Sports discrimination

Posted on October 7, 2011 by jewamongyou

People in the Western world are so bombarded with messages of white guilt that, in a word-association game, the first word that would probably pop into most people’s minds when the word “discrimination” is mentioned, is “racial”.  From infancy to the grave, it is pounded into our heads that racial discrimination is bad.  Of course we are also told that there are other kinds of discrimination (all of which are also bad) such as sex-discrimination, gender-discrimination, religious discrimination and age-discrimination.  Every so often, politicians get it into their heads to pass a new law making yet another type of discrimination illegal.
Most people view discrimination negatively only when the trait in question has no obvious relevance to the job or promotion being sought.  One of the more obvious types of discrimination, which is not yet illegal but can clearly be unjust, is height-discrimination.  Short men arguably suffer far more than official “protected groups” in every area of life.  Though no law can force people to vote for shorter politicians, and no law can force women to date shorter men, at least this type of discrimination is talked about.
One form of discrimination that is hardly ever discussed is “sports-discrimination”.  Back in 1998, Jamie Schlabach wrote:

According to Gordon Allport (1954), it is necessary to categorize people into groups for adaptive functioning. Social categorization reduces the complexity of the social world. We use this idea to put people into categories like Miami University students or Proctor and Gamble employees. A very prominent category that many people belong to is that of a sports fan. Whether a Green Bay Packers fan, a Chicago Bulls fan, or a Miami Redhawk fan, a person fits into a category depending on who they cheer for. Categorizing people into groups by identifying some common attributes or characteristics reduces the amount of information to be dealt with (Hamilton, 1981) Such categorization can represent a sensible and useful strategy to reduce the complexity of the social world. But there are also some consequences that go along with this simplification strategy.
When a person identifies themselves with a group, they perceive themselves and the group members as different from other groups. A Packers fan may work with a Broncos fan, where both of them hold the same position, both love pizza, and both live in the same community. But the Packers fan will view the Bronco fan as being significantly different from himself. If another coworker is also a Packers fan, but lived on the other side of town and hated pizza, he would still be viewed as more similar to the Packers fan then the Broncos fan. A partial explanation for such in-group favoritism is provided by the social identity theory. Categorization can also create a basis for ethnocentrism, or the belief that one’s own group is superior to other groups. People will put themselves into the “in-group” and all other people are in the “out-group.” This leads in-group members to favor their group over the out-group and is called in-group, out-group bias (Devine, 1996). Sports fans of any kind favor their teams fans over the other team’s fans. The fans of the opposing team are not seen as friends or equals, they are the enemy. During a game, fans of each team do not socialize with the opposing fans. The seating arrangement during games is usually segregated, with, for example, the Packers fans on one side of the stadium and Broncos fans on the other. This separation contributes to favoritism of the in-group over the out-group.

Human nature hasn’t changed much since 1998 and, as a person who has worked for avid professional sports fans, I can attest to the fact that it can be a serious distraction, and a nuisance, in a work environment.  Far be it from me to encourage further anti-discrimination laws, but we can (and should) recognize a bad thing for what it is – without calling in the heavy hand of the law.
Most of us have heard of the proverbial “golfing buddy” phenomenon, where he who plays golf with the boss gets the promotion.  I think the reason we hear so much about golf, as opposed to other sports, is that golf is a traditionally higher status/higher income sport.  The promotions, and jobs, we see on T.V., read about in magazines and newspapers and see in movies, are high-paying jobs and high-stakes promotions.  What we don’t hear about is the millions of average-income workers who are passed over for promotion because their bosses are fans of a different team – or even because their bosses are sports fans in general, while the victim is not.  I say “victim” because ideally it is the best-qualified individual who gets the job or promotion.  This is the answer we would get if we were to ask any CEO about his company’s policy.  The employee who worked harder, is more honest, is more dependable and has more experience, is a victim if he is passed over in favor of another employee who happens to like the same sport as the boss.  Sure, he can quit and find another company (maybe), but this doesn’t change the fact that he was unjustly passed over.
What are the code-words for this type of discrimination?  “You don’t seem to have as much rapport with your co-workers”, “your communication skills aren’t as good”, “You don’t command as much respect” would be some possible examples.  The reality might be that the underlying reason for the denial is that the victim lacks common ground with others – due to the fact that he is not a fan of their sport or team.  But this is impossible to prove.  I would imagine that back in the days when it was still legal (but socially unacceptable) to discriminate on the basis of religion, gender or race, the same rationals would have been given.  As a matter of fact, it is legal to discriminate on the basis of race.  It is even required – when the victim is white.  It is also sometimes required to discriminate on the basis of gender – when the victim is male.  In either case, rarely will the victim be told that he was passed over because of his race or gender.  Instead, he will be told nothing at all – or one of the catch-alls I listed above.
There can be little doubt that many have learned to play golf with the intention of establishing a rapport with important people in order to advance their careers.  But how many people have pretended to be baseball, football or basketball fans – or fans of specific teams – in order to advance their careers?  Should those who do not be penalized*?
*Yes, I am aware that “life is not fair”.  I am simply bringing attention to one of life’s unfairnesses that is often overlooked.

