I never used to think much about the races or ethnicities of people 20 or 30 years ago. I’ve always just looked at people as individuals. But within the past several years, I find that I am constantly bombarded with race, in the news, in TV commercials, in product displays at stores, in conversations with people, in my work with clients as a freelance writer—just about everywhere. I can’t escape it.

Along with today’s American societal obsession with race, which almost seems to be promoting African descent as some kind of special, superior identity, there seems to be a lot of anti-white racism going on these days.

As whiteness is slammed and blackness is promoted, black Americans apparently continue to have more problems than other racial groups in the United States—with education, employment, crime, and other societal issues—despite decades of government, corporate, and charitable programs designed to help them, and despite other ethnic “minority” groups, including those that are rather new to this country, surpassing them in achievement.

Why is this? “Systemic” racism, we are told. Really?

These racial problems have created serious problems for American society as a whole. So, I finally got around to thinking about race, and I have developed a theory that I think might partially explain our societal situation. My theory is grounded in my previous career as a biologist (from the mid-80s to early-90s), my current 30-year-long career as a writer specializing in science and medicine, my decades of observations of American society and world events, and my personal studies of history and world cultures. The theory focuses on the development over time of human racial groups and their possible corresponding general intellectual capacities—with intellectual capacity defined as the “ability to think, learn, plan, and execute with discipline.”

I propose that the development, or evolution, of the general intellectual capacities of the different racial groups is directly related to the chronological and geographical distance of the racial groups’ development from the evolutionary origin of humankind. I know that some other people have advocated similar ideas before, but I don’t think they have articulated them in the way I am doing here.

By the way, I realize that many scientists reject the very idea of biological “races” as a “social construct.” But I think that their rejection flies in the face of common sense and observed reality, as does much of what passes for “science” these days.

Evolution of species

Humans (species within the Homo genus) evolved from ape-like ancestors (Australopithecus genus) in Africa. Although estimated dates vary according to the source, fossil evidence indicates that the first Australopithecus appeared sometime about 4 million years ago, and the first known Homo (H. habilis) appeared about 2.5 million years ago. Homo species (such as H. erectus) apparently began migrating out of Africa, into Europe and Asia, around 1.8 to 1.5 million years ago.

The first convincing archeological evidence of the human use of fire and stone tools is found in what is now Israel, from about 780,000 years ago. The earliest firm evidence of human-made shelters (wooden huts) is found in Japan from about 500,000 years ago.

The most evolutionarily advanced humans up to that time—Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis)—are first seen in the fossil record across Europe and the Middle East—from Britain to Iran—about 230,000 years ago. Neanderthals dominated this vast region until they were supplanted by modern-type humans (H. sapiens sapiens) around 28,000 years ago—probably through a combination of interbreeding and competition, and maybe even warfare or genocide. The reasons for Neanderthal extinction are speculative. But it is known with certainty that Neanderthals had larger brains than modern-type humans, and that modern-day Europeans and Asians share some of their genes with Neanderthals.

Signs of the first-known H. sapiens sapiens have been found in Africa (just like the first Homo), from between 160,000 and 100,000 years ago. This species (our species) then migrated outward, to Europe and the Middle East and to eastern Asia and Australia. Where exactly outside of Africa they arrived first is uncertain. Evolutionary scientists had long thought that fully modern-type humans were in Europe thousands of years before Asia. But recent evidence indicates that they may have been in China as early as 80,000 years ago, compared to about 45,000 years ago in Europe. All humans today—of all races—are H. sapiens sapiens.

By around 12,000 years ago, humans had crossed a land bridge over what is now the Bering Sea to migrate from northern Asia into North America. They then gradually worked their way down through what is now Canada and the United States, into Central and South America.

Biological evolutionary changes, as well as cultural advancements, are driven by environmental changes. As the various groups of humans settled into their various new geographical regions, each with different environmental conditions, the racial groups that we know today evolved over time to match their particular environments. In addition, different cultures developed to suit different environmental situations. Evolutionary and cultural progress both occurred.

