Where’s YouTube When You Need It?

The London Times reports that

Buckingham Palace has refused to comment on a newspaper report that a member of the British royal family has been targeted in a blackmail scandal involving sex and drugs use.

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that the royal, who was not identified for legal reasons, called in the police to investigate the case involving two alleged blackmailers seeking 50,000 pounds (100,000 dollars, 70,000 euros).

The men reportedly demanded the money in return for not publicising a video purportedly showing the royal engaged in a sex act, the weekly paper added.

In telephone calls to the royal’s office in August, the alleged blackmailers had also claimed to have proof that the royal had supplied an assistant with an envelope containing cocaine.

They said they had video footage of the royal aide snorting the drug.

After the royal tipped off police, a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old man were arrested in September in a sting operation.

The two men were seized as they played what they claimed was the sex video in a suite at a plush central London hotel, according to the report.

“A 30-year-old man and 40-year-old man appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 13th September each charged with one count of blackmail,” the Metropolitan Police said in a brief statement.

“Both have been remanded in custody to reappear at the Old Bailey on 20th December.”

According to the Sunday Times, it is the first blackmail case involving a member of the royal family in more than a century.

In 1891, the future Edward VII discussed with his solicitor paying off two prostitutes he frequented in return for letters he had written to them.

What do you know! The British Royals are human after all.

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Los Angeles Nuns Pay the Price for Priest Sex-Abuse.

 

In an effort to raise compensation money for victims who were sexually abused by Catholic priests, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has evicted three nuns from their Santa Barbara convent.

Sister Angela Escalera, shares the two-bedroom home—which is owned by the archdiocese—with two other nuns. She has lived in the convent for 43 years. The eviction notice, which the nuns received in the mail, informs them that they must leave the house by December 31, or earlier. The archdiocese also placed the nuns under a gag order, which bars them from discussing the matter with journalists.

It’s really nice to see that the Catholic Church is finally going to start compensating people who were sexually abused by its pedophile priests. It’s also refreshing to see that, in evicting these nuns, the Church is making those most guilty pay first.

Read the full story on Slate.com.

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Dr. James Watson Resigns.

James D. Watson, the eminent geneticist who ignited an uproar last week with remarks about the intelligence of people of African descent, retired yesterday as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, and from its board.

Read the rest of the article here.

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Finally, Some Good News.

 

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — The Georgia Supreme Court on Friday ordered that Genarlow Wilson be released from prison, ruling 4–3 that his sentence for a teen sex conviction was cruel and unusual punishment. Wilson was convicted in 2005 of having oral sex with a consenting 15-year-old girl when he was 17. He has served more than two years in prison.

Read the full article here.

Learn more about Genarlow Wilson’s case here.

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Sometimes Food Bites Back.

I just saw this video of a herd of buffalo chasing off a pride of young lions that had attacked a buffalo calf.

Check it out. It’s awesome!

Here’s the moral of the story: Alone, we’re nothing but when even the weakest of us stand together, we are immensely powerful.

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Human Species Projected to Split in Two

The BBC reports that evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics predicts that in the future, humanity will split into a “genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass.” According to Curry:

The human race would peak in the year 3000—before a decline due to dependence on technology. People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species. The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the ‘underclass’ humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.”

I’ve got news for you, Dr. Curry! That split has already begun! Have you been to a Wal-Mart lately? Just kidding, of course! But seriously, everything he predicts is already happening in terms of class, at least in the US. Poor people—regardless of “race”—are getting lower-quality education, health care, housing, and food. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic illnesses tend to predominate in low-income communities where the environment tends to be more polluted. What’s worse, this has been happening for ages. Why do you think factories were packed into London’s East End? Because rich Londoners didn’t want the wind blowing smoke and pollution into their West End homes.

Furthermore, like in every modern society, people are attracted to money, so rich people always get the best picks when it comes to spouses. Because our economic systems are so closely intertwined with our political systems, and because both systems privilege men over women, we end up with rich old men being able to—because of their power and/or wealth—get attractive younger women. The late Anna Nicole Smith and her late husband are but one well-known example. But long before Anna Nicole, there were Diana and Charles, which never made sense to me because, as I understood, the Spencer family had some wealth of its own.

Ultimately, I’m always worried when anyone uses the word “race” because I don’t believe there is such a thing as biological race. Racists think of “race” in the human population the way everyone think of breeds of dogs or cats. In reality, as long as we can reproduce with people who look physically different—and I’ll go on record here as being strongly in favor of “race-mixing”—we are just one race. Having said that, I’d be curious as to whether two real “species” of humans will emerge, as predicted by Dr. Curry. By this I mean, will members of one group be unable to reproduce with members of another. And by “reproduce,” I don’t mean simply have sex. Will such unions bear viable offspring who are fully functional and capable of bearing offspring of their own? If these two distinct groups will indeed be able to “cross-breed,” we shouldn’t think of them as two species or even two races. They will merely be two groups of people who have different physical characteristics.

