Last week I came across this article: "Is Trump a Racist? Let’s Look at the Stats." I have some thoughts...
First, uh, yeah. Duh. There's a whole lot of rather racist things happening, emboldened by this regime. If you find someone defending any of that as not racist, they're probably racist too. They just don't want to admit it.
So, then I read the article. And they tried to quantify his racism via the percentages of people he calls, "Low I.Q." Okay, whatever. I don't know if you can "prove" racism via data like that, but it's something to write.
My second thought, on reading the article, was about projection. How people will take things they don't want to look at about themselves, and they'll attribute those qualities to others. I wonder when he was tested and how that test was explained to him. Because he uses this low IQ thing a lot.
When I was in school, I wanted to take an IQ test. They weren't administering them anymore. When I took psychology in high school, I did a research paper on the IQ tests. And the thing is, they're not really great tests of intelligence. They have their biases. That's not something you can measure, anyway. There's a reason they've been sidelined for decades.
Then the third thing I thought was about how he's been going on and on about those cognitive tests. How clearly he's had a few of them. Why else would he be constantly touting them (as if they were something to brag about)?
Yes, I've drawn some conclusions. They're not the ones the article set out to prove.
What do you think? What thoughts does the article bring forth in you?
My personal thought about IQ tests...how could they NOT have biases? I have no solution, but I'm not a big fan nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Trump? I've lost track of the dumbass things he's said.
I feel doing statistical studies on how many people of color vs people of white European ancestry have been called low IQ is a waste of time. If you see who Trump considers as a friend, the racism is obvious. Low IQ? Anyone who doesn't love and 110% support him. I'm more fascinated with his ideas of beauty and what he calls beautiful. I think that is just as much a window into his mind-and it is not a beautiful mind - as anything.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think Trump is book smart, and he probably would not get a super high score on an IQ test. But I do think he has street smarts and can “read a room,” which is how he managed to get a huge chunk of Americans to worship him by appealing to their hatreds and fears. Even now, though many of them don’t really approve of the Iran war, their support of HIM hasn’t wavered. They love that he “owns the libs” by saying disgusting, offensive, and stupid things daily…
ReplyDeleteI've taken online IQ tests and they were mostly popular statistics about online popular trends. So if you don't watch a lot of TV or follow popular trends the score would be low. Some others are weird word problems.
ReplyDeleteI read this post this morning, but didn't have time to read the article. Now I'm back lol. I think he's dim, I doubt he'd do well on 4th grade level exams.
ReplyDeleteI think his whole “low IQ” fixation says way more about him than about the people he’s trying to insult.
ReplyDeleteAnd honestly, IQ tests aren’t exactly the gold standard of intelligence anyway.
IQ tests have their biases, I agree. More than that, I'm interested in the results of Lewis Terman's classical experiment which showed that high IQ doesn't bring in much benefit.
ReplyDeleteTrump is a racist. His IQ may not be woth finding out at all. But that he became the POTUS twice is worth a study.