One or two of the things you say about Nowicki seem to be more assumptions than facts (not that you're necessarily wrong), but overall he does seem to be racist. That first bit of his in your post starts off measured, reasonable enough and even strikes a chord (however softly), but the last paragraph of that lot reveals his true colours.
You might want to swap "victims" and "perpetrators" in that "reasonably related" bit, though.

Nowicki ought to contrast Buchanan's book (which I haven't read but have heard summarized) with Guy Garcia's The New Mainstream. The purported "influx" of "aliens" and the inveitable demographic shift in America (and the world as a whole) may mean a shift in various cultural perceptions, but ultimately it should mean a richer culture as well.

A couple of thoughts/questions. First, Mac, how do you think it best to examine the obviously touchy issue of racial differences in athletic performance? Many do seem to want to create some sort of corollary (i.e., that one race is "better" in athletics, another is "better" in academics, etc) when no such corollary can necessarily be proven. Yet at the same time, I remember an article years ago (I think in Sports Illustrated) that said something to the effect of: "160 men have run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds - and not one of them was white." Where, though, do racial distinctions blur into cultural ones, in the sense that for many African-Americans athletics are perceived as the primary means of success, and they are perhaps more driven to succeed as a result?

And when people suggest that there is some sort of relationship between academic performance and athletic performance along racial lines, it must again be remembered how culture can play into it. My wife was at a church function recently talking to a woman from Milwaukee. The woman told her how her daughter had not performed well on some sort of standardized logic test and she'd been very upset until she looked at some of the questions - including one that featured several pictures and instructed the child to put the pictures in the "right" order.

The pictures showed a person (a) outside a hair salon with long hair, (b) sitting in the barber's chair and (c) outside the salon with short hair. The woman's daughter ordered them (c), (b), (a), which according to the test was wrong. Yet as the woman noted in her conversation with my wife, in her community (an African-American one, which becomes important at this point in the story, I suppose), women frequently go to the salon to get LONGER hair (i.e., extensions).

The point? It is important to note that culture often plays an important role in what seems "logical," and disparities in academic performance may be the result of culture or environment (or poor schools) as opposed to race. It's a far more complicated issue than many people like to assume.

X number of men have performed Y feat, and none of them have Z 'trait.' They also don't have A-L traits. For example, none of them were women. Nor were any of them slew-footed or bowlegged. So, the jump from 'they are all dark-skinned people of African descent' to 'being a dark-skinned person of African descent causes people to run fast' is not really supported. The overwhelming majority of dark-skinned people of African descent don't run fast. The genetic differential within a so-called race is just as great as those interracially. A tall person has more in common with any other tall person genetically than he does with a short or moderate height person of his own 'race.' There may be a combination of factors that explain why Kenyans are good runners, but 'race' doesn't. I would have to check to see if SI's claim is true. I'm skeptical about it. Since most nonwhites were shut out of the Olympics until the 1960s, white people held records in just about every sport.

Nor does the jump from an (unproven) claim that 'race' determines athletic ability to being athletic correlates with being unintelligent make any sense. Why would that be true? What little viable research there is on bright people, especially moderately bright people, suggests that they tend to be above average both physically and intellectually.

Bill, I was nearly always the smartest kid in my class -- even after transferring to a ritzy private school on a scholarship for junior high. There is very little I haven't heard about why bright people of color can't exist. It is a compulsion with some white people to pound away whenever they see their illusion shattered. The network of clever people of color I communicate with gets a kick out of trading stories about the really weird and telling stuff some white people do to protect themselves from equality.

The most amusing thing to me about Nowicki's site is he apparently expects people to pay $2 a shot to read his drivel. Amazing.

"They also don't have A-L traits."

Very good point.

I had to actually visit his site to confirm the $2 donation thing.

Hah!

hey, that gives me a cool idea to raise funds - i can write just as good crap as any nutter. All i gotta do is...fake being a nutter. It can't be too hard surely? plus, i'll be using the money for a (slightly) better cause - I aim to go on the July 2005 Trekforce expedition to Belize. Which reminds me, i'll have a mini site setup shortly with donation details (hint, hint) and, if you are from the UK and willing to give a few personal details, i get extra for free! (it's called Gift Aid)

Bleh. The concern for birthrates vs. immigration is valid & of interest to right & left, but putting it in racist terms isn't needed.
Unfortunately, if anyone brings up the issue, now someone will point to screeds like this and say, "so you're a racist", which is complete twaddle.