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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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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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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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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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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Acting White: The Top Ten Things Tiger Woods Now Knows (or Remembers)

10. White women can act just as crazy as the sisterhood of exhaling flat irons.

9. “I saw the tree, I was fine, but where the hell did that hydrant come from?”

8. When a woman has your babies, her attitude sure can get funky in a hurry.

7. “Let’s see, crashed Caddy, crazed wife, police at the door – I really AM Black!”

6. “My angry driving sucks, I bet Jack Nicklaus would not of choked like that”.

5. “Yeah, she was trying to rescue me alright. More like lining up a clean shot at the Woods family jewels".

4. “Keep it in the pants, son, keep it in the pants.” (Earl Woods)

3. “The next Escalade will have the sports-suspension package, or somebody’s getting fired.”

2. “I should have said I had insomnia and was hitting the all-night driving range. Damn-it Tiger, get your head in the game!”

1. Hmmm… a ‘crazy bitch’ panic-room is sounding kind of good right now.



James C. Collier

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Acting White: Sammy Sosa’s Skin Lightening and Attraction

Skin whitening has yet to gain popularity in America, save for the late Michael Jackson and now Sammy Sosa. The former Chicago-slugger, better known for homers and steroids, was pictured a while back in Las Vegas at the Latin America Grammies sporting ‘white face’. Sammy’s move, and full confession, is a good opening to a quick drive-thru on color-ism.

We know that evolutionary skin pigmentation levels, in humans, are a factor of sun intensity, as dictated by latitude. However, within female populations of a given region, relative lightness is also a function of estrogen levels and indicates, to innate male sensitivities, child-bearing potential. It turns out that young females just past puberty are at their lifetime lightest in color, and will become darker with the first, and each successive, child they produce.

So it is not only Euro-ness that some darker people dangerously chase with chemicals and pharmaceuticals, mostly outside of the US in Africa and S. America. It is also youthfulness, as presented by estrogen levels. Of course, I have no idea what crazy Sammy, the dude, is thinking. Somebody needs to tell him that testosterone, the stuff he was illegally taking to slam home runs and get babes, expresses itself in darker skin tones. This is the reason behind the universal womanly swoon of ‘tall, dark, and handsome’. Maybe Sammy is just expressing his youthful feminine side, or (better yet) trying to undo many years of ‘skin-darkening’ steroid abuse. Who knows?

In any event, I put these products, along with colored-eye implants, in that very dangerous, desperate, and MJ-crazy category of I-hate-myself nip/tuck stunts. I am happy that aggressive skin-lightening has never really caught on in the US - despite Beyonce’s’ Revlon commercials.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Black Women Series - Weight, Body Fat and Attractiveness

I begin by admitting that I lack my usual confidence in what I think I might know objectively about the relationship of body fat to attractiveness. The factors are complex and I have not found clear and convincing data on the role this might play in the mating disparities that black women face. Nevertheless, to ignore this would discount a logic wherein body fat-driven weight differences influence how men and women, especially black men, come to view and respond to each other.

From earlier discussion, I presented that black men are unique in placing their group’s women at the bottom of the attractiveness list of all females, unlike any other ethnicity. Significant empirical evidence of this is found here. Uniqueness in the weight relationship of black women and men stands out. I will offer simply, that the lessening gap between black women’s weight and musculature relative to black men makes black women less dependent, and controllable, and thereby challenging to a fundamental male-female dynamic that has existed for thousands of years.

In every ethnic group, except blacks, the males are larger than the females, during prime mating years, 20-39. The equatorial West African ancestry of black women provided for robust musculature and temperament that had them sharing a greater historical load of the available food gathering and defense demands, over time, while men fulfilled their critical hunter role. If we transport this ancestry to a safe, food-abundant and sedentary lifestyle, you have an environment where black women are simply more able, individually, and willing to get along without black men and their male-centered demands. This does not mean that this is the best for the black family and overall black advancement.

So I guess I am saying weight analysis is one example of the paradox US blacks suffer, as the result of the abrupt movement from Africa to America. Reaction to our environment influences a relationship (similarity in physical status), thereby encouraging a dynamic that tears the fabric of instinctive male-female symbiosis. But is it better to have greater black-male dominance and togetherness, at the cost of black female independence/sovereignty? Without thinking too much I would say no, except when I look at the challenged state of the black community. I am just not sure. My status as a black male begs me to recuse myself from a decision only black women can/should make for and about themselves, although we all bear the result.

