Category Archives: BLM

THE SAT EXAM HAS ALWAYS BEEN RACIST

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This blog post was inspired by this Twitter post by Dr. Willow Lung-Amam, an Associate Professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. See also willowlungamam.com.

It has long been understood that the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)—which is an important part of the college application process in America—is culturally, socioeconomically and racially biased. But I, too, was literally “today years old” when I learned that the SAT was created by a eugenicist, Carl Brigham, whose purpose was to demonstrate that whites were naturally intellectually superior beings.

The SAT, like the similar American College Testing (ACT) test and other so-called “standardized tests,” purports to measure innate intellectual ability—aptitude rather than knowledge per se. Because all college applicants take the same test, the idea is that test scores should be more objective than, say, high school grades, since an “A” in one high school may be easier or more difficult to obtain than an “A” in another high school. But standardized test questions are anything but objective. To give just one example, research has shown that some of the SAT’s verbal questions favor white students because they reflect cultural expressions commonly used in dominant (white) society, so that white students have an advantage simply by virtue of growing up around white people.

Other research has demonstrated a clear correlation between family income and SAT scores, with students from wealthier families scoring higher. This is generally attributed to test preparation, which makes a demonstrable difference in test scores but can be out of reach of low-income families. Students from high-income families also typically have access to better educational opportunities, including better-financed public schools, not to mention private schools or expensive extracurricular educational experiences.

None of this is news. But in the I-can’t-believe-I-didn’t-know-this-before category, it turns out that in its origin, the SAT test was never even meant to be objective. The father of eugenics, Francis Galton (who coined the term in 1883), was also the father of a number of modern statistical methods. Galton “used his statistical acumen to test and measure the physiological and psychological behaviors of white European men, with the long-term goal of determining which ones were fit to reproduce.” Building on Galton’s work, Carl Brigham, a professor of psychology at Princeton, created the first scholastic aptitude test (based on IQ tests that had been used by the U.S. military) in 1926, with the avowed goal of upholding an American racial caste system. It was also meant to show the superiority of certain kinds of white people during a time of increased immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe: those with Nordic and Anglo-Saxon genetic roots were expected to score better, and thus be shown to be superior to, Jews.

In terms of upholding a racial caste system in the United States, it certainly seems to have worked, hasn’t it? Ironically, Brigham later disavowed the SAT, and wrote in an unpublished manuscript in 1930 that test scores measure not innate ability but are, instead, “a composite including schooling, family background, familiarity with English and everything else, relevant and irrelevant.”

Why has it taken American colleges—many of which are just now dropping standardized test scores as an admissions requirement—so long to get the memo?

Imagine if, instead—as historian Ibram X. Kendi has put it—“we measured literacy by how knowledgeable individuals are about their own environment: how much individuals knew all those complex equations and verbal and nonverbal vocabularies of their everyday life? What if we measured intellect by an individual’s desire to know? What if we measured intellect by how open an individual’s mind is to self-critique and new ideas?”

This needs to be the goal.

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SELECTED SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

Sidney Fussell, “The Problem With the SAT’s Idea of Objectivity,” The Atlantic (May 18, 2019).

Scott Jaschik, “New Evidence of Racial Bias on SAT,” Inside Higher Ed (June 21, 2010).

Ibram X. Kendi, “Why the Academic Achievement Gap is a Racist Idea,” African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) (Oct. 20, 2016).

Ibram X. Kendi, “Why Standardized Tests Have Standardized Postracial Ideology,” American Association of University Professors (Nov.-Dec. 2016).

Nicolas Lemann, “The Great Sorting,” The Atlantic (Sept. 1995).

Catherine Rampell, “SAT Scores and Family Income,” New York Times (Aug. 27, 2009).

John Rosales, “The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing,” National Education Association (NEA) (2019).

Joseph A. Soares, “#FAIL: The SAT Rebrand,” Aljazeera (Mar. 19, 2014).

David Shenk, “The Man Who Turned Darwin Into a Determinist,” The Atlantic (Nov. 24, 2009).

Thomas Toch, “The Meritocracy’s Caste System: What’s Good and Bad about the SAT,” The Brookings Institution (Dec. 1, 1999).

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THE RACIST HISTORY OF SOME COMMON ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES

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Image courtesy of Shuttershock.

These last few months have been a wake-up call for white people about the pervasiveness of our society’s structural racism. (I say “for white people” because for Black people and other people of color, this is not news.) There is a lot to think about in terms of how even—or perhaps especially—those of us white folks who consider ourselves to be progressive and nonracist can help dismantle barriers that may have been invisible to us. It’s not enough not be racist. We need to become actively antiracist.

