Races Are Strikingly Different

IT WAS 1955, at an international gathering in Nuremberg, Germany. A group of Europeans had surrounded a couple of American blacks, visibly happy to have them. They rubbed their skin and felt their hair. Apparently they had never seen a black person before and were intrigued by the striking differences. The blacks enjoyed being warmly accepted. Back home, however, racial attitudes had developed over the centuries to create a much different situation.

Consider the Spencers, a black family who moved into a nice section of New York city. It was the eve of 1975. A pipe bomb came flying into their house, with the note attached: NIGGER, BE WARNED. “It was intended to wipe out the family,” the police captain who investigated said.

A reporter, who later spoke with white residents, explains: “I kept pressing: why don’t you want blacks here? ‘If you really want to know,’ answered the fellow with the flag, ‘they’re basically uncivilized. Wherever they go, the crime rate goes up, neighborhoods fall apart, whites have to leave.’”

Many whites feel differently about association with blacks, developing friendly relations with them. In the southern United States fine strides have been made in improving race relations. Many schools and other public places have been racially integrated. Yet, there are still many persons who feel that differences in the races are so great that they warrant racial segregation.

Basis for Segregation?

In 1954 the United States Supreme Court ruled against racial segregation in the public schools. But many Americans do not agree with that decision. Nor do they agree with the Court’s 1969 order for public-school districts to desegregate “at once.” This is evidenced by the fact that in the late 1960’s a larger percentage of black children attended predominately black schools than in 1954!

Also, there are many persons in the United States who don’t agree with the 1967 Supreme Court’s ruling that it is unconstitutional “to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications.” This decree invalidated all laws in the United States against interracial marriages. Yet people are still commonly heard to say that they don’t believe blacks and whites should marry.

The situation in the churches is further evidence that many persons believe racial differences warrant segregation. Kyle Haselden, as editor of The Christian Century, wrote in 1964: “Everyone knows that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in American life.” And segregation persists. This year the minister of the Plains, Georgia, Baptist Church “said his resignation stemmed from ‘backlash’ over his efforts to integrate the church.” New York Post, February 22, 1977

Although much progress has been made in improving race relations, some persons have recently seen causes for discouragement. A black, writing in The Christian Century of April 28, 1976, said: “I am worried, really worried, about the serious deterioration in relations between blacks and whites. Black friends share their sense of frustration and powerlessness with me.”

There is often a polarizing, with races harboring hostility and sticking to themselves. As the above writer noted: “I went for a walk on the Yale campus. Two white students joined me. They complained of being forced into segregation by their black classmates who chose to live and take their meals alone, and to maintain little or no social intercourse with their white male peers.”

How Great the Differences?

Really, how great are racial differences? Are they of such a degree that people of different races cannot live together as equals, and take real pleasure in one another’s company? For example, is there a big gap between the intelligence of people of various races? Or, do the races have a distinct body odor, making it objectionable for blacks and whites to live in close quarters with one another?

Obviously differences do exist. Skin color and texture of hair are among the most observable. There are also differences in the shape of the nose, eyelids and lips. Thick lips are common among blacks, while persons of other races tend to have thinner lips.

Yet some whites are quick to point to what they call “more important differences.” As noted earlier, it is claimed that blacks are “basically uncivilized.” It is said that “they have looser morals.” Higher illegitimacy rates among them are given as evidence for this claim. But there are more assertions that are commonly made.

Some are: “Blacks care less for family.” And, as evidence of this, the higher rate of separations in black families is pointed to. “Crime rates go up when blacks move in; neighborhoods fall apart.” To support this statement, persons will point to black neighborhoods that are generally more run down, and to statistics that show that, proportionately, blacks commit more crimes. “Blacks are less intelligent than whites.” And it is a fact that, on the average, blacks score lower on IQ tests than whites of comparable socio-economic status and generally do poorer in schoolwork.

But why do blacks show up unfavorably in such comparisons? A publication of the United States Commission on Civil Rights put the matter in focus. It said that the obvious inferior “status of nonwhites can result from only two factors. Either nonwhites are inferior as persons, or white racism has prevented their natural equality with whites from asserting itself in actual attainments during their more than 300 years in America.”​—Racism in America—​How to Combat It.

What do you believe is the answer?

The Once Prevalent View

At one time the prevailing view was that blacks are inferior as persons. The Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, 1884, said: “No full-blood Negro has ever been distinguished as a man of science, a poet, or artist, and the fundamental equality claimed for him by ignorant philanthropists is belied by the whole history of the race throughout the historic period.” It also spoke of “the inherent mental inferiority of the blacks, an inferiority which is even more marked than their physical differences.”

This encyclopedia said that, as children, blacks and whites seem to have equal intelligence. “Nearly all observers admit,” it notes, “that the Negro child is on the whole quite as intelligent as those of other human varieties.” However, it was said that in blacks there is a “premature ossification of the skull, preventing all further development of the brain.” Thus, the Britannica asserted: “On arriving at puberty all further progress [of blacks] seems to be arrested.” Chambers’ Encyclopædia, 1882, although not agreeing with the Britannica, spoke of the view “that the Negro forms a connecting link between the higher order of apes and the rest of mankind.”

The view that blacks are inferior as persons is still held by some; it is by no means dead. One person wrote of the common views held where he lived: “I grew up in a southern rural community where it was said that black people are black because of a curse God placed on them. . . . In fact, it was said that black people were not really people after all but a part of the animal kingdom.”

Even certain men of science today hold that blacks are biologically inferior to whites. In 1974 a long work of authoritative appearance, endorsed by leading educators, argued in favor of this view. Of the writer, John R. Baker, The Guardian of April 6, 1974, said: “He is skilled at piling up, ostensibly as data, quotations and references which, taken with the powerfully repulsive atmosphere generated by the style, would convey to any reader quite unacquainted with any ‘Negrids’ an impression of them as subhuman (for example, ‘Long says that the Negroes are distinguished by their “bestial or fetid smell”’).”

So what about racial differences? Really, how great are they?

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Many persons have felt that differences in the races are so great they warrant segregation

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Courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

What About Racial Superiority?

HOW do you view the races? To be specific, do you consider whites to be inherently superior to blacks? Regardless of your verbal answer, what do your attitudes and actions reveal?

People often say that they have no racial prejudice. Yet, the fact is, racist views have long dominated. And so the view persists among many that blacks are innately inferior to whites, and are meant to occupy a lower status permanently.

How did such ideas originate? What makes them so persistent?

Religion’s Role

The modern idea of inherent superiority of whites had its origin with the conquest and enslaving of African blacks. The slave trade needed justification, particularly since those engaged in it were professed Christians. Charles de Second in Montesquieu, French jurist and political philosopher, explained how the traders reasoned: “It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow, that we ourselves are not Christians.”

Professed Christians in America also needed justification for slavery, for the economy of the southern cotton planters was based on Negro slavery. Thus an American historian says:

“The South searched the Scriptures for Biblical endorsement of the practice. . . . Constantly the South argued that slavery was sanctioned and in fact commanded by the Bible, and was a divinely-appointed institution especially beneficial to the Negroes.”​—“A Complete History of the United States,” by Clement Wood, pp. 217, 337.

