#12 Blacks and Swagger, Obama too

In the first place, what is swagger? Objectively, swagger is a calculated display, and waste, of resources designed to communicate supremacy either to the competition or an object of desire. Rich guys, like billionaire Larry Ellison (Oracle), throw away money in plain sight, so that everyone knows that there is more where that came from. Ladies look like the display windows at Neiman’s, while they are buying groceries. Athletes strut to show muscle strength and readiness even when no threat or competition exist.

Different ethnicities have their versions of swagger. White guys wear their hair a certain way, Black guys do the same. But swagger starts at puberty and, I have just found, is best observed at co-ed high school track meets (including my son) where the young swaggees are wearing skimpy uniforms and embroiled in physical competition. These meets are a veritable gold mine of unadulterated swagger, White to Black, male to female, freshman to senior.

All colors of the boys have the basic swagger of walking on their toes (metatarsals), to show off their instant readiness to ‘Usain Bolt’ to some finish line into the first place spot light. The top tier girls wear tight everything, letting nature show itself off. More pronounced toe-walking and tight clothes equals speed, if you check the results. The kids add to this flair by wearing their accessories in the manner of professionals, Nike preferred.

There’s more swagger in the glamor events, the sprints. I suppose this is because running speed is the most basic of all competition. You run to get what you want, and away from that which wants you (for a meal). The boys have fancy haircuts and sunglasses, the girls get the fingernails and hair looking like they are headed to the club after the meet. The 3000m winner, a White kid, had a bit of well-earned swagger, but I think he has already seen too many swagger-less Kenyans, so he was dialing it back.

Finally, no swagger discussion is complete without recognizing Obama’s swagger. He walks like those kids. He is on his toes, like he is ready to bolt at a moment’s notice, toward or away from a threat - I’m not sure. I can’t think of an earlier POTUS, except Jack Kennedy, who had this particular physical manner of communicating readiness. BusinessWeek claimed (last week) that Wall Street is liking O-man, despite concerns, so he's still in the race even with the 'help' of FOX NEWS.

I’m not sure if it is racist to expect this from him, or to like it, or, god forbid, to have been jazzed by it at vote time. Is primal influence legitimate in this complex world? Perhaps, but it exist nonetheless.

Check out Swagger360.

James C. Collier

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Stipple Minute: "Girl And Cheetah"

Stipple drawing of photograph by Canadian Gregory Colbert.

James C. Collier

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Arizona Challenges Ethnic Studies

If you live in a country where ethnicity has, at times, identified individuals for legal, moral and ethical mistreatment, are citizens not allowed to educate to the history and facts of the mistreatment? Would this right not persist even though the descriptions of the mistreatment might reasonably invoke spirited discussion of the events and encourage organizations of change?

When I speak on this blog of propensities within the Black community to disproportionate violence, I do not feel good. But the propensity to violence is the truth that needs the spotlight for the benefit of all. Similarly, minorities, as well as Whites, need to learn the evidence of mistreatment of ourselves, whether by race, age, or sex, also to advance.

I may misunderstand it, but the Arizona initiative (here) banning ethnic studies education that might contribute to animus seems to ban study of factual events on the criteria that they might be painful. While this pain might include anger, fear, or resentment, it is nonetheless stemming from actual events. Should Germany ban studies of the Holocaust because of the emotion that it brings, or that students might organize in some fashion to insure that it never happens again? Pathways of ‘moving on’ do not necessarily mean dropping the discussion.

The greatest reason for ethnic studies is the propensity for the majority, in any place, to paint history in biased colors. What is often left out of the curriculum is that which is painful to remember, particularly for the historical majority. If that history, based on current events, encourages a call-to-action for change, then all the more reason to avoid it, or not, depending on your stance. Prohibiting the teaching of history because of the way it might be interpreted is a violation of our fundamental freedom.

I look forward to the day when ethnic studies will not need a separate status. However, until we can embrace it’s teaching, pain and all, along with all of our history, it will merit extraordinary support.

James C. Collier

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Lena Horne: 1917 - 2010

James C. Collier

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Ann Arbor’s Blacks-only Field Trip vs. Outrage

The reason that the job of a leader is lonely is because a leader must not play favorites, less the disfavored rise up and spite him. Our constitution does a good job in demanding that the citizens of these United States get treated equally. Over the years, more work has gone into seeing that White men following these laws of our land, and now we can add Ann Arbor’s Dicken Elementary School Principal Mike Madison to that list, with a twist.

