The Wager

It's the bullshit they're full with...

Worshipping the very same satan that they created

-Talaam Acey

On Thursday Sept. 20. Michael Fisher posted a piece on his blog (that is also shared with others), Assault on Black Folks Sanity entitled: Proof That The System Of Global Racism/White Supremacy Exists



At the beginning of the post he quoted a Nazi which I'll repost here:

“The individual races can be distinguished by differences which they have in respect to the uniqueness of their hereditary, intellectual-psychological and physical features, tendencies and characteristics. Each race has certain characteristics and features which are unique to it. These racial features are passed on to the offspring. Race is hence a group of life forms which distinguishes itself by the common possession of certain hereditary features. It always produces only its own kind. Race is a characterized community of hereditary factors.” Mamet/Nazi SS

While I'm no fan of Nazi's, the above paragraph is accurate as far as it goes with the possible exception of the "intellectual-psychological" features as it relates to humans since there has been no proof of inherent intellectual differences in humans that has not been explained by environment or disease. We understand that Nazi's had a need to place the so called "Aryan" race above that of others and therefore need to address "intellectual" features. Unlike some other people, I don't let peoples titles and such distract me from the information they are presenting. Even the most virulently "racist" person can give valid information. Only a fool passes on information simply because they don't like the source. But that's not the point of the post.

Michael Fisher in his analysis of that statement went on to explain:

Clearly, on the face of it, the concept of “race” as a biological construct is completely illogical and arbitrary. The concept has nothing to do with reality. There is no such thing as a 1 ½ -inch-left-pinky-toe-having “race”. It just doesn’t exist. And that is despite the fact that there are probably millions of people who actually do have a left pinky toe of 1 ½ inches in length walking around.



Even if a biological "race" existed, to attribute pinky toe size as a racial feature is completely and utterly arbitrary. And so is any other attribute.

Hence came The Wager. I didn't even bother to read the rest of the post, and still have not, because Mr. Fisher clearly has an extremely loose grip on genetics. I told him so in the comments section:

sondjata said...



Dude, your grip on genetics and inheritance is pretty weak which is completely undermining your argument. that opening quote is absolutely accurate regardless of it's source.



You continue to confuse social construct with genetics.

Now I'm not one to pick on people about grammar and punctuation because we all make mistakes and bad punctuation doesn't necessarily mean the overall idea is invalid. However; when an individual shows a complete mis-understanding of the subject at hand, it is difficult to take them very seriously. Michaelm insisting on believing himself to be correct continued to go on and on so I decided to put money on the table:

sondjata said...



I've already done so on my blog, which I've linked to in a previous post, to which you hung out your "pinky toe" false argument.



but since you two are so "informed" you let me know the next time a Chinese woman and man pops out a near black skinned, "nappy headed", thick lipped" child and I'll personally sign you a $1,000 check AND take down my entire blog.

I added..

sondjata said...



I'll write you another $1,000 cheque should you find a German Shephard[sic] that gives birth to a poodle[sic] through natural means of conception.



In fact lets up the ante. Should you be unable to find either of the above, you take down the entire blog entry and paypal me 10 bucks. I'm putting 2 grand and my entire blog against your single entry and 10 bucks.



How about it?





In fact I'll up it even more. I'll offer the challenge to ANYONE reading this blog entry. 1,000 bucks. to show what I asked above.



Provide verifiable photos and reference material and I'll cut you a $1,000 cheque.

He wanted to play dumb in regards to what a "chinese" person was and what "near black skinned" and "thick lipped" meant so I made a more specific post:

sondjata said...

All I see is a bunch of Whoo haa and No documented evidence to the challenge I posed.

So let's cut to the chase: Proof as of Monday 9AM Eastern time or 10 bucks in my paypal account.

And in case anyone is confused:

1) SHow[sic] two German Shephards [sic]that concieve by natural means a Poodle.

2) show a case of two Chinese persons as typified by the image found here:

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:lpG2APKA7KM9sM:http://www.senah.com/images/ziyueyu.jpg

giving birth o a child with features Seen here:

http://www.pictures-of-nigeria.com/images/CW61D-0439.jpg

I got this idea from John Grubur of the Daring Fireball website. When a hacker claimed to have hacked a MacBook,and Gruber said he was , in effect, full of shit, Gruber put his money where his mouth was and publicly stated that he would meet said hacker at the 5th Ave. Apple Store in NYC. Said hacker would merely have to show Gruber the hack and gruber would give up a brand spanking new MacBook and retract his critique. I had to respect Mr. Gruber on his willingness to put his money where his mouth was. So often on the internet, people will say and post all kinds of stuff, they really haven't thought out or really believe in. So I simply decided to put Michael to the test. I put my $1,000 to his 10 bucks. With 1,000 bucks to gain, I would think that he would have been able to produce what was asked for. Instead we got junk like this:

""Most of the population of modern China--one fifth of all people living today--owes it genetic origins to Africa."