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Portland's "hip-hop high school"

Posted on October 5, 2011 by jewamongyou

With the economy booming and a huge surplus of government cash, politicians are looking for ways to spend some of that cash.  “Let’s see”, thought the government bureaucrat, “we’ve already got plenty of funding for cancer research, aid to the homeless, the renovation of infrastructure and prisons…  I know!  We’ll start a hip-hop high school in Portland!”
How much money?  According to The Oregonian, we’re talking about $500,000 in the form of federal grants:

REAL Prep Charter Academy, more than three years in the making, is scheduled to open Monday in Portland’s Pearl District to serve students in grades nine through 12. The school’s designers have spent $500,000 in federal grants to get the school and its curriculum up and running.

Why is it important to have a hip-hop high school?

The school is the brainchild of Erica Jayasuriya, mother of a multiracial son who wanted to attend a compelling, culturally relevant high school. She is backed by a board of directors chaired by Juan McGruder, a photographer and musician.
The plan, approved by the Portland School Board, was to create a school where students could find their voices and culture honored; learn skills from and get credit for hands-on work with artists and recording industry professionals; and where core academic lessons would be laced with hip-hop themes.

The Oregonian makes it sound like black culture is otherwise not honored – which strikes me as rather odd when I look at the front page of the issue of The Oregonian, where this story takes a prominent place.  There are five major stories on that front page (Sept. 9, 2011):  One about President Obama, with a large photo of him (with two white politicians in the background), one is about Portland’s corrupt parking manager (a black man, whose photo is shown), another features two Hispanics and a black woman who had saved a little (white) girl’s life (good for them), another is about a fossil discovered in South Africa and then there’s our story (at the very top, right next to Obama).  Of the five stories, four of them involve blacks – three of them in positive ways.  As for sheer space on the front page, about 70% of it is dedicated to showing blacks in a positive light.  How can this same Oregonian then claim that blacks need to “find their voices”?  They already have their voices – in the pages of The Oregonian.
Do white high school students have a voice as whites?  That was a rhetorical question; of course they don’t – that would be “racist”.  Where are the high schools that are based on classical music?  Would any charter school, whose aim was to cater specifically to white students, have a chance at receiving a federal grant?  That’s another rhetorical question; let us not forget that this same federal government is perfectly okay with “black pride” and “Hispanic pride” but considers “white pride” to be “offensive” and “immoral”.
In the end, the hip-hop high school failed to open this year.  This is all well and good – but I want my $500,000 back!