The churches took a lead in justifying slavery. It was taught that Negroes are a cursed race, which is why their skin is black. In 1844 Methodists split North and South over slavery. The Baptists in 1845 and, about the same time, the Presbyterian Church divided right down the political Mason-Dixon line. As late as 1902 a Bible House in St. Louis published the widely circulated book “The Negro a Beast” or “In the Image of God.” It includes a chapter entitled “Convincing Biblical and Scientific Evidence that the Negro is Not of the Human Family.”

So, with church approval, blacks were viewed as inherently inferior to whites. The Encyclopædia Britannica lamented: “It was the misfortune of the African to be enslaved in America by Christians, who, unable to reconcile their beliefs with the practice of slavery, recast their conception of the Negro so that they came to regard him as property, not as a human being entitled to rights and liberties.”​—Vol. 16, p. 200D, 1971.

But it was not just the churches that championed such views. Philosophers and scientists did also.

Others Champion White Superiority

Around the 1830’s southern philosophers in the United States formulated the principles regarding the natural inequality of man, a concept by then already accepted by most Southerners. And the leading American physical anthropologist of the time, Josiah C. Nott, attempted to provide biological support for this concept. The view of some came to be that the various races evolved separately and that blacks are more closely related to apes. After noting certain characteristics as evidence, The Encyclopædia Britannica observes: “The negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthropoids.”​—Vol. 19, 1911, p. 344.

Some hold similar views today, including Professor Carleton S. Coon, former president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. He asserts that five races of men, in isolation from one another, “evolved independently into Homo sapiens not once but five times.” In a national United States television broadcast, a spokesman claimed that Coon “presents evidence, and takes the position, that the Negro race is 200,000 years behind the White race on the ladder of evolution.”

Such views, long held regarding blacks, help us to understand how early Americans could speak ‘of all men being created equal,’ yet sanction a form of slavery in which persons were viewed as inferior. The Sociology of Social Problems, Third Edition, by Paul B. Horton and Gerald R. Leslie, explains:

“The ‘all men are created equal’ dictum did not apply to Negroes, since they were ‘property,’ not men. Theories of a biblical Hamitic curse, of incompleted or separate evolutions, of geographic determinism, and of intelligence test evidences were successively employed to justify treatment of Negroes as inferiors. As long as such notions were believed​—and most people did believe them—​there was no inconsistency in professing democratic ideals while practicing discrimination.”

Probably few persons today claim that blacks are “not men.” Yet many still believe that they are inherently inferior. Their higher illegitimacy and crime rates, lower economic and social status, and, particularly, lower average scores on IQ tests, are considered “proof” of their biological inferiority. But is this evidence really proof of biological inferiority? Are there circumstances that account for the shortcomings of blacks, on an average, when compared with whites?

Origin of Americas Blacks

Many persons in the U.S. believe that the African forefathers of American blacks were savages, without culture or civilization. They feel that they were dull mentally, childlike, incapable of accomplishing complex tasks, or of developing an advanced civilization. But the facts are otherwise, as The World Book Encyclopedia comments:

“Highly developed Negro kingdoms existed in various parts of Africa hundreds of years ago. . . . Some of the Negro kings and their nobles lived in great wealth and splendor. Their capitals sometimes became centers of culture and trade. Between 1200 and 1600, a Negro-Arabic university flourished at Timbuktu in West Africa and became famous throughout Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East.”​—Vol. 14, 1973, pp. 106, 107.

True, African culture is quited different from European, even as Oriental culture also is different. And, unfortunately, some equate difference with inferiority. Yet, at the same time, there is no denying that in recent centuries the development of African life and culture was arrested. There was a lack of progress, a backwardness. But why?.

The reason was due, in large part, to the slave trade, about which The Encyclopedia Americana said: “It disorganized Negro culture and industry, stopped the development of art, overthrew governments and was the cause of that modern stagnation of culture which has marked the Dark Continent since 1600.”​—Vol. 20, 1927, p. 47.

The magnitude of the slave trade, and its impact on African society, shocks the senses. According to The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 1976, “estimates of the slaves shipped across the Atlantic run from 30,000,000 to 100,000,000.” More conservative estimates give the figure “as about 15 million.” But even the lesser estimates are staggering, especially when one considers the casualties involved.

It must be acknowledged that Africans were captured both directly by whites and in wars and raids by blacks, who sold their countrymen to white slave traders. No matter who bore initial responsibility, the captives were then marched to the coast, and held at embarkation stations. Then, chained together by twos, they were crammed below in the holds of ships in a space only large enough for them to lie down. There they spent most of the fifty-day Atlantic voyage without light or fresh air. About a third of the prisoners are estimated to have died even before boarding ship, and another third in passage.

It was in the early 1500’s that the first slaves were brought to the West Indies and South America to work the mines and plantations. In 1619 a Dutch slave ship delivered the first blacks to North America, not as slaves but as indentured servants. However, later in the 1600’s slavery was fully established, and, in time, there were some four million black slaves in the United States.

What Slavery Did to Them

Africans commonly were delivered first to the West Indies, where they were “seasoned,” or broken in as slaves, before being shipped to America. The policy was to separate people of the same tribal origin, to prevent any mass uprisings. Even families were broken up, and new names were given the slaves by the traders or by their new masters. The aim was to make blacks subservient, obedient. In the process, their personalities were distorted, their mentalities suppressed, and, realizing the futility of resisting, blacks often began to behave as if they were inferior.

Slave codes were formulated to assure their complete subordination. The Encyclopedia Americana says:

“Slaves could not own property, possess firearms, engage in commerce, leave the plantation without permission from their owners, testify in court except against other Negroes, make contracts, learn to read and write, or hold meetings without the presence of white persons. . . . the murder or rape of a slave or of a free Negro by a white person was not regarded as a serious offense.”​—Vol. 20, 1959, p. 67.

In most slave-holding states, the punishment for teaching a black to read or write was either a fine, a whipping or imprisonment.

In 1808 the United States made the slave trade illegal. However, the trade continued despite the law, since slaves were in greater demand than ever. This led to an ultimate perversion​—producing slaves for sale. The Encyclopedia Americana explains:

“A large-scale and profitable domestic slave trade developed, and some of the most cruel and cold-blooded incidents of the slave system were associated with it, such as the breeding of slaves in the older states for sale farther south, and the constant breaking of family ties by selling members separately.”​—Vol. 20, 1959, p. 67.

Yes, the view that blacks were “not men” led to the breeding and selling of them, as is commonly done with livestock. Then, abruptly, in 1865, slavery was fully abolished in the United States. Yet attitudes persisted, and blacks were kept “in their place”​—that of subordination to whites—​by segregation laws and other means.

Lynching by hanging was one important instrument of control. There were, on an average, 166 lynchings annually between 1890 and 1900. Also, as The Encyclopedia Americana relates:. “The sexual exploitation of Negro women by white men continued to be tolerated. Negroes received grossly unfair and discriminatory treatment at the hands of police and frequently in the courts.”​—Vol. 20, 1959, p. 70.

Are we talking about ancient history? No, the grandparents of many living blacks were slaves. And people living today have heard from the lips of former slaves what life was like then. Even into the 1950’s the mass media in America portrayed blacks as inferior​—invariably their role was as servants to whites.

Generally, however, blacks were not visible at all, neither in magazines, on television nor in newspapers, except in stories of crime. They were discriminated against at every turn, receiving second-rate schooling, and being barred from certain types of employment and from many other benefits enjoyed by whites. Practically everywhere doors of opportunity were shut to them, robbing many of any hope of improving their lot.

