Charles Murray - Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America

TWO TRUTHS ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA

Charles Murray

2021 by Cox and Murray, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.

First American edition published in 2021 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation.

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FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Murray, Charles A., author.

Title: Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America / Charles Murray.

Description: First American edition. | New York, New York: Encounter Books, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2021000549 (print) | LCCN 2021000550 (ebook) | ISBN 9781641771979 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781641771986 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: RacismUnited States. | Race. | Intelligence levelsUnited States. | Crime and raceUnited States. | Discrimination in law enforcementUnited States. | United StatesRace relations. | United StatesSocial policy.

Classification: LCC E184.A1 M8955 2021 (print) | LCC E184.A1 (ebook) | DDC 305.800973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000549

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000550

CHAPTER ONE
The American Creed Imperiled

CHAPTER TWO
Multiracial America

CHAPTER THREE
Race Differences in Cognitive Ability

CHAPTER FOUR
Race Differences in Violent Crime

CHAPTER FIVE
First-Order Effects of Race Differences in Cognitive Ability

CHAPTER SIX
First-Order Effects of Race Differences in Violent Crime

CHAPTER SEVEN
If We Dont Face Reality

Figure 1
Americas Racial Concentrations in 2019

Figure 2
Arrests for Violent Offenses in the District of Columbia and Socioeconomic Status by Zip Code

Figure 3

Figure 4
The Racial Echo of the Political Polarization

THE EMPIRICAL ASSERTIONS in Facing Reality are not complicated in themselves, and in a reasonable world they would not be controversial. They are facts that we must face. It shouldnt take long to read them, and it wont. You can read the main text of Facing Reality over the course of an evening. Maybe two.

The story behind the facts is occasionally complicated, however, and aspects of the facts are controversial for understandable reasons, but different readers will have different reservations. Some of you will be comfortable accepting arrest data as quantitative evidence of criminal behavior but doubt that IQ tests tell us anything worth knowing. Others will be familiar with the basics of IQ but suspicious of anything the police tell us. The endnotes present additional evidence or further explanation of technical issues. Standard documentation of sources, still more elaboration of technical issues, and downloadable databases have been posted online at encounterbooks.com/books/ facing-reality.

I DECIDED TO WRITE this book in the summer of 2020 because of my dismay at the disconnect between the rhetoric about systemic racism and the facts. The uncritical acceptance of that narrative by the nations elite news media amounted to an unwillingness to face reality.

By facts, I mean what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan meant: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts. By reality, I mean what the science fiction novelist Philip Dick meant: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesnt go away.

I do not dispute evidence of the racism that persists in American life. Rather, I reject the portrayal of American society and institutions as systemically racist and saturated in White privilege. What follows is a data-driven discussion of realities that make America a more complicated and much less racist nation than its radical critics describe.

Of the many facts about race that are ignored, two above all, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, must be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about why American society is the way it is and what can be done through public policy to improve it.

The first is that American Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, as groups, have different means and distributions of cognitive ability. The second is that American Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asians, as groups, have different rates of violent crime. Allegations of systemic racism in policing, education, and the workplace cannot be assessed without dealing with the reality of group differences.

There is a reason that reality is ignored. The two facts make people excruciatingly uncomfortable. To raise them is to be considered a racist and hateful person. Whats more, these facts have been distorted and exploited for malign purposes by racist and hateful people.

What then is the point of writing about them? Arent some realities better ignored? The answer goes to a much deeper problem than false accusations of systemic racism. We are engaged in a struggle for Americas soul. Facing reality is essential if that struggle is to be won.

It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, but to be one