Posted in examples of propaganda, government/corporate discrimination against whites | 8 Comments

"logical fallacies and patently false claims"

Posted on October 5, 2011 by jewamongyou

I recently posted a critique of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, in which I exposed the author’s double standards, faulty logic, contradictions and bias.  It should come as no surprise, to readers of this blog, that these traits are the rule, not the exception, when it comes to racial egalitarian literature.
Human Stupidity has called my attention to a Wikipedia article on race and crime.  While the article itself is interesting, and we can take issue with some of its conclusions, the most interesting part for me was in the discussion section, where we read:

The 2nd paragraph of IQ theory subsection seems like a bit of a non-sequitar. Saying critics point out that the IQ gap has narrowed over the years due to environmental factors is irrelevant to whether IQ differences explain racial differences in crime rate. The criticism seems to be directed at the hereditarian model of racial IQ differences, but the first paragraph doesn’t have anything to do with hereditarianism at all.–XO^10 (talk) 22:31, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

As one of the people who helped write the current version of the article, I agree with you that these criticisms don’t make a lot of sense. So does Varoon Arya, who wrote more of the article than any other editor, although he’s not active here at the moment. But the fact is that these criticisms appear in the source material, so NPOV policy demands that we include them, regardless of whether they’re actually reasonable and relevant to this topic or not.
Varoon Arya and I discussed an issue similar to this a few months ago here. I’ll quote his own comment about it:
I am in full agreement here. But sadly, these (rather tired and fully insufficient) arguments are the ones left-leaning sociologists and criminologists specialized in the field of Race and Crime Studies are still (as recently as 2009) using to offer at least the show of criticism of the “hard science” claims. To get into any serious criticism of IQ Theory or r/K Theory, we’d have to leave the field of Race and Crime Studies, and I’m not sure if that’s crossing the line into WP:SYNTH. I had to work surprisingly hard to make the critique in many areas not look ridiculous, frankly. Take Mann, for example, whose work is considered by certain parties in Race and Crime Studies to be “seminal”. (And I can quote two who use that very word.) If you run through her list of arguments with even a minimum of critical evaluation, the logical fallacies and patently false claims (not to mention the clear bias) are shocking. Sadly, Gabbidon evidences many of the same weaknesses, though he puts much more effort in trying to at least appear objective, and I trust him more to give a balanced presentation. However, Gabbidon & Greene’s 2-page treatment of “Intelligence, Race, and Crime” is loaded with enough bias to make it impossible to use in the article without heavy filtering. Take the following passage, for example:

By this time [1900’s], however, the notion of intelligence and crime had become accepted. While the notion of intelligence and crime had existed prior to the aforementioned studies, the development of the IQ test gave proponents of the idea a tool to test their beliefs. Fortunately, though, the idea lost its appeal. Curran and Renzetti (2001) noted, however, that the damage had already been done.

It doesn’t get any better than that, and often gets worse. Their critique boils down to exactly what I have in the section. It’s a case of preaching to the choir, really. The leftists have long since rejected the notion of race on moral grounds, and with it their ability to counter hard science claims with anything other than shock and disbelief that anyone could be “racist” enough to investigate the issue with some objectivity. (Wright’s 2009 piece on this subject is a gem, by the way.) But what can we do? I tried to present the critique as it is presented in the current literature. Can I help it if it’s not convincing?

Also interesting is the debate on using “The Color of Crime” as a source.  In the end, the sole reason for excluding it is that it comes from a “fringe group” rather than a “mainstream” source.  Who gets to decide what is “mainstream”?  None other than those who are already considered “mainstream”.  It’s a circular argument that essentially says, “We’ve got the money and power; this makes us mainstream and it gives us the authority to label the rest of you as fringe groups”.  Nice going Wikipedia.  Money/power = Truth.

Posted in examples of propaganda, shenanigans of the Left and of non-white activists | 8 Comments

A fine YouTube video on Islam

Posted on October 4, 2011 by jewamongyou

Well folks,  I may have inadvertently offended autistic people in my previous post –  as a matter of fact, it is possible that I suffer from a mild form of autism myself; it’s possible that I have Asperger Syndrome.  But at least if we insult them, they won’t come after us with butcher knives or bombs.
And then there are Muslims – who are known to come after people with butcher knives and bombs for even the mildest insult*.  Anyway, I just found the following excellent video on YouTube.  Enjoy!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpJN7JykKVY&w=560&h=315]
* Though, obviously, not all individual Muslims are like this.

