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Feb. 8, 2017 - Radio Renaissance - Jared Taylor
38:34
Conversation with a Black Race Realist
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Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a special edition of Renaissance Radio.
We have an unusual guest today.
He is a gentleman by the name of Robert Smith, who is a black man who is also a race realist.
He wrote a remarkable article for American Renaissance called How a Young Black Man Became a Race Realist.
That was an article that attracted a great deal of attention, as one might imagine.
And he has generously agreed to be interviewed by me for this edition of Radio Renaissance.
So, welcome, Mr.
Smith. Really very glad to have you on the program here.
Thank you for having me.
Could you tell me, first of all, let's start with a little bit about your background.
What was your family like?
What were the circumstances under which you grew up?
Well, I kind of already discussed this in the article, but yes, I was raised in an upper-middle-class household.
Two parents, everything provided for me.
They did the very best they could to ensure that I was sent to good schools, which tended to be majority white.
But the thing is, the city that I grew up in is a predominantly black city.
So, I mean, it was kind of faded from the outset that I arrived at some unusual views on race because, I mean, in a predominantly black city, but everyone, like all the schools I go to are majority white.
All my friends are white for the most part.
Did your parents encourage you to have friends who are mostly white, or was this just something that happened naturally?
Well, I mean, I guess they did kind of indirectly because they heavily enforced the idea that race did not matter at all.
Like they told me that all these things that happened in the past, no one cared about them anymore.
So I guess indirectly they did They did sort of encourage me to seek out more white friends, and that would have happened anyway, because most of my classmates were white, so yes.
So, was your neighborhood largely white as well?
No, the neighborhood is mostly black.
I see. So you ended up hanging out more with classmates than with people from the neighborhood?
Yes, and the funny thing is when I tried to hang out with kids in the neighborhood, they actually rejected me.
So, yes.
For what reasons was it that they rejected you, as far as you could tell?
Well, we just weren't at all...
We weren't really compatible, I mean, in the sense of what...
In the sense, I guess, uh...
Well, now I would say IQ difference, but I guess we were from different socioeconomic classes as well, like the children from the neighborhood were more poor.
They tended to not be as educated and they tended to be more rude, as I also mentioned in my article.
I was accused of acting white by people in the neighborhood also.
What was the sort of behavior that would result in an accusation of acting white?
Some of the main things are having no accent, speaking standard English without any hint of Any African-American accent.
Listening to different types of music other than those commonly associated with blackness.
Having a lot of white friends.
Is it not the case that some black people who speak standard English when they're around other black people, then they will try to sound black in order to fit in?
Is that not a common thing?
Yes, that's very common.
It's called code switching, I believe.
And I had actually gotten into the habit of doing that as well.
Because, I mean, if you're around other black people, you would want to blend in.
You're not going to try to bring attention to yourself.
So it's natural.
Yeah, that's a very common thing, code switching.
Why do you think that after so many years in the United States, hundreds of years in the United States, there's still a distinctively black accent?
Do you have any impressions on that?
Is that perhaps because blacks wish to sound different from whites?
What would you say? Yes, I would say that's the main reason why.
Blacks largely self-segregate, and those who try to assimilate into the larger society, which tend to be white, those blacks are actively discouraged from doing this by being ostracized by other blacks.
Being accused of being an Uncle Tom.
And to a Black person, as I also mentioned in my article, Uncle Tom is one of the harshest insults you could possibly throw at a Black person.
It's just the worst thing imaginable.
What would be the common definition?
What does it mean to a Black person to be called an Uncle Tom?
It means that you basically have no respect for your ancestors.
You would rather align yourself with the same people who enslaved your race and the same people who used to think of you as less than human.
You would rather associate with them than build up the black community.
So you're a race traitor basically?
Oh yes. Traitor of the worst kind.
And I guess among blacks, being a race traitor, that's basically the foulest of all possible insults.
Oh yes, it's worse than even being a murderer.
Because as you can probably tell from the black teen culture, it's funny because being a criminal actually...
Doesn't harm you that much in terms of popularity with a lot of blacks.
I mean, you saw it in the OJ case and countless other things, the Black Lives Matter things, where blacks rally for criminals and thugs who destroy their neighborhoods.
Being a criminal actually doesn't hurt you as much as being an Uncle Tom.
That's worse than even being a murderer.
Yes, it's remarkable, isn't it?
My sense is that the The best-known black person who is most reviled by blacks and called an Uncle Tom would be Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or is he sort of too far removed to be even much of a concern among blacks?
