Biology is not my field, but I think the statement “although biologically we could argue over whether Blacks are perhaps a “sub-species” of humans” is not accurate because I believe the mapping of the human genome disproved the theory of race. So, in my own gesture of self-making I have stopped calling myself and others black because I see blackness as component in the duality of blackness/whiteness and a perpetuation of the theory of race. Instead I call myself and others in the tribe Diasporans because our ancestors were scattered during the transatlantic slave trade…thank you again for your transformative ideas.

Francis, I know I keep saying this, and I have not gotten around to it yet. But I swear I am going to comment soon on your ECA as opposed to racism theory. I find the entire discussion fascinating.

Peace.

Some people in the Afrosphere, bless their well-meaning hearts, are asserting that the word “race” may be correct after all, because although Blacks may not be a separate but equal species of humans, it may be scientifically correct to assert that we are a “sub-species” of humans. (If I could remember where I saw this, I would provide a link.) Even if this were so, I will NEVER, EVER, refer to us as a separate “race” or a “separate” sub-species, because it IS NOT IN OUR POLITICAL INTERESTS TO DO SO!

My mother, the late Dr. Rachel V. Holland, who died in 1997, was college professor who taught Sociology for 20 years. She focused on teaching about what was then called “racism,” but is now coming to be called Extreme Color-Arousal.

Throughout her twenty years of teaching, my mother taught me and all of her students this fundamental principle of Black existence in America:

“For hundreds of years, whites have perpetuated an argument that Blacks were from a separate and inferior race for the purpose of justifying our enslavement and segregation. Every argument about what “race” Blacks are from and what are the “inherent biological characteristics” of the “Black race” is a politically-motivated attempt by white people to demean Black people, and so you should NEVER engage in arguments about the genetic content of the Black race.

If Muhammad Ali had the courage in the 1960′s to abandon a slave name and insist on defining himself and his relation to white people, surely we can find the courage to insist that we are discriminated against because of our “skin-color” and not because of our “race” and “racism.” We can put the locus and focus of this problem back where it belongs – on white people’s Extreme Color Arousal rather than on Black people’s “inferior “racial” characteristics.” In any case, like the name Cassius Clay vs. the name Muhammad Ali, it’s our choice to make.

Sometimes I post at Culture Kitchen, but I never go there anymore to read the responses. I know they’re going to be inane and filled with vitriol, so I don’t even waste my time. You’ll notice that I haven’t commented there since . . . since Field told me I was wasting my time.

But, I am having a fairly good time over at MyLeftWing, where MSoC has received my posts well, formatting them to make them look nice and putting up tip jars, even though I try not to write to please others, and so I won’t put up tip jars myself.

Maybe I’ll write one of these introduce yourself columns. But everyone knows what it’ll be about. I’ll give you a clue and a roadmap: “43 consecutive terms.”

But I’ve also got a different rap that I’ve been developing a book about for the past two years, and now I’ve decided to just write and post about it here in the AfroSpear/Afrosphere. I believe that Extreme Color Aroused Disorder (ECA) is a mental illness. Just as we would get no where trying to develop sociological solutions to the problem of schizophrenia without the help of psychiatrists, I believe we will not achieve the success we could fighting exteme color arousal until we insist that America acknowledge, diagnose and treat it as the mental illness that it obviously (to me) is.

Let’s see: Symptoms of Extreme Color Arousal include paranoia (the Black men are after my daughter); obsessive compulsive behaviors (separate bathrooms, redlining); hyper-vigilance (enforcement of segregation, even today in whites-only schools, movies casts and television shows); anti-social behavior and lack of empathy (genocide in Iraq, callous disregard for suffering in New Orleans); and delusions (Blacks are a separate “race). I’m sure the rest of you can come up with at least a hundred more symptoms that can be found as symptoms of other recognized mental illnesses listed in the DSM-IV.

