Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Acting White: Red-Hair vs. Black-Skin

African-Americans often present the Atlantic slave trade as the end-all-beat-all of human abuse in the last millennium, and this is the reason for the intractableness of black pathologies, violence, crime, etc. With only mixed results, some (including me) have tendered an alternate view of what besets the stolen peoples of the Americas and Africa. In this view, the pain and lasting effects of slavery are more relative to freedom opportunity and perspective lost, and less comparable to competing histories of who done who the more wrong (sic).

The article from the NYT last week (here) on the subject of red-haired people as genetically more resistant to pain-medication, and therefore subject to more pain than others, caught my attention, as a interesting illustration of apples-to-oranges comparisons. What matters is not the knee-jerk argument of who hurts the most among brunettes, blonde's, and red-heads, but rather that red-heads have comparably bad teeth because dentist under-anesthetize them, chasing them away, as a group, from essential dental care.

Many African-Americans make the case for special dispensation and compensation, because of how inhumane slavery in the Americas was to blacks, compared to some standard in history, rather than looking at the specific plight of blacks and saying, “what does this group need in order to prosper?” What blacks do not need is more pity, but this is what the often-heard mode of complaint suggests. There is nothing intractable about black pathologies, except the insidious re-application of so-called solutions, better designed to keep people down rather than help them up.

We are living an explosion of fatherless kids because the government rewards such behavior. Schools, as hideouts for bum-teachers and dead-ass parents, have been promoting kids for years who can barely read or add, only to now coach them directly to the tests. Trade jobs are gone to China, as Americans hunger like addicts for more and cheaper consumable goods, to numb themselves to the debt required to pay for them. Sorry folks, it ain’t about who’s slavery was worse, but rather from politicians on down, it is really about who is pitchin’ in to make things for themselves and others - better.

James C. Collier

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What can I say?

Collier for President!

Seriously though, great post.

Got a solution?

It's past time for one......

I am very afraid that things will have to get so bad that any real solution will be considered radical but it will have to be radical to work.

You know what they say about hitting bottom before you can pick yourself up....

But who knows how bad "bottom" has to be?

J. Rushton said...

See? It's all genetic.

How about you start a new blog to teach some stoicism to those pansy gingers? I heard about some redhead that was able to train himself to grit his teeth longer, upping his Pain Tolerance Quotient 2 whole standard deviations! So, to solve the ginger dental problem, just get them all to do it. Especially those wimpy ginger kids.

Of course you wouldn't do that. They can't help it.

I'll let the readers draw the implications of this analogy for themselves....

Smile said...

J. Rushton or whoever you are,

What a horrible link to a book full of myths and mumbo jumbo. A bit like your post.

So glad you allowed the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Anonymous said...

Yeah! Screw all that scientiferific mumbo-jumbo stuff!

We be just as smart as you! The tests are racist! So is that DNA junk!

Smile said...

P.S. Anonymous, I didn't mean to imply that I had a "screw" all dat science mumbo jumbo kind of opinion. Let's not throw the lil' baby out with the bath water, a'ight?

Ya'll, I've said elsewhere: I'm sure everyone has seen Sheila Jackson Lee who says "I am not rude" but you must see this clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf1FM69GcCY&feature=related

Fellow citizens, this is our country. It's good to see us acting like it. We should remember that we don't need to do a lot of screaming or yelling but, let's be involved. Lets BE THERE so OUR voices are heard.

Don't you think we've sat on the sidelines too long while the haters go out and appear to speak for everyone?

If there's going to be rude, crude, subversive behavior caught on tape, it better not be US. But, we aught to be caught BEING THERE.

Anyone can complain amongst themselves. We've been doing that for years, decades. We need to step up, get out, and be counted. You in? Why not, you scared?

Did I say this is OUR country?

If you're even remotely serious, get a backbone and be involved with a TEA Party in your area. Ignore the guilt trip.

If you're even remotely serious about being fed up with the charge of being called racist by the racists, let's make these tea parties (and everything else!!!) look like the melting pot that is the strength of this nation. Otherwise it's just talk. Let's go DO SOMETHING!

I guaran dam tee ya, it will get us our country back. What is our country? It's WE the people! Not we the haters, not we the politicians, not we the talking heads, not we the acorn group, not we the president, not we the guilt trippers. Enough, don't drink the kool aid!

I'd rather drink tea.

Anonymous said...

"What a horrible link to a book full of myths and mumbo jumbo."

Probability that this commenter has read the book in question.

What is Zero, Alex?