The American Journal of Color Arousal

The Fallacy of Race and the Menace of Extreme Color Aroused Disorder (ECAD)

2011-10-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

In order to understand why it is so important that we begin to accuse whites of “color-aroused antagonism” rather than “racism,” we have to examine common assumptions about “race” and “skin color” that are so deeply ingrained in our psyches that they make the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus seem just as self-evident as the NYPD and the IRS. However, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are not real and neither is “race” or “race”, as we will see below.

The American Psychiatric Association is working on recognizing and dealing with “racism” as not merely a heavy weight carried by the victims, but also a heavy psychiatric weight and impairment carried by the psychiatrically ill offenders.

The problem with their approach is that science demands definitions of phenomena that we can all understand and agree upon, based on empirical data, even if we do not agree what causes those phenomena. Over the last sixty years, we have argued in Black Studies classes and thousands of books, as well as the editorial pages of our nation’s largest and smallest newspapers, over what constitutes “racism” and we still have achieved no general (or even intra-group) consensus.

We really should have seen this coming. The fact is that, based on the complete mapping of the human genome, which was completed in 2002, “race” simply does not exist as a matter of biology. It should have been clear to us when the human genome evidence was announced in 2002 that, in our society, “race” is the most ubiquitous “scientific” concept which has no basis whatsoever in science.

“Skin color” exists as surely as paint colors do, and this is fact is easily proved with a variety of scientific instruments, like the Konica Minolta “SpectraMagic™NX” which “makes it easy to inspect and control colour.” Konica Minolta claims that:

To improve general knowledge on colour basics and colour measurement technology, for beginners as well as experts, SpectraMagic™NX comes with a unique online tutorial from Konica Minolta's award winning booklet "Precise Color Communications", explaining important topics such as colour basics, chromatic systems, tolerance settings, standard illuminations and suitable measuring geometry's.

In other words, skin color like the color of everything else in our environment, is a matter amenable to scientific study. To those who say that “race is real,” I say, ‘Yes, skin color and relationships based on skin color are real.’ But, biological “race” is not real, as the following irrefutable scientific evidence has shown.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program,

"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other."

In other words, the Human Genome Project has proven that, as a matter of scientific fact, that which we call "race" does not exist as a matter of biology, and so all references to "race" are references to a fallacy.

There is no genetic data that all Black people have and no white people have, and there is likewise no genetic coding that all white people have but which no Black people have. There is no reliable and meaningful genetic difference between whites, Blacks and others that would support the belief that there are separate species or subspecies of human beings. Although it seemed simple back in 1950 to conflate skin color with “race”, there simply is no way to predict all or most of the differences that will be found in our genes based on our skin color.

The truth is that the term “race” was invented as a propaganda tool by white imperialist slave traders some 400 years ago, and Blacks have “internalized the oppressor” by accepting that we are from a different (and necessarily lesser) species than white people.

Let us be honest and logical: Once you have convinced white and Black people that we are from different species, will it ever be possible for either whites or Blacks to believe that these species are “separate but equal”? Of you cannot! Once you concede that you are from a different species than whites, you have given them and yourself the pseudo-genetic club with which you will eternally be beaten over the head and in the groin and breasts.

We see it every day in the United States when newspapers demand to know whether a Black man’s “race” will prevent him from winning the Republican presidential nomination “race.” When you frame the question that way, it does seem entirely unlikely that white Republicans will vote for someone from a different species or subspecies to be president of the United States. We all believe that humans are more important than other species. However, not all of us agree that Blacks are part of the same human species as whites, and so our relative importance and potential accomplishments are always in doubt.

Will his “race” hurt his “race,” and will his “race” support his “race?” His race will be a key factor in the race if they vote in the Republican race, says race expert, Professor Rayce Race. Yes, it also becomes apparent how ridiculously confusing it is to use the same word, “race,” to mean three different things in one paragraph. These term “race” cannot be disambiguated from the term “race,” because these words have been used interchangeably and overlapping throughout sixty years of arguments about these two concepts that are both referred to by the same name. When we insist on rampant and often intentional ambiguity, we ought not be surprised when we cannot agree with others, or among ourselves, about the most basic aspects of the question at hand.

Look at the question from a linguistic standpoint. A “socialist” is someone who believes in and promotes the social ownership, use of and benefit from property. A “communist” is someone who believes in and promotes the belief in the value of communism. Likewise, a “racist” is someone who believes in and promotes the belief in “race.”

That last group includes a lot of whites, but it also includes at least half of the Black people who blog and write newspaper articles. They prefer to say that someone is from the “Black race” rather than state the obvious: that person whose skin is brown is from the ‘Black skin color group.’

“Race” as a biological belief system is inherently suspect. If the cat and dog species are segregated at the local dog pound, then why should the distinct Black and white species (races) be mixed, to be educated and worship together. The natural conclusion to draw from a belief in separate species or subspecies based on skin color, is that each of these groups has distinct needs and capacities that should form the basis of segregation and discrimination.

Cats get littler cages and Blacks typically work for significantly less wages, even when we perform the same functions as whites. When we are treated differently because of our so-called “race,” it is simply the natural consequence of whites’ and Blacks’ belief that we are substantially genetically different, and surely less deserving than the self-serving white majority group that divides the American pie and all-too-often leaves us only the crumbs.

And yet recent genetic science gives us every reason to abandon the belief that we are from separate and distinct species. "An article called 'Race' and the Human Genome", published at Nature.Com in the "Nature Genetics," section says:

"With very rare exceptions, all of us in the US are immigrants. We bring with us a subset of genes from our homelands, and for many Americans, often first-generation but more commonly second-generation, the plural noun 'homelands' is appropriate. From this perspective, the most immediately obvious characteristic of 'race' is that describing most of us as Caucasian, Asian or African is far too simple. Despite attempts by the US Census Bureau to expand its definitions, the term 'race' does not describe most of us with the subtlety and complexity required to capture and appreciate our genetic diversity. Unfortunately, this oversimplification has had many tragic effects. Therefore, we need to start with the science . . . "

Black studies professors, and two generations of their students, will now stand forth in near-unison to insist that although “race” does not exist, it is still essential that we understand “race” and teach It to others if we are to understand American society and fight for equality. Does anyone else perceive a contradiction here?

Of course, we all understand that “race” is a term of art within the social sciences, referring to power relationships, subjugation and marginalization. And so, say the academics, without the word “race”, it would be impossible for us to discuss power relationships in society that are based on skin color.

I would like to ask them, ‘Why can’t we simply call those relationships “power relationships in society based on skin color,” without dragging in the term ‘race,” which has a pre-existing definition that is based on white supremacist propaganda alone? It is really impossible to discuss the subjugation of Blacks without using the term “race”? Why not just say, “The subjugation of Blacks by whites based on skin color and power”?

As a matter of simple fairness, we have to acknowledge that white supremacists began to use the word “race” about four hundred years before Black sociology professors began to use the same word to mean something entirely different. There is no practical way to disambiguate the concept of “race” from the concept of “race.” Whenever you use the word ”race”, you may be referring to a sociological concept or a biological concept, or both, but there is no way for those who hear you using the word to understand whether you are referring to the 400 year-old definition, the sixty year-old definition, or both at once.

I have offered a relatively simple solution. When we are profiled while driving, the police cannot see our DNA and compare it to that of whites. What they see is our skin color, and their decisions to pursue us based on our skin color is skin color-aroused discrimination and injustice. It has nothing whatsoever to do with 400 year old definitions of “race.” It is based on the color spectrum and the difference between where we and whites are in that spectrum as distinguished by the color of our skin.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a day when we would be” judged by the content of our character rather than the COLOR of our skin.” Dr. King wrote his speeches beforehand and knew the power of words. He said “the color of our skin” because that particular phrasing shows how petty and idiotic it is to discriminate on the basis of skin color. Had he used the word “race” instead, we would have been back to talking about the separation of cats and dogs at the animal shelter.

This is actually a very, very important place to use terms that say precisely and only what we mean. If I say that someone has discriminated against me “on the basis of my race”, I am implicitly conceding that I am from a separate race/subspecies that forms the basis of the discrimination. In so doing, I compound the problem by conceding that Joe and I are from different subspecies, who CAN perhaps be treated differently based on our profound species-based differences.

The legal profession has finessed this problem successfully with the concept of “imputed race.” Even though I don’t have a “race” that is distinct from that of my white co-workers, still my supervisor might im-put a race on me and then treat me accordingly. Here is an example of imputed race: A white man calls regarding a job advertisement, but he is told the job is filled because the person on the other end of the line BELIEVES that the white man is Black, based on his street address, the neighborhood he lives in, and his speech patterns. Likewise, I am treated differently from others who have brown skin because whites cannot distinguish my speech from that of other whites and so they impute participation in the white skin color group (NOT “RACE”) to me.

When we understand that biological “race” simply does not exist, then we begin to look for language and terms that communicate the discrimination we face in our everyday lives. The fact is that when we see our own skin color and perceive the skin color of others, we have been carefully trained to call upon color-aroused ideation, which leads to color-aroused emotion, and all too frequently leads to color-aroused behavior. People whose minds work this way to an extent that they are severely impaired in one or more key areas of their lives suffer from Extreme Color Aroused Disorder.

As I began my book on this topic, I discussed it with a friend who has white skin here in Brazil. She told me the story of another friend whose father disowned her because he discovered that she had a Black boyfriend. Rather than be intimidated by her father’s color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, the white woman moved in with her brown-skinned boyfriend as soon as they arrived at the same college. The white father was livid. When the young white woman and her Black spouse married and had a child, the white father did not go to the wedding and did not speak to his daughter for ten years . . . until he was diagnosed with cancer, his wife had died, and he had no one to take care of him.

At that point, the white father was compelled to accept the financial and personal help of his brown son-in-law. They never discussed the issue that had kept them separated for a decade. Instead , they discussed their common interests in soccer. When the white-skinned father saw his grandchild for the first time, he was overcome with emotion and cried as he held her. In those moments, he clearly saw how his Extreme Color Aroused Disorder had cheated him out of his daughter and his granddaughter for a decade, which was time that could never be recovered in the time the white father had left.

You will never hear the public discuss benign, moderate and severe racism, because racism is not a scientific field of inquiry, like stage four cancer. Racism, we believe, is so awful that it is always at its worst, and so we refuse even to admit the idea that some cases, like the one above, are worse than others.

When we discuss color-aroused disorder, we do make reference to its severity, be it benign, moderate or severe. Color Aroused Disorder is severe when it causes an individual to, for example:

· Confront strangers on the street on the basis of their skin color, risking bodily harm to themselves or criminal charges against themselves;

· Engage in any color-aroused criminal activity that risks loss of social status, liberty, family contacts, income and professional maintenance and advancement;

· Causes a family member to reject other family members based on their interactions with people of a different skin color;

· lose a job because of color-aroused antagonism toward co-workers, supervisors and/or those one supervises;

· Loose opportunities to find a suitable marital partner because of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, often reinforced by pressure from family, social group and others.

· causes an employer to be subject to civil fines as a result of a worker participation in “noose-play,” color-associated epithets, and causes a hostile work environment

· undercutting other employees in a manner that leads to decreased productivity;

· Shoot co-workers because they interact without regard to skin color differences;

· Be referred to “sensitivity training” because of on-the-job color-aroused antagonism toward others.

The list of ways to express Extreme Color Aroused Disorder is very long, especially compared to the paucity of psychiatric services designed to treat the disorder. Doug Williams was a white-skinned Lockheed employee with a years-long history of antagonizing both white and brown-skinned employees, because he didn’t believe the “races” should mix. Here it is clear that part of the ideation that led to his illness was the belief that distinct races existed in the first place.

After years of treating Doug Williams’ on-the-job color-aroused harassment of others as a mild form of color arousal, Lockheed ordered Doug Williams to participate in a sensitivity training in which he would be in close quarters with Blacks and whites from his workplace. A psychiatrist have been brought in to screen Doug for color-aroused disorder. Had a competent psychiatrist been involved, the doctor would quickly have realized that Doug Williams was already far too sensitive to his and others’ skin colors in his environment. Additional “sensitivity” would be reckless and dangerous, because it could push Doug over the edge, unless it was carried out in a facility where Mr, Williams would not pose a safety risk to himself and others.

Instead, Lockheed assumed that ‘all racism is the same.’ They apparently did not consult a competent color-aroused disorder specialist psychiatrist about Doug’s color-aroused ideation (e.g. pro-segregation), and emotion (fury), and behavior (physically confronting co-workers about heterochromatic friendships).

Doug Williams entered the training session, returned to his car for his gun, and shot several co-workers, including some with white skin and some with brown skin. Then Doug turned the weapon upon himself and committed suicide.

Extreme Color Aroused Disorder is the most dangerous both to the sufferer and to those around him. The two cases recounted above should make it clear that color-aroused disorder is not a disorder in which there is a culprit and a victim. An individual with Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder sometimes does as much harm to himself—professionally and personally—as he does to those whom he targets.

People with Extreme Color Aroused Disorder share many of the symptoms of people with other psychiatric illnesses, such as:

· constant alertness to color-arousing stimuli in the environment
· constant stress over the “risk” that Blacks will advance, combined sometimes with the ideation that Blacks advancement is degrades white people;
· Uncontrolled anger and fury that leads to crimes, including hate crimes, that jeopardize the victim’s liberty;
· Inability to advance in a profession, e.g. politics, because past expressions of color-aroused hatred and disrespect make the individual clearly unfit for public office;
· sociopathic lack of empathy for others based on skin color;
· Inability to see their own behavior as the source of their thinking, feeling and behavioral problems associated with skin color.

Sixty years after we began talking about “racism,” we are still debating whether a Black person can be “racist.” Instead, we should be asking whether a Black person’s Extreme Color Aroused Disorder can render Black person’s life ineffective and unmanageable. When I told my niece I was writing a book on this subject, she introduced me to a Black woman whose situation provided the answer quite clearly. The woman explained that she was extremely sensitive to observing interactions between Black men and white women.

She said that:

· Black men should go out with Black women;
· It was a personal put –down to her when she saw a Black man who had chosen a white woman instead;
· When she went to clubs, she was hyper-sensitive and hyper-vigilant to heterochromatic couples involving a Black man and a white woman;
· When she saw such couples, even though they were strangers, she felt compelled to confront the white woman and the Black man, which often lead to fights that could get her arrested, and thereby make it impossible for her to go to work;
· The issue came to dominate her life to the extent that she fought in the family home with her brown-skinned brother about his white girlfriend, and this caused a dramatic inability for her to continue her otherwise close relationship with her own brother;
· She felt low self-esteem because she was not chosen by Black men;
· Her life was in a downward spiral in which she could not control her behavior toward heterochromatic couples in public, she could not form or maintain a relationship with a Black man, and she felt lousy about her own weight and her personhood.

In this case, issues of skin color had come to dominate her life to a degree that she was imminently at risk of being arrested for her confrontations with strangers in bars and clubs. Yes, she and people like her sometimes cause pervasive hardship for couples who do not share a skin color. But, the obsession with this issue—the ideation, emotion and behavior—were robbing this Black woman of the quality of her own life. She needed urgent psychiatric help from a competent, knowledgeable and experienced Color Arousal Disorder professional in order to:

· make herself safe from potentially dangerous confrontations, and

· learn to value herself regardless of what choices some Black men make, and

· Forgive her brother for having a white girlfriend, if only to continue to have a relationship with her brother, whom she valued and with whom she lived in harmony, until he dated a white woman.

Debate this endlessly as a political issue, if you must, but also acknowledge that it can become a fundamental psychiatric issue, based on our awareness of our own skin color and our perception of the skin colors of others. There are far too many examples of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder leading to ruthless and notorious murders for us to continue endlessly talking about “racism” without acknowledging the daily toll that Extreme Color Aroused Disorder takes on Blacks, whites and the American “family.”

School Makes Black Football Prodigy Victim of His Success by Banning Him from Showing Overwhelming Touchdown ProwessWhite Scheme to Discourage Africans from Running in White Countries

2011-10-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

The News One for Black America blog, which is part of the Black Planet Universe, reports that:

An eleven-year-old [Black] football prodigy from Arkansas [named Demias Jimerson] has been banned from scoring touchdowns due to his dominance on the field.

This happened in Arkansas, where the players of the opposing white teams were prevented from winning because this Black player is so much faster and better than they are.

It seems to me that rather than pulling the amazing Black quarterback from the football court (or whatever it's called), they should endeavor to teach the other teams better defense. If they did that, they might even discover that a white football player was able to learn to be so effective at defense that the eleven year-old Black runner couldn't get to the other end of the football field.

Instead of asking white players to rise to the occasion, the school takes the really outstanding player out, so that the white students can remain mediocre and win anyway. The Black student is not larger or brawnier than the rest of the students. He seems just to be incredibly faster and super at positioning himself to catch and run with the ball. There has to be something useful the white opponents could learn by trying to stay competitive.

Sometimes it happens that Blacks just win and win and win, unstoppably. The UK Guardian reports:

London witnessed another swashbuckling performance by Kenya's incredible marathon runners on Sunday. Kenyan athletes finished in the top three places in the men's race (despite their biggest star, Olympic champion Sammy Wanjiru, pulling out just weeks before the race), and also first and third in the women's race.

It began as a trickle – when Joseph Nzau won the Chicago marathon in 1983 – grew into a river, and has now become a roaring, unstoppable torrent. Last autumn, out of 42 elite men's marathons, 38 were won by Kenyans and four by Ethiopians.

The spring marathon season has so far been an even more dominant story, with Kenyans winning the men's and women's prizes in virtually all of the big races so far, from Paris to Rotterdam, London to Dubai.

In related news from Holland, race organizers are offering Africans only 1% of what a Dutch winner would win if he won the race, in an attempt to discourage perennial-winner Africans from racing and winning. Dutch News reports that:

The organisers of the Utrecht marathon are offering prize money of just €100 to Kenyan nationals if they win the event, but a Dutch winner will get €10,000, the Volkskrant reports on Saturday.

The aim is to discourage Kenyans from taking part in the 42 km race, nicknamed the Dutch Battle, on April 25, the organisers say.

Last year Kenyan runners won the Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Enschede and Leiden marathons. The Utrecht race has been won by a Kenyan for the past four years and the organisers hope to give top Dutch athletes a chance to win this year.

Event director Louran van Keulen told the paper the prize money trick had been worked out with the help of a lawyer. Banning Kenyans outright would break discrimination laws but discouraging them from taking part is legal, Van Keulen said.

The race website does not mention the prize differences but says ‘only athletes who have been invited to take part are eligible for big money prizes’.

According to television programme EenVandaag, only people with a Dutch passport have been invited to take part in the race.

This is really insulting to the Dutch, effectively conceding that there is no human way that a Dutch person can learn to run as fast as an African. That's color-aroused, but white people often don't care what they have to do to tip the scales in their favor, when they can't win on merit alone. It would be better for Dutch self-esteem if the trained in Africa and learned to run as Kenyans and Ethiopians do.

Back in Arkansas, all of the students would learn something about humility by watching this prodigy, Demias Jimerson, run past them until he's practically out of sight. It would teach kids that there are times when you simply are not going to win because there is someone dramatically better than you. It would teach the losing kids to try to emulate the Black winner. And it would teach the losing kids to brainstorm and look for a strategy or strategies that neutralized the speed of the little Black prodigy. Instead of taking the Black kid off of the field, the white students should get up at six in the morning and learn to run faster or block and tackle better.

Taking this kid off the field is like taking Tiger Woods out of golf in order to give white players a chance to win. Instead, the right model is the one white women tennis players evolved to beat Venus and Serena Williams. Since the Williams sisters served approximately 33% faster than the white women in the sport, the white women were compelled to learn to be stronger and put more strength into their serves. Venus and Serena Williams made all players play harder, regardless of their skin color, if they wanted to have any chance at winning the big trophies.