What is your sense of that?
I would say that's pretty accurate.
I mean, I would say Justice Thomas, along with other prominent black conservatives, They get ridiculed a lot in black culture.
Have you heard of the show The Boondocks?
Yes, yes. In certain episodes, there's this character called Uncle Ruckus, and he's the stereotypical Uncle Tom.
And from time to time other characters come on the show, they're always conservative, have conservative viewpoints, have white wives, things like that.
Well, how is it that a successful black person who is, say, in the civil rights movement, well, someone like, I suppose, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, they are not Uncle Toms because, despite the fact that they are successful, they're rich, they're influential, they are seen as fighting for blacks.
So, so long as you do that, then the last thing you are is an Uncle Tom.
Yes, that's exactly correct because basically the moment you start to question the narrative of black victimhood, like the moment you start to suggest that blacks are at least a little responsible for their own failure, that's when you start being put in danger of being called an Uncle Tom, like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, those They're viewed as fighting for their people, like fighting against the evil whites who hold them back.
Whereas someone like Ben Carson, my uncles even talked about him as an Uncle Tom, but yes, someone like Ben Carson who views blacks as partly responsible for their own failure, like it's not so much that whites are holding blacks back, that's when you start to become an Uncle Tom.
Right. Well, I described you and you described yourself as a race realist, but can you give me a definition of how you understand that term?
Basically, all it means is just understanding the science behind it.
It's not even so much racial consciousness or any particular policy recommendations.
Because it's possible to be a race realist and go anywhere else from there.
You could be a liberal race realist.
You could be a conservative race realist.
All it means, to me, is just that you understand that...
The races represent population groups of humanity that were separated in the course of their evolution.
So, I mean, there will be statistical differences in the populations.
That's all it means to me.
Right. And I suppose the most controversial difference that people talk about is differences in average IQ. But how was it that you began to believe that differences in ability or differences in achievement really were biologically oriented, had a genetic orientation?
Yes, well, as I said, I mean, the average differences were obvious to me having gone to predominantly white schools all my life.
I had actually gotten into the habit of assuming that a random black wouldn't be that smart.
And I had gotten, like, my city had been undergoing gentrification.
And this was in middle school.
I actually... I supported the gentrification because I understood that more white people would mean a better neighborhood, more services.
So the basic pattern was just obvious and then making the leap from the difference being there to being genetic Basically, I kept researching, and I saw that these patterns played themselves out all over the world, literally, like in Brazil, in Central America, in Canada, in Britain, literally everywhere where blacks existed, these same patterns of low educational attainment, high criminality, they were the same thing everywhere, and then I saw At first I used to think the acting white accusation was a major reason why blacks failed,
but I saw that was universal as well.
It seemed like all the high-achieving, intelligent black people had to go through this even in places like Canada and Brazil and Jamaica.
I mean, literally everywhere.
So I figured there had to be something deeper.
It couldn't just be a coincidence that Throughout different socio-economic systems, different cultures, different time periods, everything was the same.
So this helped lead you to conclude that this is based in biology, and it's not some sort of environmental effect of racism or oppression or anything like that, that this was based in biology.
That was the conclusion you eventually reached.
Yes, and I mean, I was...
I'd imagine that most people are aware that there are people who say that blacks have lower IQ on average, but it's really just a matter of, like, accepting that these people are telling the truth.
Like, they're not just motivated by racism or anything.
And, I mean, there are some, I guess, like, if you think about the environmental Reasons why a lot of people put forth for black failure like culture or racism or like poverty or lack of good parents like those all can be traced back to the basic fact of the genetics because I mean people who aren't intelligent would you expect them really to create cultures that value high achievement in education or would you expect them to Would you expect them to make a lot of money?
No, you wouldn't. It really all comes back to the genetics.
Was there a particular aha moment or a particular incident that led you to this conclusion or was it just a gradual realization?
Well, I guess if I had to put forth a sort of moment that really changed things for me, it would be just seeing all those articles when I was researching, seeing how similar things were in other countries, like all over the world.
That has always seemed to me a very convincing argument as well.
You can do all the IQ studies you like, but the fact that wherever you find blacks, you find very similar patterns, that in and of itself, entirely aside from Any kind of scientific study, it seems to me, is a very convincing argument that there is some kind of basic difference.
But was this a saddening or sobering experience for you?
Or what was your emotional feeling?
How did it make you feel to arrive at this conclusion?
