Yes, actually.

The refutation of the racism argument (outside the USA, at least) is the great difference between Africans and Caribbeans, and the differences within the West Indian group. In London schools, the performance of Nigerian children is generally good, but they are often the children of professionals. In the Caribbean, Jamaica and Haiti have the lowest educational standards in the Americas, while some of the small islands do better than the USA. I remember once talking to a woman from Dominica who was working as a school secretary. She was shocked by the behaviour of the pupils in her school: "We wouldn't allow them to behave like that back home!" As I said, how children do at school is a matter of culture.

Interesting. Tell us more about the (specifically) second-generation American-born Chinese and Japanese children, in the U.S., that you're talking about. What do you know about them (as individuals and as a group) and how did you acquire that knowledge?

Do keep in mind that the North American media has a history of inflating the representation of "Asians" in universities. It dates back at least to the 70s, and the effect is not always positive. It's been used to fuel yellow-peril panics as recently as the 90s.

In my opinion, "your Mother's question" was very much "a question that was quite-naturally expressed in the vernacular of her time." In the many decades that have since followed since her passing, the frame-of-reference of her original question have [somewhat] changed. It is therefore necessary that we consider these differences.

In the period of history of which your Mother spoke, it is definitely clear that "being of the Jewish faith" (and in this case, "blood-line" ...) was, or at least was sufficiently perceived to be, "a socio-economic statification."

Meanwhile, in the present period, the parameters of "stratification" might well have changed.

Therefore, in our present discussion, we should be mindful of the influences of "causes" versus "effects."

Your Mother, quite naturally, in describing "effects," would have referred to [then-present ...] "causes," or in this case, "actors." ("Jews.")

But today, the "causes and/or actors" might be different ... in a way that your Mother obviously could not anticipate.

Therefore, let us frame our discussion ... and, particularly, our judgments(!) ... firmly in these terms.

It is, after all, not only "a [very ...] different decade," but "a [very ...] different century."

(May She Rest In Peace, and in Honor ...)

Oh get real. The entire reason you started this thread was to feel superior.

WW2 migrants to the UK were from better educated backgrounds?

Quite frankly, in those days, I suggest that "their number-one priority" was quite-simply "to get (the hell ...) out of their then-present situation . . . !!"

. . . and can we, uhhhh, blame them?

And so, I maintain ... "a helluva lot of things have happened" since your Mother asked that question, even though a great many other things have not.

In her time, the foundations of her opinion ... as she perhaps then perceived them ... stood firm. (And may she now Rest In Honored Peace™ without further judgment nor interrogation from the still-mortal likes of us.)

Today, I candidly suggest that "maybe we should lay off with regards to any specific references to "Jews, as a race and as a people," while continuing to observe the dichotomy ... which, I think, she very much observed .... between "the Haves and the Have-Nots." This dichotomy, in my humble, certainly continues to exist . . .

Although the nationalities might have changed, the dichotomy (and, the cultural division ...) still confronts us. It is not necessarily "racial." (In fact, I believe that it specifically isn't ...)

It remains as a problem that we, as a now-global society, have not yet solved.

I think the difference between my mother and most of the people called racists today is that she didn't approve of any group keeping itself on top artificially by keeping other groups down. How could she when she had lost so much of her family to that attitude? Yes, she did believe that Jews were naturally superior and that there was plenty of evidence for this; she also used to quote the number of Jews who won Nobel prizes compared with the actual size of the Jewish population worldwide. But she believed passionately in giving everyone a fair chance. The cream, she said, would rise to the top of its own accord.

Racists are people who see other groups as a threat ("They're bringing crime, they're bringing drugs, they're rapists...") and try to keep them down preemptively. In imperial Russia there were Jewish quotas at the universities because they believed that otherwise the Jews would take all the places. Ultimately racists want laws in place that will ensure that they are the ones that rise to the top and not any other group. Which means, paradoxically, that they don't believe their group is all that superior in reality. If they were as good as they claim to believe they are, why would they need to cripple or even exterminate other groups to ensure that they won the competition?

The going theories that internet racialist (they are the ones obsessed with all this stuff) with their statistical gene divinations is that Ashkenazis are the cream of the crop of intelligence and all other Jewish people are not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashken...h_intelligence

How do the Palestinians and Israel society fit in all of this?

