DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Black & white, Summer 1944

Transcribe
Translate

Black & white, Summer 1944

Page 5

	WHEREIN JACK SPEER PARTAKES OF PANTOTHENIC ACID
			By Jack F Speer

	I doubt that he is the first Negro fan.  Some time back, I believe Julius Unger said that an officer of one of the early stf clubs---Scienceers or something like that---was colored. If this is correct, I would say that one more deserves the title of fan; I would call Williams a scientifictionist.

	In the letter 4e refers to, I said that the ground for my attitude was objection to intermarriage, which is best prevented at present, since we have no eugenics laws, by a psychological barrier.  For reasons which he may consider sufficient, 4e disregards this in writing his article.

	Anyway, you can guess from that what my policy on the extraterrestrials would be.  Making the improbable assumption that creatures physically so different mite yet have the same number of chromosomes as man and be capable of interbreeding, I would still welcome them prima facie if it should be simply a matter of exchanging diplomats, scientists, and commercial representatives, and even making some scientific mating experiments. But if the e-t's were slated to come live among us, and eventually intermarry, by the hundreds of thousands, I'd want to know what kind of genes they would contribute to the stock common.

	The pigment of the skin is not important, except as the most noticeable sign of the race. The other distinctive physical characteristics tend towards a presumption that Negroes are closer to the Neanderthal than Caucasians. But the real test as to equality must be of intelligence.

	It is well known that blacks average definitely lower on intelligence tests than whites do. Unfortunately, there are some environmental differences mixed in with the inborn traits, which make all present-day tests less than completely reliable, but in my judgement these differences are utterly insufficient to account for all the disparity in scores, made on tests of intelligence, mark ye, not information or education. Example of the basis of my judgement: In the 201 files (alphabetical), which are now manned almost entirely by Negroes, large posters have been put up on the walls, showing simply the alphabet, for these blacks to refer to. Especially when you consider that they must have been (public-school) educated and literate to have gotten into CAF work, you can't ascribe inability like that to lack of opportunity or incentive; it's unadulterated intellectual deficiency.

	It is quite possible, since natural selection preserves the characteristics with survival value and discards those that are anti-survival, that the makeup of the Negro race is better suited for survival in certain environments than that of the Caucasian; but in the civilization which the Occident builds and hopes to build, the most needed element is intelligence, and that's something we've got to work for, regardless of what the 18th Century Rationalists said about all men being created equal.

Saving...

WHEREIN JACK SPEER PARTAKES OF PANTOTHENIC ACID By Jack F Speer I doubt that he is the first Negro fan. Some time back, I believe Julius Unger said that an officer of one of the early stf clubs---Scienceers or something like that---was colored. If this is correct, I would say that one more deserves the title of fan; I would call Williams a scientifictionist. In the letter 4e refers to, I said that the ground for my attitude was objection to intermarriage, which is best prevented at present, since we have no eugenics laws, by a psychological barrier. For reasons which he may consider sufficient, 4e disregards this in writing his article. Anyway, you can guess from that what my policy on the extraterrestrials would be. Making the improbable assumption that creatures physically so different mite yet have the same number of chromosomes as man and be capable of interbreeding, I would still welcome them prima facie if it should be simply a matter of exchanging diplomats, scientists, and commercial representatives, and even making some scientific mating experiments. But if the e-t's were slated to come live among us, and eventually intermarry, by the hundreds of thousands, I'd want to know what kind of genes they would contribute to the stock common. The pigment of the skin is not important, except as the most noticeable sign of the race. The other distinctive physical characteristics tend towards a presumption that Negroes are closer to the Neanderthal than Caucasians. But the real test as to equality must be of intelligence. It is well known that blacks average definitely lower on intelligence tests than whites do. Unfortunately, there are some environmental differences mixed in with the inborn traits, which make all present-day tests less than completely reliable, but in my judgement these differences are utterly insufficient to account for all the disparity in scores, made on tests of intelligence, mark ye, not information or education. Example of the basis of my judgement: In the 201 files (alphabetical), which are now manned almost entirely by Negroes, large posters have been put up on the walls, showing simply the alphabet, for these blacks to refer to. Especially when you consider that they must have been (public-school) educated and literate to have gotten into CAF work, you can't ascribe inability like that to lack of opportunity or incentive; it's unadulterated intellectual deficiency. It is quite possible, since natural selection preserves the characteristics with survival value and discards those that are anti-survival, that the makeup of the Negro race is better suited for survival in certain environments than that of the Caucasian; but in the civilization which the Occident builds and hopes to build, the most needed element is intelligence, and that's something we've got to work for, regardless of what the 18th Century Rationalists said about all men being created equal.