Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America

by Charles Murray

The charges of systemic racism and White privilege that are tearing the country apart float free of reality. Two known truths, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, need to be acknowledged and incorporated into the ways we approach public policy: American Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians have different rates of violent crime and different means and distributions of cognitive ability. These two truths drive the problems in policing, education, and the workplace that are now ascribed to systemic racism. Facing Reality lays out the evidence clinically and in detail, without apologies or animus.

What good can come of bringing such uncomfortable realities into the open? Charles Murray argues that ignoring them is destroying America’s most precious ideal, once known as the American creed: People are to be judged on an equal basis as individuals, not by national origin, social class, race, or religion. The ideology behind the charges of systemic racism repudiates this ideal, demanding instead that the power of the state must be used to favor some groups of people over others to advance social justice.

Americans on the center left and center right who are the American creed’s natural allies have denied themselves the ability to defend it. What else but racism can be to blame for race differences in outcomes? They have been afraid to answer. They must. Facing Reality is a step in that direction.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology, Race, Psychology, Cultural, Audiobook

157 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2021

About the author

Charles Alan Murray is an American libertarian conservative political scientist, author, and columnist. His book Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980 (1984), which discussed the American welfare system, was widely read and discussed, and influenced subsequent government policy. He became well-known for his controversial book The Bell Curve (1994), written with Richard Herrnstein, in which he argues that intelligence is a better predictor than parental socio-economic status or education level of many individual outcomes including income, job performance, pregnancy out of wedlock, and crime, and that social welfare programs and education efforts to improve social outcomes for the disadvantaged are largely wasted.

Reviews

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.5/10.

"Facing Reality" may be short (unlike "The Bell Curve"), but it serves its purpose in being a saving buoy for those stranded in the ideological ocean of egalitarianism. For, if one cannot escape that ocean, the only possible explanation of differential group outcomes and treatment is systemic racism. But if anything will save those on that side (and many, no doubt, are lost), Murray brings the most un-emotional approach to the facts one could have to confront the hysteria of today.

One part which shocked me a bit was Murray's portentous attitude of America in the near future. I have been looking on the negative side of societal developments recently, and had not realized the sharp divides happening between the liberal coasts and the nearly homogenous White middle of America. This added to extremely low trust in the government (~15%) is likely to lead to some societal shock up ahead (and this aligns with societal and generational cycles - e.g. "The Fourth Turning").

A critique I have of Murray is his devotion to the "Creed" of America, as he does not realize its own situatedness in European-derived peoples. It is only Western peoples who have sought to self-determine themselves in all areas, to substitute the "ought" for the "is" (think Stoicism, Kant, Western political history as the rise of the individual, etc.). We have come to a point where this is pathological, where any factual matter (like Murray's statistics) leads to cancelling and calls of "racist!". But as America becomes more and more multiracial, the question becomes: do the new peoples in America want to keep the Creed? Where have they been shown to keep it? The contradiction of the cultural relativist and multiculturalist rears its head: what if the very peoples who you promote going into your country have values which contradict your reason for bringing them there, thereby destroying the societal preponderance of your values over time? This contradiction's outcomes remain to be seen in the decades ahead.

[Mike Horne · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you think the lack of black CEOs, engineers, high financiers, big tech gurus, law partners, and brain surgeons is a product of structural racism, this is the book to challenge you. The manifestation of intelligence in the Black population is less than the White population, which is less than the Asian population. This is shown in lower SAT scores, LSAT scores, GRE scores, medical tests, etc. Until this is changed, you will not successfully change the upper echelons of our industries.

If you think that the killing of unarmed black men by the police is the product of structural racism, this book offers a different reason: violent crime is much more likely to be perpetrated by (and on) Black men than White. This is not evenly spread across America but is focused in large cities with concentrated poor black populations. Therefore, police will interact at a higher proportion with black men than white men. If death by police is simply a product of interaction, we would expect more black men to be killed.

These are the facts. Murray does not ask why they are true. He is simply trying to present a clear view of America so that we can try to come up with policies to make America a better place for Blacks and Whites.

His last book, Human Diversity, is much more controversial.

I would recommend this to all young progressives.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

The "reality" that Murray wants us to face is that Blacks and Latinos score lower on cognitive tests (on average) and commit more crimes (on average) than White folks. In Murray's view, we should simply accept these racial differences and ignore the reasons for them, which he claims are "irrelevant" (p. 47). Why would Murray claim this? Evidently, because he wants his readers to conclude, without his having to say so, that these "intractable" racial differences are at least partly genetic (e.g., pp 7, 41). In reality, Murray has been making this argument for decades, and it is full of scientific flaws, misrepresentations, and inaccuracies. See https://psycheandsense.com/review-mur..., where I have posted a longer review of this book detailing many of these problems. That site also contains detailed critiques of other books making similar bogus arguments for the racial superiority of Whites.

[Vagabond of Letters, DLitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

9/10

As perfect and gentle a primer into the thorny jungle of the most important social and political facts facing the West as has yet been written.