--Los Angeles Times, Sep 29, 1998



sondjata, I think you might want to check out some of Bro. Runoko Rashidi's work.



http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/china.html

The posted material was not even relevant to The Wager. The Wager was not about the origins of Chinese people (or German Shepherds) it was to show a chinese person, as pictured, procreating via natural means a child that as also pictured. The above comment deals with evolutionary history from African to Chinesem, a point that was never in dispute. That was not The Wager.

Equally another individual posted:

Temple3 said...



Since the term "Chinese" was used, I knew this was a wrap from Jump Street! The Rashidi files are far too deep for someone to actually something so silly. In any event, I better get a good look at this cat's blog because the whole thing should be gone by Monday night...then I can watch the game.



Nice job.



"African Presence in Early Asia takes down Eurocentric Scholars and Non-white Blogger - Story at 11."

I'm not sure what "Temple3" was referring to. I can only hope that "Temple3" is not a student of Molefe Asante at Temple university, as the above statement is the epitomy of arrogance and stupidity that unfortunately abounds among our so called "vanguard" of "black consciousness" and would reflect badly on the African studies department there.

In any event lets get to the crux of the matter. It's a particularly boring topic for me at this point because I've dealt with it extensively at least twice on this blog, but for the sake of The Wager, I'll deal with it once again.

A good many people in "black consciousness" circles, think that because they read a book, they understand what it is they read. Many times, their discussions of racism, etc, are verbatum repeats of that which they read. Sad but true. In any case, the newest thing on the block is the "There is no such thing as race" concept. It's a cute social notion that attempts to erase racism, by erasing race itself. The logic here is if race does not exist then racism is stupid. This is kind of Jr High logic. It's kind of like the "see no evil" concept. If I willfully ignore what's in front of me, then it doesn't exist (and the world is all good).

The recent basis for this claim is the product of the Human Genome project. In which it was found that people are 99.9% the same in genetic make up. The logic also goes that since we are so alike, we can't be different. Since the average American has not gotten past High School biology class ( only 25% of adults in the US currently have a college degree) and the few that have, have taken general biology in college they really are not in a position to really understand and dissect the information that these news reports in popular news prints actually mean. However; Somehow they see themselves as experts in the field (For the sake of disclosure my degree is in biology). So since most people have really no clue as to what these human genome project data means, I'll repeat my analysis of one of the latest reports on the subject. I wrote:

Well according to Francis Collins a new analysis of of the human genome reveals that there are between 20,000 and 25,000 genes in humans. .1 % of whic [sic] would be 2000 genes. That's a whole lot of genes given that a mutation in just one of them could result in something like sickle cell.



if [sic] we took the lower number of genes (20,000) the "difference" between "races" would be the equivalent to the genetic difference between humans and C. elegans, a worm or a mustard plant. So clearly the fact that humans are so genetically close does not absolve the fact that even such closelness can contain massive differences. And if that number doesn't tickle you, consider that there are 3 Billion + Chemicals that make up DNA and .1% of that is 3 million. That's a whole lot of difference.

Anyway let me get to the meat of the subject here. Instead of using the term "race" lets toss it as if it never existed. Also, instead of discussing humans, lets talk about dogs. Now when people are dealing with dogs, they have no problem talking about different breeds of dog. We see the film 101 Dalmations and no one says: "But they're all dogs!!". We see white dogs with black spots and we know we've seen a Dalmation. If we take a trip to the American Kennel Club (AKC): We find numerous pages on "breeds" of dog. Since I mentioned the German Shepherd here's the page for it:

http://www.akc.org/breeds/german_shepherd_dog/

Since I mentioned a Poodle, here's the page for it:

http://www.akc.org/breeds/poodle/

Both the German Shepherd and the Poodle have the same scientiic taxonomy:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Canidae

Genus: Canis

Species: familiaris

So if they are of the same species (just like humans), why is it they can be classified by their looks?After all there all the same species right? Who cares if they can reproduce themselves, they are all dogs. Stop the dog racism! Let me point the reader to an article entitled: Genomic Differences Between Dog Breeds. It's a nice article which, if one is scientifically challenged, may be confusing so I'll point out the "plain english" portions for the reader:

This work demonstrates a significant amount of variation that you can see between individual dogs at the genomic level," says Kirkness, lead investigator of the project, funded by TIGR...



