Acting White: McCain Selects Palin

I’ll give McCain this much – if he goes down, it won’t be in a wheel-chair. Putting up a women governor with less experience than Obama, no matter how conservative, is either brilliant or really stupid. She is good looking and married with children to a 1/8 Inuit – that’s almost like 1/2 when you go south of the Mason-Dixon. Biden’s handlers are filing down his incisors right this moment, while Palin laces up her steel-toed boots aimed at his jewels. Drama on the Great Plains.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Genes and A Boy Named Darryl

When I was a child, the family two doors away had three kids, two boys and a girl. One of the boys, Darryl, had sickle-cell anemia and died painfully before we completed middle school. The other two kids had challenges from carrying the trait, but nothing matching their departed sibling. The tragic results for this family naturally followed the coupling of two people who, unknowingly, carried the genetic trait for the disease.

Three points worthy of note. The advancement of scientific study in genetics is directly responsible for us now understanding what exactly happened to Darryl and why. The screening and counseling of black couples beyond the shores of Africa, contemplating children, reflects both science and philosophy that seeks to protect families from the physical and emotional suffering that my childhood neighbors endured. Lastly, the Eugenics movement of the 1900's that pursued the philosophy of a master-race was a crude and vicious response to scientific discovery, apart from the science itself, and should not be confused with the benefits of scientific advancement.

Sterilizing people by force was bad. Forcing other to have children, against their will, was equally bad. Counseling people on the likely outcomes of their offspring is very good. These behaviors eminate from scientific discovery following knowledge. Eugenics of old is dead, and should stay that way. However, the physical and emotional needs of humanity demand that we pursue our understanding of DNA, genetics and heredity. The yellow crime tape surrounding the discussion of the role of genes in our lives needs to come down.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Endurance vs. Speed

As I watched the closing ceremony of the Olympics, and the east and north African sweep of the marathon, I had pause to wonder why they are so dominant, compared to West African progeny in the sprints. That same day I got an email from a friend pointing to an article of the same topic.

The gist of my agreement with the writer’s points (not all) is that natural selection, driven by environment, is responsible, in this Olympics case, for athletes with optimal physiology for these events. Because running in Olympic events is nearly identical to what humans have been doing for tens of thousands of years, unlike volleyball, we can more readily see the evolution and selection.

Furthermore, when we see the dark-skinned Africans, including West African slave descendants, we are looking at Africans who spent the longest time, of any one group, in their respective single geographies, yielding the most consistent influence to specific traits for speed or endurance in running. White, yellow, and brown ‘Africans’, the progeny of earlier black Africans who departed the continent, display a wider range of physical traits as a result of the demands of diverse geography around the planet.

No doubt that thousands of years ago Jamaican superman Usain Bolt would have had many wives and children, as well as riches, for his prowess, as would gold medal record-holding Michael Phelps, in locales where swimming fed the kiddies. In one sense these athletes are anomalies, but at the same time they point us towards wondrous notions of genetic adaptation and natural selection, upon which our survival and advancement as a species is totally dependent.

James C. Collier

HT: Mangan's Miscellany

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Acting White: Obama Selects Biden

Obama's pick reminds me of Geo. Bush selecting Dick Cheney, where voters could assume a similar bolt of cloth for those two - but, an assumption I doubt people will make with Obama and anybody. Put another way, Obama has been saying how he is different, and a change agent, and voters might buy this, but Biden does not carry that message too well in my view.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: The Browning of America

I have no innate desire to see whites remain the majority in America. To do so would seem to put that group’s interests ahead of non-whites, and there is already too much of this in our history. But I am still left to ponder the implications of the recently projected Latino takeover, by the year 2042. Latinos may not become the majority, but along with blacks, they will dominate this country as minorities, as they significantly influence it today.

So what will this mean? Succinctly, we should expect the unsolved problems of these two groups to dominate. If we accept that a country’s economic well-being trails its development and use of technology, the downward pressure on the current US standard of living is huge and increasing. The current technology achievement index (TAI) of the US is .73 (on a scale of 0-1), second only to Finland. The index of USA2042 will be quite lower, considering that the TAI’s of Mexico and origins further south are .39, at their top.

Why will the technology indices, circa. 2042, be lower, you ask? Because we are already failing to bring the current Latino and black communities up to the education and skill standards that are reflected in our current, albeit sliding, achievement index. This failure coupled with the growth of these groups, relative to whites, is not good economic news for anyone’s future. In fact, historic Latinos and blacks are the first-line and hardest hit casualties of increasing our low-skilled labor capacity minus manufacturing demand. And be reminded that service demand does not grow an economy, but rather is consumption.

