Wednesday, 20 May 2009

An Explanation of Extreme Color Arousal Disorder (ECAD)

The theory of "color arousal" is that when people visually (or otherwise) perceive the skin color of others, they may experience learned ideation, emotions, and sometimes act out these ideas and emotions in color-aroused behavior. When color aroused behavior is "extreme", i.e. prevents a person from functioning in one or more areas of life, then that extreme color arousal constitutes a mental disorder called Extreme Color Aroused Disorder (ECAD).

For example, if a person kills his co-workers and then kills himself because he can't stand to interact with Blacks and can't stand to see other whites interact with Blacks, then a person with that level of color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior clearly has a psychiatric disorder, called Extreme Color Aroused Disorder. For example:
A Mississippi factory employee who had allegedly threatened black co-workers shot and killed five people yesterday at the aircraft parts plant where he worked, wounding eightothers before committing suicide, authorities said.

Workers ran for the exits as the gunman, identified as Doug Williams, walked through the Lockheed Martin plant firing a 12-gauge shotgun at them shortly before 10 a.m., Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie said. Williams had stepped away from a workplace ethics training session only minutes before. He returned with a semiautomatic rifle, which he did not fire, and the shotgun that he turned on employees at their work stations, authorities said.

The death toll at the military aircraft parts plant outside Meridian, Miss., was the largest in a U.S. workplace rampage since late 2000, and it chilled this city of 40,000, which bills itself as the safest in the state. Washington Post via GenocideWatch.Org.

The "workplace ethics" meeting that Doug Williams exited was actually a "cultural sensitivity training" session which Doug Williams had been ordered to attend in order to address his extremely color-aroused ideation, emotions and behavior demonstrated in the workplace on numerous previous occasions.

As this case demonstrates, some people's color aroused disorder is far too advanced and extreme to be treated with "sensitivity trainings"; instead they require the attention of a competent psychiatrist who is trained to screen for, diagnose and treat Extreme Color Aroused Disorder.

Doug Williams was a victim of the psychiatric profession's refusal to acknowlege and address the fact that phobias associated with skin color are just as serious as phobias associated with elevators and social situations. If sufficiently extreme, all three of these phobias can prevent an individual from functioning effectively in one or more areas of life, and therefore require psychiatric treatment. Extreme Color Aroused Disorder is different, though, in that it often causes the sufferer to act out in ways that violate workplace rules, civil and criminal laws.

Just look at Doug Williams. If he had gotten appropriate psychiatric treatment, then he and his co-workers might not have died or been maimed. Perhaps Lockheed Martin just didn't believe that hating Black people was a symptom of a psychiatric illness. Or perhaps Doug Williams was referred to mental health professionals who didn't believe that hating Black people and wanting to kill them was a sympton of a psychiatric disorder.

Whatever the case, Blacks and whites died that day, as did Doug Williams, who could and should have been treated for Extreme Color Aroused Disorder.

Friday, 15 May 2009

How is Sexual Arousal Similar to Color Arousal?

Sexual arousal is similar to skin color arousal in that with sexual arousal the sight or even smell of the desired sexual partner catalyzes physiological reactions within the person becoming aroused, such as engorgement of the penis or nipples, rapid heart rate, and the "fuck or flight" reaction.

In color arousal, the perception of the skin color of another catalyzes sometimes a torrent of ideation, emotions and even behaviors of which the individual may be only slightly if at all, or extremely aware. Many people of various skin colors have acknowledged that when the see a Black person (or a policeman) their immediate response is to think (ideation) they are in danger; to fear that they may be harmed; hate; experience revulsion; love; or even sexual attraction (emotion); and in response to fight or flee (behavior) the danger or respond to the attraction.

(Yes, some peope experience more attraction to women with brown skin than to women with white, red or yellow skin, or the contrary may also occur.)

In both color arousal and sexual arousal, there are reactions that may occur both consciously and unconsciously. However, a fundamental difference between color arousal and sexual arousal is that sexual arousal is an innate inborn instinct necessary for the continuation of the human species, while color-arousal is a learned instinct that is more stereotypical (less selective) than sexual arousal.

For example, most men are attracted to women their age or somewhat older or younger, but few 20 year old men find themselves attracted to 80 year-old women. Although the attraction is to women, it is somewhat selective, based on the perceived appropriateness of the object for sexual relations. With color-arousal, however, the reaction of revulsion and deprecation sometimes is far less selective, with feelings of revulsion and hate aroused by skin color regardless of the sex or age of the perceiver and the perceived.

Precisely because color arousal is often so unspecific and stereotypical, it has widespread influence within individuals and society, even when everyone present is of the same color. We are taught by the media, politics and even our own families to have certain ideation, emotions and behavior in response to brown skin, regardless of what color skin we, ourselves, have.