In this little town in Arkansas, the coaches of the losing teams simply need to teach their players to run faster and block better, or accept perpetual losses when they are perpetual losers.

Presidential Candidate Rick Perry's Color-Aroused Dysfunction

2011-10-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

It's a shame, but there's not much difference between naming a forest "N-head" and naming a Washington football team, "The Redskins." The differences between these behaviors in these two circumstances are too small to be worth trying to parse and describe.

However, American society is much more attuned to the fact that using the "N" word is facially color-aroused and constitutes an act of color-aroused animosity, when white people use it, and particularly when they use it blithely, as if they think no one (important enough to be considered) will be offended by it.

It seems clear from the reporting that for a number of years Governor Perry told his friends and supporters, "Let's meet up at "N-head." This is an example of "extreme color-aroused disorder" (ECAD). You can see that it is by the amount of blowback he's now receiving and the risk that it could end his political career, as the maccaca (sp?) epithet ended Goerge Allen(sp?)'s senatorial aspirations and perhaps his public political career.

Two of the problems with the word and use of the term "racism" are that:

(1) we immediately start asking whether a particular act constitutes "racism," which reflects our lack of a clear and commonly understood definition of "racism", and

(2) once we decide that an act constitutes "racism," then we feel obliged to take yet another step and decide if someone "is" a "racist."

If an act or acts of color-aroused antagonism end your political career then that is a strong indication that the act or acts of color-aroused antagonism are "severe" in nature.

If you lose your job because of an act or acts of color-aroused antagonism, then that, too, is an indication that the color-aroused antagonism is "severe" enough to be affecting your career in a very negative way.

We should decide what constitutes "severe" color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior disorder by examining the circumstances to determine the degree to which the symptoms are impairing the individual in important areas of life, e.g. public perception, social standing, economic standing, work history and present work efforts, and political careers.

By that standard, it's clear that Governor Perry presently has a difficulty with color-aroused antagonism (whether he knows it or not). If the extreme behavior continues for six months or more then his color-aroused antagonism's extreme nature render him diagnosable with Extreme Color Aroused Disorder (ECAD). Just because he has this disorder today does not mean that he will still have it six months or a year from now, which will further frustrate those who want to declare others to be "racists" and then, once having so branded them, to continually fight or dismiss them because of what they once were and possibly, but not necessarily, continue to be.

Contrary to what many people believe, there really is nothing wrong with bringing the scientific process into the area once called "racism." It doesn't hurt us to look at things in a consistently methodical and objective way.

Admittedly, one of the theoretical difficulties with the diagnosis of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder it that it depends upon subjective circumstances. One could argue that being involved in the slave trade was not Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder because it actually helped white people to build their wealth and standing in their communities and internationally. To that, I would respond that engaging in the slave trade involved color-aroused animosity and antagonism, even though the white social reference group most important to other whites approved of the practices at the time at the time. Antagonism is antagonism regardless of the times.

Some people don't want the scientific method mixed with their "racism" accusations. It is true that many people WANT to be carried along by their unguided emotions and entirely subjective opinions. These people should not be in a position to judge what constitutes Extreme Color Aroused Disorder (ECAD). Anti-scientific people, like those who continue to rely on the concepts and epithets of "racism" and "racist" respectively simply lack the intellectual rigor and discipline that is required to participate usefully in any discussion of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD).

Forensic Psychology Writer Seeks to Publish Article on Blacks and Violence

2011-09-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

AMJCA has received an offer and request from Allison Gamble, of forensicpsychology.net, to write and publish here an article discussing:

why is there so much violence in the black community? The article will include: statistics on crime in impoverished neighborhoods, explain why violence is more prevalent, and explain how Its not just because one race is more violent than another but because the way people are oppressed and through oppression comes coping mechanisms to get through life.

This Journal's response is as follows (but is subject to public comment from all quarters):

Allison:

I believe that one of the reasons there is so much crime in some Black communities is that whites hate Blacks and Blacks have turned that anger inward. Take, for example, your use of the word "race." What do you mean when you use the word "race"? Are you suggesting that people with white skin and people with brown skin are from different species? If you are, then I think that insults Blacks more than the "N" word does.

Whether it comes from Black or white people, I believe the assertion that "race" exists at all is a profound insult to Blacks that can only be based in malice or ignorance. I, quite frankly, am sick and tired of the "R" word. It is, in my opinion anachronistic and anti-science.

If you would like to write an article explaining why you still use the "R" word, even though the US Government's Human Genome Project has declared conclusively that "race" simply does NOT exist, then I would be very interested in reading and publishing your article on that topic. I think we all will learn something, no matter what you say about what you mean when you use the "R" word.

When you use the "R" word, are you talking about the Black "skin color group" or are you asserting that we are from a different species? If you are not asserting that we are from a different species, then why do you use the word "race"?

Having said that, if you want to write about Black people and crime, and you demonstrate that you have something new and original to bring to the topic, then I'll gladly publish what you write. I would just request that you either define "race" as a factor in your research or find a way to describe what you mean to say without asserting that I and other people with brown skin belong to a species that is separate and distinct from that comprising the white skin-color-group.

If you insist that you cannot discuss this topic without using the word and the concept of "race," then I insist that you explain and support your definition of the "R" word in light of the findings of the US Government's Human Genome Project and the following articles:

'Race' and the human genome ppS1 - S2
Ari Patrinos
doi:10.1038/ng2150Full text | PDF (103K)
Editorial Top
The unexamined population pS3
doi:10.1038/ng2151Full text | PDF (50K)
Commentaries Top
Changing the paradigm from 'race' to human genome variation ppS5 - S7
Charmaine D M Royal & Georgia M Dunston
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1454Abstract | Full text | PDF (95K)
Forensic genetics and ethical, legal and social implications beyond the clinic ppS8 - S12
Mildred K Cho & Pamela Sankar
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1594Abstract | Full text | PDF (104K)
What we do and don't know about 'race', 'ethnicity', genetics and health at the dawn of the genome era ppS13 - S15
Francis S Collins
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1436Abstract | Full text | PDF (330K)
Perspectives Top
Conceptualizing human variation ppS17 - S20
S O Y Keita, R A Kittles, C D M Royal, G E Bonney, P Furbert-Harris, G M Dunston & C N Rotimi
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1455Abstract | Full text | PDF (102K)
Implications of biogeography of human populations for 'race' and medicine ppS21 - S27
Sarah A Tishkoff & Kenneth K Kidd
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1438Abstract | Full text | PDF (270K)
Genetic variation, classification and 'race' ppS28 - S33
Lynn B Jorde & Stephen P Wooding
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1435Abstract | Full text | PDF (850K)
Will tomorrow's medicines work for everyone? ppS34 - S42
Sarah K Tate & David B Goldstein
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1437Abstract | Full text | PDF (161K)
Are medical and nonmedical uses of large-scale genomic markers conflating genetics and 'race'? ppS43 - S47
Charles N Rotimi
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1439Abstract | Full text | PDF (118K)
Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups ppS48 - S53
Joanna L Mountain & Neil Risch
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1456Abstract | Full text | PDF (226K)
Implications of correlations between skin color and genetic ancestry for biomedical research ppS54 - S60
E J Parra, R A Kittles & M D Shriver
Published online: 26 October 2004 | doi:10.1038/ng1440Abstract | Full text | PDF (1,666K) | Supplementary Information

"The Help" Movie Perpetuates Lousy Roles for Black Actors

2011-09-07T08:05:00.001-07:00

Like Granny Standing for Truth, I wouldn't pay to see "The Help" for two reasons:

(1) It won't show up in Brazilian movie theatres anytime soon;

(2) Brazilian television is full of all-white 70-member casts in which one of only two Black actors happens to be a maid. I'm tired of white-centric movies. They almost always show color-aroused discrimination against Blacks in casting (no Blacks in a movie about New York?) and so they are offensive as well as boring.

I'm tired of seeing Black women as maids and Black men "Driving Miss Daisy (sp?)," and I'm not going to encourage Hollywood or Brazilian television by watching that crap.

As you know, I don't use the word "racist" because it comes from the word "race," and "race" doesn't exist as a matter of science. I prefer the terms "color-aroused antagonism" and "color-aroused marginalization" and "color-aroused discrimination in hiring" because these terms are based on the scientific fact of the existence of skin color. We all agree that skin color DOES exist, although we may disagree on its meaning and import in our societies

The word "racist" is too facile, too easy, too general. The term "Color-aroused" forces you to think about what negative behavior is based on the color arousal, such as "discrimination" or "humiliation," or both and more. This teaches us to be more precise and teaches our readers (including our children) the various forms that color-arousal takes and the harms that color-arousal creates, like color-aroused "red-lining" in the housing market, and color-aroused loan denials and/or higher interest rates.

Whites are right to be sick of hearing the word "racism," because it is so general and ambiguous as to be nearly meaningless and always semantically wrong.

"Social-ism" is the belief in and propagation of joint societal social control and use of property, right? So, logically "rac-ism" is the belief in "race" and the propagation of arrangements based on that belief. If we believe that racism exists then we must believe that race exists, and if we believe that "race" exists, then we are "racists."

If YOU or I say that two people are of different "races," then doesn't that make us "racists?" Of course it does, because we are implicitly saying and explicitly implying that we believe in and propagate the belief in the existence of "races."

Since we are propagating the belief in the existence of races, we really ought to ask ourselves, 'Do we believe there are separate biological "races"?'

If so, then let's just acknowledge that, like the Stormfront white supremacist blog, we are "racists." We believe that skin color means "race" and the words can be used interchangeably.

Now, someone will stand forth indignantly and insist that "racism" exists, and it does. "Racism" is a compendium of beliefs and behaviors based on the belief in the existence of "race." Using the word "racism" is one of the behaviors based on the belief in the existence of separate "races."

How can you discriminate against others on the basis of "race" if "race" itself does not exist? The answer is that you can discriminate against others on the basis of "imputed race." Race does not exist, but others im-"put"-e a racial tag on you and then treat you accordingly.

The term "racism" also has another meaning: "color-aroused subjugation and marginalization." But this certainly is confusing to use one word to denote two different and contradictory beliefs systems. Why not say what we mean, instead of using the same word that white supremacists at the Stormfront blog use, while hoping that our readers, Black and white, will understand the difference?

Because Stormfront uses the word "race" in a way that predates our sociology and power-based usage by about 400 years, we are compelled to disambiguate by leaving the words "race" and "racism" to the white supremacists. They used those words first and they have a preexisting claim on them.

As such, it simply far too easy to confuse our readers when we use the same word to mean something entirely different. It's like using the word "sugar" to mean both and "sugar" and "salt." That linguistic practice would cause confusion, chaos and ruined food in the kitchen, just as it presently causes confusion, chaos and ruined interactions in our society, between people of different skin colors and between people of the same skin colors.

Such confusion is to be expected when one root word has been given different and largely contradictory meanings. Our human ability to vocalize sounds and words is far too great for us to allow ourselves be bogged down, and perpetuate confusion, by using one vocalization to mean two different and contradictory things.

SCLC and Tarrant County, TX Chastized for Use of the "R" Word

2011-09-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

In FORT WORTH, TEXAS, "The Southern Christian Leadership Conference cordially invite leaders to lunch with Sister Joyce James, Associate Deputy Executive Commissioner for the Center for Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities at the Texas Health and Human Service Commission." The invitation to the meeting asks the question, "Can We Undo Racism?" The meeting is also intended to "increase efforts to improve racial disproportionality in Texas."

One way to overcome "racism" in Texas is by no longer using a word that insinuates that whites and Blacks and Latinos are from separate and different "races." We are not from separate "races." We are all members of the same human species.

Therefore it is not possible for people to discriminate against us on the basis of "race" because "race," itself, as a matter of genomic science, simply does not exist, according to the US Department of Energy's Human Genome Project.

Anti-discrimination laws have long recognized that we can be discriminated against on the basis of "imputed race. In these cases, people believe the victim is of another race when, in fact, all humans are from the same species. It is insulting to use vocabulary that implies otherwise.

Skin color and skin color groups obviously exist and have been the basis for discrimination and the deprivation of rights and liberty. But differences in skin color do not create separate "races" in the realm of biology. It is time we allowed the anachronistic and humiliating word "race" fall into the garbage bin of historical misconceptions. Ironically, the more you use the word "racism," the more you lend support to the unscientific and offensive belief that we are from separate "races."

There are no separate "races." When we accept that we are all of the same species, then we will be intellectually much closer to overcoming discrimination on the basis of skin color and skin color group.

Unquestionably, the ubiquitous use of the terms "race" and "racism" and "racist" underscore and lend credence to the preposterous idea that separate races ever existed in the first place. The belief that there are separate "races" helps to perpetuate systemic and individual color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior.

In 2008, we did not elect a President of a different "race." We did not elect a "biracial" President. We elected a president of a different skin color when compared to the skin color of the Presidents who precede him. We elected a president whose parents were a hetero-chromatic couple, of different skin colors. Where the word "race" tries to separate us into different species, with no basis in science, the alternative term "skin color" acknowledges the obvious. America and the entire world have populations with a broad array of skin colors. But, "race" does not exist on the basis of skin color or on any other basis.

Is the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation Excluding HBCU’s From Research?

2011-08-29T16:51:00.001-07:00

by L.N. Rock

According to the American Diabetes Association, African Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes as 3.7 million or 14.7 percent of all African Americans aged 20 years or older have diabetes. In addition:

-African Americans are 1.8 times more likely to have diabetes as non Hispanic whites
-25 percent of African Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have diabetes.
-1 in 4 African American women over 55 years of age has diabetes.

The American Diabetes Association (the Association) is a not-for-profit voluntary health agency that works to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. In October 1994, the Association’s Board of Directors established the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation, Inc. (the Foundation), as a subsidiary of the Association. The objective of the Foundation is to fund diabetes-related research leading to the prevention and cure of diabetes, the prevention and cure of the complications of diabetes, and new and improved therapies for individuals affected by diabetes.

Get this, the Foundation is exempt from income taxes under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (the Code) and charitable contributions to the Foundation qualify for charitable tax deductions as described in the code. The Foundation has been classified as an organization that is not a private foundation under Section 509(a) of the code. Even though they appear to have a bias against HBCU’s and black researchers. More on this later…

Research grants awarded by the Foundation generally extend over a period of one to three years, subject to renewal on an annual basis.

Upon investigation and review of the financial reports and records, this writer has found that Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been totally left out of the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation, Inc ward process as selected grantees.

Compared to the general population, African American researchers and HBCU’s are not receiving grant research dollars from the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation.

As an example, the Foundation provided over $33 million in research grants in 2010 without one gong to a HBCU. If one looks at their annual reports for ADA 2009 Research Foundation Financials and 2009 IRS Form 990 you will see the same challenge in the 2008 IRS Form 990, (check out the grantee database for information on ADA-funded research grant awardees), 2007 IRS Form 990 and 2006 IRS Form 990, no black awardees, no HBCU’s researchers

In other words the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation, Inc has not awarded not one research grant to HBCUs, even with the high incidence of black Americans with diabetes.

It is clear to this writer that the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation is saying that it has no interest in developing a strong research relationship with HBCU’s in relationship to issues of research related to the prevention and cure of diabetes, the prevention and cure of the complications of diabetes, and the development of new and improved therapies for individuals affected by diabetes.”

Although the ADA Research Foundation asks Americans to make a donation to the American Diabetes Association to help fund leading-edge research that affects the health and well-being of millions of people living with diabetes. It’s clear that funds are being awarded to friends and pals of the Board of ADA, and HBCU’s are being left out of the grant awards.

This should be no surprise. Rob Stein over at The Washington Post just reported on how Black scientists are significantly less likely than white researchers to win grants from the National Institutes of Health, according to an audit released Thursday that confirmed disturbing suspicions inside the agency about a lingering bias against African Americans.

Who said education is the great equalizer? When it comes to color aroused bigotry, it makes no difference if it’s NIH or the American Diabetes Association Foundation; color continues to play a factor in the way we address research of diseases in this country, particularly as it relates to African Americans.

It’s too bad for America, too bad for those with diabetes, and too bad for HBCU’s and black researchers.

L. N. Rock is a management consultant, Democratic strategist, and 2008 credentialed blogger at the Democratic National Convention. He blogs at African American Pundit.

Brazil is Half Brown, But Has No Brown-Skinned Women Among 27 Miss Brazil 2011 Candidates

2011-08-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

Look at this year's candidates for Ms. Brasil. Of approximately 27 from each state and the Federal District in the country, not a single one has brown skin, even though the population of Brazil includes 50% of Brazilians with brown or tan Afro-descendent skin (see statistics below).

Fonte: IBGE * 2005 , ** Censo 2010

Etnias (Ethnicities) no Brasil

Pardos: 42,6% (means brown skin, like e.g. Francis L. Holland)
Brancos: 49,7%
Negros: 6,9% (means brown or black skin)
Indígenas: 0,3%
Amarelos: 0,5%

The population of the state of Bahia, where I live, has a ratio of ten brown-skinned people for every three white-skinned people, and yet the state's representative at the Miss Brazil contest will be white-skinned, whatever her heritage may be. And for at least the last two years, Ms. Bahia has been white.

In all fairness and reality, if you carefully study the faces of each of the women in the above video, specialist in who has recent African ancestry may be able to identify three or four women whose noses and lips are of a shape often associated with brown skin, even though their skin is not brown. And some of these women may proudly state that they are Black. However, the skin color test is quite evident here, as it is in many other parts of Brazilian society.

Miss. Amapá, Miss Ceará, Miss Espiritu Santo, Miss Maranhão, Miss Mato Grosso, Miss Paraíba, Miss Paraná, Miss Sergipe and Miss Tocantins skin colors represent the outer limits of brownness for those seeking employment as dancers, guests and actors on many television soap operas and variety shows. Any darker and they become invisible.

Just look at the all-white cast of a recent miniseries, called "Tí, Tí, Tí, to confirm that only three out of seventy-six characters have unambiguously brown skin, and one of the two Black women plays a maid. In a country that is half brown, a television series has whites out-numbering Blacks by a ratio of 25 to 1. Color-determined roles are worse on Brazilian television than politics South Africa's historical apartheid regimes.

The Ms. Brazil website foresees the controversy over an all-white competition and so it points out, in a special section entitled "Black Beauty," that one of the candidates for Ms. Brasil in 2010, Ms. Ceará, had copper-toned skin. So, if you wait until next year, you may discover that a 50% brown and black-skinned country has at least one brown or black skinned contestant for Miss Brazil. This year, the contest might as well be for Miss Switzerland.

I do not refer to "race" above, because it is entirely possible in Brazil that one or more of the women in the video has a brown-skinned parent or grandparent. So, it would be arbitrary and speculative to say that all of these women with white skin are from the "white race."

Instead, it is entirely possible that one or more of the women shown here considers herself to be Black. But NONE of them, out of approximately 27, has brown skin. (There are 26 states and the Federal District in Brazil, each with a contestant for Miss Brazil.)

I would mention something like this to my beige-skin step-daughters, but they wouldn't understand how it was relevant that they had virtually zero percent chance of becoming Ms. Brazil, simply because their skin is too dark.

My obsession with realities such as these is one of the reasons I could not get along with my wife's daughters (e.g. I felt disgusted at the smell and the reality of their hot irons burning their hair straight, and their inability to understand why all-white institutions bothered me so), and so we split up. You might well say that my family was a victim of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, at the individual, familial and societal levels.

Their mother would understand. She has Rasta Locks, unlike the entire herd of Ms. Brazil candidates, all with straight and/or straightened hair.

