An excerpt from The Guardian:
"Students and lecturers are calling for a Leeds University don to be sacked after he said he supported a theory that black people were inferior to whites. In a row that has reignited the debate on the limits of freedom of speech, Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies, sparked anger after stating, in an interview with the university's student newspaper, that he was an 'unrepentant Powellite' who thought that the BNP was 'a bit too socialist' for his liking. Ellis said he supported right-wing ideas such as the Bell Curve theory, which held that white people were more intelligent than black people. '[It] has demonstrated to me beyond any reasonable doubt there is a persistent gap in average black and white average intelligence.' .... Now students are preparing to picket his lectures, protest on campus and bombard the vice-chancellor with emails calling for Ellis to be removed from his post."
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Statements such as those made by Ellis have been normal among psychometricians (specialists in psychological measurement) for nearly 100 years. You can find them summarized in the book Ellis refers to. But making such statements in public always attracts wrath. Ellis is one of those rare people who puts telling the truth as he sees it above his own self-interest. It is heartening that his university is resisting the calls to sack him. There would not be much left of academic freedom in Britain if they did sack him.
"Gunfight at the K-Y Corral"
Oh dear! I had better not say anything here about the mega-incorrect Ann Coulter's latest hilarious column about the movies.
Just read it here.
When the Race Card Hurts Blacks
There is a story here of a husband and wife black couple who had senior positions in a Georgia school but who apparently abused their positions to steal money. They do not appear to have been prosecuted for the embezzlement (as they should have been) but their teaching certificates were suspended for a year. So no jail time, just no job.
Even that punishment was greeted with outrage, however. The couple have gone to court to overturn it. And what is their defence? It seems to be nothing more than repeated accusations that the authorities are all "racists" -- even ACLU and NAACP members are racists as long as they are white, allegedly.
People normally crumble before accusations of racism but this time at least some people are seeing another side to it: Why should well-off blacks use such accusations to defend the theft of money that should benefit lots of ordinary blacks -- not just a few blacks in positions of influence? As it says here:
"School System observers are now asking, "Are we to allow the Black Elite to treat average blacks as second class citizens? Is it fair for just one or two to get all the money and the rest of the blacks cover up and suffer just because they are black?""
Belafonte Defines Terrorism
The "Kingston Town" singer has given pleasure to many (including me) by his singing but singers don't have to be intellectuals and one can only hope that few people think Belafonte is one. He has made some recent comments on terrorism that are unusual to say the least. To wit:
"We are living in terrorism as black people in America. And it has been that way since the dawning of slavery....If we are having problems with finding our own inner souls and dignity to live out a life that is honorable, what is it that has put us in this position? We didn't volunteer for it. And those who have put us here and chosen to keep us here are people who deal in terror."
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It sounds like Abraham Lincoln needn't have bothered from Belafonte's point of view.
