Cars ARE racist!

Since cars were invented in 1894, it developed in an astonishing way that it serves human where ever they go. As I have seen in my homeland Syria, Qatar and the United States of America, certain people from a certain social class and race tend to buy and drive a specific brand of a car. In Syria, people are most likely to buy cheap cars no matter what was the brand because of the high taxes, but some people tend to buy the Syrian or Persian made cars because it serves them better and they can easily sell it later. Of course a person who is in the high middle class would buy an expensive car such as Audi, Land Rover or BMW. If you have the money you can buy any car you want no matter how much were the taxes. As for government officials who do not pay taxes like others, a rise of racism in terms of social classes and positions creates hatred between the people of the society. However, people still continuing to live normally.

As in Qatar, it is different. They are no taxes on cars and it doesn't really matter, but a lot of people tend to have a taste of what car they purchase. Qataris prefers Toyota especially Land cruisers. On the other hand for residence, they have a different taste. Syrians likes Mercedes, Sudanese likes Toyota Corolla, Desi residences like Nissan Sunny and the list continues. It depends on what is your nationality or race to ride a car. With the different of social classes, there are still people who want to move up to the second level by taking a loan from the bank and buying their favorite car
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In sociology, race and ethnicity reproduces social classes and it is not fair sometimes. If we would go back when the USA was racist to an unacceptable level. If a cop sees a black person driving an expensive car, this black dude will be most likely pulled over and questioned about where he got that car. The perspective that was taken about this race’s behaviors throws a lot of questions. Back to Qatar, where the majority residences of Qatar are Desi, It would be shocking to see an Indian driving a Ferrari (with respect to all nationalities). People who live in Qatar are not used to it. It is normal to see an American man or European driving a fancy car because the expectations are that this race gets paid more than others. Racism is everywhere, and it creates different perspectives about others.

Third Culture Kid

So far, I have noticed that the majority of our blog posts have been very much centralized around consumerism. Although what we eat, what we buy, and how we entertain ourselves are important in the contexts of globalization, glocalization and different subcultures, it is also necessary to examine one of the most important aspects of this cycle of human nature which is, of course, ourselves. I have to admit I did chose to discuss this because I love to talk about myself and am maybe a little egocentric (although not ethnocentric!) but I also think it is important that we examine why different people are attracted to certain subcultures, or how we can relate to others around us in a globalized environment. I myself, as a Third Culture Kid, am a product of globalization and often have issues identifying with certain groups whether it be in terms of religion, nationality, language and accents, or just general social groups. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself when people as me ‘where are you from?’ and I panic as to what to tell them, but on the other hand, it is nice to be able to be somewhat of a nomad when it comes to traveling and experiencing different cultures as I have no real attachment to a specific place and am always eager to adapt to new cultures.

This reminded me of a brief section of our reading, which mentioned supermarkets of style, and shopping for subcultural identities. For me, often traveling and settling in many different places, I end up trying out different groups, fashions and identities until I find some sense of belonging. When I lived in Singapore, I was very active in the middle school cheerleading and dance scene, and yet in Qatar I was more inclined towards socializing with very diverse groups of people, some of whom have pink hair and wear studded jackets.

Some view this bouncing back and forth between countries, cultures and subcultures as an inability to fit in and a sense of being an outcast. Yet I feel my ability to blend in and look at these different subcultures from a more external perspective helps me understand people better in terms of why they do what they do, whether it is due to a deviance and resistance issue, or a conflict of power between different groups.

Skip to 0:55 to avoid the sappy poem - and learn more about the melodramatic lives of these Third Culture Kids

Additionally, something that I always find intriguing is how certain people in Qatar react to my white-ness. I suppose it has something to do with the notion of white privilege, but from my experiences, this has not been a positive thing especially being a girl, I face a combination of racism, sexism, and also being idolized due to my skin color (which is always awkward).

Friends sometimes comment on how lucky I am to be white because my parents aren’t strict, or that I can drink and do whatever I want, but I also get harassed by some people who label me as being ‘a whore because you’re white’ or having police officers and really creepy Lebanese men constantly ask me which part of ‘Amreeka’ I am from.

