good reasons to agree with Kendi. The disparity

between blacks and whites’ IQ tests can be explained by the education difference between them.

Black students are still keeping out of the best schools and universities. To Kendi, all inequities

are the product of racism, and therefore the enduring “achievement gap” between black students

and everyone else is due to racist IQ tests. As Kevin Drum says “marginalized groups often

internalize the idea that they aren’t intelligent” (163), which would seem to prove Kendi’s point.

Many people agree with Kendi’s belief that IQ tests are racist on the assumption that IQ is a

fixed quantity determined by the genes, and that race and genes are closely linked. However, as

professor Wilfred Reilly argues, there is no correlation between IQ and race, and IQ fluctuates in

response to changes in the environment. Reilly shows that when the average IQ of the African

American community is viewed in a global context, it turns out that blacks are not in any way

intellectually disadvantaged, that in fact the average IQ of that community is higher than many

European and Asian countries. Nor is there any reason to doubt that eventually the U.S.

achievement gap will be closed as this average has risen by 7 points in the 21st century alone

(Reilly 317). Therefore, I will argue that IQ tests are racist only when used by racists, but when
used as intended they indicate real progress in the black community. As Reilly says, it is ironic

that discussing race and IQ are regarded as taboo by leftwing journalists because they are

“keeping positive news about Black IQ gains from the mainstream press” (317).

One reason to think IQ tests are racist is provided by anti-racist professor Kendi, who

says they were designed by “eugenicists” to prove that black people, poor people and women

are more inferior when it compared to white people. In 1916, American psychologist and

education researcher Lewis Terman had drawn a relationship between intellectual ability and

race. He mentioned about the dullness of Negroes that “Their dullness seems to be racial, or at

least inherent in the family stocks from which they come ... Children of this group should be

segregated into separate classes ... They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made

into efficient workers ... from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of

their unusually prolific breeding” (qtd. in Martschenko, 4). In the 1900s the supporters of

eugenic ideologies used IQ tests to recognize the ““idiots”, “imbeciles”, and the “feebleminded””

people and eugenicists concerned about the “prolific breeding” of them. To avoid this

reproducing, the Supreme Court decided Buck v Bell case in which low IQ people could legally

be sterilized. In Buck v Bell more than 65000 people, most of them are poor or black people,

sterilised to prevent having children (Martschenko,5). Therefore, cases like this make people

believe that IQ tests are racist .

Another reason why IQ tests are racist is that they are used to persuade black people that

they are less intelligent. As Drum says, the message sent by IQ tests to poor and marginalized

people is that they are not intelligent, and as a result they under-perform in school. Since IQ is

assumed to be a fixed quantity, and genetically determined, if an individual gets a low score he is

doomed to a life of failure. As Evans points out, those who believe blacks are intellectually and
genetically inferior are often the people who set government policy. He cites Charles Murray’s

evidence before a Senate committee “welfare reform” (160), and accuses the people he calls

“stars of the alt-right,” who use IQ test scores to prove “that liberal remedies, such as affirmative

action or foreign aid, are doomed to fail” (158). Also, the feeling of not being seen as intelligent

by people influences poor and black students' education. They believe that they are not as smart

as white students, and teachers' expectations from black students are lower when compared to

white students. Black students mostly study in distinct places and their schools are in worse

condition than other schools which are located in cities. These are the most significant things for

people’s education and it plays a big role in terms of IQ improvement. For these reasons, IQ tests

will be considered as racist until marginalized groups diminish the idea of being underprivileged

people in society.

The most important reason to think IQ tests are racist is that people assume that

intelligence is heritable which comes from ancestors. Heritability of IQ means that there is an

association between genes and intelligence, which leads to the idea that people with the same

genes have more likely the same intelligence. Research done by Harris and Sullivan represents

that IQ is 40 percent to 80 percent heritable which indicates that the influence of the environment

is not as much as it is believed to be (167). For example, Thomas Bouchard’s studies on identical

twins, who have the same genes until they separated before birth, shows that despite the fact that

they have been raised in different environments they have similar intelligence and the same

traits. He states that “the main explanation would be genetic” for something like that to happen

(166). Also, many think that the reason behind the inequality in the degree of IQs of blacks and

whites might be based on the past since blacks were often slaves and there were not that many

black geniuses. American psychologist Arthur Jensen claimed that “the differences between
black and white IQs were largely rooted in genetics”(161). This illustrates that people from

different ancestries have different levels of IQ and that’s why IQ tests are considered as racist

due to genetics rather than other factors such as environment etc.