Deryl Dedmond Case Spotlights Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder

2011-08-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

The case of Deryl Dedmond, a white teenager who seems to have suffered from Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD) that led him to murder a Black stranger, seems to be getting massive attention in the United States, as it should. Apparently, Deryl Dedmond led a group of white teenagers to get in their cars and trucks, drive from their all-white suburb to Jackson, Misssissippi, pick a Black man at random, beat him to within an inch of his life, and then run the Black man over with a pick-up truck. "According to CNN, the teens were specifically hunting for a black victim."

Curiously, police have decided to charge only two of several white youths in this case, including murder for Dedmond and assault for his companion. Compare this to the Jena Six case, where no one was seriously hurt and yet three Black men were charged with acts including attempted murder. This case will be an object lesson about the criminal (in)justice system, regarding the way that Blacks and whites are investigated charged and sentenced in similar cases, based on their skin color.

It also seems obvious to me (see the above video) that Deryl Dedmond was led to the act he committed by a serious mental illness called "Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder" (ECAD) because:

Witnesses say that Dedmond showed aggressive and antagonistic behavior toward Blacks over a period of years.
Dedmond came to the attention of people in his community as a result of his color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior;
Witnesses believed it was only a matter of time before Dedmond committed a serious color aroused crime, which is a hallmark of Extreme Color Aroused Disorder. Anyone who will kill a stranger based on his skin color has a serious mental illness called Extreme Color Aroused Disorder. Color Aroused Disorder is "extreme" when the color arousal leads one person to murder another, because murder itself is extreme and often leads to long jail sentences that separate the mentally ill person from his family, friends and educational or professional career. An illness that seriously harms a person in that many important areas of his life is "extreme" per se.

Now that we have seen what Deryl could do based on his awareness, ideation, emotion and behavior concerning his own skin color and that of another skin-color group, let's see how the criminal justice system and the media treat this case.

Hopefully, Deryl Dedmond is already getting some psychiatric attention that might eventually lead from an extreme condition that causes him to commit murder and lessen the illness until he can at least not kill based on his ideation and emotion. He may need medication that enables him to control strong emotions more successfully and also to help him reduce his rage to the point where he can engage meaningfully in therapy that addresses is apparent Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD).

White Youths Kill Black Stranger in Color-Aroused Crime

2011-08-08T19:14:00.000-07:00

How can you tell whether an alleged act or acts reflect and are symptomatic of Extreme Color-Aroused Ideation, Emotion and Behavior Disorder? In criminal cases, among other evidence, people's statements (verbally expressed ideation) may reflect their hate, fear, envy, jealousy, or even curiosity, love, lust, empathy and caring, based on skin color.

For example,

CNN is reporting the alleged hate crime [against] James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, who was beaten and then murdered [run over by a truck driven] by a group of white teens intent on hurting a black person. Deryl Dedmon, Jr., 18, of Brandon, Mississippi and his friends were at a party drinking when Dedmon allegedly told friends they should leave, saying "let's go fuck with some niggers," according to law enforcement officials.

When ideation and emotion are based on skin color, and skin color is the cue for a person to commit a criminal act, then you have a color-aroused behavior that, in many cases, may bring civil and criminal penalties. It is important to note that it is the illicit behavior that may bring civil and criminal punishments, while these punishments would NOT result from "mere" extreme color-aroused ideation and emotion, without the illicit behavior. The illicit behavior is a key symptom sometimes present in Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder.

Is all color-aroused violence a "hate crime"? As a legal matter it might be, but as a matter of psychology, not necessarily. If the white-skinned Dedmon killed the victim because the white anti-black antagonist was jealous of Black people and their Black President, then the crime might factually be a crime of envy, hate, jealousy and vengeance. If you if you imagine Dedmon in his first meeting with the prison psychologist, his resentments against Black people may be based on a number of emotions, since virtually no one feels only hate, consciously and unconsciously. Everybody has a panoply of feelings. A white man might hate a Black US Senate candidate because he fears the Black candidate will be elected.

I am painfully aware that a lot of Black people and white people believe that any attempt to undertand psychologically why a culprit did what he did risks that the culprit may be perceived as not as culpable for what he did, and therefore might receive a lesser sentence, if he receives a sentence at all.

In this case, where there is video cam evidence and where Dedmon admitted his crime after the fact, Dedmon could receive a strong prison sentence, unless his case is tried before an all-white jury. Perhaps the case may be tried before an all-white jury, and then Dedmon might go free, in spite of his crime that was based on anti-Black antagonistic ideation, emotion and criminal behavior.

When a person assaults and kills a stranger based on the skin color of the victim and the skin color of the accused, then that is a strong indicator that the culprit has Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder, since no one without the disorder would risk imprisonment for the purpose of targeting a stranger based on skin color. Only a person with Extreme Color Aroused Disorder would do that. Disorder is "extreme" when, among other facts:

The behavior violated laws such that it could bring or be likely to lead to criminal charges or civil liability against the assailant(s);
The assailants did not know the victim and were looking to harm someone, anyone, based on his brown skin color;
The assailant risks that the man they attack might be armed or have friends nearby, and so attacking the victim could very well lead to physical harm for the assailants;
The assailants did not stand to gain or save any money through this behavior, but could only lose money so the assailants' behavior was not self-interested but was likely to be self-destructive;
The assailants run the risk of spending time in jail or even being executed for their crime;
The assailants lose social, political and potential professional opportunities as a result of the behavior.

The above focuses on the irrational and self-destructive nature of the behavior, which is indicative of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD). Of course, behavior can be self-interested (i.e. stealing from someone based on their skin color) and still be symptomatic of Extreme Color Aroused Disorder.

When the accused Mr. Dedmon has gets to prison and speaks with the prison psychologist for the first time, Dedmon might well reveal that he was envious of Black people, many of whom have successful jobs, nice cars and a happy future ahead of them.

Is it wrong to acknowledge that a crime might have been motivated by color-aroused envy or color-aroused jealousy and/or color-aroused fear, as well as color-aroused hatred?

If a Black man kills a white man because he fears that the white man will take his wife, based on his knowledge that his wife has a thing for white men, then the killing of a white man by a Black man could be aroused by jealousy, envy and fear that leads to antagonistic behavior. If this seems complex, it is. Human beings are believed to have powers of feeling, thought and behavior that others in the animal kingdom do not have. If you accept that proposition, then you must also accept that human minds are copiously full of all sorts ideation and emotion that sometimes lead to behavior.

If you hear anyone trying to describe all of this with one word, e.g. "racism" or "hate," then you know that person simply has not taken the time and effort to understand the mechanics of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, and they may even be averse to complex thought about inherently complex people.

Don't Confuse Race with Race

2011-08-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

I just read about a disappointing book in which a Black woman author says that "race" doesn't exist but "race" does and so we have to teach everyone the difference between "race" and "race". That's like teaching people the difference between "orange" and "orange." Do you mean the same thing when you say orange (fruit) that I mean when I say orange (color)? Unless we discuss it for about twenty years, we won't even be able to tell the difference.

Meanwhile, other malevolent people will take advantage of the confusion for all sorts of evil purposes.

I don't like that orange! Do you?
Oh, no, I hate that orange.
Do you like the oranges?
Oh, no! I can't stand any of them.
Would you like an orange?
Oh, yes, I need the vitamin "C".

If anything ever needed to be disambiguated, it's the vocabulary that use when we say "race" and when, on the other hand, we say "race." The author said it's simple to tell the difference, but if it's so simple then why did she have to write a book about it and why should anyone buy her book about something that is obvious?

Will Obama's race hurt his race? No, I don't think the race will matter much, unless the race doesn't turn out to vote. Now, I'm realizing that this race is for real! No, a race doesn't matter at all. It the conduct of the race that matters in the race between the races, and I think Obama has race locked up as much as he has funding for the race. Is Obama fund-raising for his race instead of fundraising for all of the Democratic Party races? Although race is a scientific fallacy, race is for real and its significance cannot be underestimated.

Are you confused now? Don't feel bad because everyone is.

Francis

African American Book Review: Sylvia Harris' Autobiography of Bipolar Disorser and Salvation Through Love of Horse Racing

2011-05-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

The new book, "Long Shot: My Bipolar Life and the Horses Who Saved Me," is a must-read for those African Americans like me who struggle with bipolar illness, as well as for professionals caregivers and family members who want to understand Bipolar patients and have a sincere desire to help. As someone who has seen this process from the inside, I can and do vouch for the anguish it causes in the patient, family and career.

The author, Sylvia Harris, describes exactly what it was like to be somewhat manic, floridly manic, psychotically manic and depressed. She recalls a time when she cycled through these stages with no idea of what has happening to her, clueless as to the exit from the perpetual emotional roller coaster.

Through her painfully honest autobiography, she gives readers an inside view of her manic-depressive problem and how she overcame its worst aspects by striving for meaning and healthy excitement. Desiring to become a horse trainer and eventually a jockey, she demonstrates that we need not achieve all that we want in order to benefit from the pursuit of our dreams.

Without specifically saying so, she demonstrates the similarities between Bipolar illness, alcoholism and drug addiction, in which many sufferers, their families, circle of friends and employers must often acknowledge the illness and their personal powerlessness over it, before they can find relief and redemption.

Harris courageously describes learning to realize when an attack of mania was beginning and what--for her--triggered those attacks.

Not all readers (including myself) will identify with Harris' love for horses and the essential role they came to have in Harris' rehabilitation. But, everyone perceives that having a personally meaningful goal toward which we strive helps us to find meaning in life when our lives would otherwise seem to us to be meaningless.

Essentially, Bipolars often have a necessity for a goal and aspiration larger than life, lest we be overcome by depression and the conviction that our lives are meaningless.

As in any worthwhile autobiography, Sylvia Harris brings the reader along on the trail to overcoming the worst her difficulties, while acknowledging that some "wreckage of the past" is inevitable but not utterly insoluble.

I personally do not read prefaces or introductions to autobiographies, because of their tendency to remove the mystery and discovery process from the narrative itself. Sylvia Harris's "Long Shot: My Bipolar Life and the Horses Who Saved Me" ends realistically, in a manner with which we may all be able to identify.

If you enjoy the thrill of discovering what happens at the end of Sylvia Harris' autobiography, then don't read the introduction and preface at the beginning.

Read the whole autobiography and learn what happens just as Sylvia Harris did: one day and one experience at a time.

You can't be of help to a Bipolar person or patient unless you understand their world from their perspective, as well as from your own (probably) vastly different perspective on the patient and the illness. This is maddeningly frustrating, but true nonetheless.

This book provides a heartfelt, and searingly honest account of life for those like me who struggle with bipolar illness, as well as for professionals, caregivers and family members who want to understand
Bipolar patients and who have a sincere desire to help.

"Race" and Blood Types, Superstition and Science

2011-05-16T17:37:00.001-07:00

Would you rather have a blood transfusion from someone who shares your skin color or from someone who shares your blood type? It is my belief that transfusing blood from one person to another based on skin color would be an extraordinarily dangerous practice. The American Red Cross, which maintains blood banks, says:

Although all blood is made of the same basic elements, not all blood is alike. In fact, there are eight different common blood types, which are determined by the presence or absence of certain antigens – substances that can trigger an immune response if they are foreign to the body. Since some antigens can trigger a patient's immune system to attack the transfused blood, safe blood transfusions depend on careful blood typing and cross-matching.

The blood table below, broken out by "race," shows that blood types do not obey superstitious sociological and cultural notions of "race". The following chart from the American Red Cross shows that if all Caucasians received O+ blood transfusions on the logic that O+ is most common among Caucasians, then sixty-three percent of white people would receive the WRONG blood type during transfusions.

Most white people would have a higher chance of receiving the proper blood type from an Hispanic person (53%O+) than they would from another white person, since the most common blood type among whites is (O+ 37%) and is also most common among Hispanics (O+53%) of Hispanics have that blood type.

If a white person with type O+ blood needs a battle-field transfusion and medics don't know the blood types of another white person available and an Hispanic person available, the best bet (53% O+) would be to give the white person a transfusion from a Hispanic person--NOT another white person.

All white people have a lesser chance of having O+ blood than do Hispanics (O+53).

	Caucasians	African American	Hispanic	Asian
O +	37%	47%	53%	39%
O -	8%	4%	4%	1%
A +	33%	24%	29%	27%
A -	7%	2%	2%	0.5%
B +	9%	18%	9%	25%
B -	2%	1%	1%	0.4%
AB +	3%	4%	2%	7%
AB -	1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%

Dr. Dennis O'Neil Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, San Marcos, California writes:

. . . patterns of ABO, Rh, and Diego blood type distributions are not similar to those for skin color or other so-called "racial" traits. The implication is that the specific causes responsible for the distribution of human blood types have been different than those for other traits that have been commonly employed to categorize people into "races." Since it would be possible to divide up humanity into radically different groupings using blood typing instead of other genetically inherited traits such as skin color, we have more conclusive evidence that the commonly used typological model for understanding human variation is scientifically unsound.

As a matter of science, Dr. Dennis O'Neil concludes that the belief in "race" has less basis in science than other more medically useful groupings. He concludes that:

The more we study the precise details of human variation, the more we understand how complex are the patterns. They cannot be easily summarized or understood. Yet, this hard-earned scientific knowledge is generally ignored in most countries because of more demanding social and political concerns. As a result, discrimination based on presumed "racial" groups still continues. It is important to keep in mind that this "racial" classification often has more to do with cultural and historical distinctions than it does with biology. In a very real sense, "race" is a distinction that is created by culture not biology.

Tyler Perry is Color-Aroused but He IS NOT an Anti-Black Color-Aroused Antagonist

2011-04-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm the editor of the blog, American Journal of Color Arousal, where we ( I ) study color-arousal issues from a cognitive behavioral perspective do determine whether a person is a color-aroused antagonist with respect to Black people and/or other skin color groups.

Tyler Perry's movies are certainly color aroused. He clearly has looked at some Black families, including his own. He clearly believes that Black people's culture or depictions of it are a worthy subject movies. He finds and evokes humor in Black people's foibles and even dysfunctional behaviors. His focus on Black people clearly is aroused by his own skin color and other Black individuals and families. He's color-aroused.

Do thoughts (ideation) about Black people arouse his feelings of sadness, gladness, mirth and anguish, vengeance, fear and rage? I suspect that his films evoke IN HIM all of the above feelings and many more. Obviously, they do. He feels a special pull to do movies about Black people and that pull comes from his beliefs (ideation) and feelings (emotions).

Are his behaviors motivated by his color-aroused thoughts and feelings? Obviously they are. He makes movies about and for Black people because they interest him deeply.

Is Tyler Perry a color-aroused antagonist, targeting both himself and other Black people for unfair criticism and ridicule? I think the answer is "no." Tyler Perry's movies are funny to Black people because he identifies and creates characters who remind us of ourselves, our relatives and friends, in one way or another.

When we see a Tyler Perry movie it's like listening to a masterful preacher who sleighs everyone with his incisive wit at one point or another, and we all walk away determined to do better in the future.

So, Tyler is aroused by skin color-associated ideation and emotions to make films about Blacks. Is there anything wrong with that? I prefer to see a movie about Blacks in key roles, with a Black sensibility.

Where is the anti-Black antagonism in Perry's movies? I can't find it. Most people will agree that Tyler Perry makes us laugh--when he's a woman in his films and when he's a man. He is able to play the role of upper middle class educated man in control of his impulses just as he is capable of playing a late-middle aged Black woman (Madea) so outraged at the abuse of a women that she gets her gun and goes looking for the culprit.

Madea does what all of us would like to do (if it weren't illegal) when a Black woman is beaten and humiliated. She pulls her gun and puts the fight and the strength in others who we too beaten down to stand up for themselves.

The trick to perceiving that Tyler Perry is not an anti-Black antagonist is in the striking themes where arrogant egotism always leads to humiliation, reconciliation and redemption. The Tyler Perry characters with the worst Black male anti-Black-woman antagonists are morality plays made funny, passionate and dramatic, showing us each a part of ourselves that we need to work on and work out before it works on us.

Tyler Perry warns us not to become egotistic, arrogant and abusive, lest we find ourselves humbled in front of those very same people whom we believed we could abuse and humiliate with impunity. Ultimately the theme of Tyler Perry's music is the possibility and necessity for redemption in all of us, which is a lesson which we all need to remember, regardless of our skin color.

Can "White History Year" Still Be Relevant in a Multicultural Society?

2011-03-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

Mr. McWhorther (of The Root):

This is no time to end Black History Month. What white America "gets" about Black people is equivalent to what a law student gets in his first two months of law school: confused and afraid, but certainly not fully educated.

The alternative to Black History Month is "White-History-Year". Before Black History Month, white and Black students learned about the French, Spanish Dutch and English settlers of America and were required to remember all of their names and dates. Meanwhile, we were not required to remember the name or date of any Black person whatsoever.

It was thought that no Black person had done anything worthy of being considered in "American History." And so "American History" was really nine or ten insufferable months of "White-History-Year" for grade school students. I don't want my nephews and nieces to suffer through that.

Black History Month's purpose is not just to teach whites about Blacks' contribution, but it is also to teach Black children about Blacks contributions. I don't think we can just assume that all Black children (or white children) know that Black man invented the blood bank:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldrew.htm

and another Black man, Garret A. Morgan, invented the traffic light and gas masks:

http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventors/a/Garrett_Morgan.htm

If grade schools and universities don't teach this information to Black and white and Latino students, then how will they ever know? Does everyone Black and white "get it" already? I didn't know a Black man invented the gas mask until I began researching the names of these Black inventors in order to post this comment.

Blacks and whites still need Black History Month because it compels text book publishers to include Blacks in their textbooks and it also compels white teachers to follow the curriculum by discussing Blacks, at least for twenty days out of each year.

Finally, we cannot end Black History Month because the alternative is White-History-Year.

Was Star Black MS High School Football Player Billy Joe Johnson Murdered By a Sheriff's Deputy Because Johnson's Girlfriend Had White Skin?

2011-02-26T14:32:00.000-08:00

African American Pundit (AAP) asks how and why a seventeen year-old star high school football player Billy Joe Johnson died on the road, shot with a shotgun, in the presence of a George County, Mississippi sheriff's deputy? The police say Billy Joe Johnson had tried to break into the house of his white girlfriend (he had the admiration of girls of every skin color), but the police also say that Billy Joe Johnson died in a typical traffic stop, after he ran a red light.

The police say that the sheriff's deputy went o radio from his car when all of a sudden Billy Joe shot himself in the mouth with a shot gun, and the shotgun was found laying on top of him. I wish the late Johnny Cochran were alive, such was his ability to show the absurdity of police testimony before a jury. But, Johnny Cochran has gone on to greener pastures, leaving his his legacy for the rest of us to emulate. 'If the story doesn't fit, it must be bullshit.'

So which of the police's two stories is true, if any of them is true. Did he die because his white girlfriend called the police after he allegedly tried to break into her house? Did he die because he ran a red light in a typical traffic stop? Or did he die because he was the most famous and renowned member of his community, beloved by all except those who viscerally hate Black men, and particularly Black men who "usurp" white men's "rights" by dating white women?

This case shows the poverty of the word "racism". If the sheriff's deputy was responsible in some way, was it because he was envious, jealous, color-aroused to envy, jealousy and fury by Johnson's bi-chromatic relationships, or did he die because white policemen believe that all Black males deserve to be in prison or dead? Did Billy Joe die because he didn't bow and scrape in the face of the sheriff's deputy?

It seems to me that the white girlfriend whose home was allegedly the target of a break-in attempt by Johnson that night is a valuable witness in this case. Did she call the police? Was she afraid of her boyfriend? Or is this alleged detail just another piece of propaganda invented by the George County, MS Sheriff's Department in a bold attempt to legitimize the execution of a star football player who had not even allegedly committed a capital or criminal offense, and where it is not even alleged that he threatened an officer?

