There's no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively - I am one with the people.
Huey NewtonRead
IQ tests are routinely used as weapons against Black people in particular and minority groups and poor people generally. The tests are based on white middle-class standards, and when we score low on them, the results are used to justify the prejudice that we are inferior and unintelligent. Since we are taught to believe that the tests are infallible, they have become a self-fulfilling prophecy that cuts off our initiative and brainwashes us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
IQ tests can perpetuate racism and reinforce negative stereotypes about minority groups.
In this quote, Huey Newton critically examines how IQ tests are often designed with a bias that favors white, middle-class norms and standards. This innate bias results in lower scores among Black individuals and other minorities, which are then improperly used to portray them as less intelligent, fostering a harmful and self-perpetuating cycle of inferiority and discouragement, thereby undermining their potential and initiatives.
Themes
Iq TestsRacismEducationMinority GroupsIntelligenceStereotypesPrejudice
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on education reform, this quote can highlight the racial biases in standardized testing.
More from Huey Newton
All quotes →Those in the community who defy authority and 'break the law' seem to enjoy the good life and have everything in the way of material possessions. On the other hand, people who work hard and struggle and suffer much are the victims of greed and indifference, losers. This insane reversal of values presses heavily on the Black community. The causes originate from outside and are imposed by a system that ruthlessly seeks its own rewards, no matter what the cost in wrecked human lives.
Huey NewtonRead
There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.
Huey NewtonRead
I expected to die. At no time before the trial did I expect to escape with my life. Yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. It could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness.
Huey NewtonRead
By surrendering my life to the revolution, I found eternal life
Huey NewtonRead
But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.
Huey NewtonRead
Similar quotes
Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it.
V. S. NaipaulRead
Children are wonderfully confident in their own imaginations. Most of us lose this confidence as we grow up.
Ken RobinsonRead
Educate a woman and you educate her family. Educate a girl and you change the future.
Queen Rania Of JordanRead
Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day.
Robert HassRead
I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.
Rita DoveRead
I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. I don't remember any of his ladies being bookish. So I was entirely dependent on my schoolteachers for my early reading with the exception of 'The Wind in the Willows,' which a stepmother read to me when I was in hospital.
John Le CarreRead