Murray walks the reader through the evidence, compiling cases which are cumulatively irrefutable on the level of logic or empirical evidence to even the staunchest intersectionalist. The sources and methods are in the text and explained simply and in English instead of buried in endnotes, assuming prior knowledge of statistical experiment design.

Murray attempts to walk a middle path, which is his only weakness, expecting the left to repudiate its extremists (the 'moderating ideological triggers') without, in my opinion, understanding the shape of politics which perforce moves the Cathedral ever leftward, nor does he properly reckon the strength of the evolved group-identity modules explicated in social identity theory and genetic similarity theory: the atavistic 'jungle' is invading the egalitarian and individualist 'garden', to extend the author's metaphor, irreversibly.

He also does not correctly reckon the level of cognitive ability demanded in addressing emotional things in a rational manner because of his own life's experience as an academic and wonk. Only Europeans fail to take their own side, and any policy which is premised on the ability of the average man to inspect dispassionately that which induces the most heated passion is bound to fail.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Murray is no stranger to controversy. Much of his career has been spent at the intersection of public policy and the uncomfortable truths of social science. He’s a scholar provocateur. In his new book, he states that the American Creed (summarized as We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights) is imperiled. He posits the only way forward is the injection of reality for two topics: The first is that American Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, as groups, have different means and distributions of cognitive ability. The second is that American Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, as groups, have different rates of violent crime.

For such a short book, it was unnecessarily bogged down in statistical minutiae, but it is well-argued and cogent. To gain any traction, however, it needs a more mainstream champion.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In “Facing Reality”, Charles Murray lays out the data on differences in IQ and other standardized test scores, as well as criminality between the various population subgroups society defines as “races.” Murray’s prose is fairly nuanced (more than critics might expect), and he takes some time to address objections preemptively.

While there is virtually nothing in this book that is factually inaccurate (as of time of writing), this issue is very complex and multi-factorial, and certain aspects of the existing data are not as robust as they should be. Therein lies the most reasonable path for those who are determined to reject this thesis out of hand.

The fact that Murray’s reputation comes with a lot of baggage, plus the fact that data of this sort, presented in this blunt fashion, is guaranteed to put smiles on the faces of some of society’s most odious people, will undoubtedly present too big an obstacle for most people left of center to give it a fair hearing. That’s understandable, but also a shame. If we want to improve the world, we should begin from the most accurate factual foundation. This short book can be read in an evening or two, and while it may be uncomfortable in parts, believe it or not, Klan robes did not materialize on my person while doing so.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been wondering how to review Murray's Facing Reality -and now I'm updating it with a reference to John McWhorter's review at it's a doozy The problem I have with the book is not the data Murray cites. He does an excellent job of citing the race-related data about test scores and crime rates. He also effectively addresses the contention that such tests are either misleading or racist. Several excellent Black analysts - Glenn Loury and Coleman Hughes - endorse his analysis of the data in their interviews with him. As in The Bell Curve, Murray points out that group characteristics can come from either genes or environment, and notes that in many cases it is both. That means he sounds like he is asserting that Blacks are genetically less intelligent than Whites, which he does not actually do. The problem, as Loury and Hughes indicate, is that coverage of his analysis in the major media would simplify his analysis to the point that anyone listening would assume Murray's argument is simply the genetic inferiority of Blacks - and that that would only add the the current divisiveness caused by Ibram X. Kendi's version of anti-racism and Robin DiAngelo's white fragility framework. Loury, Hughes and John McWhorter have already very effectively characterized Kendi's and DiAngelo's work as shallow and counterproductive. In major media, Murray' excellent presentation of current data would also become counterproductive even though his basic analysis is far from being shallow or simplistic, unlike Kendi and DeAngelo.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Charles Murray brings the facts to the table and takes it a step further by suggesting what can be done to surmount what seems unfavorable. I’ve been impressed with Mr. Murray’s courage and honesty since I read THE BELL CURVE and saw how he handled the ridiculous assertions of racism for presenting his findings.

The final chapter of this book alone is worth the price.

Mr. Murray belongs in a class with Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Heather Mac Donald and Wilfred Reilly, among others, who see telling the truth as the highest calling for an academic.

[mark propp · Rating 5 out of 5]

nobody has been treated more unfairly in american public life than charles murray in the last 30 years.

this is a book that can be read by anyone, and should be read by everyone. the fact that so many won't hear it, and will insist that it only contains lies is a condemnation of those people and shows how deeply shallow and lacking in seriousness the discussions we have around these issues are now.

read it. even if you think you know better, read it.

also, it opens with a pk dick quote, which automatically makes it a 5 star book.

glenn loury's interview with murray is on youtube and is absolutely worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqgUc...

note - read it a second time, because i felt i might have sped through it a bit, and since it's a short book there's little cost to re-reading it. also read the end-notes this time.

note #2 - quickly read through it again as i wanted to brush up on some of the stats.