Today, as part of my own journey toward becoming antiracist, I’m going to share some commonly used words or phrases that have racist origins or connotations. No, not the obvious words (the N-word, “uppity,” or the like) that no self-respecting liberal would ever dream of uttering. But there are numerous words and phrases in English that turn out to have deeply racist roots, or that have developed racist connotations over the years. I discuss a few of them here. Some of them I’ve long known, and some I have just learned about recently.

When a word or phrase may not have had a racist origin but has taken on racist undertones through usage over the years, I think white people have to follow the lead of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color): if they say the word is racist and hurtful, we must take them at their word.

Please feel free to let me know of other troublesome words or phrases I may have missed by leaving a comment.

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Articulate. The word itself is not racist. But using it to describe a well-spoken Black person is racist. It implies surprise at the fact. Just don’t say it.

Blackball, blacklist, black magic, blackmail, black mark, etc.  All of these terms racialize the use of “black” to describe things that are bad or wrong. They reinforce the notion that black=bad and white=good.

Cakewalk. This term refers to something that is an easy victory, but it originated as a dance that enslaved Black people performed on plantations, where owners would hold contests in which slaves would compete for a cake. The dance, and the phrase, was later popularized through minstrel shows

Cat got your tongue? American slave owners often used a whip called a “cat-o’-nine-tails” to flog victims. The pain was so intense that those on the receiving end couldn’t even speak. Asking the victim “cat got your tongue?” was thus an especially cruel taunt.

Eskimo. European settlers in North America used this word—thought to come from the French word esquimaux (referring to a person who makes the nets for snowshoes)—for the indigenous people living in the Arctic region, who mostly called themselves Inuit. Many colonists used it in the mistaken belief that it meant “eater of raw meat,” connoting barbarism and violence, which means it was deliberately meant to be offensive.

Fuzzy wuzzy. This was originally a term used by British colonial soldiers in the 1800s to refer to members of an East African tribe, and later became a derogatory way to refer to African people’s hair texture.

Gyp or jip. To be “gypped” is to be shortchanged or swindled. But the word comes from “gypsy,” which itself is an offensive term referring to the Romani people, who face widespread discrimination across Europe.

Grandfather clause or grandfathered in: According to a decision recently published by the Massachusetts Appeals Court, “‘grandfather clause’ originally referred to provisions adopted by some states after the Civil War in an effort to disenfranchise African American voters by requiring voters to pass literacy tests or meet other significant qualifications, while exempting from such requirements those who were descendants of men who were eligible to vote before 1867.” I can’t believe I didn’t know this before.

Long time no see. This is a common phrase in American English—I’ve used it myself when meeting up with someone I haven’t seen in a long time—but it may have originated as a way to mimic Chinese or Native American speech patterns in English.

Lynch mob. The literal meaning is fairly obvious, but when not used literally this term can be offensive when used to describe situations that fall far short of the murderous, racist violence that lynch mobs actually perpetrated. Think, for example, of Clarence Thomas describing the congressional hearing in which Anita Hill testified about how he had sexually harassed her as a “high-tech lynching,” or Donald Trump likening his impeachment to a “lynching.”

Master bedroom/bathroom, master/slave. While it’s not clear whether the owner’s bedroom in southern plantations during the slavery era was called a master bedroom, the real estate industry is gradually retiring the term, using the word “primary” instead. Similarly, many tech engineers in computer technology, who have used “master/slave” terminology to describe software and hardware components where one process or device controls another, are now replacing that with “primary/replica.”

Mumbo jumbo. Typically used to suggest that someone is talking nonsense, this derives from contempt for the religious rituals that enslaved Africans brought with them to America—in the Mandinka language, Maamajomboo describes a masked dancer in a religious ceremony. (Note, too, that Little Black Sambo’s parents were named Black Mumbo and Black Jumbo.)

Nitty gritty. This phrase may have its origin in the slave trade, referring to the detritus found in the bottom of slave ships once the enslaved people had been removed from the hold. “Nit” may refer to the parasitic insect of the same name that would likely have been abundant in the abhorrent conditions in the ships making their way across the Middle Passage. Grits, of course, are the inexpensive, coarse-ground grains that were used to feed enslaved people.

No can do. Meaning “I can’t do that,” this is a 19th-century phrase that mocked Chinese immigrants’ speech patterns in English.

Off the reservation. Commonly used to describe someone who is deviating from the norm, this phrase originally referred to Native Americans who refused to accept the limitations on their mobility caused by the creation of reservations where the government forcibly moved them. Historically, Native Americans who were found “off the reservation” were often killed.

