There are a lot of people in the news lately lamenting the fact that apparently, black adolescents are perceived as being older than their actual age would indicate. Allow me to cite some examples:
American Psychological Association: "Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent Than Whites, Research Finds"
Vox: Police Thought 12-year-old Tamir Rice was 20 when they shot him. This isn't uncommon.
The Wire: People, Including Cops, See Black Kids as Less Innocent and Less Young than White Kids
I could keep linking but most of these stories are all just referring to that research from the APA earlier this year. There are stories at Daily Beast, Huffington, NPR, you name it.
All follow the same theme: harping on this perception of young black people as being older and more mature, possibly more threatening than their white peers.
Every single one I've read pegs white racism as the reason for this. I think there may be a more scientific explanation:
On average, blacks mature faster than whites. This includes reaching puberty and completing puberty earlier, among other milestones. Let's look at citations for that:
U.S. News & World Report: Boys Hit Puberty Sooner Now, Study Finds
CNN.com:
Keep in mind, most people who don't favor a genetic explanation would tend to go to nutrition but this would be odd since we hear so often about African-Americans having much WORSE nutrition than whites.
And then there's the issue of testosterone. Let's look at a study from the National Institutes of Health:
and as we all know, testosterone is a hormone which most people seem to agree is linked to growth, masculinization, aggression, bulk, puberty, sex drive, depth of voice, muscle mass, etc. There wouldn't be a steroid industry if it weren't. I can't claim expertise in this area, perhaps someone will tell me "no it's not settled that it's linked to those things!" but all of these things are observed in males as compared to females and males have considerably more testosterone.
So, is it possible that the perception of young black adolescents as older, more threatening, and less innocent than white adolescents of the same age is just a reflection of biological reality? We are animals, after all, and different selection pressure environments trigger different reactions in our genetic averages.
The group who stayed behind in our species' original habitat would seem to have logically changed the least. We are an odd species in how long our pregnancies are, and how long our offspring are helpless. On the other extreme are gazelles and such which need to be able to run from predators the day they're born, or very soon after.
Is it possible that slower maturation and lower testosterone levels were adaptations to cold weather environments, even ice age environments? Was there some advantageous trade off gained? If so, what was it?
National Institutes of Health: Does Gestation Vary by Ethnic Group?
(Note, that study is from the UK and therefore "Asians" likely doesn't mean East Asians as it would in an American study)
I'll wrap this up but is it possible that white people actually selectively bred for more docility, lower testosterone, slower development? Many of you may be familiar with the study of domesticating Foxes which was done in Siberia. They were able to breed very effectively in a small number of generations for extreme levels of docility and friendliness toward humans in foxes, and most interestingly of all... those traits appeared to be coupled with differences in appearance (floppier ears, different colors, shaggier coats I believe) etc.
Is it possible that the studies we've all heard about where blacks are seen as more threatening even when images are flashed before someone for just a fraction of a second, and even to black participants... indicate that the vastly different selection environment of ice age Eurasia favored traits over the course of tens of thousands of years which were "bundled together" in a similar way to the foxes? In addition to concerns regarding Vitamin D, heat preservation, etc... could skin color changes reflect this?
Instead of societal racism against blacks, is it possible black physical traits are bundled to higher aggression/testosterone and we perceive this on a deep instinctive level without even realizing it? And that blacks themselves find whites less threatening? Could this help explain the fact that doll studies showed black girls preferred white dolls and that this was even the case in Africa with black girls who had no exposure to whites, or very minimal exposure? At the time, that doll study was sold as proving awful white racism in US society, and the results from Africa weren't mentioned much.
Is it possible the testosterone difference helps explain the incarceration gap, just as it does with males as compared to females? Males are much more likely to be imprisoned for violent offenses than females are, and likewise with blacks as compared to whites.
Does anyone honestly believe that black actors and singers (and just black people in general) almost always have deeper voices than whites because of some cultural construct where they're just raised to think they should speak that way? Of course, this is just on average but everything I'm saying is just speaking about the averages.
Think about the singing voices of Taylor Swift as compared to Beyonce Knowles, etc.
