Something wrong with the tests or the kids

Ibram X. Kendi is today's top Black anti-racism guru, and he writes in the Boston Globe:

is today's top Black anti-racism guru, and he had largely been discredited. Since then, lower test scores from Black and Latinx students have been explained by their environment: Their supposedly broken cultures, homes, schools, and families have made them intellectually inferior. Standardized tests have become the most effective racist weapon ever devised to objectively degrade Black and brown minds and legally exclude their bodies.

Why do Black and Latinx children routinely get lower scores on the standardized tests? Either there’s something wrong with the test takers or there’s something wrong with the tests. Why are Black and Latinx children routinely under-represented in the exam schools? Either there’s something wrong with Black and Latinx children or there’s something wrong with Boston’s admissions policies.

There’s something wrong with the test and the admissions policies. And to say there’s something wrong with Black and Latinx children is to espouse racist ideas. And those who say racist ideas, typically deny their ideas are racist. …

I agree with most of this. Black and Latino kids do score lower on IQ tests. Either they have less intelligence or the tests are defective. If you say the kids have less intelligence, you get accused of racism. Nearly everyone tries to deny racist ideas, so they back off saying that the kids have less intelligence.

Improving the tests gives the same results. So the tests are objectively degrading Black and brown bodies. Kendi can dance around this issue, because he knows that respectable White folks do not want to admit it. They would rather abolish the tests than admit to racism.