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

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

Color aroused.

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

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

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

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

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

In the comments to the post, Bob said,

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

Cristopher said in the comments,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, Coyote Road said,

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

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

Tiger Woods Does the Impossible & Color Arousal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Lost His Only Daughter to Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECA)

Cross-posted at Pam's House Blend.

What is color-aroused emotion, ideation and behavior and how can you tell whether it is benign, mild, moderate or severe? The following story, recounted to me this morning here in Bahia, Brazil, illustrates both what the illness is and how to determine its level of severity with specificity.

I have a friend named Bruna, a white-skinned Brazilian woman who is recounting the following story, about a close friend of hers, and I am translating and typing it up now, as she speaks. Bruna says,

I have a friend named "Monica" whose skin is very white, and she has long blond hair and green eyes. She and I prepared for the college entrance exams together, and her case stands out as the most drastic case of color-aroused hatred that I have ever witnessed:

Monica's mother and father were divorced and Monica lived with her father. She was an only child. When Monica was in high school, she was secretly in love with a classmate, "João", who was also in love with her. However, Monica's father was very color-aroused. Monica's father constantly told Monica, "Never date a Black! Never fall in love with a Black!" Her father was stern and severe.

Little did he know that his daughter already was secretly in love with a Black. In the private school they attended, Monica looked secretly toward João, and he glanced back surreptitiously at her. Whenever João was not in class, Monica copied and passed her notes to João, as well as informing him of the homework that was assigned. João asked Monica to go out with him and she was dying of desire to do so.

francislholland :: He Lost His Only Daughter to Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECA)

Bruna continues,

But, Monica's father was also their high school Portuguese teacher, in Brazil, where schools are small and all of the teachers are present all of the time. And so Monica had to scrupulously hide from her father her passion and love for João, even as it became more intense within her. She never declared her love to João, nor him to her, but they shared the knowing glances and secret communion that were the only expressions of their love that were allowed to them, because of Monica's skin color, her father's skin color, and the skin color of João.

They both were middle class, lived on the same street, but never walked to school together, lest their father discover their secret love. Monica found João's telephone number and they conversed endlessly by telephone when Monica's father was not at home. But could not walk together, hold hands, kiss, study together or in any way violate Monica's father's strict law that Monica "must never date a Black."

When Monica and João "coincidentally" entered the same university in their town in which they lives, he studying law and she psychology, they continued their high school friendship, but now with increased freedom. They went to a college initiation party together and Jõão tried to get with Monica there, but Monica fled his embrace. At the next party, however, when Monica saw that João was about to "get with" another girl, Monica made perhaps the most fateful decision of her life. She gathered her courage, called João to chat and declared her love for him, as well as the family circumstances that had prevented her from loving João for three long years. But she was crazy in love.

They began to date secretly, for a more than a year, still calling each others' houses and conversing for hours, going out to movies, studying together . . . and making love.

Then someone told Monica's father about the relationship between her daughter and a Black man, João. He demanded and explanation and she confessed her love for João. Monica's father swore at Monica, told João never to see his daughter again.

Monica's father cursed her violently. For a week, Monica obeyed her father, not speaking with João at all, while the fights between her and her father became more and more intense. Finally, unable to reason with her father and make her understand and accept her love for João, Monica called a friend who had an apartment and she requested to live there, rather than with her father. Monica's father's hate for Black people had caused him to lose his only daughter, and he now lived in his house alone, without seeing or speaking with his only daugher.

For the first time in their three-year relationship, João and Monica had the freedom no longer to hide their bi-chromatic relationship, but to live their love and their lives normally, in the open.

Monica tried to build a new relationship with her father, based on his acceptance of her life decision, but he could not accept it and he could no longer love and accept her. In fact he rejected her and behaved as if she has never existed.

Monica and Joaõ continued dating for another year and a half, until they both graduated from university, he with a degree in law and she in psychology. When João asked Monica for her hand in marriage, Monica accepted immediately. Monica's father refused to attend their wedding, which was celebrated in the same city in which they all lived. His hatred and repulsion for Blacks was stronger than his love for his daughter.

Over the next half-dozed years or so, João and Monica had beautiful brown children, two boys and one girl (who is a child model now). Then Monica's father contracted a serious and chronic illness that left him disabled, bedridden and unable to care for himself. Monica went to his side, began to care for him in his illness, and even her husband João went to visit Monica's father, although their time there was strained. Even with Monica's father alternating between cursing João and giving him the "silent treatment," João cared for Monica's father in his illness.

