Thursday Randomness: Bruce Lee on Fame and Being a "Star," Pray Tell What Lessons Do Your Heroes have for All of Us?

Some randomness for you all.

I have a few heroes in my life: Brother Malcolm, Martin, Muhammad Ali, and Bruce Lee. True, no bs. One of the favorite truisms I have heard throughout my years is that black folk have two pictures in their homes: Bruce Lee and Martin Luther King Jr. For some, we would add JFK Jr., especially if you went to my grandma's house.

Random factoid: I actually studied Kung Fu with one of, if not the only, African Americans to study with the most high and skilled teachers in China. I will never forget watching this brother doing our forms in dress shoes as I slipped, bare footed, embarrassed, and near fallen in front of him. Our teacher smiled, suppressed a laugh, and said I best keep practicing...

I also remember him hitting me once and I damn near was lifted off of my feet. Funny, after a few years of study I still was an incompetent...but ironically, that little bit I absorbed saved my life on one frightening night. Trust, if I had a time machine I would go back and pay closer attention to Brother Paul's teaching so I could actually be semi-competent beyond the ability to fight off young ign'ts with undersized pistols who happened to tangle with the wrong negro.

As we reach for the stars, as our wings of wax melt, and we keep on trying despite the obstacles, Brother Bruce Lee's words still resonate. I keep on trying to be a star even though I am far from being one. But funny, thus my faith in the creator of the multiverse, I keep getting lucky despite myself.

Ain't fate grand?

My respectable negroes friends and allies, tell me of your heroes and what lessons they have taught you? Are your heroes conventional or unconventional? Are these personal lessons which none can comprehend? Or are these teachings for all of us to grasp and share?

Absurdity of the Day: Sarah Palin and the Tea Baggers Accuse the NAACP of being "Racist" and "Divisive"

We do indeed live in strange times. So for the Right, the NAACP is a "racist" organization, and the tea baggers are innocent Americans unfairly accused of racist behavior?

Beyond partisan sniping, what is so troubling about this classic, white deflection (i.e. a mirroring where those who call out racism are in turn labeled as "racists") is that it involves a 1) deep misunderstanding of what racism actually is and 2) that in the 24 hour news cycle where all points of view are equally valid, Palin and the Vox Right peanut gallery's claims will be elevated to that of the reasoned and rational.

Mining white racial resentment for electoral gains is a tried and true strategy of the Right and Conservatives in this country. Remember, political parties are a brand name, a type of shortcut that helps its members (potential or actual) decide to support the organization. While by the reasonable person standard the Tea Party may not be a classic white supremacist organization per se, they certainly contain a great many racists. Moreover, if public opinion data is any indication, the tea baggers are certainly very "traditional" in their racial attitudes.

Ultimately, (and as I suggested before) the tea baggers condone and give safe harbor to the racists in their midst. For me, that is enough to christen the Tea Party as the new age John Birchers that they are, a group of people who as I often remark may not hold the noose at the lynching party, but would show up in their Sunday finery and cheer it on.

To point on the twisted world in which the Right wing populists live, a choice excerpt from the article "NAACP vs. Tea Party: Racism Debate Heats Up as Sarah Palin Joins Fray":

The St. Louis Tea Party coalition on Monday evening passed a resolution of its own condemning the NAACP for "hypocritically engaging in the very conduct it purports to oppose." The resolution calls on the NAACP to withdraw its resolution. It even urges the IRS to reconsider its tax-exempt status of the NAACP because of what the Tea Party coalition dubbed the organization's "habitual partisan political behavior."

Former Alaska Gov. Palin , a vocal advocate of the Tea Party movement, jumped into the heated race debate Monday night, assailing the NAACP resolution as an example of "typical divisive politics that is so absolutely unnecessary." "The Tea Party movement is a beautiful movement, full of diverse people, diverse backgrounds," Palin said on Fox News' "Hannity." "It's very unfortunate that they are taking this tactic because it's a false accusation that Tea Party Americans are racist. Any good American hates racism. We don't stand for it. It is unacceptable." Palin in turn called on President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama to "repudiate" the resolution and "set the record straight."