Posted in Muslims | 9 Comments

Affirmative action and bad English

Posted on October 3, 2011 by jewamongyou

Countenance recently linked to a St. Louis Examiner article about the “need” for increased quotas for minority contractors in the Illinois department of transportation.
The author of the above article, Damien Johnson, was fair enough to mention the Civil Rights Institute, which opposes all forms of affirmative action.  But let us take a look at the paragraph in question:

Groups like Civil Rights Institute argue argue against granting preferencial treatment to any group or class of people in and effort to seek color blind society; however, some poeple argue a color blind society is a myth and point to Mayor Parks fight for minority inclusion as proof. Understanding Prejudice.org, a project by the National Sciene Foundation and McGraw-Hill High Education, argue that affrimative action is still needed today because the playing field in not leveled for women and minorities.

How many typos can you find in the above paragraph?  I see at least 9 right off the bat.  The rest of the article is just as bad.  The irony in this, considering the subject matter, is hard to miss.  Here’s Johnson’s profile:

Damien Johnson, a local activist and blogger, is involved with local politics and pays attention to what is going on. He believes that an informed voter is important to our democracy. He encourages people to register to vote. He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology and criminal justice with a minor in studio art from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. For fun, he plays chess and enjoys attending open mic night and gallery openings. Damien likes to draw graffiti and expressionistic art.

There can be little doubt that his credentials were probably also acquired via affirmative action, which is pervasive in universities throughout the country.  Oh, I’m sure he studied and worked for his degrees, but the gears of his advancement were certainly greased with the lubricant of affirmative action.
When the bar is set so low, and when it is considered acceptable to publish text such as what we see in the above article, it is inevitable that the English of white writers will also become degraded.  Why work hard to write in flawless English when it is no longer demanded or expected?
I’d like to point out that Mr. Johnson, aside from acknowledging the Civil Rights Institute, also took the time to respond to my email, in which I asked him who (if anybody) proofreads the online articles.  His response was that columnists do their own proofreading.  He seemed surprised and concerned about it, so I’ll give him credit for that.  It remains to be seen if he’ll do something about it and take some remedial English courses.

Posted in government/corporate discrimination against whites | 8 Comments

Garbanzo bean day

Posted on October 3, 2011 by jewamongyou

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

"Promising signs"

Posted on October 2, 2011 by jewamongyou

Carla Randall, of The Oregonian, tells us that there are “promising signs of progress for our high schools”.   In line with the leftist elite’s  fixation on “people of color”, Randall tells us:

Too many students are bored, and too many feel like nobody cares.
Too many of the students who feel this way are students of color. They are voting with their feet, dropping out of Portland’s high schools at dramatically higher rates than their white peers. (Latino students graduate at half the rate of white students. African-Americans fare only slightly better.)
The good news is that we are taking steps to improve graduation rates and close this achievement gap. The better news is that the changes we are pursuing across all PPS high schools this year have already delivered promising results in schools where they have been tested.

Well it’s about time!  It’s about time somebody actually did something about that pesky gap!  Except that back in early 2010, they were also trying to “achieve diversity” and  “close the gap”:

At the meeting, board members also raised concerns and questions about how to achieve socioeconomic diversity, boundary changes and the transfer policy. Most of those issues won’t be explicitly addressed until the next stage of the process.
Parents who attended tonight’s meeting encouraged the school board to more clearly connect the high school redesign goals to increasing academic achievement and narrowing the achievement gap.

Oh wait, what’s this?  Even in 2009 they were “doing something” to close the gap:

The stubborn gap in academic achievement in Oregon between Hispanic students and their white classmates used to be somewhat of a mystery. Not any more.
The main causes of this gap are well-diagnosed. So are at least some of the solutions, plus the areas desperately needing further research.
Hispanic students learn at the same pace as their white peers, according to a new studyconducted by EcoNorthwest for the Chalkboard Project, an Oregon-based education nonprofit. The trouble is, Hispanic students start out behind in the early grades and typically don’t catch up.
The reasons? Hispanic students are more than twice as likely to come from low-income homes.