Don't the police ALWAYS come forward with some unrelated and alleged act of wrongdoing in a young Black man's history in an attempt to demonstrate that police probably made the right decision when they decided to execute a Black man during a traffic stop?

This case stinks like rat that died in a hidden corner of the House of America.

There is so much that we don't know. That's why we call on Attorney General Eric Holder to visit the family in Mississippi and comfort them in the knowledge that the Justice Department is doing everything possible to find and disseminate the facts in this case. If President Obama can meet on the White House lawn with a police officer whose feelings have been hurt, then certainly Attorney General Eric Holder can meet in Mississippi with the grieving and anguished family of the late Billy Joe Johnson, promising them as much action is legally warranted after a full investigation.

It cannot and must not be a capital crime for a Black teenager to be a star football player and to date women regardless of their skin color. And Black young men must not die at random at the hands of sheriffs' deputies in the States of Mississippi in the year 2011.

I call on Attorney General Eric Holder to personally meet with the family, and to order the questioning of the sheriff's deputy and the white girlfriend, and gather others evidence as the facts warrant, before deciding what action is appropriate to vindicate the right to be alive, even if you are a star high school Black football player with a white girlfriend in Mississippi.

Noose Found in Locker of Black Man Suing NYFD for Discrimination

2011-02-09T13:50:00.001-08:00

The Root says a New York Fire Department electrician found a three foot noose hanging in front of his locker after he and other electricians alleged discrimination in provision of overtime and promotions within the Department.

Gregory Seabrook, an FDNY communications electrician for nearly 20 years, found the noose Thursday at the FDNY facility at 87 Union St. in Brooklyn, his lawyers said yesterday.

It appears that there still is some extreme color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior within the NYFD. I says "extreme" because hanging a noose in an office is an offense that could lead to dismissal. Only a person with extreme color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior would risk losing his job and public standing by hanging a noose in front of a co-worker's locker.

Growing an Afro is Cue Arousing Color-Associated Ideation, Emotion and Behavior

2011-01-28T00:42:00.000-08:00

Getty Images. Malcolm Gladwell experienced color-aroused antagonism when he grew an Afro.

The Root and Malcolm Gladwell report that, simply by Gladwell changing his hair to an Afro style, his new color-associated physical characteristic was the cue that aroused antagonistic ideation, emotion and behavior from societal authorities such as airport security and the police.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of four best-sellers, including Blink and What the Dog Saw, is fascinated by explaining everyday experiences.

Blink explores how humans make snap judgments (and how often we can be wrong). In What the Dog Saw, he questions "false certainties" -- things we think we know.

What does hair have to do with it? In a recent interview with CNN, the biracial writer explains that when he grew his out and "began to look more like people's stereotype of a black male," he experienced "a striking transformation in the way the world viewed [him]," including getting stopped by police and when he went through customs at the airport.

"Even though I was exactly the same person, once I had longer hair, the world saw me as being profoundly different," he said.

Blink shows that a color-associated physical characteristic (hair in the case) is sufficient to arouse ideation, emotion and behavior in others. No wonder that Black women straighten their hair. Would we have them grow Afros and braids and then face the constant color-aroused antagonism associated with color-associated physical characteristics?

"Race" is not "Racially Ambiguous"; It Simply Does Not Exist

2010-12-30T21:12:00.000-08:00

Apparently a skirmish over color arousal in a potentially fake Nike ad, touting women with large behinds, led to a discussion of the issue at The Root this week. The Root writer, Nsenga K. Burton, wrote that the skin color in the photograph posted made the woman "racially ambiguous."

To try and add some scientific substance to the question, instead of becoming hopelessly confused and chasing our tails in "racial" circles, I posted the following:

francislholland
I find it most interesting that the writer describes this woman as "racially ambiguous". "Race", as a matter of science, does NOT exist and it never did. The reason that her "race" is so hard to determine is that "race' was never a scientific reality. It's like saying the height and weight of the Easter Bunny and Santa's reindeer are "ambiguous." They are ambiguous because they don't exist.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program,

"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other."

In other words, the Human Genome Project has proven that, as a matter of scientific fact, that which we call "race" does not exist as a matter of biology, and so all references to "race" are references to a fallacy.

An article called 'Race' and the Human Genome", published at Nature.Com in the "Nature Genetics," acknowledges that:

"With very rare exceptions, all of us in the US are immigrants. We bring with us a subset of genes from our homelands, and for many Americans, often first-generation but more commonly second-generation, the plural noun 'homelands' is appropriate. From this perspective, the most immediately obvious characteristic of 'race' is that describing most of us as Caucasian, Asian or African is far too simple. Despite attempts by the US Census Bureau to expand its definitions, the term 'race' does not describe most of us with the subtlety and complexity required to capture and appreciate our genetic diversity. Unfortunately, this oversimplification has had many tragic effects. Therefore, we need to start with the science . . . "

Yesterday, 22:57:09

– Like – Reply – Delete

francislholland
The reality is that the skin color of the woman in the photograph is "bisque", which is designated on the Internet Color chart as color number " #FFE4C4 ".

No vapid and anti-scientific discussion of her "race" can change the color of her skin, while her skin color does not fit within hardened sociological notions of "racial" extremes. We cannot assign to her membership in the "black race" or the "white race" because those "races" simply do not exist now and never did in the past.

Actual scientists might have divided humans into subspecies based on skin color, hair color, height, and other characteristics, except that it has been found to be impossible to find any given genetic material in one human group that is not present to some extent in another human group. Hence the "racial ambiguity". It is far more scientific to simply acknowledge that sub-races of the human race simply do not exist, and even if they did exist it would not be possible to distinguish and predict their genetic differences based on their skin color.

The truth is that the woman above has a skin color that is not easily named within a binomial "race by skin color" social system. Let's adjust the social system to the science rather than continuing in futility to try to adjust the science to the social system. That is what the author above admitted s/he was doing when s/he tried to assign a bisque-colored woman to a "white race" or "black race".

Others can and will stick with their "race"-based understanding of the science of human genetics. However, human geneticists of the Human Genome Project have already announced that humans will never fit into neat "races" based on their skin color. Just as phrenology is no longer a serious topic of science, I predict that "race" will have been replaced in science and elsewhere with much more subtle and useful understandings based on the human genome within the next fifty years. "Race" is headed toward the trash basket.

Why do Black Bloggers and White Supremacist Groups Agree that "Race" Exists?

2010-12-23T20:26:00.000-08:00

There can be no such thing as "historical racism" because "race" itself does not exist. This is simply the finding of the most recent indisputable scientific understanding of the human genome. There is no basis in science for the belief that we can group members of the human species into distinct "racial" subgroups that that can be identified by skin color.

There is no genetic material that can be found in all white people but no Black people, and there is likewise no genetic material that can be found consistently in Black people but that cannot be found in people with white skin. So the human genome simply does not and will not permit us to scientifically group humans "racially," based on skin color or geographical region of origin.

We Blacks may be more similar genetically to the "white" man across the street than we are to our Black daughter's new Black fiance. This is what genomic science tells us, but during slavery we could not fight the belief in "race" using genomic science because the human genes, on which genomic science is based, had not even been discover. They had not been thoroughly mapped, as they are today.

If you disagree that you may be genetically more similar to your white neighbor, then ask your self whether you would prefer to have a blood transfusion from you white neighbor or your daughter's Black husband. If you can answer that question without knowing the blood types of each of the potential donors, then your belief in "race" has tied your mind into so many knots that you may never be able to free yourself from them.

Once we lived in scientific ignorance and the belief in "race" because we had to do so if only because every aspect of American culture and law reinforced the notion of "race." Now, with the advances in the understanding of DNA and genomic science, we live in scientific ignorance only if we choose to do so.

There have been historical efforts to dominate and enslave others of the same skin color and/or different colors, often based in an "us vs. them" mentality, with dividing lines associated with geographical region of heritage, language, and social class .

But "historical racism" cannot exist because "race" itself does not exist. "Race" is the most discussed scientific fallacy that has no basis whatsoever in science. What do exist are skin color, skin color groups, and geographically and/or linguistically based culture groups. And some people and groups still have stubborn but real interests in the continued belief in the existence of "race." Just open the newspaper on any given day and you will find hundreds of such people, some of whom and naively ignorant, but many of whom believe they benefit from the concept of "race."

When Black bloggers, for example, are in agreement with white supremacist groups on a matter of science so significant as the belief in race, then these diametrically opposed parties both need to wonder why the agree one something so fundamental but find everything else the other groups believe to be repugnant. If you are a Black person who believes in the existence of "race", you need to ask yourself why you agree with white supremacist groups on a question so fundamental.
Francis

Is The Duncan Hines-Associated Brown Cupcake Advertisement "Racist" or Color-Aroused Antagonism?

2010-12-15T15:17:00.000-08:00

Many whites and Blacks will ask themselves whether the above video is "racist", and whether it is an example of Duncan Hines "racism". First, let me say that I am not convinced that the above ad was even made by Duncan Hines, but others will surely investigate that. Eater.com says it's for real, and has even identified the director and some of his other commercials in notoriously poor taste:

Cupcakes, once a delightful source of sugary indulgence, later a cliched trend much derided on blogs like this one, have sunk to a new low: racial controversy. A video for Duncan Hines' Amazing Glazes has angered viewers for its depiction of, uh, cupcakes in black face. Racist cupcakes? Facing criticism, Duncan Hines pulled the video from YouTube. But we managed to get a copy of the video, below. Judge for yourself:

Here's a link to the commercial that Duncan Hines pulled,
hosted at another website. >>>

Duncan Hines' Hip Hop Cupcakes. [Photo: Duncan Hines]

It should also be noted that this is not the first time director Josh Binder has been criticized for creating questionable advertising. In the past, he has filmed an ad for Western wear that features a cowboy lassoing up two ladies, and another that spoofs samurai movies with loaves of bread.

To make a decision about whether the above cartoon is "racist", whomever it was that made it, we would first need to agree about the definition of "racist". There is no more agreement among Americans now about what constitutes "racism", even after fifty years of continuous effort.

Let's ask another question instead. Is the above advertisement an example of antagonistic color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior? For example, was the video conceived with an awareness of its color content? I don't think anyone will assert that the makers of this ad were unaware that chocolate is brown, or that the chocolate frosting has been used here to radically change the color of the cupcakes. We are inherently discussion color here.

Chocolate frosting is often brown, so that in itself does not cause a problem. But when dark-brown monkey-like talking faces are added to the frosting, we have to ask ourselves, "Is there ideation here that is associated with brown skin color?

When anyone takes a vanilla-colored cup cake and turns the surface brown they are acting on color-aroused ideation, unless the change of color is an utter accident, which is clearly not the case here.

It's quite apparent here, when these animated brown faces begin to talk, color-associated ideation is at hand. Color exists. The nature of the color-aroused ideation can be debated, but the fact that there is color-aroused ideation cannot be debated. The advertisement is about coloring cupcakes brown. That behavior cannot occur without color-aroused and associated ideation. When you turn something that was vanilla-colored into something that is deep brown colored, that is indicative of color-aroused ideation. (If you paint your car blue, that is indicative of color-aroused ideation as well.)

Once we agree that color-aroused ideation is present, in an ad that is inherently about color, we need to identify the nature of the color-aroused ideation. The ideation seems to be that, "It is funny when cupcakes turn monkey-faced, begin to talk and allude to old stereotypes about Black people."

What is the substance of the color-aroused ideation, when cupcakes turn brown and then have monkey-like lips? Are these dark brown monkeys just funny brown monkey faces, or are they an allusion to Black people and to white people's history of drawing Blacks with enormous outsized lips, enormous eyes and idiotic expressions?

Does some emotion enter the picture after the color-aroused ideation that is inherent in the ad? The people who prepared and published this video appear to engage in mirth, which is a sense of funniness that causes people to laugh--if they see the humor. The makers of this video experience funniness when they see this, and they experience mirth. The ideational premises in this video are that Black people look like monkeys or can be made to look like monkeys. In addition, there is the ideational belief that laughing at brown monkeys that look like caricatures of Black people is funny.

Here, we have color-associated ideation that led to color aroused emotion and behavior, i.e. the quite intentional presentation of these monkeys in a way that alludes to the presentation of Blacks as monkey-looking that goes back to the earliest superiority and white people's humor in the United States and elsewhere. One only need compare these images to others from the nineteen-forties to see that these images historically have been used to debase Blacks while laughing at us at our expense. The inhuman characteristics of the monkey-faces intends to dehumanize all Black people, by associating these inhuman monkey-like talking cupcakes with a caricature of all people whose skin is brown or who are members of "the Black People".

I think the above paragraphs have succeeded in demonstrating that the advertisement arouses and reflects ideation about color and about skin color, when the talking monkeys have brown skin. (There are red, white, gray and yellow monkeys in nature, but the makers of this cartoon chose dark brown as the color for the monkeys.) Moreover, the production and publication of this video demonstrates a belief that ridiculing Black people is an acceptable and even preferable form of humor, and an acceptable way to arouse mirth and ridicule in the watching public, since there were so many other ways they could have used chocolate on these cupcakes other than making talking semi-human dark brown monkey faces of them.

All of this color-aroused ideation and emotion would have made no difference to Black people and the public in general, but for the behavior of producing this commercial and placing it on the airwaves. What we see here are the three individual components of what others call "racism": (1) ideation (ridiculing monkeys and Black people will be humorous) which ideation leads to the (2) emotion (of feeling funniness and mirth, in this case); and then, finally, (3) the behavior of putting a video together on the basis of this ideation and emotion, which brings us to the entire scope of the tripartite problem: color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior.

If we asked whether the above was "racist" we would never come to a consensus, because we haven't even come to a consensus about what "racism" consists of. However, when we look to see whether there is color-aroused ideation, there clearly is. The color-aroused emotion of mirth is clearly intended to be aroused, and perhaps many other emotions about which I could only speculate. (Discussions of color-arousal are scientific discussions where there is no place or use for speculation.) Finally, the making of this commercial and its placement in media channels is the behavior that will cause Duncan Hines so much grief, even if Duncan Hines does not turn out to be the responsible party.

The value of looking at the three individual components of color aroused ideation, emotion and behavior is (1) that we are able to look for each component scientifically, and (2) it is possible to realize that it was not in the ideation or the emotion that got Duncan Hines got into trouble here, but it was (3) the behavior of placing this video for public consumption.

As many of us have realized, people of all skin colors engage in ideation and emotion with respect to people of their own and others' skin colors, but much of this ideation and emotion is not obvious until it manifests itself in color-aroused behavior. The persistence of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior may be due to the difficulty humans have in their efforts (if they make any effort) to prevent their ideation and emotion from becoming the basis of their behavior.

It may also be that whites are playing a game with Blacks by insisting that they cannot determine what is "racist" and what is not. If so, then using more empirical and objective measures may spoil the fun of a lot of color-aroused antagonists who claim not to know that their behavior is "racist".

Is the above video "racist"? I have no desire to wander into such an intellectual thicket that ends in an impenetrable morass, because I have already determined, in a methodical way, that the above advertisement is an example of antagonistic color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior. That alone is sufficient reason to wish that the video be off of the airways.

There are no "Races" or Sub-species within the Human Species.

2010-12-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

The human species definitely exists, but scientific genomic research has shown that there are no "races" or subspecies within the human species. Since DNA human genome mapping shows that there simply are no subspecies among the human species, it is therefore obvious that there are no subspecies who could be identified by their skin color.

Genomic scientists have discovered that, in many cases, people of different colors have more in common genetically with people of other skin colors than they have in common with others of the same skin color.

Science has proved that the hypothesis of the existence of "races" or subspecies among humans is an anachronistic and anti-empirical, anti-scientific fallacy.

Just as previous generations of humans insisted that the world was flat until the flat earth hypothesis was demolished by empirical experience as well as celestial science, the days of "race" as an scientific hypothesis are over. Now, "race" remains only as a superstitious believe propounded by those who don't understand science and those who benefit by insisting that scientific discoveries have no relevance in pseudo-scientific conversations.

"Race" surprisingly, is also defended by Blacks and other minorities who are afraid to lose their cultural identities associated with skin color. They know or seem not to realize that their sociological culture can be loosely associated with their skin colors even though "race" does not exist. We don't need the fallacy of "race" to explain to us why Americans argue so much about skin color. Americans argue so much about skin color partly because of the discredited but constantly cited fallacy of "race."

Skin Color Groups Exist, But Distinct "Races" Are a Disproved Fallacy

2010-11-21T19:27:00.000-08:00

Someone recently brought to my attention her preoccupation as we see radically color-aroused white antagonists seeking to redefine the term "racism" so that only Blacks can be "racists."

The simplest way to counter these people and leave them with their jaws on the floor is to insist that "racism" does not exist because "race" does not exist. "Race" is an anachronistic disproved hypothesis about the meaning of mere skin color.

What science has discovered is that skin color means . . . skin color. So just as our status now allows us to walk of the same sidewalk with whites and not step down when they come along, so our status as members of the human species enables us to hold our heads up high and reject those who would consign us to an imutable ghetto called "the black race".

We acknowledge that our skin is brown, but we reject the notion that our brown skin makes us members of a separate sub-species of human beings. All scientific evidence now shows that there are no distinct subspecies of human beings within the human species.

It certainly is astonishing that most of the current ideas about "race" were discovered before DNA has was discovered. So, when forced to choose, will we accept the notions consistent with findings from the present DNA age, or will we steadfastly hold onto unchanged notions of "race" that were conceived over four hundred years ago, before DNA was discovered? Is it possible that new DNA human genome evidence is consistent with old beliefs that "races" that could be distinguishes from each other based on skin color? Read this and decide for yourself.

The word "race" is simply the product of a very successful historical campaign to imbue mere skin-color with all sorts of other meanings about lack of intelligence, laziness, sloth, susceptibility to violence and criminality, etc.

The next time someone tries to talk about your or their own "race," acknowledge that your skin color is different but challenge them with the new scientific evidence that "race" does not exist now and it never existed in the past. Colors DO exist in nature and in science, but "races" exist only in our own minds.

People have been discriminated against based on their skin color and cultural ethnicity. We all know that if your skin was suddenly white, then the police would be less likely to stop you and your kids, i.e. for "driving while Black." The "cue" the officer uses to stop you is not your "race" (he can't see your DNA") but rather your skin color.

Skin color antagonistic behavior has nothing whatever to do with "race", because a police officer can't see your DNA from fifty yards, except to the extent that your DNA makes your skin brown. We don't need the word "race" to describe something so simple.

When Blacks begin to insist, year after year, that "race" simply doesn't exist, then it won't matter bit when whites try to redefine "racism." The word "racism" itself will be consigned to the scrapheap of historical ignorance and irrational "flat earth" concepts, just as you no longer hear people discussing "phrenology" today, although it was very much discussed 150 years ago.

The simple fact is that we are discriminated against because our skin is brown and our votes are sought out but also feared because we are part of a "skin-color-group" that is fairly cohesive in its voting, and that group is called "Black people."

Whenever Black or white people use the word "race", we are perpetuating the scientifically disproved fallacy that there are distinct "races" among human beings. We are effectively lying to ourselves and to others because we believe that the political ends or group-cohesiveness goals justify the anti-scientific means.

The history of science shows that science-related ideas that have no basis in science will eventually be rejected and ejected from science. Can anyone remember when it was believed to be absolutely necessary to separate "Black blood" from "white blood" in blood banks? If you can't remember that, it is only because that patently false misconception was conclusively rejected and ejected from science before you were born.