My favorite comments, which I get a lot of, have to do with my freckles, which aren’t even that obvious. “You have dirt on your face”, “there’s something on your nose”, “do you want something for your sun spots?”, “when did you get that skin disease?” Mostly these comments come from Arabs and East Asians, which amuses me because really - have they never seen a white girl with freckles before? Imagine what will happen if they see a ginger. When this happens, I have to remind myself that not everybody subjects themselves to, or are open to the idea of globalization and different subcultures. I suppose certain areas of Qatar, or places where they are coming from, are not as globalized and full of western expatriates as you would expect.

Criticism Through Humor

Once again, Sociology gives me a chance to look at our society and culture from a different perspective. However, this time I will base my sociological analysis on Maz Jobrani’s comedy show that took place at the W hotel this Saturday.
In class, we discussed cultural criminology as a way to explore the ways in which “otherness” is socially constructed in films. We also learnt that the presence of outgroups create solidarity amongst ingroups such as Middle Easterners. This is where the main stereotype of Arabs and Muslims are introduced. They have been stereotyped as the “other” throughput history and still are by today. By doing so, the stereotypes of Middle Easterners have played a huge role on forming the public sense of whom and what is the “other” to the West.



Cinematic stereotype images of Arabs are a response to political and social events. However, it is also present within the notion of humor and comics. Throughout history, comics have been a reflection of social, political and cultural attitudes we have within our communities. Through humor, the viewing audience gets to accept racial stereotypes. This is because humor rarely offends the audience, as it is addressed in an informal, inoffensive, funny and harmless way.

Maz Jobrani is an Iranian-American stand-up comedian, whom bases most of his racial and satirical comics on the Arabs, Asians and Persians in the Middle East. For instance, at one point, on the behalf of all Iranians, he thanked one of the Pakistani audiences for how Pakistan’s problems have taken over the news industry and changed the focus of the news from Iran to Pakistan. At another point of the show, Jobrani criticized England’s colonial power in the Middle East. This was when he said, “you can’t let them in, and they’ll take over. They did it to India. Hello, we own it now.” Again, we get to see how Jobrani tackles political and social stereotypes by using humor. By doing so, he allows the audience to acknowledge the situations and stereotypes of the certain group of race, and laugh at the way they are understood by the majority. This could possibly be where the concept of counter culture comes in. By counter culture, I mean the group of people whose values and norms are at odds with the social mainstream.




Most stereotypes are a direct reflection to political events, such as 9/11 and the political state the Middle East is in at the moment. We could possibly say that stereotypes in the entertainment sector are all part of cultural fear. By cultural fear, I mean the exaggerated threats made through the media and the public’s mind that are designed to achieve political goals. I feel like nearly everything in sociology goes back to Karl Marx’s famous quote, “the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class because they control the mental means of production.” In other words, the elite use mass media and social events to maintain this social stratification. In this case, white people have been the elite amongst other races.

Class in Lebanese

Lebanon is one country I consider myself quite familiar with; I’ve been visiting Lebanon every summer since I was a kid. But, this year was the first time I actually visited Lebanon by myself, for the sole purpose of discovering it on my own, not just to visit family. I grew up in a culture that is very politically involved and knew quite a lot about the political situations in the Arab world, which means that I was quite aware of the different political and religious sects in Lebanon. But of course, it’s very different when you realized all these things for yourself.



Lebanon has been under a very shaky government for a while now, and has been through many, many different wars, all related to the different sects within the country. Even though there are numerous political parties in Lebanon, most of the parties play very small roles in the government itself. However, whether you were a Sunni Muslim, Shiaa Muslim, Christian, Palestinian or Syrian, all these parties play a big role in your involvement and interactions within the country.

Being a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, I always realized how racist many Lebanese are against Palestinians. Like I mentioned in one of my previous post, "Will they ever belong?", Palestinians cannot work outside refugee camps and suffer from many unequal treatments in Lebanon.

Well, in this trip to Lebanon I realized that this society wasn’t only considered racist to Palestinians, but any person of color, African, Indian or Nepalese, was automatically listed under the lower working class minority. This makes them one of the minority groups in Lebanon, being singled out for unequal treatment and collective discrimination.




During my trip, I bumped into a Sudanese friend of mine who brought this subject to my attention. This was her third visit to Lebanon and she stated that most people automatically thought she was a maid or a worker. “I've been to so many countries and never in my life have I ever been subjected to so much ignorance and discrimination,” she said. She also said that everyone, including maids and workers, only spoke to her in English and were so shocked that she could speak Arabic.

