"Racialism vs. Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECA)

I like the word "racialist" (seen at Field Negro) because, to me, it ridicules the whole concept of "race." Color-aroused systemic and individual discrimination exists. Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECA) exists. "Race" doesn't exist and so "racism" doesn't exist, but "racialism" does! It's all around us.

To me "racialism" is the belief that race exists and the use of the fantastically irrational notion of "race" in discrimination against others.

But, I don't see Field Negro as a "racialist," although some people accuse him of it. Field Negro is a realist who focuses his attention on "racialists" and on very real instances of systemic and individual skin-color-aroused antagonism.

It makes a BIG difference whether you believe in "racism" or in skin-color-aroused disorders. If you believe in "racism," you will probably believe that "racists" have an ideology that is inbred and not subject to being changed, regardless of whether they are ten years old or seventy years old.

If you believe in Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECA), then you understand that "racism" is really a complex and interrelated cluster of extreme color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior that is the result of socialization and that can become more acute based on circumstances, like all other cognitive behavioral disorders.

If you have this understanding of ECA, then you realize that we need to create societal and social circumstances in which there is less reinforcement for ECA behaviors and less socialization toward ECA behaviors. We also need greater deterrents and more opportunities for treatment and recovery. You realize that a child who shows ECA behaviors under some circumstances can also learn NOT to show those behaviors.

If you believe in "racism," then you believe that the white mind is beyond the reach of scientific understanding, diagnosis, treatment and recovery. It is one thing to believe that cancer is incurable now. It is quite another thing to believe that cancer can NEVER be understood, and that even if it is understood it can NEVER be cured. That is really magical thinking that is not based on our experience with the cancers that already can be cured with early diagnosis and treatment. Likewise, the belief that racism cannot be treated successfully ignores our experience with alcoholism, drug addiction, anorexia and bulimia, which are sometimes treated successfully with competent diagnosis, treatment, and societal support and deterrence.

If you believe in ECA, then you believe that if individuals who are motivated to recover and are offered competent services can CAN make progress, particularly when society reinforces that progress.

If you doubt that individuals and society can make progress, then how do you explain the fact that Blacks and whites eat at the same lunch counters and ride the same buses in the American South today? Behavioral change IS possible, but we need a better understanding of what makes people sick and we need better tools for making them well again.

Fighting Blog Apartheid in the Whitosphere

This comment is about the ongoing fight between Black and white progressive bloggers over the issue of blog apartheid at whitosphere blogs.

I love to write and I love to share my thoughts with others. But, I'm sick and tired of the constant grumblings about banning me at the whitosphere MyLeftWing blog, for criticizing the blog apartheid practiced at DailyKos. For example, in response to my essay of yesterday, Gottlieb said in comments:

"My interpretation of MSOC's remarks was she has tried to gently guide the 'editorial' direction of this board, and part of that direction is not to become known as a 'kos bashing' site. Simple. What's not so simple is where to draw the editorial line between 'free speech' and 'bashing'. Assuming, the journalism is sound.If the journalism isn't sound and you're making wild accusations on the slimmest of evidence, then you should be banned forthwith."

Our of sheer self-defense, we Blacks have learned over the years to know just what whites say and how they behave when a lynch mob is forming.

Let's see: If I "cross the line" into "bashing" America's foremost blog apartheid site, which was "bashed" in the Washington Post this week about this very issue, then I should be banned?!

That's like saying, "It's alright to blog about Apartheid, but you MAY NOT bash P.W. Botha." And don't be a Nelson Mandela "shill" either! I's like saying, "Write about the Klan, but don't 'bash' the Klan!"

This is what happens to white people's minds under the influence of color-aroused emotions, ideation and behavior.

And if we're not careful, they make US responsible for making sense out of all of this crap.

Blacks subjected to these mental games are at risk for color- aroused emotional, ideational and behavioral disorder, unless we stick together and refuse to play along.

There are constant suggestions that "if this and that were to happen" then that would constitute a valid reason to ban Francis L. Holland, and this discussion is, in and of itself, a kind of constant oppression that warns ALL Black that we MUST NOT aggressively argue for our own liberation in the context of the whitosphere. At whitosphere blogs, we're "always outnumbered and always out-gunned."

But, maybe if we stick up for each other through the AfroSpear Black bloggers movement when this grumbling begins, then we can impress upon white bloggers that, in addition to the handful of whites demanding Black bloggers' expulsion and our heads on a platter, there are at least five dozen Black blogger opinion-makers, with significant Democratic-leaning voter audiences, and these Black bloggers are organized, angry and tired of the bullshit!

This is the e-mail address of Maryscott O'Connor, the owner of the MyLeftWing whitosphere blog who has publicly threatened to ban me for "bashing" the blog apartheid practiced at DailyKos. Please write her a e-mail and tell her that bashing apartheid is precisely what we should be doing at progressive blogs.

myleftwing@gmail.com

"Mary,

Is it true that Francis Holland may get banned from your site MyLeftWing?

If so, why?

Regards,

Adrianne George
Black Women in Europe Blog"
Francis