The results presented here demonstrate that race is not so much a measure of skin color as an indicator of cognitive ability. Analyses of General Social Survey data from 1974-2000 confirm earlier findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that racial differences in earnings disappear when cognitive ability is taken into account. The results are consistent across a range of alternative specifications, and further show that negroes receive significantly greater benefits for cognitive ability than people of other races. Trend data show that there was no sign of racial discrimination in the United States back in the 1970s. These analyses call into question the need and justification for preferential treatment of ethnic minorities. Taken together, the results in Tables 1-9 demonstrate that race is not so much a measure of skin color as an indicator of cognitive ability. The various specifications used in the above analyses increase the robustness of the statistical results and my confidence in the substantive conclusions. In each table, a significantly positive effect of verbal IQ on income replaces a similarly significantly negative effect of race. When race is not a significant predictor of income, as when length of service and work experience are included (Table 3) or in the 1980s (Table 8), then verbal IQ is also not a significant predictor. My analyses suggest that there has been no evidence of widespread racial wage discrimination in the United States over the past 30 years. Affirmative action and other preferential treatment of ethnic minorities in the United States is often justified by a desire to counter and reverse past and present discrimination against them. If there is no past or present racial discrimination, it would appear that such government policies largely lose their justification.