Yes, it was very saddening and depressing at first, because obviously no one wants to believe that their race is less intelligent.
I wouldn't use the term inferior, but if you admit that your race is genetically less intelligent, you admit that the racists of the old days were right, You open yourself up to all these other sorts of things, like maybe segregation wasn't such a bad idea, maybe slavery could have possibly been justified, like all these other sorts of things.
So I was depressed for a while once I realized the truth.
But I mean, I don't think that necessarily follows, because if I had been I think that if I had grown up knowing the truth, it obviously wouldn't have been such a big deal.
It would have just been a basic fact of nature.
Because if you look back at history when everyone understood these differences, blacks were doing much better than they are now, ironically.
It has always seemed to me to be ultimately a disservice to blacks to constantly be telling them, yeah, you're just as smart and hardworking as white people, but it's those wicked white people who are keeping you down.
I would think that that would result in a sense of anger and fury and a different kind of frustration.
It results in tensions that can never be resolved.
Oh yes, definitely.
I mean, like a Also, as I said in my article, maybe admitting racial differences could seem depressing just initially, but really, if you think about it, it's much more depressing to believe that That whites are constantly, wherever blacks go, they have the power to hold them back somehow.
Black success or failure depends on white racism, and there's no end in sight to white racism.
Right. Well, given this view, you're a young man, are you not?
You're still in college, is that correct?
Yes, I'm in my early 20s.
Yes, still in college. Well, when you have children, do you expect to explain this fact to your children, to have them grow up understanding racial differences?
If I were ever to have children, yes, I would.
On the assumption that they're better off knowing the truth rather than being disappointed at a later age or having unnecessary resentments, that kind of thing?
Yes, exactly. If I had grown up knowing what I do now, my life would have...
I feel I would have had a better life if I had known the truth about race.
It was just so much unnecessary energy and resentment that I... That happened because I didn't understand the truth about race.
For example, the acting white accusation, that was just so frustrating and confusing to me.
And I thought that whites, when they said that they were intentionally trying to be racist, but no, they're just viewing reality as it really is.
And I would have understood that, and I would have just worked hard, yes.
I'm sorry, when whites would accuse you of acting white?
Now, what would be the motive of whites, do you think, to say that?
Is it a way of saying you're not authentically black, or is it a compliment coming from whites?
I think sometimes both.
I mean both could be the case in different situations, but I think to them it was just,
I mean, like it is undeniable that a high IQ black person does not act like the average
black acts.
So I mean, and blacks were able to sense this difference in behavior as well, but we just
call black, those of the black underclass, we call them ghetto, like the stereotypical
loud obnoxious ignorant behavior.
But to, I guess, to non-blacks, that was just how blacks act.
And honestly, most black, I mean, more blacks act like, act ghetto, so to speak, than act intelligently.
So it was just, I mean, it was natural for them to view that as acting black.
And then when you find someone who doesn't act like that, like a highly educated black person, you would call them white or acting white.
They weren't even necessarily trying to insult me.
It was just, yeah.
Just an observation.
Yes, exactly. It was just a neutral observation.
Like, you don't act like the majority of blacks.
And funnily enough, I also had the thought that that misunderstanding sort of stems from not understanding the racial IQ differences.
Because if you understand the IQ differences, you would understand that A high IQ black person would not act like the stereotypical black person because the average black person has an average IQ of 85.
So if you understand the racial IQ differences, ironically, you're less likely to call an intelligent black person acting white because you would understand that's just how an intelligent person acts.
Right. Well, have you described this sort of thing or your observations about this to your friends or your family, to blacks, to whites?
How do they react when you bring up this subject that is considered so reprehensible and horrible?
Well, I haven't told that many people I generally keep to myself, although, I mean, I might in the future be more open about it, but the few people I have told Well, like I told my friend from high school, he's Asian and he's kind of like the stereotypical social justice warrior.
And he said he was appalled by my...
I actually showed him my article.
He said he was appalled. And he said, I mean, he didn't accept the truth and he just kept saying how we shouldn't give up on...
We should try to help them.
But what he doesn't understand is that accepting the truth about racial differences doesn't mean that you stop helping people.
It just means if you want to help them, you have to take genetics into account.
And that goes back to what we were saying.
Yes. I will never forget a very surprising conversation I had with a liberal woman.
This was many years ago when I was living in California, and we got into this conversation about racial differences in intelligence.
She was very strongly arguing that that just couldn't be so, that couldn't be so.