Although Monica's father never really has accepted his son-in-law, still João has reached out to him emotionally, discussing soccer and news events, but without ever directly discussing the circumstances that compelled Monica to leave her father so many years ago. Monica's father has never apologized for his behavior of years, but he has significantly changed his behavior in the present, which is ultimately far more important.

Eventually, when Monica's father asked to see his grandchildren, and they called him "grand-daddy," showing him their toys and chatting with him in his dark and solitary home, the old man was unable to deny the love to his own grandchildren that he had so long forbidden to his daughter and his son-in-law, because of their bi-chromatic love.

João is now a very wealthy lawyer, corporate counsel for a large international firm, and Monica has her own private psychology practice. Together they are able to provide Monica's father the medical and home care that he needs.

Analysis

Only a psychiatrist, after careful and competent evaluation, can diagnose Extreme Color Aroused Disorder (ECA). However, laymen can form laymen's informed yet informal opinions, if they read the literature and are open to carefully considering symptoms, duration, specific facts, and applying them to the ECA diagnostic criteria.

One clear indication that Color-Aroused Disorder is "extreme" is when color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior prevent, disrupt or results in the termination of relationships with family members, friends, business contacts, caregivers, or other significant persons. According to the US Government Social Security Administration, an illness that markedly impairs the formation and/or maintenance of relationships is an extreme illness.

Since Monica's father's color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, over a significant period of time, did exceed the criteria by causing a serious and long-term disruption of his family relationship with his only daughter, this clearly rose to the level of a "marked impairment".

Another symptom of ECA is when the ECA- symptomatic behavior impairs parenting skills. Clearly, the nature and quality of Monica's father's parenting was severely affected by his color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, because he preferred to actually terminate his parental role rather than accept his daughter's considered and firm choice to engage in a loving and otherwise appropriate bi-chromatic relationship.

Yet another of ECA is when the patient tries or has tried to enforce separation of others or from others based on their skin color. Repeatedly warning against engaging with others based only on the color of their skin shows an obsessiveness symptomatic of ECA, particularly when the patient feels compelled to persist in these color-aroused admonitions in spite of damage done to his/her significant relationships.

Marked skin-color-aroused stress and discomfort associated with being near or thinking about one's own color and/or the color of others are also symptoms of Extreme Color Aroused Disorder, particularly if this stress and discomfort leads to impairment in one or more significant relationships or areas of life functioning.

Since Brazil is a intensely polychromatic society, it is reasonable to wonder whether Monica's father's color-associated ideation, emotion and behavior would have caused him stress in his job as a teacher of polychromatic high school students and in other social and professional relationships.

Although I am not a psychiatrist, have not interviewed Monica's father, and am not competent to make an ECA diagnosis, I nonetheless believe, based on what I have heard, that Monica's father would have been well-served to seek screening, diagnosis and treatment for ECA before his color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior caused him to lose his relationship with his only daughter, miss her wedding, as well as the birth and infancy of his only grandchildren.

It is important to understand and remember, however, that not all color-aroused disorder is "extreme" or "severe". Sometimes, color-aroused emotion, ideation and behavior are benign, mild, moderate in terms of their ability to impair the individual, his emotional and physical health, and his relationships. Those who refuse to take the time and effort to learn about this disorder should not assume that all color-aroused symptoms are extreme, and then throw "ECA" around like an epithet, as so often happens with the words "racist" and "racism".

The author is the editor of the American Journal of Color Arousal (AMJCA) and the Truth About McCain Blog.

Poll

Is Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECA) a psychiatric illness?

* It clearly can be, if it's extreme. - 1 votes (100%) * Yes, it is. - 0 votes (0%) * It certainly is, if it leads to the loss of family - 0 votes (0%) * Maybe it is. I don't know. - 0 votes (0%) * I've never really though about it. - 0 votes (0%) * I don't think it is. - 0 votes (0%) * I really don't think it is. - 0 votes (0%) * No, it's not. - 0 votes (0%) * No, it clearly is not. - 0 votes (0%) * No, it's just a matter of personal taste. - 0 votes (0%) Total votes: 1

Results

Was the Black NYPD officer who shot Sean Bell color-aroused?