The dog is a unique genomics model. Through selective breeding of dogs, humans have created the highest degree of physical and behavioral differences seen within a species. Roughly 400 dog breeds exist, with specific breeds predisposed to heart disease, cancer, blindness, deafness and other common disorders. Identifying genes responsible for diseases or physical traits may be easier to do in dogs that have been genetically selected.

So these same scientists, who want to tell you and I that there are "no races" of humans will tell us about 400 "specific" breeds of dog even though all these dogs are of the same species. Shocking! How contradictory!

So getting back to The Wager, we have determined, with our dog example that animals of the same species can,in fact have physical properties that are determined by differing genes. So now why is it different with humans? Well it's not. Here is the lower end of the Taxonomy of humans:

Hominidae (great apes and human)

Pongo

Pongo pygmaeus (orangutan)

Pongo pygmaeus abelii (Sumatran orangutan)

Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus (Bornean orangutan)

Gorilla

Gorilla gorilla (gorilla)

Gorilla gorilla beringei (mountain gorilla)

Gorilla gorilla gorilla (lowland gorilla)

Gorilla gorilla graueri

Pan (chimpanzee)

Pan paniscus (pygmy chimpanzee)

Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee; common chimpanzee)

Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii

Pan troglodytes troglodytes

Pan troglodytes verus

Homo

Homo sapiens (human)

We are Homo sapiens sapiens.

Being animals with genes like all other animals we are subject to the same rules as any other animal. Of particular interest to The Wager is that we have certain traits that are observable and can be passed on to our progeny if that trait is determined by our genes. There are "obvious" traits like skin color, hair texture, eye shape and nose shape. If each of these traits were simply random occurences then we'd see the same exact population diversity everywhere.Nigeria would be full of blond headed people with straight, slightly curly, really curly and tight (N*@$! naps) hair. There would be red heads all over Nigeria too. Not only that, but Nigeria would be full of people with varied skin tones from the whitest to the "blackest". All the populations would be represented equally because any trait would equal and have an equal chance of showing up in offspring. In fact All over the world there would be equal populations of all types of people. Kind of like a NYC subway. But it's not.

No, instead we see that there are people in Africa that have the same general characteristics that is, very dark skin, wholly hair and general thick lips. There are currently areas in Africa where this generality does not hold. the reason for this is due to the history of invasion of North Africa and East Africa and the consequent interbreeding. Now how do we know that this is a particular race? Well let's go back to the dogs. Even though they are all of the same species, they are identifiable as a distinct sub group. This subgroup, no different than Poodles and German Shepherds will breed and reproduce themselves with progeny that have the same general physical characteristics just like two Poodles and two German Shepherds. Similarly in Europe you have light skinned people (light?). with straight hair and an interesting extreme: the blonde. The blonde is a known genetic recessive. blond hair and blue eyed people are genetic recessives that only show up when two people carrying these genetic traits (not necessarily blonde themselves) give both recessive traits to their offspring. Again, what is important here is that you don't have Europeans (AKA: white people) producing children that are typical of say, Nigeria. Not by a long shot. Oh, yes there is great variation within that group but there are clear limits on what they can produce on their own. In fact it is entirely possible that within these group variations are other sub species of humans that can reproduce themselves reliably.

Over on the other side of the Eurasian continent (just how do we justify calling a peninsula a continent?) we find people with characteristics of "bone straight" hair, light skin and "odd" shaped eyes. Again, we find that these traits are inheritable. Again we find that there are limits to what they can produce on their own. None will produce a child that looks like an average Yoruba.

You can basically do the same thing across the globe. What usually get's people confused are hybrids. This particular confusion is especially acute in places like the US where there is a social definition of "race" that is contradictory to genetics. So example in the US. anyone with "one drop" of African blood is "black" unless that African blood is sourced from North Africa. Got that? And "white" is anyone without any African blood, or "African blood" sourced from North Africa. Had that logic been applied to our German Shepherd example then had we bred a Poodle with a German Shepherd, the result would be a German Shepherd. Now the AKC wouldn't have it, but the social contruct of race as played out in the US if applied would make it so.

Now for me, I'm all for the dismantling of the social concept of race as is practiced in the US. In fact the scientific concept of race utterly destroys the social concept of race.

So in summary Michael Fisher, to be lauded for his desire to end the system of White Supremacy (as defined by Neely Fuller Jr. and expounded upon by the likes of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing), simply does a disservice to his comrads and the cause itself by putting out patently false information based on his complete lack of understanding of genetics and confusing the social concept of race with the genetic definition.

It is now 9:15 AM on Monday morning. No paypal deposit has reached my inbox so I'll have to assume then that Michael Fisher was unwilling to put his money where his mouth was. That really reflects badly on him.