The Bell Curve was written in 1994. Unless you think IQs are genetic, IQs could have changed since then.
Thomas Sowell showed that IQs for so-called white ethnics (Italians, Poles, etc.) rose from WWI to WWII. In the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT), the white ethnics were about 1 standard deviation below native-born WASPs in WWI. This “confirmed” nativist arguments against white ethnics as lesser people, intermediate between blacks and northern Europeans.
But, voila!, the test showed white ethnics to have the same IQ as native-born WASPS in the intake of soldiers into the armed forces during WWII. Gee wiz, how did that happen?
Sowell’s finding was replicated following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Eastern Europeans, to include East Germans, were about 1 standard deviation below their counterparts in western Europe. Is it because communism attracts stupid people or is it because communism makes people stupid? Well, nowadays, Estonians look like Swedes in terms of IQ; eastern Germans like western Germans; and Poles like Germans.
Turning now to African Americans, they were about 1 standard deviation below whites at the time of the Bell Curve. This IQ Gap has since narrowed, we can say by half.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/racial-iq-gap-narrows-blacks-gain-4-7-points-whites
There is some evidence that blacks with similar socio-economic upbringing as whites have similar IQ. The damn problem is that more blacks are raised in lower-income households, in dysfunctional neighborhoods, and without fathers. In a single word, welfare.
I’ll also mention Nigerians. In England, they split out various Africans, distinguishing the children of the genuinely stupid people from Somalia from the children of Nigerians and other places in Africa. The children of Nigerians do just fine. They look, IQ-wise, like native-born English children.
Nigerians, by the way, are pretty competitive in international “mind games” such as scrabble. Though not so competitive in chess, the Math Olympiad, or memory. Yeah, when we start talking brains, let’s keep in mind that genius comes in various ways. Some people are genius in their use of hands to make cars work or to paint. Who has a test for this kind of genius?
We, here in America, know first hand of the genius of black people in basketball and football, in jazz and other forms of music, and in other ways, not necessarily in ways measured by IQ tests. Shouldn’t those forms of genius be recognized?
And what do these race-based scores mean any waay? What matters for each individual person is their unique and wonderful set of gifts, along with the freedom to compete.
One of my best friends is from Nigeria. He’s smart, studious, and a solid Christian. He once led a development project is the black part of town. Those blacks, including black pastors couldn’t stand him because he wanted people to be personally responsible and develop their own skills.