However, IQ tests are not racist since there is no correlation between intelligence and

race. Genes of skin color and genes of the brain differ from each other. This is explicitly shown

by William Saletan who claims that “you can talk about the genetics of race. You can talk about

the genetics of intelligence. But stop implying they are the same thing” (170). Also, people all

over the world do not have equal life circumstances because they do not share the same

geographical location and environment. For instance, the skin color of people differ from each

other due to differences in climate. People who live in very hot climates possibly have dark skin

colors. Therefore, not sharing the same skin color does not necessarily mean that one skin color

has superiority over another in terms of intelligence. Instead, it can be the consequences of

evolving in different environments. There is a hypothesis that shows when people live in difficult

environmental places and survive in these conditions, they turn out to be clever people. This is

said by Richard Lynn who wrote in 2006: “less intelligent individuals and tribes would have died

out, leaving as survivors the more intelligent”(163). Also, some findings show that African

people are creative, such as cave findings of the South African Indian Ocean coastline have

shown that, between 70000 and 100000 years ago, humans made “fish hooks, arrows and other

sophisticated tools” (163). These findings are proof of the idea that blacks are also the same

people as other people, having intelligence to survive and make tools for use in everyday life.

Therefore, the disparities in race and intelligence make the idea that IQ tests are racist is wrong.

Another reason why IQ tests are not racist is that the results of IQ tests can fluctuate with

the changes of the environment. Every person lives in a different environment, and thus they get
different education, they are raised in different families and their nutrition differs, too. Almost

everything improves day by day. To illustrate, the education system flourished, the system of

health significantly developed, and these factors are important for human intelligence. If these

factors are enhanced, then the level of intelligence of the people will also improve. The research

shows that there is a 2 or 3 point increase in every decade, which is known as the phenomenon

called Flynn Effect (Reisnick, 182). That’s approximately 20 points of IQ throughout the whole

period. It’s obvious that the reason for this increase is only the environment, and not genetic.

Reisnick says that the effect of “access to nutrition, education and health play a big role” in an

improvement of IQ. One way of improving intelligence is done by learning. The development of

the education system in today's world is the most important reason for students learning. When

people start getting a good education, they start to become more knowledgeable. Another way

for increasing intelligence is by eating healthy food. In the past, people lived in very bad

conditions, they ate what they found without cleaning or cooking. However, nowadays, people

live in very good circumstances. Almost all people have a place to live, they have a variety of

healthy foods to eat. These factors are the most crucial parts of increasing intelligence. Research

done by Flynn shows that the IQ score of Kenyan children rose 26.3 points in the 14 years, he

said that: “in the course of half generation, nutrition, health and parental literacy had

improved”(Evans, 167). The influences of environmental factors in intelligence improvement

indicate that there is no connection between IQ and race. As a result, IQ tests are not racist.

As I have shown, the fact that IQ tests are designed by “eugenicists”, differences in

blacks and whites education system, and people’s assumptions about the relationship of genes

and intelligence are good reasons for considering IQ tests to be racist. However, there are

stronger reasons to argue that IQ tests are not racist. One way of thinking is that genes of race
and genes of intelligence are two different things. There is no correlation between genes and IQ.

Another reason is that IQ results are increasing day by day, since there is an improvement in

environmental factors like education, nutrition, and health care. Therefore, IQ tests are not racist

if they are used to show real progress in black community. As Reilly says, it is ironic that

discussing race and IQ are regarded as taboo by leftwing journalists because they are “keeping

positive news about Black IQ gains from the mainstream press” (317).
 Works Cited

Drum,Kevin“Here’s Why the Black-White Gap is Almost Certainly Environmental” Mother

Jones, June 10, 2019

Evans,Gavin “The unwelcome revival of ‘race science’” The Guardian, August 02, 2020

Saletan ,William “Stop Talking About Race and IQ - Take it from someone who did.” Slate,

April 27, 2018

Resnick,Brian “IQ, explained in 9 charts” Vox, October 10, 2017

Voegeli,William “Thomas Sowell’s Inconvenient Truths” Claremont, July 31, 2018

Reilly,Wilfred “Taboo: 10 facts you can’t talk about.” New York:regnery Publishing, 2020

Goodman,Amy “Ibram X.Kendi:IQ Tests, SAT Scores and Other “Intelligence” Tests Propagate

Racism” Democracy Now, August 13, 2019

Sablich,Liz “7 Findings That Illustrate Racial Disparities in Education” Brown Center

Chalkboard , June 06, 2016

Martschenko,Daphne “The IQ test wars: why screening for intelligence is still so controversial”

The Conversation , February 01, 2018