advantages

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Question: Do different races have advantages over other races? These could be physical, mental, or social.

The book, //The Bell Curve Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life// tells about some studies that were made regarding racial advantages. The aspect of a racial advantage that I read about in this book was a mental advantage. Specifically, it talks about the IQ’s of blacks compared to whites. An advantage that blacks have is that when the IQ is controlled a larger number of blacks than whites graduate from college and enter the professions. When it says when the IQ is controlled it means that the people conducting the studies looked at people with the same IQ’s among the races. This fact doesn’t apply to each race as a whole. Another thing that they found during this study was that after controlling for IQ the black and white difference in annual income and amount of people below the poverty line decreases. This shows that there is not much racial advantage difference shown among people with the same IQ. However it does lead to the idea that whites might have an overall mental advantage over blacks. This might be the case because if these two things decrease when IQ is controlled, then that must mean that the average IQ for blacks is generally lower. I can make these assumptions due to some facts from the recession of 1992. These facts say that the white unemployment rate was 7%, and the poverty rate for white people was less that 12%. They also say that the black unemployment rate was 14%, and the poverty rate for black people was 33%. Considering what was said above about when controlling for IQ the annual income and the amount of people below the poverty line decrease, then there is a possibility that white people have a mental advantage over black people.

([]) This is implying that different races do have advantages and disadvantage when compared to other races.

Races can be greatly affected by racial stereotypes. Sometimes people feel that they are not living up to their standard, being what race they are, if they do not fit the stereotype that is put on their race. For an example, most people are aware of the stereotype that Asians are smart. Suppose you are a not so smart Asian, and people have much higher expectations of you. You might be put down, or maybe even looked upon as being lazy because you are not living up to the stereotype that Asians are smart. Also, some races might feel constricted socially by these stereotypes. Some people might feel that they are only supposed to talk, hangout, or be good friends with their race. This can be very affecting, especially to minorities, because if you are a minority living in a predominantly white neighborhood, then you might feel alone or might not have many friends. There are very high possibilities that could happen because of there being so many different races and the percent of the white population in the United States of America being approximately 80%. This leads to the idea that in the United States white people have a social advantage over all other races because of being the majority race and because of harmful stereotypes. I feel that if we can eliminate these stereotypes, then we can eliminate any social advantage no matter who is the majority race. ([])

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A way that people tell if there are physical advantages among different races is the Olympics. Some people judge if a race is good a sports by how many medals they have won at these events. I say that this is not the best way to judge if a race has physical advantages because

Next: Next I would like to look at the physical aspect of race, and how it compares among different races. One of the things that I would like to look at to compare different races, in terms of what physical advantages or disadvantages they have, is the results of the Olympics. However, there is no way to know for sure if there are advantages or disadvantages among races because of immigration and mixing races.

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