If Dr. Curry’s predictions do come to pass, I’m afraid we’re already setting the stage for a continuation of the racist thought that so dominates our society today. Dr. Curry is projecting modern racism thousands of years into the future, already talking about genetic upper and lower classes. You don’t have to be German to find such talk deeply troubling. A good friend once told me that as humans, we can realize only the future we imagine. If we’re already imagining an unequal future split between good-looking, intelligent humans and “dim-witted, ugly, squat, goblin-like creatures,” the future looks very bleak indeed for humankind.

Just to be safe, I should probably start hitting the gym, the tanning salon, and the library. I certainly don’t want my descendants ending up in the genetic underclass.

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Does that Dildo Come in Black?

After spending the past week chest-deep in the James Watson racism brouhaha, it’s nice to get back to my standard fare of sleazy blog posts. And what could be sleazier than a dead Baptist minister? A dead Baptist minister in conservative Alabama clad head-to-toe in a rubber outfit and hogtied, that’s what! Oh, I forgot to mention he had a dildo in his . . . um . . . let’s just say he put it where the sun don’t shine. And by that, I mean his anus.

That’s right, folks, another conservative, anti-sex, anti-abortion, anti-gay, family-values Christian fundamentalist has been outed for being a total hypocrite. It is tragic that the Rev. Gary M. Aldridge’s outing coincided with his death, but the point remains that he was privately indulging in activities that he publicly denounced. Aldridge, an associate of the late Jerry Falwell, had ministered for 16 years at the Thorington Road Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

The autopsy report—which had been suppressed by the medical examiner’s office since June—was just this month published by The Smoking Gun. It seems the late Reverend Aldridge was found dead in his home and there were no signs of foul play. Here’s an excerpt from the autopsy report:

The decedent is clothed in a wet diving suit, a face mask which has a single vent for breathing, a rubberized head mask having an opening for the mouth and eyes, a second rubberized suit with suspenders, rubberized male underwear, hands and feet have diving gloves and slippers. There are numerous straps and cords restraining the decedent. There is a leather belt around the midriff. There is a series of ligatures extending from the hands to the feet. The hands are bound behind the back. The feet are tied to the hands. There are nylon ligatures holding these in place with leather straps about the wrists and ankles. There are plastic cords also tied about the hands and feet with a single plastic cord extending up to the head and surrounding the lower neck. There is a dildo in the anus covered with a condom.”

In case you have trouble conjuring up a mental image, just visualize “the gimp” from Pulp Fiction, only hogtied. The best part is the personal effects, listed on the bottom of page 4 of the autopsy report: “One yellow metal ring intact on left ring finger, one dildo.” Talk about having something embarrassing on your permanent record!

On a more serious note, at least one other blogger has raised the possibility that the reverend was not alone when he died; I too have to wonder if it’s possible for someone to tie himself up that completely without some help. After all, his hands were tied behind his back, with his feet tied to his hands. If someone else had been with the reverend when he asphyxiated, how sad is it that this person—probably out of shame—chose to escape and protect his or her own identity rather than get the help that may have saved Aldridge’s life?!

And what’s up with the wetsuits? I’m assuming the reverend would have had a really hard time finding a proper latex fetish suit in a state that had just banned the sale of dildos—he probably supported the ban too! Fortunately for Reverend Aldridge, diving gear was apparently still legal. Unfortunately for him, indulging in bondage in an open and safe way is not widely accepted in his circles. Otherwise, he might still be alive.

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For Dr. Watson and Other Racists, Racism’s Beauty Lies In Its Simplicity: Part I

I never expected blogging would pay off but on Monday, Oct. 22, it did. Because of a post I had written last week about Dr. James Watson’s statements (see this posting and the associated comments), I was invited to be a guest on the BBC’s “World Have Your Say” program. Unfortunately, rather than adress the substance and merit of Dr. Watson’s words, the show’s presenters chose to focus on his right to free speech; I tried, during my 60 or so seconds of airtime, to argue that the issue was not one of free speech. However, because we had been allowed to speak only in the last five minutes of the show, I and another African blogger (both based in the US) couldn’t go into any detail or address the real substance of what Dr. Watson had said. That’s why I’ve decided to use this space to say what I would have said, had I been given more time and had the show been more focused on racism, which I believe lies at the heart of Dr. Watson’s words.