So, having heard that we have a right to "beautiful hair" and that's why hot combs are available to those who have "ugly hair," therefore we come to regard Blacks' curly hair as ugly regardless of whether we have brown or white skin ourselves. Just as Black and white and Latino children are equally credulous when their elementary school teacher tells them that "two and two are four", so they may have similar responses when television tells them that curly hair is ugly hair: they may come to prefer straight hair regardless of whether they themselves were born with straight or curly hair.

Both color arousal and sexual arousal have a learned component. In the United States, we are taught that skinny women are more beautiful while obese women are repulsive, and we may experience sexual arousal or not based simply upon our socialization. In addition to whatever may be innate about sexual attraction, we are taught that to be aroused by members of our same sex is dirty and nasty, and so we may feel revulsion towards ourselves and others if such attraction occurs in spite of what we have been taught.

Some people believe that revulsion or fear in the presence of people of another color is "natural" and "innate". These people need only go to a supermarket frequented by toddlers of different skin colors to realize that toddlers are curious about and attracted to each other without regard to skin color. And yet they do not show the same attraction and curiousity about people who are significantly bigger than they are. Which means that, to a toddler, the size and age of another person is more important than that person's skin color.

Sexual arousal is innate to some degree as well as the result of socialization ("Blondes are more beautiful), while color arousal is, quite simply, the result of socialization. It is far more logical to fear people who are significantly larger than us, and therefore can do us more harm, than it is to fear people who are smaller than us, or of a different skin color. Again, just look at the behavior of toddlers in a polychromatic supermarket and you can see for yourself that this is both logically true and empirically true.

Washington Times Uses Obama Girls as Generic Photo of Dead Black Children

President Obama's Daughters and The Washington Times

AAPP: We have a problem in America, it's called color aroused bigotry and what some people call racism. First it was Barnes and Noble Store Window Featuring Obama Alongside Monkey Book Now we learn, as reported by the Huffington Post the (color aroused bigots -my term) at The Washington Times have run a story about murdered Chicago schoolchildren was inexplicably paired with a photo of President Obama's daughters. The two girls are not mentioned in the story, and aside from having at one point been schoolchildren in Chicago have no conceivable connection to it.


AAPP: When will American's stand up and say enough is enough...

Sunday, 3 May 2009

NYT Writer Susan Saulny Insists "Race" Exists, But Human Genome Project Disagrees

Cross-posted at NowPublic.Com.

A New York TImes story today by Susan Saulny, entitled "Voices Reflect Rising Sense of Racial Optimism ", uses variants of the word "race" twelve times, including the root word "race" in the singular and plural form seven times, as well as the adjective "racial" five times. For example, Saulny says,

In dozens of interviews in seven states over the last several days, black men and women like Mr. Sallis said they were feeling more optimistic about race relations than even a year ago, when Mr. Obama em“I feel a lot more comfortable starting up a conversation with people of other races on the streets now than I did before,” said Mitch Hansch, 29, a white waiter in New York City.

( . . .)

“Since Obama was elected, racial tensions seem a little lower. I think it’s fantastic.”“I feel a lot more comfortable starting up a conversation with people of other races on the streets now than I did before,” said Mitch Hansch, 29, a white waiter in New York City. Susan Saulny, NYT

However, the US Government says, based on the most extensive and complete mapping of human DNA to date, that "race" simply does not exist and never did. 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.

The question arises whether newspapers like the New York Times are fulfilling the role of reporting new and significant scientific facts as they become available, or instead are perpetuating and reinforcing folklore by repeating centuries-old but scientifically disproved myths. Arguably, when given a choice between reporting news in news stories or repeating well-worn but disproved myths, newspapers ought to prefer to report news.

In any case, the insistance on using the words "race" and "racial" and "races" and "racist" long after the underlying scientific concept has been disproved may be an example of "color-aroused ideation and behavior." The behavioral inability or unwillingness to report the news about the human genome as it concerns the nonexistence of "race" -- and the constant repetition of myths that are contrary to the scientific news -- may reflect ideation, emotion and political behavior aroused by skin color-based politics in the media.

Monday, 20 April 2009

Wikipedia Definition of "Racism" Notes that "Race" Itself Does Not Exist and so "Racism" is a Misnomer

Today, I visited the wikipedia.org page on "race" and discovered that throughout the entire discussion the Human Genome Program was never mentioned, and there was likewise no mention of the Human Genome Program' conclusion that the concept of "race" has no basis in science. So, today, I modified the wikipedia.org definition of "race" to note that:

Most recently, as the result the complete mapping of the human genome carried out by the Human Genome Program, the Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program has announced that the most extensive studies of human DNA to date, mapping the entire human genome, have proved that "race" and "ethnicity" simply do not exist at all. The continuing discussion of "race" shows that humans have been slow to adapt their premises and language to this new proof that "race" simply does not exist. [2]
I also added the following to the wikipedia.org discussion of "racism":
The concept that discrimination can be based on "race" presupposes the existence of "race" itself. However, the US Government's Human Genome Program has announced that the most complete mapping of human DNA to date proves conclusively that "race" itself does not exist. [6] Therefore, "racial characteristics" logically cannot and do not exist either.
According to the Human Genome Project, skin color does exist as a matter of science. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Human Genome Program So, that which is commonly referred to as "racism" could be more scientifically referred to as "skin color-aroused discrimination". The term "skin color aroused discrimination" has the benefit that it is based on verifiable science, is not based on disproved notions of science, and does not perpetuate a false belief in the disproved concept of biological "race". [7]
Is it possible to discuss biology without discussing science? We'll soon see just how averse to science the wikipedia editors are, when we discover whether they will accept reference to the latest knowledge of the human genome within the discussions of now ancient and scientifically disproved notions of human "races".

Human Genome Project Confirms that "Race" Simply Does Not Exist as a Matter of Biology

WaPost Headline Declares, "Race a Dominant Theme at Summit: Subject Seen as Drawing Leaders Closer", with WaPost Using the Word "Race" Nine Times in One Article.

Although many people, particularly the white-news media, act as though they are unaware of it, the Human Genome Project has proved that "race" is a fallacy with no basis in science.

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, while the concept of separate human sub-species called "races" was developed four hundred years ago, during a time when white supremacists and the slave trade were seeking to justify the enslavement of Blacks, as well as the social, economic and political exaltation of whites, however, the most recent in-depth study of human DNA ever completed has shown that "race" does not exist.

This certainly ought to be news, particularly in light of how often the word "race"continues to be used by the white-news media.

For example, in a Washington Post article entitled, "Race a Dominant Theme at Summit: Subject Seen as Drawing Leaders Closer", I saw and counted the word "race" used nine times, discussing the importance of "race" for President Barack Obama's trip to the Latin American summit.

Considering that "race" has been proved not to exist as a matter of scientific Government-approved fact, one would expect that the news media would begin using alternate words to refer to factors that DO exist, like skin color. But, the news media still stubbornly insist that "race" exists after the theory of its existence has been utterly disproven.

The insistence that "race" exists in the face of conclusive evidence that it does not is an example of color-aroused ideation and behavior. Obviously, the media's belief that certain people are members of the "black race" is aroused by and based upon the media's perception of the skin color of those people. And yet scientific evidence has proven that there is no link between skin color and race, and that moreover race does not exist at all.

So, why does the media continue using the word "race" so frequently? Are they perhaps trying to help Blacks to maintain a sense of "racial" identity in a rapidly changing world.

It seems far more likely that the news media is trying to help WHITES maintain their sense of superior identity in a rapidly changing world -- a world in which science is utterly disproving the fundamental theories of biology upon which white supremacy has been based.

When people say, "my race", they might as well be saying "my fairy wings" as far as science is concerned. For example,

"I am black, and what affects my race affects me," says Bennett, who also works part-time in criminal defense. "I feel that I am exposing things that people, black and white, try to hide. In my own way I am trying to force an honest debate and open dialogue." LATimes

Of course, if you remove the phrase "my race" and insert the phrase "my skin color group", then the laudable statement of solidarity makes perfect political sense. It also makes biological sense, because "skin color" is something that actually exists.

In light of the findings of the Human Genome Project, the American Journal of Color Arousal still uses the term "racist" but redefines it:

A "racist" is "a person, organization or institution continuing to believe in, advocate, perpetuate or passively accept the proposition that there are separate 'races' among the human species, in spite of all of the well-known Human Genome Project evidence that separate human "races" do not exist.
The continued use of the word "race", regardless of how or why it is used, will inevitably lead to prolonged belief in the unscientific fallacy of separate "races" within the human species, with a continued reluctance to adjust to the biological, social and political ramifications of the new genomic evidence

Tuesday, 14 April 2009

Should the White Male Monopoly of Sunday Morning Talk Shows Be Ended, as Has the White Male Monopoly of the Presidency?



Yet another white male for Sunday Morning Television?

" Is Chuck Todd getting a weekend show?" That's the question posed by Chris Cilizza in his Washington Post blog column today. As any lawyer knows, the answer to a question posed in the affirmative is usually an affirmative answer, and Chris Cilizza doesn't disappoint, at least in this way. White male Chris Cilizza answers, "We hope so", because white male Chris Cilizza sees no problem with white male Chuck Todd being added to an overhwhelmingly white male Sunday talk show lineup, dominated by white men.

