Well, lets dig into what he meant rather than what the press thought he meant.

Watson later apologized "unreservedly" and was quoted as being "mortified"[23] for the comments attributed to him, stating "I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways they have," he said. "To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief".[24][25]

After the apology he added: "[26]

"Right now, at my institute in the US we are working on gene-caused failures in brain development that frequently lead to autism and schizophrenia. We may also find that differences in these respective brain development genes also lead to differences in our abilities to carry out different mental tasks."

On October 19th, In an attempt to clarify his position Watson is featured in an article in The Independent

"We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things," he is quoted as saying. "The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity."

"It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science. To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers."

James D. Watson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personally, in my opinion (no fact), genes can only go so far to make you the person you are. Environment and human will being vastly more important factors when it comes to intelligence. I mean is a prodigy child a prodigy because his parents have pushed him to be so, because his brother before him trailblazed, or simply because he is without a doubt a prodigy? I mean what happens when you put any human baby from a third-rate country with intelligent people who are also capable parents (As sometimes intelligent people don't always make capable parents).

Without a doubt genes do play some role, but just as you can't easily escape your genes (though technically you can rewrite them, though only in the beginning for the the beginning of things), you can't easily escape the environment you were raised in nor the weight of free will.