[SheMac · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can you say except that Charles Murray has a death wish, and you do, too, if you bring any of his research or analysis to your next mandatory "courageous conversation" at work. But the man does his research - there's so much of it that you must go online to read all of it -, and unlike most of the loudmouths voicing their opinions on the subject, Murray offers some potential solutions to racial inequities.

[Cav · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I DECIDED TO WRITE this book in the summer of 2020 because of my dismay at the disconnect between the rhetoric about “systemic racism” and the facts. The uncritical acceptance of that narrative by the nation’s elite news media amounted to an unwillingness to face reality..."

Facing Reality was an interesting look into an inflammatory topic, but I found a lot of the writing to be dry and flat. More below. The book is my 4th from the author.

Author Charles Alan Murray is an American political scientist. He is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. He is also the author of the famous and controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.

Charles Murray:


Despite the book's somewhat provocative title, its contents are almost exclusively data-driven. There are countless charts, graphs, and other metrics crunched in these pages. Although fielding an incredibly controversial topic, Murray covers the material in a very matter-of-fact manner; leaving commentary and opining at the door.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, my biggest criticism of the book was its dry and tedious tone. I am very big on how readable I find my books, and this one didn't really pass muster for me towards that end.

Murray drops the quote at the start of this review early on, and it continues:

"...I do not dispute evidence of the racism that persists in American life. Rather, I reject the portrayal of American society and institutions as systemically racist and saturated in White privilege. What follows is a data-driven discussion of realities that make America a more complicated and much less racist nation than its radical critics describe."

That people manifest differences at the group level has recently become a scientific hot potato. The orthodoxy in modern social science is that all groups of people have the same potentialities across all domains. This type of thinking is completely at odds with Darwinian evolutionary theory. All groups of people cannot have the same characteristics, potentialities, and performances across all domains, because different environmental conditions across the world have positively and negatively selected for different evolutionary strategies. People do express differences at the group level, and these differences have been robustly empirically evidenced for many decades. These data are covered in here.

The book is a pushback against the woke identity politicking and ideation. Fortunately, instead of just griping about things, though, Murray lays out a facts-based rebuttal to many of these leftist/woke racially-based talking points. He argues that American ideals were once based on meritocracy and individualism, but have now shifted 180 degrees and regressed to group-based politics and identity grievances.

Accordingly, this book will likely garner a lot of blowback from these same ideologically-captured people. Murray addresses this in this short blurb:

"If you are on the center left, the material in this book is unlikely to be treated accurately in the newspapers you read, the blogs you follow, your social media feeds, or the news that you watch or listen to.
Be assured that nothing in this book will challenge your political principles with which I disagree – there’s nothing here promoting my libertarian views on freedom or small government. I continue to hold those views, but in this book I argue from a center-right position, aiming to make common cause with people of other political persuasions in restoring an element of the American creed on which we agree. For whatever has happened with the progressive left, the importance of equality before the law and of treating people as individuals has historically been at the core of American liberal principles – just as it has been at the core of American conservative principles, no matter what has happened with the Trumpian right."

Almost all of what is covered here should be completely uncontroversial, in any sane society. Unfortunately, we don't live in a sane society these days. The topic of race has become an absolute shitstorm. White guilt has spread like wildfire. People in virtually all walks of life and professions have been cowed into silence over very credible threats from ideological zealots to completely ruin their lives over the slightest mistep. Murray hopes that books like this can help steer the conversation in a more productive direction. I agree. Because if you can't even address the nature of the problem, then you will never be able to provide workable solutions...

********************

Facing Reality was an interesting short read. It makes for great reference material. I would recommend it.
3.5 stars.

[Dale · Rating 1 out of 5]

In Chapter 1 Charles States the following...."I argue from a Center Right position, aiming to make common cause with people of other political persuasions." I would never feel comfortable quoting material from this book in an attempt to find common ground with an individual left of center. I found much of the data in the book one dimensional and the tone of the argument sounded to similar to the eugenics arguments of the earlier 20th century.

In an effort to explain that systems are not racist the author makes the case that there are cognitive ability differences between races (bell curves acknowledged) and therefore disproportional outcomes are the result of inherent cognitive ability and not systematic racism In addition to sounding politically tone deaf, the argument falls apart if you examine some of the reasons that one persons cognitive ability may be less than a peer of another race. For example, wouldn't poor nutrition result in diminished cognitive ability and can't nutrition be the result of prior inequities?

I am glad I read this book, but I think the matter of race in America is exponentially more complicated than summarized in this book.

[Jason Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a quick, but well written book. Forgetting about why, or how we got here, Murray wanted to explain what he sees as the two key differences in population groups, which talking about dishonestly are accelerating the break up of America. The conclusion section strikes me as naive, however. The elites DO talk about these two facts dishonestly; the data is clear yet both Republicans and Democrats refuse to tackle the issue. I would be hopeful if they were just misinformed, but they are not, so I am not.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important book

Murray takes a realistic approach to demonstrating how facts that are attributed to racism are really due to differences in the size, behavior and cognitive abilities of key population groups. He does a good job of showing that disparities in distributions of ceos, professors and scientists are more likely due to the sizes of applicant pools than systemic racism. As a matter of fact, all of his analysis is considerably saner than what you hear from activists and cowardly academics. I’m going to read it again. People should read it at least once.