I would pose Cilizza's question differently, as I did many times over the last three years about the presidency of the United States: 'Should the United States elect a 44th consecutive white male president and thereby perpetuate the white male monopoly of the presidency in a nation whose majority is decidedly not white male? The obvious answer was "no", and the answer to Cilizza's question is also "no", for the same reason. Chris Cilizza's suggestion that Sunday need another white man is but one example of a larger phenomenon, pointed out in an article by The Nation, entitled, "White Male Pundit Power":
It's still all about the white men. Hillary Clinton's loss has renewed critiques that American political media is slanted, sexist and dominated by men. While Clinton and Obama broke barriers in the Democratic primary, swiftly dispatching white male Senators with more government experience, the race was still refereed, scored and narrated by white male commentators, an influential constituency in presidential politics. Pundits talked a lot about gender and racial progress during the campaign, of course, but the elite opinion media continues to employ, groom and promote a commentators corps that is disproportionately white and male."White Male Pundit Power", TheNation, June 9, 2009.
Take that principal to the talk shows, and Media Matters has reported on the subject:

Not only are the Sunday morning talk shows on the broadcast networks dominated by conservative opinion and commentary, the four programs -- NBC's Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday -- feature guest lists that are overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male.

And the top-rated Sunday show -- Meet the Press -- shows the least diversity of all. The NBC program is the most male and nearly the most white (Face the Nation beats it out by 1 percentage point), and it has the highest proportion of white males to all other guests. Media Matters, 2007.*

That's just the break down of the guests, with three very potent bar graphs to prove the point beyond argument. But, let's talk about the monopoly of the white male hosts: If the question had been, "Are there severral good reasons to deny Chuck Todd a weekend show, then, of course, we could expect to see the question followed by several good reasons. And here's a fundamental one that makes all others superfluous in my opinion: White men as pundit and commentators tend to promote other white men in American society, to the detriment of the female and minority majority of American society, very much as the white minority under apartheid enforced rules and behaviors that benefited them and disadvantaged the majority Black South Africans.

Media Matters points out an excellent example of this phenomenon:
During a panel discussion of the 2008 presidential election on the July 15 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, syndicated columnist Robert Novakasserted: "Republicans are very pessimistic about 2008. When you talk to them off the record, they don't see how they can win this thing. And then they think for a minute, and only the Democratic Party, with everything in their favor, would say that, 'OK, this is the year either to have a woman or an African-American to break precedent, to do things the country has never done before.' And it gives the Republicans hope." Neither host Tim Russert nor any of Novak's fellow panelists, Bloomberg News Washington managing editor Al Hunt, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, and Democratic strategist Bob Shrum -- all of whom are, like Novak, white men -- commented on or challenged Novak's assertion. As Media Matters for America documented, the four Sunday-morning talk programs on the broadcast networks, Meet the Press, ABC's This Week, CBS' Face the Nation, and Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, feature guest lists that are overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. Media Matters, July 15, 2007.
Now, some psuedo liberal whitosphere blogger is sure to point out that Chris Olberman is a white male who favors Blacks and women in his commentary. This, to me, is like pointing out that in spite of the 43-term white male monopoly of the presidency, there were some white presidents who did not absolutely oppose minority and women's rights. Yet, merely by being president they were participating in and perpetuating an institution that had been preserved like an "all white male golf club", in which only white men need apply.

And that's the problem with the Sunday Talk shows and most of television commentary and anchorships: their composition is determined by white men and it is assumed, a priori, that any open position will go to a white man, just as it was assumed under apartheid in South Africa that the president would be a white man who ruled over a Black majority.

Is Chris Cilizza exhibiting color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior when he shows enthusiams for white males for Sunday morning without seriously promoting anyone who is NOT a white male for a pundit positiion. Well, if anyone can point out an example of Cilizza supporting a woman or minority for a Sunday morning talk show then that example of his color and gender-associated behavior will give us more information from which to form an idea about his color and gender-associated ideation. For now, it seems to me that, just as it was assumed a priori that Tim Russert would be replaced by a white man, Chris Cilizza assumes that any open space on a Sunday morning talk show should go to someone just like Chris Cilizza: a white man.

It's a matter of self-interest. Most blogggers at the Washington Post are white men and this tendency has the effect of securing Chris Cilizza's career path, at the Washington Post and elsewhere. Look at the list of columnists at TheHill.Com Blog. There are twelve columnists and ten of them are white men, with two white women. Can women and minorities get the attention we need for the fact that we are paid dramatically less in America, when the pundits are overwhelmingly white men who benefit from the pay discrepencies, both when they receive higher pay and when they hire us for less? Poor A.B. Stoddard doesn't even see any advantage (and much disadvantage) in using a first name that would identify her as a woman.

So, Chris Cilizza, the answer to your question is a firm "No". On a Sunday morning talk show lineup already monopolized by white men, there is no reason whatsoever to add another white man to the lineup, and every reason in justice and equality NOT to do so.

*I include the dates of the articles cited to demonstrated how very little has changed, particularly in the ideation and behavior of Chris Cilizza, since these articles were written.