McWhorter: You Can’t Say Academic Tests Are Racist and Then Get Mad When Someone Says Black People Are Less Intelligent

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” author and linguist John McWhorter commented on New York City phasing out its gifted and talented programs by arguing that if you decide “it’s racist to submit a black kid to a test of cognitive ability,” then you can’t “yell and scream when somebody like Charles Murray says that black people are less intelligent than others. You can’t have both.”

McWhorter stated, “[S]omehow, today, the idea is, no, let’s eliminate the test. Because the test is racist. And what — it comes down to this: If you decide that it’s racist to submit a black kid to a test of cognitive ability, then you are completely out of court to then yell and scream when somebody like Charles Murray says that black people are less intelligent than others. You can’t have both. And so, the idea is to see how you can get black kids better at the tests. I think they can get better.”

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