January 2, 2012

Evolution of African American genes

Nicholas Wade, who is retiring from the New York Times, has an NYT article on recent evolution among African-Americans since arriving in the New World. The most obvious is for a decrease in the sickle cell gene variant, because the worst kind malaria is much less of a problem here, so the crude and dangerous sickle cell defense is overkill. 

There is tentative evidence for evolution of more defenses against influenza -- in general, blacks had a hard time surviving in the North due to respiratory tract infections, which is one reason slavery faded out in the North, which something they ought to teach you when you study the Civil War. 

There is some arguable evidence for selection in a direction associated with particular African-American medical problems, such as hypertension and prostate cancer. Presumably, there were more than offsetting benefits. Prostate cancer correlates somewhat with higher levels of male hormones and hormone receptors, which (and this is a real stretch) might suggest that something (whether medical, climate, social, or cultural) in New World or North American environments was selecting for more masculinity among black men (or selecting for something else for which the cost was higher prostate cancer rates).

The chain of evidence for my surmise is extremely tenuous, but might go some way toward explaining a little bit about how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity.

215 comments:

1 – 200 of 215   Newer›   Newest»
Anonymous said...

"but might go some way toward explaining a little bit about how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity"

Global Jewish media helped some.
Besides, American white males were also more likely to be global icons. It's the reach of Hollywood. Bruce Willis is no more masculine than Gerard Depardieu but whereas the latter was starring in art films Willis was doing DIE HARD.
Media power means a lot. Chinese are a small people, but the vibrant Hong Kong cinema made Bruce Lee into an international star. Africa has tons of tough mofos but no big media with global reach.
But most French athletic stars seem to be from Africa.

Son of Brock Landers said...

Jimmy the Greek called. He wants his logic back.

How much of the Harvard geneticist's pooh-poohing of the results from the Shanghai team is because it is not in the PC narrative and how much is because it is a Chinese team doing this research that the PC world of Harvard would never allow to be initiated?

Anonymous said...

Prostate cancer correlates somewhat with higher levels of male hormones and hormone receptors, which (and this is a real stretch) might suggest that something (whether medical, climate, social, or cultural) in New World or North American environments was selecting for more masculinity among black men.

OH. MY. GOD.

You just had to say it, didn't you?

May we assume that Komment Kontrol will approve the 25,000-word dissertation on the subject that Whiskey is even now furiously typing away at his keyboard?!?

PS: Bonus points to anyone who submits their Whiskey-parody before Whiskey finishes typing.

Anonymous said...

"The chain of evidence for my surmise is extremely tenuous, but might go some way toward explaining a little bit about how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity."

Maybe that is the flynn effect, that the genes for such exist in Africa, but due to poor nutrition and squalid conditions caused in no small part by runaway hypergamy they can not express themselves.

Anonymous said...

Now that explains Michael Jackson.

ELVISNIXON.com said...

PBS recently aired a "documentary" that claimed that we all evolved from the natives of the subcontinent of India.

How does that factoid fit in with this paradigm?

Anonymous said...

Most of these sites harbored genes of unknown function, but one, of European origin, holds a gene that combats influenza, suggesting it has become more common in African-Americans by conferring protection from the disease.

Be pretty cool to see this done with American Indians and Mestizos, given that selection among them for European disease resistant variants must have been a lot more intense.

Anonymous said...

recent evolution among African-Americans since arriving in the New World.



Is that really evolution in action, or just genetic drift caused by mixing with the white gene pool? I rather suspect it's the latter.

Anonymous said...

One thing I noticed in Olympics past. Both Cuba and Brazil have lots of blacks. Cuban athletes have been almost entirely black; the communist government was out to win medals and took no chances; it acknowledged black athletic prowess and harnessed it fully.

But many Brazilian athletes--even in basketball--have been white. In volleyball, Cuba vs Brazil was essentially black vs white.
In Cuba, the state chose and trained the best athletes whereas in Brazil those who could afford to play certain sports dominated the upper ranks. The exception is of course soccer since anyone can play. Even so, Brazilian soccer seems less black than it actually could/should be.

Anonymous said...

Chinese scientists did the research. Would any Americans have dared?

Peter

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

"There is tentative evidence for evolution of more defenses against influenza -- in general, blacks had a hard time surviving in the North due to respiratory tract infections, which is one reason slavery faded out in the North, which [is] something they ought to teach you when you study the Civil War."

Two reasons they will never teach it: 1) it suggests that blacks are physically inferior in some way - their inability to handle respiratory viruses; 2) it suggests that Yankees didn't reject slavery simply because they were moral giants.

What needs to be stressed when discussing the Civil War and American slavery is that it was merely a continuation of something that had been taking place for eons since the birth of civilization, not some uniquely American evil.

Anonymous said...

@Captain Jack Aubrey

The post-Viking Scandinavians and WASPS of the North would shy away from such brutal practices, the borderland Scots of the South, not so much.

Anonymous said...

Why would slaveowners who used slaves for hard physical labor select for more masculine traits? I can't think of a single reason.

-osvaldo M.

Anonymous said...

It's the reach of Hollywood. Bruce Willis is no more masculine than Gerard Depardieu but whereas the latter was starring in art films Willis was doing DIE HARD.
Media power means a lot. Chinese are a small people, but the vibrant Hong Kong cinema made Bruce Lee into an international star.


Good point. A lot of Hollywood male stars are short and not that masculine or imposing in real life, e.g. Tom Cruise, Stallone, etc.

rec1man said...

@Elvis Nixon, the DNA, points to evolution of Homo Sapiens in Africa , 200k years ago, and migration to India along the southern coastal route, 75k years ago.

From 75k onwards, until the end of the ice age, most humans were stuck in India due to climate and the north west route was blocked by Neanderthals until 45k years ago

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/11/03/modern-humans-wandered-out-of-africa-via-arabia/

Anonymous said...

"about how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity."

Who is this, I wonder? The last one I can think of was Mike Tyson back in the 1980's. American athletes like LeBron James and such as simply unknown to the rest of the World for the simple reason that the World doesen't care about American sports. So I only object on the basis that you used the word "global". Will Smith? No one thinks of him as an icon of masculinity. More like a funny/goofy guy who is likable. I cannot think of any American black man who is an INTERNATIONAL icon of masculinity. Maybe UFC light-heavyweight champion, Jon Jones? But even though MMA is growing fast, it is still a pay-per-view afair so the only non-Americans who know Jon Jones are affluent guys who happen to love MMA, and that is a small demographic. The last time I checked, the current icon of American movies in "macho" roles is a 170 lbs teenage boy with 14" arms called Taylor Lautner, who for whatever reasons is considered "muscular" by American audiences. Pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 1/2/12 1:22 PM

Look to music, not sports. Rappers like 50 Cent and the like (at least among young people).

Anonymous said...

"The post-Viking Scandinavians and WASPS of the North would shy away from such brutal practices, the borderland Scots of the South, not so much."

Southern Americans aren't any more violent than those from other parts of the country. Furthermore, I can't believe you use slavery as the single example to establish such a pattern. Assuming that slave holders were largely Scots was your first mistake. Your second was ignoring the violence of union members who were dominant in the North.

Anonymous said...

"The post-Viking Scandinavians and WASPS of the North would shy away from such brutal practices, the borderland Scots of the South, not so much."

The point was lost on you, wasn't it? Slavery did not exist in a vacuum in the American South. The North did experiment with slavery, and benefited heavily from the trade of slaves. Yes, the South had a more widespread system due to climate and land, but is trading in slaves really morally superior to using the slaves?

Also, it wasn't unheard for a planter in the South to have roots in the North. And there was a heavy Jewish presence in the financing of the slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was a worldwide phenomenon with plenty of blame to go around.

