By Legrand H. Clegg II
Nationwide — On July 19, 2018, a large crowd of Black people gathered at the south central Los Angeles office of Congresswoman Maxine Waters to confront the Oath Keepers, a white supremacist organization that had planned an anti-Waters rally there. The Oath Keepers failed to appear. Their planned protest against the Congresswoman was the latest trend among Whites to promote blatant racism and to question Black humanity and intelligence. This followed by two weeks President Trump’s claim that Congresswoman Waters has “a low I.Q.”On May 29th 2018, actress Roseanne Barr tweeted that Valerie Jarrett, a Black woman and one of President Barack Obama’s closest advisors, is the product of “Muslim brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.” A few days later, a Black reporter from a cable network interviewed a White supremacist, Arthur Jones, who was a candidate for public office in Illinois. He informed her that Black people are genetically inferior to Whites, and the fact that she was bright enough to attend Harvard University was attributable to her “White blood.”
The sentiments held and expressed by the Oath Keepers, Barr, Jones and the President are not new. From President Thomas Jefferson to clergymen, scientists, scholars, historians and the rank and file, White Americans have contended that people of African descent are small- brained, genetically inferior sub-humans with no history prior to slavery and colonialism.
Whites have also constantly compared Black people to apes.
Commenting on the perennial White obsession with Black intelligence, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a distinguished African American psychiatrist, wrote the following in the July, 1975 issue of Ebony magazine: “[White people] who cannot cease talking and writing in a negative manner about the genetics of black people…[are] victims not only of the genetic recessive deficiency state of skin albinism but also its component psychological disease state of racism (white supremacy).”
By and large, we as African Americans have long chosen to ignore white claims of our inferiority, and striven as a group to prove ourselves equal to all other people. But this noble approach has not resulted in a cessation of White supremacist propaganda emanating from either the white masses or the White House. At this juncture, then, we must address these insults head-on whenever and wherever they appear; lest we lose another generation of Black youths to the forces of racism that have instilled in too many of them a sense of hopelessness and inferiority.
First, we should insist that Black people do not resemble apes. Apes have thin lips, straight hair, hairy bodies and flat behinds. When shaven, apes have pink skin. Black people have thick lips, wooly, curly or wavy hair, smooth bodies and protruding behinds. Our skin color ranges from black to brown, red and yellow—not pink.
Second, when African Americans experience educational parity with Whites, Black performance on standardized I.Q. tests such as SAT, ACT, GRE, etc. is virtually equivalent to their White counterparts. Furthermore, since scientists have determined that Black people are the genetically dominant parents of the human family, and Whites insist that one drop of Black blood determines that one is Black, how, then, does genetic dominance equate to genetic inferiority?
Third, several studies of Black newborns in Africa and the United States show that, prior to acculturation, Black babies are the most advanced in the world. Commenting on the discoveries of White specialist Marcelle Geber, author Joseph C. Pearce has written: “She found [in Uganda] the most precocious, brilliant and advanced infants and children ever observed anywhere…Sensor motor learning and general development were phenomenal. Indeed miraculous. These Ugandan infants were months ahead of American or European children. A superior intellectual development held for the first four years of life.” The racial comparisons, published by Geber and other scientists, are truly staggering.
Finally, authors Robert Bauval and Thomas Brophy have written that “scientists in the field of genetics have been pointing out that it may actually be correct to say that the world was created by Black people.” This is borne out by the fact that Blacks appear to have laid the foundation of civilization. In other words, Africans pioneered in the fields of architecture, art, athletics, government, law, mathematics, medicine, navigation, religion, science, writing, etc. Their astonishing achievements included not only building of the pyramids of Egypt, but also constructing neighboring temples, some of which contain blocks of stone weighing between 200 and 400 tons each, that were arranged and set up with remarkable precision. Black achievements in antiquity have led white author Flora Lugard to write that, during that era, “…[T]he leading race of the Western World was a black race.” Historian Richard Poe has also observed that, among ancient people, there was the “presumption that dark skin connoted higher intelligence.”
It is past time for white supremacists and their sympathizers, who are rarely trained in genetics, to cease lying to themselves and to the public about the intelligence of people of African descent. It is also unconscionable for an ever compliant media to continue dignifying these racists with generous coverage while ignoring the powerful evidence that refutes their malicious propaganda by revealing the truth about Black potential and achievements.
Legrand H. Clegg II is the city attorney emeritus for Compton, California, president of the Western Region of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, and producer of the documentary “When Black Men Ruled the World.” He may be contacted at legrandclegg44@gmail.com or at his Long Beach, CA, law office at 562-624-2857 or at his new website at thesiriuspeople.com.