Eventually Blacks and whites will agree that science has proved that "races" don't exist. I predict that THAT will be the way in which "race" is redefined over the next fifty years. We will all eventually acknowledge that skin color groups exist, but "racial groups" do not.

Francis

When Is White Not White?

2010-10-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

Someone at the Uncommon Humanity blog has posed the questions,

I’m starting to be concerned…everyone keeps telling me that people in Indiana are friendly…the hairstylist told me (and she was friendly!), the teachers tell me (oh you’ll like it here, people are so friendly), and I see other folks chatting and waving to each other from time to time…but so far, I am invisible. When I’m out walking on the neighborhood path, I receive not a word of acknowledgment. No smile. No wave. No nod. Nothing.

Y’all know being friendly requires some outward sign, right?

Or is friendly somehow different here?

Indiana is confusing.

Since I did not make an effort to determine the skin color of the blogger, I am somewhat more able to to respond in a generic fashion that includes the possibility, but does not assume the fact, of skin color-aroused ideation, emotions and behavior toward the blogger asking the question.

The blogger also posed the question, in the blogs header,

"When is white not white?"

I answer these questions together, below, to the best of my indubitable ability, by posing some questions and giving some well-considered responses that I have synthesized during the last ten minutes based on a lifetime of thinking about this:

First, what is the color of your skin? The US Census Quick Facts say that Indiana is 87.8% white and 9.2% Black. If all whites treat each other with friendliness, then perhaps 87% of Indianans and the whites who visit them will report that the state is very friendly. That is a lot of friendliness, indeed. But, whites might have told each other the same thing about Mississippi during slavery. From the perspective of other whites, Mississippi was probably pretty friendly during slavery.

I suggest that you ask some Black people whether the white majority in Indiana is friendly to Black people, because that's the relevant question for anyone with brown skin.

I would also note that although there are 9.2% Blacks in Indiana, including in cities like Gary, IN, you might well travel outside a city with a large Black population and see no Blacks at all in the surrounding suburbs. You might well find that Blacks in Gary have a different opinion about the friendliness shown to Blacks, both in Gary and in the surrounding suburbs, and of other parts of the state, based on their travels and personal experiences.

In 2008, Indiana's Democratic Party Primary voters were fairly friendly to presidential primary candidate and Senator Barack Obama, even though he has brown skin and is regarded as "Black" by many people:

INDIANA RESULTS - 99% Reporting
Clinton
638,192
51%
Obama
615,753
49%

Although President Obama did not win the primary, he found the favor of 49% of its voters in the Democratic Party Primary. The General Election results are even more in favor of Obama, showing that Obama beat McCain 50% - 49% in the general election, which presumably would have included more whites, since Republicans, too, were participating. Judging by the 2008 presidential election results, Indiana would appear to be at least half-friendly to half-Black non-whites.

Voting to send a world-famous half-Black man to Washington as President may be a different matter from waving to and saying "hello" to an anonymous Black person on the streets of Indiana. Never having spent any time there, I cannot offer a personal opinion. That's probably just as well, because it forces me to look at more objective indicators of Indianans behavior toward Blacks.

I was just reading the US Government's definition of "disability" and one of the requirements is "being regarded as having such an impairment." Likewise, you ask above, "When is white not white?" White is not white when a person "is not regarded as having such an impairment" as the impairment in the United States associated with having skin that is not white.

If relevant professionals, friends, family and neighbors do not regard you as "blind", then you are not disabled by blindness under the US Government's definition of "disability." Likewise, you are not other than white if you are not "regarded as having such an impairment" as being other than white.

In fact, if you know or suspect that you are "one drop" Black, but no one in your community knows about it, you could still have many psychological problems associated with this dual identity. But, can you file a discrimination suit against your employer based on skin color or "race" (sic) if your employer doesn't regard you as someone having other than Black skin?

Maybe you can, because if white people around you say derogatory things about Black people in your presence and generally behave like members of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan, you can be offended by this even though others do not know that you are a member of the group which they express a desire to completely annihilate.

If you are disabled by a physical impairment that others can perceive, then you may be disabled. Likewise, if you are sociologically, socially, economically or physically impaired among whites as a result of their perception of your skin color e.g. at work, then maybe you're not a white person. At least they don't think you are and they treated you accordingly.

If people don't "treat you accordingly", i.e. as other than white, then you are getting many of the benefits associated with white privilege. THIS DOES NOT MEAN that you are free of the psychological burdens and impairments often associated with knowing that you are "one drop" Black and knowing that some whites would hate and discriminate against you if they were aware of this fact, while Blacks resent you for the special treatment you are being accorded as a result of whites perception that you are not (or are not entirely) Black.

One of the reasons that Barack Obama is not white, is simply the practical fact and the effects of the fact that he is not regarded as being white. He does not get the privileges of being white that come with "generally being regarded as" being white.

You're mother might be black is coal, but you are not entirely other than white until and unless others "regard you as having such" a condition of being other than white. That's just ONE of MANY criteria, but it's a pretty important one. If no one in your neighborhood and none of the doctors you see regards you as "blind" or "vision impaired", how have you managed to keep it a secret?

The disability statute supposes that it is impossible to keep disability a secret from everyone you know; if, you have an impairment serious enough to be eligible for disability benefits, then relevant people will know about it. If they don't know, it's because your impairment, if you have one at all, does not rise to the level required for a finding of disability.

Maybe another useful question is, "When are you impaired by not being white?" Obviously there is no one answer to this question because there are many possible criteria, but there are some obvious answers, such as, "You are impaired by not being white when others perceive you as not being white."

US Army Soldier's Brain Injury Aggravates Color-Aroused Speech Behavior

2010-10-04T04:14:00.000-07:00

Behavioral therapy helps limit color-aroused speech.

The Washington Post reports today that a soldier with brain injuries and white skin lost his ability to control color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior and began verbally expressing to Black people whatever ideation came to his mind, after which he experienced the emotion of mirth.

Now, amazingly, Warren, speaking with his same Arkansas drawl, shows flashes of his old self. When Brittanie tells him he's "full of it," he smiles, tickles the top of her head and says, "Yeah, full of Southern pride."

( . . . )

But Barnes can't think about consequences. The mortar round sent shrapnel tearing through his frontal lobe, the region in charge of decision making, reason and morality. As a result, Barnes is impulsive, always in the moment, like an especially reckless 13-year-old. He's 26 but needs round-the-clock supervision.

( . . . )

He beat his life skills coach in bowling, 96-71, Barnes says proudly. But that wasn't his best moment - at least not in the eyes of Josh Shannon, the VA contractor who has worked with Barnes three days a week since he came home from Bethesda three months ago.

The best moment came as Barnes was checking out video games at Wal-Mart. Just then, an overweight African American woman walked by. And Barnes, who is white, said nothing. None of the impulsive, loud comments about her behind or her race that have gotten him in trouble since his injury. Just a once-up-and-down glance and a smirk. Then, only after she was out of earshot, he uttered one quick comment: "Two sacks of potatoes. No, 2.75 sacks."

Shannon celebrated Barnes's success: "Did you see that?" he said proudly.
Barnes had adhered to the 10-foot rule Shannon had been drilling into him - waiting until a person is out of earshot before saying anything derogatory. And Barnes had used their code word: One sack of potatoes is someone who is "merely overweight," Barnes explained. "Two point seven five and you have an ass like a . . ."

"John!" Shannon snapped. "Inappropriate!"

The life skills coach is a human prosthetic, a replacement not for a missing arm or leg but for a damaged frontal lobe. In his constant nitpicking - Barnes can't so much as toss a cigarette butt in Shannon's presence without a reprimand - Shannon does what Barnes's brain used to do. He corrects socially unacceptable behavior and mutes Barnes's impulses. Over time, Shannon thinks, Barnes's brain can be retrained so that he more closely resembles the person he used to be.

Left unclear is whether the color-aroused verbal assaults became part of John's color-aroused complex after the brain injury or whether the ideation, emotion AND behavior were typical of him even before the injury.

It does seem that the ideation he now expresses verbally was probably part of the "Southern Pride" aspect of his color-aroused complex even before he entered the Army. What seems to be different (but not necessarily) is that after the shrapnel went through his brain he may have lost the ability or willingness to screen and filter his color-aroused ideation and mirth.

He may have begun saying whatever he thought to perfect strangers whose skin color alone is the cue that commands a complex of color-aroused thoughts, emotions and sometimes at-least-verbal color-aroused antagonistic assaultive behaviors, of which the person of color cannot help but become aware.

His behavior was considered to have improved when, among the three components of color arousal-the ideation, emotion and behavior--he became able limit only the color-aroused antagonistic behavior toward strangers, while maintaining the color aroused ideation and expressing it to intimates, along with the emotions of disdain, superiority, anger and mirth. It appears that just limiting the expression to strangers of what he thinks and feels is sufficient to be considered a victory, even if his ideation, emotion and expression of these to intimates continue unabated.

He is like a child who has lost the ability to chronically read pornographic magazines, but without speaking or commenting upon the words he is reading, except to intimates. When he regains the ability to read pornography silently, and comment about it only to intimates, the child is considered to have achieved a key behavioral objective. He continues to experience the color-aroused ideation and emotion, but limits expression of color-aroused ideation and emotions to intimates.

Do Blacks and Whites Benefit Equally from the Word and Concept of "Race"?

2010-09-02T16:12:00.001-07:00

Professor Lawrence D. Bobo, Ph.D.
W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences
Harvard University

Dear Professor Bobo:

I am a Black blogger from the American Journal of Color Arousal (AMJCA), researching the use of the word "race" among America's Blacks. I would like to pose a question regarding your use of the word "race" in an article at The Root entitled, "Time to End the Criminal-Punishment Binge."

In your sentence as follows, what difference would it make if you removed the word "race" and inserted the term "skin color" instead?

Let us be the generation that undoes the connection between race and who populates our jails and prison.

I ask this question because if there is one thing that white supremacists and Black intellectuals can agree upon, it is the continued fundamental nature and necessity of the word and concept of "race." For example, here's what the white supremacist "Nationalist Party USA" says about "race:"

The Nationalist Party embraces the differences in Cultures and races, and allows for each group to embrace their own heritage -- while recognizing the right to live separately, if we choose; and to preserve our unique Culture and heritage. Nationalist Party USA (Emphasis added.)

Clearly the Nationalist party's belief in different "races" rationalizes, in their minds, their belief in and advocacy for segregation and white supremacy. And why not? Do we not segregate the dog species from the cat species at the dog pound?

It seems to me that as soon as we concede that we and whites are from different "races," we supply intellectual and moral support for white supremacists' belief in segregation, with separate and unequal roles for whites, Blacks and Latinos in society.
Here's another quote from the same website:

"The question is not why anyone would believe the races are unequal, but why anyone would believe them equal."

As Prof. Levin points out, a book like Why Race Matters should not have to be written. The only sensible conclusion to be drawn from simple observation is that races differ: "To put the matter bluntly, the question is not why anyone would believe the races are unequal in intelligence, but why anyone would believe them equal." For centuries, people as different as Arabs and Englishmen have judged Africans to be unintelligent, lascivious, jolly, and keen on rhythm. Today, in whatever corner of the globe one looks, blacks behave in certain consistent ways." Nationalist Party USA (Emphasis Added.)

There you have it. White supremacists agree with many Black intellectuals, including Harvard University professor Lawrence D. Bobo, Ph.D., that Blacks and whites are from separate "races." With white supremacists and Black intellectuals in agreement on this point, why should we even bother to consult the relatively new and opposite findings of the U.S. Department of Energy's Human Genome Program which says:

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Human Genome Program devoted 3% of its annual Human Genome Project (HGP) budget toward studying the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) surrounding the availability of genetic information. Some of these projects studied potential effects of ELSI, and others sought to educate professionals through literature, conferences, workshops, and multimedia. Among the programs funded by DOE ELSI were educational materials for physicians, educators, students, clergy, and judges and other legal professionals.

DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other.

Ari Patrinos, Director for Biological and Environmental Research, Office of Science, US Department of Energy, says on behalf of the DOE, in 'Race' and the Human Genome,

With very rare exceptions, all of us in the US are immigrants. We bring with us a subset of genes from our homelands, and for many Americans, often first-generation but more commonly second-generation, the plural noun 'homelands' is appropriate. From this perspective, the most immediately obvious characteristic of 'race' is that describing most of us as Caucasian, Asian or African is far too simple. Despite attempts by the US Census Bureau to expand its definitions, the term 'race' does not describe most of us with the subtlety and complexity required to capture and appreciate our genetic diversity. Unfortunately, this oversimplification has had many tragic effects. Therefore, we need to start with the science

( . . . )

In the end, each person must be treated as an individual with his or her own medical issues, rather than as an exemplar of a race. We anticipate a future in which accurate predictive medicine, based on one's individual genetic profile, will promote longer and healthier lives and a better ability to manage interactions with our environment and the challenges it constantly presents, be they allergens, diseases or environmental hazards. If nothing else, among so many potential benefits, the kind of solid science presented and discussed in this issue and at the Howard conference is providing proof that oversimplified concepts of race simply don't work in any objective realm. It's bad medicine, and it's bad science. 'Race' and the Human Genome,

Clearly what we have called "race" does not exist as a matter of science, yet the premise of "race" continues to be the single most fundamental commonality between white supremacists' arguments and those of Black intellectuals. Do white supremacists and Blacks benefit equally from the ubiquitous use of the word "race'? Historically, did we all benefit equally from the "N" word, whose use is just about as old as the word and concept of "race"?

Words and concepts can empower and disempower whole classes of people. We must either believe that whites gave Blacks the word "race" to empower us, or whites gave themselves the word "race" to empower whites.

I propose that we Blacks challenge white supremacists, as well as journalists, newspapers and websites of all skin colors to cease and desist using the word "race," based on the new Human Genome Project declarations. Rather than agree with white supremacists about "race" our strongest political high ground comes from insisting, based relatively new genomic science, that the word "race" be must be dropped from all public discussion of skin color, because race is nothing more than a pseudo-scientific and highly controversial political synonym for "skin-color group."

Those who insist on continuing to use of the word "race" are "racists."

Sincerely,

Atty. Francis L. Holland
Brazil

Color Aroused Behavior Leads to Killing of Nine Employees at Hartford Distributors, in Manchest, CT.

2010-08-06T02:21:00.001-07:00

There is plenty of evidence about color arousal among Americans, Black and white, going back to Brown v. Board of Education, and before. When people visually perceive the skin color and skin color groups of others and compare that with their conception of their own skin color and skin color group, people frequently experience unconscious and conscious color-aroused ideation, leading to color aroused emotion that often is acted out through color-aroused behavior.

On August 3, 2010, the New York Times reported in an article entitled, "A Bumpy Life Ends in Fatal Rampage," that:

Eight years ago, [Omar Thornton] started dating Kristi E. Hannah. . . .

Ms. Hannah’s mother, Joanne Hannah, said Mr. Thornton owned several guns, and wanted to teach Kristi how to shoot.

Joanne Hannah said she and Mr. Thornton, who was black, once had an argument in which she used a racial epithet to describe him; he, in turn, called her a racist. “He was sick and tired of people being racist to him,” Ms. Hannah said.

When Omar Thorton dated a woman whose skin was white, the woman's mother assailed him with color-aroused epithets. Some time later, he began buying guns. Omar Thornton apparently was assailed with color-aroused epithets both from the family of his white lover and in the workplace, according to the New York Times.

Still, Mr. Thornton remained close to Ms. Hannah. He told her that things were not working out at his job, Joanne Hannah said; he complained that co-workers at Hartford Distributors were aiming racial insults at him. “Things were being put on the bathroom walls,” Ms. Hannah added — a racist slur “and a hangman noose.”

Could being "sick and tired" of others' perceived color-aroused and color-associated behavior prompt Thornton to engage in a killing spree that disrupts company productivity while removing a significant number of key workers from the corporate workforce? The New York Times reported that Thornton's behavior seems "inexplicable" and perhaps it appears to be so, until the hypothesis of color-aroused behavior on the part of Thornton and co-workers is considered.

The Washington Post confirmed the reports of a skin-color-associated motive :

Woman says Conn. shooter complained of race bias
MANCHESTER, Conn. -- A woman who knows the driver who fatally shot at least eight co-workers and himself at a Connecticut beer distribution company says he had complained of racial harassment at work.

Joanne Hannah says her daughter dated Omar Thornton for the past eight years. She says her daughter had no indication he planned anything violent Tuesday morning after he was asked to resign from Hartford Distributors and refused.

Hannah says Thornton, a black man, had complained to his superiors about a picture of a noose and a racial epithet in a bathroom at the distributor. Her daughter told her the supervisors did not respond to his complaints.

The case of Omar Thornton, a deeply brown-skinned resident of Connecticut and 34-year-old beer truck driver, who shot eight co-workers and then committed suicide on Tuesday, August 2, 2010, provides a graphic example of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior in the American workforce.

Omar Thornton told his sister and a police dispatcher that he was motivated to kill others at his work place by the skin-color-aroused of management and co-workers. Whether or not this is true, it is crucial that Thornton believed it to be true. He had skin-color-associated beliefs regarding how he was treated by others, and these beliefs led to anger and resentment, which he manifested in the color-aroused killing of eight co-workers and himself.

There are very few avenues in the United States for people such as Mr. Thornton to get help in the face of what they believe is color-aroused animus directed toward them. In spite of four centuries of political struggles and animosity related to skin color, professional groups such as the American Psychological Association and the America Psychiatrists Association do not offer generally available specialized training for treating those who harbor color-aroused ideation and emotion such as animosity and those whose color-aroused ideation and emotion lead to illegal color-aroused behavior.

This is not accidental. Through the post-Reconstruction period in the United States, the Klu Klux Klan and other color-aroused antagonist organizations lynched Blacks and sought to create terror and obeisance. The groups' behavior was often sanctioned by local police personnel who were sometimes members of the secret societies, and the brutality against Blacks was very rarely punished.

The behavior became "normal" and therefore outside of the scope of the work of psychologists and psychiatrists, who seek to identify and treat only abnormal behavior. Color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior have only recently been identified as problematic by the American Psychiatric Association, and even then focuses on the harm to the victims rather than the emotional illness of the perpetrators.

Thornton told his sister that he believed workers at the factory were intentionally overloading the beer delivery truck he drove, based on color-aroused animus toward him. He let his sister listen in via cell phone on a bathroom conversation between supervisors who called referred to Thornton with color-aroused epithets.

Although the temptation among many would be to deny that Thornton's homicidal actions were legitimate reactions to his experiences, whatever they were, nonetheless the constant denial of feelings such as Thornton's rather than screening and professional attention make it more likely that these color-aroused behaviors will be repeated in the future.

As is the multiple shooting and suicide case of Doug Williams at Lockheed Martin, and this time by a white man, the event occurred on the very day in which supervisors sought to challenge and confront behavior of the employee who engaged in a killing spree on the day of the meeting. Doug Williams faced a "sensitivity training" on the day of his rampage, while Omar Thornton faced a disciplinary hearing alleging theft of beer from the beer delivery truck he drove.

The New York Times reported on August 10, 2003:

Factory Killer Had a Known History of Anger and Racial Taunts

MERIDIAN, Miss., July 9— When he overheard a black man complimenting a white woman a couple of years ago on the factory floor, Doug Williams stepped up to the man and, using a racial slur, angrily told him blacks had no business being with blond women, witnesses recalled today.