Black male-female education attainment disparities are another influence to this paradox challenging US blacks, which I will explore next.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Good Hair by Chris Rock

I just saw this ‘ROCumentary’ on black hair, by Comedian/Actor Chris Rock. I expected hard-hitting comedy, but what he served up was more thoughtful, and interesting. Along with his usual wit, Rock exposed a side of black America seldom seen – the side where blacks wrestle with their identity, win a few rounds, but ultimately lose the fight.

The movie serves as empirical evidence to much of what I have presented about hair in the Black Women Series (here). The bottom-line is that black women spend a tremendous amount of money, estimated at $9 Billion/year, trying to make their hair look ‘good’, or not kinky. This effort is in deference to the much-maligned, but still-embraced, Eurasian beauty standard of long, straight hair.

The attachment of black women to their pursuit of good hair is likened, by the women themselves, to a drug addiction. But what is left out, besides burned hair and scalps, poisoned lungs, and disappointment, is the devastating opportunity cost. A large portion of this money could certainly go to truer essentials, like education, fitness, savings, homeownership, debt-avoidance, etc. Instead, the money stuffs the pockets of companies, predominantly white and Asian, only too happy to help blacks look more white/Asian.

Rock also explores the world of hair weaves, including the trafficking of human hair between India and the US. Again, we hear from women so desperate, that they place hair costing thousands on monthly installment plans, while professing that they would go hungry before missing their hair appointment. Rock also exposes the burden, for black men, in dating these self-proclaimed ‘high-maintenance’ women, who expect committed mates to pay for these expensive and temporary hair enhancements.

The most poignant portions of the movie are the segments between Rock and Rev. Al Sharpton, where the chemically-straightened Rev. admonishes black women for placing their vanity ahead of necessities, their own and their children’s. Sharpton’s hypocritical presentation of advice, relative to his James Brown-inspired coif, makes the whole crazy thing believable, and very authentic.

The final cost, again left unsaid in the show, is the physical damage pressing, relaxing, and weaving, does to natural hair and the fitness of black women. This expensive styling results in damaged and shorter hair, pre-mature baldness, less fitness activity, and ultimately less attractiveness. The maintenance of these expensive hairstyle conflicts with jogging, swimming, aerobics, cycling, and any other activity that produces healthful sweating or wet hair. Obesity among black women is epidemic and hairstyle-influenced sedentary levels go to the heart of the issue.

Rock, who deserves credit for wading into these treacherous waters, avoided many of these desperate truths, perhaps for the sake of his own standing with black women, but at what cost?

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Obama Greets Emperor of Japan

ARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HT: UndercoverBlackMan

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Black Girls Run!

The Black Woman series about hair brought me this interesting link to share. The site is about black women and distance running. The post is about the travails of black women with relaxed hair and the conundrum of washing away the sweat, while maintaining clean healthy scalp and hair. The comments evidence how black hair styles influence exercise activity.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Acting White: Black Women Series, Waist to Hip Ratio and Attraction, Running, Good Hair, Obesity, Exercise, Acting White

Acting White: Black Women Series, Waist to Hip Ratio and Attraction

There are legions of men, and women, who think that a woman’s breast is the focal point of male-female attraction, but this is not the case. Even though breasts have garnered tremendous recent attention, they lag as the best indicators of reproductive fitness. This breast lagging (forgive the pun) is measurable in how men assign attractiveness, relative to breast size. We now know there is more influence in the waists and hips, and (of course) hair, as discussed here.

Research has shown that men are genetically programmed to instantly sight a woman’s waist to hip (WTH) ratio, giving the highest attractiveness rating to a ratio of approximately .7. This means if the waist is 25 inches, the preferred hip is 36, for US men. This rating correlates to estrogen levels and reproductive fitness. But is this preference true for African-male ancestries as well? Indeed it is, but with a twist.

Waist to hip studies measure the circumference. White men favor width from the frontal view, while black men favor width viewed in profile, hence the phrases, ‘flat-butt’ and ‘junk in the trunk’. But in both black and white scenarios, the preferred circumference measurements are close enough to say preference differences are minor across ethnicities, and are explainable.