At least in my neck of the South, the slave owners tended to be of English origin, rather than Scots-Irish. I would guess that the Scots-Irish were far more often tenants or small farmers rather than slave owners throughout the South.

MaMu1977 said...

Lol at Osvaldo M.

As a black man whose experiences with meeting African (born) people has always been tainted by the realisation that (regardless of their financial circumstances at birth) they're shorter and smaller than African-Americans and Caribbean-born black people(never mind white people or Asians raised in western countries)... Do I *really* need to go on?

Anonymous said...

"Jimmy the Greek called. He wants his logic back."

100,000s of yrs of evolution in Africa had far greater impact than 100s of yrs of breeding in the New World.
Besides, my guess is white plantation owners preferred healthy but docile blacks over aggressive ones.

Anonymous said...

You do know that those who are diagnosed with prostate cancer frequently have lower levels of testosterone? Once the cancer is there, however, testosterone can help the tumor grow larger.

Anonymous said...

"Will Smith? No one thinks of him as an icon of masculinity."

It's all relative. He's more masculine than most Hollywood pretty boys.

The Observer said...

This is probably a little bit off topic.. but there’s a very interesting Norwegian TV documentary called ‘Hjernevask’ (Brainwash) which focuses on the political correct bias that exist within certain ‘scientific research’ communities in Norway. The host of the show Norwegian TV comedian Harald Eia, brilliantly exposes the lack of honest and critical research methods employed by some of these pseudo-scientists, and their unwillingness to acknowledge the importance of biology when trying to explain differences such IQ, race etc.

Most of the Norwegian ‘scientists’ interviewed in this documentary claim that individual differences are a result of environmental factors (the nurture theory).

Anyway the documentary which consists of 7 clips (roughly 40 min each) is subtitled in English and can be watched at the MRCTV.org website.

Here’s the link to the first episode which deals with gender equality.

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/brainwashing-norway-part-1-gender-equality

Enjoy
The Observer

Dentist Zhivago said...

"Why would slaveowners who used slaves for hard physical labor select for more masculine traits? I can't think of a single reason."

Generally, slave owners didn't care about such things. Every slave--unless really gimpy--was valuable as labor-to-be-used or labor-to-be-sold. So, a slave owner wanted all his slaves to have lots of kids.

Another thing. Southern agriculture was productive, and so it could feed lots of slaves, which means even relatively weaker blacks had enough to eat and have lots of chillun. In Africa where food was scarcer and men had to prove their mettle with valour in battle and skill hunting(more dangerous than cotton picking), weaker blacks got weeded out.

Anonymous said...

"Chinese scientists did the research. Would any Americans have dared?"

Americans do research like this all the time but explain it in another way.

Defeated said...

Black people are strong. Look at basketball players. The white guys look like they grew too tall and their muscles never caught up to their bones. The black players' proportions are like soccer players except they are 6'5"

Waiter Zhivago said...

"it suggests that Yankees didn't reject slavery simply because they were moral giants."

Northerners could afford to be moral giants since there were few blacks in the North. It's like it's easy to say 'save the elephants' if there are no elephants in your backyard trampling on everything.

I used to say 'leave the coyotes alone' until one ate my cat. I still feel for coyotes but can't get over the anger over my cat. I guess the coyote was just being hungry, but I couldn't help but take it personally.

Anonymous said...

The last paragraph cries out for Whiskey wisdom.

Anonymous said...

PBS recently aired a "documentary" that claimed that we all evolved from the natives of the subcontinent of India.

Thats bye bye Out of Africa then.

Anonymous said...

"Is that really evolution in action, or just genetic drift caused by mixing with the white gene pool? I rather suspect it's the latter."

Mixing with the white gene pool is evolution in action.

Anonymous said...

many Brazilian athletes--even in basketball--have been white. In volleyball, Cuba vs Brazil was essentially black vs white.
In Cuba, the state chose and trained the best athletes whereas in Brazil those who could afford to play certain sports dominated the upper ranks. The exception is of course soccer since anyone can play. Even so, Brazilian soccer seems less black than it actually could/should be




"Should", based on what?

Anonymous said...

:"The post-Viking Scandinavians and WASPS of the North would shy away from such brutal practices, the borderland Scots of the South, not so much."
Assuming that slave holders were largely Scots was your first mistake. Your second was ignoring the violence of union members who were dominant in the North.

The Scots-Irish tended to settle the uplands, where slavery ownership ranged from low to nonexistent, which is why many of those counties are all-white today.

Anonymous said...

So when you combine the material discussed in the NYT african gene article with the points below you must conclude that:

Blacks benefitted from slavery!

1) Jimmy the Greek Theory: Slave-owners selected for larger and more robust bodies and elevated testosterone producing physical supermen (Dwight Howard?) who can "fly" through the air while simultaneously possessing huge arms and shoulders.
2) IQ was boosted by at least 12 points from 73 (avg african) to 85 (avg african-american).

And some have the audacity to propose reparations for slavery? Let me get this straight: white American should have to pay reparations because they virtually have no chance of playing in the NBA, NFL, or any other black-dominated sport..

Anonymous said...

Prostate cancer correlates somewhat with higher levels of male hormones and hormone receptors, which (and this is a real stretch) might suggest that something (whether medical, climate, social, or cultural) in New World or North American environments was selecting for more masculinity among black men.


Meh.

a) Blacks do have higher rates of prostate cancer than do whites, yes, but they also suffer from a wide variety of other pathologies at a higher rate than whites.

b) Studies which have attempted to measure hormone levels in men have been inconclusive as to whether any race has greater testosterone levels than others. Some have found higher levels of male hormones in black men. Others have found higher levels of female hormones in black men.

c) It is not correct that "prostate cancer correlates somewhat with higher levels of male hormones and hormone receptors". It was believed for many years that such was the case, but recent research has debunked this notion.


For example ..

Anonymous said...

The chain of evidence for my surmise is extremely tenuous, but might go some way toward explaining a little bit about how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity.


In America black men have become "pop culture icons of masculinity" but that's a media created icon, as the words "pop culture" should tell you. Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find.

Anonymous said...

"Is that really evolution in action, or just genetic drift caused by mixing with the white gene pool? I rather suspect it's the latter."

What do you think evolution is?!

inb4 no true scotsman fallacy

Anonymous said...

Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find.

Wasn't there a reason for the fierce desire to keep blacks out of sport? And why the stringent anti-miscegenation laws? If they weren't considered as having any essence of masculinity, then the anti-racemixing laws should have been repealed with the freeing of the slaves and chips would fall where they may.

Whiskey said...

Anon various depictions of Blacks in the 19th and even 18th Century by writers as diverse as Arthur Conan Doyle, the Dumas pere et fils, Jonathon Swift, and others such as well, Daniel Defoe depicted Black men as extremely hardy and tough in tropical climates, aggressive, and strong.

Doyle in at least two Sherlock Holmes stories depicts Black men positively and comments favorably upon a White woman marrying a Black man. [IIRC, the Adventure of the Yellow Face and the Five Orange Pips]

Get Off My Lawn! said...

Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find.

They were certainly considered sex-crazed, unable to control their carnal appetites and prone to rape, especially of white women. This stereotype has long and deep roots in the South and is not exactly known elsewhere.

I'd call that masculinity in a twisted and destructive form. Do you disagree?

DYork said...

....might suggest that something (whether medical, climate, social, or cultural) in New World or North American environments was selecting for more masculinity among black men..

That "something" might be women. More specifically high testosterone black women in a high stress environment.

Or to turn it around it could be that like melanin content, these supposed black traits of greater masculinity might be closer to the baseline and the supposedled lesser masculinity of non-black males like less melanin content is what was selected for in other races.

Maybe more masculine White men in history were selected out for some reason. The more daring, the more fatal.

Leaving behind what are known as SWPL types, nerds, sissies, geeks, wimps, Beta males, Blogginghead's Bob Wright Democrats or Marcus Bachmann Republicans.

