Less Attractive Than Whom?

You may have heard this already, but yesterday Psychology Today posted yet another "scientific" study on the inherent inferiority of the African "race." Apparently, some dude pulled a PhD diploma out of his ass Lucky Charms cereal and asked "Why Are Black Women Less Attractive"?

The London School of Economics- and Birckbeck College-affiliated "evolutionary psychologist," Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa proves that he himself and his supposedly scientific field has not much evolved beyond the--I thought--discredited field of social Darwinism. Apparently, his phrenological study on how the Negro has smaller brain capacity and, therefore, cannot attain high levels of intellect nor responsibility was thrown out by P.T. His empirical study on how the Negro cannot possibly experience pain was dismissed after one Negro on P.T.'s Board promised to inflict pain if the study was published.

But our intrepid Dr. Kanazawa would not be deterred. After all, it is science's duty to, every few years, show without a scientific doubt that melanin superiority necessarily equates to every-damned-thing-else inferiority. So now, the good doctor pressed a new wrinkle into the African Inferiority Debate (A.I.D.): Testosterone.

According to Doctor Kanazawa, the Negro has an overabundance of testosterone, which somehow makes the Negress less attractive than women of other races while the Negro male remains just as adorable as all the other men out there. Oddly enough, during the turn of the last century, it was the Negro's overabundance of testosterone that made him especially susceptible to the effects of cocaine--turning his darky, little brain mad and turning the colored into a wild, growling, jungle beast whose muscles, already genetically honed for hard labor, became superhuman in strength, leading to an animal frenzy that had to be beaten into submission (you know, like Rodney King).

I guess with evolutionary psychologists ... the more things change the more they stay the same.

Damn ...

I just read this last night in Hoodlums: Black Villains and Social Bandits in American Life by William L. Van Deburg and needed to share it.


"In the five decades between the end of Radical Reconstruction and the start of the Great Depression, more than 3,200 black men, women, and children were executed by southern mobs. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice, fewer still punished for their crimes. Evidencing a marked June-to-August seasonality and heavily concentrated in the "Black Belt" running through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, this plague of lynching fever peaked during the 1890s, went into remission during World War I, reappeared in the early 1920s, and experienced a final decline during the 1930s. Despite the best efforts of the reform press, the black pulpit, and groups such as the Commission on Interracial Corporation and the NAACP, vigilante 'justice' was meted out to a black victim nearly once a week, every week between 1882 and 1930."

Where Credit Is Due

In our incessant 25/8 news cycle, nothing happens without an ensuing controversy. In what should be a self-satisfied victory lap for the Obama administration for the assassination of Osama bin Laden, controversies abound for said assassination. Was bin Laden armed or not? Did he use a woman as a human shield? How much did Pakistan know? And, most annoyingly, who deserves the credit for putting the World's #1 Bad Guy down.

While many are surprised that the last controversy has begun to swell, we really shouldn't be. There are many out there who absolutely despise Obama and everything that he's done. Many of them will simply refuse to give him any credit for anything. It's much like when my boy Bart in Blazing Saddles disposes of the behemoth bad guy, Mongo, with an exploding candy gram. His white sidekick, Jim, congratulates Bart on his ingenious invention, and Bart says something along the lines of "Yeah, but they'll never give me credit for it."

So many of them want to give Bush as much credit as is humanly possible. Many because, as I said, they simply don't want to credit Obama for anything--even when he does something they like. Others because they want to justify the use of torture--sorry, "enhanced interrogation." One can't blame them, of course. There is an ongoing federal investigation in the Justice Department of many of the proponents of torture and what they did or did not do during their time in the Bush administration.

Oh, My!

I am an American. As I have often joked, we kicked the Brits' asses twice and saved their asses twice. We owe them absolutely nothing (though, they have been taking a big one for the Anglo Alliance team during this whole "War on Terror" thing).

I am African-American. Sixteen percent of the Revolutionary Army was made up of my people, and we've been fighting ever since. Besides, who took up this whole slavery thing with gusto on our continent in the first place?

I am also of Jamaican descent. Runaway slaves on that island (known as Maroons) fought the British for centuries. While never gaining full independence like their Haitian brethren, the Maroons fought so ferociously, the British ended up suing for peace. The interior mountain region of Jamaica was never officially colonized because of the Maroons.

And one puddle in this muddied gene pool of mine, one can find Scottish ancestry. My peeps have been used and abused by the Brits. Bonnie Prince Charlie almost took it to the redcoats, but what can you do?

Tiger Mothers and Other Reaffirming Stereotypes

I admit, I've been mildly intrigued by the idea of reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother ever since the fire storm over Amy Chua's book erupted a few months back. For those of you who haven't heard, Battle Hymn chronicles Chua's battles with her daughters and the utter abuse they take in the author's quest to be a proper "Chinese mother."

As many of you know, I read books for a living. As soon as this bad mutha hit the office, I scrambled to have it assigned to me. Mission accomplished, I started Tiger Mother yesterday and am about halfway through. This is what I think so far ...

First, I must make perfectly clear, that I hate exceptionalism in all its forms. For nations, it simply means that we Americans will rush headlong into countries like Afghanistan simply knowing that, because of our inherent goodness, we will not suffer the fates of Alexander the Great nor the British Empire (see how that's working for us).

As far as race goes, I believe that exceptionalism is simply the PC flip side of racism. These backhanded compliments will laud any race in one particular area while subtly suggesting that they are inferior in all others. In the 1840s, while enslaved Negroes were being called "lazy" and "shiftless" in one breath, the very next breath admonished those "slovenly" and "dirty" Irish and Germans to be more like the "hard-working," "industrious" darky. The "model minority" was born and continues to thrive to this day--though the levels of melanin have pretty much changed.

Fo'evah Coonin'

So, last night, in an attempt to embrace the ensuing insomnia that's been plaguing me these past couple weeks, I plugged my headphones into some '90s hip-hop and curled up on the couch to David Wondrich's Stomp and Swerve: American Music Gets Hot 1843-1924. In it, Wondrich acerbically details the birth of American popular music: the minstrel/"coon" show.

Apparently, the whole phenomenon started in the 1840s with a group called the Virginia Minstrels, who combined the African banjo and the European fiddle with more than a dash of burnt cork for their faces and "Negro dialect" for their tongues. They instantly became a national--and later, an international--sensation. I guess as our nation crept towards the Civil War, white folks felt somehow reassured by this black-faced view of the Negro just a-pickin' and a-grinnin' on the plantation. The minstrels' white audiences also felt that these caricatures of African servitude presented an "authentic" look into Negro life.

White groups in black face sprouted up all over and were wildly popular. They dominated American entertainment until the unthinkable happened. A group of black coons calling themselves the "Georgia minstrels" done stoled they thunder. White folks ate 'em up. Georgia minstrels started popping up everywhere. Black folks, it was felt, were just better at cooning than white folks (obviously, this was before the advent of reality TV). They were just more "authentic" on portraying that happy-go-lucky plantation life.

Is This What Our Democracy Has Come To?

What do you think? Gary Busey for Secretary of State? Mel Gibson, Ambassador to Israel? Chris Brown, Health and Human Services? Who else would be a perfect fit for a Donald Trump Cabinet?