Cultural racism

[Katha Pollitt]

With all due respect to Jim Heartfield, I disagree about the critical
reception of The Bell Curve.  Murray and herrnstein are culturally
central figures. Charles Murray writes all the time for Commentary and
other  rightwing intellectual journals; "Losing Ground" is considered by
welfare-reformers a classic text.; Herrnstein's research was promoted
(as far back as l972) in the Atlantic Monthly. the Bell Curve itself was
excerpted in The New Republic, which gave it a big boost of
respectability, and it received a front page very favorable review in
the NYTimes Book Review, from the NYTimes's chief science reporter,
Malcolm Brown   (who also gave favarable notice in the same review to
two other even more primitive intelligence-=is-genetic- and race-based
books) . the New York Times magazine profiled Murray rather favorably. 
On TV, Charles Murrray got a very respectful hearing (Nightline etc).
Interestingly, on TV debates, the pro-Bell Curve side was challenged
mostly by political activists and writers, not by scientists, which
allowed viewers to think Murray was promoting the non-pc truth. Finally,
The book sold a quarter of a million copies!

  It's true there was a lot of criticism of the book too -- but the
criticism came limping after -- when Charles lane and others exposed the
Nazi sources of some of Murray's data, etc. I think the book did a great
deal to legitimize  white people's not-quite-articulate suspicion that
black people are  just dumber than whites.

best, katha