Non threatening go alongs.

Agathon said...

Defeated said...

Black people are strong.


I know. That's easy to see when you go to googlie images and search things like world's strongest man or Olympic weightlifting.

anony-mouse said...

The worldwide (not just American) image of African-Americans as hyper-masculine precedes Hollywood as a world force.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Johnson_(boxer)

Video Clerk Zhivago said...

"In America black men have become 'pop culture icons of masculinity' but that's a media created icon, as the words "pop culture" should tell you. Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find."

But a lot of people now accept black-as-top-icon because it seems natural(and naturally just). Many top athletes are black. Black males have boomier voices. Black males are more muscular. Blacks rule the streets and win most fights in schools. So, if the media were to honestly reflect reality, black guys SHOULD be top tough guys.

The media was slow to reflect this in the past. Since sports is real while entertainment is fantasy, blacks gained domination in sports before they did in entertainment. Blacks dominated boxing in the 60s and 70s, but most boxing movies were about whites.
Though blacks are faster than whites, Roger Moore outran blacks in LIVE AND LET DIE. Lots of movies have tiny Bruce Lee beat up a whole bunch of white and black guys. And women kick butt in movies too. Movies can fantasize about anything. In LOVE STORY, a wasp beats most Jews in law school and graduates near the top of his class.

Since whites lost in sports and streets, they maintaineded their dominance in entertainment. As Muhammad Ali said to Ebert about ROCKY II, 'they beat me in the movies cuz they couldn't beat me in the ring'. And working in a video store in the 80s and 90s, I must say most porn up to the 80s had flabby hairy Jewish guys as top studs. And then top studs became Negroes. (Since most renters of interracial stuff were white males, I figured they too made peace with the new reality.)

But as time wore on, especially with rap music, black dominance in football/basketball, the ice-breaking movie JUNGLE FEVER, and etc, whites began to be more accepting of blacks as top male icons. Not just in sports and pop music but in movies as well.

After all, if a Hollywood movie gave us Guillermo or Patel as action hero, people wouldn't be much excited. But if it's a black guy, people woud flock to see the stud-hero with tough look, commanding voice, hard muscles, etc.

Anonymous said...

In America black men have become "pop culture icons of masculinity" but that's a media created icon, as the words "pop culture" should tell you. Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find.

This implies that the emphasis on black virility is some top-down thing when it's clearly at the heart of black male self-image. The media didn't create Michael Jackson's moonwalk or L.L. Cool J's swagger.

Difference Maker said...

Some factors:
1. The media loves African Americans

2. Were this, for example, the Stone Age, violent controls would readily exist on behavior. The perceived antics with no repercussions going on in music videos seem to grant the actors power, whereas reality is a little bit different.

eh said...

The most obvious is for a decrease in the sickle cell gene variant, because the worst kind malaria is much less of a problem here, so the crude and dangerous sickle cell defense is overkill.

So what would be the mechanism here? Presumably the sickle cell trait became relatively widespread due to positive selection -- it conferred an advantage. But off the top of my head I don't see why, just because the selection force is less prevalent, that the prevalence of the gene (trait) will necessarily decrease. Especially with modern medical science helping ensure that even those with the worst kind of sickle cell disease survive, on average, well into their reproductive years.

Defeated said...

A little while ago it was on the news that red haired men are considered the ugliest in the world! I'm glad they presumed we could take it. I wonder if they would have published it if the results came up differently.
It doesn't really hurt my feelings that people were honest. Im sure it is not the red hair that is off-putting but the pasty, freckled, almost translucent skin that goes with it. Maybe SCIENCE will find a drug to make me darker, more attractive and cure melanoma to boot.
The only way they will find that drug is to study the differences between me and those with a native tan. Squeamishness about differences is probably more detrimental to discovery than we think.

Anonymous said...

It's time we scientize the naming of the races. Before we understood genetics and DNA, we named races according to region--Caucasus--, skin color--Negroid--, or particular ethnicity--Mongoloid.

But skin color is misleading. After all, many Asian-Indians are black-skinned. And some East Asians are lighter skinned than some whites like Greeks and Italians.
Using regions is crude. After all, Northern Africa is mostly non-black.

So, races should be named after certain particularities of their DNA. What is a genetic code(or series of codes)in the white race that is non-existent or rare in non-whites? Then, the white race should be named after that code.

That should get to the heart of the matter.

SFG said...

"Studies which have attempted to measure hormone levels in men have been inconclusive as to whether any race has greater testosterone levels than others. Some have found higher levels of male hormones in black men. Others have found higher levels of female hormones in black men."

Why not both? The body makes female hormones out of male hormones, after all. Masculine-feminine isn't a linear variable like height; I'd say both jocks and geeks represent different types of masculinity. There aren't a lot of great female warriors OR software engineers, but you rarely see those two together in the same person.

You down with OPP said...

If American Black men are more masculine than there African counterparts, that is a fascinating turn of events. How would the plantation system have created that? One would think servility was selected for, not masculinity.

On the other hand, in a plantation, how were families formed? Since all babies would be taken care of, presumably the only issue was who could father the most, which might have encouraged more hyper-masculine genes in the population.

Still down with OPP said...

However, I do wonder if the "masculinity" of American Blacks isn't hyped. A few decades ago, blacks were definitely not the image of manhood in America, but then we may have defined manhood differently in those days.

Manhood was a matter of courage and responsibility. It seems like in professions that demand those qualities (special forces) Whites are still way overrepresented. But if we mean something more of a testosterone drenched street level thing, well that is something else.

But I would say American black men have been perceived as stronger and in possession of a more primal masculinity for a while. But not what we used to call the more civilized version.

Anonymous said...

about how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity.

Who is this, I wonder? The last one I can think of was Mike Tyson back in the 1980's. American athletes like LeBron James and such as simply unknown to the rest of the World for the simple reason that the World doesen't care about American sports. So I only object on the basis that you used the word "global".

The NBA has a good deal of international appeal, so superstars like LeBron and Kobe are known in many other countries. Whether they are regarded as paragons of masculinity is another matter. While basketball is a physically demanding sport, it's my impression that superstars are known more as super-skilled technicians than for their sheer masculine power.

Now, if you want a sport that's absolutely full of testosterone-dripping masculinity, nothing in the world comes close to football. Of course football's profile outside the United States is relatively low.

Peter

Anonymous said...

Yeah let's make sure northern whites and southern whites have something to argue about. Wouldn't want whitey getting united. The next step'd be whitey getting uppity.

Anonymous said...

This implies that the emphasis on black virility is some top-down thing when it's clearly at the heart of black male self-image.


I neither know nor care what is at the heart of black male self-image. But other peoples image of black men is clearly fashioned by the media. The current view among whites of blacks as being exceptionally masculine is of very recent origin.

I'm pretty sure that men in general see themselves as possessing virility. I know I do. And in fact men in general do possess virility. It's part of being men.

Anonymous said...

Now, if you want a sport that's absolutely full of testosterone-dripping masculinity, nothing in the world comes close to football.


Oh, please. Take off your nancy-boy protective gear and play rugby, a real mans game.

Anonymous said...

They were certainly considered sex-crazed, unable to control their carnal appetites and prone to rape, especially of white women.


I'd call that masculinity in a twisted and destructive form. Do you disagree?


I agree. But "masculinity in a twisted and destructive form" is not exactly "true masculinity", is it? When people worship the alleged "masculinity" of black men it's not really masculinity they are admiring, but something close to its opposite.

