All Rights Reserved © 2005 Thomas W. Day
I've probably written on this subject before. Look it up. I don't care if I'm repeating myself. In present times, there is never enough being said about discrimination and the flawed logic that is applied by the folks who discriminate and believe in a social class system so religiously that they would sacrifice 200+ years of social and economic progress to maintain it.
This is a subject that is dear and near to my heart. Both of my children are women and they've experienced more discrimination than they could ever deserve. Many of my friends are non-white and their experiences tear at my heart and make me ashamed of my country and culture.
Here's the deal. If you believe, for example, that white folks are superior to black folks, for example, it's simple to prove or disprove. If a race is superior, all healthy (non-mentally retarded) examples of that race will be superior to all healthy examples of the inferior race. Meaning, that every white man will be superior in intellect to every black man. Any deviation from that rule will disprove the entire argument. If I can find one black person who is more intelligent, more capable, and more educated than a single white person, the entire racial-superiority argument is defeated. I think even the dumbest Aryan Nation, KKK cracker will be stuck admitting that there are millions of black men and women who could outwit them and everyone in their family in every test of mental capacity except, possibly, who has memorized the most possum recipes.
The same test, slightly modified, would apply to sexism. For example, the statement "women are biologically unfit to be fighter pilots" could easily be put to the test. Since this is a highly skilled, we hope, technical and physical occupation, the "everyman" test is less applicable. So, I'll modify it. Now, what we'll say is if every qualified man is superior to every qualified woman, it's fair to say that women are unfit to be fighter pilots. To test the premise, you'd need a war. In peacetime, all kinds of crap ends up in the military. Criminals, high school dropouts, spoiled little rich kids who want to be "officers," and freaks who can't afford their own weapons filter into the military when a country doesn't need the military.
Once the war gets underway, the "professionals" get killed, run away, or are court-martialed for their usual perverse behavior and are replaced by citizen-soldiers. That's when the demand for talent overrides the impulse to either be politically correct or to be personally biased. Or, at least, that's when those impulses should be overridden.
During that period, women and men, provided with the same training, can establish superiority or equality. Until then, either position is unsupported by evidence. Until then, it doesn't matter. During peacetime, the military is an unnecessary luxury that can experiment in any dumbass behavior that it finds distracting.
And so it goes.
I suspect that the most qualified woman will be considerably more qualified than the least qualified man, in just about any technical field and, possibly, any physical activity we can imagine. I am absolutely convinced that the most intelligent, capable, rational, and inventive black/yellow/red/brown person will possess infinitely more of those traits than the least intelligent, capable, rational, and inventive white man. Regardless of education or cultural advantages, that proves (to me) that racial stereotypes are useless in evaluating either a race or individual members of that race. Your mileage may vary, but your evidence is all that interests me.
August 2005
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