[Charles Meyrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the Kindle edition: when the reader clicks on a footnote, what is displayed is not always the full footnote. Click "Go to footnotes " at the bottom. There is lots of good information in the notes.

The book itself is a careful attempt to identify group differences in IQ and criminal activity. Murray goes to great lengths to find data as objective and reliable as possible.

One need not agree with Murray on everything to appreciate his thoughts in the final chapter on the danger identity politics poses to the American experiment.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Murray has made a career by saying and writing things that are impossible to refute but no one wants to believe. It's good work if you can get it.

[James A. Farren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truth

Excellent summary of our current situations and troubles. A voice crying in the wilderness. I hope someone will listen before it’s too late.

[Carolyn Kost · Rating 4 out of 5]

"People don't want to hear that intelligence is a real thing, and that some people have more of it than others.... They don't want to hear that differences in I.Q. matter because they're highly predictive of differential success in life--and not just things like out-of-wedlock birth and mortality. People don't want to hear that a person's intelligence is in large measure due to his or her genes and there seems to be very little we can do environmentally to increase a person's intelligence, even in childhood. It's not that the environment doesn't matter, but genes appear to be 50%-80% of the story. People don't want to hear this. And they certainly don't want to hear that average I.Q. differs across races and ethnic groups."

That, in a nutshell, is Charles Murray's exhaustively researched claim. This quotation, however, comes from a related article from The New Yorker 9/13/21 "Can Progressives Be Convinced that Genetics Matter?", which really should be read in tandem.

Facing Reality is another salvo in Charles Murray's occasional sorties of empirical facts against what many wish to be true, but isn't. One wishes we could just take the empirical research and apply it to make more informed analyses and policy decisions, but our society isn't able to do that in 2021, when "empiricist" is an epithet and any claim about genetic differences is regarded as white supremacist and eugenicist, two of the mortal sins of 2021. Murray's data sets are helpfully posted online. Personal experience does not invalidate means [averages] and while generalizing is a survival mechanism evolved since the dawn of life, "it is essential to accept the reality of documented group differences but to insist on thinking of and treating every person as an individual" (113).

As Murray states in the Introduction, "Of the many facts about race that are ignored, two above all, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, must be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about why American society is the way it is and what can be done through public policy to improve it. The first is that American Whites, Blacks, Latinos and Asians, as groups, have different meanings and distributions of cognitive ability. The second is that American Whites, Blacks, Latinos and Asians, as groups, have different rates of violent crime. Allegations of systemic racism in policing, education, and the workplace cannot be assessed without dealing with the reality of group differences....Facing reality is essential..." (x).

The American Creed comprises the first lines of the Declaration of Independence, with particular emphasis on "all men are created equal," which under LBJ became legislated as "equality as a result," with differences in outcomes attributed exclusively to racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism. Alas, all people are created equal in terms of dignity and unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but certainly not ability of all kinds, and that is essential to a functioning society. If everyone were talented only to academics and not work that was actually useful, we would starve and have no one to staff hospitals and the essential supply chain, build, fix the pipes, cars, bicycles, etc. Is that not evident?

F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous aphorism, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function" could well be the postmodern motto. Social science has long maintained that race is a social construct with no physiological or genetic basis, yet 23andMe and AncestryDNA can discern ethnicity down to the tribal level; ergo, extat ; it exists as a physical reality. So does biological sex, another empirical fact the Woke insist is a mere imaginary and fluid concept.

Cognitive Ability:

I.Q. does not indicate "virtue, merit, character, wisdom or common sense." Rather, it denotes the mental agility that lets some people collate disparate bits of information better than other people, whether the task is to decipher a corporate balance sheet, analyze Middlemarch, or determine why the car won't start" (20). This takes us back to Frederik DeBoer's thesis in his The Cult of Smart, again, as in virtually every review I've written since reading his important little book, that we must stop worshiping cognitive ability and intelligence should not be the criterion for having a meaningful life at a sustainable wage. We know that all the interventions in the world, like pre-K, extended day, and after school programs, have only temporary positive results, yet the policy makers tout them and continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to narrow the gap, to no avail. Standardized tests are currently on the wane, but I.Q. and SAT tests have been intensively examined for bias by the American Psychological Society, which found none. Contrary to what the media spouts, SAT does not merely measure family income; as a group, impoverished Asians outscore the wealthiest quintile of Blacks and Hispanics and students do not outperform the expectations indicated by SAT/ACT once in university; they change to easier majors or drop out. (See the work of Peter Arcidiacono).

We have reams of data; to pretend the reality is other does no one a service, particularly the larger society, which continually lowers the bar, spends profligate sums that have no chance of achieving the desired objectives, and, in an unpardonable sin, tethers to the ground those who would soar, all in the name of equalizing outcomes.