In the Sean Bell case in New York, the police couldn't get an all-white jury in New York City, so instead they got an all-white judge. Brilliant!

Not for nothing has the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association forsworn jury trials for cops indicted in the Bronx. Two decades ago when Officer Stephen Sullivan went on trial for fatally shooting Eleanor Bumpers, a black grandmother, he did not appear before a jury. [In the Bronx juries are predominantly black and Hispanic.] Instead, he was tried before a specially selected white judge, who acquitted him. NYPDConfidential

But, this case demonstrates something else much more subtle and useful that I've been saying about color-aroused behavior. One of the police officers who killed Sean Bell was Black, and he's the one whom the Police Benevolent Association put before the cameras after the acquittals. Why? Because the PBA knows that Blacks believe that "only whites can be 'racist' ", as a matter of doctrine. So, once we learn that one of the police officer culprits was Black, that will take much of the wind out of our angry sails. The New York Times reports:

In Harlem, Willie Rainey, 60, a Vietnam veteran and retired airport worker, said that he believed the detectives should have been found guilty, but that he saw the case through a prism not of race, but of police conduct. “It’s a lack of police training,” Mr. Rainey said. “It’s not about race when you have black killing black. We overplay the black card as an issue.” NYTIMES

The fact is that when society does not value Blacks as much as it values whites, this affects everyone's behavior, regardless of their skin color - both Blacks and whites. When a Black police officer, regardless of his skin-color, considers employing lethal and unnecessary force force against a Black person, OF COURSE he considers the fact that he knows there will ultimately be no consequences for doing so. He acts in the knowledge that if he shot a white person 50 times, he might well be executed in some states. The New York Times says,

Sean Bell has become a symbol of what they describe as police aggression and racial profiling in black neighborhoods. Had Mr. Bell and his friends been white, they said, the police would have responded less aggressively, and Mr. Bell might still be alive. NYTIMES

But that NEVER happens, police shooting white people as they shot Sean Bell, because everyone knows that even a police officer cannot shoot a white person 50 times! Certainly a Black police officer would not be permitted to do so! One New Yorker told the New York Times,

“I’m just concerned about what kind of message it’s going to send on both sides,” Ms. Fobbs said on Saturday. “The community here is going to feel like anybody is fair game, if something like this could happen to an unarmed man and nobody was held accountable. And then, with the officers, it sends a message to them that they can do these types of things and get away with it.” NYTIMES

So, what we have here is "color-aroused" behavior on the part of police officers, based society's reaction to the skin-color of their victims. For the Black police officer and the white one, the perception of the color of the Black victim leads police officers to ideation (he's not worth much in the eyes of society and the courts and so if I kill him no one will care, and they might even be pleased), and that leads to behavior, (shooting the person under circumstances and in a way that would never occur with a white person).

Of course, this is a more complex way to analyze the situation then accusations of "racism", but it explains perfectly why even Black policemen value the lives of Blacks less than the lives of whites. The simple fact is that the legal deterrents are de facto less for executing Black people and this makes ALL people, regardless of their skin-color, more likely to kill Black people. And the number of Blacks killed in America every year, by Blacks and whites, supports this analysis.

I'm not usually one to rely on economic analyses of human behavior, but I make an exception in this case. When Blacks lives are cheaper in the criminal justice system and in our culture, it creates more demand. When televisions sets are cheaper, white people AND Black people will express more demand for television sets. And if they were free, as Sean Bell's life has turned out to be, then television sets would fly off of the shelves, into the arms of Blacks as well as whites.

Would Black people shoot each other as we do now if we knew we would be hunted and prosecuted, just as if we had shot a white person with blue eyes and blond hair? Of course not! So color-aroused behavior, not "racism", is implicated even when Black people shoot each other!

This is why "racism" is frequently not an analysis of the situation based on the facts, but rather an ideology seeking anecdotal facts to support preconceived conclusions. Blacks, we are told, cannot be "racist" because the "canons" tells us that they cannot be. Blacks cannot be "racist" because we don't have the power in society to control whites' lives as they control ours. That's the doctrine and the canons. But, Blacks CAN be color-aroused in a way that makes us more likely to victimize other Blacks, because the facts tell us that we can be.