I witnessed this myself when I walked into a mobile shop with the same friend. As we tried to enter the store, one guy stood at the door of the shop and gave my friend very cruel stares as if she wasn’t supposed to enter the store. It took him some time to finally move out of our way and let us in. When she asked the guy in the shop for a sim card, he didn’t seem to understand what she was saying, even though she spoke very clearly. However, when I asked, he seemed to understand exactly what I wanted and helped us right away.

This isn’t a topic that people really speak of, however many organizations and groups have been trying to make people more aware of this. IndyACT launched the “Anti Racism Movement” in Lebanon in 2010. They started this movement in 2010 and one of their reasons was that many people were being discriminated against and “prevented from entering [shops] because of skin color or prejudice and definitely because of the weakness and/or indifference of civil society actors in dealing with these phenomena and the absence of a criminalizing and binding law that affects these racist practices in Lebanon.”



In nearly every country in the world, there is always a connection between race/ethnicity and class. People in Lebanon are definitely stratified according to achieved characteristics, like their incomes. Class plays a huge role in a person’s social stratification and socialization into the society. In Lebanon, a person of lower class could be discriminated against and treated unfairly. If I was to talk about the Asian and black workers in Lebanon, I would say that they are stratified into both caste and class systems, where their race and their achieved characteristics definitely play a part in their lifestyle. Since the society in Lebanon has its ways of categorizing by race, and because of an Asian or black worker’s expected income and obvious race and ethnicity, it is pretty hard for one of those workers to move up the class system and be assimilated into the Lebanese culture.

Thai Chi and My Mother

According to some people, excluding me of course, Chinese food could be considered a therapy for the soul, something to worship. So after begging my mother to take me to a Chinese restaurant to have a taste of the holy food she agreed, and she even told me that she knows a great place in Villagio: Thai Chi.

My mother was positive that this restaurant is the best in Doha, I didn’t bother to ask why so I went along. After arriving in Villagio, I noticed that it is indeed the coolest looking restaurant compared to those around it, and the waitresses were wearing beautiful qipao. The restaurant was packed. We had to wait for 15 minutes to be seated. In those 15 minutes I was looking at the costumers in the restaurants, and since it was the 14th of February (Valentine’s Day a.k.a National Sports day in Qatar) the place was filled with couples. Except for an old man who was dining alone. I never paid attention to the nationalities of the costumers though.

I probably went through the menu ten times before I actually settled on an order: noodles and sweet and sour chicken, I honestly didn’t know what to order, everything seemed so delicious. My mother on the other hand gave the waitress the benefit of the doubt and let her choose for her. While waiting for the food my mother kept looking at an Asian couple next to us. She kept telling me about what they ordered: “oh look, they ordered tea, do you think we should? What is that? A soup, we should’ve gotten soup too, it looks good” and went on and on about it. Finally, I asked her why did she choose this place in particular for us, her answer was very simple: because I saw a lot of Chinese people eating here, so it must be good. *Awkward silence*

I looked around and indeed, more than half of the people dining here were Asian, coincidence? Maybe. But since when do we judge a restaurant depending on who eats there? According to my mother, that’s how we know the good restaurants from “fake” ones. I personally think that the race of the costumers has nothing to do with the quality of food. Authenticity on the other hand is important, if I were in a foreign country, I would certainly go to middle-eastern restaurant, regardless of how good the food is there, if the place reminds me of home I will be a regular costumer there. So maybe that is why.

Prejudice & Racism

Racism is a certain kind of prejudice, based on faulty reasoning and inflexible generalizations toward a specific group. The word prejudice comes from the Latin noun praejudicium, which means a judgment based on previous decisions formed before the facts were known. If a person allows their prejudiced beliefs to block the progress of another, it is discrimination. Those who exclude all members of a race from certain types of employment, housing, political rights, educational opportunities, or a social interactions are guilty of racial discrimination.



Racism is an unmerited fear or dislike of a people because of their ethnic heritage. When colour is not a reason, other reasons such as language, religion, nationality, education, sex, orage become the reason of prejudice.

Sociologists, believe that racial discrimination happens more often and most harshly when two groups with different skin colours and unique physical features come into contact with each other and the two compete for the same thing. A insult directed at a particular ethnic group is likely to get these results in a confrontation: pain, anger, shame, hostility, guilt and embarrassment. Students admitted that they had used racial slurs when angered.