The former GOP vice presidential candidate tweeted her support for the Tea Party again today: "I'm busy today so notify me asap when NAACP renders verdict: are liberty-loving, equality-respecting patriots racist? Bated breath,waiting..." Other Tea Party loyalists charge the NAACP's charges are driven solely by political motivations and are misguided. "Those ideas that Tea Party people are racist and that we're trying to instigate a racist climate in this country, that's simply a lie. That's out and out falsehood," said Rev. C.L. Bryant, a former president of NAACP's Garland, Texas, chapter who is now a leading Tea Party activist.

"I have not heard one racial slur that came out of that march," said Bryant, referring to the Tea Party protest on Capitol Hill where members of Congress alleged racist comments. "Those were simply Americans who were protesting."

****

We do indeed live in interesting times, do we not? And am I so wrong to yearn for the good old days of honest racists and honest racism? When folks wore their stripes (or hoods) proudly for all to see?

Of Race and Science: It would Seem that Different Centers of Gravity Explain Black and White Differences in Swimming and Running

I get goose bumps when I see these stories because someone's career is about to take a turn, one both unexpected and unintended, for the worst:

This disparity in athletic achievement, obvious to Olympic viewers, throws up so many sensitive questions of race and human difference that it is rarely discussed in public. But now two US academics have risked controversy by publishing a theory that attempts to explain the contrasting performance of black and white athletes using the laws of locomotion.

They argue that black sprinters have a 0.15 second advantage over their white rivals because they tend to have a higher centre of gravity, meaning they can fall to the ground more quickly between each stride. Conversely, having a lower then average centre of gravity helps white swimmers because their speed is determined by the height they can get above water.

More of their upper bodies are above the waterline, so they can generate and ride larger waves.

Adrian Bejan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University in North Carolina, and Dr Edward Jones of Howard University in Washington, used existing data on the body dimensions of soldiers of various nationalities to determine that black people – or more precisely those of West African origin – have a centre of gravity three per cent higher than white people.

Prof Bejan said the theory “completely accounts” for the increasing racial segregation of Olympic podiums.

****

As a society, we have struggled long and hard to disabuse the masses of any notion that race is a biological construct. Nevertheless, we often confront the Occam's razor test for what constitutes knowledge on these matters: if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck. So then, when one group seemingly dominates a sport for example, some then make a leap of faith regarding all other members of said "racial" group. In short, biology mates with performance to become destiny.

We have to be careful here because the relationship between race and science is so ugly, perilous, and barbaric. However, we must also ask ourselves should these questions about biology and race be pursued precisely because we are afraid of them? And what to do with knowledge (however socially inconvenient) that in other contexts may yield some social good--here for example, research on diseases that are almost exclusive to certain "racial" groups?

We know that race is a true lie (there is only one race, the human race). But there is something oddly compelling about the study of inter-group difference and assumed phenotypical differences.

Ultimately, I would suggest that these stories about race and athletic prowess tell us more about culture, values, and relative returns on investment than anything about biology. Black folk are not naturally good jumpers and runners, thus their predominance in the NBA. No, there is a self-fulfilling narrative that some black folk who grow up in ghetto communities gravitate to a game that is cheap to play, assigns local prestige, and which seems to offer the illusion of escape from the 'hood. In the early 20th century it was Jews who dominated basketball in the U.S. for many of the same reasons:



Could it be that West Africans, and in particular folks from the African ethnic groups studied have a cultural and financial incentive to invest in running? Or more generally, that whites dominate swimming because of the many cultural, geographic, and financial incentives for them to learn and excel at that particular sport?

The problem with the argument that West African blacks and white swimmers are somehow designed differently (and thus these divergent outcomes) is one of incompleteness: The math and physics may be right, but the conclusion is methodologically insufficient because the model excludes the variables of culture and history.

The full story follows here.

Does Aaron McGruder Hate Black Women?--"The Lovely Ebony Brown," Boondocks Season 3 Episode Reviewed

Are things really this dire in the black community? Would a beautiful young black woman have to marry an old black man to find love?