The most sexually promiscuous of all men are homosexuals. But I don't suppose you'd argue that gay men embody pure masculinity on that basis. Because being sex-crazed and unable (or unwilling) to control ones carnal appetites is emphatically not a masculine trait. It may be a male trait, but it's one which men are supposed to be able to control. To be unable to do so marks one out as being less than a man, not more than a man.

jody said...

as far as i can tell the most important factor is continuing to slowly and steadily become more european. it's not happening that fast, but it is happening steadily. steve has written before about the mulatto elite and i think that's accurate. mixed race people will pick up gene expression from various groups, which they wouldn't have had otherwise.

i do wonder how much effect the west african slave trade had on black americans in the US. they are, by far, the biggest, most athletic group of africans. i've said before, if you take them out of international sports, there aren't tons of africans left at the highest levels of play in most sports.

there has to have been SOME eugenic effect of surviving slaving in north america. for instance, the europeans in south africa have brought first world food and medicine and training and sports opportunity to south africans, yet the europeans are still better athletes by a big margin. they're only 8% or 9% of the population but most of the best guys in most sports are still dutch, not south african natives.

the fastest track sprinters, best boxers, rugby players, tennis players, swimmers, golfers are almost all european. they're less interested in soccer, and the south african national soccer team, which appeared to be 10 out of 11 starters african, bombed at the world cup - the first host nation national team to ever not advance out of pool play. there are 35 million of them or so, given as much opportunity as any africans in africa, and they sucked.

jody said...

and, as jack aubrey points out, slaving was normal around the world for thouands of years among most groups. who knows how many europeans were slaves. maybe a few of my ancestors were slaves 1000 years ago. slave descendents are walking around europe right now by the millions - you just can't tell simply by looking at them.

yet there aren't similar eugenic results from slaving around the world, as far as i know. in no instance of slaving, did the slaves become a lot bigger and stronger and faster over 5 generations than their ancestors.

egyptians, aztecs, romans, nigerians, greeks, incans, slavers all. but where are the slave descendents now?

Anonymous said...

Anon various depictions of Blacks in the 19th and even 18th Century by writers as diverse as Arthur Conan Doyle, the Dumas pere et fils, Jonathon Swift, and others such as well, Daniel Defoe depicted Black men as extremely hardy and tough in tropical climates, aggressive, and strong


a) Aggressive and strong does not equal masculine, you fairy Scotch-Irishman.

b) It's a curious fact of history that these supposedly "aggressive and strong" blacks were subjugated by every people who came in contact with them.

The Tartars were aggressive and strong. The Vikings were aggressive and strong. The Normans were aggressive and strong. The Romans were aggressive and strong. Black men? Not so much, no.

Anonymous said...

Mixing with the white gene pool is evolution in action.


No, it is not. Not all genetic change is evolution. Evolution denotes a specific type of genetic change, accomplished in a particular way. Evolution works through mutations, advantageous mutations which become widespread in a population.

Anonymous said...

"Is that really evolution in action, or just genetic drift caused by mixing with the white gene pool? I rather suspect it's the latter."


What do you think evolution is?!



I think that evolution is evolution. It's not the same thing as genetic mixing. Consult a scientific text if you're still unclear on this point.

Anonymous said...

no true scotsman fallacy


What a maroon!

RKU said...

The chain of evidence for my surmise is extremely tenuous, but might go some way toward explaining a little bit about how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity.

Excellent point. And using the same reasoning, we can also find some additional signs of recent and very strong selective pressure. For example, over the same two or three generations, American blacks...er, African-Americans, have also become the national and international cultural exemplars of intelligence, honesty, and general saintliness, to such an extent that even a totally unqualified such individual can be immediately catapulted into the White House.

Such extremely rapid changes in general population tendencies and behavior implies an astonishingly rapid degree of genetic transformation, being perhaps the fastest on record. Certainly the white Americans of a century ago would be astonished at just how rapidly their black fellow citizens generally became the geniuses and heroes we all know and worship from movies and television. Genetics is an endlessly fascinating science.

agnostic said...

Men from horticultural societies haven't earned cultural fame hardly anywhere, whether they're from Africa, Polynesia, Central America, or Amazonia (unless you count their cameo at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark).

In those societies, they're basically parasites that sponge off of women, who do the productive work. They spend their free time beating each other up and raiding for wives.

They do make cool-looking war paint displays, but that's about it. They don't export narratives or mythology, nor music -- globally successful black music comes from places where they mixed with whites, whether America, the Caribbean, or Brazil.

Most of the European genetic admixture in black Americans looks like it comes from pastoralist country: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, etc. The surnames of Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy seem to support that. Martin Luther King's paternal line came from Ireland.

Among pastoralists, men do most of the productive work, i.e. tending and guarding the herds, and raiding for more livestock. Those groups have the highest paternal contribution to the subsistence of offspring, since the children are mostly eating dairy, meat, and maybe animal blood, from the livestock that their father and his male kinfolk secure.

So they probably got a good dose of genes for working hard and striving to earn fame, compared to their African counterparts. But not in the back-breaking, soulless way of agriculturalists (which explains why the Chinese don't export their culture).

Instead they picked it up from people who are restless, ornery, practical joke players, gregarious, and hooked on music and dancing, like most other animal-herding groups are.

RAH said...

Here’s the link to the first episode which deals with gender equality.

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/brainwashing-norway-part-1-gender-equality


That's great! Where are the rest of these?

Jacob Roberson said...

Anonymous said...
The Scots-Irish tended to settle the uplands, where slavery ownership ranged from low to nonexistent, which is why many of those counties are
white and indian today.

FTFY

Port said...

Higher levels of prenatal testosterone exposure are correlated with more masculine features, both physical (strong jaw, small eyes, etc.) and psychological/behavioral (aggression, relative preference for objects over people, etc). Interestingly, it is also correlated with finger length ratios and prostate cancer. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11880415)

I agree with the comments that slave owners would not be particularly interested in creating more masculine male slaves - and that if anything, they would rather more docile.

So how did they end up with more masculine male slaves? They had a preference for stronger, more masculine, female slaves. They selected for female slaves with higher testosterone, which has the effect of increasing prenatal T exposure for the men, which makes them more masculine and prostate cancer prone.

The differences between the masculinity of white and AA women are much more pronounced than the masculinity of white men, AA men.

My theory would be validated, in part,if the following is true: AA women are more masculine than their West African counterparts. Are they?

Jacob Roberson said...

Anonymous said...
It's time we scientize the naming of the races. So, races should be named after certain particularities of their DNA. What is a genetic code(or series of codes)in the white race that is non-existent or rare in non-whites? Then, the white race should be named after that code.

That should get to the heart of the matter.


Oh yes, me me. I want to be a CAC-ACC-ACC-GAG-G-G-GAC-American. Am I a strangler-American or a strangling-American? I can't tell just from the sound of myself. Parentally passed-along peristaltic palsy, is that the defining character of my race?

Anonymous said...

"Even so, Brazilian soccer seems less black than it actually could/should be."

In soccer everyone except for the goalkeepers and the 2 or 3 substitutes runs for 45 minutes straight, takes a 15 minute break, then runs for another 45 minutes. Endurance is important. If one team is significantly more tired than the other during the last 10 minutes if the game, the tired team will likely lose. West Africans are natural sprinters. On average they seem to be worse than whites in endurance. Most soccer stars are white, though blacks are also represented. One advantage blacks have is unpredictability. Imagine a black guy with the ball, facing a defender. He very, very quickly fakes left, right, left, right. The defender can't keep up with the fakes, is confused, commits to a random side, the black guy then moves to the opposite side. They seem to have a talent for this. It's a particular kind of quickness. Notice that rapping can also be very fast. It's unbelievably shallow, so quick-witted is a very, very wrong term for it, but the improvised flow of words sure can be very fast, as can be their improvised dancing.

