The inherent difficulties of racial issues are made even worse by a growing prevalence of lies as a systematic and almost automatic response to realities that many do not want to face. White college presidents routinely lie about the racial double standards that exist from coast to coast, setting up high rates of failure among black college students who could be successful if they entered colleges where they meet the normal requirements.
Truth takes a back seat in both cases.
Desperate attempts to evade the significance of low test scores among blacks proceed as if blacks were the only group of people with low test scores. All sorts of groups in countries around the world have test scores as low as those of blacks. During the First World War, white soldiers from Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi scored lower on mental tests than black soldiers from Ohio, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania. Other whites from culturally backward or isolated places have likewise had I.Q. scores in the 80s, just as blacks have. These include mountaineer children in the United States, canal boat children in England and children in the Hebrides islands off the coast of Scotland.