Are the tensions that great, and the divides so huge, between black men and black women? As one of my colleagues emotionally and instinctively interjects when we try to have a reasonable conversation about black professional women and their marriage prospects, "are black women in fact mules?" Are they really that unloved, unwanted, and the least desirable of all women in American society?

Let slip the dogs of war. Brother Aaron McGruder is going to be in some hot mess scalding like boiling chitterlings and the hot grits thrown at Al Green after The Lovely Ebony Brown circulates on these Internets. Trust, this episode will be talked about for years, angrily responded to, written about by the punditry, vilified by black feminists, and flamed on websites...by folks who likely didn't watch the episode in its entirety. And moreover, by folks that are preordained and have as a standing decision rule to reject any critical self-reflective exploration of black male-female relationships because The Lovely Ebony Brown does not offer a simple validation of the black women as perpetual victims meme.



Ultimately, as he demonstrated with his deconstruction of that coontastic minstrel Tyler Perry, McGruder's most recent Boondocks episode "The Lovely Ebony Brown" is one more example of him leaving it all on the dance floor and going out in style. He is a genius with uncommon honesty and insight into the dynamics of the post-Civil Rights black public. I ain't "dick riding" as the expression goes. No, I am simply acknowledging courage and uncommon smarts when I see them. Kudos to you Mr. McGruder.

As I did with the Boondocks episode "Pause," here are some thoughts, reflections, Easter Eggs, and the like:

1. What is really going on with the marriage dynamic between black men and black women? Sure, marriage markets matter and black women are more likely to marry "down." But, there seems to be a fixation and assumption that black men, and black male professionals in particular, are obsessed with marrying outside of the race. In reality, the out marriage rate for black Americans is quite low. Even among black men, the group most common to "out marry," the percentage is rather modest. We notice these outliers, the classic bogeyman pairing of the upwardly mobile black man and quasi-upward white woman that is the nightmare of some black women, precisely because it is infrequent. Thus we see the pink elephant and take it as the norm, as opposed to noticing all the gray elephants that are the most common.

Restated in different terms: most folk, the vast majority, marry within their own racial group.

Random thought: given that Asian women have the highest out marriage rates, what are the private conversations on this topic like among our Asian brothers?

So why all the fuss about interracial relationships? For some sisters (and brothers), what about investing in improving one's own self esteem as opposed to obsessing about the love partners and relationship choices made by other people?

2. The Chain of Being. This episode showed McGruder's depth and literacy once more as it repeatedly winked at the aforementioned historical artifact. This concept, born of The Atlantic Slave Trade, reached back to The Bible and its tale of The Curse of Ham to justify black enslavement. Here, in the White supremacist Colonial/Imperial imagination, a chain of being from beast to those of African decent was created where "White Europeans" were naturally on top as full citizens and human beings, and all others on the bottom. A neat arrangement if you want to conquer continents and rape, destroy, and kill "people" by the tens of millions without any guilt and with the support of the Church.



3. Slight of hand. Foreground and background. Was The Lovely Ebony Brown more of a Grandpa episode or a Ruckus episode? In favor of the latter see the following classic quotes unleashed by the Honorable Reverend Uncle Ruckus:

"Black women don't jog, that way they don't sweat out all of those industrial strength toxic avenger chemicals they use to straighten out their hair." [Extra points for the Toxic Avenger reference by the way].

"The key to happiness is to eliminate all black women from your life."

I have many favorite racial slurs. I will now add Uncle Ruckus' use of "wildebeest," and "Afro tramp," to my verbal Rolodex. Interestingly, Ruckus missed my favorite gendered racial slur: she-boon.

"I mean she was a ape but she was the prettiest ape I ever seen."

"Finally that which the darkie has done in darkness shall come to light."

"A black woman's body is the temple of doom!"

"Beneath that big soft lotioney exterior, those wide inviting hips, and that ample chocolate bosom is a savage Africanized pot boiling bone in the nose doing the monkey dance playing drums female!"

4. On relationships: Folks are generally messed up. Returning to the social commentary underlying this episode, am I the only one disturbed by the black woman in peril narrative and can't find a good black man meme that is commonly used as a mask for avoiding critical self reflection? For example, in the popular imagination all the sisters are marriageable and all the black men are raggedy, on the DL, in jail, dating white women or the like. What of the fact that many folks--men and women are not marriageable in general--and what would this do to the debate?