Obviously, in soccer as in everything else whites have an advantage in disciplined teamwork and delayed gratification. The 10-second plays of American football can be diagrammed by a handful of coaches. The 45-minute expanses of continuous play of soccer could not be planned ahead by modern chess computers. Almost all the relevant decisions are taken by the players themselves in real time. Those decisions cannot be too selfish. Unlike in basketball, a single player cannot create and then take advantage of his own scoring opportunities all by himself very often. Usually lots of people have to make lots of unselfish passes for anyone to have any chance of scoring down the line. Delayed gratification, self-identification with a team.

Anonymous said...

"No, it is not. Not all genetic change is evolution. Evolution denotes a specific type of genetic change, accomplished in a particular way. Evolution works through mutations, advantageous mutations which become widespread in a population."

Since you're dying for the textbook, evolution also includes geographic isolation, diverging and converging populations, competition, and climatic effects. Your view is no more "adult" than mine. I bet you think genetics is as simple as the A-T C-G rules you learned in the 9th grade, too.
You're telling me that "blacks" have gained no genetic advantage in picking up "white" genes? That's not evolution in progress?

Any commentary out there on how an increasingly genetically "white" population still manages to hang on to the benefits of a one drop rule in government largesse?

Anonymous said...

"how some African-Americans wound up as global pop culture icons of masculinity."

Actually, I think it would be far more accurate if you took out the "some". No black individuals have really become icons of manhood, but West Africans as a whole have, with the ongoing image that black men are tougher, better at sports and more sexually appealing than men of other races.

From my physically experience, though, blacks are(muscular, hairy, deep voice, long schlong), but are about average as personality-wise. The "token black dad" in sitcoms tends to be a goofier version of the white dads, and R&B, of course, has a distince feminine side.

Defeated said...

If they were both in their prime, who would win in a fistfight, Christine Jorgensen or RuPaul?

Port said...

I mean, it's probably more useful to a slave owner to have female slaves able to lift 100 pounds than it is to have male slaves who can lift 400. That is, getting the female slaves to be able to do the normal work done by men is more beneficial than getting the male slaves able to do unusually strength intensive work.

rec1man said...

@Anon wrote - What is a genetic code(or series of codes)in the white race that is non-existent or rare in non-whites? Then, the white race should be named after that code.
--

R1B, which is the modal West European Y-DNA is also found in some African tribes

R1A, stretches from Central Europe to India

R2, stretches from Central Europe to India

J2A, stretches from Western Europe to India

, the native European Y-DNA, such as G and I are found only in 20% of Europeans

Hel said...

They probably have higher prostate cancer rates for the same reason they have higher rates of other cancers and diseases: they have more pathogens.

Paul Ewald suspected that prostate cancer would be found to have some fraction of its sufferers having an std to blame.

Chuck Rudd said...

I only read through 3/4 of the comments and don't know if my point below is commonly discussed, but there are a couple of explanations for American blacks' superior athleticism or masculinity, if that's the term you prefer.

A high percentage (I've read 30%, but that sounds a little too high)of slaves perished on the journey across the Atlantic. This essentially sped up the natural selection process by weeding out those of weaker stock.

Also, the slaves who would have been most docile and servile and intelligent would have been most likely to be chosen to work in the house rather than the field (this, of course, assumes that the plantation model was the most popular variation of slavery). In that way, the less physically robust slaves were pulled from that pool as well.

I don't know how much active breeding was done by slavemasters, but I think a few nudges here and there explain most of the difference.

Truth said...

"Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find."

Prior to the last few decades, no one used a computer either, but that didn't relegate you to sending Steve-O your response by telegraph, did it, Sport?

gcochran said...

The study took two looks at selection. First, they looked for regions of the genome that were unusually African or unusually European. The overall average was 78% African, 22% European: if you saw that a particular region was, say, 40% European, you'd be pretty sure that there had been selection since the time of admixture.

No deviation was anywhere near that large: the largest was 2.6%. Some of those anomalous regions may reflect selection - but it wasn't very strong (s < 0.002), and it can't have changed things very much.

Second, they took the African segments of the genomes and reconstructed an ancestral African population - then compared it with a model based on existing African groups. In principle this could tell you abut the impact of natural selection both before and after admixture with Europeans, unlike method 1.

They think they found hints of selection there, acting in ways that might contribute to some known disease risks in African-Americans. But this second method is shakier, since you can't be confident that the existing African groups you used for comparison are good proxies for the actual ancestry.
Moreover, the changes you are looking for are not large (since selection acted for a short period) and statistical noise could fool you. The only result I feel really confident of would be a decrease in the frequency of the sickle-cell mutation - but then, we had good reason to believe that 40 years ago. It's pretty much inevitable.

What does this work say about the manliness of African-Americans? Probably nothing. But a greater average activity level in the androgen receptor alleles found in sub-Saharan Africans probably does tell you something. Of course that has existed for a long time and has nothing to do with the slave trade.

Anonymous said...

agnostic wrote:

"But not in the back-breaking, soulless way of agriculturalists..."

The biggest net-positive contributions to civilization came, in chronological order, from Sumerians (with the Chinese and Mesoamericans independently catching up later), the Greeks, the Romans, medieval northern Italians, the French, the Germans and the English-led Brits. I think that all of these were primarily farming peoples. Sure, they all herded and hunted on the side too. BUT: exclusively pastoralist peoples (the Scythians, the Huns, the Mongols, the original (not modern) Turks, the original Bedouin Arabs, the Manchu, the Dinka) have all been either irrelevant or catastrophically destructive to civilization. You do most likely have a point in calling them more macho, on average, than their exclusively-farming or farming-herding cousins. But lots of species besides our own can be aggressive. It is complex culture, civilization that makes humans remarkable and determines which are the most remarkable humans.

Kylie said...

"'Now, if you want a sport that's absolutely full of testosterone-dripping masculinity, nothing in the world comes close to football."


Oh, please. Take off your nancy-boy protective gear and play rugby, a real mans game."


This, from Anonymous. Irony abounds.

Anonymous said...

"I think that evolution is evolution. It's not the same thing as genetic mixing. Consult a scientific text if you're still unclear on this point."

There's that no true Scotsman fallacy!

I like how I predicted your comment completely, in public, and you were too stupid to understand so you made exactly the basic logical error I knew you would.

Good stuff.

LOFTY stuff.

TGGP said...

n/a on testosterone.

Anonymous said...

Well, anonymous, I had to google image Taylor Lautner to see for myself just how masculine or not he was. He looks pretty darn masculine to me.

Dan B. said...

African blacks are pretty much just as masculine as Americans, I'd say. Though I don't know how you'd quantify that.

Defeated said...

Why even admire black masculinity? It has yielded so much misery - low accomplishment, abandoned children, abused women, disease and incarceration.
Even successful entertainers and athletes have tales of such horrible childhoods, you have to wonder if the can ever psychologically recover.
Those who turn their backs on it seem so much happier.
If your testosterone is getting the best of you, why not sublimate it into a daredevil masculinity like that of Charles Lindbergh or Philipe Petit and thus change and amaze the world. I think we are here to inspire not corrupt. There is a glamour to evil that the whole world finds irresistible. Black "culture" is aimed at that appetite.

The Observer said...

@ RAH said

Just scroll down on the MRCTV page, and you'll find the rest of the clips under related content on the bottom right hand side.

Anonymous said...

"Black American women seem to be a lot tougher than white women, which perhaps has something to do with the fact that black males traditionally do less work than black females."

Not in sprinting. White women(especially from Eastern Europe) are still competitive in the 100 and 200 m sprint.

Truth said...

"Oh, please. Take off your nancy-boy protective gear and play rugby, a real mans game."

This, from Anonymous. Irony abounds."

That was good, Kylie.

Ortu Kan said...

Anonymous said:

BUT: exclusively pastoralist peoples (the Scythians, the Huns, the Mongols, the original (not modern) Turks, the original Bedouin Arabs, the Manchu, the Dinka) have all been either irrelevant or catastrophically destructive to civilization.

