Value

There's an article in the New York Times about recent discoveries in DNA research and how those might be applied and misapplied:

Scientists, for instance, have recently identified small changes in DNA that account for the pale skin of Europeans, the tendency of Asians to sweat less and West Africans’ resistance to certain diseases.

At the same time, genetic information is slipping out of the laboratory and into everyday life, carrying with it the inescapable message that people of different races have different DNA. Ancestry tests tell customers what percentage of their genes are from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. The heart-disease drug BiDil is marketed exclusively to African-Americans, who seem genetically predisposed to respond to it. Jews are offered prenatal tests for genetic disorders rarely found in other ethnic groups.

DNA markers and racial difference came up a few weeks ago when James Watson, co-Nobel laureate for the identification of the structure of DNA, was interviewed by the UK's Sunday Times:

[Watson] says that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours-–whereas all the testing says not really," and I know that this "hot potato" is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true." He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level." He writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

Watson's conclusions about intelligence were soundly debunked by researchers in the field of intelligence (nice summary with links here), who point out that, unlike pale skin or the presence of specific diseases, native intelligence is difficult to measure, and most of our attempts are hindered by socioeconomic and environmental factors; when these are controlled for, racial differences dissipate. Shortly after these remarks, Watson retired from his post at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab on Long Island. Watson's remarks were a (characteristically, for him--more below) extreme response, but the New York Times article goes on to suggest that there is still reason for concern:

Such developments are providing some of the first tangible benefits of the genetic revolution. Yet some social critics fear they may also be giving long-discredited racial prejudices a new potency. The notion that race is more than skin deep, they fear, could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all fundamentally equal.

But it's a not question of racial difference (or ethnic, or whatever), but of our fundamental values as a people. We may want, as Watson says, to value everyone equally in our society--and why shouldn't we? The fact of genetic and biological difference, if it exists (and it does--men and women are biologically distinct, and no one would argue otherwise, but the fact that certain of my genes and working parts differ from a man's has little to do with my test scores or aspirations or how good I am at my job), doesn't matter unless we decide it does.

Come on, we all know stupid people. And some of them are people we value and love. Does lack of academic ability or of the facility to quickly reason and resolve a complex problem (the kind of things we tend to think of when we use the nebulous term "intelligence") make a person inherently worthless? Of course not. Someone who can't get a decent score on a standardized test may be a hard worker or a compassionate person, may have many other skills and talents, and can contribute to the society and the community just as much as the "smart" people. If we drew an IQ line--even if that measure as it exists today weren't so fatally flawed--what would we as a society lose by excluding those below it? A great deal. That's why we don't do it. We have acknowledged that the constellation of valuable things in a person is varied, complex, and possible infinite, and the way to recognize that is to value all persons.

Those who point at the possibility of racial differences in the measure of intelligence are just looking for support for a prejudice they already harbor, an easy excuse to exclude by race; if they weren't, they'd be lobbying instead to exclude all people below a certain IQ line, regardless of race. (As an aside, Watson in earlier comments also suggested breeding out stupidity. To my mind, it's pretty stupid to cull people based on a single measure, as though no other thing had value. He also suggested genetic selection to make all women beautiful--I guess he gets to decide what constitutes beauty, and bad news for you if you're not his type--and giving mothers the option of aborting fetuses that carried a hypothetical genetic marker for homosexuality. Because apparently being pretty and straight and doing well on IQ tests is what you really need to get every job done.) The debate would be about where exactly that dividing line should rest, not the color of the people on one side or the other.

Here's a measure that is not genetic but is clearly and unequivocally linked with better health and survival, higher standardized test scores, greater access to education and other resources, and a more prominent and influential role in the society: money. Many societies through history have recognized this marker, and explicitly valued those born into better economic circumstances above those born into poverty: for example, societies in which a vote or other political influence is tied to ownership of property.

But we as Americans have chosen to value individuals in our political system without regard to the economic circumstances of their birth: everyone gets the same vote. We believe in access to education for all, and that the opportunity to gain money shouldn't be restricted by how much you're born with--you should have the chance to rise from poverty, you should have the chance even to become rich. But why? After all, it's proven that people born into a higher socioeconomic class are likely to do better overall . . .

