All the Rogan I need

I’ve listened to short clips of Joe Rogan — I can’t stand much more. He’s a pompous dudebro who’s usually having conversations with other dudebros, or some famous IDW twit, and he’s a terrible interviewer. So here’s a perfect example, another short clip in which he’s hanging with his entourage, bantering with some barely coherent gomers, talking about the time he went to see a movie in a black neighborhood, and his first thought on seeing the audience was that this was the Planet of the Apes.

Yes, it ends with Alex Jones decrying Rogan — they’re apparently having some kind of feud. Don’t care. They deserve each other.

There’s also an extended clip out there in which Rogan goes on to say that it was a positive experience, that the crowd was generous and fun, as if that salvages him from being racist. No, guy, it doesn’t: if your first impression on seeing a black person is “non-human primate”, you are definitely racist as fuck. You don’t get to say you’re not racist, the best you can do is admit that you are racist, but that you’re trying hard to improve.

Unfortunately, he could develop into a saintly egalitarian in the future, and I won’t know it, because watching that clip already exceeded my yearly quota of Rogan, and I’m not watching any more.

“It was an earlier time”

The most recent scandal to emerge out of Virginia is that a number of politicians were hanging around, or were dressed up themselves, with students in blackface or KKK robes.

When asked by CBS 6 to look through old MCV medical school yearbooks, VCU student journalist Caitlin Morris found several racist images from the 1980s showing students in blackface.

“It’s not that surprising that people would be culturally insensitive,” said Morris. “We are still facing racism and systematic racism today.”

On top of those, an image from a 1980 University of Richmond yearbook shows several students in KKK costumes and a black student with a noose around his neck.

Blackface photos and racial slurs were also found in the 1968 VMI yearbook. Senate Majority leader Tommy Norment served as the managing editor of that yearbook.

So now one question is whether they deserve any kind of censure now, 30 or 40 years after the fact. Sure, this was openly racist crap, but hey, 1) it was an earlier time, that was the zeitgeist, you can’t blame the kids for going with the flow, and 2) it was so long ago that they’ve outgrown those attitudes and are now committed to egalitarianism, so don’t hold the person’s past against them, ask what they’re doing now.

I thought I’d address point 1 by looking at my own history of yearbooks. We have our own little collection of ancient yearbooks from the early 1970s at the Kent Junior High Vandals and the Kent-Meridian High School, the Royals. I skimmed through them this morning, reminiscing. Keep in mind that this was the Pacific Northwest, not any place in Dixie.

The results: between 1970 and 1975, there were no yearbook photos of anyone in blackface. No KKK robes. No swastikas. No confederate flags. These were signed yearbooks, and no one scribbled abusive comments anywhere — there were a couple of mentions of Beer Bottle Beach, which was the sandy spot along the Green River where students might hang out of an evening sampling illicit beverages, but that was about it.

I did notice how white the students were — the Pacific Northwest has its own racist problems, which were usually expressed in deeply segregated communities, and this was a suburb of Seattle. I knew very few black students. There were lots of students of Japanese descent, and we had our own unsavory history there. The parents of many of them could tell you about internment camps. None of that was demonstrated in the yearbooks (which is another, subtler problem of the implicit silence of racism).

You know, it was entirely possible for kids in that era to be innocent and completely unaware of the very idea of using racist ideas to disparage others. I don’t know what has been going on in Virginia or other Southern states, but it seems to me that part of the blame has to rest on an openly racist culture that allowed such behavior to flourish. Kids were echoing what their peers and parents were doing, which doesn’t excuse it, but it does say that it isn’t enough to condemn just the individuals — there ought to be some broader soul-searching.

As for point 2, well, you’d think the first line of defense these guys would have is to point to their records. None of them are doing that! Show me that your career has involved opposing racist policies, that you’ve been trying to change the racist culture that encouraged you to fail so hard in your youth. Instead, we’ve got Northam making pathetic excuses for inexcusable behavior, hiring a PR firm, and talking about leaving the Democratic party, and the nominally liberal party of Virginia in shambles.