Race hatred often leads to violence. People whom form groups to defend America from a minority takeover fall into the category of extremists. For Example, Mooz-lum is a 2010 American independent film written and directed by Qasim "Q" Basir and starring Danny Glover. Mooz-lum (i.e. "Muslim") tells the story of an African American Muslim family whose lives are changed by the September 11 attacks and their aftermath. The plot is about Amid a strict Muslim rearing and a social life he has never had, Tariq Mahdi (Evan Ross) enters college confused. New peers, family and mentors help him find his place, but the 9/11 attacks force him to face his past and make the biggest decisions of his life.

Michael Jackson Internalized Racism Misconceptions

“I’m a black American. I’m proud of my race, I’m proud of who I’ am,” states the legendary King of Pop, Michael Jackson, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in his Neverland ranch in 1993. If this was really the case, then why did Jackson turn himself white? Why did he modify his face with all of these plastic surgeries that made him look more like a White European? Why did he marry white women and adopt white children? Was Michael Jackson suffering from internalized racism?

To get close to the answers of these highly complicated questions, it’s worth knowing some of the popular stereotypes of African Americans. This ethnic group was claimed to be violent, poor, engaging in crimes, lazy and fat. Since Michael Jackson was in this minority group, he feared that he would be denied equal access to positions of power, privilege, and wealth. He appeared to assume that his dark skin and big nose would be perceived as stigmas by all of the upper class privileged figures in the music industry and therefore he would not be able to reach his full potential as an artist.

For instance, in 2002, the late pop icon made a very controversial speech at the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network in New York's Harlem neighborhood accusing the Sony Music Chairman, Tommy Mottola, of being racist and part of a racist conspiracy against black artists. The following video shows Jackson’s speech against Mottola:



It seems that “absorption assimilation,” which is the process, by which members of a minority group adapt to the ways of the dominant culture, was the solution for Jackson’s own race embarrassment. But apart from simply adapting to the lives of the superior class, Jackson adopted much more radical means and that rests on his remarkable altered appearance through skin bleaching, a nose job, a forehead lift, thinned lips, a cheekbone surgery, a chin cleft and hair transplants.

One may assume that Michael Jackson was trying to distance himself from the African community. Nevertheless, after his physical transformation, Michael’s hits continued to call for equality, peace, humanity and love among all different races and ethnic groups. For example, one of his most powerful lines about this message is in his song “Black or White,” which says “It doesn’t matter if you are black or white.” Some of his tracks which contribute to these principles are “Heal the World, We are the World, and They Don’t Care About Us, Human Nature, The Earth Song and Man in the Mirror.”

Michael Jackson was deprived of his childhood, abused by his father, accused of crimes that he did not commit, had mean headlines in the tabloids and simply did not live a normal life. Considering all of these disturbing factors, we should really stop judging the man and appreciate the extraordinary music and fabulous dance techniques that revolutionized the music industry.

That leads me to leave you to enjoy Michael’s last rehearsal performance from his documentary, This Is It, which includes all the performances Michael was rehearsing for his comeback concert tour in London, which never happened due to his sudden death from an overdose of the prescription drug propofol on June, 25th, 2009.

Stereotyping

Stereotyping is something that all individuals do on a daily basis, whether consciously or subconsciously. A stereotype is an inaccurate generalization about a person or a group of people, and can be both positive and negative.

People always associate certain races with things like music, sports, fashion, wealth, food, jobs, and many other facets of life. However it’s not true, because all individuals are capable of being associated with each of these things. All of us have been socialized into thinking that certain races are either good at something or bad at something. But we never pause to think about whether an individual belonging to a particular race has chosen to assume a certain role, or whether the person was forced into it, or whether it was by mere chance.

Television plays a huge role in socializing the way in which we interpret race, ethnicity and culture. Movies and TV shows are the mediums that greatly influence how we generalize people. Shows such as “Everybody Hates Chris” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” portray the contrast between a Black-American family living in a “ghetto” neighborhood and a White-American family living in the suburbs. “Everybody Hates Chris” shows how a 16-year-old Black-American has to attend an all-white school, and how he gets picked on and bullied. This makes viewers interpret that all Black American people live in the ‘ghetto’ and that all white people are prejudiced towards them. “Everybody Loves Raymond” is about an Italian-American family living in a suburban neighborhood and addresses issues that white families usually encounter. This makes viewers interpret that all white people live in fancy houses and face a lot of family issues.