What a novel idea!  The gap is due to – POVERTY.  It’s amazing what a few million dollars and years of research can come up with.
But even in 2008, there was success in “closing the gap“:

When the Portland Schools Foundation hired Connie Van Brunt as Executive Director, it was with the understanding that she was a highly skilled educational reform advocate and practitioner with a proven track record of closing the achievement gap. We continue to believe that today.

Well, waddaya know!  There was progress in 2007 as well, as Portland struggled to meet the “No Child Left Behind” requirements (applicable also to pre-high schools students).  We read:

The 44 schools, which get federal funds because they have a significant number of low-income students, had been ordered to give their students free tutoring or transfers to higher-performing schools due to repeat poor performance.
But, based on their 2007 reading and math scores, 10 of them, including Harold Oliver Intermediate School in the Centennial district of Southeast Portland, met every performance target for a second straight year and were freed from the federal troubled schools list.

In 2006 Oregon as a whole had also made “significant progress” in closing the gap:

SALEM — State Schools Superintendent Susan Castillo today named the Oregon public schools that have made significant progress in closing the achievement gap. The announcement was made today at a press conference at Aloha Park Elementary School in the Beaverton School District.
Each school named for the award has demonstrated progress in student achievement in math and reading and showed improvement in student achievement for minority and/or low income students. The schools will be recognized at a banquet on April 28th. This is the second year that Castillo has recognized schools for the Celebrating School Success Awards, and each recipient will receive a $2000 grant.
“These schools prove that it can be done — students can overcome poverty, cultural differences, and other challenges and succeed,” Castillo said. “My goal has been to highlight examples of what is being accomplished in our public schools and send a very important message to all of Oregon about helping all children achieve.”
“I wanted to find a school in each area of the state that could serve as an example for how we can close the achievement gap and ensure that every student has success in school,” Castillo said.

In 2005, under the heading “Closing the Achievement Gap – 2005”, we find:

Stretching from one end of Oregon to the other, the 2005 recipients of the Celebrating Student Success awards all face enormous challenges. And each has a unique formula for success.
Yet despite their differences, these remarkable schools share an unshakable conviction that, given a thoughtful and rigorous plan of action and a dedicated staff of educators to carry it out, all children, regardless of their color or ethnicity or their family incomes, can excel.
They don’t just believe that it’s true – they prove it, day in and day out.

Back in 2002, there were already programs underway to “close the gap“:

In 2002, Shannon joined Stand for Children as the Portland Director in Portland, Oregon. Under her leadership the chapter grew to over 1,000 members, still the largest Stand Chapter in the country, and led a number of successful campaigns including electing 4 reform-minded school board members to the Portland Public School Board, passing the Portland Children’s Investment Fund, a 5 year levy that generates $25 million for early childhood education programs, mentoring, child abuse prevention and laid the groundwork for teaching effectiveness reforms that will help close the achievement gap in Portland Public Schools.

The same was true in 2001:

Portland Public Schools received a National Science Foundation Urban Systemic Program grant in 2001. The goals of the grant were to raise achievement for all students in mathematics and science and close achievement gaps.

If even half of past claims were true, then the gap would have been gone by now.  Obviously, it is not.  It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  This is exactly what the proponents of “diversity” have been doing.  Aside from coming to terms with genetic differences between the races, those people would do well to change their attitude completely in order to affect whatever improvements can be made within the environmental realm.
Randall tells us:

… Franklin has eliminated the achievement gap in graduation rates. Last year, students of color graduated at the same rate as white students, a rare feat among U.S. high schools. These results are not the product of favorable socioeconomic factors. Franklin’s student population is similar to the school-district average in income. Its student population is similarly diverse.
Franklin has pioneered efforts to link struggling students to mentors at school, building relationships that help students feel connected. At the same time, Principal Shay James and her teachers have not sacrificed academic excellence. Teachers set the bar high. They encourage students — especially students of color — to take advanced placement courses (bold mine)…

Clearly, teachers have been focusing on “students of color” at the expense of white students in order to achieve equal results.  You can bet your bottom dollar that no studies were done in order to ascertain whether white students have suffered, academically, due to such policies.
Ominously, and with a smiling face, Randall tells us:

We are also focused on what happens in the classroom. This fall, PPS teachers will receive better feedback under a new evaluation process developed with the Portland Association of Teachers. Better feedback means more effective and responsive teaching. That means improved learning for students.
The Roosevelt High School campus pioneered this new way of evaluating teachers last year. Roosevelt saw double-digit gains in math and reading, and higher graduation rates.

