Before taking a few days off for the long Memorial Day weekend, we feel an obligation to
address some unfinished business: a recent email exchange with blogger Steve Sailer involving the
item “Scraping Bottom”
(May 10), which followed up on an earlier item, “The Spectrum from Blue to Red” (May 5). If
posting the exchange smacks of a little too much inside baseball, we apologize.
—– Original Message —–
From: SteveSlr@aol.com
To:
jherman@artsjournal.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 8:01 PM
Subject:
“Anti-Semitic slur”?
You posted:
SCRAPING BOTTOM
Thanks to anti-liberal columnist and blogger Steve Sailer for clarifying the chart that
correlated state-by-state average IQs and income with the votes for Bush or Gore in the 2000
presidential election. When we posted the item “The Spectrum from Blue to Red,” we wrote:
“The chart that explains it all for you” (an homage to Christopher Durang’s outrageous satire,
“Sister Mary Explains It All For You,” which drove conservatives nuts). We also wrote that the
chart “could be a joke,” but “if so, it’s a good one. No worse, certainly, than the outcome” of the
election.
The trouble with Sailer’s clarification is that he gets to the bottom of things by scraping
bottom with an anti-Semitic slur when he writes that “anyone familiar with the topic would
quickly recognize the fallaciousness of the data. The 113 [IQ] figure for Connecticut is way too
high. That’s about what Connecticut would be if it was all-Jewish.”
posted by janherman @ Monday, May 10, 2004 | Permanent
link/
Dear Sir or Madam:
You accused me of making an anti-Semitic slur, which is a very serious accusation, by
mentioning that the average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews in America is around 113.
Considering that you slurred Republicans by publishing fraudulent IQ data, I’d be fascinated
to learn the logic by which you arrived at the conclusion that I slurred Jews by mentioning
accurate data. I’m familiar with about ten different estimates of American Jewish IQs published in
refereed scientific journals. They range from 107.5 to 118. The scientist who is currently working
the most on this topic told me that 113 is the best estimate. All the real world correlates of IQ —
educational level, income, scientific and literary accomplishments, etc. — are roughly in line with
that figure.
You seem to be implying that Jews are less intelligent. Besides apologizing
to me, you should apologize for making an anti-Semitic slur.
Steve Sailer
—– Original Message —–
From: jherman@artsjournal.com
To:
SteveSlr@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: “Anti-Semitic
slur”?
Dear Mr. Sailer —
You just don’t get it. What was the point of singling out the
Jews as a group? It doesn’t matter what their collective IQ is, high or low. They as a group had
nothing to do with the issue you’re so riled up about. By singling them out in the way you did
you’re trying to paint them as some sort of “other,” something separate and alien, which is at the
root of anti-Semitism. There also seemed to me an implicit ridicule. Why didn’t you name some
other group? Why choose the Jews? Further, in harping on how I fell for a hoax, you conveniently
ignored what I wrote in my original post of the chart: “This could be a joke. If so, it’s a good one.
No worse, certainly, than the outcome of the 2000 election.”
Sincerely,
Jan
Herman
Footnote: Sailer never mentioned “Ashkenazi” Jews in his original blog. Even if he
had, singling them out among Jews in general because of some actual study, worthy or not (which
also went unmentioned), would not have mitigated the offense.