And I made some of the more obvious arguments, marshalling the evidence for the fact that it is so and that it is genetic.
And she said, well, if that's the case, we'll just have to exterminate them all.
And I thought, whoa, wait a minute.
Absolutely not.
Where did that come from?
That's just a completely crazy notion.
I often ask myself, why is it that whites resist Drawing the obvious conclusion of everything that they see around them.
And I don't have a good answer for that.
Ordinarily, people are happy to consider themselves in some way better than another group.
I mean, if you go to a school and the rival school, you consider yourself better.
You like to think that your club is better than the other club.
It's sort of a natural human thing, whether or not there's any evidence for it at all.
But whites have this ferocious resistance to arriving at a conclusion about racial differences between blacks and whites.
And I thought to myself, perhaps it's this completely illogical reaction of this liberal that makes them sometimes resist coming to this conclusion.
But that doesn't follow at all.
It's exactly as you said.
Just because you understand that there are differences between races doesn't mean that you give up on people.
It's just you take that into consideration.
Right, exactly. Also, there's probably, like you've said before, whites just seem to be inherently altruistic.
There's just something about whites that makes them not want to just accept the fact that, like you said, Africa's always going to be poor.
There's always going to be ghettos and achievement gaps and things like that.
But, I mean, you have to I think you have to make it clear that what they've been trying hasn't been working at all and it's just been making things worse.
So if you want to help, then this would be the way to help.
Do you have any hope that anytime soon a race realist view of racial differences is likely to become common?
I honestly don't see it becoming common in the near future.
Maybe the only thing I could see is that at some point people will have to accept the differences.
Because once we find the genes for intelligence, they'll have no choice then, I would think.
My fear, of course, is that even if they do isolate the genes that affect intelligence,
and even if they do determine that they're not equally distributed among different races,
that news will be very carefully suppressed.
I mean, after all, there's already a lot of evidence.
I mean, if you poke around, you can find not just descriptive evidence of black and white differences
that are patterns that you find all over the world and throughout history,
but also very careful studies, some of them genetic, many of them psychometric.
All of that's there. It's just that nobody dares talk about it.
Yes, well, I mean, I guess.
Also...
At first I was confused as to what the purpose of discussing this was also.
I actually used to regard American Renaissance and people who discussed these things as evil and racist because I didn't understand why they were discussing it.
For most people, If you bring up the fact that blacks are less intelligent, a lot of people will just be like, so what?
What does this mean?
What are the implications of this?
Let me ask you what may be a difficult question.
For white people who understand this, what should the implications be?
Or for black people, for that matter.
If this were completely well known, if this were accepted, widely accepted, that there's this 15-point difference, average black IQ is 85, and therefore there's a certain amount of overlap, but we're looking at pretty radically different populations.
What are the implications?
How should society take this into consideration?
Well, I think, I mean, I honestly don't see society in general just saying, like, if presented with this information, I don't see them saying, well, okay, I mean, we should separate, we should have, we should just give up on Africa or give up on blacks trying to make things better.
Because, as I said, like, whites seem to have this inherent relationship This here a need for equality or this yearning for equality and progress.
So, I mean, I think if this, the implications, like what will happen, as you've predicted in an American Renaissance article, I believe, like people will try to, I guess, equalize the genes for intelligence, or in some way, like in some way, improve things using the knowledge of genetics.
That's certainly possible.
Sometimes it seems that, as you say, whites are so altruistic, and in academic circles, for example, they are so devoted to this idea of diversity and equal representation that it wouldn't matter to them if it had been demonstrated that there were genetic racial differences.
They would still practice affirmative action.
They would still do all the things they're doing today.
I think that's not entirely out of the question, given the goofiness of white people.
Yes, I mean, I see what you mean.
It seems that at some point they're going to have to accept the truth.
Just looking at the statistics and all the things that have been tried, if someone came along with the idea of equality in mind and helping these people in mind, I think that I don't know, like, I think that a good number of people who want equality, like those on the left, maybe they could be red-pilled into a form of liberal race realism.
We'd like to think so, wouldn't we?
Yes. Well, in conclusion, can you tell me what your plans are for a career, what you're studying now, what you'd like to make of your life, and whether or not this clear understanding of race realism is likely to have any impact on your career choice or how you lead your life?
Well, I'm currently studying computer science.
It doesn't have anything to do with this, but yes.
I've also thought of perhaps writing a book about race realism or doing something with that in the future.
Well, I certainly salute your willingness to grapple with this difficult subject.
