I do not have any black acquaintances. Conversely I am not a Jew myself but I am quite close to a few of them. Nevertheless all the arguments made below are based on publicly available facts.
What I am doing here is oppose two diverging populations, Blacks and Jews, against the Western white majority to make a reductio ad absurdum. One that proves that if you believe Blacks are on average less intelligent than Whites and that this is the reason why they are underrepresented in higher education and overrepresented in correctional facilities then you cannot make any appeal to conspiracies to explain why Jews are more present in positions of power in finance, politics etc. because the same forces that place blacks in a more disadvantaged position place Jews in a more favorable one.
All the data presented below comes from a very simple model in which I have compared how the three groups: Whites, Blacks and Jews, interact in terms of IQ in the USA. Of course the distributions of these groups at the overall population level are well known, Whites being the majority followed by blacks and finally Jews that make up a very small minority.
Overall Population ratios |
|
Whites for each Black |
5 |
Whites for each Jew |
37 |
But at different IQ segments, these ratios change dramatically reflecting the better or worse intellectual predisposition of each group and their relative population sizes. The table below summarizes all the figures I have used as inputs for the calculations of three overlapping bell curves. They might not be extremely accurate but they reflect sufficiently well the underlying reality. The shakiest data is that for Jews’ IQ. I’ve used the same standard deviation (SD) for all three groups. And for the Jewish IQ I’ve used the estimation provided by La Griffe du Lion who approximates the White-Ashkenazi difference as 0.73 standard deviations[i], for an average IQ of 111. Of course this estimation can have some limitations but whether Ashkenazi IQ is higher or lower than 111 it does not change the outcome of this analysis in any significant way.
USA Population variables
Segment |
Millions |
IQ Mean |
IQ SD |
Whites |
197 |
100 |
15 |
Blacks |
85 |
85 |
15 |
Jews |
5.3 |
111 |
15 |
As it can be easily observed from the tables below, the overall population ratios between the three groups change dramatically when we compare people above or below certain levels of intellectual brightness or dullness. Jews, who are quite a small minority in the overall population start becoming a common encounter when we move up the intellectual ladder. If you couldn’t understand why there are so many Jewish Nobel laureates all while Jews are such a tiny minority this is the reason why.
For Blacks the situation is much more unfortunate. An extremely smart Black person is harder to find than even an average Jew even though there are 16 times more Blacks than Jews in the USA.
In the other side of the curve due to the exponential decline of the bell curve there is a larger absolute number of dull Blacks than dull Whites even though they are a smaller population.
Smart Whites and Jews
IQ Above |
Million Whites |
Million Jews |
W-J Ratio |
100 |
99 |
4.1 |
24 |
110 |
50 |
2.8 |
18 |
120 |
18 |
1.5 |
12 |
130 |
4.5 |
0.5 |
8.2 |
Smart Whites and Blacks
IQ Above |
Million Whites |
Million Blacks |
W-B Ratio |
100 |
99 |
6.0 |
16 |
110 |
50 |
1.8 |
27 |
120 |
18 |
0.4 |
48 |
130 |
4.5 |
0.1 |
87 |
Dull Whites and Blacks
IQ Below |
Million Whites |
Million Blacks |
W-B Ratio |
100 |
99 |
32 |
3.1 |
90 |
50 |
24 |
2.1 |
80 |
18 |
14 |
1.3 |
70 |
4.5 |
6.0 |
0.7 |
The bottom line is very clear: Jews have it easier, Blacks have it harder. But there is no need to resort to conspiracy theories to either explain the overrepresentation of Blacks in prisons or Jews in high finance.
[i] La Griffe du Lion – Volume 14 Number 1 August 2012 – http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/ashkenaz.htm