If deliberate breeding of animals for certain traits is something we've known for a very long time can easily be achieved in a few generations... and if we know for a rock solid fact, therefore, that things like docility/aggression, size, speed, balance of masculine to feminine traits... you name it, are all heavily under genetic control and can be bred for...
Then why in the world would anyone doubt that populations in vastly different selection environments for tens of thousands of years (40-60,000 is my understanding that blacks and whites were apart) would stumble onto some of those same "self-selected" patterns because of the needs of their social arrangements and the demands of the environment they were in?
Why should those sorts of genetic doors be openable only by farmers breeding livestock, and somehow magically impossible to access inadvertently in ourselves as we set up large scale agricultural societies, etc.? A lot of very drastic shifts in human life ways were happening in Eurasia and not happening in Sub-Saharan Africa, after all.
I just want someone here to tell me how on Earth this actually would NOT happen?
I'd like some people to tell me if they at least think there is potentially something to at least some of the things I've mentioned here?
Or you can just scream "racist!" at me if you prefer. That works too.
American Psychological Association: "Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent Than Whites, Research Finds"
Quote:
"Black boys as young as 10 may not be viewed in the same light of childhood innocence as their white peers, but are instead more likely to be mistaken as older, be perceived as guilty and face police violence if accused of a crime, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. “Children in most societies are considered to be in a distinct group with characteristics such as innocence and the need for protection. Our research found that black boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that children are essentially innocent,” said author Phillip Atiba Goff, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles." ---------------------------------------------------------------- "The evidence shows that perceptions of the essential nature of children can be affected by race, and for black children, this can mean they lose the protection afforded by assumed childhood innocence well before they become adults,” said co-author Matthew Jackson, PhD, also of UCLA. “With the average age overestimation for black boys exceeding four-and-a-half years, in some cases, black children may be viewed as adults when they are just 13 years old.” |
Vox: Police Thought 12-year-old Tamir Rice was 20 when they shot him. This isn't uncommon.
The Wire: People, Including Cops, See Black Kids as Less Innocent and Less Young than White Kids
I could keep linking but most of these stories are all just referring to that research from the APA earlier this year. There are stories at Daily Beast, Huffington, NPR, you name it.
All follow the same theme: harping on this perception of young black people as being older and more mature, possibly more threatening than their white peers.
Every single one I've read pegs white racism as the reason for this. I think there may be a more scientific explanation:
On average, blacks mature faster than whites. This includes reaching puberty and completing puberty earlier, among other milestones. Let's look at citations for that:
U.S. News & World Report: Boys Hit Puberty Sooner Now, Study Finds
Quote:
"Specifically, investigators discovered that males are showing the first signs of sexual maturity six months to two years earlier, with blacks having a significant head start relative to whites and Hispanics. The study does not pinpoint what exactly is driving the trend toward earlier puberty, nor does it identify an underlying mechanism that might explain any racial differences." |
CNN.com:
Quote:
"In this country, African-American and Hispanic girls tend to reach puberty earlier than their white counterparts. There are varying explanations. Globally, patterns of early puberty appear to be influenced by everything from economic conditions to climate to genes." |
Keep in mind, most people who don't favor a genetic explanation would tend to go to nutrition but this would be odd since we hear so often about African-Americans having much WORSE nutrition than whites.
Quote:
"The results were broken down by race: African-American boys start hitting Stage 2 first, at about 9 years old, while non-Hispanic white and Hispanic boys begin developing around 10 years old." |
And then there's the issue of testosterone. Let's look at a study from the National Institutes of Health:
Quote:
"Mean testosterone levels in blacks were 19% higher than in whites, and free testosterone levels were 21% higher. Both these differences were statistically significant." |
and as we all know, testosterone is a hormone which most people seem to agree is linked to growth, masculinization, aggression, bulk, puberty, sex drive, depth of voice, muscle mass, etc. There wouldn't be a steroid industry if it weren't. I can't claim expertise in this area, perhaps someone will tell me "no it's not settled that it's linked to those things!" but all of these things are observed in males as compared to females and males have considerably more testosterone.
So, is it possible that the perception of young black adolescents as older, more threatening, and less innocent than white adolescents of the same age is just a reflection of biological reality? We are animals, after all, and different selection pressure environments trigger different reactions in our genetic averages.
