Rich white kids pay for prep courses that blacks can't afford. If other students are able to do much better than you on the same tests, they have an advantage. They've either acquired information that you haven't acquired, or they've learned reasoning or test-taking skills that you haven't got. My colleague at Time magazine, Jack White, says the University of California should keep requiring SAT scores for admission until black applicants score as high as whites and Asians. Then it can let them go.
Blacks complain that whites think blacks are intellectually inferior.
They do think that. But the biggest obstacle to black achievement is that blacks believe it, too. It's time to get over it. Even Asian boat people have been able to come here and score higher than blacks on the SATs. The truth is too many black students take themselves out of the competition because it's easier to make excuses than it is to compete.