In the male hunting-female gathering evolution of humans there is less gathering in locales further from the equator, like Europe and Scandinavia. This has caused the gatherers (women) to lessen their butts, while still maintaining the desirable WTH ratio. The women who remained closer to the equator kept the gluteus maximus muscles needed for the best gathering. (here)

The rub comes in when plentiful food and sedentary life styles cause obesity to explode, as in America. US men, like their world-wide counterparts, maintain their appetite for casual sex, but show a decline in willingness to sign on to long-term contracts to mates and offspring. This attraction and willingness, or not, to commit is baked into our brains. It is true that social conditioning can offset what our genes tell us to do, but only to a lesser degree.

The behavior of men is additionally influenced by the availability of casual sex, in the wake of declining estrogen-signaling attractiveness. The lowering of the WTH ratio in black women is further aided by the sedentary behavior resulting from costly hairstyles that ward off daily exercise routines. To be fair, men, black and white, also suffer bulging waistlines from obesity, however, testosterone-signaling attraction and behaviors of women toward men is a better subject for another post.

Up Next: Education and Attraction.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: The Psychology of Gang Rape

On the heels of the much publicized Richmond High School (CA) gang rape of a 15 year old, I found this article on gang rape psychology. It helped me to begin to understand such heinous behavior. Article link here.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Black Women Series, Hair Color and Attraction

From the day the first alchemist, with a brunette wife, saw a blond or redhead, hair color has been a sexual attractor, and something to put on and take off. This post is not only about hair color, but skin tone as well, as one can’t really talk about one without the other, especially if the subject is attraction.

With this discussion comes ‘negative sexual selection’, which describes intent away from long-term partnering, and toward casual sex, a grave issue in the black community. Men will pursue sex indiscriminately (including fathering children); while simultaneously remaining selective about the partner to whom they commit themselves. Managing these opposing interests will always be part of the female role, whether we think this is enlightened or not. Moderate hair coloring, within a strategy of looking attractive, is part of this critical family development practice, as well as a good chunk of the $9 billion/year (US) black hair-care industry.

The key to understanding attraction of hair color and skin tone is that humans have an innate sense of what is natural and healthy, as an indication of longevity and reproductive capacity. Any deviation from what looks natural challenges our senses, resulting in negative sexual selection. Also, coloring the hair is a tactic of short-term gain, due to the backend ‘cost’ of unattractiveness, once the natural color returns. For the record, coloring also damages the hair, leads to shortening of average length, and thinning, again enhancing unattractiveness.

Just as women who straighten or curl their hair mimic those women who have naturally straight or curly hair, so too should women behave when they choose to color. Because the genes that govern hair color also exert influence over skin tone (here), the relationship is critical. This is how nature aligns the two into the most attractive combinations. Violate nature’s rules for what goes with what, and viola, you get unattractive. A competent hair stylist is one who knows which hair colors will complement the client.

Enhancing natural color is the most logical coloring behavior, to stand out. Hiding gray, within natural colors, enhances youthfulness and attractiveness. Picking colors that look good on magazine models or Hollywood celebrities is a bad idea, as these rarely transfer as hoped.

As black women's hair comes naturally in brown and black, these are the colors women should stick to with their enhancements, understanding the long-term costs. Blonde and red enhancement should be limited to those women who have fair-hair/skin in their ancestry, so as not to set up a battle with skin tone.

For black females, when a man tells them that their hair looks good, they might consider if his motivation is simply to have sex and move on, or if he is saying that he thinks the woman is a good prospect to consider committing his long-term resources. The fate of large swaths of black humanity rest significantly on the black female response to the male approach. Too often this exchange, around hair and looks, is the seemingly harmless foreplay preceding fatherless children, single motherhood, and underclass struggle.

Up Next: Waist-to-Hip Ratio and Attractiveness.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Poll Results - Has Obama Win Helped Race?

Let's call this an OPEN COMMENT POST. I certainly have my opinion on the impact President Obama has had, but I want to know what you think, behind your votes. I especially want to hear from folks who said they did not care. Let them comments rip!!!

Don't forget to vote in the new poll in the side bar. Thx.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Why NFL Running Backs Marry Blondes

I don’t know how many black NFL players/professional soccer players are also married to white women, but the title of this post speaks to the perception and greater probability of this happening with world-class black male athletes. But why? Is it because these exceptional men are self-haters? I think not. Could there be something about these woman that draws these men to them, and vice-versa? Perhaps, but it is likely not their skin color, per se.