In other words, teachers are forced to neglect white students in order to advance “students of color”.  It is fairly obvious what this “new way of evaluating teachers” entails.
The way to optimize the education of NAMS is not to coddle them or stress the importance of their own special cultures and heritage.  On the contrary, it is to coddle white students, encourage white culture (according to whatever positive meaning this may have in each locale) and put truly successful students (of whatever race – and most of them will be white or Asian) on a pedestal.  Along with strict discipline (which will, of course, disproportionately effect NAMS), we would achieve the desired result:  Black and Hispanic children will want to be more like white and Asian children.  They will give up their saggy pants, rap music and gutter language.  They will try to be “white” and this will allow them to reach their fullest potential.

Posted in examples of propaganda, government/corporate discrimination against whites, shenanigans of the Left and of non-white activists | 13 Comments

The "Jewish" custom of kapparoth

Posted on September 30, 2011 by jewamongyou

For those of you not familiar with the tradition of “kapparoth“, it is a ritual where a Jew swings a chicken (or sometimes coins) over his head three times while asking that his sins be transferred to the chicken (or coins).  This ritual is done the day before Yom Kippur during the wee hours of the morning.  After the chicken is thus utilized, it is ritually slaughtered and given to the poor.  This tradition has been the target of criticism both by anti-Semites and animal rights activists.  PETA has come out strongly against it, claiming that it is both cruel to the chickens and can lead to health hazards.  Thinking back to the one or two times that I participated in the ritual (a very long time ago), both these concerns can be easily addressed – though they are not always addressed.  When I handled the chicken, I was careful to avoid causing it any unnecessary suffering; picking up a chicken and swinging it (slowly) over one’s head need not cause it trauma.  I spent part of my childhood with chickens so I know that there are definitely ways to pick them up and move them without being cruel about it.  Unfortunately, not all observant Jews are sensitive in this way – as the above PETA video clearly shows (I would imagine they edited out the more tame examples).
But I am no fan of kapparoth.  Aside from the real danger that the chicken will poop on your head, there are other issues.  The first edition of the Code of Jewish Law (1565) had harsh words concerning the ritual of kapparoth, essentially calling it a pagan ritual that had no place in Judaism.  Later editions of this codex were censured to simply state that one should not practice it.  The author of the Code of Jewish Law, R. Yosef Karo, represented (more or less) the views of the Sephardic community.  His codex, while respected in the Ashkenazi world, were only partially accepted as authoritative.  Later editions of his work included glosses by the Ashkenazi rabbi Moses Isserles.  Isserles disagreed with Karo’s assessment of kapparoth and pointed out that it is common practice among the Ashkenazim.  Over time, even the Sephardim came to adopt the custom of  kapparoth.  In modern times, the only Jewish community that has refrained from practicing it has been the Yemenite community.  These days, even many Yemenite Jews practice it.
It has always been my position that there is no inherent value in the ritual of kapparoth.  In fact, it is contrary to the true spirit of Judaism – which does not believe that one can rid oneself of one’s sins through hokus-pokus rituals, but rather only through genuine penitence and resolve for the future.  Generally speaking, any ritual that must be done three times, or any string of words that must be uttered three times, smacks of kabbalistic voodoo magic.  Thus, it is not surprising that some of the greatest supporters of kapparoth were the kabbalists.  The kabbalists believe that actions such as kapparoth, or words, can have an impact upon the higher realms of reality (the so-called sephiroth).  Thus, by performing this ritual upon a hapless chicken, one is not only (supposedly/hopefully) reminding oneself to do penance, but also fixing things in those other realities.  In other words, the ritual can have value in its own right – even if the practitioner takes no moral lesson from it.