Crime:

Murray doesn't "discuss the legacy of slavery, the effects of poverty or absent fathers, the genetic etiology of criminality, or why crime rates rise and fall over time" (47). To those who argue about higher rates of arrest for Blacks for minor crimes, Murray's response is to look primarily at homicide. Anyone can look at the FBI Table 43 online for any year; the statistics are remarkably static. Black men are just 6% of the population, yet that demographic is responsible for over 50% of the homicides in the USA. "For homicides nationwide from 2010 through 2019, 76% of alleged perpetrators knew the victim, as a family member or an acquaintance. Virtually all of those homicides were what criminologists call 'expressive' murders: the result of arguments, brawls, jealousy, and other interpersonal conflicts" (54). (Thomas Sowell similarly explains Black on Black crime as a result of honor culture, for example, the refusal to let a perceived instance of disrespect slide). Looking at the "24% of homicides in which the victim was a stranger to the arrested suspect....13% of all murders are gang-related. Gangs are almost always restricted to a single race;" hence the perpetrators' race "can be accurately guessed just by knowing what gangs are involved" (55).

Hence it's not that the police persecute Blacks. Blacks are disproportionately engaged in violence and it is overwhelmingly directed against other Blacks.

Direct Effects of Cognitive Differences:

Like Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., Murray advocates for university admissions to be entirely blind to race, which would result in "roughly the same means and distributions on the SAT or ACT....and performance in the classroom. "The cost would be that relatively African [the term he uses for Black] and Latin students would be at the most prestigious colleges, but that cost would be counterbalanced by the greater presence of talented African and Latin students at other colleges. Young people of all races would be admitted to colleges where they were fully competitive with their fellow students....Yet admissions offices everywhere insist on having 'enough' minority students, with the result that race differences in mean cognitive ability in the general population are replicated on campus" (68). Murray says what we in the college admissions business know: "African applicants are given a median edge of about 180 points out of 1600 on the SAT" (68). See mean scores here. "The numbers of test takers with a combined verbal and math score of 1500+ were around 900 for Africans and 3,300 for Latins. Meanwhile, the numbers for Europeans and Asians with scores in that range were about 27,500 and 20,000 respectively. The result is that a large majority of Africans and Latins with combined SAT scores in the 1500s are swept up into the top tier" (70).

Cognitive ability correlates with job performance. "This is not to say that intellectually brilliant people typically have important jobs in a society--on the contrary, few do--but that a characteristic of people who rise to the top in every cognitively demanding profession in elite academia and elite organizations in the private sector [like law partner or CEO of a major firm in a major city and the financial and IT industries] is exceptionally high cognitive ability" [IQ 135+] (81).

Several major companies have announced they will hire more Blacks in the past few years since the tragedy of St. George Floyd, so it's instructive to examine the pool. In 2019, there were 23.2M Americans age 25-29: 54% were [White], 20% Latin, 15% [Black], 6% Asian. About 228,000 people of that population can be expected to have IQ 135+. In that pool, there was approximately 2800 Blacks, 9,500 Latins, 50,700 Asians, and 160,100 Whites (82).

To illustrate: "Let's say that an elite IT company in Silicon Valley snags 100 new hires from the 135+ pool in the racial proportions of the pool as a whole. That means 70 are [White], 22 are Asian, 4 are Latin, 1 is African, and 3 are a mixture of races or 'other'" (82). "Unless you are familiar with race differences in cognitive ability, you might be reasonably convinced that the absence of [Black] and Latin faces in the highest ranks of the American private sector means you live in a systemically racist country," or, as indicated by the Gallup poll you overestimate the Black population to be 30% of the population, as a majority of Americans do.

Direct Effects of Race Differences in Crime:

James Q. Wilson, "one of America's leading scholars of crime and policing" states, "A central problem--perhaps the central problem-- in improving the relationship between white and black Americans is the difference in racial crime rates. No matter how innocent or guilty a stranger may be, he carries with him in public the burdens or benefits of his group identity" (103). The fact is that most violence is not interracial, but intra-racial. I refer you once again to FBI Table 43 . "The differences in the group rates of violence are real and large, and it is human nature, not racism, to take precautions accordingly," not to mention probability and the foundational principles of criminology (104).

On being a police / public safety officer: "Many occupations involve close personal interactions with a wide variety of people. Many occupations have broadly defined goals and flexible rules, giving the worker wide discretion. A small number of occupations require decisions on matters of the utmost importance, including life and death. A still smaller number of occupations require that decisions sometimes be made within seconds. Only a handful of occupations are intrinsically dangerous. The job of an urban police officer is unique in combining of all those attributes." (96). While there is no question that bad actors must be fired, the majority are doing the best they can to protect and serve, so let's cut these men and women some slack.

Final Chapter: If We Don't Face Reality

To reiterate: "it is essential to accept the reality of documented group differences but to insist on thinking of and treating every person as an individual (113). What we see is usually a generalization from personal experience "on the side of generosity and optimism," but if it's acceptable to generalize in that direction, it's acceptable to generalize on the side of racism as well, so it must be avoided.