You're wrong about the Manchus. Prior to their conquest of China, they would best be characterized as semi-pastoral (engaged in hunting, fishing, and gathering, farming, and the breeding of cattle and swine -- yes, possessing horses, but without according them the centrality they had on the steppe to their west).

As rulers of China, nonetheless, their self-conception and modes of rule were concordant in numerous respects with those of past conquerers practicing more fully-elaborated forms of pastoral nomadism.

Anonymous said...

As a Londoner who deals deals with Nigerians and other West Africans everyday, I'd say they're just as masculine and assertive as Black Americans, especially the second generation raised on Western diets and medicine.

I really don't think a few centuries of slavery had any impact on 100,000 years of natural selection.

Anonymous said...

Wade is retiring? Oh Hell! Any idea why?

Simon in London said...

Trying to think of some current or semi-current international icons of masculinity:

Daniel Craig, definitely - English

Russell Crowe, recently - Antipodean

Eh...

Jason Statham, relatively minor but talented action movie star - English

Maybe 'The Rock', wrestler/movie star - American

Back to the '80s...

Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger - American

I cannot think of a single African-American who is a current "internationally recognised icon of masculinity". If I think of internationally renowned black Americans I get Barack Obama & Tiger Woods. Tiger is not an icon of masculinity, despite his promiscuity and apparent steroid use. Then Will Smith, then... Eddie Murphy?

One thing Americans need to understand is that few American sportsmen have any name recognition outside the USA. Mike Tyson was famous; then Muhammad Ali.

Simon in London said...

"masculinity in a twisted and destructive form"

It's might be frequently destructive, but it's not twisted - it's just masculinity in the State of Nature, masculinity without Pinker's 'civilising process'. For most of human evolution it has been evolutionarily adaptive for men to be aggressive and potential rapists, just like our primate neighbours, so those traits are common among men.

Anonymous said...

"I think that evolution is evolution. It's not the same thing as genetic mixing. Consult a scientific text if you're still unclear on this point."

There's that no true Scotsman fallacy!

I like how I predicted your comment completely, in public, and you were too stupid to understand so you made exactly the basic logical error I knew you would.

Good stuff.

LOFTY stuff.


Some of the people on this post need to get back to school and/or start reading Razib.

Anonymous said...

"Black people are strong. Look at basketball players."

black folks are not that strong, basketball is a pretty fruity finesee skill based sport. Almost all strongmen are caucasian. black phenotype gives them excellent mobility and explosiveness at the cost of strength, power and aerobic performance.

"Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find."

empires who had access or contacts with black sub saharan africans didnt seem to be taken aback by their masculinity. Most ancient and middle age kingdoms in europe, mediterranean areas and middle east seems to have preferred northern europeans for their icons of masculinity especially germans, scandanavians and slavs. They were highly regarded for their masculine vigor, stature, prowess as heavy shock troops, were popular with local ladies and were generally regarded as savage and beastly.

"Wasn't there a reason for the fierce desire to keep blacks out of sport? And why the stringent anti-miscegenation laws?"

For any society that has slaves or is based on a caste sytem(e.g. India), it is a matter of necessaity to not have the lower classes mingle with the upper classes in anything, else the lower classes might move up or might lay claim on what is the property of the upper classes and that is true the world over. the same laws that were enforced on blacks would have been enforced on anyone who were the lower class, even asians or pygmies.

"From my physically experience, though, blacks are(muscular, hairy, deep voice, long schlong),"

First time i have heard blacks are hairy! Personally i have always looked like a cavemen compared to almost every black person i have met or known. As far as penis length goes most studies shows whites and blacks to be of similar size blacks having a slight advantage, while some studies show the opposite. so that means either 1. there are higher percentages of extreme sized blacks or 2. the average black is slightly longer than avreage whites.

Also researches on t-level doesn't show any big differences between blacks and whites, although in most cases blacks have slightly higher t-levels. The more recent papers that i have come across actually say that black dudes have much higher female hormone levels than other dudes, and there's a steeper decline in their t-levels as they age relative to white guys.

Anonymous said...

There's that no true Scotsman fallacy!

Is that the only thing you know how to say? You don't even say it in applicable situations, indicating that you don't even know what the "no true scotsman fallacy" actually is.



you were too stupid to understand so you made exactly the basic logical error I knew you would.


You would not recognize a logical error if one dropped out of the sky, piano style, and landed on your empty little head.

Peter Frost said...

I second Greg Cochran's comments. The only credible finding is the decline in the incidence of sickle cell anemia. Prostate cancer rates are just as high in sub-Saharan Africa. There is just more underreporting there (and men also tend to die younger there and are thus less likely to develop it).

Southern planters did not engage in weird breeding experiments. Abolitionists were horified by the high frequency of polygamy on slave plantations. They assumed that the planters were arranging it.

Anonymous said...

Black people are strong. Look at basketball players.

Why not look at Black people instead? C'mon, somebody got a cite other than "look at the guy with less subcutaneous fat, he's GOTTA be stronger!" Anybody? I've never noticed blacks to be stronger than Whites. And while all I have to go on is anecdote, at least I grew up wrestling and fighting them myself, rather than just watching basketball.

Baloo said...

Is there not a spectrum across the three big races? Both sexes being most masculine with the Congoids, less so with Caucasoids, and least so with Mongoloids? This sort of correlates with feminine neoteny.

Anonymous said...

"Oh, please. Take off your nancy-boy protective gear and play rugby, a real mans game."


This, from Anonymous. Irony abounds.


There are some dimwitted people commenting here today.

First of all, there is NO connection whatsoever between the fact that American football players wear helmets and padding while rugby players do not on the one hand, and a commenters username on the other.

Secondly, the username "Kylie" is every bit as anonymous as the username "Anonymous". In fact every person (other than Steve) who comments on this site does so anonymously. This very much includes the anonymous rocket scientist who opined that no other sport on Earth could compare to American football in terms of "testosterone-dripping masculinity"!

Anonymous said...

"Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find."


Prior to the last few decades, no one used a computer either, but that didn't relegate you to sending Steve-O your response by telegraph, did it, Sport?



Thank you for that textbook example of a non sequitur, Troot.

Anonymous said...

The differences between the masculinity of white and AA women are much more pronounced than the masculinity of white men, AA men.


No, they are not. Not unless you use some very careful and selective definitions of what is and is not "masculine". For instance, increased body fat is generally accepted to be "feminine" rather than masculine, and AA women have higher body fat percentages than do white American women. Using this criteria we could say that white women are more "masculine". Or we could look at female fertility rates and again conclude that white women are more "masculine".

Anonymous said...

yet there aren't similar eugenic results from slaving around the world, as far as i know. in no instance of slaving, did the slaves become a lot bigger and stronger and faster over 5 generations than their ancestors.

egyptians, aztecs, romans, nigerians, greeks, incans, slavers all. but where are the slave descendents now?



The unique circumstance in the American South was that the only source of new slaves was reproduction.

Anonymous said...

I don't think breeding for 'docility' is really necessary. If you are willing to be cruel, regimented, and ruthless, you can and will harness even aggressive surly men to unskilled labor. That's a known technology.

There probably will be culls, but the increased work capacity from the others may be worth it.

Kinda nasty to talk about it, but I don't think we can rule it out.

Anonymous said...

a lot of people now accept black-as-top-icon because it seems natural(and naturally just).



I think its notable that you say "naturally just". The thinking here seems to be: "We know that blacks score lower on most levels of intellectual ability, so let's award them the title of "most masculine" as compensation."

The problem there is that one of the characteristics of human males is that they possess greater intellectual ability than human females. In defining "masculinity" as being basically a dumb animal, you are attacking men and masculinity in general.

The entire "black men are more masculine" position rests on this category error. If you insist on defining "masculine" as being of low intellect, as possessing low impulse control, as being a fast runner etc etc, then by that definition black men are the most masculine. But that's a radically new, and radically anti-male, definition of masculinity. When many generations of Western parents encouraged their boys to "Be a man!", they did not mean "Be stupid and violent".


