privilege of intelligence fit in? We have seen that SES correlates with intellectual development and that if you belong to an ethnic minority you are more likely to be part of a low SES. We have also seen that intelligence manifests itself in a variety of forms and to varying degrees across all socially constructed groups. Therefore if everything else was equal, we should see even distributions of all groups in our educational institutions. We know however, that things are not equal. Ethnic minorities are put a decisive disadvantage when it comes to factors such as SES, which have been shown to correlate with intellectual development. They lack all of the privileges that white skin endows. Therefore it would seem that the disadvantages that ethnic minorities endure should translate to an under-representation in our educational institutions. A group of Canadian researchers looked at the representation rates of visible minorities among 1990 university graduates and the average 1992 earnings of these graduates. The results indicate that visible minorities comprised just over 10% of the graduates compared to their nine-and-a-half percent share of the 1991 population. Their representation increased from 10% at the undergraduate level to 19% at the Ph.D. level. Their earnings for 1992 were on average 101.9% of non-minorities. These results go in the opposite direction of what could be predicted based theories of white privilege. What I believe these results to indicate is that intelligence is the ultimate privilege. Someone who is given the privilege of above average intelligence is able to overcome all other disadvantages they experience as results of socially constructed stereotypes. In the knapsack of privilege, intelligence occupies the main compartment while other privileges fill the smaller pockets...
