This 1956 Anti-Racist Clapback Is Inspiring As Hell

Via Flickr

PushBlack
May 25, 2019

Horace Mann Bond was an award-winning educator and researcher.

But it was his “little foolishness” - an essay that satirized segregationist logic - that gives us life and serves as inspiration for how to deal with racists who won’t listen to the truth.

For decades, one of the “scientific” rationales for segregation was IQ test results - apparently, Black people were less intelligent.

In 1924, Bond used his years of research and analysis to disprove the studies. He showed that they used flawed methods and evidence and came to false conclusions. But cold, hard facts didn’t stop racists from using the studies anyway.

In the 1950s, some U.S. Senators attempted to use the disproven studies to argue against desegregation with their “Southern Manifesto.” Mann needed a different approach.

So, he published an article in 1956 which threw the racist logic back in those senators’ faces, showing that they came from states, and from colleges, with the lowest IQ score results!

Following their segregationist logic, he argued, meant the Senate should put the “slow learners in a group together… to make up for their basic deficiencies.” Roasted!

Sometimes the best way to clap back is to throw their own reasoning back at them. Mann’s article helped inspire the movement that ended segregation and eventually became the Civil Rights movement!

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