In summary, we should kill the myth that blackface and other racist behaviors were ubiquitous 30+ years ago. That is not a valid excuse.

Could such behavior be redeemed by a more recent history of change? I think so. All of us did stupid things in our youth, and the first step is to admit that they were wrong, and the second step is to show a record of behavior that belies the impression given by those old photos. It’s troubling that the governor of Virginia hasn’t even tried either of those things, but seems committed to his rationalization that blackface and the KKK costume were simply innocent mistakes.

If he can’t do that, he should resign.

P.S. I also did find my wife-to-be in the books. Here she is in 1970. She’s going to kill me for posting that hair-do. But come on, she was, and is, cute.

And here she is in 1974.

The exception proves the rule, right?

A black scientist writes about James Watson, and it’s insightful. C. Brandon Ogbunu is a computational biologist, so he understands both DNA and statistics, and is in a good position to recognize abuses of both.

Black exceptionalism is a popular and complicated idea. It asserts that a monolithic “average” black identity exists, and that by transcending this average, one is exceptional. While the idea isn’t welded to black achievement, it is related. Successful members of the black community who somehow avoided the regression to the (black) mean are presented as paragons, exceptional ones of their kind. There are backhanded compliments, and then there is black exceptionalism—a racist idea lightly dressed in a pat-on-the-back.

Some of us, in a naïve or perfunctory manner, wear black exceptionalism as a badge of honor, even under the guise of progress: “I will show them what we are capable of.” Good intentions be damned, because to adopt this stance is to walk directly into a pernicious trap. The most effective racist ideas rarely deny the existence of exceptional members of the out-group to which undesirable features are attributed.

On the contrary, the most destructive ideas embrace high-performing members for statistical cover. In order to argue that the mean performance of an out-group is lower for a desirable trait, there should be some high performers. High-performing black people are essential for racism like James Watson’s, and even he might predict a statistical and genetic exceptional negro, because they can’t all be incompetent.

The problem with this argument isn’t only that it avoids critical discussions about the possible sources of group differences, but also that it uses the notion of the exceptional individual to justify racist ideas towards others in the out-group. In general, armchair appeals to statistics often conceal negative feelings that people already have, attitudes forged in the fires of fear and bias, not science.

I’ve seen that routine so often. “I know a Negro with a Ph.D. — in science — therefore I’m not racist.” “I admit that Jews are often academically gifted, therefore I don’t have a bias against them, I just know they’re evil.” “If my statistics don’t convince you that black people are less intelligent, how come they also show that Asians are better at math than white people?” It’s the contrast that is supposed to convince us that they are objectively evaluating real data.

“Intelligence” is an undefinable and complex parameter that changes depending on how you measure it. The only reasonable response to claims that one has characterized the “intelligence” of a large group of people and has some sweeping interpretations is to realize that they are simply expressing their unfounded biases in a pseudoscientific tone, and dismiss them.

I would have guessed Tom Brokaw was one of us…he isn’t

I just heard that interview with Old Tom Brokaw in which he exhibited that common disease in the journalism profession, that attempt to sympathize with bad people to the point you lose sight of the fact that they are, in fact, bad, and you begin to share their views (see also Jonathan Haidt, who is not a journalist, but has acquired a terminal case).

And a lot of this, we don’t want to talk about. But the fact is, on the Republican side, a lot of people see the rise of an extraordinary, important, new constituent in American politics, Hispanics, who will come here and all be Democrats. Also, I hear, when I push people a little harder, “Well, I don’t know whether I want brown grandbabies.” I mean, that’s also a part of it. It’s the intermarriage that is going on and the cultures that are conflicting with each other.

I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That’s one of the things I’ve been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities. And that’s going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.

If you don’t want “brown grandbabies”, that’s simply racism. No matter what shade their skin is, they’re still grandbabies, and still your grandbabies.

