Acting White: Homeland Insecurity

The Nigerian who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound flight a few days ago surely got everybody’s attention, but now what? Homeland Czar Napolitano was correct when she said, initially, that the ‘system’ worked. Huh? Actually the system did technically work, however, a minor detail, the people, failed miserably. Bomb-guy did everything to draw attention except ask the flight-attendant to give him a match.

After boarding in Lagos, he flew to Amsterdam, and on to Detroit. Before landing in the motor-stalled city he attempted, but failed, to ignite an explosive device he had been able to smuggle onto the plane. Maybe they thought all that powder was just numbing drugs destined for needy Detroiters. Just as incredible, his father had, a month earlier, reported to the US authorities, in Nigeria, that junior had taken a turn to the extremist side, and should be profiled. Whatever assurance those authorities provided now turns out to have been worth squat.

Less than a month ago I went from Oakland to Denver, and back, on Southwest. On the return it took me nearly one half-hour from first scan to exit TSA/Homeland Security (DHS). Something about me got these folks mighty interested in my belongings. My carry-on was scanned three times, with a manual search between each scan. My physique was patted once, plus a healthy dose of wand-waving that surely doubles as a passive electro-vasectomy. My offense turned out to be deodorant, which they dismantled into a sweet-smelling/BO-killing mess. (Keep it guys, I’ll buy another one).

So what were the Dutch doing? Nigerian Dad says sonny-boy is off the deep-end, but the USA skips the no-fly list and a chance at one less black man. Then the Dutch miss the no-check bags and skimpy shoulder-bag on the way to freezing, busted-ass Detroit. What giveth?

The lesson here is that society is living, or trying to live, way above our pay grade. Inept bombers; Inept security; Inept politicians. Hey, even inept bloggers! Not to speak of inept pilots, who fly hundreds of miles past their destination while doing only God knows what in that thing called the cock pit. Never liked that term cock pit. Now I like it even less. Oh yeah - I checked Google, and for today, the iPhone does not have an app for this. But there’s always tomorrow.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: Homeland Insecurity, Nigeria, Terrorist, Detroit, Bomb, Acting White

Acting White: Obamacare

I wish that I could say that I am happy with President Obama’s impending health care bill, but in truth I am rather agnostic and a bit against it. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for everyone being covered, but it is the type and philosophy of current coverage that, when combined with universal-ness, will quicken our health care collapse, and maybe the collapse of the country itself. Perhaps this collapse is a good thing, because it will hasten a replacement, but not without calamity of untold proportions on our way of life.

If the old adage is true, the health care headache that whites experience means many more blacks are going to die. Too often, racial disparity in outcomes is miscast when it is the case that our entire health care system is off-track. Very simply, our system is designed to let our health break and then perform a miraculous come-from-behind save. This is a very profitable model for doctors and the health care industry as a whole, as it exploits the human tendency to procrastinate and offload self-responsibility and diligence. What is offered as preventative care most often means early detection, rather than true prevention. Why is this so?

Doctors visits make money. Drugs make money. Diagnostic equipment makes money. DNA therapy will make tons of money. Snatching people from pain and/or death, after a lifetime of neglect and indulgence, is very, very profitable. People taking care of themselves, and a health care system demanding that they do so, is cost effective, but not very profitable. Although we know of ways to cut our health care cost drastically, for example by boosting our deficient immune systems with cheap vitamin D3 supplements, there is no rush to do this, as this would decimate the cancer industry, from researchers to big pharma to mega-fund raising organization like the American Cancer Society.

So our entire approach to wellness and health care is an evolution that encourages people to do, or not do, just what they want, and then go to the doctor when ‘keeping it real goes all wrong”. The president has chosen health care as a show case of ‘yes we can’, but I fear that what it really is going to show, with sedentary lifestyles and obesity creeping down the age ladder, is that ‘no we can’t’.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Black Men Series – Hair-Club Brothers

Note: By popular demand I will look at attraction issues and black men. But understand going in, there is scant research on the subject.