In view of these circumstances, can one really expect blacks to do as well, on the average, as whites in educational and other achievements? Would it be fair to judge them inferior as a race when they do not measure up to a certain standard? What happens when opportunities are open to them?

Opportunity and Motivation

Prior to 1947 blacks were barred in the U.S. from major-league baseball. That year, as racial tensions often ran high, a black was permitted to play. Soon blacks began to excel in baseball. In 1971, the year that they were world champions, in one game the Pittsburgh Pirates fielded a team of nine players​—all black. The situation is similar in other sports, causing the New York Times this year to say, “pro basketball is virtually a black game.”

What does this mean? That blacks are biologically superior physically to whites? Or does it mean that when opportunities are opened and instruction and motivation are provided, blacks can do well? Obviously the latter. Races are not born with talent to be ballplayers, musicians, scientists, college professors, and so forth. These things must be learned.

It is wrong to stereotype races, saying that one race is naturally dull and slow, another aggressive and militant, still another gentle and subservient, and so forth. Races are the way that they are particularly due to the education, training and motivation that they receive. For example, the Chinese were often characterized by many as being naturally gentle and subservient. But given the different education and motivation that they have received over the past several decades under Communism, few would characterize them that way today.

Yet the view persists that naturally, biologically, blacks as a race are slower mentally and less intelligent than whites. Is there reliable evidence that this is so?

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Courtesy of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

Are Whites More Intelligent than Blacks?

YES, say many people. Whites, as a race, have inherited more intelligence than blacks.

William Shockley, a Nobel laureate in physics, strongly asserts that this is so. He says: “My research leads me inescapably to the opinion that the major cause of American Negroes’ intellectual and social deficits is . . . racially genetic in origin.”

Professor Arthur R. Jensen of the University of California in Berkeley is a leading exponent of the view that in intelligence whites are biologically superior to blacks. He declares: “The number of intelligence genes seems to be lower, overall, in the black population than in the white.”

What is the basis for such claims?

Basis tor Claims

Inheritance, many will point out, has a lot to do with racial differences. Blacks have inherited dark skin, thick lips and kinky hair, and whites have inherited strikingly different features. So, if whole groups of people have inherited such different physical characteristics, it is only reasonable, some will argue, that the races would inherit different degrees of intelligence. But do they? Why is it claimed that blacks, as a race, have inherited less intelligence than whites?

The reason is principally due to results from Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests. In these tests blacks score, on the average, about 15 points lower than whites. Even when whites and blacks of a similar social and economic status are tested, the scores of whites average significantly higher than do the scores of blacks. So Jensen concludes from such evidence “that something between one-half and three-fourths of the average IQ difference between American Negroes and whites is attributable to genetic factors.”

The results from IQ tests, coupled with conclusions based on the evolution theory, have reinforced the opinion of many that blacks are mentally inferior. Some scientists have argued that the races evolved, to a large extent, independently over hundreds of thousands of years. Blacks, it is claimed, crossed the evolutionary threshold into the category of Homo sapiens later than whites.

Since IQ tests today are the principal basis for the claim that blacks are inherently less intelligent than whites, let us look at those tests.

Intelligence and IQ Tests

First of all, what is meant by intelligence?

That is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. A great many different qualities might be called intelligence. People may be “intelligent” in one context, perhaps being able to memorize names and dates easily, but be “stupid” in another, such as in doing arithmetic problems. So there is no universally accepted definition of what intelligence is.

What about IQ tests, then? Do they measure intelligence? Commenting on this, Patrick Meredith, professor of psychophysics at Leeds University, England, said: “It might be held that Frenchmen are brighter than pygmies, but if you see pygmies in their natural environment making bridges out of fibre and living life successfully you might ask what you mean by intelligence. The IQ rating is no indication of how a person will behave in a defined situation. The IQ test is a totally unscientific concept.”

It is generally agreed that IQ tests fail to give a complete picture of the many factors involved in intelligence. Circumstances and backgrounds of peoples are too varied for them to be able to do this. What, then, do IQ tests measure?

Arthur Whimbey, professor of psychology at a university in the southern United States, observes: “Studies lead to the conclusion that IQ tests do not measure innate intellectual capacity, but rather a group of learned skills that can be taught in the classroom or in the home.”

To confirm this, it has been demonstrated that persons can be taught how to take IQ tests, with startling results. One investigator reports that a young Mississippi black student was given instruction about taking such tests, and in six weeks he raised his IQ score dramatically.

You can easily imagine the wrong conclusion s a person might draw from IQ scores, and the effects this can have. An American black, who is now a university professor, writes:

“At 15 I earned an IQ test score of 82 . . . Based on this scare, my counselor suggested that I take up bricklaying because I was ‘good with my hands.’ . . . I went to Philander Smith College anyway, graduating with honors, earned my master’s degree at Wayne State University and my Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis. Other blacks, equally as qualified, have been wiped out.”

Yet, the fact remains that whites score, on the average, 15 points higher than do blacks on IQ tests. Why? If one is going to argue that blacks are innately just as intelligent as whites, then why don’t they score better than they do?

Examining the Question in Context

There are many factors that can account for their lower average IQ scores. In particular, American blacks have been greatly disadvantaged by their treatment by whites as inferiors, and as undesirables. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren illustrated modern racial attitudes in an April 1977 Atlantic article.

When the Supreme Court’s school segregation decision was pending in the mid-1950’s, President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States invited Warren to a White House dinner for the purpose of influencing him to decide in favor of upholding the segregation law. “The President,” Warren writes, “took me by the arm, and, as we walked along, speaking of the southern states in the segregation cases, he said, ‘These [Southerners] are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes.’”

As vocalized by this president, whites have commonly attempted to “keep blacks in their place”​—in a segregated, subordinate position cut off from the benefits enjoyed by whites. During slavery, and later during legalized segregation, this was easy to do. Blacks who stepped out of line were whipped, lynched or otherwise punished. The effect was to produce the childlike, subservient, mentally slow “Sambo” personality. Whites have commonly believed that this personality was inherent in blacks. However, Harvard professor Thomas F. Pettigrew explains:

“No African anthropological data have ever shown any personality type resembling Sambo; and the concentration camps [in Nazi Germany] molded the equivalent personality pattern in a wide variety of Caucasian prisoners. Nor was Sambo merely a product of ‘slavery’ in the abstract, for the less devastating Latin American system [of slavery] never developed such a type.”

Thus, IQ test results must be considered in this context of over 300 years of oppression during which many blacks, for their own defense and survival, adopted a subservient personality. And remember, until the latter part of the last century it was against the law in many places of the United States for blacks to learn to read or write. Even since then, blacks, taken as a whole, simply have not had the same educational opportunities as whites.

Effect of Environment

The quality of preschool home education also bears directly on intellectual achievements. It is of interest that the full 15-point IQ gap is manifest in the United States between black and white children by age five, even before they go to school. Some may claim that this is proof that blacks are born with less intelligence than whites, but there is evidence that other factors can be responsible.

Early childhood is a principal period of intellectual growth. Dr. Benjamin Bloom of the University of Chicago, as well as other educators, maintains that by the time a child reaches age five he has undergone as much intellectual growth as will occur over the next thirteen years. In keeping with such conclusion, Science News Letter observes: “During the early years, a child’s intelligence can be greatly influenced by a responsive environment conducive to learning and exploring.”