Development of civilization

Archeological evidence of the development of advanced forms of human culture begins with cave art, first known in France from about 33,000 years ago. Agriculture—the domestication of crops and livestock—arose in the Near East and Middle East between about 12,000 and 10,000 years ago.

The first known civilization, with people settled down in cities, consisted of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 6,000 years ago, in the fertile Tigris-Euphrates River region of what is now Iraq. Civilization then soon developed elsewhere in the Middle East, as well as in Europe and East Asia—including the Minoans on Crete and the Egyptians in North Africa, both some 5,000 years ago, and the first dynasty in China, about 4,000 years ago.

The first civilization did not emerge in sub-Saharan Africa until after the Egyptians conquered the region there that they called Nubia (modern-day Sudan). The independent Kush civilization arose there following the withdrawal of Egyptian forces in the 1000s BC, when the Kush people inherited the existing Egyptianized civilization. When Europeans began to occupy and colonize much of Africa in the 1800s, they nicknamed it the “dark continent” because of the continued predominant absence of civilization.

In North America, people mostly remained in hunter/gatherer or agricultural societies until after the European conquests of the Americas, which began in earnest during the 1500s. However, there were a number of settled civilizations in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans, including the Cahokia Mounds settlement in Illinois (which flourished from about 950 to 1350) and the Teotihuacan civilization of Mexico (which flourished during the first 500 years of the Common Era, or AD). I have visited both of those places and found them absolutely fascinating.

Consider these things

That’s your basic lesson on human evolution and the history of civilization. Now, please consider this history, along with the development of the technology, science, medicine, art, architecture, literature, philosophy, government systems, and other “things” that characterize modern civilization. Almost all such human technological, cultural, and societal advancements have originated in Europe or Asia—and later America. From papermaking to printing to gunpowder to microscopes, telescopes, telephones, electricity, automobiles, airplanes, computers, space rockets, the Internet, etcetera, etcetera…. All inventions of Europeans, Asians, or white Americans.

Now add to your consideration such modern-day matters within the multiracial U.S. society as exam scores (with black people, on average, scoring way below whites and Asians); violent crime rates (with black offenders responsible for a disproportionately large amount of crimes, taking into account the relative population sizes of blacks and whites); income (with blacks always at the bottom of all racial groups and with Asians at the top); and joblessness (with the black rate perpetual higher than the general population); as well as the smorgasbord of special programs set aside by the government and private organizations to assist black people over the decades. The programs have not solved the problems, nor has anything else apparently. The problems remain.

The ongoing serious problems among black Americans have long been conventionally and commonly attributed to white racism or “systemic” racism—white-established societal factors that are unfairly holding blacks back on purpose. Those are convenient excuses, aren’t they? A few, more honest, commentators have blamed deep cultural ills within the black communities themselves. I’m sure there is a lot of truth to that argument. But could there be any other factors at play? One is not supposed to ask this, but might there be at least some inherent biological, cognitive factors at play?

Our American society is very afraid to ask that question. But perhaps an honest consideration of the question with honest answers would help explain part of the reason why the very multiracial population of the United States always trails the less multiracial populations of Europe and Asia in statistics of average academic achievement. Could certain groups be dragging down the averages?

American white people (and Asians and others) are entitled to consider and discuss such questions before they are forced by the government to fork over “reparations” because of their alleged sin of slavery (which was happening in America when my ancestors were poor farmers in Eastern Europe) or because of the alleged enduring white-caused hardships that are still making the black population suffer.

Main tenets of theory

So, considering all of the factors I have so far discussed, allow me to now spell out the three main tenets of my theory:

1) The further a racial group’s origin is from the origin of the human species (Africa)—in both chronological time and geographical distance—the more advancement that racial group has evolved in terms of intellectual capacity (that is, cognitive, reasoning abilities versus emotional, undisciplined instincts).

2) Therefore, people of sub-Saharan African descent… (I mean “descent” in historical times; when considering pre-historical times, we are all of African descent, of course)… So, in a comparison of all racial groups, people of sub-Saharan African descent generally have the least developed intellectual capacity of the racial groups.

