The Impact of Bell Curve Ideology on African American Public Policy

Abstract

This work analyzes the public policy focus of The Bell Curve, suggesting that the objective of the authors in attempting to empirically validate the theorized intellectual inferiority of African Americans is to substantiate their unworthiness for governmental support in the form of such programs as affirmative action. Drawing on previous research related to the American eugenics movement and the biological inferiority ideologies of the Nazi era, I draw parallels to modern attempts by those involved in a current “White nationalists” movement to engage in racial scapegoating and to discipline the distributive functions of government in ways that disempower those they consider to be members of “unworthy” populations. I conclude that this course will logically result in increased social/racial tensions, leading perhaps to a renewal of racial violence.