Ian Mc Donald should be careful what he writes because of his ethnicity

Feb 08, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News- Eminent Guyanese citizen, Ian Mc Donald, who is also a Stabroek News columnist, was born in Trinidad. Mr. Mc Donald is not of Portuguese extraction but is a White Englishman. In his column last Sunday, Mr. Mc Donald threw caution to the wind and wrote glowingly of one of the most racist, White scientists living in the world today – James Watson.
I hope Mr. Mc Donald does not face a barrage of criticism from Caribbean people with fingers pointing to race because what he wrote of Watson may not be because Watson is White and Mc Donald is White. It may have absolutely nothing to do with ethnicity and just admiration for Watson.
I have never met or seen Mr. Mc Donald in all my life. I know nothing about his views on anthropology, genetics, science, politics, philosophy, etc. I know Mr. Donald’s forte is literature. I have never read any comments from anyone accusing Mr. Mc Donald of harbouring anti-Black feelings. So I will leave it at that. But if Mc Donald were living in the US and had written that column on Watson, he would have faced some formidable accusations.
The question is: When Mc Donald wrote about Watson, did he know that Watson was an international pariah? If no, then Mc Donald is on safe ground. If yes, then could one write glowingly of a brilliant scientist but who promulgates scientific fiction that denigrates non-White races, especially Africans?
James Watson way, way back in 1962 won the Nobel Prize for medicine along with Francis Crick for identifying the structure of the DNA. Since then, he became one of the world’s most sought after scientists earning intense global admiration. But Watson also became equally infamous for his ingrained racism particularly directed at African people.
Today, he lives in disgrace with large endowments withdrawn and many accolades he received were withdrawn too. He was fired from his workplace last year. All the boards he sat on terminated his tenure. The trouble with Watson is not that he has birthed his controversial offers with scientific evidence. He has not produced even a tiny piece of evidence to boost his claims. It was for this central reason he has been ostracized by the international, scientific community.
As recent as 2019, Watson has asserted his belief in all of his controversial views on racial inferiority that he has expressed over the years. The most glaring of these is that African people are less intelligent than the Caucasian race. That theory has been expressed countless times over several decades. The theory has been debunked and continues to be rejected because none of its adherents have produced the research to be tested. They have produced no research at all.
You would have expected of all people – James Watson – to give the scientific community the evidence. As late as last year, he emphasized that theory without evidence. One of his most absurd positions is that the sex drive is related to the melanin in one’s skin. He concludes that African people have a more powerful sex drive than White people.
He asserted that all the stenotypes associated with racial differences have a genetic basis; for example, Jews are intelligent and so are Chinese but genetically Jews are more creative. Here is what Watson said about the people of Africa “… all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really”. But Watson has not produced the testing. No scientist has done so, so far.
Watson has made some shocking disclosures that reveal what a sinister mind he has. He said that thin people tend to be less happy than bulky people therefore are more hard-working. Scientists call such pronouncement nonsensical. Where is the evidence from Watson? None whatsoever. He thinks women are not as intelligent as men. Where is the evidence? None whatsoever.
What is the most dangerous thing about Watson? Many scientists have deemed Watson’s faults to be unforgivable because he used his international image and his scientific status to belittle non-white peoples of the world. Think of the countless humans in this world who believe what Watson was saying because these were the words of a brilliant scientist. The story of James Watson is the tale of the inexplicable human mind. We may be great athletes, poets, scientists, businessmen but we may have eerie, unimaginable instincts eating away at our rationality. Fortunately, the world has put an end to Watson’s evil imagination.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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