But consider the home situation of many American blacks. Their families are more frequently disrupted than are white families. The father is often not at home, perhaps being forced to look in another area for employment. Often, in black families, the mother alone must rear the children. Under such circumstances, can it be expected that the young will be provided the early educational training that will equip them to match the intellectual achievements of whites?

Further, recent studies show that in larger families, black or white, where parents usually give less individual attention to their children, the children have lower IQ scores. Since black families are, on the average, larger than white ones, this may also be a contributing factor to blacks’ lower intellectual achievements.

Another factor to consider is that home environments are not the same​—white and black cultures are significantly different. And traditional IQ tests have clear cultural biases that favor whites. As an example, a Stanford-Binet picture test showed a prim-looking white woman and a woman with Negroid features and slightly unkempt hair. The child was marked “right” for picking the white woman as “pretty,” and “wrong” if he picked the black.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a large number of blacks have achieved IQ scores well above the average score of all whites. In fact, during World War I blacks from certain parts of the northern U.S. scored higher on IQ tests than whites from certain parts of the South, which would indicate that blacks are not born with lesser intelligence. Theodosius Dobzhansky, an American biologist, made this telling observation: “The race differences in the averages are much smaller than the variations within any race. In other words, large brains and high I.Q.’s of persons of every race are much larger and higher than the averages for their own or any other race.”

The book Intelligence​—Genetic and Environmental Influences, edited by medical doctor and university professor Robert Cancro, examines at length environmental factors that contribute to the lower intellectual achievements of blacks. In view of all the disadvantages blacks have had, the writers conclude: “It is really surprising to find the mean IQ of black Americans only 15 points below that of white Americans. No reason whatever exists to consider this discrepancy as biologically inevitable.”

The well-known anthropologist Ashley Montagu reached a similar conclusion. He writes: “If nutrition is poor, health care deficient, housing debasing, family income low, family disorganization prevalent, discipline anarchic, ghettoization more or less complete, personal worth consistently diminished, expectations low, and aspirations frustrated, as well as numerous other environmental handicaps, then one may expect the kind of failures in intellectual development that are so often gratuitously attributed to genetic factors.”

Montagu concludes: “There is no evidence that any people is either biologically or mentally superior or inferior to any other people in any way whatever.”

Yet is there proof that the difference in average IQ scores of the races is not due to whites inheriting more intelligence than blacks?

Conclusions from the Evidence

There is no proof that whites either have, or have not, inherited more intelligence than blacks. What is clear, however, is that environment has a big effect on intellectual development. In Israel, for example, deprived Oriental Jewish children, who were placed in communes called kibbutzim and brought up collectively, showed higher IQ’s than children of the same background reared by their parents. Also, American Indian children reared in white foster homes obtain significantly higher IQ’s than their brothers and sisters on the Reservation. But does the same hold true for blacks?

A recent study of black children reared in white homes revealed that it does. The study, which included over a hundred white families who adopted black children at an early age and reared them in their homes, showed that the IQ’s of these blacks compared favorably with those of whites. “Overall,” write the investigators, “our study impressed us with the strength of environmental factors. . . . If a different environment can cause the IQ scores of black children to shift from a norm of 90 or 95 to 110, then the views advanced by the genetic determinists cannot account for the current IQ gap between blacks and whites.”

The weight of scientific opinion, therefore, seems to be that the lower average IQ scores of blacks can be explained largely, if not entirely, by environmental factors. In the book The Biological and Social Meaning of Race, Frederick Osborn of the Population Council of New York sums up: “Only one conclusion is possible from the studies which have been made to date. Differences in test intelligence between the major races are no greater than can be accounted for by the known differences in their environments. On this there is general scientific agreement.”

It is of interest that, as opportunities have opened to them, more and more blacks are succeeding in fields of business, education, medicine, and so forth.

Yet, it must be acknowledged, the question of the relative intelligence of the races cannot be positively determined. The evidence is now inconclusive, open to various interpretations, as one writer noted: “A hundred different conclusions can, and have been, drawn from the same body of evidence. The conclusion one arrives at depends as much on emotion as reason.”

So, then, why bring up the matter of IQ scores in an attempt to prove that blacks are less intelligent than whites? Steven Rose, professor of biology at the Open University, England, explains why some people do: “The question of the genetic basis of racial or class differences in IQ . . . achieves meaning only in a racist or classist society attempting to justify its discriminatory practices ideologically.”

As a result of the storm of controversy over the alleged lower inherent intelligence of blacks, the National Academy of Sciences declared: “There is no scientific basis for a statement that there are or that there are not substantial hereditary differences in intelligence between Negro and white populations. In the absence of some now-unforeseen way of equalizing all aspects of the environment, answers to this question can hardly be more than reasonable guesses.”

One thing is certain, however, and that is that there is no sound basis for viewing people of another race as inferior. Without making any distinctions as to race, the Bible wholesomely advises us to have “lowliness of mind considering that the others are superior to you.”​—Phil. 2:3.

But still there are persistent views that hinder persons from applying this fine Scriptural counsel. A prominent one is that persons of other races than one’s own have an objectionable body odor.

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“If you see pygmies in their natural environment making bridges out of fibre and living life successfully you might ask what you mean by intelligence.”

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“During World War I blacks from certain parts of the northern U.S. scored higher on IQ tests than whites from certain parts of the South.”

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“Differences in test intelligence between the major races are no greater than can be accounted for by the known differences in their environments.”

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The environment in which children grow up affects their intellectual development

Body Odor and Race

IT WAS one summer in the early 1960’s, in Arkansas. Two black girls, about eight and ten years of age, would soon be entering a school with whites. Previously, they had attended a rural segregated school.

One day a white woman, who had befriended the girls, asked the younger one: “Pam, what do you think about going to school with white children?” She replied, rather hesitantly: “Well, I don’t know. Now, I don’t mean you, Miz Cruder, but white folks, you know, they smell funny,” and her little nose wrinkled up at the prospect.

This is commonly believed by blacks. Youngsters apparently pick up the idea, not so much from firsthand experience as from what they have heard. But how did this idea that whites have a different, disagreeable odor get started? In large part, it may be in reaction to the long-held views that whites have of blacks.

In centuries past, when blacks were slaves and considered as property, whites often spoke about their body odor. In his recent book Race, John R. Baker says: “The authors of earlier centuries remarked on this subject with greater freedom than those of the present day. Thus Henry Home, in his Sketches of the History of Man, refers to the ‘rank smell’ of Negroes. In a work published in the same year (1774), The History of Jamaica, Long says that the Negroes are distinguished by their ‘bestial or fetid smell, which they all have to a greater or lesser degree.’”

This came to be a generally accepted view among whites. Since blacks were believed to be biologically inferior, having crossed a supposed evolutionary threshold of humanness later than whites, it is not surprising that whites should reach this conclusion

A Widespread Belief

However, it is not just blacks and whites who believe that the other race has a different, objectionable body odor. Melville Jacobs and Bernhard J. Stern, in their book General Anthropology, observed: “Few notions regarding race differences are more widely believed than the idea that each race has its distinctive odor.”

As an example, much was written in centuries past about a specific Jewish odor. Also, the Japanese anatomist Buntaro Adachi wrote that he found the body odor of Europeans to be very objectionable. This was his first impression when settling in Europe, but later he said that he became accustomed to the smell and liked it.