If you don’t like intermarriage, that’s simply racism. Don’t pick who you love by their skin color, and don’t demand your children share your weird racist color preferences.

Demanding assimilation is just another way of rejecting differences. That’s simply racism. I see Hispanic people moving into rural Minnesota, and while they may initially struggle with the language, they’re adapting quickly and their children are fluent in English. How fast do you expect them to “assimilate” anyway? Are you expecting them to abandon pride in their family and their heritage, too?

I’ve looked into my family history, and I see a series of Norwegian farmers who settled in Minnesota, and then kept bringing in Swedish mail order brides every generation, almost as if they were refusing to assimilate and insisted on Scandinavian families, rather than melding with the American mongrels. My great-grandparents’ house was full of yellow and blue and knick-knacks in Swedish and Norwegian, and they spoke with a heavy accent that was the result of a lifetime in exclusively Scandinavian-American communities. Were they bad assimilators? Am I unamerican because I still like the Nordic foods of my childhood and still celebrate Swedish/Norwegian traditions?

I don’t even know what “assimilate” means in the minds of these people. Liquify and blend? Because that doesn’t happen. We are who we are. Hispanic people are adding a new strand to our communities, and the only reason they might tend to vote Democratic is because Republicans think like Tom Brokaw. He can go back to celebrating his “Greatest Generation” while ignoring how awfully racist and sexist that generation was.

So that’s what they learn in private Catholic schools

I’ve always wondered what Catholic values were, and now I know. Covington Catholic school exemplifies them all: Disrespect. Contempt. Dogma. Oppression. Hatred. The students of that school made a spectacle of themselves demonstrating those values in Washington DC.

There was a lot going on in the Capitol recently. There was a “pro-life” demonstration going on; Covington Catholic, an all-boys private school, sent a mob of their students there, which is a problem in itself. Why are boys trying to dictate what women are allowed to do with their bodies? Next problem: they all seem to be wearing MAGA hats, which tells me where their wealthy parents are coming from, and what kind of indoctrination they received. And then there seems to be a definite lack of adult supervision for these kids.

The Catholic rabble then ran into another demonstration, the Indigenous People’s March. The Native Americans didn’t have a problem, they carried on with dignity…but the dreadful little Catholic children were something else again.

The elder is Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder who is also a Vietnam Veteran and former director of the Native Youth Alliance. He is also a keeper of a sacred pipe and holds an annual ceremony honoring Native American veterans in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Jesus. I work at a university that was built on the site of a Catholic boarding school for Indians, where children were ripped from their families to learn white man’s ways and follow the Pope, and this is a history we earnestly feel here — we have reminders all over the school of that legacy. Seeing little Catholic assholes shitting all over other people fills me with anger.

And despair. Look at those faces. Someday you’ll see them again in Congress, and on the Supreme Court, and maybe even the presidency. Because that’s where they’re confident they deserve to go.

Are they all racists on the right side of the aisle?

Not to let the left side off the hook, but the right seems to be full up with scum who aren’t shy about letting their bigotry fly.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri) has been identified as the Republican Congressman who told Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-California) to ‘go back to Puerto Rico’ during a debate on the House floor.

According to The Hill, Jason Smith shouted at Cardenas in the midst of a chaotic procedural debate on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.

Everyone should make sure Smith doesn’t get his hands on a cane.

The Aryan Race is unhappy that James Watson has been exposed

Oh, look. The “race realist/scientific racist/just plain racist” gang is very upset that James Watson’s reputation has been besmirched. Errm, further besmirched. Um, OK, blackened to scorched ashes.

Let’s take this apart for the fun of it, shall we?