"The truly grave danger of refusing to confront race differences in means is that it leads in a straight line to thinking that the only legitimate evidence of a nonracist society is equal outcomes. It appears that the Biden administration already accepts that logic. If that's what the people in power truly believe, and if those equal outcomes continue to elude them, the logical conclusion is that the state must force equal outcomes by whatever means necessary. Once the estate is granted the power to engineer equal outcomes by dispensing opportunities preferentially and freedoms selectively, it will be one group versus another, 'us' against 'them'" (114).

Murray proposes the elimination of all governmentally sponsored preferential treatment by race and the limitation of "antidiscrimination law and its enforcement to behaviors that would be unacceptable regardless of race--behaviors, not statistical evidence for disparate impact" (122). He exhorts us to stop being afraid to speak out in favor of colorblindness and equality under the law and to re-embrace the American creed and uphold the foundational ideals of which we have fallen short. Otherwise we are in a situation similar to the 1850s, hurtling toward civil war.

This is a brief but important book, probably best read after a refresher in standard deviation and statistics, maybe Khan Academy or some analog thereof. It is sure to be summarily ignored by most sectors, as Murray is persona non grata in Woke circles (who can forget the infamous Middlebury incident of 2017?). I'm taking an enormous risk just by posting this review, but self-censorship is cowardice and plays into the current agenda that abrogates all of what liberalism stands for: human rights, legal equality for all, freedom of expression, respect for viewpoint diversity, honest debate, evidence and reason, separation of church and state and freedom of religion. Read the book and draw your own conclusions.

___________

Some fun facts about estimated ethnic ancestral composition:
For Black Americans: 82.1 % Black, 16.7% White and 1.2% Native American
For Latins: 65.1% European, 6.2% African and 18% Native, leaving 10.7% for the rest. 60% had no African or Native American ancestry, so most of those 60% had to have very high proportions of European ancestry. The absurdity of granting special privileges in hiring or college admissions to the 60% of Hispanics who are as European as any German or Swede is maddening and must stop. This category of Hispanic / Latino encompasses those who have lived in what is now that US for centuries to first generation immigrants; from Latinos who are genetically 100% European to Latinos who are 100% descendants of a specific indigenous pre-Columbian population, yet they are grouped together nonsensically.

"From the first census in 1790 through 1850, the population in settled regions was 82-84% European and the rest African" (15). By the 1960 census, the population was 87% European, 11% African, 1% Latin, 1% Asian. Exponential demographic change occurred from 1960 to 2019: 60% European, 18% Latin, 13% Black, 5.7% Asian, and 2.8% Other. I still insist on grouping that 60% of Hispanics who are only European with European, however, but that mucks up Murray's statistics.

[Jeremy]

Finally read a Charles Murray book. Have seen his work cited before and watched some YouTube videos before but first read. This stuff is honestly a bit confounding to me. Don't know what to make of it. A simple gut react would be to say this stuff is just racist, but I will resist that reaction, as I recognize Murray isn't himself trying to be so. Whether his work is methodologically flawed is up to people to examine. Suffice to say, I'll be following, to the extent that I have energy, the conversation surrounding this stuff.

[AttackGirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preliminary 4 but once I lay out my notes perhaps tomorrow as to why it will become clear for those who have read all of Charles other books.

I have made several notes about this book as I have for all of Charles work. Seriously how can anyone not. So...I will get them out tomorrow. I read the book first thing this morning and analyzed the supporting PDFs but then got very busy but had time to think about his presentation So this afternoon I read it through again making even more notes. Geech I always love the supporting / accompanying PDF.

As I have been saying for years and years, yes we have systemic racism but its not what people think and quite the opposite of what people are spewing on the main stream media attempting to brain wash the masses into further ignorance. Giving considerations is NOT and will NEVER BE equality. They are attempting EQUALITY OF OUTCOME which will NEVER EVER HAPPEN. So...

Equality is NOT giving millions to a specific group based on their Race/color or culture or even where they live... can you say Sub Economic Zones. Wrong is wrong and they have created this problem instead of facing the facts and accepting everyone is different and groups have different IQs but we ALL still have to live peacefully together. A rising tide lifts ALL boats. G is thee factor of success in life PERIOD. So then what is success forcing a person who has been giving a free ride to the highest level colleges so they feel unsafe because there is NO WAY they can do the work or even comprehend what is happening. It is Wrong, whereas they could succeed and do well at a location serving their particular group IQ level. Attempting to place them into occupations designed for 3 standard deviations higher forcing them to fail. No wonder our county is in dire need of sanitation workers, electricians, plumbers, construction worker, laborers, janitors, truck drivers etc. The military occupations are based on IQ so why not mirror that very successful system to create a successful society which I have said many times.

Perhaps its time to remove ALL DEMOGRAPHICS and STOP ALL Govt College Funding and considerations and..... Taking from one group to give to another isn't that why this country was started?