Now, why do I call this Extreme Color Arousal (ECA) (EE-cah) instead of racism? Well, the word “racism” is based on the fallacious premise that we are from a different “race,” like dogs. Since I do not and will never accept the premise of separate and inevitably inequal “races,” I simply refuse ever again to use the fallacious and white supremacist words “race,” “racial,”, “racist,” and “racism.” Please visit plezWord and my blog and read my articles on the topic, to decide for yourselves.

I don’t need the fallacious words that are based on the premise that we are from another species, because I’ve spent the last two years developing more scientific and linguistically appropriate alternatives for myself. For example, when the police see me coming from half a mile and stop me and other blacks at a rate 2 to three times higher than whites, they are not responding to my “race.” The visual cue to which they are responding is simply my “skin-color.”

Since I know they are aroused to stop me as soon as they perceive my skin-color, I know their problem is that they have Extreme Skin-Color-Arousal. Now, something has to be going on in their heads and cognitive behavioral psycologists tell us that “something” is “thoughts” and “emotions” and these thoughts and emotions become manifest in behavior. Extreme behavior, in many cases. When thoughts and emotions manifest in extreme behavior over a period of time, that’s a “disorder.”

Let’s put those components of the problem together and see what we have descriptively: Extreme Color-Aroused Emotion, Ideation and Behavior, Disorder (ECEIBD). But if we abbreviate that to Extreme Color Arousal, everyone will eventually know what we are talking about, as long as we make reference to all of the elements that prove our case, which we should always do anyway, lest we be easily accused of imagining or exaggerating things.

When you think about it, this becomes a valid diagnosis, which is good. Because without diagnosis there can be no treatment and no cure.

I know that everyone says there can be no treatment for ECA. How do they know? Isn’t that simply a self-fulfilling and highly convenient profecy? How do we know empirically that ECA is any harder to treat than battered women’s syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Adult Children of Acoholics Families syndrome, alcoholism and drug addiction?

The simple answer is that since ECA is seen to be a disease whose victims are Black, it isn’t considered to be worth diagnosing and treating. That’s why we have to make it clear to whites that THEY are the victims of ECA as well.

The Federal Government says that, between hate crimes and discrimination complaints, about a million complaints are going through the US Government every years. Some of these complaints represent white people who will be dismissed from their jobs for discrimination, lose wages, be the subject of discrimination suits . . . Others of these complaints are white people becoming the VICTIMS of hate crimes. In both cases, it is in whites people’s best interests to have treatment for this illnesses so that they won’t get themselves into trouble by acting out extreme color-aroused emotion, ideation and behavior disorder.

White corporations are spending and inordinate amount of money defending themselves after workers commit acts of discrimination that add nothing to the bottom line. When workers “go off” and kill co-workers because they are color-aroused or have been the victims of color-aroused abuse, that too is expensive for US corporations.

If the only thing I accomplish in this lifetime is that Extreme Color-aroused Emotion Ideation and Behavior Disorder be recognized as a mental illness, so that workers can be screened for it and receive help before they kill their co-workers, be they Black or white, then I will have done something useful with my time.

Over the last couple of years, I think I have worked out conceptually a number of ways in which this screening could take place and be successful in helping employees and others to deal with this increasingly multicultural world in which we live.

The AfroSpear is a powerful vehicle to build upon the capacity of our people to create neighborhood, community and nation-building opportunities. As you know better than I, there has been low-life, many time agents of government, who will attempt to create conflict from within African American movements. I am not attempting to cause paranoia, but the reality is there are people in government who track internet conversations and create diversion in the name of black identities. We have to be extremely vigilant and cautious of people who make noise for noise sake.

Those that would disrupt progressive forward movement and progressive forward thinking need to be treated like snakes. You remember what Harriet Tubman said about snakes, “Never wound a snake; kill it.”

Kill the noise of hateful and mocking morons and let’s move on. We can all get fustrated at time bro, but remember this: We in the AfroSpear/Afrosphere stick together, and have each-others back.

- Peace

AAPPundit

Stay Strong!