It seems that Madison is Black, and recently authorized a Blacks-only field trip, for a science class to hear a speech by a rocket scientist, who (you guessed it) happens to be Black. White class members were excluded from the trip, on the basis of their race. Madison’s goal was to expose the Black children to new possibilities for their futures. He may have done this, but he also exposed himself as a racist idiot.

Who is he, as the chief-educator for the entire school, to suggest that there was not mutual benefit available and responsibility to all the kids who might hear the inspiring words of a rocket scientist? Who is he to direct that resources, provided for the benefit of all the students, should be directed to educational programs for a select group? What kind of strategy for closing the achievement gap for Black kids includes limiting educational support for non-Blacks?

This is simple. If, in seeking more White players in the NBA, a White principal made a Whites-only field trip to meet Phoenix Sun’s star basketball player, Steve Nash, who is White, Blacks would not hesitate to express their outrage. So put me on the record for some Black outrage at Principal Knucklehead. If my kid were in that school, Madison would need to explain to the school board why he should get to keep his job. Period. Story (here).

James C. Collier

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Growing Up White

When I saw this I immediately thought I should start my own stuff-black-people-would-like-to-do-but-can't blog. I can just imagine what my parents would say if I had ever decided to disrupt a pro baseball game by running around the field like a kid who just downed his first half-a-beer. But in this case, there was a rotund taser-toting Philly cop with his own ideas.

Rather than continuing to chase the seventeen year old in circles, the chubby cop took aim with the electrodes and dropped him (here). This was prior to needing to call in his own ‘dunkin-donut-code-blue’, or worse, having to self-tase his big butt back to life. In fairness to the cop, who was reviewed and cleared of using excessive force, recent of these joy-runners have proved themselves armed and dangerous toward on-field personnel.

What’s kinda’ funny, besides seeing the kid crash and burn from the shock, is to consider that prior to hopping the barrier to the field, the youngster called his dad and asked permission for the stunt. The dad curiously said, “I don’t think you should.” Now, my pops would have said something a little stronger like, “I’m gonna’ whip your ass for even thinking about doing something so asinine”. But hey, my old man was old-school.

Furthermore, if my folks came to bail me out, after such a stunt, I would suggest that it’d be safer for me to stay on ‘ice’ for a few days until dad’s BP (blood pressure) came down to triple digits.” In contrast, the offender’s father wasn’t too bothered, except for the tasing, saying his son was ‘just a teenager having fun’. I guess growing up White still has a few advantages.

James C. Collier

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Harvard Law Student Kicks Up Racial Ruckus

Third-year Harvard law student, and Law Review editor, Stephanie Grace, has caused a poop-storm of controversy by putting in writing her views that state, “I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent”.

It seems that she spoke out six months ago in an email follow-up to a private dinner conversation. One of the email recipients - Yelena Shagall - recently decided, for yet known reasons, to ‘out’ Ms. Grace. In any event, there’s a whole lot of damage control going on from all sides, including the law school Dean, Martha Minow, who is under consideration by Obama for the high court.

It is not so much what Ms. Grace said, but rather that she was so evidently having a conversation that is not allowed. To correct her, what is absolute is that we are not allowed to talk, in any forum, about the possible origins of an intelligence gap that seems to influence/explain the performance gap we experience, between White and Black.

The fact that Blacks score, on average, one standard deviation below Whites on IQ test and under perform on a myriad of standard empirical measures, across all education levels, establishes a basis, however incomplete, for Ms. Grace’s statement. This incomplete basis stands, and will remain as the ‘best case’ line of reasoning in the censored mouths of all, until the point which it is openly and critically debated. For this debate to happen, people like Ms. Grace must not be crucified.

Factors of intelligence are genetic, indeed, but not in the negative manner implied by this layman banter of terms. Good science to-date provides that nothing about having black skin genetically predisposes anyone to less intelligence. However, the correlation of black skin and lower measured intelligence does indicate that normal human distributions of intelligence could reasonably pre-date ethnicity, in expression. That these differences may be expediently visible through today's lens of race, while having other origins, is the missing piece of the puzzle, blocked by not encouraging open scientific dialog.

Differences of race, at and beneath the surface, have occurred in concert with other key events in recent human evolution (last 10,000 years). The proper assignment of cause and effect demand a critical analysis of event time lines, particular with respect to evolving homo sapien brain physiology, and including what evidence we have of recent brain mutations (genetic disorders) that might explain the pronounced disparities we see, or errantly think we see.

James C. Collier

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