HLG: I can't run. It's a good thing I was a good student because I wouldn't have made it. … My father, though, will be 95, June 8th, God willing. And my father, every time he passes a basketball court of black boys, young black men, he will say, "If we study calculus like we study basketball, we would be running MIT." So to him, it's not genetic. It's the fact that we're in basketball laboratories instead of math laboratories, all of our lives.

JW: Yes, and that's bad. Black kids have got to get different aspirations.

HLG: Right. But even you said, "You dominate us." You see what I mean? We have this image of being dominant as natural athletes.

JW: Well, one of my rules in my books is, take courses where you can get good grades.

ON HUMAN NATURE

HLG: Imagine if you were an African or an African-American intellectual. And it's 10 years from now. And you pick up The New York Times and some geneticist says, A) that intelligence is genetic, and B) the difference as measured on standardized tests between black people and white people, is traceable to a genetic basis. What would you, as a black intellectual, do, do you think?

JW: I don't think I can answer, because I don't think it will change things much

HLG: You don't think that all those people [who] want to see black people subjected, wouldn't use that as ...

JW: No, no, no. Because in my lifetime, I've seen less and less discrimination. And I think it'll continue that way.

HLG: But some people would argue, particularly my friends in the university, that one of the reasons we've seen less is that we've gotten rid of biology, that we've started talking about race as a social construct. And now, biology is back, bigger and badder than ever.

JW: I am convinced that the movement towards personalized genetics is going to improve their lives. Black people and white people, we're going to both be better because of this knowledge. Everyone should be judged [as] individuals. No one should be judged by a term like "black." So I'm optimistic about where we're going. I don't think it's going to lead to people being just discriminated. I see them being helped by knowing what genes might affect your health, and also in understanding when you don't fit in.

HLG: Well I'm terrified that it will lead to more discrimination.

JW: Most people never live up to their true potential. Sometimes you don't have the potential to do everything. Most of us accept that at some phase of our life, as long as you find something else to do that gives you a meaningful life.

HLG: It's just that racists are determined to use biology to re-enslave black people, to delimit black people.

JW: Yeah, but it's not the historic norm. I don't think it's going to go that way. ... I don't think genetics is going to make that much of a difference.

HLG: But you know people misuse the results of standardized tests. And that's what we're all worried about. We're worried about the decoding of the genome in relationship to intelligence, and then the question of, how do you measure intelligence? It's a can of worms for us.

JW: Well, it's a can of worms, but ... I've always been an optimist, and I think that's why I've succeeded. I think all this knowledge will actually lead to better lives by different people in the world. Not worse. Because we'll understand each other better.