Black males are more muscular. Blacks rule the streets and win most fights in schools.


Empirically speaking, black males are not more muscular. As for who wins most fights in school, I doubt very much indeed that the typical nerdy iSteve reader has ever been in a fist-fight in his entire life.

I'm ex-Army. I've spent a considerable amount of time living around blacks. I've had black male friends, and black female girlfriends. I've been in plenty of fights with black guys. And I find the description of blacks by the readership here to have a "gorillas in the mist" quality about it. You all seem to be talking about people who you know only by myth and legend. Or by TV, which amounts to the same thing.

Anonymous said...

If you want to now why boys today are doing so badly in school, compared to the girls of today or the boys of yesterday, you only have to look at the descriptions of "masculinity" being expounded by even the supposedly conservative people who comment here on this site.

To be a real man is to flunk out of high-school! That's the message you all seem to believe. And it's one you have adapted unthinkingly from the misandrist cultural left.

G Joubert said...

I dunno. The original King Kong came out in 1933, the symbolism going on there was clear. The concept of the testosterone-filled black male being irresistible to the blond-haired blue-eyed female, myth or not, must've been already there.

candid_observer said...

Here’s the link to the first episode which deals with gender equality.

Yeah, thanks so much for these videos. They are actually documentary at its very best; they weave back and forth from one side to the other of the debate, allowing both sides a real opportunity to express their argument.

What's remarkable to me is the ability the narrator exhibits in understanding the underlying issues. He allows those who claim that the traits of interest are almost purely environmental in origin to justify as best they can their point of view. In every case, they can come up with NOTHING to support that view other than an appeal to dogma. The bankruptcy of the view couldn't be more obvious. Really, the emperor has no clothes, even given all the opportunity in the world to don some.

Anonymous said...

Re: Anonymous's comment:
"Jimmy the Greek called. He wants his logic back. 100,000s of yrs of evolution in Africa had far greater impact than 100s of yrs of breeding in the New World. Besides, my guess is white plantation owners preferred healthy but docile blacks over aggressive ones."
Steve, before you make a "tenuous stretch" on American black testosterone levels, you must quantitfy present-day African black testosterone levels, specifically those of West Africa where most of American slaves came from.

Simon in London said...

"As for who wins most fights in school, I doubt very much indeed that the typical nerdy iSteve reader has ever been in a fist-fight in his entire life. "

'I'm proud to be an Ulsterman from Belfast
A place where even nerds know how to fight..'

(To the tune of 'Okie from Muskogie')

On topic, I think there was one black pupil in my school of 1400, and she was a girl. I get the impression that the black advantage in schoolyard fights is due to more fast-twitch muscle, which is great for ambushes and short fights. White northern Europeans seem much better at 'strongman' contests, though.

Anonymous said...

Simon In London,

Try turning on MTV sometime (or at least one of its sister channels that still plays music).

You might not listen to that stuff, but the young'uns do.

New World Slavery Facts said...

The unique circumstance in the American South was that the only source of new slaves was reproduction.

This was not unique to the American South. Approximately 95% of New World African slaves were sold south of the United States, principally to Brazil and the Caribbean.

All three places had approximately the same delay (2 generations) between the (a) banning of transatlantic slave trade and (b) the abolition of slavery entirely:

* US 1807 to 1865 (58yrs)
Only the 11 southern states as the 20 northern states already abolished slavery 1777-1804

* Brazil 1810 to 1850 (40yrs)

* Cuba 1820 to 1880 (60yrs)

It's hard to believe a significant and permanent genetic selection effects could take hold in only 2 generations given the conditions of Southern American slaves
between 1807-1865.

Anonymous said...

The original King Kong came out in 1933, the symbolism going on there was clear.


You're delusional. Any symbolism exists in your own mind.

The concept of the testosterone-filled black male being irresistible to the blond-haired blue-eyed female, myth or not, must've been already there.


And you're also shockingly unfamiliar with King Kong - it was Kong who found the blond-haired blue-eyed female irresistible, not the other way around.

The notion that all sorts of animals, and even extraterrestrials, find white women to be irresistible is a variety of anthropomorphism. In actuality it is just as likely that such creatures would develop a crush on human males.

Lastly, black males are not testosterone-filled. Why do people insist on repeating this idiotic myth?

Anonymous said...

Bruce Willis is no more masculine than Gerard Depardieu but whereas the latter was starring in art films Willis was doing DIE HARD.
Gerard Depardieu starred in plenty of action thrillers. He played mostly sexist and chauvinist alpha male roles.

Baloo said...

Speak for yourself, Anonymous — I'm not anonymous. True, I use my pen name, but anybody who clicks a few time can easily find out my real name. And that is my real picture.

Marc B said...

"There is tentative evidence for evolution of more defenses against influenza"

Or the infusion of white blood into the black gene pool...

dorian said...

"Did anyone regard black men as being the essence of masculinity prior to the last few decades of media brain-washing? Not that I can find"

Actually the black African male as object of lustful female desire does have a history in the middle east, some taken straight out of Arabian Nights. There are Persian cartoons from hundreds of yrs ago (they look cartoonish anyway) illustrating those sorts of stories, replete with jests and jibes about racial differences in genitalia.
So yes, it does have some precedence. The Turks, Arabs and Persians only bought castrated black males for the most part, and mulatto children born to black women slaves were usually killed. So yes, these cultures with an ancient familiarity with black Africans, do seem to have had these beliefs.
What is new is the tendency to consider black Africans as paragons of handsomeness. Except for Ethiopians, that's new in the non-black world.

Anonymous said...

Some of the people on this post need to get back to school and/or start reading Razib.


Yeah. You can start your "reading Razib" with this thread here , where he blows a gasket in most irrational fashion at the evidence that dark skin is associated with all sorts of undesirable traits.

Anonymous said...

You're telling me that "blacks" have gained no genetic advantage in picking up "white" genes?


I'm not telling you that at all. But if picking up genes is evolution in action then every person who is born is a good example of it. I have some genes from my father, and some genes from my mother. Behold the great me, evolution in action!

The clear import of Steve's piece (The most obvious .. evidence for evolution of African American genes .. is a decrease in the sickle cell gene variant, because the worst kind of malaria is much less of a problem here, so the crude and dangerous sickle cell defense is overkill) is that African Americans are evolving and not merely that they are being absorbed into the majority white population and are taking on the genetic characteristics of whites.

It's a white conceit that "taking on the genetic characteristics of whites" constitutes evolution in action. It doesn't, really.

Matt said...

Agnostic:

They don't export narratives or mythology, nor music -- globally successful black music comes from places where they mixed with whites, whether America, the Caribbean, or Brazil.

African music has greater international success than Central Asian music.

African second generations living in the West seem to make more of a splash than second generation central Asian folk (or any herder cultures really).

The most complex folk music seems to be academically considered the music of pygmies who straddle HG and horticultural worlds.

Among pastoralists, men do most of the productive work, i.e. tending and guarding the herds, and raiding for more livestock.

So they probably got a good dose of genes for working hard and striving to earn fame, compared to their African counterparts. But not in the back-breaking, soulless way of agriculturalists (which explains why the Chinese don't export their culture).

Yes, but I think a better way of thinking about it is:

Pastoralist Men:Cattle=Horiculturalist Men:Women=Agricultural Elites:Peasants

If women are your cows, maybe you get a bit more charming (or learn how to bully them better).

As for agriculturalists, elite replacement seems like the rule in Western Europe at least. Perhaps modern descendents of agriculturalists aren't like medieval peasants, and perhaps the selective environment of the European peasantry isn't that relevant to them.

Perhaps they're like gentrified versions of medieval aristocrats?

torporify said...

