Dear Sir/Madam,

In the land of the blind the one-eyed are kings - and, although they may make a big show to the contrary, will have little real interest in finding a cure for blindness.

This thought came to mind after watching the programme, Inside-Out, in which Trevor Philips, Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, dealt with the problem of underachievement by black boys in British schools. It wasn't so much Mr Philips who elicited it, but Dr Stan Mims, the African-American education director of a predominantly black school in the USA, when he visited Mr Philips' old school in South London - in a luxury, chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

Mr Mims and Mr Philips, like most intellectuals of all races, greatly and vainly overestimate the importance of academic (and financial) achievement and "success" - because that is what they themselves excel at and value. It is programmed into our "more animal than human" nature to seek personal advantage and high status in the socio-economic environment and hierarchy. A member of a street gang may use his muscle, a knife or a gun to help him; the more sophisticated use intellectual muscle and/or a cheque book. 

These two gentlemen are both at or near the top of the (black) social hierarchy, and the miserable social state of so many of their fellow blacks serves to emphasis all the more just how well they have done for themselves. To really help other blacks, they would have to question and change some of their most cherished values, thus diminishing their own standing and privileged positions in the social hierarchy. Like most people (of all races), they have no interest or intention of doing that - not because they are bad people, but because they too (despite their advantage) are blind.

Guardian, 7 March: "Black absentee fathers should lose rights, says head of race watchdog"

Roger Hicks

www.spaceship-earth.org