An experience told about an English physician stationed in Bombay, India, is also illuminating. He would have his Indian servant call him from his church on Sunday mornings to impress the congregation with his importance as a medical man. One day the physician attended a large Indian political gathering, but left after a short while, explaining to his servant: “What a relief to get out! In another ten minutes I should have collapsed. The smell!”’ His servant replied: “Ah, Sahib, now you will understand what I suffer every Sunday when I have to go right to the middle of the church to call you out!”

What are we to conclude? That the smell of different races is only a figment of people’s imagination? If it is not, what causes certain races to have different body odors? Is it because of racial inheritance?

Body Odor Real​—Why?

No one will deny that body odor exists. The huge sales of deodorants and antiperspirants prove that it does. And it is obvious that some individuals, both blacks and whites, have strong body odors that can give offense to others. Why? What causes these odors?

It is apparently not the perspiration itself, as one might think. Experiments have shown that perspiration, as the body emits it, is both sterile and odorless. The odor results when bacteria work on the perspiration.

Hair, particularly under the arms, acts as a collecting site for perspiration and favors bacterial growth that can result in an offensive odor. Clothing, too, is a factor, since organisms may cling to it, along with the perspiration, and result in the bacterial decomposition that produces body odor.

A person’s diet also contributes to body odor. Jacobs and Stern note in General Anthropology: “Among the most potent odors known to chemists are valeric acid, butyric acid, and related organic compounds, which are given off as vapors through the skin by all persons who in the previous hours have digested milk, butter, cheese, or fats of various kinds. . . . A population which eats much garlic has another characteristic odor; onions engender still other consequences; smoked salmon and venison, pickled herrings, and yams, still others.”

Yet, despite the evidence that such factors as these are responsible, many persons still believe that body odor is due particularly to racial inheritance. In his book Along This Way, J. W. Johnson describes an interesting exchange that he had on this matter, explaining: “Once a man rose and said, ‘I wish to ask you a frank question. Isn’t the chief objection to the Negro due to the fact that he has a bad odor?’”

“In reply,” the writer said, “I agreed that there were lots of bad-smelling Negroes; but in turn, I asked my questioner if he thought the expensive magazine advertisements about ‘B.O.’ were designed to attract an exclusive Negro patronage. I remarked that I did not think so, since they were generally illustrated with pictures of rather nice-looking white girls.”

Yet might not a general community of blacks, as well as of whites, have an objectionable odor if they have a particular diet and way of living? Indeed so! Blacks held for weeks in the holds of slave ships smelled very bad. And so did many black slaves who worked in the fields and did not bathe regularly. Even today, there are some classes, both of blacks and of whites, whose hygiene is poor, and whose diet is different from what others are used to. They often smell different, objectionable, to persons who are not generally around them. Yet that does not mean that all whites or all blacks smell that way.

Still, the claim has been made, even by a university scholar, that one of the most outstanding of racial differences is body odor. Is there proof that this assertion is untrue?

What Experiments Showed

Some experiments have been conducted to provide an answer. Professor Otto Klineberg, a leading authority in the field of racial psychology, tells about an unpublished study. The experimenter collected perspiration in test tubes from white and black students who had just been exercising in a gymnasium. White judges were then given the test tubes, and asked to rank them in order of pleasantness.

“The results showed,” Klineberg reports, “no consistent preference for the White samples; the test tube considered the most pleasant and the one considered the most unpleasant were both taken from Whites.”

The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1950, pages 257-265, tells about another experiment. Two blacks and two whites were the subjects. All four were college students who ate in the same cafeteria, lived in approximately the same quarters, and participated in the same school activities. For the experiment, the four showered in the same shower room and used the same kind of soap.

During the first half of the experiment the boys had just come from a shower, and during the second half, they were perspiring after vigorous exercise. The experiment was conducted in such a way as to eliminate any possibility of accidental factors or recognition of the subjects. In all, fifty-nine persons offered 715 judgments, being allowed to smell any part of the subjects’ sheet-covered bodies.

The results showed that in 368 judgments, or more than half of them, the Judges marked “don’t know.” They thus acknowledged that they were unable to recognize body odor of Whites or blacks as being in any way distinctive. And in nearly half of the rest of the judgments, or in 157 of them, persons who thought that they could identify the source of body odor were incorrect. Mere chance guesses would have produced almost this same degree of accuracy.

Interestingly, only seven of the fifty-nine judges were certain that they could differentiate the source of body odor every time. They showed their confidence by never marking “don’t know.” Yet they were correct, on the average, in only about half of their judgments​—also no better than what chance guesses would have produced.

George K. Morlan, reporting in The Journal of Genetic Psychology, observed: “Our experiment neither proves nor disproves that there are ‘racial’ differences in body odor, but if such differences do exist, and whites and Negroes are equated for diet, cleanliness, and the like, our evidence very definitely does not support the view that whites can identify that odor with any dependable degree of accuracy.”

The Role of Prejudice

No doubt many persons, in all sincerity, believe that objectionable body odor is due particularly to race, rather than to poor hygiene or diet. It is possible that because they have been taught to believe that another race has a bad odor they, in fact think that they can detect such an odor. Discussing this matter, former professor of psychology at Harvard University Gordon W. Allport wrote:

“The associative power of odors is high . . . if we have once associated the odor of garlic with Italians we have met, or cheap perfume with immigrants, or fetid odors with crowded tenements, these odors newly encountered will cause us to think of Italians, immigrants, tenement dwellers. Meeting an Italian may cause us to think of the odor of garlic and even to ‘smell’ it. Olfactory hallucinations (caused by such associations) are common. It is for this reason that people who have formed olfactory associations may declare with conviction that all Negroes or all immigrants smell.”

Once a person has formed such an opinion, it is usually not easy to change it. Prejudice can be deep-seated, yet appear ludicrous when viewed objectively. Consider, for example, the woman who said that she did not wish blacks to live in her neighborhood, “because they smell.” Yet this same woman had no objection to blacks working for her as servants in her home. John Dollard, former professor of psychology at Yale University, was undoubtedly correct when he said: “It seems quite possible that if the belief were absent, the Negro odors would not rise above the discrimination threshold.”

The Encyclopædia Britannica, 1971, after discussing the subject, drew this conclusion: “It is doubtful whether there is a significant difference in the odour of sweat. Experimental tests have shown very poor ability to discriminate between Negro and white sweat. The subject is complex, and there is a very general tendency to attribute perceived differences to ‘racial’ factors, when in many cases the differences may be due to social and other nonracial factors.”

It is sad when persons judge others before examining the evidence. And it is even sadder when these views are held to after persons have considered the evidence. Whole races have been discriminated against due to prejudice. But, really, is there sound basis for prejudice or discrimination against any race of people?

One Human Race

SURELY there is a variety of peoples on earth, with strikingly different physical features. Do you view them all as belonging to one human race, as persons to be accepted on their individual merit?

We should. It is the way that our Creator wants us to view people. How do we know? Because he inspired one of his servants, the Christian apostle Paul, to say: “The God that made the world and all the things in it . . . gives to all persons life and breath and all things. And he made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth.”​—Acts 17:24-26.

But are not some races of men more precious in God’s eyes than others? This is what many have believed. Yet, after being given a demonstration of God’s impartiality, the Christian apostle Peter was moved to exclaim: “For a certainty I perceive that God is not partial, but in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.”​—Acts 10:34, 35.