The only groups to benefit will be the new comers, fleeing developing country poverty. They will undoubtedly live better, as their presence feeds off the standard of living of our past. In contrast, I believe this country should welcome and foster all groups that will add to our betterment, but until we can constructively mentor our current citizens, beginning with blacks and legal immigrants, we need to grow our exports in people who enter and stay illegally and punish those who encourage them.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Spaniards At It Again

Controversy has caught up to the Spanish Olympic Basketball Squad. It seems they took a team picture with a gesture meant to slant their eyes in some sort of twisted deference to their Chinese hosts. Of course it comes off as racist, and for the life of them these idiots cannot understand the fuss.

Now let's not forget that these same Spaniards (roughly) thought that making fun of black Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton, via blackface makeup, was no different than if he was fat or a woman - like this makes it OK.

So, we are left with expecting stupid gestures from the Spanish, including their favorite, the monkey chant, delivered to black soccer players. Very, very dumb.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Cullen Jones Gets 4x100 Freestyle Gold

Cullen Jones helped the USA win a gold medal in the 4x100 Freestyle Relay. It's easy to be overshadowed by a guy like Michael Phelps who is so utterly dominant. However, Jones represents the spirit of most Olympic champions who make it (or not) to glory by mere fractions of seconds. What's important is how Jones puts it all in a perspective that matters to him. He says if one black kids decides to learn to swim because of him, then it was all worth it. He knows that his quest for excellence and gold is really about getting more kids to swim, thereby saving lives. He is definitely a hero in my book. Go Cullen!

James C. Collier

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Acting White: McCain and Obama Wrestle in the Dirt

Each side denies that they are doing it, but our eyes and ears tells us something different. Obama and McCain both want the top job, and each is willing use the race card as sure as Lee Atwater and Johnny Cochran playing poker behind the gates of someplace starting with an H. And after the way Bush played the race card on McCain in 2000, he is not about to get caught sleeping.

Each knows that all of America has its race glasses on, so they barely have to try (or even not at all) and each side will see racial politicing. In the cartoon above, if you are looking for race, the first thing you see is a white woman kissing Obama. A few days a go, McCain shows Britney, Paris, and Obama and America sees Jungle Fever. Obama mentions in speeches how he doesn't look like ususal suspects, and the white-guilt-o-meter soars to new heights.

So what. Boxing has rules, fighting does not. And believe me folks, winning the presidency in this country has always been a fight. It's about winning, not healing the racial divide, or jobs, or education, or anything else, just winning. The candidates quietly tell themselves that they will get to the high road on race, after they get into the oval office. But they never do. The first thing they would have to expose is their own hypocrisy.

So let's not get our knickers too bunched up around what either side does or how people perceive it, unless we are ready to open up the full kimono on race. It needs to be opened for sure, but the reason should not be around choosing a leader, but rather reflecting the direction that we want to go as a country.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Gallup Poll Says Americans Believe Racism is Widespread

This country has intelligent people, ignorant people, and everyone in between. So should we really be surprised that racism is widespread? Gallup should also add that racism seems not to be going anywhere anytime soon, as the grip of ignorance is strong. So now what?

We need to examine racism under a modified light, and this won’t be easy. Racism always has an agenda, but is it always evil? Sure, it can seek to unfairly promote some while demoting others. But it can also be a defense. What? If I fear I might get stomped by someone, I might avoid them. The only agenda here is self defense. Should I risk life and limb to prove to Mr. Gallup that I am not a racist? I think not.

The real problem is that it is easy to see problems through the lens of race. So it looks like race is the cause, while it is not. The state of a person’s ignorance is influenced by a myriad of background factors, including economics, education, employment, and culture. But what we see on the tube is behavior and race. Viola, race must be driving it. Wrong.

Before we ever get past race issues we must get to the whole of them. To do this we must quell our knee jerk reaction that racism is always malicious. This is simply not true. Sometimes it is just a natural short-cut defense that is philosophically wrong, but practically prudent. It’s like choosing sides in pick-up basketball. All things being equal, the wise choice is the black guy in the Air Jordan’s. The NBA is >80% black (if you haven’t noticed) – philosophically wrong, maybe, but practically the best bet, if winning is the goal.

So when we hear about widespread racism, it would be great if we could recognize and begin to talk about the behaviors, on all sides, that aren’t about being malicious, but which are concerned with avoiding difficulty, as well as getting ahead. This is the elephant in the living room that we do not see, or hear of in national polls, or television network specials on race.

James C. Collier

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