5. Obvious wink from the episode: the folly and stupidity of Myspace Internet celebrity status.

6. Second obvious wink from the episode: Jackie Brown.

7. On a serious note. The conversation about running, exercise, and Black women. Did you know that 80 percent of black women are overweight? How are the euphemisms of "strong black woman," "thick," the enabling behavior of such pseudo-celebrities as the Venus Hottentot wannabe Buffie the Body, and the valorizing of such folks as Monique and Precious, enabling this health crisis?

8. Inside academic, upwardly mobile, black bourgeoisie joke: Tom, resident black professional, extols the beauty and wonder of black women all the while being married to a white woman.

9. Second inside academic, upwardly mobile, black bourgeoisie joke. Grandpa's exaggerations of his participation in The Civil Rights Movement in the face of an obvious collective action problem a la Dennis Chong's book Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement.

10. Ghetto nerd confession. In my early years I wanted to have my way with Jessica Rabbit. In my later tween years I would have devoured Lynn Minmay. My newest cartoon crush is Ebony Brown. Oh Lords of Kobol, please send her my way and I would take Miss Brown to space mountain again and again and again!

11. Moral of this most recent Boondocks episode: Be careful what you wish for, as you may get he or she and then proceed to mess said relationship up. Question: How many of you have found the partner of your dreams only to talk yourself out of it and push them away?

Saturday Afternoon Thinking Project: Chris Hitchens' Ownage of Four Religious Scholars at Once

I am a big fan of polemicist, writer, professional provocateur, and thinker Chris Hitchens. As you know, I firmly believe that religion ruins all things (a separate claim from my deeply held faith in the existence of God as the master of the multiverse). While I will never approach the deftness of Hitchens in how he argues such a basic point, I can still admire his verbal, intellectual, and philosophical jujitsu. To that point, for your Saturday enjoyment here is some classic Chris Hitchens doing his own version of Dusty Rhodes' atomic bionic elbow on 4 foes at once--and never losing a beat or breath while doing so.

Weekend Funny: Mel Gibson's Racist Rant Revealed or Let's Play the Mel Gibson Movie Quotable Racism Game

I do think this is oh so funny as I love it when people show themselves for who they always are and have been. The only real tragedy is that I won't be able to watch the Lethal Weapon movies anymore (ironic given the interracial buddy role formula perfected by that series).

However, all is not lost with the movie Braveheart. It is a new classic and Mel's most recent racist rant should not sentence the Oscar winning film to the dustbin of history. I really believe that if we work hard enough, that we can take Braveheart back. How? By using the best of our jazz sensibilities and improvising around Braveheart's many quotables, we can salvage Mel's racism for the common, creative good.

For example, see Mel Gibson's heroic pronouncement as William Wallace that:

Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!....from a pack of niggers.

Or how about this one:

Now tell me, what does that mean to be noble? Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country, but men don't follow titles, they follow courage. Now our people know you. Noble, and common, they respect you. And if you would just lead them to freedom, they'd follow you. And so would I...from a pack of niggers.

And:

We all end up dead, it's just a question of how and why...from a pack of niggers.

What a fun game! What other Mel Gibson movies can we improvise around using elements of his pithy, crude, racism?

Riddle Me This: How is it Possible to Fail a Take Home Open Book Exam?

Breaking kayfabe once more. For folks in academia summer is a time to catch up on one's own work that has been neglected throughout the prior nine months. I have a major project to finish (THE major project for those in the know...30ish more pages, please send me luck). Yet for reasons both financial and practical, I decided to teach a 4 week intensive summer course. For the most part the students are a good, likeable lot. As is common to summer courses some are there because they are especially motivated. Others are enrolled because they guessed that the summer version of a given course will be easier than its traditional quarter/semester/trimester companion.

I am a reasonable guy and thus split the difference. In four weeks I cannot assign the same amount of work as I would in a traditional class. But, I can hold you accountable for what you do read and will hopefully find a way to present it in an interesting way that will hold your attention--thus discussion, mixed with documentaries, small group work and simulations. As the cherry on top of this delightful dish, I even offered a take home, open book midterm that was due 48 hours after it was assigned...a proverbial gift presented on a gold infused platter.

