Comments on: Co-Author of New Immigration Study Says Latinos not as Intelligent

By: A.D.M.

A.D.M. — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:47:42 +0000

Sorry, concernedcitizen, but Latino is not a race. Never have been, never will be. Have you ever visited Puerto Rico? There are blacks, whites, even mestizos there.

By: Erika

Erika — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:20:12 +0000

i have no problem with wearing high heels, but i wouldn’t wear them with peach velour :)

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:08:46 +0000

Thank you, Sam.

By: aadila

aadila — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:35:41 +0000

“In an electorate that seems to be leaning democratic more and more now and for the foreseeable future the prospect of legalizing millions of new democratic voters is unthinkable to moist conservative lawmakers.”

Hmm…interesting points.

That said, not even half the eligible voting population cast a vote in the last election. Those most likely not to vote are statistically the elderly, the young, and non-whites, who are the same demographic as the typical Democratic voter. So, my response to the voter supression by the Republicans, which is abhorant to American principles, is to encourage getting more of those non-voters registered and to their polling places. We need more Acorns.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:31:16 +0000

Aadila, peach color velour, though comfortable, makes this weatherbeaten old Florida hide look jaundiced. Wine color velour, now…

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:44:40 +0000

Good points, Rey.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:56:10 +0000

Sam, all advances in human life are because, unlike bears, we are a social species. And what Europeans are actually sick of is having their economies Friedmanized to bail out the rich. Let the rich and the banks first try out the austerity they want to inflict on everyone else, especially since wealth, once accumulated past a certain level, is a disincentive to productivity.

By: aadila

aadila — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:47:42 +0000

Rey, tottering around on heels is a way for the patriarchy to keep women vulnerable, subservient, and objectified, and is an unfair subsidy for podiatrists to boot. I reject them. Peach velour on the other hand is a perfectly acceptable fashion choice and quite radiantly joyous in any conceivable circumstance.

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:35:29 +0000

Rey, the TVA and airports and schools and roads are all good things for the Government to do. A basic safety net and health insurance for at least catastrophic or expensive illnesses and accidents are also worthwhile . That is because all of those things support the basic American structure of working for a living and paying your own way. Communism has been tried and failed. Socialism is failing dramatically in Europe. Germany, France and Italy, where people make things, own businesses and are more responsible for their own well being, are getting tired of constantly shoveling money into Greece, Spain and other countries that borrow money to provide Government programs to keep their Governments in power, like is happening here. All advances in our way of life have been due to the incentive of reward for work and sometimes risk based on the American model.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:19:00 +0000

Concerned, since you seem to think Africa is a country, I believe it is a waste of time trying to discuss anything with you.

By: Joseph Durham

Joseph Durham — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:38:36 +0000

Finnaly some one has stated the obvious,or at least some of it. I believe Dan Zabetakis was on the right track when he explained the economic part of the argument. Now I would like to explore the pure politics.

The other reason why conservative lawmakers are so against immigration reform is because it would mean giving millions of people the right to vote whom will in all likelihood vote democrat by a side margin. In an electorate that seems to be leaning democratic more and more now and for the foreseeable future the prospect of legalizing millions of new democratic voters is unthinkable to moist conservative lawmakers.

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:30:34 +0000

Sam one of our greatest down falls is trying to sort people out and then divide them by groups.

It’s a shame that unity is still a much abused concept for many and a real practice for only a precious few.

People who believe in hate and divide separate themselves and don’t understand why truly intelligent people don’t want to be around them. They are repulsive and disgusting human beings.

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:26:06 +0000

We have many different races that are born here in America and yes their nationality is American but they have subcultures and varying races.

That’s why we have Mexican Americans, African Americans, etc., etc.

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:23:33 +0000

With all due respect Reynardine, if you are an African born in Africa you are an African and it is a race.

If you are a Mexican born in Mexico you are a Mexican it is a race.
3race n [MF, generation, fr. OIt razza] (1580)

2 a : a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock b : a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics
3 a : an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species ; also: a taxonomic category (as a subspecies) representing such a group b : breed c : a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits
4 obs: inherited temperament or disposition
5 : distinctive flavor, taste, or strength

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:15:14 +0000

Gay as a race? That’s an interesting concept. Will the fight be over, no it’s never over not even for minorities in this country. As long as there are no laws stopping bigots from breeding and raising and ruining children there will always be a problem to overcome.

There are those who appear to be born to hate and bring down communities and whole nations with their limited abilities to think and inability to use sound rationale.

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:10:36 +0000

High heels were not the fashion of college women I knew, most needed to be in comfortable sport shoes in order to travel across campus to get to classes and labs…

By: Gregory

Gregory — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:16:55 +0000

“Liberals think people are inferior to bears and need to be cared for by some Government sugar daddy.”

Where does one begin with a statement like this? Clearly the author makes a curious comparison between those on public relief and wild animals. Maybe it is a parable, if Jesus were channeling Limbaugh.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:25:26 +0000

Sam, that is stupid. Bears don’t need to drive cars, use electricity, go to school, find employers when they graduate, or hook up to phone and internet. Clearly, you have done at least some of the foregoing, or you wouldn’t be communicating with us. I know people who lived roughly where you do before rural electrification and federal highways came through. I know what an improvement it made in the quality of their lives. No industry and few employers move in if the infrastructure is not available. The purpose of such a census is to plan federal infrastructure in communities that are underserved. Now, please remove your head from your donkey before he kicks you.

