It Ain't 'Bout Ya Blood

It's hard to look at pictures like this and say the issues facing Africans on the continent and the US are simply a function of the priorities, principles and practices of white folks...there are too many black folk involved at all levels of this thing for such a simplistic analysis.

Doing the right thing has never the sole responsibility or province of any particular collective defined by "race", gender, religion, ideology, class or creed. Whether your beef is with Condi or Colin or Connerly or the "brothers Willams" (Juan and Armstrong, etc.) or maybe you resent leaders like Min. Farrakhan or Rev. Jackson - and prefer your local leadership they must not become the focal point of our approach to resolving critical issues. These individuals are fallible and our fidelity must be on the principle...and our practice should steer clear of judgment - even as we hold one another accountable.

I submit we can no longer exclusively see with our eyes, listen with our ears or smell with our noses - because the webs of disinformation are so complex (we have to trust our source - sure it's not empirical or replicable/verifiable - but that's beside the point)...it's like that scene in Indiana Jones-Last Crusade, where the cat with the whip is trying to reach the grail and remembers that "only a penitent man shall pass." Keeping it real is an overused saying, but it really means so much - and the biggest part of keeping it real is keeping it simple and keeping it old school and keeping it ancestral.

I don't recommend throwing out the baby in the bathwater of logic, reason and empirical standards. I do recommend expanding and respecting other ways of knowing because so often, things are not what they seem and our rush to judgment (based on the visible, audible or funky) can do more harm than good. With all the criticism heaped upon the shoulders of Ms. Rice, I hope she has the power, integrity and will to change the situation on the ground in the Sudan.

Comments

[cnulan]

The underlying schema is not racial in the phenotypic terms you noted above, however, I believe a very compelling case can be made for human neurotypes and an underlying neuropolitical schema around which much else in the visible and empirical human world IS organized.

The penitent man is the saved man, salvation is metanoia, or literally changing or turning of the mind. Understood as such, what is the basis for witholding judgement?

Matthew 13:3-23
(3) And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
(4) And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
(5) Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
(6) And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
(7) And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
(8) But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
(9) Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
(10) And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
(11) He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
(12) For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
(13) Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
(14) And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
(15) For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I
(16) But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
(17) For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
(18) Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
(19) When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
(20) But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
(21) Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
(22) He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
(23) But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

[Temple3]

it was time for you to write that...i am not a christian, nor do i attend church, but i happened to be at a christening on cape cod a few weeks ago and this excerpt was read - and it resonated then as it does now...

it may have been what inspired me to the post in the first place, c. on the real, there is only that which bears fruit to stand as evidence of the connection between our thoughts, words and deeds...and that which does not bear fruit (by our own account and those in our cultural common-union) is evidence of either stony ground or thick thorns betwixt and between our thoughts, words and deeds.

and, half of the internet references to the term neurotype were written by YOU, so could you define, clarify, elucidate, educate, etc...thanks. is this similar to fuller's thesis (popularized by dr. welsing)?

[cnulan]

Instead of trying to explain it - and in the process outline a post hoc rationalization of my own observations and theory - I'ma take a different tack and axe you a few simple kwestins about your observations, let's call this the Spot the Nerd game...,

If you were in a crowd of urban contemporary (to normalize the distribution and accoutrement typifying the specimen) ciudad de sinaloans, singaporeans, muscovians, dhakarians, or rio de jenerians.., do you think you'd stand a pretty good chance of spotting those folk who deeply grok UNIX and the C programming language?

I'm not saying it's a GUARANTEED type, but that in that total population distribution, I'm asking if you would be inclined to look for certain behavioural characteristics you believe to exist in common across the vast unwashed nerd subgrouping, aside of course, from the invisible shared interest in constructive - rather than consumerist - computation?

If so, what might the bases for these globally shared tendencies? Again, I'm not talking about trained compute monkeys, the military has turned out more than a few of these sad cases, but instead about people who naturally express the proclivity, seek out the instrumentality of its expression, and then immerse themselves totally in its seductive embrace?

A few background questions to boot:

Have you read Julian Jaynes Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind? Have you read any of Dawkins books beginning with The Selfish Gene, and do you have personal familiarity - observational or subjective - with addictive behaviours?

Fuller/Welsing elaborated on a plausible subset of the theory I'm toying with here, and, it's not accidental that Jesus is alleged to have remarked no fewer than 17 times in the gospels that certain folk have neither the ears to hear nor the eyes to see. Frankly, I see no reason to consider this expression metaphorical...,

[cnulan]

Temple? It's not a quiz brah, and other examples of type could have just as easily been selected to illustrate the point, however, some are far more obvious, and some far too subtle - as for example - had I asked you about traits typically signifying hypnotic suggestibility.

The high-performing autistic spectrum example (computer nerd) was selected because of increasing self-identification and relative neurocultural universality. Two typos from my question/comment need correction;

If so, what might the bases for these globally shared tendencies?

was intended as - If so, what might the bases for these globally shared tendencies be?

and

Fuller/Welsing elaborated on a plausible subset of the theory I'm toying with here,

should read;

Fuller/Welsing elaborated on a plausible subset of the theory I'm toying with here.

It's not accidental that Jesus is alleged to have remarked no fewer than 17 times in the gospels that certain folk have neither the ears to hear nor the eyes to see. This deafness and blindness to the Word was in fact the underlying basis for continuing schism in the church from its earliest schismatic manifestations through its final break into orthodox and catholic bodies.

[Temple3]

I get where you're going...I would be able to "recognize" the "nerds" if for no other reason that exposure during my high school years and through celluloid/televisual stereotyping...

[cnulan]

This is an important point, and one which I want you to be entirely clear on. We are well aware of the power of stereotyping and propaganda. My question goes directly to the validity you assign to your own observational recognition of a *type* which transcends race, ethnicity and the influence of images projected on us by mass media for the past 80 odd years?

As soon as you assent to recognition of an underlying type - the next questions go to what are the traits you deem characteristic of that specific type? What types of functional differentiations within species might account for variations of type?

Are you still certain you see where I'm headed with this? You know, the notion that all men are created equal is a very, very strong one indeed. This notion of equality isn't common in antiquity or within traditional cultures that adhere to ancient customs.

We have yet another modern notion that isn't often deeply interrogated. Namely the one which holds that the human species is a social organism. There are of course other social organisms. Based on what we have observed and know about other types of social organisms, one might be inclined to wonder about the structural and functional aspects of our social being.

[Kimberly Kimbrough]

It is amazing to look at your entry today in 2008 and see how the prophets have announced this time.
I have a blog, too, covering the African American History in Missouri. Stop by and say hello sometime. www.blackmissouri.com