Pray tell you ask, "how many students passed the exam? Most must have surely gotten an A!" You would be mistaken my friends. Out of some twenty students the average grade was a low C or D with a few F's for good measure. The good students did great and "knicked it out of the box." The other students floundered. In keeping with my being some sort of empiricist, when I see the unpredictable I try to do a little research and make sense of the world. Here, I decided to use these Internets for something productive: What do educational journals, The Chronicle, and the like say about student performance and take home exams?

Unfortunately, the conclusions were scattered and unconvincing. But, I then stumbled upon this gem of an essay by Thomas Reeves on the History News Network. Although it does not directly address the mysteries of how and why students fail a comparatively easy task, the piece does give us some context for how college and university life is changing at the nadir of the American empire. While the author's lamentations are from the hinterlands of academic Siberia (his words, not mine), my gut tells me that his observations about anti-intellectualism in American life rings true across the land...and not just in higher ed.

Some choice excerpts from My Experience Teaching Apathetic Students at a School with Open Admissions:

What I have seen going on in the world of open admissions education I call "The Classroom Game." Since I teach two introductory survey courses every semester in American history, let me begin there.

One quickly learns that the young people signed up for 101 and 102 (the chronological break between the courses at Parkside is 1877) know virtually nothing about the history of their own nation. They have no grasp of colonial America (I've been asked, "Is the seventeenth century the 1700s?") or the nation's constitutional machinery. All religion baffles them (no doubt a tribute to the secularism dominant in modern public schools), all intellectual history eludes them, and politics bores them. Even after instruction, they often confuse World War I and World War II. All the presidents before Clinton are a blur; Franklin D. Roosevelt sometimes shows up on exams in the Gilded Age and U.S. Grant in the twentieth century. Almost all of the students simply refuse to memorize the Chief Executives in their proper chronological order. In fact, they choose to ignore dates of any kind; written exams rarely contain any. More than one student has told me frankly, "I don't do dates."

This proud ignorance rests on a seemingly invincible anti-intellectualism. The blue collar families from which the Parkside students normally come do not stress reading, and the students are generally first generation college. (I can empathize, as I was the first in my family's history to graduate from high school.) These amiable, polite, almost invariably likeable young people read little or nothing. In a class of 50, not more than one or two read a newspaper daily; what tiny grasp they have of current events comes from television news. Reading books and magazines outside the classroom is not something they would even consider doing. In short, they have no intellectual life and see no need for one. They can talk about several things, including their jobs, television, sports, and Rock, but they are often baffled and sometimes irritated to hear from their professor that there is more to life. If that "more" requires reading, they aren't interested.

On the first day of class, you learn that only a minority of the students has purchased the textbook. The others have either not gotten around to it (a few never do) or are waiting until they size up the professor. If he or she seems demanding, some make a hasty exit...

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Are things really this bad? And if so, what then of this country's future?

Armchair Sociology: Ghetto Ign't Children, Social Disorganization, and the Origin of Black Female-Headed Families

He had a toy gun. And he is tatted up. So sad. I must ask: Where is the free Norplant bus? Is there a voucher available for this essential public health service?

Just getting back into the swing of things following the holiday. For now, we are upping the momentum and slowly getting going again--trust, something fun and special is forthcoming (at least I think so). And yes, there will be a Predators review posted late Thursday night for we/us/you ghetto nerds--it is on the schedule and budgeted for as midnight showings mean this ghetto negro got to get the cab back to Hyde Park after the late show and a few Stella's at Streeter's Bar (you all are lucky because July is a 3 paycheck month).

For now, my colleagues that have figured out my online name, friends, and respectable negro comrades may turn turn up their noses at this post, but I submit that it is oh so appropriate and perfect for the purposes of reflecting on negro respectability. In keeping with earlier pieces where I promised to bring 1) posts relevant to Daniel Patrick Moynihan or 2) examples that are directly or tangentially related to his thesis on the ghetto underclasses, I present ghetto, ign't chilluns enabled by their mommies or baby daddies behaving as only "they" can. The cell is ready. What will his prisoner number be in 10 or 15 years?