When a black colleague complained last month that the white protective shoe-covering Mr. Williams was wearing on his head looked like a Ku Klux Klansman's pointy hood, and his boss at the Lockheed Martin aircraft parts plant a few miles outside of Meridian told him to take the bootie off his head or go home, Mr. Williams went home, company officials said today

On Monday, Mr. Williams, 48, told his father he was ticked off that he would have to attend an ethics and sensitivity training course the next morning, the authorities say. A few minutes after it began, Mr. Williams left the room, returned from his pickup truck armed to the teeth, and began blasting away at close range at people who had known him, and known of his quick temper and simmering hatred, for years.

Aside from the skin colors of the color-aroused killers, their cases seem all too similar. Color-aroused ideation and emotion lead to color-aroused murderous and suicidal behavior. And yet, there is no indication in newspaper reports that either of these employers considered the possibility that a confrontation associated with these ideation and emotions could provoke a color-aroused violence.

Lives can be saved if employers assume that alleged color-aroused provocations and allegations thereof indicate potentially violent and explosive situations in which psychiatrists should be called upon to screen those who allegedly have been involved in color-aroused provocations as well as those who allegedly have been the victims thereof. In these cases, color aroused behavior and perception of color-aroused victimization in the workplace are among the predictors of color-aroused violent and murderous behavior.

Arguably, the failure to pursue professional psychiatric intervention in such cases could make employers liable in wrongful death actions, where they have failed to attend to the obvious risk of violence associated with color-aroused employees in the workplace.

Another obvious take-home lesson from the Doug Williams and Omar Thornton cases is that when workers are confronted formally with respect to behavior (their own or someone else's) that may be perceived as color-aroused, such confrontation meetings may well give rise to acute color-aroused ideation and emotion such that puts co-workers at greatly increased risk of violent color-aroused behavior.

Employers have an obligation to workers that co-workers will be screened for dangerousness, regardless of their skin color, before confronting them about color-aroused victimization in the workplace, whether they perceive themselves as, or are, victims or perpetrators. The Williams and Thornton cases, taken together, show that all workers, regardless of skin color, are at risk when color-aroused behavior and potential acute psychiatric color-aroused crises are ignored in the workplace.

Employers cannot make use of this crucial anecdotal information unless they first acknowledge at least the confronted employee's potential belief that the confrontations are associated with color-aroused behavior, whether by co-workers, the employer or the employee. Such beliefs, actual behaviors and evaluation of the risk of consequent potential behaviors fall squarely within the expertise of psychiatrists and not that of "sensitivity trainers," untrained employers or even EEOC personnel.

Only competent psychiatrists have the training to conduct color-arousal screenings and to identify specific levels of color-aroused ideation, emotion and potentially dangerous color-aroused behavior. Thornton and Williams were, by definition, "extremely" color-aroused, because their color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior included or led to one or more of the following consequences of color-aroused ideation, emotion, behavior and consequences:

Actual or potential illegal behavior that risks criminal and/or civil penalties;
Formal and or informal reprimands or reasonable potential for such in the school or workplace
Loss of employment and/or future employment potential;
Loss of earnings and/or future earning potential;
Loss or potential disruption of social standing and repute;
Loss of potential loss of life (theirs and/or someone else's);
Loss, actual or potential disruption of family contacts;
Loss, actual or potential disruption or disruption of educational/occupational studies or opportunities for study.
Loss, actual or potential disruption or preclusion of romantic relationships;

It might be argued that potential loss of employment isn't sufficient reason to declare a patient's color-arousal to be "extreme." However, the potential for intervention before extreme acts requires that the a high likelihood of such acts be seen as evidence of the extreme nature of the problem in an individual patient. Anyone who shows an immediate potential and likelihood for engaging in behaviors, or who has engaged in such behaviors or spoken of a desire to do so must be perceived as "at risk" and receive the greatest possible support and intervention. It does little good to identify mass murderers in retrospect, since the damage is already done.

Potential mass murder/suicide victims, as well as those whose lives are diminished without being ended, must be identified using empirically based methods and case-based anecdotal measures to identify those who need most help so that they can contribute the most in their workplaces and other relationships.

Psychiatrists must conduct dangerousness assessments of potential aggressors, be they color-aroused antagonists or the victims of color aroused antagonists. Within both groups there is the potential to kill and to suicide associated with their own color-aroused ideation and emotion and the color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior of others.

Color-Aroused Black Man Kills White Color Aroused Antagonist Co-workers in Connnecticut

2010-08-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here is yet another incident in which a man who complained of color-aroused taunts from co-workers "suddenly" shot and killed at least eiight co-workers. Would this have happend if the man and his color-aroused antagonist co-workers had undergone a screening and appropriate treatment for color-aroused disorder by a competent psychiatrist? We really don't know because psychiatrists, as a rule, do not screen patients for color-aroused disorder. Hating and taunting people because of their skin color is considered within the range of "normal" behavior by many psychiatrists, and so the warning signs of an imminent killing spree are missed until the hate speech turns into hate massacres.

Even then, psychiatrists do not come forward to discuss the psychiatric aspects of color-aroused rage and hatred. Note that few if any stories about this case and the case below quote a psychiatrist about the color-aroused nature of the crime. Yet, if eight people had died simultaneously of heart attacks, medical doctors would certainly be contacted to offer their expertise.

The Washington Post reports today:

Woman says Conn. shooter complained of race bias
MANCHESTER, Conn. -- A woman who knows the driver who fatally shot at least eight co-workers and himself at a Connecticut beer distribution company says he had complained of racial harassment at work.

Joanne Hannah says her daughter dated Omar Thornton for the past eight years. She says her daughter had no indication he planned anything violent Tuesday morning after he was asked to resign from Hartford Distributors and refused.

Hannah says Thornton, a black man, had complained to his superiors about a picture of a noose and a racial epithet in a bathroom at the distributor. Her daughter told her the supervisors did not respond to his complaints.

Hannah says Thornton called his own mother after the rampage "to say goodbye and that he loved everybody."

This case reminds me of the case of Doug Williams, a Lockheed/Martin employee who shot and killed several of his colleagues on the same morning when he was to participate in yet another "sensitivity training." The New York Times reported on August 10, 2003:

Factory Killer Had a Known History of Anger and Racial Taunts

MERIDIAN, Miss., July 9— When he overheard a black man complimenting a white woman a couple of years ago on the factory floor, Doug Williams stepped up to the man and, using a racial slur, angrily told him blacks had no business being with blond women, witnesses recalled today.

When a black colleague complained last month that the white protective shoe-covering Mr. Williams was wearing on his head looked like a Ku Klux Klansman's pointy hood, and his boss at the Lockheed Martin aircraft parts plant a few miles outside of Meridian told him to take the bootie off his head or go home, Mr. Williams went home, company officials said today

On Monday, Mr. Williams, 48, told his father he was ticked off that he would have to attend an ethics and sensitivity training course the next morning, the authorities say. A few minutes after it began, Mr. Williams left the room, returned from his pickup truck armed to the teeth, and began blasting away at close range at people who had known him, and known of his quick temper and simmering hatred, for years.

Is sensitivity training really the only possible intervention for people who present clearly demonstrated that they present a danger to themselves and others? Yes, without the intervention of the medical profession, only "sensitivity training" will be available to those who are armed and planning to murder their co-workers.

'Medicalizing the intent to kill co-workers would obviously force color-aroused people into counseling, even before they killed anyone. We should be careful,' saith I ironically, 'not to medicalize mass killers, calling them "sick", lest everyone who is potentially a mass killer find themselves labeled and painted with the same "I need help with color-aroused anger" brush. At least that's the mentality that reigns in such decisions about treating a color-aroused worker and his color-aroused co-workers.

I wonder why the one-day "sensitivity training", if there was one for him and his co-workers, was unable to prevent a deeply troubled man from commiting a deeply troubled color-aroused act? I guess one-day trainings might not be sufficient for those who are armed and would like to slauhgter their co-worker.

Black Blogger Suggests Anonymous Self-Help Group for Blacks Called, "Whites Are After Me" (W.A.A.M)

2010-06-16T08:48:00.001-07:00

Dear “John:”

I did get all of the e-mails, but you're obsessing about this, John, and so it's hard for me to find time to read all of the e-mails.

Did you know that [white] psychiatrists diagnose Black people as paranoid schizophrenic at twice the rate of white people? Do you know why? Whites are always doing shit to us and telling us to our face, "You're wrong! I didn't do what you accuse me of."

When we get to the psychiatrist's office, we tell the psychiatrist that several people are out to get us because, in fact, several people ARE out to get us! The police are out to get us. The Government that keeps building new jails is out to get us. All-white juries are out to get us. And white people who see us in a white neighborhood and immediately call the police are also out to get us. The supervisor of the New York Department of Education who told my father, "Niggers don't get promoted" was out to get my father and ALL Black people.

Maybe that's why my father went insane. He couldn't forget the enormous hurt that white people had done to him and his family, and he didn't even realize the degree to which hurting over that was turning him into a different person.

You're not crazy, John. What you perceive as a color-aroused affront and attack against you really IS as you perceive it. But, if you can't stop thinking about this day and night, then you are going to have to go to a psychiatrist and tell him/her, "I have a problem and I can't stop thinking about it day and night."

Another alternative would be to start a self-help anonymous group in the basement of a church in your town called, W.A.A.M. (Whites Are After Me). I'm serious as a heart attack when I suggest this! Or we could hold these meetings over Skype, with ten or twenty people participating over the Internet and talking about what whites have done to us and are doing to us, and strategies we are developing for not letting it drive us insane or change who we fundamentally are/were.

One strategy is to contact another Black man who understands your experience and who can support you and help to guide you when the situation would otherwise drive your train off the tracks. But, when you ask other people for support and guidance, it won't help unless you do what they say. In this case, I'm saying, send the guy a letter and then move on.

If you don't do what I'm saying, I know that you will continue to obsess about this and while you're obsessing there will be many other opportunities that you won't even perceive because you are thinking so much about “PISS INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS.”

Tell me about your family, John. How are they doing? Are they getting all of the attention they should at this critical time in their lives while you're writing me e-mails about “Piss Industrial Products”? Aside from “Piss Industrial Products”, how are things going financially, John? Is everything on course? How do you feel about summer, John? Are you getting an opportunity to walk out the front door, walk across the street and smell the flowers and the freshly cut grass? How is you're dog doing, John? Are you walking him? How do you feel about the Soccer World Cup? Are you watching the games? (Brazil beat north Korea yesterday!)

If this all sounds like bullshit and you want to go back to talking about “Piss Industrial Products” again, then you need to attend a meeting of "Whites Are After Me" (WAAM). An important number of well-placed and other whites ARE after you, in your workplace, in your neighborhood, city, state and country, and you need support and suggestions about how to keep it from driving you crazy.

If you get Skype, I'm sure there are ten people who would like to participate in our first meeting of Whites Are After Me. In this case, the first step to getting help is realizing that you have a problem and the problem is NOT you (except to the extent that your ideational, emotional and behavioral reaction to white color-aroused antagonists allows white people to drive you insane).

Francis

Kimberly Clark Healthcare Denied Positive Publicity at AMJCA Blog

2010-06-08T09:08:00.001-07:00

Barbara:

Please stop imagining that I am going to give Kimberly Clark Healthcare a positive mention at my blog. In my opinion, the US Government should have a comprehensive national health agency that provides healthcare rather than paying private providers or, worse, insurance companies to do so. Many clients would abandon for-profit care entirely if the federal government offered such a service, which is why the insurance companies and for-profit health care providers were so determined to take the public option out of the recent national health care legislation.

Instead of asking for positive mention at my blog, please poll the 40 million people in the United States who have no access to health care at all and ask them whether the health care industry is meeting their needs.

Francis L. Holland

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:32 PM, Barbara Dunn wrote:
Hi again

I sent you a couple of emails over the past few weeks but I hadn't heard back so I wanted to try you once more. Kimblery-Clark Healthcare has put together a website called "Not on My Watch" at www.haiwatch.com to educate patients and health care professionals about the problem of patients acquiring life-threatening infections in hospitals. Their goal is to eliminate these preventable illnesses and their often tragic consequences. Hospitals still have work to do to put an end to the ongoing, but very solvable issue.

I thought that you and the readers of The American Journal of Color Arousal would care about this matter and I was hoping you could post some information spread the word about protecting patients from preventable hospital infections. I've created a useful site that you're welcome to check out and grab resources from:

http://haiwatchnews.com

Please let me know if you have any questions or need more information. If you are able to post about this, I'd love it if you could send me the link.

Thank you so much,

Barbara

--
Barbara Dunn
barbara@haiwatchnews.com
www.haiwatch.com

2010-05-25T16:15:00.000-07:00

"What are parents of bi-racial children to do?" I read that question in Monique Fields' article at The Root. But the question itself is full of misinformation and false beliefs and propaganda..

As the Human Genome Project of the US Department of Energy has found, "race" simply doesn't exist. Skin color exists. How can Fields possibly hope to explain something to her daughter when Fields clearly does not understand it herself?

Fields says that her daughter told her that "brown people drive old cars." I think this observation shows that her daughter has yet to learn the color-aroused ideation that most adults take for granted. Fields daughter has not been taught yet that people whose retina, liver, heart and lungs can be transferred across colors, and groups that can successfully mate, and produce offspring that are fertile are groups that, by definition, belong to the same species.

The difference, as the daughter has observed, is one of skin color. People who believe that differences of skin color equal "racial" differences are victims of four hundred years of color-associated propaganda Fields' daughter has not learned the adopted the utterly false pseudo-science of "race" yet. But, if Fields uses the "R" word over and over in discussions with and near her daughter, her daughter will soon believe that because she has a different skin color from her mother, that therefore she is from a different biological species/"race" from her mother. It would be a shame if the daughter came to believe such arrant nonsense.

It would likewise be a shame if her daughter came to believe that because her father is white the daughter therefore comes from a different species from her father, as well. I believe it causes harm to children when we teach them that they are alien to both of their parents. Since "race" doesn't exist, it would be a shame to have the daughter eventually believe that she was bi-racial instead of the mono-chromatic offspring of a bi-chromatic mating.

And yet, Fields says that she and her husband are from two different "races," and therefore her daughter is bi-racial. The truth is that she and her husband are in a bi-chromatic (two-colored) marriage and the child has ONE COLOR that has arisen from the mixture of two other colors. THIS is science you can find in a science book. "Race" is pseudo science that cannot be found anywhere in the animal kingdom except in discussions human beings who have different skin colors from one another.

You need not take my word for it. Google the phrase "different race" and you will discover that this phrase is never used in biology except in pseudo-biological discussions of human beings. Otherwise identical cats and dogs can have different fur colors without being from a different species. Only humans are conclusively from different species that can be distinguished others based on having different skin colors.

I recently read an article about albino beavers born at a zoo. Albino means that their fur and skin and even eye colors are different. Nowhere in the article did I read that the albino off-spring of beavers are from a different "race" whose only difference from other beavers is the color of their hair.

I believe that all discussions about biological "race" occur between people who are delusional, however our society is so delusional that many of us can't identify delusion when we see it. Is our society "divided along racial lines?" When you bring the fallacy of "race" into a discussion of skin color-associated politics, ideation, emotion and behavior, the "race" word is to rational discussion like powdered cement to a pancake recipe.

Lost Swimming Club Case Animates Rand Paul, Other Color-Aroused Antagonists

2010-05-23T21:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Colleagues:

Please support Color of Change's initiative.

The high-profile Huntingdon Valley, whites-only Pennsylvania, swimming club case, in which whites lost their club to bankruptcy after discriminating against Black children, is the news that has color-aroused Republicans like Rand Paul animated and eager to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The result in the swimming pool case has reminded color-aroused white antagonists of just how much they resent having to serve Blacks and eat next to us. Now Fox News is using this issue to drive up ratings while color-arousing the electorate.

They don't want to live in fear that they will discriminate against us and then be forced to pay financially for it while Blacks cheer that our rights have been vindicated. That is what is animating them.

Rand was/is saying that he doesn't agree with the result in the swimming pool case and he believes the public accommodations part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act should be repealed. The 29% of America that supported George W. Bush to the very end are probably among those who agree with Rand. It is they whom Rand and Fox News are trying to mobilize for election turnout this November and in 2012, when the Black President's name will be on the ballot.

It's like Hillary Clinton in South Carolina. Republicans first and last choice of weapons against us is the color of our skin.

Francis L. Holland

"Why Did I Get Married Too" Is Great Movie, without a KKK Kast

2010-04-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

Cross posted at the Francis L. Holland blog.

I saw a great movie this weekend called "Why Did I Get Married Too?" (see Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB)), with African American Tyler Perry as writer, actor and director. This is a movie with a Black aesthetic but relevance for all. Four couples get together yearly to review their relationships and commitments, but this year's gathering at a ski resort brings some shocking surprises and plot twists.

This movie is a "must see." The nine main characters are all very well developed (an amazing feat), with roles and behavior that remind us of someone we know--or maybe even ourselves.

Also prominent in the cast were a highly respectable Janet Jackson, as a psychologist with an award winning book on marriage and relationships; Malik Yoba as a physician; Richard T. Jones as a very credible asshole husband; Louis Gosett Jr., Sharon Leal and even Ciciley Tyson, although I didn't notice her.

The trailers on the DVD were maddening. They were for two movies that I would never even consider seeing, because each of them has an implausibly and maddeningly all-white cast. There's "Group Therapy," about group-member city-dwellers whose all-white lives are explored. To me, all-white lives are about as interesting as all-white fried chicken and broccoli. Please don't see "Group Therapy" because the underlying theme of the movie is white apartheid in Hollywood and the return of Jim Crow in the movie theaters.

Also on the trailer was "New In Town," a movie about a white New York business woman who is chosen from an all-white boardroom to go to Minnesota and preside over the overhaul of an all-white factory that is losing money. Maybe the factory is losing money because of all the anti-discrimination claims it loses when it hires all-white factory employees. All-white staffs are inherently suspect, but Hollywood does not seem to have gotten that lesson yet.

All the more reason to see Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married Too," which has an integrated staff (there's a white waitress in a diner who has no lines in the movie), and the movie avoids stereotypes by focusing on the lives of realistic Blacks: a doctor, a psychologist, a chemist with her own makeup company, a hard-working corporate lawyer, an ex-professional football player . . .

This movie is about financially successful lives and hilariously and maddeningly complicated relationships. In one explosive scene, all of the couple's secrets come out and then no one knows how the chaos will end.

I refuse to see Hollywood's apartheid movies. If there are no Black (or Asian or Native American) people in the advertisements for a movie, then the movie is a work of Hollywood publicity apartheid. I assume the movie itself will be the same. Don't waste your money on Hollywood's American apartheid in the new millennium when South African apartheid ended in the last millennium. Sometimes a great actor like Forrest Whittaker is in a mostly white film, but Whittaker's face and name are not on the posters. Unfortunately, I'll miss that movie, because if the movie is advertised as an apartheid movie then I will treat it as such.

This is not to say that whites-only movies don't occasionally have their merits. But none of their merits is so fundamental as to trump the moral imperative that we refrain from supporting apartheid.

White actors who participate in all-white casts should look around themselves and realize that they are participating in a modern-day Klan rally. They should be treated with all of the admiration we have for members of the Klu Klux Klan, except these Klan members appear on the big screen, without the shame and self-awareness to understand that they should have white hoods on. I won't see their all-white movies and I won't see ANY of their movies. Some people are going to disagree with me about this, mostly because they're always watched television and movies with all-white casts and never given it a second thought.

Well, give it some thought now: "whites-only" casts are a facet of American apartheid, just like a "whites-only" movie theater would be.

Eddie G. Griffin (BASG) on "Racism" and Atty. Francis L. Holland on Color Arousal Disorder

2010-04-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

On 19 April 2010 14:25, Eddie Griffin wrote:

I Got Hate Mail

Monday, April 19, 2010

My Dear Editor:

Let me address the criticism to my article “Unhealthy Rhetoric”, and separate the genuine from the bigoted hate mail. Eddie Griffin is a nice guy compared to what most African-Americans are saying in secret. Most see the Tea Party as the new KKK. I see it as a cover from Racism.