Although these shows address stereotypical ideas, the contrast between both these shows highlights the systems of racial and ethical classification. In Sociology this is a way of dividing people into ethnic or racial categories and ranking them on a scale of social worth. Generally Black or African-Americans are viewed as being part of gangs or as criminals, but this is not true at all. What about the Black or African Americans who have worked hard and are doing well for themselves and their families? Not many people have this view in minds.

In Doha, we usually associate South Asian men with labor class jobs, and East Asian women with jobs in retail or grocery stores and fast food restaurants. This is not true for all South Asian men and East Asian women in Doha. But do we know whether they chose these jobs for themselves? We just take it for granted that they all work these jobs, and yet we do not consider why.




Everyone creates stereotypes: French women are the most fashionable in the world; Asia produces the smartest people in the world, Italian and French cuisines are the most delicious, the U.S has the best athletes, all Black Americans love rap music. These are all made up, I do not agree with any of these stereotypes. I have my own personal views and I have a different taste in food, fashion and in what makes someone smart or athletic, and not all Black Americans love rap music.

Diversity

We all share diverse cultures and traditions, come from a different race or ethnicity and communicate through assorted languages. Last Thursday, I went to the cultural village, Katara, with my friends Rana and Ola to see an African band from Nigeria perform. Although I didn’t know exactly where the band was from, I knew they were African because their physical features indicated their race. They were obviously distinct from everyone else because of the language they spoke, the way they dressed and the way they looked.





I didn't understand any of the words they were singing, but I was into it because I could sense their passion. Their music was lively and vibrant and captured a big audience. The band was playing with enthusiasm and they were breaking it down with their dance moves. The audience was a mixture of different races. I saw Qataris, Indians, Filipinos, Americans and other Arab nationalities. It was easy to distinguish the ethnicity of all these people because of their social factors such as language, dress and physical appearances. The majority of the people were appreciative of the art they were performing, however others were more critical and showed prejudice towards it. For instance, there was a group of rowdy Qatari teen boys that were flocking around the main vocalist and being rude to him and mocking him when he was introducing his band. They made racial comments and were making fun of their dancing, singing and clothing. This lack of respect is a result of ignorance regarding another person's culture and traditions.




After we enjoyed their music, we spoke to them they asked were we from and they guessed that Ola was Brazilian. Although both Ola and I are Sudanese, he thought she was Brazilian because she had a lighter skin tone than him and curly light hair. When he found out that we were both Sudanese, he said to us, "You are my sisters." Being Africans, he believed we had the same ethnicity, deeming that "share national origin; a common ancestry; a place of birth; distinctive concrete traits; or socially important physical characteristics." This really got me thinking of my own identity and what I view myself as. The physical and social characteristics that I inherit from my parents and family are by chance. I very much consider myself as African, but only in terms of context meaning the only thing that I believe makes me African is geography. I regard myself to be culturally and ethnically Arab; therefore I am Arab by choice , culture and ethnicity.

A Different Perspective.

Ethnicity and race are fundamental in a person’s upbringing. Speaking a certain language or having a particular nationality may seem like ordinary facts about an individual, but in reality, they define where you come from, teach you about your history and come with a set of traditions that one would likely follow throughout their life and pass on to the next generation. People become so accustomed to their way of life that exploring an alternative one is much easier said than done. I was born and raised in Qatar; and being surrounded by men in thobes and women in niqab and abayas was and still is completely normal to me but I never had to wear one like some Muslim women choose to do. It wasn’t until I tried it that I realized how different my day became.

Although there are a few female students who wear the niqab in Education City, the majority of them do not. This factor makes them the minority in this particular setting, not that they are singled out or discriminated against, but that there are fewer students who wear it. This is where we see pluralism take place as well. They still attend classes and go to some of the top American universities in the world while maintaining their culture. To some extent we see absorption assimilation take place too, with Arab women adopting the English language among other things. Certain differences I noticed were that people I would often run into, like fellow students or security, made less or no eye contact if we happened to cross paths. Small talk was also avoided in situations where I was used to it on a daily basis such as a simple “how are you” from Bateel workers or a “Good morning” when entering an elevator. I think the purpose of that was to show a sign of respect because people assume they are complying with Islamic customs when doing so, however it could be seen as a form of segregation.

