Emil Kirkegaard on Africans and Violence

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Africans, violence and genetics

Evidence points to genetic causation, but it’s not definitive

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I could go on, but you get the idea. Everywhere at all times we have data for, Africans are highly involved in violent behavior compared to (most) other people living in the same country. Why? If a pattern is consistent across time and place, naturally, we should begin with the simplest model to explain this: a single constant cause. Genetics is a suitable candidate. There’s no other real candidate, really. Anti-African sentiment? Just begs the question of why people acquired this sentiment to begin with. People aren’t born hating others, it is something they learn for a reason or another. Since we know demographic stereotypes are extremely accurate, the pervasive stereotypes of Africans being prone to violence is good evidence of their actual behavior. European colonialism? Africans are prone to violence everywhere, whether they exist in large or small numbers, whether the country is run by Europeans, Asians, or Africans. But in any case, there’s no good evidence legacy of colonialism causes violent behavior. After all, Singapore and Hong Kong are extremely safe places despite recent British colonial history. Comparing across time (last few hundred years) and place, one could come up with a rough rank ordering of races by tendency towards violent behavior:

  • Africans
  • MENAP (most Muslim groups)
  • Amerindians
  • Indians
  • Europeans (lots of variation)
  • Southeast Asians (Thai etc. but also Muslim Indonesians)
  • East Asians

Various smaller groups, like the Polynesians, Siberians, and Eskimos (arctic peoples), are harder to place exactly but are somewhere above Europeans. These differences aren’t perfectly historically stable, but stable enough. Notice that the ordering above mostly looks like the average level of intelligence for the groups, with the exception that Southeast Asians are lower crime than expected by their intelligence.

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11 replies
  3. Penny Spender
    Penny Spender says:

    Negrid males in general are more sexually active, less intelligent and longer of limb than Mongolid males, but there are many local variations in both cases. Much depends on the encounter with the social environment, and black youths abandoned by their fathers in a western urban welfare society might well behave differently in a tribal world. Testosterone levels combined with low self-control and lack of future-planning play their part. Ten years ago K. M. Beaver, J. C. Barnes & B. B. Boutwell cited research suggesting that “African-American males” carrying the “2-repeat allele of the MAOA gene” were likelier than “all other genotypes to engage in shooting and stabbing behaviors”.

    • Wade Smith
      Wade Smith says:

      See the Save the Children Report on Haiti, August 2024, and The Guardian (UK) August 24.
      Reductio ad genus. THIS is where contraception is needed.

  5. Santoculto
    Santoculto says:

    ”Iede study shows inequality in learning between white and black students

    Interdisciplinarity and Evidence in the Educational Debate (Iede) compiled data on student learning according to race/color at the request of the Lemann Foundation. The numbers show that, in all Brazilian states, regardless of the subject assessed (Portuguese or Mathematics), in both the 5th and 9th grades of Elementary School, there is a significant difference in the percentage of white and black students with adequate learning. The data was extracted from the Basic Education Assessment System (Saeb) 2019 and is available on QEdu Gestão.

    In the 5th grade, in Portuguese, there are 65.1% of white students with adequate learning; among black students, the percentage is 40.3%. The states with the greatest differences between the two groups are: Amazonas, Rio Grande do Norte, Roraima and Amapá. In Amazonas, white students perform almost 100% better than black students in the 5th grade (50.8% with adequate learning versus 25.5%).

    In Mathematics, student performance is generally worse, but the difference by race persists: 55.8% of white students have adequate learning in the subject versus 31.2% of black students. In Mathematics, in addition to Amazonas and Rio Grande do Norte, there are quite significant differences in Rio Grande do Sul, Mato Grosso, Santa Catarina, and Paraíba. In these states, the difference between white and black students is greater than 70%.

    In the 9th grade of Elementary School, in Portuguese, white students perform 68.2% better than black students (46% with adequate learning versus 27.4%). In Mathematics, at this stage, the greatest inequality is observed: 25.8% of white students with adequate learning compared to 11.9% of black students, a difference that reaches 116.4%.

    In the two years evaluated and in the two subjects, there are significant differences even when students belong to the same socioeconomic group: for example, in Mathematics, among students with a high socioeconomic level, 34.4% of white students have adequate learning, among black students, 17.3% (a difference of 98.8%). Among those with a low socioeconomic level, 15.8% versus 8% (a difference of 98%).”

    https://www.portaliede.com.br/estudo-do-iede-mostra-diferenca-de-desempenho-entre-alunos-brancos-e-pretos/

  6. T.Gilligan
    T.Gilligan says:

    While watching a documentary series on the BBC called ‘The Corridors of Power’ one very interesting episode highlight the crisis with the 1992 new elected Clinton administration, “Rwanda”.
    What swayed Clinton and his foreign policy to stay out of the 800,000 Rwandan Hutu genocide of 800,000 Tutsi’s?
    Black lynch-mob violence in Somalia appeared to be the conclusion the program led me to understand. The previous Bush Snr administration intervened to help starving Somalians; two helicopters crashed with the bodies of the pilots dragged through the dirt in Mogasdishu. ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident.
    The self-flagellation of the American diplomats thirty years on is understandable but the sheer wanton barbarity of scenes of humans being hacked with machetes speaks of hearts of darkness.

  7. Jessica R
    Jessica R says:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10320003/#:~:text=Longitudinally%2C%20vitamin%20D%2Ddeficient%20children,8%2C%2037%2C%2038).

    There is some evidence that deficiencies in Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D and zinc are linked to violence. The link is not yet very strong as this is a fairly new area of research. Still, the data that exists is intriguing. African Americans have, on averge, lower vitamin D levels and lower omega-3 levels as well.

    The point: the link between African Americans and crime may be caused by nutrition and not an unmodifiable genetic predisposition to violence.

    • Wade Smith
      Wade Smith says:

      @ Jessica Smith
      There are various sorts of crime and criminality which are ipso facto socially defined, but the causes in individuals, and in biological related groups of similar individuals, are multifactorial. In the US as in the UK the absence of a responsible father figure and his discipline is a factor, and an adolescent inducement to gang membership. Poor nutrition may well be another, as the late Richard Lynn acknowledged in the case of African IQ averages. The physical ability to run away fast must be considered. Some Somalis are reportedly more sadistic than Afro-Caribbeans in UK knife-crime/murder. The lucrative transport of drugs by young roadmen and female mules is a worldwide factor in which non-whites feed the disgusting addictions of white consumers, although it is now clear that high-strength cannabis is itself a stimulus to violent crime, contrary to liberal and libertarian propaganda.

    • Mary
      Mary says:

      I don’t think you read through and digested that article properly Jessica. Besides It doesn’t even mention African Americans.
      It’s also not a new area of research. (-although perhaps in the field of psychiatry.) It’s been known for many years how nutrition can affect behavior.
      You’re clutching at straws however as deficiency in Vit D & omega 3s (and other nutrients), has become common in the population these days but that doesn’t predispose them all to violence.

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