The ritual of kapparoth is just one of many dubious practices that turn observant Jews into primitive and superstitious people who follow bizarre rituals they do not understand – because their explanation is “too deep” for a layman to understand.  “Too deep to understand” is often a euphemism for “makes no sense at all”.
The teachings of the Kabbalah have been a corrupting force on the Jewish people.  The Kabbalah is based on the belief that there are seven realms of reality, ours being the lowest (the realm of “action”).  Above them all dwells the “limitless one” (en sof – lit. “no end”).  The perversions of the Kabbalah take their toll on both the spiritual plane and the physical one.  On the spiritual plane, Kabbalah teaches that God (en sof) is completely detached from our realm of reality.  Therefore, our prayers cannot be directly to Him; rather, they must be via the higher realms.  This is a form of idolatry.  What this means is that our prayers and rituals, instead of being directed toward helping ourselves and our communities, are directed toward effecting change in mysterious, unfathomable realms.  If we stop to ponder the ramifications of this primitive way of looking at things, we will understand that it ends up placing a lot of emphasis upon the saying of words (which are supposed to have power in their own right) instead of actual prayer, and the mechanical fulfillment of ritual (while paying attention to countless minutiae) instead of focusing on the worldly benefit that most rituals were intended to fulfill.
Since Mideastern, and Southern European, populations tend to be more prone to superstition and witchcraft than Northern Europeans, the Kabbalah has always been much stronger among Sephardic Jews than among Ashkenazi Jews.  The ritual of kapparoth is an exception in that Ashkenazim more readily adopted this mystical/voodoo type ritual than the Sephardim.  There can be little doubt that strong beliefs in the supernatural have retarded the advancement of technology in Mediterranean regions.  Why go through the trouble of getting to the root of a problem when a magical spell will work just as well?  Why take the time and effort in building fire-resistant, or earthquake resistant, structures when a protective charm will serve the same purpose?
Ashkenazim have succeeded in the modern world, and largely shaped the modern world, despite the fact that our culture was crippled with the burden of the Kabbalah.  It pains me to see adult Jews waving chickens over their heads while mumbling incantations – looking like primitive witch doctors.  It’s an embarrassment.
Sadly, this emphasis on form rather than substance has become commonplace even outside the Jewish world.  No generation has possessed as much knowledge as our own – and yet never have so many people embraced ignorance as a way of life.  Call me harsh, but when a person chooses to regularly spend hours of his free time watching television rather than seeking meaningful knowledge  – this is “embracing ignorance”.  To then claim that he has “opinions”, about the self-same things he refuses to learn about, is to enshrine that ignorance.
Where there is ignorance, there is mystery.  Where there is mystery, there is ritual.  Ritual comes to appease unknown forces.  This can be forgiven when there is no means of banishing the darkness – such as with primitive witch doctors.  Otherwise it is the crime of willful ignorance.
Those who enforce the cult of racial-egalitarianism and other irrational policies are actually just swinging chickens over their heads.

Posted in Jewish stuff and Israel, shenanigans of the Left and of non-white activists | 5 Comments

"who are these whites,that's claming to be the jews"

Posted on September 29, 2011 by jewamongyou

One of the nice features of WordPress is that bloggers are able to see a list of the various search engine terms used in order to reach their blogs.  One such term leaped out at me recently:

who are these whites,that’s claming to be the jews

Which one of these two is most likely to be the real Jew?


I’d go with the clam.

Posted in Jewish stuff and Israel | 15 Comments

Blacks and animal rights

Posted on September 28, 2011 by jewamongyou

A recent discussion over at Robert Lindsay’s blog* revolved around the relative cruelty different races display toward animals.  I was taken to task for writing that blacks seem to display more cruelty toward animals than whites (but some Asian groups seem to be the worst in this regard).  It seems to me that there is a somewhat larger minority of blacks, that has no compassion toward animals, than exists among whites.  It is well-known that the great majority of animal advocacy groups were founded by whites, and are almost entirely composed of whites.