Everywhere I look I see walking and talking advertisements for hair restoration – from plantings to comb-overs. When it’s restored the hair does not seem quite right (pictured). Often the geometry is the give-away, or the non-randomness. However, except for a few bad celebrity ’rugs’, who shall remain nameless, I rarely see a black man who has had his former follicle glory artificially restored. In contrast to white men, the approach is to cut it all off – summoning the ghost of Isaac Hayes. So, why does it make more sense for black men to try to hide bad hair rather than risk poor restoration?

If we back up, testosterone and its signaling to women works the same for all ethnicities of men. Attractive young men have longer, thicker hair. Aging men have thinning and/or graying hair, indicating less male youthfulness. Young women like young men and are less attracted to aging men, on a strict physical level. In response, old white guys hide the gray and/or purchase length and thickness at the Hair Club. Old black guys, similarly inclined, hide the gray by cutting everything off, and pointing to Michael Jordan. But there is a reason this works for black men. In the black male trick bag for getting sex there is back up - ‘the rap’.

The rap is the understanding and ability to speak to a targeted woman in such a way that she thinks more highly of you than your looks otherwise merit. So rather than spend money they barely have on surgeries and plugs, black men fall back on their raps, with verbal sexual gamesmanship. A dude may look like Kermit the Frog, but if the words out of his mouth sound like Billy Dee Williams, the black equivalent to Cary Grant, he will get sex. I knew white guys in college who struck bargains with certain black class mates to ‘learn’ how to talk to women. It seemed pathetic, until I watched it work for Orville from Turniptown. The real problem with the rap is that it is most often disingenuous – a ruse to get sex.

Now if what a guy wants is the most attractive females of his age range, even as he ages into his own diminishing attractiveness, it’s the rap that he must work on. This is really just accepting that women are both physical and verbal, unlike men. However, if what the guy wants is a young hot babe, he’s got to fool her into thinking he is younger, or stinking rich if she a gold-digger, neither of which is easy to slide pass your average hottie, with a discerning eye for such men.

So to answer my own question, there is no real difference between black and white men, except that Hair Club guys mostly want young and hopefully-hot women on their arms, while too many black guys just want women, of any age, that they don’t merit. Ignoring the Hair Club rap-masters, if a higher percentage of black men take the rap/ruse approach (and I believe they do), then we have yet another reason why black women have such a hard way to go in the mating game. If a man, of any color, simply wants his fair equal in a mate, then a shower, shave, and decent duds, along with honest dialog seems the way to go.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: Black Men Series – Hair-Club Brothers, Plugs, Michael Jordan, Sex, Mating, Acting White

Acting White: Racism on Stage

H/T: Stuffwhitepeopledo

James C. Collier

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Acting White: What’s Next For Tiger?

A friend asked me what I thought Tiger should do, given the mess that he’s got himself into, when he was suppose to be just a boring family man. We did not know he meant the whoring kind of boring, not snoring. While I’m at it, why is it that women are called whores, and not men? Somebody needs to explain that one to me.

Anyway, I’m not sure he can salvage his marriage/family. Neither Tiger, nor his Swedish wife Elin, seem to be deep-rooted folks – a prerequisite for weathering these knotty emotional storms. They are both missing real educational experiences that would have accelerated maturity. Sure, Tiger went to Stanford for two years, but you can bet most of that time was spent on the links, not growing up. I have found no record of Nordegren ever attending college; rather she au-paired her way into the pro golf crowd, and into Wood’s life.

In fairness to both of them, the golf crowd is not deeply-rooted either. Golf, like baseball and tennis, is a hand-eye coordination game requiring early and fanatical dedication, leaving little time for outside development. It doesn’t seem that Earl Woods spent enough time growing up the man, as much as he did the golfer. I think a hard look into the elder Woods’s will tell more of the story of the boy who would grow up to be Tiger. These are the skeletons whose existence is now in evidence, via Tiger’s man-boy sexcapades. Earl, Katilda, get ready for your proctologic exam, and rest assured that the conclusions ain’t gonna be pretty. I have already seen sleazy questions of how Katilda, a Thai, made her way to Vietnam to meet Tiger's father, Earl, during the war. Nasty stuff is coming.