But first, a recap. Last week the renowned scientist and Nobel Prize winner brought down a firestorm of criticism on his own head after he told the Sunday Times that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.” He also said that although he hoped everyone was equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.” Since then, the good doctor has been suspended by his employer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and removed from its board of directors. The London Science Museum, which had invited Dr. Watson to give a talk on his latest book canceled his appearance, and the mayor of London, Ken Livingston, issued a statement condemning Dr. Watson’s remarks as “racist propaganda masquerading as scientific fact.” All this negative press forced the famous geneticist to hastily recant and issue a statement of apology in which he says “there is no scientific basis” for anyone to infer from his words that Africans are genetically inferior.

Despite the backtracking, I think the mayor of London is absolutely right to say that Dr. Watson’s words were nothing more than a pathetic attempt to use modern science to justify old racism, a clear case of trying to put new wine into an old wineskin. Why do I say Watson’s words were racist? Ask yourself this question: How many people who didn’t already believe that Black people are less intelligent actually read those words and thought, “Hmmm . . . I guess I was wrong about this! Now that I’m hearing it from a scientist, I believe that Black people are, in fact, less intelligent”? Not many, I would assume, and of the ones who might have, how many would have been Black? Conversely, many people did try to use those same words to justify what they already thought about Black people’s intellectual inferiority—some of them even posted comments on this blog. It seems Dr. Watson’s words had only two consequences, depending on the person reading them:

1. They failed to change the mind of someone who didn’t already believe Black people are not as intelligent or

2. They were unquestioningly accepted by someone who already thought Black people were less intelligent and then used to justify pre-existing beliefs.

Without any scientific backing for those remarks, Dr. Watson was simply and simplistically alluding to a widely held belief that Black people are lazy and less intelligence than White people. The simplicity of thinking behind those statements leaves me feeling that they were nothing more than the expression of a racist opinion.

After all, simplicity is at the heart of racism, an ideology which maintains that the greatest determiner of a person’s character is ”race” (i.e., skin color, hair texture, physical stature, etc.). This simple and simplistic—yet disappointingly widesperead—mindset maintains that if a person is intelligent, hard-working, or kind, it must be because of his/her “race.” In other words, “race” is all there is to a person. To the racist, the essence of the “nigger” shown in the caricature above lies in his physical attributes. A “nigger” has black skin, bulging eyes, buck teeth, big, red lips, etc. To become a “nigger,” simply change your appearance by blackening your face and reddening your lips or, better yet, buy Nigger Make-Up and hey presto! Instant “nigger!” (Go here or here for an intelligent and academic look at the origins, uses, and meanings of the word “nigger.”) To the racist, the “nigger” has no personality, no emotions, and no history. In fact, the “nigger” has nothing but his physical appearance.

Herein lies the beauty of racism and racist thinking. Once the physical attributes have been identified and deemed to be the “nigger’s” defining characteristics, the next step is simply to attach social meaning to them.

For the racist, skin color is infused with all of a person’s qualities—always negative if the person is not White. Once this social meaning has been “encoded” into a person’s “race,” the next step is to lump everyone who belongs to that “race” into the predefined categories. Pretty soon, everyone who looks like a “nigger” (i.e., has black skin, curly hair, etc.) is a “nigger.” Even worse, everyone who fits that physical description must, by definition be everything that a “nigger” is: lazy, violent, unintelligent, dishonest (or any number of other negative qualities). The human being is thus robbed of individuality—even worse, humanity—and denied the chance to prove her/his own merit as an individual person. Rather, by being stripped of identity, of ”personhood,” the “nigger” is lumped into an undifferentiated mass of people all of whom have the same qualities forced onto them. Here’s a simple formula I devised to illustrate my point. Follow it and soon, you too will be thinking like a racist:

1. Identify the “defining” physical characteristics of the object of your hatred (in the case of the “nigger” above, they’re black skin, curly hair, buck teeth, and bulging eyes)

2. Attach social meaning to those physical characteristics (e.g., the “nigger” is lazy, violent, dishonest, unintelligent, or any number of other negatives)

3. Broadly apply that social meaning to every person who shares the same physical characteristics as the person in Step 1 (e.g., anybody who has black skin, curly hair, buck  teeth, or bulging eyes is lazy, violent, dishonest, unintelligent, or any number of other negatives)

Such racist thinking recognizes no geographical or national boundary and ignores environmental, cultural, religious, and other differences, choosing instead to see “race” (skin color/hair texture) as the defining and unifying attribute of the “other.” This is why British racists use “wog” for Black Americans, Africans, Black people from the Caribbean, Australian Aborigines, and even dark-skinned Indians. And, although “race” in the American context has no biological basis, skin color and hair texture have been infused with so much social meaning that ”nigger” is equally used against Black Africans, Black Americans, and Black people from the Caribbean, despite DNA studies showing that  ”30 percent of African-American males [who participated in a Howard University study] have a white male ancestor.” But more on genetics later.

