The Field Negro sees Color Aroused Disorder in Some Whites' Reaction to Obama

A couple of days ago, my mentor in blogging, The Field Negro, addressed conviction that what we commonly call "racism" is really a potentially very serious mental disorder that I call Extreme Color Aroused Disorder.

Color aroused.

My man Francis Holland has this theory about racism. He doesn't think it exists. He thinks racism is the wrong word to use when describing one races dislike for the other. Francis thinks it's a false term as we are all a part of the same race (humans), therefore we cannot be racist towards one of our own. Francis, instead, calls the phenomenon Extreme Color Arousal Disorder, or ECAD. Now I must admit that when I first read this theory by Francis I thought he was nuts. But now.....I am not so sure. I think Francis might be on to something. People do tend to do irrational things and act against their own best interests when they are color aroused.

Take the latest Wapo poll which finds that three in ten A-merry-cans still have some issues with race. Now three out of ten might not be a bad average if you are a baseball player. A life time 300 bating average can get you into the hall of fame. But here in the land of the [not]so free and the home of the [some are] brave that number just doesn't seem so right now does it. After all, this is A-merry-ca. Aren't we above those silly racial distinctions? Isn't this where we expect to be able to live a life where we can be judged by the content of our character?

Of course this poll is all centered around the "O" man and his historic run for the highest office in the land. All the pollsters want to know what's really on the minds of A-merry-cans when it comes to the "O" mans's complexion. Is there really ECA when it comes to the "O" man? Let me answer that for you: yes.

Field, my brother, thank you so much for addressing color arousal and Extreme Color Aroused Disorder, Field, because the cartoons you use to illustrate some white people's mindset about Obama shows that they really are suffering from a mental illness; they fear a Black Harvard Law Review Editor as much as the fear The Headless Horseman and the "Evil Eye".

It's simply not possible to be so irrational and obsessional, so filled with irrational fears and anger, without being mentally ill.

In the comments to the post, Bob said,

"Holland reflects the scientific view, in which concept of "race" is increasingly disproven & discredited. Racism becomes an inaccurate term if there are no races per se & the problem in America is actually a matter of skin color;"

Cristopher said in the comments,

"My feeling was and still is, we're all members of the human race, so I thought the term was peculiar. I understand differences in ethnicity but the race thing just makes no sense."

Some people say it's alright to keep using the word "race" because everyone knows "race" is just a "social construct". But the popularity of that monkey photo above shows that some people literally believe that the "race" concept reflects a reality of different species. Otherwise, why are they using a monkey to represent their believe in the difference between them and Barack Obama? Unfortunately, many Blacks don't understand that being consigned to monkeyhood, as the continued use of the term "race" implies, is itself an insult.

Being disconnected from reality is a symptom or even a definition of mental illness right, with delusions, unrealistic fears to the point of paranoia, etc.?

Now, most people here are saying that these people are "racist" because that's the worst word they can think of for whitist behavior and ideology. But isn't being mentally ill just as bad in our society as being "racist"? Isn't it actually a whole lot worse to be mentally ill?

You can get a job if you're "racist", right? Can you get and keep a responsible job if everyone agrees that you're mentally ill?

What do whites think is worse? To be racist or to be seriously mentally ill? How would whites feel if the Washington Post said, "Thirty percent of Americans are mentally ill?" THAT would arouse some real concern, whereas the word "racist" just arouses a "Yeah, I know, so what?" response.

If you're seriously mentally ill, you need a psychiatrist, maybe some medication, and maybe even involuntary hospitalization, right? Have you even seen ANYONE receive all of that intervention because they were perceived to be "racist". America WILL change when it recognizes that what we now calls "racism" is a mental illness, but Blacks have to take the leadership if this recognition is to occur. If we insist that it is NOT mentally ill to consider Blacks to be biologically more like monkies, then of course we give intellectual, political, cultural and scientific cover to the whites who believe that Blacks ARE of a different SPECIES.

When Blacks realize that our society considers mental illness to be FAR more serious than "racism" as a personal problem, they'll realize that calling whites mentally ill is far more politically powerful than calling them "racist."

Finally, Coyote Road said,

Also, will we next have EGAD - Extreme Gender Arousal Disorder? Oh wait ...

YES, expect discussions of EGAD as the discussion of ECAD warms up!

