NATION OF COWARDS ABOUT TALKING ABOUT RACE?
First, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the U.S. was a nation of cowards when it comes to discussing race.
Now, Barrack Obama has rebuked Holder by saying "I think it's fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney general, we would have used different language."
So, are people, but more specifically white people, afraid to talk about race.
Yup. Holder got it right. Not all white Americans are such cowards, but a majority surely.
I've written about this cowardice for years and I've discussed race for years also.
In fact, I don't know how anyone can really talk about human beings--why we are as we are--without discussing race or, more properly, the genes that make each of us what we are (with some input from the environment). To do so, would be as silly as talking about dogs without talking about breeds. (Breed is to dogs as race is to humans).
And, to go even further, I don't know how anyone can really talk about human beings unless one talks about life in general and then about existence in general.
In fact, anyone who wants to talk about race, had better start way up stream with talking about physics, astronomy, philosophy, religion, biology, psychology and much more.
The recipe--baking a human cake
Everything in existence--both living and so-called non-living things--has an internal recipe that makes it what it is.
In life, this internal recipe is composed of the four chemicals of DNA (abbreviated A,T,C,G) that are spread out on double helix spirals in every cell of our bodies. Along this spiral are areas called genes. This spiral is our code. This is our recipe. This is how to make a human being.
Our 25,000 or so genes are organized into clumps called chromosomes. Each human has 46 chromosomes. A male and a female human each contribute 23 of their 46 chromosomes to a new child. The internal blueprint of our genes and chromosomes is called a genotype. The result of the genotype--the way we look--is our phenotype.
What is the effect of the environment (in the broadest sense of the term--meaning, here, all internal and external influences and forces working on the recipe)?
It is like an oven. When you follow a recipe and put all the right ingredients together, you then stick the concoction in the oven to bake.
The oven doesn't change the basic recipe. What goes into the oven comes out of the oven.
However, and I'm quick to add, our metaphor breaks down here, because in the case of living things, unlike a cake, the recipe in the living things can and does change by the forces of the oven and through various other means and is seen over many generations.
In other words, some of those 25,000 genes of the human recipe get out of order or get modified. And, a tiny change at the genetic end of things often makes a world of difference as the genetic recipe spins out a human being. Anyone who has ever fired a rifle understands this. A tiny, almost imperceptible flinch at the trigger end of the rifle (even just taking a breath) can cause the round to miss the target by a mile.
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Scene: White kid on a bus with his mother.
Kid: "Mommy, that man over there is black. Why is he a different color?"
Mother: "Shhhhhh. We don't talk about such things. We don't want to insult people."
ANALYSIS: We don't want to insult people? Is being black a deformity? It's almost as though the mother thought her kid had pointed out a wart on the guy's face or a hump on his back.
If you unwind the mother's simple phrase, you'll often find a subconscious belief that whites are superior or are the human norm, and that all who differ are somehow defective. (Actually, not only are whites not the norm, they are a tiny minority on this planet. Only about 10% of all humans are white).
I've called such an attitude on the part of the mother, Noblesse Oblige Racism. And, I call whites with this attitude Great White Mothers and Great White Fathers and also Lord Jims and Lady Jims, depending on the specifics.
Essentially, these terms I've coined describe whites who are often overly polite or secretly condescending to non-whites and who are often seen as paragons of virtue, but who are often neurotic and think that because they're white and are "the norm and superior" that they must treat all non-whites with special care and overlook and excuse things that non-whites might do that would never be overlooked or excused in whites. Such people are often the loudest to say silly things such as "There is only one race, the human race."
A mother who understands a little about race, might have replied to her kid (assuming the kid is old enough to understand):
"People are different. We all have slightly different recipes and the recipes are self modifying over generations to fit into different areas of the planet.
"Black people evolved in areas that were hot and sunny. Their black skin protects them from the sun and from getting too much Vitamin D. Their other features are also adaptations.
"Scientists believe that human beings evolved from other animals in Africa and then about 30,000 to 50,000 years ago, some of the humans who had evolved, just a few, left Africa and found their way to Europe where the sun isn't as hot and where those who retained black skin couldn't produce enough Vitamin D and started being replaced by those born among them who had lighter skin which made them better suited for the new environment."
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Jeremiah Wright
Remember the controversy about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, that was largely kept going by neo-con Sean Hannity? I heard Wright's speech where he used various metaphors such as music to discuss racial differences. You can read it here.
Wright got it pretty much correct. My guess is that Obama and Holder and many others of all races, who understand what Wright was really saying, also get it.
And, what Wright was saying (but in my words now) is that there is no "superior," human race any more than there is a superior breed of dog. There are only differences; caused primarily by nature adapting humans to different environments as it does with all living things. I've been writing about this for years.
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