For now, it’s enough to only point out that lumping people into an undifferentiated mass is a form of dehumanization. Such dehumanization through undifferentiation was the reason Nazis shaved their victims’ heads, dressed them in the same clothes, and took away their names and replaced them with numbers. Members of an undifferentiated mass of people lack individuality, lack identity, lack personhood, and consequently, lack humanity. This practice serves the primary functions of simplifying and justifying the exploitation, brutalization, and general dehumanization of an entire population in order to put that population’s land, labor, wealth, and natural or other resources at the disposal of someone else. This was as true of colonialism in Africa as it was of North American slavery and the Jewish Holocaust.

Secondly, racism is inherently a simplistic and apolitical ideology, laying the responsibility for an individual’s success or failure in life squarely at the feet of that individual. By looking only at skin color or other physical attributes, the racist need not look at that person’s interaction with other persons through, say, colonialism or enslavement, and how that interaction might also impact who, and where in life, that person is today. Rather, racism enables the racist to bypass the hard work of thinking, allows the racist to look solely at a person’s “race,” and to attribute that person’s situation in life to his/her skin color and/or hair texture. Racism and racist thought, in sum, are artificially and deliberately created ideologies that serve  the social, economic, or political purpose of devaluing and dehumanizing people in order to marginalize and disenfranchise them. Once that has been done, the victims of racism cannot fully or equally participate in their societies, which in turn makes them vulnerable to exploitation and further marginalization.

Read Part II here.

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For Dr. Watson and Other Racists, Racism’s Beauty Lies In Its Simplicity: Part II

Read Part I here. 

So, back to Dr. Watson’s racist statements. The racism lies not just in what he said but why he said it. Dr. Watson ignored social, environmental, political, and cultural factors, instead trying to to use “race” to explain why Africa was doing so poorly, and why he was not optimistic about the continent’s future. He also argued that the races were not equal (presumably he also meant other “races” besides Black and White). But in reality, he was not proposing anything new. Rather, he fell back on simplistic racist assumptions—Africans are not intelligent and the races are not equal—and later, after he had come under fire, tried to use his position as a scientist to couch his original remark in scientific terms. The jury is still out on whether intelligence is or isn’t genetically predetermined but what we do know indicates that genetic difference, or similarity, is not so neatly tied to “race.”

More importantly, Dr. Watson’s statements rested on a common and essential element of racist thinking, the belief that people who share the same physical characteristics (skin color, hair texture, etc.) also share personality traits (intelligence, industriousness, etc.) regardless of environment, culture, religion, or any of the other factors that may affect a person’s personality. In the interview, Dr. Watson says that Africans are less intelligent, according to ”studies” he had seen (he does not elaborate on how these were conducted or who the subjects were, but that’s a lesser point). He then goes on to add that anyone who has ever had Black employees knows that people of different races are not equal. In other words, Dr. Watson—who ought to know better—is conflating Africans with Black Americans (I assume Dr. Watson has had only Black American, not African, employees), completely overlooking differences in culture, environment, language, religion, etc. In a classic racist display, he observes that Black Africans and Black Americans face similar economic and social challenges, but he concludes this must be because they have similar skin color and/or hair texture.

Dr. Watson should know that because of the widespread rape of slaves in North America, very few Black Americans would be genetically identical to Black Africans, but he ignores this obvious fact in favor of making a blanket statement based on skin color and hair texture. Of course, I’m not implying that Africans are all genetically identical. Quite the opposite. Dr. Sarah Tishkoff, now an assistant professor in the Biology department at the University of Maryland, wrote as far back as 1999 that genetic studies have revealed

an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations. Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians.”

Put simply, there is more genetic diversity among the human populations on the African continent than there is in all the rest of the non-African populations combined. Someone with Dr. Watson’s background in DNA research should know that this diversity would mean that, even if Black Americans and Africans were really less intelligent, it would be very unlikely that their “lack of intelligence” came from the same genetic source. To clarify, Black Americans share a genetic predisposition to Sickle Cell Anemia with their West African ancestors because most of them are descended from slaves taken from West Africa. However, the large genetic diversity among African peoples means that Black Americans cannot be genetically identical to East or South Africans because even their West African ancestors are not genetically identical to those other African peoples. Dr. Watson, in making his inference about Africans’ and Black Americans’ intelligence cannot, then, have been basing his statement on genetics because that would have precluded a common genetic root. Rather, he was—in true racist fashion—ignoring the social, political, and economic realities of Black Americans’ and Africans’ lives, focusing instead on the most superficial things both peoples share: dark skin and curly hair.