Anyway, I think this man is mostly right about schooling vs education: https://youtu.be/YQiW_l848t8

If there is a Ashkenazi gene that causes high intelligence it will be found and it will be adapted to embryos of those with means someday. Whoever find the gene owns it. I had a Jewish Anthropology professor who shared with the class that businesses really want exotic blood. They offer indigenous tribes diabetes screening but not treatment in order to get that blood. There was a guy who was ill and his doctor took an extra interest in him because there was something special about him. The doctor discovered a gene expression, the man took the doctor to court over it and lost because the doctor discovered it. A new hyper intelligent critter is going to be born in the next couple hundred years that lives an extraordinary long life. Trans-humanism wins. The cream will be engineered and born with specific specifications. Eugenics is alive and well just more hidden and dressed up differently.

And I guess that "Jewish people, in general," are also supposed to be "smarter than the average bear?" Uh huh ...

The book The Bell Curve makes an interesting observation that what we might actually be measuring, in our so-called "intelligence" tests, is: an aptitude for taking standardized tests!

There is also a large amount of implied context. Someone from Burma who took an American test would not score as well as an American. Likewise, if the American went to Burma and took a Burmese test, he would not score as highly as a native.

We think that standardized tests are an "objective, scientific" measure. But, they are not. We don't know how to write such a thing.

I was one of those people who routinely scored in the 99th Percentile on standardized tests, and I know that a lot of my success with them came from familiarity with how such tests were routinely written. I could "get into the head of the test's authors" and from this anticipate what would turn out to be the "right" answer ... even if I was not very familiar with the subject being tested. I also had very good reading ability (I'm a voracious reader ... there is no television in our house ...) and therefore could parse the test content quickly ... allowing me to complete the test in less time. And, so on.

There are all kinds of "intelligence," though. Call it intuition. Call it instinct. Call it highly-developed hand/eye coordination. Call it what you will. There are people who are simply better at certain things, and "intelligent" people might have noticeable gaps in what they are able to do. (For instance, I scored in the 23rd Percentile on "folding-box problems," which asked you to identify what an unfolded box would look like when folded or vice-versa. Therefore, don't buy me a Home Depot gift card for Christmas.)

True, I think sensibility plays a global role in intelligence, I know I wouldn't qualify a person who excels at logic but lacking in sensibility as intelligent. I mean shit happens

I'm going to get a lot of flack here, but I too have an opinion about this!! First a little background; I come from a West Indian family that emigrated to these United States!! Being a dark skinned male in the city of Boston Massachusetts means that " racism was everywhere "!! I think that I was 4 years old when I saw a postcard rack in the neighborhood drug store!! Some of those postcards were of " negroes being hung " from trees, posts, etc. My family constantly coached me to never allow names, beating etc. swerve me from being a well brought up individual!! " If you are always at the top of your class no one is going to be able to constantly ridicule you!! Thomas Sowell, who is also West Indian, has written many books about the differences between the many different groups of negroes in the United States!! Jews, orientals, west indians, etc. make a big deal out of properly raising their children and making them get an education!! They raise their children to be decent people!!

In my opinion your human sex, religion, race, etc. all take a back burner to the way your parents, family, and your society mold you as a child!! I too am in my 70's and nothing is more sad than seeing children who are doomed to failure from the moment of their conception because they never know or receive any training from their fathers; they are never taught to carry their own weight; they are never raised with pride and dignity; their lives are just journeys from one dreadful tear to the next!! You could not get me to teach school for 15 million dollars a year because most of today's children were born knowing everything that they needed to know!! Here is the result of no upbringing: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2793130

Indeed, one psychologist called H J Eyesenck wrote a series of books called TEST YOUR IQ, KNOW YOUR IQ etc. These were a series of graded tests where you were given strict guidelines on how to write (time bound tests ,, etc). In the preface he clearly mentions that familiarity with the test environment will improve your scores but not significantly.

He also quotes nearly the same example of cultural difference except it isn't burma (or mya'maa) but pygmies in sub saharan africa.

OK

To me. That is the result of putting too many animals in a box. Google behavioural sink to understand what I am saying.

I think that the bottom line is simply that, "if you are dealing with human beings, you can never factor human beings(!) out of your equation." You can never create a truly objective test. Also, you can never really say what "human intelligence" actually is ... at least, not in terms of anything that you can test.

Not only can you not actually test for "intelligence," you most certainly cannot(!) assign it "a number," whether you call that number a "quotient" or not. A number is an abstract thing that can always be abstractly compared to all other instances of itself: "nine" will always be greater-than "eight." While it is certainly beguiling to imagine that the whole of an actual human being can be reduced to a single number, it is also quite laughable.

... except for the grim fact that we continue to do this. And that we codify these things into government policy. For example, in the USA we are still churning through a dystopian vision called, improbably, "No Child Left Behind." Although the social concept embodied in this catch-phrase title is as laudable as any such "catch-phrase [marketing] title" are intended to be, the consequences of the legislation continue to be disastrous.