Paddy wagon. This was 19th-century slang for the horse-drawn vans police used to round up drunk Irish immigrants. I hadn’t heard this phrase for a long time, until Donald Trump used it when he was exhorting police to be rough when throwing “thugs” into the back of a “paddy wagon.” (See also thug below.)

Peanut gallery. In the days of vaudeville, cheap seats—in the back of a theater, or on a balcony—were called the “peanut gallery.” These were the seats where Black patrons were forced to sit.

Picnic. Some have contended that the word “picnic” has racist origins, but the story is a bit more nuanced. Folk etymology suggests that the word comes from “pick-a-nig,” referring to racist lynchings where a Black person was randomly “picked” and hanged for the entertainment of whites. However, etymologically the word is much older and derives from the French pique-nique, referring to a social gathering where each attendee brings food (from the verb piquer, “to sting” or “to bite,” which may have referred to a leisurely style of eating). Nonetheless, the fact that African Americans were often lynched in settings that were picnic-like, for the entertainment of white people, means that the word “picnic” carries racist connotations for many Black folks in the United States.

Sold down the river. Referring to some kind of devastating betrayal, the origin of this term was literal, not metaphorical. It was commonly known during the slavery era that conditions for enslaved people were increasingly brutal the farther south one went down along the Mississippi River. Thus a person who was “sold down the river” was being sold into inhumane, brutal conditions that often ended in death.

Thug. The word itself—meaning a violent criminal—may not be inherently racist. It comes from a Hindi word, thuggee, derived from ṭhag (ठग), which means deceiver, thief or swindler. (Thugs were professional thieves and assassins who operated in India from the 14th through the 19th centuries.) However, given how the word is now being used by right-wing media and politicians to describe just about every Black victim of racist violence, let’s assume it is being used as a substitute for the N-word, and never use it to refer to any person of color.

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SELECTED SOURCES:

Scottie Andrew and Harmeet Kaur, “Everyday words and phrases that have racist origins,” CNN (July 7, 2020).

“Blacks, Picnics and Lynchings,” Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia (Jan. 2004).

Olivia Eubanks, “Here are some commonly used terms that actually have racist origins,” ABC News (July 30, 2020).

Megan Garber, “The History of ‘Thug’: The surprisingly ancient and global etymology of a racially charged epithet,” The Atlantic (April 28, 2015).

Rebecca Hersher, “Why You Probably Shouldn’t Say ‘Eskimo’,” NPR (Apr. 24, 2016).

Alex Nelson, “These 8 common words and phrases have connotations you might not know about,” Pendle Today (July 6, 2020).

Azi Paybarah, “Massachusetts Court Won’t Use Term ‘Grandfathering,’ Citing Its Racist Origins,” New York Times (Aug. 3, 2020).

Brittany Wong, “12 Common Words and Phrases With Racist Origins or Connotations,” Huffington Post (July 8, 2020).

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LETTER FROM AMERICA: AN EMPIRE UNGLUED

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The always sharp and incisive Lawrence Reichard — a journalist and activist based in Maine — writes this “Letter from America” to the world. What exactly is happening here? Where will this all lead? I dearly hope his concluding line is prophetic.

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July 23, 2020
Lawrence Reichard

It is an odd thing to live in the United States right now. The greatest empire in the history of the world has devolved into a twisted, macabre, grotesque caricature of itself, and the world looks on in astonishment and horror. My good, dear friend Heidi texts from Cologne, Germany about unidentified government agents snatching Black Lives Matter protesters off the streets of Portland, Oregon and forcing them, with heavy weaponry, into unmarked vans. “This is fascism, no?” she writes. I reply. “Well, yes, it is.”

On night 52 of the Portland protests, a Wall of Moms shows up, to protect the protesters. Mothers in bicycle helmets facing off against government agents equipped for war. The agents wear camouflage, in a city, at night. The point isn’t to blend in — it’s to intimidate and frighten. And federal agents that normally guard the border tear gas the mothers. Mothers. That’s what we’ve come to as a country..

But it doesn’t work. Instead of scaring off protesters, protester ranks swell, as columnists around the country warn of creeping fascism.

It gets worse.

In the midst of a global pandemic, President Trump pulls out of the World Health Organization and threatens to cut funding to the CDC, something he already did well before the pandemic struck — despite clear warnings from the outgoing Obama administration that a pandemic would almost certainly strike at some point.

In October 2019, prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore ranked the US first among 195 countries in pandemic readiness, and number one in all six categories surveyed. Eight months later the US is number one in COVID-19 infections. Number one in deaths. And Trump, in astonishing tone-deafness, brags about the Hopkins study. With a population of 331 million, the US has 142,000 deaths. With a population of 95 million and four percent of US per capita GDP, Vietnam has zero deaths.