Do you believe this? Not all people do.

Really One Family?

Some people even distort the Bible, and try to show that it teaches “that the Negro, the lower apes and the quadrupeds, all belong to ‘one kind of flesh,’ the ‘flesh of beasts.”’ Professor Charles Carroll made this assertion in his book “The Negro a Beast” or “in the Image of God,” which received wide distribution in the early twentieth century. On the other hand, some evolutionists say that blacks are ‘a lower race of the human species.’

But some blacks argue in an altogether different way. The book Black Nationalism​—A Search for an Identity in America says: “The Caucasians were not the original inhabitants of this earth, but were ‘grafted’ from the black people. . . . Contrasted with the Original Man (the so-called Negroes), the white is inferior physically and mentally. He is also weak because he was grafted from the black. He is the real ‘colored’ man, i.e., the deviant from the black color norm.”

What do the facts show? Are we really one human family? Is there any truth to the claims that we are not?

The Differences Superficial

Consider the flesh and blood. Some argue that it is different in blacks and whites. Yet The World Book Encyclopedia says: “Scientists state that cells which make up the human body are the same for all people. . . In the same way, a biologist can tell human blood from that of lower animals. But all the many types of human blood can be found among all the stocks and races of mankind.”

Much has been written about the differences in body structure of blacks and whites. But what are the facts? Anthropologist Ashley Montagu writes: “A close anatomical study seems to show that the physical differences are confined to quite superficial characters. I may best emphasize this by saying that if the body of a Negro were to be deprived of all superficial features such as skin, hair, nose and lips, I do not think that any anatomist could say for certain, in an isolated case, whether he was dealing with the body of a Negro or a European.”

Brain size is also pointed to as evidence of a basic difference between whites and blacks. It is claimed that, on the average, the brains of blacks are slightly smaller than those of whites. Yet, even if this were true, normal variations in brain size evidently do not affect intelligence. If they did, whites would be less intelligent than Eskimos and American Indians who, on the average, have larger brains.

To emphasize that the races are fundamentally alike, Professor Bentley Glass, in his book Genes and the Man, writes: “In all, it is unlikely that there are many more than six pairs of genes in which the white race differs characteristically, in the lay sense, from the black. Whites or blacks, however, unquestionably often differ among themselves by a larger number than this, a fact which reveals our racial prejudices as biologically absurd. . . . The chasm between human races and peoples, where it exists, is psychological and sociological; it is not genetic!”

Noteworthily, the recent book Heredity and Humans, by science writer Amram Scheinfeld, says: “Science now corroborates what most great religions have long been preaching: Human beings of all races are . . . descended from the same first man.”

Since this is true, then what accounts for observable racial differences, such as skin color and texture of hair?

Why Racial Differences

The first human pair had within their genetic makeup the multiple factors for all the racial differences that we see today. Possibly they themselves were neither white nor black, but mulattoes, or a combination of the colors now found in the various races. An early historical report about humankind says: “They are all a single people with a single language!” (Gen. 11:6, in The Jerusalem Bible) But this abruptly changed.

A large segment of the human family, at that early time in history, desired to remain in one location for religio-political purposes. To thwart this, the Creator suddenly caused these men to speak different languages so that they could not understand one another. Picture what must have taken place.

Unable to communicate as one people, little groups, now isolated by the barrier of language, moved off on their own. As they spread farther afield, distance added another barrier to communication. Isolated by location and by language, the descendants of each group multiplied, and further developed over a period of time the distinct features of their “race.” But these physical features that were passed along from parent to child did not, in any way, make one race superior or inferior to another.​—Gen. 11:7-10.

The fact is, these racial differences are actually not very great, as Hampton L. Carson writes in Heredity and Human Life: “The paradox which faces us is that each group of humans appears to be externally different yet underneath these differences there is fundamental similarity.”

Why, then, if humans are all really one family, do terrible racial problems exist?

What Is Responsible

Although God created our first human parents, Adam and Eve, perfect, they gave their offspring a bad start. How? They willfully rebelled against God, breaking away from his rule. Cut off from God, Adam and Eve thus became imperfect, defective. As a result, they passed this imperfection​—this tendency toward bad—​on to their descendants.​—Rom. 5:12.

So from birth up all humans are defective. They are prone to selfishness and pride. Furthermore, when the first humans broke away from God’s dominion, they came under the rule of a wicked spirit creature that the Bible calls Satan or the Devil. (Rev. 12:9; 2 Cor. 4:4) It is these circumstances that have been at the root of the prejudice-plagued history of the human family right up to the present time.

To put it pointedly: Selfish, imperfect humans, under the control of Satan, have spread all the false teachings about race that have been responsible for the terrible racial problems.

What Will You Do?

You can permit yourself to be influenced by the false propaganda of this world and hold an improper view of peoples of other races. Or you can mold your thinking in accord with the truth​—the truth found particularly in God’s Word, the Bible—​and have a wholesome, proper view of people of other races.

Admittedly, it may not be easy to correct long-held prejudices, for they can be deep-seated. But if we are to please our Creator, Jehovah God, it is essential that we work on gaining and maintaining a proper view of our fellow humans. We need to keep in mind God’s view, namely, that “in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.”​—Acts 10:35.

The time is not far off when God will fulfill his promise to render judgment. He will cleanse the earth of all its defiling elements, including all those of the entire world of humankind, whatever the race, who are out of harmony with his will. Only those who work righteousness and are acceptable to him will be preserved alive. (1 John 2:17) The Bible assures us that these will include “a great crowd . . . out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues.” (Rev. 7:9) These will, all together, dwell in peace and unity as one united human family of brothers and sisters.

But what about those who have had racial prejudices deeply engrained in them? How can they correct their thinking?

[Blurb on page 22]

“All the many types of human blood can be found among all the stocks and races of mankind.”

[Blurb on page 22]

“Science now corroborates what most great religions have long been preaching: Human beings of all races are . . . descended from the same first man.”

[Blurb on page 23]

The Bible says: “In every nation the man that fears [God] and works righteousness is acceptable to him.”

[Picture on page 21]

‘If a man were deprived of all superficial features such as skin, hair, nose and lips, an anatomist could not say for certain whether he was dealing with the body of a Negro or a European.’

They Found the Solution to the Problem of Race

THERE are thousands of persons today who have overcome lifelong racial prejudices. They have found the solution to the problem that continues to haunt humankind. How? The key is proper education, getting accurate information.

When this key is missing, prejudice often results. Prejudice is a prejudgment, a judgment arrived at before persons have really examined the evidence regarding the matter involved. Then, because of their prejudice, they are inclined to discriminate against others.

When it comes to the matter of race, persons often believe that they have examined the evidence. And they may think that they are acting on accurate information. But, actually, it is common for persons, from their youth up, to be informed improperly about peoples of other races and nationalities. The consequences are sad indeed.

The following first-person accounts show this. In one, a black describes what it is like to be a victim of racial prejudice and discrimination, yet tells how he found the solution to this problem. First, however, turn your attention to the story of a white. It illustrates how prejudices are often passed on from one generation to the next, but it shows the wholesome changes and benefits that can be realized by a person’s obtaining accurate information from a right source.

White Southerner Finds Solution

I was born white and raised in the deep South in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Segregation was written, not only into the law of the land then, but in the hearts of my family and our white neighbors. From youth up, the inferiority of the black race was instilled in us so that it was only natural to believe this. Everybody did. Besides, as we grew up, we saw what appeared to us as proof. For one thing, Negroes are black. No amount of washing can rid them of this evidence that they are of the ‘cursed race,’ our elders pointed out.