Now let’s not be “intellectually lazy” as one critic accuse of me. The word “Racism” should not be confused with bigoted racial hatred. The latter is an outgrowth of the former. Racism is an ideology that precedes the outward emotional demonstration of racial hatred.

Who has the power to define, anyway? Who has the power to define what Racism truly is?

The black intelligentsia specifically defined Racism as “the ideology of white supremacy practiced by class suppression along racial lines.” For us, this is not a debatable concept. It is simply the definition we put forth to the United Nations in 1964, when “We Charged Genocide” against the United States for the second time in history- the first being submitted in the 1950s by Paul Robeson and company, and later amended by Malcolm X and the black intelligentsia, of which Eddie Griffin was an original party.

Some Fort Worth Weekly critics accuse me of being a “racist” because I described what I saw as “unhealthy rhetoric” in the Tea Party movement and at its rallies. This accusation of my being a racist is a throwback to the Mike Wallace interview of Malcolm X around 1964. Wallace accused Malcolm X of being a “black racist”. Malcolm, on the other hand, pointed out that Racism was a political ideology like other “ism” (Nazism, communism, socialism, totalitarianism). The ideology was founded long ago on the premise of white supremacy and the myth of the “White man’s burden”, as the sole conveyor of civilization.

A person cannot change the word to change the reality of race relationships. Calling a black man a racist, Malcolm X pointed out, was like calling the victimized the victimizer. No so, only a few Negroes would subscribe to the ideology of white supremacy. And, in those, would be found a “racist” in black skin.

That the United Nation rejected our definition because, as they said, any race can oppress another race, and technically be called “racism”. White supremacy was more evident under the “apartheid” system in South Africa.

Nevertheless, the definition and meaning of the word stuck with those of us who believed in the validity of Malcolm X’s argument. Webster dictionary was no authority either, seeing that it defined “Negro” as “something dead”. And, we refused to let others put words in our mouths, as was customary for slave owners to put words in the mouth of the slave. For the first time in history, we spoke for ourselves and defined our own reality, as we saw it.

One of the Seven Principals of Liberation was Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Meaning no disrespect, it would be inappropriate for someone to tell me what to see and what to say. I saw in the Tea Party movement is what I saw. And, I am not the only one.

[See also “Brutal Political Debate Once Again Widens A Cultural Divide” by Elisabeth Ivy, Star-Telegram, April 19, 2010; and “Remember, Some People Take Battle Cries Seriously” by Kathleen Parker, Star-Telegram, April 18, 2010]

Eddie Griffin

* * * * *

Dear Eddie:

In spite of its historic logic, one problem with the historic definition of "racism" is that it is too narrow, ideological and diffuse to help us in our analysis of much of what we see going on today.

Many whites are joining the Tea Party movement as a reaction against the election of a Black President. I believe their motive for joining the movement is aroused by the ideation, emotion and behavior they experience when they perceive President Barack Obama's skin color. If this is so, does it mean that those in the Tea Party movement are "racist"?

Maybe not. Unless we can convince the press that Tea Partiers are "practicing class suppression along racial lines" then we can't use your 1964 UN definition to convince the press that blind visceral hatred of Blacks regardless of class equals "racism". And, in America, if you don't fit the definition of "racist" then you are alright, and don't have a problem, even if you hate black people because the color of their skin simply unnerves you.

We've gotten as far as we're going to get and taught all that we can with the political and ideological definitions of racism. Now, we need to look at color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior of individuals and refer them to psychiatrists as necessary.

Is a billionaire white man who desperately wants to marry a generic Black woman--any Black woman--necessarily "racist"? Even though the result of their divorce would be to improve the economic status of his white wife?

Is a billionaire Cablanasian golfer who desperately wants to marry a white woman to be defined as a "racist," even though their divorce would improve the white woman's class status when she gets half of his wealth?

The definition provided by UN 1964 simply doesn't offer any insight into cases like this, because it focuses on societal patterns rather than individual psychiatric issues. Both perspectives are necessary. We can't cure cancer until we have demographic information about its prevalence and causes. We also can't cure cancer without looking with great particularity and specificity at individuals who have cancer right now and seeing what can be done to eradicate it from those individuals, one by one.

Just as there is no single societal cure for cancer, there is no hope for addressing color aroused ideation, emotion and behavior in individuals unless we begin to screen for, diagnose and treat this psychiatric illness in individuals who have the disorder.

Francis L. Holland

To the Editors of American Prospect:

2010-04-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

Francis L. Holland
Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil

_____________________________________________________________________________

To the Editors of American Prospect:

Adam Serwer's April 9, 2010 article, "Our Racial Interior," reviewing Claude M. Steele's new book, "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us (Issues of Our Time), is timely and important. The studies cited in the article confirm the existence and importance of a psychological phenomenon I call "color arousal," wherein the perception of others' skin color and the complex knowledge of our own skin color arouse ideation, emotion and behavior that can range from the benign (toddlers expressing curiousity about the skin color of other toddlers) to Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD), in which extreme color aroused emotions, ideation and behavior lead to threats, violence, and loss of liberty for those suffering from the disorder.

At present, those who verbally and physically threaten or assault others at work or at school based on skin color are often referred to one-day "sensitivity training" workshops. Psychiatric interventions conducted by "sensitivity trainers" are frequently unsuccessful and often lead to tragic results when the level of intervention is inappropriate for the severity of the illness.

For example,

"Lockheed Workplace Murders Targeted Blacks: Management Knew Shooter's Racist Views and Previous Threats."

A longtime Lockheed employee, [Doug] Williams fumed when blacks at the plant complained about his racial slurs or received better-paying jobs, according to several co-workers. He once wore the bootie of a white protective suit on his head in the shape of what black workers said looked like a Ku Klux Klan hood. Given the choice by management to remove it or go home, Williams left. Lockheed took no disciplinary action against him for the incident, according to Lockheed documents.

Many who knew Williams had feared, even predicted, violence would eventually erupt.

Williams should have been referred to a psychiatrist competent to screen for and treat Extreme Color Aroused Disorder, with removal from the catalyst of his fury--polychromatic interactions in the polychromatic workforce--if necessary--until appropriate cognitive-behavioral treatment enabled him to cope better. However, we are victims of our belief that it is "normal" to hate others based entirely on their skin color.

Doug Williams killed himself, as well as Black and white co-workers, on the very morning when he was to attend yet another required "sensitivity training." Instead, he should have been referred for psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he could safely and constructively participate in intimate encounters with those polychromatic workers whom he most hated and wanted to kill. But his psychiatric color aroused symptoms received less seriousness than depression or obesity would have.

Unfortunately, there is virtually no psychiatric treatment available for persons with Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD) (which should be diagnosed as the Social Security Administration diagnoses disability claims, based on whether the sufferers' emotions, ideation and behavior cause significant impairment in one or more critical areas of life functioning, e.g.:

unlawful and punishable workplace behavior that leads to discipline and/or dismissal;
antagonistic behavior towards strangers in public based on skin color and risking violent arguments, physical harm to self and others, arrest and imprisonment;loss of employment and social status;
isolation from children, spouses, family, friends and co-workers resulting from the the sufferers' hatred, fear, jealousy, envy or other strong emotions on skin color;
Fights, taunts, expulsion, suspension or absences from school or college resulting from color-aroused ideaiton, emotion and behavior, including cases in which they inhibit the sufferers' own educational attainment.

The American Psychiatric Association needs to recognize that color aroused ideation and emotion sometimes progress into extreme and illegal color-aroused threats and violence that constitute a danger to self and others. Doug Williams killed himself and several co-workers because his many signs of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD) were treated with less medical seriousness than a case of dandruff would have been.

Every employee or student who taunts, threatens or harms others based on skin color should be immediately referred for psychiatric evaluation, lest these behaviors progress and erupt in extreme color-aroused violence or lead to intolerably workplace circumstances for which employers then become civilly liable.

Many Americans are in jail resulting from hate crimes. All of them deserved an offer of psychiatric help, in the face of their escalating color-aroused behavior, before they committed crimes that harmed themselves and others. In light of the Doug Williams experience, it should be clear that a day of "sensitivity training" is not an appropriate psychiatric intervention for a student or worker who who is known to possess firearms and who has threatened to kill himself and others.

Atty. Francis L. Holland
The American Journal of Color Arousal (AMJCA)
http://amjca.blogspot.com
Afrosphere Blogging Participant

FBI FOIA Documents Received on Jena Six Case

2010-04-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

In response to my FOIA request for all documents related to the Jena Six March, I received a packet from the FBI. One page of the file was denied to me based on legal grounds, but the packet basically has some newspaper articles from 2006/2007, with some doodling on them.

Then there's a chronology of the events leading up to the nooses in the tree, i.e the overt decision to let Blacks sit under the tree and the covert white response to prevent them from doing so.

There's a discussion of what punishment would and should ensue for the three identified white student noose hangers (whose names are omitted from the FBI documents). The discussion is about whether the students will be expelled from school or merely suspended, with the FBI expressing no opinion on the matter. I believe (without remembering for sure) that the FBI reported that the students were suspended and, once the students having been thereby punished, there was nothing further for the FBI investigate in Jena, Louisiana.

Then there are some new details about the noose tree. The noose tree was the only shade tree on school grounds, according to the FBI, and it provided enough shade for five or six picnic tables underneath. So, being excluded from sitting under the noose tree meant being excluded from sitting at picnic tables and excluded from sitting in the shade. At least that's the FBI report's take on it.

In another interesting twist, there are a couple of newspaper articles in the file concerning white supremacists' responses. These white supremacist threats seemed to be taken far more seriously than anything that Blacks might do in response to the noose hanging.

Nonetheless, the FBI saw no real merit to pursuing the matter and and kicked the case over to the Bush Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. There, Civil Rights makes the determination that no more review or investigation is warranted, and this decision was made in 2006/early 2007, apparently BEFORE the Black kids beat the white kid up, and BEFORE the school was torched, and BEFORE 30,000 Blacks marched on Jena. Like Katrina, the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel and unable or unwilling to see the gravity of storms even after getting storm warnings. It's also reminiscent of September 11, 2001. National security people warned Bush that an attack was imminent, so Bush went on vacation, giving the unprecedented attacks all of the attention he believed they deserved at the time.

It's really quite ironic that Jena and Katrina happened in the same state of Louisiana. In both Louisiana cases, the Bush Administration was advised well in advance that a storm was brewing, and in both Louisiana cases the Bush Administration decided to do nothing until it was too late, much to the disadvantage of the Black people (and a considerable number of white people) involved.

Interestingly, there is no mention of the Jena March or the beating of the white kid in the FBI files as released. Perhaps once the FBI and Civil Rights division decided that there was nothing worth investigating in Jena, they decided to stick to that story regardless of the facts as they evolved. The FOIA documents say virtually nothing about Black people's response to the nooses, and the FOIA documents do not, to my recollection, report contact with any specific Black people or organizations before the decision to close the case.

If anyone finds any of this new and interesting, or would like to review the documents for another perspective, I can put the most relevant documents on the Internet in PDF files and/or send them by e-mail.

"Can white people chemically straighten their hair?"

2010-02-17T13:51:00.000-08:00

In my Site Meter, I discovered that someone had searched in Google for an answer to the question, "Can white people chemically straighten their hair?"

Many people whose skin color group would be considered "whites" in the United States, nonetheless have wavy, curly hair that may even suggest aspects of their ancestry of which they are unaware, but which DNA genetic testing could easily confirm.

Here in Brazil, and perhaps now more than ever before, white people and Black people--everyone--seems to be straightening hair. One television commercial even declares that, "You have a right to straight hair," and then of course suggests a product which can make that right a reality.

My step children play with a girl who would certainly be considered white in the United States, based on skin color and long wavy mousy-brown hair. But long and wavy isn't good enough anymore. She straightens her because she wants it to be as straight as that of the Japanese and Hawaiian women whom we see on television.

Based on my personal observations, the same caustic lye and formaldehyde that will straighten Black women's hair will also straighten the hair of white women. And many white women are taking the bait like bluefish swallowing hook, line and sinker.

The reader who posed this question found an American Journal of Color Arousal article entitled, Do Some People Who Straighten Their Hair Need Psychiatric Treatment?

I think maybe they do, and I'll tell you why based on personal experience: Two or three months ago, my step-daughters began using chemicals to straighten their hair. Since then, they have both begun to sneeze constantly, but with no symptoms of cold or flue, no headaches, no change in apetite, no wait gain or loss. Why are these TWO girls sneezing constantly and does the correlation with hair perming prove causation?

In addition, my wife has begun going to the sink and blowing out of each nostril in turn as if she had an insect stuck in her nasal system. The sound is raucus and can be heard from neighboring houses. (I know because our neighbor does the same thing.)

If you became convinced that your two daughters constant sneezing was the result of perming their hair, would you forbid them repeatedly use of those chemicals? Or would you select constant coughing as the inevitable price of pretty hair?

If you believe that pretty hair today is more important than protecting your lungs for the lifetime you will need them, then maybe you should see a doctor. If your lung specialist says to stop using lye and formaldehyde, but you find this socially and politically impossible, then I suggest that you see a psychiatrist or a community activist who can help you to free your DNA-determined hair from the grips of cultural and economic insanity.

Beck’s UK broadcast runs without ads; over 100 companies have ditched Beck

2010-02-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

16 Feb 2010 Author: James Rucker

Yesterday, for the fifth day in a row, the UK broadcast of Glenn Beck’s TV show was forced to run without any advertisements. This is thanks to efforts by StopBeck.com to pressure companies advertising on Beck’s UK broadcast.

It’s an amazing milestone in the larger effort to push advertisers away from Glenn Beck, which started last July. And at the same time, we’ve reached another important milestone — over 100 companies have now stopped their ads from appearing on Beck’s show.

From our press release:

The U.K. broadcast of Glenn Beck’s eponymous television program was forced to air free of paid advertisements on four consecutive days last week. This according to StopBeck.com, an extension of the anti-Beck campaign created by ColorOfChange.org. StopBeck.com confirmed that, with the latest group of defections from Beck’s overseas broadcast, Fox News Channel was forced to fill commercial breaks with news headlines and local weather updates from its U.K.-based sister network, Sky News, instead of paid advertisements.

The news comes on the heels of a new group of U.S. companies who have asked Fox News Channel to stop their ads from running or pledged not to run ads on the show going forward. The latest U.S. defections — Allstate Insurance, Anheuser-Busch, Best Western International, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals (maker of Flomax), Brother International Corporation, Hear Music, Idaho Potato Commission, Intersections Inc., Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School, Marriott International, Nestlé USA, Republic of Macedonia, Starkist Co., United Healthcare, USFidelis, Volkswagen and Western Union — coupled with the international movement to bring the total number of companies distancing themselves from Beck to over one hundred.

“We’re incredibly thrilled that StopBeck.com has taken our campaign and successfully executed it internationally,” said James Rucker, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org. “This is a huge blow against Glenn Beck. As we continue our fight against those that support Beck domestically, we will use this victory as further proof that more and more companies are taking a stand against his racial demagoguery.”

“People now on both sides of the Atlantic are using Twitter and other social media to let companies know that by advertising on Beck’s program, they are subsidizing hate,” said Angelo S. Carusone, lead organizer of StopBeck.com. ”Fox News’ willingness to use filler from Sky News, rather than address Beck’s fear mongering, raises real questions about the network’s priorities.”

While Beck’s UK broadcast has been forced to run without ads, his US broadcast has been reduced to running promos for other shows on Fox, ads from direct marketers (think exercise equipment and gold coins) and a handful of private companies headed by right-wingers.

If you want to participate in StopBeck’s efforts, you can find them on the web at StopBeck.com and StopBeckUK.info, and follow them on twitter at @StopBeck and @StopGlennBeck.

Here are statements from the most recent group of U.S. advertisers distancing themselves from Beck:

“While we do purchase advertising on Fox News Channel, we did not intentionally purchase commercials in or around the show, ‘The Glen [sic] Beck Program,’ nor do we sponsor the program,” said Jennifer L. Egeland, director of integrated marketing communications for Allstate Insurance Company, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “You should not expect to see Allstate advertising during this program in the future.”

“Our company has not agreed to advertise during the Glenn Beck show,” said Johnny Furr, vice president of community affairs for Anheuser-Busch, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We purchase advertising on the Fox News Channel for time slots other than this show, and the ad you saw inadvertently ran during that program.”

“Best Western ads will no longer run during the Glenn Beck show,” said Troy Rutman, director of external communications for Best Western International, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “As a global, family-oriented brand with guests of all persuasions and viewpoints, we seek to avoid any controversial programming, regardless of political affiliation.”

“Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. does not intend to advertise during the Glen [sic] Beck Show and has communicated this to the FOX network,” said Susan Holz, Senior PR Specialist for the company, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“Moving forward, Brother won’t have it on there [Beck's show],” said Peggy Carlton, account executive for Brother International at MS&L Worldwide, in a voice mail message to ColorOfChange.org. “Moving forward there won’t be any specifically on Glenn Beck.”

“We in no way want to promote the hateful rhetoric of Mr. Glenn Beck, and therefore take this matter very seriously,” said Dino Balzano, director of advertising at Concord Music Group, parent company of Hear Music, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Although we did not specifically request the airing to take place on that show, we did buy time on Fox News, and the spot happened to air during Beck’s program. After we were made aware of the situation, we made the immediate decision to insist all further of our scheduled Fox airings were not on Glenn Beck.”

“It has been our long-standing policy to not advertise on any controversial programs,” said Frank Muir, President & CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We have informed FOX that the Idaho Potato Commission will no longer advertise on the Glen [sic] Beck Show.”

“I first learned about this controversy [in November] and asked Fox to take his show out of our rotation,” said Steve Schwartz, executive vice president of consumer services for Intersections, Inc., in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We no longer advertise on Glenn Beck’s show.”
Angela Loiacono, manager of corporate communications at Career Education Corporation (CEC), parent company of Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School, confirmed that CEC had asked Fox News not to allow its ads to run during Glenn Beck’s program. “Our commercials…should be off-air in mid-February,” said Loiacono in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“We do not intend to have any additional ad placements during the program,” said Jeff Flaherty, spokesperson for Marriott International, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “I’d like to point out that diversity and inclusion are core values at Marriott and an essential component of our success.”

“We do not advertise on the Glenn Beck radio or television show,” said Cathy Johnson, consumer services manager for Nestle USA, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Nestlé USA has family friendly programming guidelines in place that are routinely monitored and enforced. However, we are aware of a recent commercial that aired during the Glenn Beck show. Airing the spot on FOX and this program was an error that has been corrected.”

“Although we only have a few more spots left to air on Fox, we have requested that the remaining spots not be aired during Glenn Beck’s program,” said Natali Rancevic, a spokesperson for the Republic of Macedonia, Agency of Foreign Investments, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Fox has agreed to honor our request.”

“We have chosen to not air our commercial during Glenn Beck’s program going forward given a number of alternatives that meet our advertising plan’s criteria,” said Mary Sestric, a corporate affairs staffer for Starkist Co., in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“Back in August of this year United Healthcare instructed FOX News to not run any of our ads during the Glenn Beck show,” said Lynne High, director of media relations, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“We are no longer advertising on this show or station,” said Elizabeth Kirkpatrick, marketing coordinator for US Fidelis, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

Harvard's Pouissant Says Color Aroused Disorder is a Mental Illness

2010-02-17T04:56:00.000-08:00

The following is reprinted from the address above.

