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I Got them Bad Bell-Bottomed Genes
Richard W. Malott1

Behavior Analysis Program
Department of Psychology
Western Michigan University

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THEY GOT THEM BAD GENES

This ain't no scholarly critique of Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve. Ain't based on the book. It's a pop reaction to the Reader's Digest/Classic Comics version as presented in a two-cassettee recording, read by Dr. Murray.

In the first part, the majority of the book, the authors are clearly just humble scientists in search of the cold, buck-naked truth. Just scholars looking with dispassionate objectivity at vast amounts of data, letting them IQ points fall where they may. Weighing the evidence pro and con. No agenda, hidden or otherwise. But an intellectually honest, thoughtful reading of the large amounts of scientific data prove at the .05 level of confidence that 60% of the Negro's stupidity is inherited and 40% is learned.

Don't think so? Check this out (and this is a tough one): High-IQ parents have high IQ kids who do a lot better in life than the dummies do. But what about the confounds, the money, the better schools, the . . . . Even when you equate for all that, the higher the IQ, the better the success. In fact, parent's IQ is a better predictor than their tax bracket. So that proves blacks are inherently inferior. . . . Huh?

They say sorry; but, hey, don't shoot the messenger.

And then (and here comes the best part), then the authors pull off their masks. April fool, we was just kidding. We ain't no scientists; we're republicans! And we've got the solution to all the social ills in this U S of A: Take all the money from them poor black folks and give it to the rich white folks; and it'll work out better that way, for everyone, or almost everyone. And some of it will tinkle down to them blacks who stumbled into the top of the bell curve.

Miss Evers' Boys--a play about four black men in Alabama. The white doctor from up North: Well, you see gentlemen, the syphilitic spirochete Treponema pallidum is connected to your knee bone, and the syphilitic spirochete is connected to your leg bone, and those spirochete are going to dance around. . . .

Huh? What he talkin' 'bout?

How do I communicate with these people, Nurse Evers?

Tell 'em they got that bad blood.

Oh, I gots that bad blood. Why didn't you say so?

And so four black men plus six hundred others participated in the Tuskegee experiment for almost 40 years under the impression they were being treated for syphilis, when they were really an untreated "control" group. Screwed up gait, blindness, craziness, death. And them science fellers scientifically proved that Afro-Americans react to syphilis just like them Scandinavians did when they didn't get treated. We all equal in the eyes of the syphilitic spirochete.

Meet the Press. Topic: Kill affirmative action. Seated next to Dr. Murray in the panel discussion is Harlem's own Congressman Charles Rangel, the most powerful Afro-American in Washington. And he says he's been getting an ass whipping because he called some honkie racist a fascist.

And Murray explains that 60% of colored inferiority is genetic and 40% is learned. And you got to understand that Dr. Murray is such a warm, gentle, quiet, sincere, concerned man that you think he's Mr. Rogers in disguise.

Rangel says: I can't say the man's name no more, but that sure sounds like that Kraut who gassed six million Jews because they were genetically inferior to the blondes.

Well, Dr. Rogers really gets pissed. How can anyone think . . . ? You see, it's very complex, and statistical, and there's over lapping distributions, see, and standard deviants see. But, of course, my good man, if you didn't get at least a grade of BA in advanced statistics at Harvard, you couldn't understand that the standard deviation is connected to measures of central tendency, and central tendency is connected to analyses of covariance, and them genes them genes gonna' walk around. And Rangel was silenced.

And Judge Clarence "Pubic-Hair" Thomas who was appointed to the supreme court, not because he was black and would get Bush off the hook, but because he just happened to be the most highly qualified lawyer in the neighborhood and stood firmly against the gross immorality of quotas.

Now we have proof that not only is affirmative action and quotas unfair to rich white folks but it's also ineffective: True, affirmative action and quotas may have played a major role in the development of a viable black middle class, but it didn't get rid of the black underclass. So bag it.

Besides, Newt Gangrene got to be the house mouth; so anyone can. Even that third generation, 12-year-old, black ADC kid who can't count to 12 and who ain't got no daddy and whose mother is a junkie and a hooker, yes, even he can become a rich white person if he really wants to. And if he's got 60% of them true-blue genes. No need to cut a special deal for him so's he can end up in an environment where the contingencies might be more effective in helping him get his act together. Jackie Robinson didn't need no quotas.

And Bill Clinton is going to pull the welfare-Cadillac plug on all programs but the truly effective.

And here's the best part: Then the pres pulls off his mask. April fool; I ain't no democrat; I'm George Bush!

This has been an unpaid political advertisement, sponsored by the Lenny Bruce for President Campaign.