The group who stayed behind in our species' original habitat would seem to have logically changed the least. We are an odd species in how long our pregnancies are, and how long our offspring are helpless. On the other extreme are gazelles and such which need to be able to run from predators the day they're born, or very soon after.
Is it possible that slower maturation and lower testosterone levels were adaptations to cold weather environments, even ice age environments? Was there some advantageous trade off gained? If so, what was it?
National Institutes of Health: Does Gestation Vary by Ethnic Group?
Quote:
"The median gestational age at delivery was 39 weeks in Blacks and Asians and 40 weeks in white Europeans. Black women with normal body mass index (BMI) (18.5-24.9 kg/m(2)) had increased odds of preterm delivery (odds ratio [OR] = 1.33, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.56, adjusted for deprivation and BMI) compared with white Europeans. The OR of preterm delivery was also increased in Asians compared with white Europeans (OR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.33, 1.56, adjusted for single unsupported status and smoking). Meconium stained amniotic fluid, which is a sign of fetal maturity, was statistically significantly more frequent in preterm Black and Asian infants and term Black infants compared with white European infants. CONCLUSIONS: This research suggests that normal gestational length is shorter in Black and Asian women compared with white European women and that fetal maturation may occur earlier." |
(Note, that study is from the UK and therefore "Asians" likely doesn't mean East Asians as it would in an American study)
I'll wrap this up but is it possible that white people actually selectively bred for more docility, lower testosterone, slower development? Many of you may be familiar with the study of domesticating Foxes which was done in Siberia. They were able to breed very effectively in a small number of generations for extreme levels of docility and friendliness toward humans in foxes, and most interestingly of all... those traits appeared to be coupled with differences in appearance (floppier ears, different colors, shaggier coats I believe) etc.
Is it possible that the studies we've all heard about where blacks are seen as more threatening even when images are flashed before someone for just a fraction of a second, and even to black participants... indicate that the vastly different selection environment of ice age Eurasia favored traits over the course of tens of thousands of years which were "bundled together" in a similar way to the foxes? In addition to concerns regarding Vitamin D, heat preservation, etc... could skin color changes reflect this?
Instead of societal racism against blacks, is it possible black physical traits are bundled to higher aggression/testosterone and we perceive this on a deep instinctive level without even realizing it? And that blacks themselves find whites less threatening? Could this help explain the fact that doll studies showed black girls preferred white dolls and that this was even the case in Africa with black girls who had no exposure to whites, or very minimal exposure? At the time, that doll study was sold as proving awful white racism in US society, and the results from Africa weren't mentioned much.
Is it possible the testosterone difference helps explain the incarceration gap, just as it does with males as compared to females? Males are much more likely to be imprisoned for violent offenses than females are, and likewise with blacks as compared to whites.
Does anyone honestly believe that black actors and singers (and just black people in general) almost always have deeper voices than whites because of some cultural construct where they're just raised to think they should speak that way? Of course, this is just on average but everything I'm saying is just speaking about the averages.
Think about the singing voices of Taylor Swift as compared to Beyonce Knowles, etc.
If deliberate breeding of animals for certain traits is something we've known for a very long time can easily be achieved in a few generations... and if we know for a rock solid fact, therefore, that things like docility/aggression, size, speed, balance of masculine to feminine traits... you name it, are all heavily under genetic control and can be bred for...
Then why in the world would anyone doubt that populations in vastly different selection environments for tens of thousands of years (40-60,000 is my understanding that blacks and whites were apart) would stumble onto some of those same "self-selected" patterns because of the needs of their social arrangements and the demands of the environment they were in?
Why should those sorts of genetic doors be openable only by farmers breeding livestock, and somehow magically impossible to access inadvertently in ourselves as we set up large scale agricultural societies, etc.? A lot of very drastic shifts in human life ways were happening in Eurasia and not happening in Sub-Saharan Africa, after all.
I just want someone here to tell me how on Earth this actually would NOT happen?
I'd like some people to tell me if they at least think there is potentially something to at least some of the things I've mentioned here?
Or you can just scream "racist!" at me if you prefer. That works too.
via International Skeptics Forum http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285906&goto=newpost
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