PETA has a site called “African-Americans for Animal Rights” but it turns out that almost the entire page relates to the vegan diet rather than animal rights per se’.  Following a link, on that site, called “blackvegetarians.org” takes us to a page that appears to promote a single book by a solitary woman.  There does not seem to be an actual organization behind the site at all, though the woman does appear to be serious about promoting a worthy cause – and I wish her plenty of success.  All three of the other links, that purport to lead to black vegetarian/nutrition sites, yield “404 not found” errors.  The impression I got was that PETA used a misleading headline and then tried to switch topics on the sly – except that even the replacement topic proved to be a dud.  Personally I think a real, bonafide black vegetarian movement would be a very positive development for blacks – and for everybody.  Not because a vegetarian diet is necessarily more healthy, but because it would promote more awareness of what people eat, and it would promote empathy toward other creatures.

Blacks are noticeably underrepresented within animal rights organizations.  Even though some have argued that this is because of racial discrimination, and “lack of outreach” by those organizations, their claims have little merit.  On the one hand, they deny the possibility that black attitudes toward animals might differ from those of whites.  But on the other hand, they use that self-same claim in order to promote the “need” for diversity.  Here are two quotes from Sue-Ellen Brown’s “The Under-representation of African American Employees in Animal Welfare Organizations in the United States“:

Some researchers have suggested that Whites and African Americans have differing values toward animals… However, none of the speculations have been validated by well controlled research (pg. 55).

Greater diversity is needed in animal welfare for moral, political, and sociological reasons… If African Americans have a perspective different from a vocal majority of Whites and if they remain invisible, they will be vulnerable to the effects of changing laws for which they had no input (pg. 59).

You can’t have it both ways.  The most coherent explanation I have seen so far comes from Melissa Harris-Perry, of The Nation, who writes (regarding the different reactions, among whites and blacks, to the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal):

Given this history we might think that African Americans would be particulalry (sic) strident animal rights activists, seeing their interests as profoundly linked. But the relationship between race, rights, and animals is more complicated. Dogs, for example, were used by enslavers to catch, trap and return those who were trying to escape to freedom. Dogs were used to terrorize Civil Rights demonstrators. In short, animals have been weapons used against black bodies and black interests in ways that have deep historical resonace.

Not only have animals been used as weapons against black people, but many African Americans feel that the suffering of animals evokes more empathy and concern among whites than does the suffering of black people.  For example, in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina dozens of people sent me a link to an image of pets being evacuated on an air conditioned bus. This image was a sickening juxtaposition to the conditions faced by tens of thousands of black residents trapped by the storm and it provoked great anger and pain for those who sent it to me.

Perhaps, but I wonder how many of today’s blacks actually experienced the abuses Harris-Perry describes.  True, it is possible that such experiences molded black American culture so that blacks tend to view animals differently than other groups.  On the other hand, do African blacks view animals much differently?

Obviously, there are some Africans who appreciate the importance of their native wildlife to both their economy and well-being.  The Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW) is active in Kenya – but the results of a google search for “animal rights in Africa” imply that the vast majority of such movements are centered in South Africa and thus were probably founded by whites.

I don’t have all the answers, but I will throw a crazy theory out there – feel free to chew it up and spit it out if you wish:  In Equatorial Africa animals of all kinds were abundant.  Many of them were dangerous to humans.  It is only natural that the people of such a clime would view animals differently than would people in Europe, where the fauna is much less abundant and where there were fewer predators (the “big bad wolf” notwithstanding).  This would, of course, shape their culture.  Is it possible that there might be a genetic component as well?  Perhaps.  We would then find that all tropical peoples share a similar attitude (with the obvious exception of totems and other religious considerations) toward animals.

* A commentator at Lindsay’s blog suggested that “Animal rights is simply social egalitarianism extended to animals”.  I would agree, and I have said so myself.  But there can be more than one contributing cause to a phenomenon.

Posted in racial differences and how they manifest themselves/race science, Uncategorized | 40 Comments