Brilliant DNA pioneer

True. It’s a good idea to use a bit of reality as a jumping off point for your swan dive into fantasy. But yes, Watson is an incredibly smart guy who accomplished a significant piece of work in the 1950s. That is not, however, incompatible with the fact that he’s also a delusional egomaniac bristling with lots of other bad ideas.

to be wiped from history books

False. We don’t throw away significant data or past scientific contributions. Watson and Crick will still be mentioned. Their famous Nature paper will still be cited. You know, one of the most famous developmental biologists of the last century was Hans Spemann, who was a literal Nazi supporter, and we still discuss his science. Watson will remain in the history books, it’s just that after “co-discoverer of DNA structure”, we’ll also add “and notorious racist”. See? More words, not fewer!

bcuz he said IQ differences exist between races

True. He said that. But he went further to make the unfounded claim that the causes were genetic. It’s that overreach (and also his unapologetic misogyny and racist contempt for non-white people) that led to the loss of honors conferred on him.

& he was very sad about that fact.

No, not particularly. He was pretty gleeful about the superiority of his race when I talked to him. He said stuff about how he was regretful that other races were inferior, but that’s about as sincere and persuasive as me saying that I am so sad that Lana Lokteff has her head stuck up her ass. We all know I’m not sad at all.

Cultural Marxist quacks hijacked his work,

When I see someone talking about “Cultural Marxist”, they have just confirmed that they do, indeed, have their head stuck up their ass. “Cultural Marxism” is a fiction.

But no, that’s false, no one has “hijacked” his work. The worthwhile stuff was all published and made freely available to the world. Everyone gets to use the information about DNA. And further, there has been so much work done to further illuminate the structure and function of DNA by others that it’s not really about him anymore.

stab him in the back.

We’ve known about Watson’s distorted and self-serving view of his history since the 1960s, when he laid bare his selfish little soul in The Double Helix. Everyone just said, “That’s Jim”, and let him babble on. Honor after honor was piled on, in spite of the fact that virtually everyone who worked with him knew he was a petty little shit on the subject of race and gender. He got old, rich, and famous. He only finally got slapped down when he made a lecture tour where he rambled about how melanin made black men into horny rape-monsters, which he illustrated with slides of women in bikinis, and declared that Africa was hopeless because everyone there had an IQ below 80. Finally Cold Spring Harbor stepped in because he was embarrassing the institution. The latest motion to strip of him of even his honorary titles was made because he reneged on his promises to stop dragging CSH’s name through the mud (they have a lot to make up for as a center of the eugenics movement in the first half of the last century, so they’re sensitive on this subject).

Rather than being stabbed in the back, I see a recalcitrant old man who was treated with kid gloves for over half a century, by an institution that only reluctantly rescinded his welcome when his petulant, nasty act became too much to bear.

It’s only correct ‘science’ if it is anti-White

Modern science sans Watson is not anti-White, except in the sense that “White” is not a valid scientific construct to be taken seriously. The study of human genetics is not well served by pandering to the hateful notion that some humans aren’t human at all.

If ever you doubted the existence of media bias…

Say “motherfucker” once, and the media melts down; but when a representative announces his allegiance to racist white supremacy, it’s business as usual.

I tried to rationalize this. Maybe “motherfucker” is more sound-bitey? But it’s also kind of generic, and lots of people have said far worse about various politicians. And you would think that a politician openly embracing a racist ideology would be far more newsworthy and would inspire a lot more discussion than a profanity, about which you really can’t say a whole lot.

I think it means the media, and our country, takes racism for granted. Add to that fact that Rashida Tlaib’s exclamation was an opportunity to exercise that racism by bashing a brown woman, and I think we’ve got the root cause of the discrepancy thoroughly covered.

Those stupid Irish and their inferior brains

I don’t know whether this article from 1971 is aggravating or hilarious. Hans Eysenck, one of those IQ guys, tried to argue that the Irish were less brainy than the English. (I’m immediately disavowing my sliver of Irish ancestry).

His source of information is Arthur Jensen, and he makes absurd claims like, Might not American Negroes be genetically inferior because their forebears were too stupid to escape from the slave raiders? and that ghetto inhabitants may have “selected” their own environment as a consequence of genetically determined low intelligence.

I’m going to have to point out that James Watson proudly claimed Scots/Irish ancestry.