My good friend Peter Millard is an MD and epidemiologist. I tell him Trump could scarcely kill more people with COVID-19 if he tried. Peter agrees.

As COVID-19 tears through the South and Southwest, cities in Georgia try to mandate face masks in public, but Georgia Governor Brian Kemp blocks the move. Atlanta, the biggest city in Georgia, mandates masks anyway, and Kemp sues the city. In an extraordinary move, Kemp personally sues Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is isolating at home with COVID-19. In our greatest crisis since World War II, we’re at war with ourselves. We’re eating our own.

Kemp shouldn’t even be governor. In 2018, he stole the election against the dynamic, charismatic African American Stacey Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. Kemp was Georgia secretary of state from 2010 to 2018 and he oversaw the closing of 1,688 polling places and the purging of 340,000 voters. Kemp “won” the election by 54,763 votes.

A secretary of state overseeing an election in which he himself was a candidate. We have become a banana republic.

A secretary of state overseeing an election in which he himself was a candidate. We have become a banana republic.

On June 23, 2020, Kentucky held a primary election in which more than 95% of the state’s polling places were closed. Louisville, with a population of 600,000, had one polling place. The media barely noticed.

In a July 19 on-camera interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News, Trump refused to commit to respecting the outcome of his upcoming November 3 re-election bid.

And none of this is imagined, invented or exaggerated. I couldn’t possibly make this up.

But there are signs of hope. The Portland protests show no signs of ending. Or even slowing down. In the 58 days since the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Floyd’s name has become known the world over and has ignited a global fight for racial justice and equality such as the world had never seen before.

Even corporate America is behind it. Even golf, game of the rich and the corporate. Golf tournaments on TV are now regularly interrupted by 30-second heartfelt racial justice messages delivered by black sports icons. As the messages say, there’s no turning back. Though events are still playing out, history has spoken. And Trump is lining up solidly on the wrong side of this history.

As stated in a New York Times opinion piece, Trump knows only one song. It’s a song of anger, resentment, bitterness, hate and division. But it’s not playing. Trump’s numbers are in veritable free fall and he may take Republican control of the senate with him, reducing Senate Majority leader, kingmaker, and Trump enabler Mitch McConnell to a backbench status little above that of the teenage senate pages that scurry around the chamber floor delivering messages here and there.

History suggests Trump may be heading for the biggest defeat in 231 years of US presidential elections, perhaps eclipsing incumbent Richard Nixon’s 60.7% to 37.5% thrashing of George McGovern in 1972.

The strain is showing. Trump has for decades craved public praise and adulation, and now he faces the biggest test of public approval of his life. Will he respect the November results? He is already laying the groundwork for not accepting them. He has already said the election will be fraudulent, because of mail-in ballots, something the US has used for more than 150 years, and which Trump himself uses.

But Trump may have made a key mistake. On June 1, Trump used tear gas to clear a path through a peaceful protest for the sake of an election-style photo op, holding up a bible — upside down — in front of a Washington church. This from a man who rarely goes to church. General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper went with him. Both men later said they didn’t know where they were going or for what purpose. It’s hard to say what’s more shocking: that they — the country’s highest military figures — didn’t know where they were going, or that they publicly admitted they didn’t know.

But the damage was done. Trump had humiliated these career military officers before the world.

In another extraordinary move, both men later expressed regret, for being duped and for allowing themselves to be used as campaign props. And in a point missed by American media, Black Lives Matter likely played a role in those remarkable mea culpas, as BLM has unleashed a global tsunami of reckoning.

Those public expressions of regret must have been deeply humiliating to Trump, but the man who has tweeted 200 times in one day, was silent on this abject rebuke of his rule. The rebuke was reminiscent of congressional testimony earlier in the Trump era in which a high-ranking Pentagon official assured a congressional committee the military would not let Trump get the country into an ill-advised war. It is a measure of the surreal nature of these times that such unprecedented testimony barely raised an eyebrow in the US media.

Given all this, it’s hard to imagine the military would allow Trump to not abide by November’s verdict. But all indications are that Trump doesn’t have the requisite fortitude anyway. Trump has threatened military action against Iran, Venezuela and North Korea, but aside from the seemingly endless US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan — which he inherited — all Trump has done in three and a half years is bomb a far corner of a Syrian air force base where there were, perhaps by design, no Syrian forces. And when peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters gathered outside the White House, Trump hid in a White House basement bunker intended for use in nuclear war. Trump later claimed he was inspecting the bunker, a claim widely ridiculed in the media.

No, Donald Trump won’t refuse to leave if he loses. He doesn’t have the guts.

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