When given work to do, there was always a white overseer to tell them what to do and how to do it. ‘They’re too stupid to do anything requiring intelligence,’ was the reason given. ‘Blacks must be somewhere between the apes and humans, really subhuman,’ we were told.

On going to school, the theory of evolution strengthened these thoughts. Often blacks were ridiculed as being no more than “beasts,” only fit to do the simple but hard labor on the farms or to be domestics. Some even said that God had evidently created a race to be servants, not so bright as they were strong and able to do hard work in the hot sun. What matter, then, if occasionally, when he tried to assert himself and get out of his God-assigned place, it became necessary to put a black ‘in his place’ by a tongue-lashing or even blows?

Yes, even the churches encouraged this attitude, as blacks were not allowed to meet with us in worship. They had their own churches, often mere shacks in the middle of a cotton patch. Here we were told that their services were more shouting and singing sessions than meaningful sermons and Sunday-school sessions.

In hushed gossip circles the topic often turned to ‘the way they live​—just a level above the animals.’ Cases of immorality and illegitimate children were pointed to. Nobody cared that a man or a woman did not bother to get a divorce in order to start living with a new partner. It was all part of their mentality, it was said. We weren’t told how, during slavery only a few generations before, black families were broken up and sold to different masters, or how certain slave owners would use a well-built slave to breed his slave women to produce offspring for the slave market.

I remember once pulling a crosscut saw with a young black my age in cutting down a tree. When he got hot, he really smelled! Ah! I thought, this proves what they say about blacks’ having a peculiar body odor. But I didn’t stop to consider that while I had taken a bath that day, he had very meager facilities for bathing in his humble home. Also, lack of early family training in hygiene likely diminished his incentive to take a bath often.

Obviously, the prevailing attitudes of the whites around me when I grew up had their effect on me. When I began to study with Jehovah’s Witnesses in my mid-teens there was a struggle at times to bring my thinking into harmony with what the Bible teaches about the races. Prejudice is hard to “unlearn.” I recall the mixed feelings that I had in making adjustments in my thinking.

There is a natural tendency to hold on to old concepts, but I was really pleased at heart each time an old myth was exploded. It was faith-strengthening to see how the Bible is true on this matter of the races, as I already knew it was true and reliable otherwise. All races had descended from one man, Adam; they are all equal in God’s sight. None are cursed by God. And the more I saw how blacks and even some other races around the world are treated, it became clear to me that any inequalities in abilities, intelligence, and so forth, must be due primarily, if not entirely, to the deprivations they had experienced stemming from prejudice.

In working with, sharing recreation with, studying with and worshiping with both blacks and whites for over thirty years, I have found no reason at all for one race to consider itself superior to another. Love of God and genuine unhypocritical love for one’s neighbor is the only answer to the question of racial prejudice.

Black Southerner Finds Solution

I was raised in the South in the late 1940’s. My family was very poor, as were most black families. Dad was a field laborer. I was never taught that blacks were inferior to whites, although it was quite evident that whites held this view.

My parents explained to me, and we were also taught in our segregated school, that blacks had been suppressed since coming to America as slaves. They said that even though we are supposed to be free and equal, everything is set up to keep us as secondary citizens, inferior to whites. My father told me that as a boy he wouldn’t dare look a white person in the eye while talking to him. He said that his head must be bowed a little and he would have to answer with a “yessa” or “nossa” for fear of reprisal. He even told me about his going into town and having a white shoot at his feet, and yelling, “Hey nigger, dance!”

So I was prepared for mistreatment and discrimination. Still it hurt. We were required to ride in the back of buses, and often to go to the back door or window of a restaurant to be served. And there were the rest rooms in public places with signs for “white” and “colored,” with the “colored” one, of course, always being of inferior quality. One day in the mid-1960’s, I went to a riding stable and was told, “There is a certain day for you folks.” Plenty of horses were available, but we couldn’t ride with whites.

Particularly frustrating to me was the vicious economic cycle that blacks were held in by whites. In the past, because of slavery and forced segregation, blacks were limited in education and employment opportunities, and thus were unable to improve their economic status or family life. Even in recent times, due to lack of education or discrimination, a black father often would be unable to provide adequately for his family, either materially or educationally.

By the time I started school many blacks had come to the conclusion that the only way to improve themselves was by getting a good education. I remember my teachers emphasizing this, saying: ‘Study, get a good education, so you will not have to work in the fields after completing high school.’ It was not the hard work that was objectionable. No, but it was working from sunup to sundown for meager wages, and ending up with nothing to show for it.

It was the system that discouraged many blacks. Some, who became frustrated because of not being able to find employment, turned to alcohol, drugs and crime to ease their frustrations. This only added support to the thought of whites that blacks are shiftless and lazy. There built up in me a deep sense of resentment for the perpetuation of the unjust and cruel economic system.

I began to wonder: Will a good education really free me from these injustices? Will it change the basic attitudes of whites toward me? These questions caused me much consternation. However, becoming involved in a Bible study with Jehovah’s Witnesses helped me to see the real reason for the racial injustices that are so prevalent. I also learned that the prayer that I was taught as a child offers the only lasting hope for relief​—the kingdom of God.​—Matt. 6:9, 10.

From my Bible studies I could see that all men are imperfect and do not always treat others in the way that they should. As the Bible says: “Man has dominated man to his injury.” (Eccl. 8:9) However, associating with Jehovah’s Witnesses helped me to see that they have the same view of race that the Bible sets forth. They really believe that God “made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth.” (Acts 17:26) Indeed, the Witnesses demonstrate the love Jesus said his true followers would have.​—John 13:34, 35.

The Witnesses, I have found, practice this love among themselves whatever their race may be. True, as with others reared in this system, they may have had racial hatred and resentment pounded into them. But I have observed, with both myself and others, that when a person accepts God’s view of racial differences and strives to become intimately acquainted with people of different races, long-standing myths based on prejudice are dispelled.

I am thankful for having learned the Bible truths, which have helped to set me and my family free from such racial problems. We are happy to be kept busy helping others of all races to see that the kingdom of God is the true solution to all man’s problems.

Solution Available to All

These are not rare or unusual stories. Millions have learned prejudice from their youth; millions more have been victims of prejudice and, as a result, have suffered unjust racial discrimination. Yet, happily, God’s Word has the solution​—it provides our Creator’s view of humankind and how we should treat one another.

First, as we have seen, the Bible teaches that we are all one human family. Yes, in God’s sight, humans of every race or nationality are equal in all respects. (Acts 10:34, 35) This is also the view that Jesus Christ expressed.

Christ’s principal command to his followers was that they “love one another” just as he loved them. (John 13:34, 35) This love among themselves was not to be some exclusive thing​—just for members of a particular race or races. Not at all! “Have love for the whole association of brothers,” one of Christ’s apostles urged. And another said: “He who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving God, whom he has not seen.”​—1 Pet. 2:17; 1 John 4:20.

How is this Christian love shown? God’s Word explains how when it urges: “In showing honor to one another take the lead.” (Rom. 12:10) Think what it will mean when you do this. You will treat others, regardless of their race or nationality, with real dignity and respect, viewing them as “superior to you.” (Phil. 2:3) When such a spirit of genuine Christian love exists, the problem of racial prejudice is solved.

