Q: Did Doug Ducey Really Campaign with Wacky "Racial Dysgenics" Scholar Charles Murray? | A: Yup.
Phoenix, AZ—The revelation that Doug Ducey attended a meeting with the Koch Brothers in June, 2014, included a shout-out to controversial writer Charles Murray, with whom Ducey campaigned at the event. Charles Murray is notorious for having written The Bell Curve, a 1994 book that proposed controversial genetic theories about race and intelligence. The book offers wild statements to explain the existence of poverty, such as Murray's observation that "blacks and Latinos are experiencing even more severe dysgenic pressures than whites."
What's dysgenic pressure? It's related to Murray's theory that non-white people suffer from a lack of intelligence in the gene pool, but the truth is that those of us at the Arizona Democratic Party might lack the mindset needed to truly appreciate Murray's insights. A few years later, Murray suggested that the reason for poverty in our country is that "a lot of poor people are born lazy" --an idea he said is "almost certainly true."
The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that Murray uses "racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women and the poor." [SPLC, accessed 10/3/14]
"It is not a shock that there are crackpot academics out there pushing racist theories to justify their prejudices, but it is a shock to see Doug Ducey campaigning with one of them," said Lawrence Robinson. "If Ducey is going to campaign with this individual, he needs to explain: does he share Charles Murray's radical views? Does Ducey think people are poor because they are born lazy? Does Ducey think that blacks and Latinos suffer from not having the right genetic material to make us smart?"
Background
MURRAY: Try to imagine a … presidential candidate saying in front of the cameras, “One reason that we still have poverty in the United States is that a lot of poor people are born lazy.” You cannot imagine it because that kind of thing cannot be said. And yet this unimaginable statement merely implies that when we know the complete genetic story, it will turn out that the population below the poverty line in the United States has a configuration of the relevant genetic makeup that is significantly different from the configuration of the population above the poverty line. This is not unimaginable. It is almost certainly true. [“Deeper Into the Brain,” National Review, 1/24/2000]
“The professional consensus is that the United States has experienced dysgenic pressures throughout either most of the century (the optimists) or all of the century (the pessimists). Women of all races and ethnic groups follow this pattern in similar fashion. There is some evidence that blacks and Latinos are experiencing even more severe dysgenic pressures than whites, which could lead to further divergence between whites and other groups in future generations.” [The Bell Curve, 1994]
"Affirmative action, in education and the workplace alike, is leaking a poison into the American soul." [The Bell Curve, 1994]