On all the planet, a few things are sure when it comes to human differentiation. The fastest and most agile men come from West African ancestry, and their skin is black. And the most varied women come from European ancestry, and they are white. The hair of these women is near-black with eyes that are brown, dominant traits in humans, but that same hair is also brown, red, and blond, with skin tones to match. Beyond their standard brown eyes we find blue, hazel, or green. Objectively, this makes them the most attractive women on the planet, by virtue of 16 possible hair/eye color combinations versus one for everyone else. This is perhaps the most startling, but not the only, example of a species employing color as a competitive aid to sexual selection.

So while women are instinctively attracted to men with superior physiques capable of running at lightning speed, over and through competitors, these men, influenced by instinct as well, are attracted to variation that flourished many thousands of years ago in Europe, when the “operational sex ratio” (OSR) of males to females was such that competition for limited mates helped hair/eye color variation to literally explode into humanity. The ‘fever’ of interracial attraction has origins in how all men and women have been attracting each other since the beginning, and not just since it was forbidden by laws, in recent times, across skin-color lines.

To keep this in perspective, interracial dating and marriage, while on the rise, still makes up a pittance against the norm. In general, people confine themselves to mates who look like themselves. Society reinforces this, as is evidenced by the complaining blog comments I see from all sides. However, if you are either the fastest man, or the most attractive woman, who then makes the rules for who can be your mate? The slow? The plain? The status quo? No one is saying that speed/agility exist only in West African ancestry, or that beauty does not live well beyond the women of Europe, but there is a lot to learn from the evolutionary science of attraction, if we can put our predispositions aside for a moment.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Black Women Series, Hair Length, Quality and Attractiveness

Men and women are biologically pre-disposed to procreate, and to select mates on an innate and objective basis of increasing the odds of continuing the species. Synchronous male female attraction is the manifestation of this genetic programming. We look for the signals of greater health in potential mates, understanding that this comes most readily in youthful displays, including hair length and hair quality.

The association between hair length/quality and better health is a researched finding (exampled here). Regardless of ethnicity, average hair length decreases as age increases. Reproductive health follows overall health, and its correlation to youth, hair length and quality. Hair quality exists on a continuum of states reduced by chemical ‘processing’ straightening, heating, coloring or other visually enhancing, but also structurally distressing, procedures.

The history of American black women and their hair is one of social and biological misdirection. Black women, as varying admixtures of African and European ancestry, alter their hair in the attempt to have it appear longer and in a form similar to non-black (Euro-Asian) women, but in doing so they compromise both their hair’s quality and length. Chemical straightening (perming), frequent heat treatments (pressing), and extensions, over time make hair brittle, discolored, shorter, and less indicative of good health. Damaged hair is signaled as unattractive by our innate, health-seeking, senses.

Ironically, locking black hair into dreadlocks, a popularized multi-dimensioned style found in historical and present-day Africa and Eurasia, is one manner of growing tightly-curled hair into a longer style, while keeping it healthy. Contrary to misinformation, hair that is locked is washable, can be neatly styled, and must be conditioned similar to other more typical western styles, for best results. My own sister began wearing locks nearly ten years ago, after alternating between pressing and ‘perming’ for most of her adult life. Over the following years her hair has continued growing much longer than with previous ‘processed’ styles, making her more physically attractive (in my opinion).

It bears mentioning that the current pressing styles popular with black women increase the barriers to general exercise and weight management, wherein sweating counters the significant invested time and expense of hair-styling. Less exercise, in part, has the result of increasing the percentage of body fat and average weight of black women (a subject to be explored later in the series), in comparison to women without this exercise constraint.

When it comes to hair length, hair quality and attractiveness, black women may inadvertently detract from their overall physical desirability to all men, including black men, by choosing to pursue hair styles that sacrifice long-term hair length and hair quality. Black and non-black men alike seem to care most about length and quality (healthy appearance) within their similarly-wired ‘black-box’ mechanisms of what is attractive, in contrast to the belief that black women, to be more attractive, should have ‘white-looking’ hair, or vice-versa, ala Bo Derek in "10".

Up next in the series: Hair Color.

Link to Introduction.

James C. Collier

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