IQ is EVERYTHING and yes Charles it DOES matters in daily life which should BE OBVIOUS to everyone when we have police attempting to communicate simple basic commands or engaging in dialog that ends someones life. If I say turn around and you turn with your gun over your head and you still get shot well that is a problem. Attempting to trick a man through word play when he has no concept of what is happening just to pull your gun and shoot him is WRONG and NOT EQUALITY UNDER THE LAW. We have a problem and the problem is as Charles states 60 years of making certain group IQs even lower as Thomas has also been lecturing about and now the standard deviation is so much lower we have created jungles in the USA where no civilized man or women dares tread. Can you say Chicago! When children are shot in their homes as idiots chant to defund the police. This has made me consider a return to the original documents creating this country. You cannot read but vote, you cannot afford an ID but you vote. NO WAY! (Dominion votes for everyone anyway) When did a civilized society blame the citizen vs the criminal but now we erect statues of crack headed felons and condone rioting and burning of our communities then give more money to support that behavior further violating our streets what kind of role model is that for an IQ group that is already characteristically prone to certain behaviors. Its just so absurd and so far down the rabbit hole as to present an absolute farce and as Charles also warns is pushing to hard at the peace and progress we as a country have made as a shining example for the world. Should we wall up the cities or allow that to move to another city for even further destruction as everyone walks on egg shells instead of facing the truth, the realty also known as FACTS. Tear it down but what is better down to what has Africa made any progress or just more tearing down of societal values of love your neighbor, honor and respect your fellow citizens. It is just absurd in the country of freedom, Liberty and LAW as Charles attempts to once again relay.

To be continued tomorrow.

Thank you Charles once again you stand up and do the right and honorable thing. I don't care for your safe sided back peddling and accommodations now because of the Bell Curve but I am sure it has been a challenge; a lessor man would have folded and I am sure each time the riots start your security sense goes way way up, so thank you again.

[Jukka Aakula · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I see it the republican party is in the hands of right-wing populists with all side effects like fake news about elections, neglect of climate change in the arguments of Republican politicians, etc. At the same time, the pseudo-progressive left-wing of the Democratic Party sees nothing but Sexism, White Privilege, Structural Racism etc. in the US. These two groups do all to destroy the US as the leader of the free West.

(Summary starts. Arguments are Murray's.)

And here comes a book by the right-wing social scientist Charles Murray who with very strong data analysis shows his point against the theories of Structural Racism as a reason of African and Latin underrepresentation in certain jobs and overrepresentation as actors of violent crime like Homicide.
And makes a strong and well-argumented case against Affirmative Action.

The book is written mainly to the moderates on the Center-Right and Center-Left. Politics must be based on facts. But the moderates must become brave enough to accept facts and also say them aloud.

In the case of the "race" and the case of Affirmative Action the facts are:

1 There exist clear differences in IQ between groups and there exist big differences in criminality between groups. These differences in criminality are not based on police prejudice.

2 That some groups are underrepresented for example as CEOs or senior IT professionals in big companies is due to the nature of the normal distribution, not Structural Racism. IQ is normally distributed meaning that people with IQ over say 2 or 3 Standard Deviations above the average are only a small part of the whole population. 0.15% for 3 SD.

But because the IQ averages of the African, Latin, European, and Asian populations clearly differ, the Asians and the Europeans are very much overrepresented in the group of people with high IQ.

"The usual way in which the media and politicians talk about race discrimination in the job market is to compare the percentage of Africans or Latins in a given occupation with the percentage of Europeans. This makes the situation look bad. The 2014–2018 American Community Survey found that Africans, at 13 percent of the population, accounted for only 3.6 percent of CEOs, 3.7 percent of physical scientists, 4.4 percent of civil engineers, 5.1 percent of physicians, and 5.2 percent of lawyers. Latin percentages in those prestigious occupations ranged from 5.3 to 7.6 percent, but Latins are almost 18 percent of the population, so their underrepresentation was nearly the same."

Looks like Structural Racism. But because CEOs are typically chosen in the group of high IQ people, the truth is very different.

"Let’s say that an elite IT company in Silicon Valley snags 100 new hires from the 135+ pool in the racial proportions of the pool as a whole. That means 70 are European, 22 are Asian, 4 are Latin, 1 is African, and 3 are a mixture of races or “other.”

3. Because of Affirmative Action in schools and in workplaces, the average IQ of the different groups follows the same rule. The IQ of Africans is 0.5 to 1.0 SD's below the one of Asians and Europeans. Murray shows that this difference matters. The performance at work is dependent on the IQ of the employee.

For Murray Affirmative Action and the claim of Structural Racism as a reason for the underrepresentation of certain minorities in jobs like CEO or senior IT professional is a disease creating big trouble. The White majority facing the claims they are personally guilty of racism raises anger. They radicalize.

To Murray every person must be treated as a unique individual and do not as a member of a group - otherwise, we are back to the jungle of tribes fighting each other.

The statistics show that the relations between racial groups are becoming worse every day that goes. Not better.

"It has long been my view, first expressed in these words long ago, that aggressive affirmative action is a poison leaking into the American experiment. We are now dealing with nearly sixty years of accumulated toxin. It is not the only cause of the present crisis, but it is a central one."