Ultimately, ain't fate a cruel mistress? Oh how so sad the power of life chances are, cause this kid is done for.

Hate me if you will. But Courtesy of Oh Hell Nawl, you all cannot resist the impulse to laugh at this coonery. I dare you. Tell me how you can drink a Coke or eat a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich and not laugh and projectile vomit all of yourself while watching this clip!

Now, my two academic interventions.

First some good stuff: As excised from The Origin of Black Female-Headed Families by Erol Ricketts courtesy of the Institute on Poverty Research:

To restate the main points of this article: Significant family-formation problems among the black population are of recent origin, for there is no evidence suggesting that family-formation patterns of blacks have historically been fundamentally different from those of whites. If anything, the evidence shows that blacks married at higher rates during most of the period studied. Serious family-formation problems among blacks began to emerge after World War 11, when black urbanization surpassed that of whites. I have speculated that the unprecedented economic uncertainty experienced by both upper-class and lower-class blacks over the last few decades is at the core of the family-formation problems of both groups. And because both groups function in the same marriage market, I believe the shortage of marriageable men relative to women and the hedging of bets by both men and women will likely contribute to a spiraling of family-formation problems over the near future. It is unlikely that these problems can be easily reversed, and they are likely to get worse without significant changes in economic circumstances.

Some weaker sauce from Wikipedia...but still pretty powerful. On social disorganization theory:

Social disorganization theory pioneers Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay suggested that disorganized communities characterized by poverty, population heterogeneity, and residential mobility weakened the effectiveness of social controls (Kelly, 2000; Messner, Baumer, & Rosenfeld, 2004). Weakened social controls led to the inability of communities to solve problems, which, in turn, led to crime. While the theory was initially popularized by Shaw and McKay, “the concept of social disorganization was applied to the explanation of crime, delinquency, and other social problems by sociologists at the University of Chicago in the early 1900s” (Jensen, 2003, p. 1). At that time, the city of Chicago was the perfect laboratory for social research as it was booming with industry and was the home to an increasingly diverse population. With this rapid growth and constant change, social problems ensued, allowing society to become somewhat disorganized.

In light of the social problems plaguing Chicago and its suburbs, Shaw and McKay studied the prevalent local crime and delinquency. Building on “an ecological theory of urban dynamics,” social disorganization theory aimed to explain the larger ratio of delinquency that occurred in certain Chicago neighborhoods (Cantillon, Davidson, & Schweitzer, 2003, p. 322). Shaw and McKay “discovered that high delinquency rates persisted in certain Chicago neighborhoods for long periods of time despite changes in the racial and ethnic composition of these communities—a finding that led to the conclusion that neighborhood ecological conditions shape crime rates over and above the characteristics of individual residents” (Kubrin & Weitzer, 2003, p. 374). Further, their study revealed that high rates of crime occur in those communities that exhibit declining populations and physical deterioration (Jensen, 2003).

At its core, social disorganization theory focuses on the effects of location and location-specific characteristics as they relate to crime (Mustaine, Tewksbury, & Stengel, 2006). Neighborhoods lacking organization lack the necessary social controls and are unable to provide essential services. This leads to an inability of the community to control its public, which is why “one way to define social disorganization is to view such places as unable to maintain public order through informal means” (Mustaine et al., 2006, p. 332). The absence of public order coupled with the problematic characteristics of disorganized communities—namely, poverty, population heterogeneity, and residential mobility—are strong predictors of high crime rates. In fact, “defined in terms of the absence or breakdown of certain types of relationships among people,” social disorganization theory “is intimately tied to conceptions of those properties of relationships that are indicative of social or communal ‘organization’” (Jensen, 2003, p. 1).