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:29:18 +0000

Rey, the concept of equality of results no matter what people do is counterproductive to a free society. The Census only had the Constitutional mandate to count noses for purposes of assigning the correct number of representatives. The concept of crunching numbers to see if anyone is being underserved by the Government ignores the basic premise that people are supposed to make their own way, not rely on the Government. The National Parks Department outlaws the feeding of bears because the bears will forget how to find food the natural way, and actually become dangerous to those that give them food. Liberals think people are inferior to bears and need to be cared for by some Government sugar daddy.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:13:39 +0000

Aadila, certainly some of the women I went to college with and spent my early working days with wore painfully elegant high-heeled shoes. There was an inquisitional torture device called “the Spanish boot”. Although many people assume this was something specially engineered to cause pain and some were – most of these were normal high-fashion Spanish foot gear, which the suspected women were forced to put on and walk in for hours. That was usually enough to extract a confession to the impossible.

The only nation crueller to women’s feet than Spain was China. Of those of my self-torturing Hispanic friends whose fate I know, one has taken up Birkenstocks. The other one is dead.

By: aadila

aadila — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:43:07 +0000

“Hispanic” is something one can determine by looking at a person’s shoes. At least that is what a number of Republican lawmakers have said on the record (Rep. Brian Bilbray of CA and Rep Steve King of IA, for example). If more immigrants would just conform and wear white people’s shoes, our country would not be in the sorry state it is. It’s the shoes.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:33:26 +0000

Sam: Hispanic is a demographic group, which means a group of people who can be described by a given set of characteristics. Demographic groups always overlap. You can, for example, be rich, white, male, poorly educated, and Hispanic; these are five different demographic parameters, defined by economic power, skin color/ascription, physical sex/ascribed gender, schooling completed, and mother tongue or ancestry. Hispanic is a demographic group, one pretty much accepted in some parts of the country and subjected to discrimination and even persecution in others. The Census Bureau requests these various parameters, as required by the Constitution, for statistical purposes, and the resulting crunched data turned over to various agencies for general policy purposes. In this way, it is possible to tell if segments of the population are being under served or disadvantaged. Personally identifiable data must be withheld from anyone except the Census Bureau for seventy years.

In conducting a census interview, the interviewee’s self-ascription of demographic affiliation is not questioned.

By: aadila

aadila — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:57:36 +0000

For me, Latino means amigo.

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:03:39 +0000

Concerned, this is a well travelled road. The Government seems to spend half their time telling us not to pay attention to race and the other half keeping track of what race everybody is. If I remember correctly, there were Anthropology experts on here that listed Negro, Caucasian and Native American scientifically as races, and what language they speak as a cultural issue. We probably agree on the fact that Hispanic is a sociological group. Calling it a Race is meant to give it validity when allotting Non Descrimination protection. If we could get Gay declared a Race, our struggle for equality would be over.

By: Reynardine

Reynardine — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:56:30 +0000

Excuse me, Concerned: Hispanics are not a “race”. I grew up and lived most of my life in Dade County. My roommate was a Miami-born American whose Cuban parents counted Galicians, Andaluzes (with Arabic and Carthaginian elements), and the Tequestas who settled near Guantanamo Bay among their ancestor (all confirmed by DNA analysis). I had a Colombian student whose surname and appearance were both Arabic; a Venezuelan student who was a dead ringer for Saddam Hussein. Kid Gavilan and Kid Rayo (I actually knew the latter) were black Cuban boxers; Orestes Miñoso a black Cuban player for the Chicago White Sox. I had a Chilean student named Mackenzie who looked exactly like James Doohan in his salad days. When something went wrong with the air conditioning, located in the attic of a three-story townhouse our late mother improvidently bought, my sister and I called on the acrobatic Chong brothers…from Cuba. My closest college friend was a red-haired Castilian born to a colonial family settled in Santurce, Puerto Rico, while my co-author, Joe Sanchez, born in that same city, has been mistaken for Italian or Jewish…but his surviving sister is clearly trigueña. What these people had in common was either ancestry from, or citizenship in, lands that once flew the Pus and Blood.

As for Mexicans being a race, they are a nationality. If you are a citizen of Mexico, then you are Mexican.

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:15:23 +0000

Tobias you are correct however we have those who use the propaganda to try and subject and oppress others under the guise of their lies and hate in order to secure their position on the food chain. Sad isn’t it?

By: concernedcitizen

concernedcitizen — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:14:10 +0000

Hispanics are a race and they have a culture. Mexicans are a race and within that race they have differencing cultural practices. If you spend anytime around them you will quickly find out that yes they are a race and identify as so and they have varying cultural practices. Why people consider that debatable escapes me.

By: Sam Molloy

Sam Molloy — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:52:25 +0000

Good point, ADM. It is a culture.

By: A.D.M.

A.D.M. — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:23:04 +0000

Since when did Latinos become a race?

By: Tobias A. Weissman

Tobias A. Weissman — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:06:43 +0000

I am a CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST who firmly believes in Genesis 1st chapter where God says “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” It doesn’t mention ethnic or religious groups, but all mankind. Therefore I cannot ever except the idea that more or less intelligence is reflected from this group or that group. Those very people like Jason Richwine who may profess Christian values are the very hypocrites that Jesus was speaking about.