And I'm glad that, in your view, this is something that should be widely known.
And now I gather you understand why it is that groups like American Renaissance are inclined to make this truth well known rather than try to hide it and cover up the way most of American society does.
Yes, as you said before, this is one of my favorite quotes of all time, but you said it in your video in an American Renaissance Conference.
Reality has a way of intruding, no matter how disagreeable.
Yes. And let's hope that reality does intrude, and let's hope that in some way you will help it intrude.
I think that it's unquestionably the case, as you seemed to react before you arrived at these conclusions yourself, When you see white people talking about racial differences and IQ, it's easy to assume that somehow they are malevolent.
They're doing this for utterly unscientific and really hateful reasons.
But if a black person were to talk about racial differences and IQ, of course he would be vilified as the worst possible Uncle Tom of the Sun, but at least do you not think that more white people would give such a person a receptive hearing?
Oh yes, that's definitely the case.
I have a friend also in Mensa who is really into race realism and he's tried in the past to bring it up at conferences.
But they always deny him.
And he saw my article and then he knew it was me.
So he's really trying to get me to join him and speak at a convention because I'd imagine that many whites would be just bamboozled by that idea of a black racialist.
And it's funny because if blacks Black liberation and prosperous Africa and a prosperous Haiti and prosperous black country, that can only be accomplished once you accept the genetics.
Is this friend a black friend in Mensah or a white friend?
He's white. I see.
So his view is that, yes, you could completely buffalo and bamboozle these people if you showed up and talked about these things, whereas he gets shouted down.
Is that the problem? Yes, that's definitely the case.
And it's funny because I see his Facebook activity and people are just so ignorant on what he really even wants, like what he believes.
So okay, his basic goal is to spread knowledge of racial differences so that For the purpose of equalizing intelligence levels among the different races.
So he's trying to do the ultimate good from a leftist perspective to equalize intelligence levels, but on the forum he just gets vilified, he got banned from He got banned from a group and people call him a white nationalist and a white supremacist.
They don't understand that just talking about this doesn't automatically mean that you support Hitler or anything like that.
Well, you say he wants to equalize intelligence between the races.
Is he talking about some sort of eugenic program for different groups?
He's talking about making use of genetic engineering like CRISPR. I see, I see.
Well, of course, if CRISPR can be used to raise the IQs of blacks, it could presumably be used to raise the IQ of whites.
Wouldn't it take some kind of rather authoritative, almost tyrannical government to say, well, okay, you can use it to raise the IQ of blacks, but not of whites?
Is that what he proposes? Yes, he proposes that we, I mean, like if current trends continue, Genetic engineering will be outlawed, but the rich will still use it to enhance their children.
And these rich people will tend to be whites, Asians, and Jews.
So ironically, like the Belkers, racial Belkers will be spread further apart if the current trends continue.
But what he proposes doing is have the state subsidize it.
And for the express purpose of equalizing racial...
Yes, there's your typical white reaction, isn't it?
This yearning for equality, even after you have arrived at a scientific conclusion about race.
But, I mean, also, like it's not...
Like, what he proposes doing, I think, has a higher chance of just being accepted by most whites By most people in general, but especially whites, because it's an altruistic reaction to the racial differences.
If most people were presented with this, don't you think that this would be more accepted than just letting blacks be?
Gosh, given the craziness of which whites are capable, and as you say, this astonishing altruistic streak they have, yes, that might very well be a widespread reaction.
I suppose if you did a poll of white people, certainly of college-educated white people, and you asked them, well, okay, say it's established that racial differences are biological.
But that it is possible by CRISPR or some other mechanism to bring the average black up to the average level of whites.
Should government do that so as to equalize the races?
You know, I suspect that a majority, certainly, of college-educated whites would say, yes, yes, that's what government should do.
Well, in any case, I very much appreciate your willingness to talk about this.
And I gather at this point in your life, rather than making you angry or sad, the realization of differences is liberating in a way, is it not?
Yes, it was very liberating.
I no longer have to worry about this impenetrable wall of white racism holding me back.
I no longer have to look back at history and just be filled with rage and resentment like I used to.
Because I know that Blacks are much better from the standpoint of having all this technology and development that would never have occurred otherwise.
So, yeah. Well, good.
Well, let's end on that uplifting note, and I hope that in some way you can contribute to the spread of this kind of wisdom that I think many people are afraid of, but what would be in many respects liberating.
So, thank you very much for being on this podcast, and best wishes in all of your future endeavors.
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