"When We Do Talk About Race" - A Response

Cross-posted at MyDD.

This diary is a response to The Things We Can't Talk About, When We Do Talk About Race, And Barack Obama.

One of the reasons that we have made so little progress in our ability to talk openly about issues involving skin color is that the topic is far more complex than the language we have to describe it. And much of our language is anachronistic, based on and reminding us of a time when we were far more polarized than we are now. Lacking language to express the subtleties and complexities of the topic, we make broad stroke generalizations that are endlessly debated.

Take the word "racist", for example. If a person gets along well with co-workers of other skin colors, and hires employees without regard to skin color but, nonetheless, doesn't want his daughter to enter a bi-chromatic marriage, is that person a "racist?" If so, does that mean the person should not be permitted to make hiring and firing decisions and engage in supervision with respect to workers of other skin colors?

Rather than call this person a "racist", wouldn't it be more precise, fair and constructive to say that this individual has ideation and emotion that are aroused by skin color with respect to his daughter's marital partner? Calling this person a "racist" is like calling someone who is afraid of spiders a "coward." It's a gross generalization that does not point the way toward a solution, but simply causes defensiveness that poses a barrier to solutions.

If a person has difficult emotions with respect to the skin color of his future daughter-in-law, it's possible to imagine him even seeking therapy in order to maintain his relationship with his son or daughter. But, if the person has been branded a "racist" or a "coward", it's hard to imagine that becoming the beginning of a therapeutic process. And yet if the person does not receive therapeutic help, there is a very real possibility that his relationship with his son or daughter will be seriously impaired.

Consider these alternatives, to see which one is more constructive:

Therapist: What has brought you to my office?

Client: I have difficult feelings about my daughter marrying a Black man, but she's determined to do it.

Therapist: Many people have these feelings, but I think it's something we can work on successfully.

Compare that to:

Therapist: What has brought you to my office?

Client: I am a racist coward.

Therapist: You seem to have terribly low self-esteem because you globalize negative feelings about yourself instead of seeing realistically where you are doing well and where you need help.

Does it seem absurd that someone should seek psychotherapeutic help to deal with the fears associated with his son or daughter marrying someone of a different skin color? If so, maybe you can understand that patients with color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior, like patients needing psychological help generally, are suffering an immense stigma and are not receiving the help that they need, because offering them psychological help strikes many of us as absurd.

In the absence of professional perspectives, the tendency to generalization, demonization and the resulting stigma are fundamental reasons why we are treading our wheels with respect to color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior.
We think we are helping to solve a societal problem when we call out people as "racists". In fact, we are only making it less likely that they will receive appropriate and compassionate screening, diagnosis and treatment for color-aroused difficulties.

American Conservative Reaffirms Biological Concept of "Race"

This post at the AfroSpear's All About Race blog inspired me to wade once again into the question of the continuing use of the word "race" by Black thinkers. Consider the title that Huffing Post gave to the speech that Obama named "A More Perfect Union": "Obama Race Speech". Isn't it negative propaganda about Black people that the word "race" is attached ubiquitously to us and to everything that we think and do? The American Conservative

says,

In an era when fashionable thinkers claim that race is just a social construct, Obama's subtitle [to "Dreams of my father: a story of race and inheritance,"] is subversive."

Note the phrase "claim that race is just a social construct". You see, the American Conservative does NOT believe that "race" is "just a social concept"! Black thinkers insist upon using the word race in the belief that it has a legitimate sociological meaning. But, every time we say that we are of "the Black race" or otherwise use the word, we validate and legitimate the conservative white supremacist idea that "race" is biological. Of course, to them the word "race" is both their badge of superiority and ours of inferiority, which they use ubiquitously as a substitute for the "N" word. Instead of challenging them, we are providing linguistic cover to white supremacy by continuing to use the word "race" ourselves.

If instead we Blacks used the term "systemic denigration, subjugation and exploitation of African-Americans based on our skin color and ethnicity, then whites would be forced to either describe functionally what "race" really consists of sociologically and politically (which would educate the public) or they would have to acknowledge that they really ARE asserting the theory that Blacks are fundamentally different biologically. Because we have never abandoned the "race" word ourselves, we have never forced whites to take a position on the matter of whether "race", in their eyes, is biological or social and political.