Initially I thought wearing a niqab would make me feel more comfortable but it was the complete opposite. Most women who wear it are probably very relaxed because they’re in their element, I’m sure they would feel just as bizarre as I did if they were to change into jeans and a t-shirt and carry on with their day.

The Race Mind at the Races

Image taken by - Jassim Al Rumaihi

For this week I decided to go out for one of the flat races here at the Equestrian and Races Club in Doha. The aim was to look at the whole celebration from a sociological point of view, and how can race and ethnicity be interpreted. I got there and started to observe with all the vocabs we learnt in class in mind.

As I was looking around, I took one of the races booklets that had all the details of the races that were going to take part. I opened the first page and it had a list of names of all the people involved that helped in organizing the event. Some of those were long, with four or five names in one single line. Other was shorter having only the first and second name. In Qatar, not all Qataris are categorized as one ethnic group. Within the Qataris themselves there are many groups that share some ethnic origins in terms of having a shared ancestry. For example, Al Rumaihi’s would be one group, and each individual within that tribe would affiliate to the other as a person with an ethnic bond.

Then there are larger groups that have been tagged by the society. For example you would have Eaal Elgebael which translates to "sons of tribes" and they are groups of people that share Arab roots whether it stems from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or other parts of the Arab world. Another known tag name are the Hollah, and they are Arabs that have immigrated to Persia for a while and returned after that to the Arabian nations in the Gulf. There are also other categorizations such as Hathar and Baddo or Bedouins.

What is interesting though is what I found in the second page of the booklet. When I turned to it it was a list of horses, each with its own number and each with its own record. The top of the page was titled in bold letter “Pure Arabians”, and that made me think. Do horses really care about their origins as humans do? Of course not. Their brains may be considered as less developed than humans by scientists. Yet, their eyes are blind enough to see no color line.

Intelligence & Culture

To define culture, we can point at a group of people who have mutual understandings, experiences, and beliefs. Culture shapes our way of living, and contributes in building our standards in life. The interaction between different cultures highlights major differences and similarities as well. Some people find it difficult to cross their cultural zone and prefer to maintain a formal interaction between alienated cultures. However, Some people have the ability to adapt to outsiders and interpret their gestures and attitude just the way they do with their compatriots. This is called ‘Cultural intelligence’.



It requires for a person with cultural intelligence to use his senses to understand that the people he’s interacting with are different from his compatriots. After conducting, the person can easily anticipate what the reaction of the people will be and his inferences will be stereotype-free. People who are socially efficacious among their colleagues, are the ones who end up being accepted by alienated cultures. Also, those who are detached from their culture are able to interact and adapt with other cultures. However, those who are attached to the norms of their society are mostly considered as alienated people and they have a difficult time adapting to strangers. Interaction is the most important step that a person should carry out in order to advance her or his perceptions of various cultures. People with cultural intelligence will not relay on taking training programs and learning about a cultures’ customs, but will use their own learning strategies to understand the mutuality between the alien culture and their own. Also, the study of foreigners’ body language is one way to win their trust and openness. Through that, we can make ourselves understand how to interact with other cultures and adopt with them through logical strategies and respect. We have to observe the surroundings of unfamiliar cultures and focus on what is common with our own.



What many people are not aware of is that intelligence tests and especially the IQ test rooted based on racial and cultural bigotry. The creators of the modern testing field have advocated eugenics. “Eugenics is a movement concerned with the selective breeding of human beings” (Robert Sternberg). The initial aim for eugenics is to have humans with certain traits mate together and have their offspring inherit these traits. Therefore, a better human race is formed. IQ tests that have been taken by people from different ethnic backgrounds have indicated dissimilar average scores. A study used to measure a group of students’ intelligences has demonstrated that white students with privileged backgrounds were identified for their high-analytic intelligence, and those with high scores in practical and creative skills were racially and economically diverse. Within racial groups, genetics have their influence on some factors of intelligence. However, the IQ test is not able to indicate these factors that caused differences in the results of racial groups. When a society is highly diverse, creating a closed system by concentrating one certain type of students will result in neglecting the achievements of other types of students. Thus, The society is unintentionally neglecting what other groups have to offer.



Cultural intelligence is only one segment of many intelligences out there. There are many factors that influence intelligence and individuals perceive different factors on their culture and environment. Success is our initial goal in life; intelligence can contribute in playing a big role in achieving our goals. Our thoughts that we have in mind are applied through our actions and intelligence helps us develop them to a sophisticated and more organized level.