Tiger Woods Does the Impossible & Color Arousal

There are few sports to which I pay any attention (tennis, fidgeting), and I totally ignore sports that don't have Black partipants. So, totally ignored tennis until Venus and Serena Williams became prominent in the game, and I ignored golf until Tiger Woods was a champion there. While many of us are wringing our hands over the exploits of the bad men of the music world, Tiger Woods has accomplished something that surely deserves at least as much attention, recounts Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post:

What Woods did this week to win the U.S. Open is almost inconceivable. We knew before the tournament that he had recently had arthroscopic surgery to remove cartilage from his left knee, and that he hadn't allowed enough time for proper recovery and rehab. What we didn't know was that he had been playing for months with a torn anterior cruciate ligament of that same knee, and that several weeks ago he had suffered a "double stress fracture of his left tibia," which is the large bone in the lower leg.

To review, that's a ruptured ligament, a broken leg and surgical lesions that hadn't had time to heal. He was suffering what appeared to be excruciating pain, limping down the fairways and doubling over in agony after hitting a 300-yard drive. He was competing against the best golfers in the world. He finished in a tie with journeyman Rocco Mediate, which meant he had to endure an 18-hole playoff -- and, since they finished the playoff tied, one more hole of sudden death.

It makes you wonder if there's anything Woods wouldn't do to win a golf tournament. Eugene Robinson, WaPost.

Now that I've posted a photograph of a handsome and fantastically successful black sports figure with a beautiful BLOND, WHITE woman and their child, I would be remiss (color-aroused sense of duty, i.e. ideation) if I said nothing about color arousal. Who among us, I ask (color-aroused question), can look at the photograph above (perception of skin color) and not have some ideation, emotion and even perhaps behavior that are motivated by our awareness of our own skin color (plus related ideation and emotion) as well as our perception of the skin color of Tiger Woods, his white wife and baby (plus our related color-aroused ideation and emotion)?

Rather than pretend to know the skin-color-associated ideation, emotion and even behavior of all of the readers of my blog (even after some of the stories I've heard), I'll just tell you what goes through my color-aroused mind, consciously:

1. Tiger Woods looks so handsome and happy. (I feel happy because he's a Black man and he's happy and successful (color-aroused ideation and emotion on my part. Actually, Tiger Woods has said, with good reason, that he is "Cablanasian", which the Urban Dictionary defines as, "A person of mixed race consisting of Caucasian, Black, Asian." "Tiger Woods says he's a Cablanasian to reflect his mixed heritage, and people are beginning to clamor for different racial categories as part of the Census," Luther Brown reminds us in a New Crisis article. (color-associated reflection)
   
2. Although some people are angered (color-aroused emotion) at Tiger Woods for denying that he's "Black", yet his insistence that he is Cablanasian is factually correct. "Father, Earl Woods, was a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. He died on May 3, 2006, age 74. Mother, Kultida, is a native of Thailand. Earl was half black, one-quarter American Indian and one-quarter Chinese. Kultida is half Thai, one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter white." Internet Movie Database
3. So, when we insist that Tiger Woods is "Black", we actually are insisting upon denying factual history in favor of socially-constructed political "reality." Even if we are among those who believe he should "marry within his race" (now that's some anachronistic, white supremacist and color-deterministic bullshit!), Tiger Woods has three or four "races" and it should be acceptable for him to marry within any one of them, right?
   
4. His wife is white and blond and very pretty (perception of skin-color and color-associated physical characteristics).
   
5. They have a baby. I wish I had a baby and I would now, if I had had a baby with the white woman who wanted to have a baby with me.
   
6. I could have married a white woman or two, but I wanted (color-aroused desire) to marry a Black woman (color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior).
7. I was an idiot (color-aroused ideation) really, since the white women really loved me and I went through a lot of lonely (color-aroused) misery (color-aroused emotion) after I broke up with them (color-aroused behavior).
8. I'm glad Tiger Woods has the courage to marry whomever the hell he wants to.
9. I think (color-aroused ideation) and fear (color-aroused emotion) that some Black women will get angry (color-aroused emotion) when they see this photograph.
10. They'll say (verbal behavior), "What's Tiger Woods want to go and marry a white woman for? Does he think white women are prettier or somehow better (ideation) than Black women? They'll think (ideation) to themselves, 'I hate (emotion) that fuckin' Tiger Woods!' They'll scold me (verbal and political behavior) for putting this photograph at my blog as 'a model for Black men (ideation) that insults (ideation) Black women'!