This is why the most powerful thing that Blacks can do now rhetorically and politically is to demand that whites stop using the word "race," to insist that the word is an anti-scientific fantasy and an attack on Black's equal humanity. This would force whites to either stop using the word or to acknowledge that they don't believe that Blacks have equal biological humanity in the first place.

If you want to flush the "racists" out of the closet, just insist that they stop using the "race". The arguments that will ensue will be very enlightening. Whites who admittedly don't believe in the political concept of race will have to acknowledge that the are referring to the discredited and libelous biological concept of race, which holds that Blacks are fundamentally different and inferior biologically.

Then, we'll have them on the run politically, trapped into a public relations corner from which they will not be able to extricate themselves. We will demand proof of these fundamental differences, and they will have to admit that no sufficient proof exists, and that the real basis for their beliefs is their learned ideation about Blacks, based on culture, not science.

The American Conservative further says,

Although the biracial Obama is frequently lumped with the multiracial golfer Tiger Woods as evidence of the socially healing power of interracial marriage, their attitudes are quite different.
American Conservative

This sentence is ludicrous, if you think about it. When they say that Obama is "biracial" are they saying that, politically, he belongs both to the oppressor group and the oppressed? When, in the history of America, have half-Black people been permitted to join the oppressor group? Instead, what they are saying is that BIOLOGICAL "race" does exist and Barack Obama is biologically half from one "race" and half from another.

The only way to flush out the biological concept of race from the American psyche is to stop using the word altogether and demand that whites stop using it. The use of the word itself is a part of white privilege used to maintain whites' belief in their own inherent biological difference and superiority. Strip them of the "race" word and you strip them naked.

Returning to Barack Obama's speech, how could this speech have been about "race" if Obama never mentioned the most fundamental fact about "race": that "race" does not exist as a biological fact, but only as a sociological and political force. If you give a speech to adults about Santa Claus, should you at some point state, at least in passing, that Santa Claus is a myth, a fantasy passed on to children for their amusement and imagination? Obama never even mentioned that there is a debate as to whether race is biological or political. Obama never said that to America, so his speech really was not about the concept of "race".

Now, if Obama had said his speech was about "systemic denigration, subjugation and exploitation of African-Americans based on our skin color and ethnicity", that would have been a more accurate description of the political concept of "race" and quite a bit more challenging. If he had added that his speech was about "color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior" (otherwise known as "racism") in the presidential contest, then that, too, would have taught Americans much that they don't. (I agree that introducing all of these new concepts in the context of a presidential speech would have been much more risky than the speech he actually made, and so I am not saying that he SHOULD have done so.)

Do Blacks have to give up the "race" word and describe the political force differently if we are to have any hope that whites will give up the belief in the biological concept of "race." Can Blacks really achieve our goals in America while still enabling whites in their belief that they are fundamentally biologically different and superior? For so long as we are wedded to the word "race" as if it were our first Snoopy blanket, whites can and will continue to use the word as a subtler but ubiquitous substitute for the "N" word.

PBS site that lays out “Ten Quick Facts about Race.”

Hat tip to the AfroSpear's All About Race Blog.

Race:

The concept of “race” may be the most powerful social construct ever created. This link takes you to a PBS site that lays out “Ten Quick Facts about 'Race'.” Some highlights:

"Race" is a modern idea - Ancient societies did not divide people according to physical differences, but according to religion, status, class, even language.

Race and freedom were born together - When the US was founded, equality was a radical new idea. But our early economy was based largely on slavery. The concept of race helped to explain why some people could be denied the rights and freedoms that others took for granted.

Race Justified social inequalities as natural - As the race concept evolved, it justified extermination of Native Americans, exclusion of Asian immigrants, and taking of Mexican lands. Racial practices were institutionalized within government, laws and society.

Skin color is only skin deep - Most traits are inherited independently of one another. The genes for skin color have nothing to do with genes for hair texture, eye shape, blood type, musical talent or athletic ability.

Race is not biological but racism is still real - "Race" is still a powerful social idea that gives different people different access to opportunities and resources. Our government and society have created advantages to being white. This affects everyone, whether we are aware of it or not. Ten Quick Facts about Race, PBS

Also, check out “The 'Race' Timeline”which answers the question: Has "race" always been the same?

Editor's Note: Quotation marks have been placed around the word "race" wherever it appears in the above text.