The question then becomes: How effective is social disorganization theory in explaining criminal behavior? There are five criteria used in evaluating theories, which demonstrate whether the theory makes sense in the simplest way of explaining crime and whether the theory is able to be tested to deliver true and valid results. In greater detail, each of the five criteria is applied to social disorganization theory as follows:

1. Logical consistency: Social disorganization theory makes sense; its assumptions are logically consistent.
2. Scope: While aiming to explain a broad range of phenomenon, the scope of social disorganization theory is an effective tool to be used in critical analysis of criminal behavior.
3. Parsimony: Social disorganization theory is simple and easy to comprehend as demonstrated by the name of the theory itself.
4. Testability: As seen with the early studies of Shaw and McKay as well as more recent efforts, it is clear that social disorganization theory is able to be tested and is not limited in its scientific value.
5. Empirical validity: Shaw and McKay’s study supported the research as did the more recent efforts of Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine, Richard Tewksbury, and Kenneth M. Stengel in their 2006 study of registered sex offenders, illustrating the validity of social disorganization theory.

Because social disorganization theory is effective within the scope of the aforementioned criteria, it follows that the theory is useful in the real word and, therefore, has possible public policy implications.

Happy July 4th From Fred G. Sanford and Frederick Douglass

We respectable negroes have created many a fiction about our family origins and The War for Independence. Funny, we black folk rush to claim Crispus Attuks. But, we ignore the inconvenient fact that more Black Americans fought for the British than the Colonials. Alas, I guess a nation needs a unifying myth of origin...so who am I to rock the apple cart?



Before you go out and indulge in cheap beer, Boon's Farm liquor, corn on the cob, and baby back ribs, please reflect on the Black Patriots (the real ones, not Glenn Beck's twisted version of that great truth). For example, take a few moments to honor such men as Frederick Douglass who after beating up white overseers (my favorite bedtime story as a young negro in training) and tricking poor white trash children into teaching him the alphabet, found the time to write such great speeches as What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

My favorite passage:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

*****

Eat drink and be merry on this 4th of July. And by all means, if you are playing with fireworks don't lose an eye!

A Love of Feces and Glenn Beck's (Not So Shocking) Drive-by on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King was an American hero. He was also a radical humanitarian and global citizen. Of course, Dr. King is heralded as one of the saviors of Black America and leaders of the Black Freedom Struggle. True, but I always felt that he did more to help the White Soul than is commonly understood or admitted. White supremacy is a mental illness and an affliction of the mind, heart, and spirit. White America was made sick from Jim Crow. Dr. King fought to make it a little better.

We know that Glenn Beck is a shill and a fraud. He is also pathological. Thus, in keeping with my tradition of detailing keywords which describe social and political phenomena, I offer the following: In his twisted rewriting of Dr. King's legacy and The Civil Rights Movement, Glenn Beck is demonstrating his propensity for coprophagia:

Coprophagia is the consumption of feces, from the Greek κόπρος copros ("feces") and φαγεῖν phagein ("to eat"). Many animal species practice coprophagia as a matter of course; other species do not normally consume feces but may do so under unusual conditions. Coprophagy refers to many kind of feces eating including eating feces of other species (heterospecifics), other individuals (allocoprophagy), or its own (autocoprophagy), those once deposited or taken directly from the anus.

In animals, this behavior is often adaptive. Interestingly, Glenn Beck displays much of this profile. For example, coprophagia in dogs is--

Attention-seeking behavior: When the dog engages in coprophagia, their owner tends to reprimand and, therefore, pay attention to the animal. Perhaps your friend didn't get enough parental attention. Although, I'll bet a child who eats FECES gets LOTS of attention...

Allelomimetic behavior: The dog observes the owner picking up the feces and learns from them to do so as well. Maybe your friend's parents ate their own crap. (Unlikely, but your friend sounds pretty whack, so we must consider it.)

Dominance behavior: There have been reports of a submissive dog consuming the feces of one or more dominant dogs in the same household. There are other examples in nature where the submissive members of a group participate in apparently bizarre behaviors. Your friend may unconsciously want to be the "top dog" in his human relationships. In my opinion, however, it is doubtful that stool-eating will help accomplish this.

Reinforcement: Something about eating the feces itself reinforces the behavior. Things such as taste may be a factor in this. It's simply appealing to the dog to eat the feces, so it does so. Again, this is not likely the explanation for your friend's behavior. I can only imagine how shit tastes, and wouldn't think it appealing.

But however we phrase it, Glenn Beck is what we have always known him to be--a shit eater.