3) And therefore, people of European or Asian (eg, Middle Eastern, Indian, Chinese) descent generally have the most developed intellectual capacity of the racial groups. Furthermore, in my opinion, the natural intellectual capacity of people of Asian descent is generally greater than that of people of European descent.

But what about American Indians, or Native Americans? They are the most separated racial group in time and distance from human origins. So, according to my theory, shouldn’t they have the greatest intellectual capacity of all racial groups? Shouldn’t they have developed the most technologically and culturally advanced of all civilizations?

Well, obviously, American Indians did not develop the most technologically advanced civilization, and they were eventually virtually wiped out by white people in a massive genocide. So, is this where my theory collapses? Perhaps, but I don’t think so.

Numerous indigenous tribes in North America developed highly original cultures that were fundamentally different from any previous human cultures. They were not based at all on technology. Rather, they were based on the most advanced spirituality systems ever developed. These unique systems were nature-centered, psychologically profound, and totally encompassing of all aspects of the individual and the community. There was no division between the spiritual world and the “real” world. There was no division between nature and man. The spiritual beliefs of the indigenous Americans were more advanced and complex than the relatively simplistic beliefs of the African indigenous cultures.

Looking at them this way, I propose that American Indians may indeed have had the most evolved and advanced society ever. And I suspect that these people, when living in their traditional cultures, may have possessed a type of combined intellectual/spiritual capacity that cannot be properly evaluated from our modern-day perspectives. Unfortunately, many of the descendants of these mystically perceptive people have probably lost this special gift of spirituality as it became warped and twisted by the overwhelmingly powerful impact of the modern technological anti-nature society—just as the American Indian tribes fell victim to the technologically advanced weaponry of the white invaders.

Another point that might be raised against my theory is in regard to brains scans, such as electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. If people of different racial groups really differ in intellectual capacity, shouldn’t such differences be revealed in brain scans? Why haven’t such differences been recorded? Well, the truth is that these imaging technologies are very limited as to what they can show us about the brain, which is far too complex for any human-invented technology to fully grasp. So, brain scans cannot be used as an argument to refute my theory.

The individual over the group

So, I have explained the basic elements of my theory. This is not a scientific study, with original data, control groups, or statistical analyses. This is just a presentation of some ideas that seem logical and socially relevant to me. However, I must emphasize that I did not write this essay to cast mean-spirited aspersions on black people or any other racial or ethnic group. And I do not mean to paint whole groups of people with a broad, ugly brush.

Just because people come from a certain racial, ethnic, or cultural group, that does not mean that they have to remain confined by whatever inherent limitations might generally characterize that group. There are always exceptions to the rule, and the individual can be much more powerful than the group, if he or she has a strong sense of individualism, self-respect, determination, will power, and discipline. Hell, a large part of my ancestry is Polish—certainly not among the most gifted or accomplished of the European ethnic groups—but I have somehow managed to do alright for myself!

Needless to say, there have always been, there are today, and there always will be extremely intelligent and highly accomplished black people, many of whom are much “better people” (in the commonly understood way) than many white people. I’ve always admired certain elements of black culture, particularly in music (which has always been very important in my life). Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix—these are among my greatest musical heroes. And some of my favorite white musicians—from Elvis Presley to Led Zeppelin to Stevie Ray Vaughan—would have never even existed without the black influences that inspired their music.

Moreover, centuries of interracial genetic mixing and cross-cultural influences have clouded the very definitions of race and culture (though not in the ways asserted by the social constructionists), making any analysis of race-based issues very messy and confusing today.

While acknowledging limitations, exceptions, and qualifications to my theory, I still believe that it offers a well-meaning perspective that should be considered in light of the many serious problems in American society that seem to revolve around race. I have presented the ideas of this theory only as a possible partial explanation for some of these problems—as a way to perhaps better understand what is happening all around us today. Understanding is important, isn’t it?

In all humans, there is a complex mix of cultural and genetic elements that form the basis of who we are and what we do in our lives. But in each individual, there is a seed that can allow that person to grow into whomever he or she wants to be. Be an individual, not a group. That is the best way to “overcome.”