Regardless, Tiger’s option seems clear, get back on Nicklaus major’s record trail. Pursuit of Jack is Tiger’s only savior. For now, he will need to accept that the endorsements will shrink. He will probably want to sell the yacht to cut expenses. Only winning will bring everyone back to the time of galleries looking for miracle shots and fist pumps. Winning brings forgiveness, deserved or not; otherwise Tiger is that slice of Caliblasian bread that got itself stuck in the toaster, when he thought nobody was looking.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: What’s Next For Tiger?, Golf, Whore, Sex, Elin Woods, Acting White

Acting White: Black Women Series, Education and Attractiveness

Education, unlike hair, weight, waist-to-hips, and other estrogen-signaling attributes, does not show itself instantly. However, one could argue that its presence is still nearly immediate, once people meet. It’s hard to hide smarts.

Education shows in how we dress, speak, and behave. So with this, it is more than fair to consider education, its impact on attractiveness, and disparities in Black female relationships.

As I said, when I began this series, Black women have a hard way to go, and nowhere is this more apparent than with those highly educated. Researchers present that [educated] “Black women are increasingly less likely to marry and have children; if they marry, they are more likely than any other group to marry lesser-educated men; and if they have children, they are more likely to do so while still in training, with potential consequences for educational attainment and career formation.” (here)

No physical attribute can compete with the power of education. An educated Black woman is in the formidable position to tell any man harboring unappealing male-centered notions exactly where and how fast to go with those notions. Couple this with fewer available educated Black men, and Black women are left with limited choices for finding a mate.

Either she can marry a less-educated, working-class black man and hope that they can make it/keep it interesting and harmonious, or she can consider a non-black man closer to her education level, an understandably difficult choice for many. Lastly, she can go it alone, having and raising children as a single parent.

I am not really sure why Black women outperform Black men in education, except to consider that lesser versions of the same distractions that lead to high drop-out rates, incarceration, unemployment, violence, drug addiction, and other maladies in Black men, are also driving down performance in school and the resulting education attainment.

Just as political and economic power is an aphrodisiac for women, with respect to men; it can be a turn-off in the other direction because women with overt power are not congruent with evolution and the male status quo. Black men are adapting slowly, but in the meantime this leaves Black women little choice but to either look beyond them for mates, or go it alone.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: Black Women Series, Education and Attractiveness, Single Parent, Estrogen, Sex, Mating, Acting White

Weekend Pointillism: Ali & Frazier

Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss Jr. captured these two greats, and I could not resist committing them to my dots./JC
(Click on drawing for a close-up)

Acting White: The Bottom Line on Sex

Whether it's Tiger and Elin, or Joe and Suzy Plainbread, the issue of sex, and all that follows is the same. For women, sex is mostly a means to an end. For men, sex is an end unto itself - momentary pleasure. This is evidenced in our memories. Men can barely remember sex five minutes after having it, hence the relentless search. Years later, a woman can tell you every detail, and how each occurrence advanced an objective (love, marriage, children, security, gifts, etc.) Woman will forgo sex if there is no end to justify it, while men pursue it constantly since they can't see beyond it.

As long as men and women remember these governances, they are okay. However, if either forgets, as Tiger did, all hell is going to breaks loose. He did not make this rule, but it applies to him all the same, whether he is the world's number one golfer, or its number one idiot (or both).

With sex, as with other challenges, success demands working together. Men need women to continuously remind men that there is more to life than sex, while providing it nonetheless. Alternately, women need men who are humble about their own genetically baked-in forgetfulness.

Lastly, if you are wondering how you are doing with your mate. Women should ask themselves how often you surprise him with a 'roll-in-the-hay-fest'. Guys should ask themselves the same question, but make it a 'cuddle-fest'. If either of you says never, or not recently, you had better check those cell phone logs because someone else might be taking up the slack in your game. Straight-up asking is OK too, if you understand that everybody lies.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: The Bottom Line on Sex, Tiger Woods, Fidelity, Sex, Elin Woods, Acting White