(Summary stops)

To me what happens in the US is important especially because it is the US that has to lead the world against Climate Change and Loss of Biodiversity. It is the US that has to lead the West in the fight against the totalitarian expansion of China and Russia. If the US is weakened by identity politics and polarization, we lose these fights.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the very brevity of this book, it is certainly meant more to read as a statistical, unbiased essay on the current state of racial relations in the United States. It is an excellent and informative read, with very simple, straightforward analyses of differences between cognitive abilities and crime rates that many minorities, as well as members of the radical left, simply denote as “racist!” without any real counter argument to back these claims up.
The problem is, is that it is the very real difference between IQ/cognitive abilities and pervasive crime statistics that cause discriminatory attitudes toward minorities (African and Latin), are NOT an inherent racist bias in and of itself.

Unfortunately, all of this madness about critical race theory, white privilege and “wokeness” is simply adding to the divisiveness of our nation. And the people who really need to be reading this book likely won’t. It’s funny because although I think of myself as someone who leans more left, I can’t exactly applaud either side for being able to actually take the time to read one another’s viewpoint on an issue. I don’t understand why not. If you don’t agree still, doesn’t it at the very least strengthen your arguments for not agreeing?

One of Murray’s main concerns is one I’ve long thought about: while blacks only constitute about 13% of the population, the Black Lives Matter movement as well as other black leaders and the white elite are constantly telling whites, who make up 60% of the population, that they are racist, have only achieved what they have in life because of their “white privilege” (no matter what other obstacles they’ve had to overcome, because there’s sure as hell a lot of other obstacles out there than simply race alone).

As he notes, “many middle class and working class whites have not been insulted into agreement. They’re just insulted, and to their minds unfairly insulted. I’m not talking about white nationalists and white supremacists - their numbers are relatively small. My concern is the extremely large majority of middle-class and working-class whites who don’t think of themselves as racists and have not behaved as racists...”

“They see themselves as having treated black and Latino neighbors and coworkers with friendship and respect. They believe that everyone has a God given right to be treated equally. Now all of them are being told that they are privileged and racist, and they are asking on what grounds. They are living ordinary lives, with average incomes, working hard to make ends meet. They can’t see what “white privilege” they have ever enjoyed. Some are fed up and ready to push back.

I mean sure, tell someone with a mental health disorder that grew up in an impoverished, abusive family that he only overcame those awful situations to become successful due to the fact that he was white. Not because he refused to be a victim and kept fighting back no matter how many times he was knocked down. That’s really doing someone a disservice, to say the least.

I really just don’t think this book will be read by the right people. Because the ones who are reading it have clearly been giving it high ratings, and most of this already reads as common sense to those of us who don’t try to be overly PC. Things we already know but again, often can’t say aloud, for fear of being accused of racism. This is the reality of our insane world where all logic and facts have flown out the window on both sides of the political spectrum.

[Ryan]

I think The Bell Curve should have avoided all mention of race (which was a pretty small part of the book) and focused purely on intra-race/ethnic IQ (for which there's much stronger data, and for which a lot of the arguments about IQ predicting success were at the time novel and are quite useful). This book is basically the "spicy" bits of The Bell Curve.

It's pretty well presented and short. The conclusions are essentially offensive to a lot of people. Probably not the most effective way to present the argument to someone who isn't incredibly open minded.

Murray is pretty reasonable as far as presenting "heredity or environment" as causes for various things. This book is...probably not something anyone but Murray could write, and probably only at this (near the end) stage of his career. I'd like to see reasonable counterarguments to it, as I dislike many of the conclusions.

[Robert E. Block · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Book Should Be Required Reading.

Charles Murray has been a data-based reporter of what is happening in America for decades. He is honest, honorable, and very insightful.

This book attempts to tell uncomfortable truths about the America. Truths that are currently unacceptable in most of our major media, but truths that need to be told. His analysis of what could happen unless we get back to our foundational principals is frightening and thought provoking.

[Alexander Manilov · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book everyone should read, especially in today's civil war climate.

[Adds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important book with a clear, data-driven, and eye-opening message.

[Jay Pemberton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The data presented was impressive and thought provoking. I wish there was an additional chapter on possible solutions to the problems presented on race, intelligence, and crime but after listening to Glenn Loury's podcast with the author I understand why he stopped where he did.

[John Phillip Burns · Rating 1 out of 5]

Truly one of the saddest things I’ve ever encountered, including TFW NO GF

[John Biddle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A revealing little book. Delves deeply into the question of why, in the face of all the "evidence" of disparate impact that "proves" America is fundamentally a racist country, an honest, thinking person should conclude otherwise.

I know this book will be pilloried in the press, if indeed it gets any notice at all, because it relies not only on the author's own The Bell Curve, but on the 30 years of additional research that proved it right. There's a great deal of interesting information here you don't often hear about but is nonetheless important to know, or at the very least know about.

Short, but packing a wallop, I give it 5 stars.