The American Psychiatric Association has never officially recognized extreme racism (as opposed to ordinary prejudice) as a mental health problem, although the issue was raised more than 30 years ago. After several racist killings in the civil rights era, a group of black psychiatrists sought to have extreme bigotry classified as a mental disorder. The association's officials rejected the recommendation, arguing that because so many Americans are racist, even extreme racism in this country is normative—a cultural problem rather than an indication of psychopathology.

The psychiatric profession's primary index for diagnosing psychiatric symptoms, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), does not include racism, prejudice, or bigotry in its text or index.¹ Therefore, there is currently no support for including extreme racism under any diagnostic category. This leads psychiatrists to think that it cannot and should not be treated in their patients.

To continue perceiving extreme racism as normative and not pathologic is to lend it legitimacy. Clearly, anyone who scapegoats a whole group of people and seeks to eliminate them to resolve his or her internal conflicts meets criteria for a delusional disorder, a major psychiatric illness.

Extreme racists' violence should be considered in the context of behavior described by Allport in The Nature of Prejudice.² Allport's 5-point scale categorizes increasingly dangerous acts. It begins with verbal expression of antagonism, progresses to avoidance of members of disliked groups, then to active discrimination against them, to physical attack, and finally to extermination (lynchings, massacres, genocide). That fifth point on the scale, the acting out of extermination fantasies, is readily classifiable as delusional behavior.

More recently, Sullaway and Dunbar used a prejudice rating scale to assess and describe levels of prejudice.³ They found associations between highly prejudiced people and other indicators of psychopathology. The subtype at the extreme end of their scale is a paranoid/delusional prejudice disorder.

Using the DSM's structure of diagnostic criteria for delusional disorder,⁴^(p329) I suggest the following subtype:

Prejudice type: A delusion whose theme is that a group of individuals, who share a defining characteristic, in one's environment have a particular and unusual significance. These delusions are usually of a negative or pejorative nature, but also may be grandiose in content. When these delusions are extreme, the person may act out by attempting to harm, and even murder, members of the despised group(s).

Extreme racist delusions can also occur as a major symptom in other psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Persons suffering delusions usually have serious social dysfunction that impairs their ability to work with others and maintain employment.

As a clinical psychiatrist, I have treated several patients who projected their own unacceptable behavior and fears onto ethnic minorities, scapegoating them for society's problems. Their strong racist feelings, which were tied to fixed belief systems impervious to reality checks, were symptoms of serious mental dysfunction. When these patients became more aware of their own problems, they grew less paranoid—and less prejudiced.

It is time for the American Psychiatric Association to designate extreme racism as a mental health problem by recognizing it as a delusional psychotic symptom. Persons afflicted with such psychopathology represent an immediate danger to themselves and others. Clinicians need guidelines for recognizing delusional racism in all its forms so that they can provide appropriate treatment. Otherwise, extreme delusional racists will continue to fall through the cracks of the mental health system, and we can expect more of them to explode and act out their deadly delusions.

The "Race" Word and the War of the Races

2010-02-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

The Root says,

Haiti's 'Orphans' and the Transracial Adoption Dilemma
by ANGIE CHUANG
Bring up race and adoption, and watch people squirm. But the reality remains that African-American children remain on the bottom rung of the adoption ladder.

I'm not even going to read the article because it would only make me angry to see the anachronistic word "race" used so many times by an article author who thinks he trying to help Blacks while instead he just stigmatizes us (and himself).

First of all:

According to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program,
"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program.
In other words, the Human Genome Project has proven that, as a matter of scientific fact, that which we call "race" does not exist as a matter of biology, and so all references to "race" are references to a fallacy.

That's what I copied from the US Goverment's Genome Information Project page and pasted in the sidebar of the American Journal of Color Arousal. Most people don't seem to have gotten the memo yet that:

Skin Color Exists. Biological "Race" Doesn'tgreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

And so they continue to use and propagate a word and an underlying belief system that stigmatizes Black people and Asians daily and everyone else who is not "white" daily.

What would happen if you did a telephone "push-pole" and asked Americans two questions:

Would you adopt a child if you knew his/her skin color was different from your own?
Would you adopt a child if you knew his/her "race" was different from your own?

I would have to answer the above questions with a "yes" and "no" respectively. A child's skin color would not necessarily prevent me from adopting him or her. After all, problems of skin color are only ideationally, emotionally, and behaviorally deep, and they only become so because people have been socialized to believe that "race" exists as a matter of biology and sociology. If I taught the child that we had different skin color and were all part of the same species, I think that might make our challenges easier.

However, when you ask me to adopt a child from a different "race," which is synonymous with "species," I think you might be asking me to adopt ET. Is there any way I could know that you're not asking me to adopt E.T.? Doesn't the mere fact that you have used the word "race" require me to ask additional questions in order to assure myself that the proposed adoptee is human and not from a different species? If I accept a child from a different "race," you might show up with a monkey, an orangutan, or a boa-constrictor, or an other-wordly creature from "War of the Worlds." You might well be asking me to adopt a chicken or a chicken-eating wolf.

If all I know is that the child is from a "different race" irgo "species" and, therefore, might be,for example, the poisonous child of a poisonous snake, what person in his right mind could make that decision without more information? However, many people can make the decision in the affirmative if the question is merely referring to skin color and superficial morphological facial and hair differences, potentially.

The word "race" stigmatizes everyone who is not white and from Northern Europe by insinuating that there is something fundamentally different about us that people must know more about before they can take the risk of hiring us, adopting us, befriending us, lending to us, selling a house to us in a neighborhood where one's neighbors will now have to live with us, or permitting their daughter or son to marry us . . .

The word "race" takes the term "skin-color" and multiplies its importance ten or fifty-fold. In fact, one of the primary reasons that we can't "bridge the gap between the races" is that the word "race" itself contains within its very definition that premise that we are radically different from one another, even between people of different colors who get along perfectly well.

You don't have to be a genius to know that if you tell a group of even thirty white children that they consist of two groups--the red shirts and the blue shirts--that are radically different from one another in significant ways, then they will begin to treat one another differently, not because their shirts are different, which occurs in all classrooms, but because you have asserted to these children that the difference in shirt colors is a marker for profound other differences. The children will predictably gather into groups by shirt color and treat one another differently on that basis.

How do I know? Ask Dr. Charles Bell this question, and I am sure that he will provide you with numerous studies affirming the above. Dr. Bell is President/CEO of the Community Mental Health Council in Chicagoand Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Illinois School of Medicine. He might not agree with me that about "Why the 'Race' Word is Wrong," but he will surely cite numerous studies in people who are told that they are fundamentally different from each proceed to treat each other in fundamentally different ways.

That's why I'm not going to read the article above. The premise that, between people with brown skin and people with pink skin, skin color and superficial facial and hair morphology can and should be used to distinguish the "white species" from the "brown species" is a premise to laughable that I believe it was the subject of an old Star Trek episode.

This may be a problem that will only be resolved over several generations. Just as there were arguments over whether Blacks should be called African American, there are arguments going on now as to whether Blacks constitute a biologically different "race". As the Human Genome Project (cited above) has proved, there is no reason to believe that Blacks (or Chinese people) constitute a different species as a matter of biology. We are capable of successfully reproducing with each other and all of our bodily organs are interchangeable as long as medically significant criteria such as blood type (which cannot be predicted by skin color) are respected.

Since the article above is clearly perpetuates a biological premise that has no basis in biology, I'm not going to bother to read it. However, if any of my readers do look at the article and discover that it does not perpetuate the belief in "race", please inform me in the comments.

When it comes to perpetuating the use of and premises of the "race" word, our friends are unfortunately hurting us as much as our enemies.

NYDailyNews Misquotes US Census on "Blacks"

2010-01-10T05:46:00.000-08:00

The African American Political Pundit takes issue with US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's use of the word "Negro" to describe President Barack Obama, and with quotes in a new book that have Reid encouraging Senator Obama to run for president because Obama is a white-enough Black, in his skin color and speech, to be accepted by whites.

The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate apologized on Saturday for comments he made about Barack Obama’s race during the 2008 presidential bid. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada described then-Sen. Barack Obama as “light skinned” and “with no Negro dialect.”

( . . . )

Reid’s comments are included in a book set to be published on Monday. “Game Change” was written by Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin and New York magazine’s John Heilemann; the pair describe the book in interviews during Sunday’s “60 Minutes” on CBS. Hot Air

The unfortunate reality is that Senator Barack Obama had a greater chance of being elected president than did e.g. Rep. John Lewis, who has much more experience, because Barack Obama is part white and looks and speaks like it. To ignore that reality is to endorse the "post-racial" view of American life while African Americans are still being metaphorically hung from posts because of our skin color.

I knew the 2010 US Census Form would be controversial in it's references to Blacks. Without having first seen the Form first, I predicted on December 3, 2009 that the form would be controversial because of the various terms used to refer to Black people, including the white-news media's favorite "black race", in which phrase they doggedly write the word "Black" with a lower-case "b".

Now, the New York Daily News says the word "Negro" on the Census Form is angering Black people. At least the US Census Form writes "Black" with a capital "B", just like "Filipino" and "Japanese".

I really don't care whether people think I'm a "Negro" or not, as long as they spell the word with a capital "N". "Negro" is a skin color as well as a well-identified national and international political group, if only in historical, socio-economic and cultural juxtaposition with the skin-color "white".

What annoys me about the Census Form is that it doesn't include "Black/brown/coffee/beige/vanilla, but not Latino/Hispanic" as one of the options, as I suggested on December 3 would be a way to reflect the panoply of skin colors among the nation's "Blacks". We Blacks know that we fit into one of these descriptors, and we know from the process of elimination that no other descriptor describes us as well as at least one of the above.

AfroSpear blogger Jose A. Vilson would certainly object at this point, and rightfully so, that "Black/brown/coffee/beige/vanilla, AND ALSO Latino/Hispanic" should be one of the category option.

I faintly object to the term "Negro" only because it is so out-dated and associated with America's Jim Crow that few people still alive will both identify with and want to be associated with the term. But, at least spelling it with a capital "N" on the Census Form shows considerably more respect for Blacks than newspapers do everyday when they insistently spell "black" with an inferior and lower-case "b".

So determined is the New York Post NOT to spell Black with a capital "B" that they actually misquote the actual Census Form when stating the categories, by turning the Census Forms "Black" into the New York Post's "black" with a lower-case "B", even in the context of a quote. This is not proper journalistic or writing practice. A quote says EXACTLY what the person being quoted said, and includes the term (sic) after a word that the quoter believes has been misspelled or misused.

The real crime of the 2010 US Census Form is in perpetuating America's believe in the existence of "race" on a grand national scale while hiding in an obscure page of the US Department of Energy the fact that the Human Genome Project has empirically proved and declared that "race" doesn't exist at all. Skin color exists, but "race" doesn't. So, having acknowledged this genetic reality, why does the 2010 US Census Form continue referring to "race"--the most-often-used biological term that has basis in biology?

The 2010 Census, Race, and Denigration

2009-12-03T20:54:00.001-08:00

The US Constitution requires that a US Census be taken every ten years (including in 2010). As we discussed here on 11/28/09, the counting of Americans based on their purported biological "race" could be a critical factor in 2010, since this will be the first US Census since the US Department of Energy Human Genome Project announced that race does not exist. According to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program:

"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other."

Does this mean that it is impossible to capture the diversity in America? Absolutely not. When whites look at Blacks, they know who is Black and who is not by their skin color. When they encounter Latinos, they also use such cues as name, native language and native county, as well as native country of ancestors. As you can see from this paragraph, it is entirely possibe to gather the same information without resort to the disproved word referring to the disproved hypotheses of "race and ethnicity. Yes, "race" is also the term used to refer to a social construct, and "bitch" is also the word used to refer to a female dog. Both terms are inextricably linked to their origins and cannot, (let's be honest) be used without stigmatizing those against whom the words are used.

The US Census has always stigmatized Blacks. The original Article I, Section II of the Constitution provided that Blacks would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of the census and Congressional representation.

With the Fourteenth Amendment, the three-fifths language was removed, but the Census still counted Americans according to their "race", which was also the primary difference between those who had been slaves and free just a generation earlier.

Now, that the US Government U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program has announced that biological "race" does not exist, does the US Constitution's Equal Protection Clause require the Government to remove the word "race" from Census forms, because the word "race" stigmatizes Blacks, refers to stereotypes about Blacks, a hypothesis about skin color that has been scientifically disproved (the stereotype that we Blacks are fundamentally biologically different from whites)?

Laws referring to "race" and separating people on that basis must pass the US Supreme Court's strict scrutiny test. Not only does the Census refer to "race" but it stigmatizes Blacks, Latinos and Asians by telling us and whites that we are fundamentally biologically and substantively different because our skin color, facial morphology, hair color and hence "race" are not the same.

Isn't the argument against the word "race" just a question of semantics? No, it's not. The unemployment rate among Blacks is typically twice that of whites. When we minorities are seeking employment, how can we ever overcome employers' sense that minorities "don't fit the company culture" while the US Government, the media and the Constitutionally mandated US Census are telling the nation that minorities are from a different subspecies? It's almost laughable, if it didn't contribute so greatly to the controversial nature of skin color in America and Blacks' inability to find our place here.

Can people who are not from the same subspecies ever "fit in" at a corporation as well as people who are from the same white subspecies? If I were a white-skinned employer, following the Government guidance that minorities are from a separate subspecies, then I might consider it my OBLIGATION not to hire minorities, in order to avoid bringing in employees who could never fit into the company culture.

Would you feel entirely comfortable hiring someone if you were told that they were from a different subspecies? It sounds like a push-poll question, doesn't it?

And yet it is the conundrum posed by the US government that quietly announces that race and ethnicity do not exist, while continuing to use the words ubiquitously, even in the Census, as if the nation were full of people from distinct subspecies of humanity, like multi-colored aliens from various planets walking the streets.

francislholland :: The 2010 Census, Race, and Denigration

At best, the US Government is giving mixed and scientifically unsupported messages on the issue of minority hiring. On the one hand, the Government seeks to require employers to hire applicants without discriminating on the basis that some applicants are from a different subspecies. Do you perceive any internal contradiction in that? I do.

To hear the US Census tell it, it's like telling people that Blacks and whites are as biologically different as poodles and German shepherds. Different racial subspecies. And then the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that, even though Blacks are from a different "race" (subspecies), and Jews from a different "ethnic group, nonetheless, people from distinct subspecies must be given equal access to employment opportunities, just like poodles and German shepherds should be given equal access to police dog jobs. The exaggeration of the difference makes the law itself seem unreasonable.

The words "race" and "ethnicity" in the 1964 Civil Rights Act greatly and unscientifically exaggerate the differences between whites and skin color groups and sociological ethnic groups, because the science available when the law was written had not disproved the hypotheses of "race" and "ethnicity".

Since race doesn't exist, and since any use of the word is as offensive as the word "bitch," which has a perfectly valid and unoffensive meaning that will inevitably be confused with it's outrageously offensive meanings, I propose that we excise the word "race" from the language of each of us, just as the Human Genome Project has excised the words "race" and "ethnicity" from our understanding of who we are as human beings and all that does not separate us.

I've prepared the chart below to show how we can get more information from the census by avoiding stigmatizing and overgeneralizing people with the word "race" and instead asking questions about those biologically obvious characteristics that do exist:

Please check your skin color/ethnic identity group below:

Whitish, but not Latino. (people know if they identify as "white"

Whitish and Latino

Black/brown/coffee/beige/vanilla, but not Latino/Hispanic. (Only people who are from what once was called the "black race" are going to choose this alternative, and yet the alternative includes and implies that various colors are present within the "Black" sociological group. This resolves the problem of those who want to state that they are bi-racial, which science has rendered biologically meaningless. And people who believe they are bi-racial would probably discover through DNA testing that they have poly-chromatic and poly-ethnic heritage. DNA has taken the guess-work out of this.)

Black/brown/coffee/beige/vanilla, AND Latino/Hispanic.

etc.

If anyone can help me to understand and correct why I cannot make the CorelDraw graphic below appear larger, without losing definition, I would very much appreciate it. I think you'll find it very interesting once you can read it.

Tags: Race, (All Tags)

US Department of Energy Human Genome Project Anounces 'black race' Does Not Exist

2009-12-03T18:11:00.001-08:00

Over at Pam's House Blend, we have been discussing the relatively new Department of Energy Human Genome Project declaration that the "black race" does not exist, the "white race" does not exist and, in fact, the biological hypothesis of "race" itself has been disproved by the total mapping of the human genome, showing that there is no genetic difference between Blacks and whites sufficient to constitute separate subspecies ('races') within in the human species.

As a matter of biological science, biological science has disproved the age-old hypothesis of race which, we must remember, was never anything more than a hypothesis developed long before DNA was discovered. And so "race" was a hypothesis in search of proof rather than the result of an empirical search for truth. We have to remember that the hypothesis of race was born before doctors became aware of bacteria and began washing their hands before conduction surgical operations. So, it ought to be no surprise that a theory of genetics developed before genes could be seen and identified turned out to be, quite simply wrong. As the march of science progresses, we develop new tools for ever more minute analysis of human matter and these new tools have demonstrated the falsity of an old hypothesis.

That really ought not surprise anyone, since we all know that a guess as to the length and width of a piece of wood is rarely as good as measuring the wood with modern tools. And a guess as to the age of a statue is not quite as good as carbon dating. As our tools become better our knowledge increases.

Rarely, however, has a scientific discovery had so many important ramifications for the United States of America. For example, the US Constitution requires that a census be conducted every ten years. As the following citations show, the Census is an integral part of determining the representation that each state will have in the US House of Representatives, and the Fourteenth Amendment modified the Constitution to make it clear that Blacks could participate more fully in US electoral rights.

The US Constitution's Article 1, Section 2 originally provided that.

(Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.) (The previous sentence in parentheses was modified by the 14th Amendment, section 2.) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

The US Constitution as modified by the Fourteenth Amendment's Article I, Section 2:

2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

'Race' and the human genome ppS1 - S2 Ari Patrinos doi:10.1038/ng2150Full text \| PDF (103K)

Editorial	Top



The unexamined population pS3 doi:10.1038/ng2151Full text \| PDF (50K)

Commentaries	Top



Changing the paradigm from 'race' to human genome variation ppS5 - S7 Charmaine D M Royal & Georgia M Dunston Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1454Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (95K)



Forensic genetics and ethical, legal and social implications beyond the clinic ppS8 - S12 Mildred K Cho & Pamela Sankar Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1594Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (104K)



What we do and don't know about 'race', 'ethnicity', genetics and health at the dawn of the genome era ppS13 - S15 Francis S Collins Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1436Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (330K)

Perspectives	Top



Conceptualizing human variation ppS17 - S20 S O Y Keita, R A Kittles, C D M Royal, G E Bonney, P Furbert-Harris, G M Dunston & C N Rotimi Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1455Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (102K)



Implications of biogeography of human populations for 'race' and medicine ppS21 - S27 Sarah A Tishkoff & Kenneth K Kidd Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1438Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (270K)



Genetic variation, classification and 'race' ppS28 - S33 Lynn B Jorde & Stephen P Wooding Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1435Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (850K)



Will tomorrow's medicines work for everyone? ppS34 - S42 Sarah K Tate & David B Goldstein Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1437Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (161K)



Are medical and nonmedical uses of large-scale genomic markers conflating genetics and 'race'? ppS43 - S47 Charles N Rotimi Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1439Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (118K)



Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups ppS48 - S53 Joanna L Mountain & Neil Risch Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1456Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (226K)



Implications of correlations between skin color and genetic ancestry for biomedical research ppS54 - S60 E J Parra, R A Kittles & M D Shriver Published online: 26 October 2004 \| doi:10.1038/ng1440Abstract \| Full text \| PDF (1,666K) \| Supplementary Information