‘This is something that will never happen,’ some persons may object. Yet it has already happened among Jehovah’s Witnesses​—in an organization of more than two million people! This is not to say that every single one of Jehovah’s Witnesses has become perfectly free from the prejudices learned from this ungodly system. No, but they have, to a degree unmatched by any other people on earth, solved this problem of race. And this becomes evident to any who investigate.

For example, Catholic writer William J. Whalen observed in the U.S. Catholic of July 1964: “I believe that one of the most attractive characteristics of this cult has been its traditional policy of racial equality. Negroes who become Jehovah’s Witnesses know they will be welcomed as full human beings.”

Also, G. Norman Eddy, after an intensive study of Jehovah’s Witnesses, wrote in the religious publication Journal of Bible and Religion: “Penetrating more deeply into their social values, I am struck with their genuine high regard for the people of all races. Unlike some who pay lip service to the doctrine of racial brotherhood, the Witnesses welcome all to their society​—even to places of outstanding leadership—​without reference to color or feature.”

Are you a person who longs for true brotherhood, to see people of all races dwell together in peace? We welcome you, then, to attend a local Kingdom Hall where Jehovah’s Witnesses meet regularly to study God’s Word. See for yourself if they do not display genuine Christian love-for people of all races.

[Blurb on page 27]

“Negroes who become Jehovah’s Witnesses know they will be welcomed as full human beings.”

What Is the Bible’s View?

Are Blacks Cursed by God?

MANY religious leaders have answered “Yes.” Clergymen Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, in their Bible commentary, assert: “Cursed be Canaan [Genesis 9:25]​—this doom has been fulfilled in. . . the slavery of the Africans, the descendants of Ham.”​—Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Whole Bible.

It is claimed that not only the slavery of blacks was in fulfillment of this Biblical curse, but their black skin color is too. Thus many whites have been led to assume that blacks are inferior, and that God meant for them to be the servants of whites. Many blacks became embittered by the treatment that they received as a result of this religious interpretation. One observes:

“It was in the summer of 1951 when I, as an inquisitive seven-year-old, sat on the steps of the First Baptist Church in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and cried. I had tried diligently to rub off the blackness of my flesh, because my white girl companions had remarked about its offensiveness. The rubbing with Ajax cleanser left only a reddened, puffy spot that ached, almost as much as my childish heart, when I began to ponder why a God of love would make a person black, unless he really did not love me.

“I had heard that it was due to a curse put on our race by God. But I still didn’t know or understand what we had done to God that merited such punishment. And I think, in reflection, that deep in my heart I had always harbored a private grudge against God for making me black and putting me into a white world.

“In the crushing disturbances of my playmates’ taunts and racial epithets, such as: ‘If you’re White, you’re all right, if you’re Brown, stick around, if you’re Black, get back,’ a marked condition ensued, wherein I began to seethe, particularly at white girls my own age.”

What about this Biblical curse? Are people black due to a curse that God placed on some ancestor of theirs? And did blacks suffer centuries of slavery in fulfillment of this curse? Does the Bible really teach such things? Let us see. The Bible account in question reads:

“[Noah] drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren . . . And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”​—Gen. 9:21-27, Authorized Version.

It has been claimed that this Biblical curse singles out blacks for perpetual servitude. In fact, in 1838 the antislavery crusader Theodore Weld wrote in a popular tract: The “prophecy of Noah [quoted above] is the vade mecum [constant companion] of slaveholders, and they never venture abroad without it.”​—The Bible Against Slavery, page 66.

But, first of all, please note that nothing is said in this Bible account about anyone’s being cursed with blackness of skin. And note, too, that it is Canaan, not his father Ham, who was cursed. Canaan was not black skinned, nor were his descendants who settled in the land that became known as Palestine. (Gen. 10:15-19) The Canaanites were, in time, subjugated by the Israelites, descendants of Shem, and later by Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, descendants of Japheth. This subjugation of the Canaanites fulfilled the prophetic curse on their ancestor Canaan. The curse thus had nothing to do with the black race.

From where, then, did the black race come? From Ham’s other sons, Cush and probably also Put, whose descendants settled in Africa. But, as we have seen, the Bible says absolutely nothing about the black descendants of these men being cursed! Yet it was incorrectly assumed that they were. When did church commentators begin applying the curse to Ham?

A churchman of about 1,500 years ago, Ambrosiaster, applied it thus, saying: “Due to folly Ham, who foolishly ridiculed the nakedness of his father, was declared a slave.” And John F. Maxwell observes in his recent book Slavery and the Catholic Church: “This disastrous example of fundamentalist exegesis [explanation] continued to be used for 1,400 years and led to the widely held view that African Negroes were cursed by God.”

Even up to a hundred years ago the Catholic Church held the view that blacks were cursed by God. Maxwell explains that this view “apparently survived until 1873 when Pope Pius IX attached an indulgence to a prayer for the ‘wretched Ethiopians in Central Africa that almighty God may at length remove the curse of Cham [Ham] from their hearts.’”

Yet even before Christendom’s beginning over 1,500 years ago, yes, possibly even prior to Jesus Christ’s life on earth, Jewish rabbis taught a story about the origin of black skin. The Encyclopædia Judaica claims: “Ham’s descendant (Cush) is black skinned as a punishment for Ham’s having had sexual intercourse in the ark.”

Similar “stories” have been manufactured in modern times. Defenders of slavery, such as John Fletcher of Louisiana, for example, taught that the sin that prompted the curse by Noah was racial intermarriage. He claimed that Cain was smitten with a black skin for killing his brother Abel, and that Ham had sinned by marrying into the race of Cain. It is noteworthy, too, that Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth College during the last century, also attributed Noah’s curse upon Canaan partly to Ham’s “forbidden intermarriage with the previously wicked and accursed race of Cain.”

But such teachings have no foundation whatsoever in the Bible. And there were persons in past centuries who showed that the curse uttered by Noah was wrongly being applied to blacks. For example, back in June 1700 Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston explained: “For Canaan is the person cursed three times over, without the mentioning of Cham [Ham]. . . . Whereas the Blackmores [Black race] are not descended of Canaan, but of Cush.”

Also, in 1762 a John Woolman published a treatise in which he argued that the application of this Biblical curse in such a way as to justify enslaving people and depriving them of their natural rights “is a supposition too gross to be admitted into the mind of any person who sincerely desires to be governed by solid principles.”

What great harm has resulted from the misapplication by churchmen of this Biblical curse! The slavery of African blacks, and their mistreatment since the days of slavery, can in no way be justified by the Bible. The truth is, blacks are not, and never were, cursed by God!

◆ Many people have been shocked by recent revelations about the treatment of black slaves. But “one of the most startling bits of information about the role of the church in slavery,” writes clergyman A. C. Forrest in the Toronto Star, “appeared 19 years ago in the fourth volume of Winston Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking People. Churchill wrote:

“‘. . . over 650,000 slaves were held by ministers of the gospel and members of the different Protestant churches. Five thousand Methodist ministers owned 219,000 slaves; six thousand five hundred Baptists owned 125,000; one thousand four hundred Episcopalians held 88,000; and so on. Thus the institution of slavery was not only defended by every argument of self-interest, but many a Southern pulpit championed it as a system ordained by the Creator and sanctified by the Gospel of Christ.’”