It's a matter of what we choose to value, how we have chosen to define justice.

We've made the choice to value more than one thing in a person, in fact to value many things, by attempting to treat everyone equally. (In practice, this needs some work. But that's several other conversations.) In that scenario, what DNA research may show about racial difference in any particular respect is immaterial.

And that is something I value very highly.

Ain't We Got Class

This article in the Times got us talking at the dinner table last night. Ruby Payne, the subject of the article, teaches teachers about class in order to make them more able to reach students not of their own background. She takes a pretty simple approach:

At the heart of Payne’s philosophy is a one-page chart, titled “Hidden Rules Among Classes,” which appears in most of her books. There are three columns, for poverty, middle class and wealth, and 15 rows, covering everything from time to love to money to language. In a few words, Payne explains how each class sees each concept. Humor in poverty? About people and sex. In the middle class? About situations. In wealth? About social faux pas. In poverty, the present is most important. In the middle class, it’s the future. In wealth, it’s the past. The key question about food in poverty: Did you have enough? In the middle class: Did you like it? In wealth: Was it presented well?

Rob found himself sympathizing with Payne's critics, who say that by talking about what may be seen as stereotypes, you perpetuate the notion of class and the problem of poverty without addressing its causes.

While I don't disagree with that, I do see the merit in what she says. Ultimately, the way you get power is learn to understand and act like the people who have it. This is true as much for race (Joe Biden called Barack Obama "articulate," as if most black public figures aren't--but what I think he was quite likely reacting to is the fact that Obama talks like Biden and all the other white political figures, rather than like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton--who are both without question articulate, but don't talk anything like Joe Biden); for sex (girls who want to succeed in business beyond the mid level had better learn to shake hands like men, speak up like men, etc.); as it is for socioeconomic class. Same is true in the microcosm of school: you want to be one of the popular kids? Start dressing and acting like them. Ruby Payne is pointing out that some things that may seem self-evident to a middle-class school teacher may not be obvious to students from poverty; she is telling them how to teach their students to "pass" as middle class, because that's how you get in.

Perhaps some discomfort with Payne's approach also stems from the fact that as a nation we like to think the lines of class are nonexistent, or at least blurred. Defining class with such specificity denies that.

(I think it's interesting too that the article notes that Payne has made a lot of money on talking about class. Is that wrong? Isn't that what many people aspire to do--climb the socioeconomic ladder? It's not as if she has stolen money from poor people to become wealthy. But perhaps envy of the rich is on her list of traits of the middle class.)

There's also the matter of the fine line between characteristics and stereotypes. But again, that's an issue that relates to race and sex as well. Some years ago, a male writer colleague was assigned to write a story from a female viewpoint in order to help him develop better female characters in his stories. He plied the female writers in the group with questions about biology--menstruation, etc. Which was missing the point. As I told him then, the difference is less in our biology (some of us menstruate, some don't; some have babies, some don't) than in our experience of the world. For example: the women were told not to walk alone on campus late at night. The men weren't. We were considered to be inherently at greater--or different--risk simply by being female. It's a given, not something most of us go around thinking about, it's just part of the background noise of life. And it's different than being male. Not a stereotype, but a way we interact differently with our world. So it's not a stretch to think that people who worry where their next meal is coming from might as a group be inclined to think about food differently than those who don't.

Yes, there's something fundamentally unpleasant about people having to learn to pass for something else, to give up their own values and lifestyles, in order to get an education. And it certainly addresses the symptoms of poverty without addressing the root causes that perpetuate it. But the fact is that, as noted above, unpalatable as it may be, it works. And until people who have the experience of poverty--of any kind of powerlessness--become a significant portion of the group that hold power--economic or any other sort--there won't be significant progress in addressing the fundamental issues of poverty and discrimination.

So it's a start. And we have to start somewhere, because students from poverty are falling farther and farther behind. And all of us in society suffer the consequences of that.