The other thing that struck me as racist was his focus on the question of lower intelligence while talking about Africans and Black Americans. Why did he pick that particular issue? To me, that would be like a modern scientist being interested in proving “scientifically” whether or not Black men have a gene for large penises, or whether brown-skinned people have higher sex drives (an argument Dr. Watson himself has made before). How ridiculous would Dr. Watson have sounded if he had suggested that Jews possess a gene that predisposes them towards avarice?! But because he chose to discuss Africans’ intelligence, people actually defended him, arguing that, as a scientist, he should be allowed to propose new scientific possibilities!

I’m not a geneticist and I generally oppose attempts to explain individuals’ behavior through racial or genetic arguments but, where there’s scientific evidence, let it speak for itself. But Dr. Watson’s statements were not based on scientific evidence, which makes me strongly suspect his motives. Nor was he proposing a new direction for genetic science. He was absolutely not talking about using modern science to break new ground? I mean, there are many differences among individuals of different “races” that could be studied at the genetic level, but why did he have to start from an old racist “truism” (Africans are less intelligent/the races are not equal)? The fact that he then tried to back it up with unscientific anecdotal evidence (if you’ve ever had Black employees, you know the races are not equal) makes me even more suspicious. After all, the question of difference in intelligence between the races is as old as racism itself. It predates genetics. Why would he be so concerned about using genetic science to prove or disprove a viewpoint that has existed and even thrived in the total absence of the science that could have proved or disproved it?

Furthermore, if Dr. Watson were so intent on using genetics to explain certain qualities in Black American or African people, he could easily have started out with something positive. For instance, statistics show that elderly White men have the highest suicide rates in the US. Dr. Watson could have expressed his interest in finding a gene to explain this (we know there is one because suicidal tendencies seem to run in families). Better yet, he could have talked about an “optimism” or “resilience” gene that might explain why, despite their widespread social, political, and economic marginalization, Black Americans tend to have much lower suicide rates than White Americans. Instead, he chose to focus on something negative, the racist idea that Black people are less intelligent than White people. 

At the end of the day, the beauty of racism lies in its simplicity and Dr. Watson’s remarks demonstrate this simplistic thinking. For people who can’t be bothered to study social sciences, economics, and politics, race “theory,” racist thinking, and outright racism are ideal. Everything about an individual or group can be explained simply by looking at skin color, hair texture, or any of the other signifiers of “race.” The underlying social, political, and economic order is never examined and challenged, so power relations remain intact. The racist in turn remains assured of his or her own superiority, itself the product of nothing more than an accident of birth that resulted in his or her having been born with the “correct” skin color. The racist never needs to compose a concerto, write a great novel, or even read one for that matter. She or he is more than content to know that other people who share his or her skin color have done so. This also absolves the racist of the need to prove his or her own intelligence, because that burden of proof is shifted onto people who were not fortunate enough to have been born with the right skin color or hair texture. Dr. Watson—in lending his voice to the question of Black and African people’s intelligence and industriousness—has joined a long and disgraceful line of pseudo-scientists who have, for centuries, attempted to argue that non-White people, be they from Africa, Australia, Asia, North America, the Caribbean, or the Middle East share one unifying characteristic: Their dark skin means they are not equal to Europeans. Even worse, Dr. Watson has thrown a bone to modern racists who—without considering science, economics, or politics—have always believed Black people are less intelligent than White people.

In making those utterly prejudiced and unscientific statements, Dr. Watson has shown the world that, despite his cutting-edge research, when it comes to social and political issues, he is living two centuries in the past. I am very sorry that the “World Have Your Say” team allowed him to escape the scrutiny, analysis, and eventual denunciation that his words so richly deserve.

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New Radio Show: October 22, 2007.

 

We have a somewhat melancholy show today, dedicated to the memory of the South African reggae superstar, Lucky Dube, who was murdered last week in an attempted carjacking. Should you wish to send a message of condolence to Lucky’s family, please email Lucky@gallo.co.za or send a fax to +27 (0) 11 340 9471. To learn more about Lucky Dube’s life and music, visit luckydubemusic.com.

As usual, you can listen to the show online or download it to an mp3 player and listen later.

Click here to see the playlist.

Listen to the previous show here.

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