Anonymous opined: "In fact every person (other than Steve) who comments on this site does so anonymously"

uh, we know that. Unless you give out your real name & contact info, you're anonymous. The names & handles are for organization. It's hard keeping track of which Anonyous comments are which. Surely you see that?

"The Tartars were aggressive and strong. The Vikings were aggressive and strong. The Normans were aggressive and strong. The Romans were aggressive and strong. Black men? Not so much, no."

Exactly. The blacks are performing on forums (games, stages) developed by a culture not their own. Basketball. Football. Sports. Entertainment.
forcryingoutloud, these are kid's stuff really. The only reason they have any meaning is because of a society advanced enough to pay top dollar for such diversions.
Throughout history any group that set out to conquer some other group, or even just defend their own turf, had to combine brawn with brains, organization, and strategy. Not to mention the development of various technologies.

Matt said...

Baloo:Is there not a spectrum across the three big races? Both sexes being most masculine with the Congoids, less so with Caucasoids, and least so with Mongoloids? This sort of correlates with feminine neoteny.

All the races have features which could be considered more masculine and feminine really.

E.g. take only the face

Most of the features leave Mongoloids as more femme:

Flatter nose
Slight prognathism
Relatively wider face
Short, less projecting chin
Fuller lip
Flatter brow ridge
More arched brows
More facial fat
Less facial hair (at least in males)

Where Caucasoids have fewer features which are more feminine

Narrower nose
Wider, larger mouth relative to jaw
Smaller cheekbones (although women have relatively wider faces as listed above, this is through having large eyes and a short chin, not through having big cheekbones, which are a male trait)
Longer forehead region

but, the biggest feature differentiating men and women in frontal view is decidely more femme on the Caucasoid side

Larger eyes and orbits, particularly relative to face width and size

Negroids, on the other hand are mostly feminine in their features (with most of the same femininity as Asians, in an even more extreme way and Caucasoids) and have the same feminine large eyes as Caucasoids, except they have

Wide, short nose
Larger jaw area (under nose)

which are decidedly masculine.

Now, if we weight all these items equally, we'd probably say Mongoloids or Negroids are more feminine.

But of course, we don't weight all these items equally and really there's no good reason we should.

Now, do we weight all the above items the way we do because it is somehow natural or because of our own biases? Both are clearly possible but it seems impossible to tell.

And this isn't only true for the face, but for the body too (and the body tends to have a lot more difference within racial groupings, because, for example, in Mongoloids, you have big stocky pastoralist and hunter gatherer North Asians and small slender agriculturalists in the South and the same is true in every region - although this is less important in a North American context).

Anonymous said...

I dunno. The original King Kong came out in 1933, the symbolism going on there was clear. The concept of the testosterone-filled black male being irresistible to the blond-haired blue-eyed female, myth or not, must've been already there.

I always thought the subtext was that the blond-haired, blue-eyed female was irresistible even to the beast.

Anonymous said...

Kinda nasty to talk about it, but I don't think we can rule it out.

Trouble is, how do you separate aggression from a desire for escape? The genes behind the traits, I mean. No, I wouldn't rule anything out, but I would expect dominant behavior to tend to be weeded out, if anything. Not encouraged.

Anonymous said...

Boxing, running, jumping...

Strength is a big deal where, exactly? Does anyone even know what Mike Tyson could bench?

Truth said...

"at least I grew up wrestling and fighting them myself, rather than just watching basketball."

Super Nintendo doesn't count, Svigor.

Truth said...

"I cannot think of a single African-American who is a current "internationally recognised icon of masculinity"."

You mentioned one in your own post, The Rock, and how about Vin Diesel?

Anonymous said...

The Turks, Arabs and Persians only bought castrated black males for the most part



You don't know what you're talking about. Only a very small percentage of slaves (of whatever race) were castrated. In the Middle East, eunuchs (black or otherwise) were used for working in or around the rulers harems, for obvious reasons. The notion that castration of slaves was a response to the alleged "hyper-sexuality" of black men does not have a shred of evidence behind it.

Here's a link for you to peruse.

DYork said...

G Joubert said...
I dunno. The original King Kong came out in 1933, the symbolism going on there was clear. The concept of the testosterone-filled black male being irresistible to the blond-haired blue-eyed female, myth or not, must've been already there.


You sound confused. In that movie it is the giant ape who is obsessed with Faye Ray not the other way around.

How can you miss that?

I'm guessing because like a significant number of White males YOU are captivated by black male "masculinity" and sexuality, especially in relation to White women.

Now, the real question is why is this so often the case?

Anonymous said...

"Throughout history any group that set out to conquer some other group, or even just defend their own turf, had to combine brawn with brains, organization, and strategy. Not to mention the development of various technologies."

Well, the Bantus did conquer most of Africa. Zulu warriors were especially tough. And Masai were great warriors too. And Nubians at one time invaded and conquered Egypt.

Anonymous said...

"If you want to now why boys today are doing so badly in school, compared to the girls of today or the boys of yesterday, you only have to look at the descriptions of 'masculinity' being expounded by even the supposedly conservative people who comment here on this site."

While a lot of macho boneheads don't study very hard, I think the other problem--maybe bigger problem--is the rise of slackerism among males(especially white males). Slackerites, Grungites, punkites, weirdites, and etc are not into masculinity, but they don't seem to be into anything but just putzing around.

DYork said...

Truth said...
"I cannot think of a single African-American who is a current "internationally recognised icon of masculinity"."

You mentioned one in your own post, The Rock, and how about Vin Diesel?


Any reason why you chose two non "black" males as example? Some black ancestry but not exactly black just because they aren't White.

I would have chosen Idris Elba who seems to be a masculine icon to many women.

Not having a vag means I don't see the attraction.

Anonymous said...

And some have the audacity to propose reparations for slavery?

I thought reparations meant that the Africans who grew rich on trading their ancestors would send money to Detroit to make up for their sale.

Defeated said...

If force equals mass X acceleration, I will stick by my opinion that blacks are quite, if not strong, forceful.
But why does it matter? There are plenty of drugs today to remedy a deficiency of masculinity. Too bad we don't have any for a lack of intelligence.

In the last few decades, sports are so saturated with the juice, how do we know synthetic from genetic?

Anonymous said...

"'Now, if you want a sport that's absolutely full of testosterone-dripping masculinity, nothing in the world comes close to football."


Oh, please. Take off your nancy-boy protective gear and play rugby League, a real mans game."

This, from Anonymous. Irony abounds.


A double dose of irony there.

ben tillman said...

"In fact every person (other than Steve) who comments on this site does so anonymously"

Not true. Cochran and Bowery use their real names, for instance.

torporify said...

"Well, the Bantus did conquer most of Africa. Zulu warriors were especially tough. And Masai were great warriors too. And Nubians at one time invaded and conquered Egypt"

No one said there were no Africans with brains.
But they were black Africans against other black Africans, except in the case of the Egyptieans. The Nubian empire didn't last too long. There was also a slave uprising in what is now Iraq hundreds of years ago, but it was put down. The Nubian conquest also led to Egyptians imposing many laws on black Africans within their borders out of fear of further uprisings. Until then blacks had held many prominent positions in Egyptian hierarchy, but they were never considered Egyptian. There was never a repeat despite a veritable continent full of blacks just to the south.
In South America and some of the Caribbean islands, slave uprisings actually led to blacks retreating (but free) into the jungles and recreating the same culture they'd had in Africa. There are descriptions of African villages in South America and the Islands, dating from the early 20th century.

torporify said...

"In the Middle East, eunuchs (black or otherwise) were used for working in or around the rulers harems, for obvious reasons. The notion that castration of slaves was a response to the alleged "hyper-sexuality" of black men does not have a shred of evidence behind it."

I think there were quite a few "shreds of evidence" left behind in the sands of Ethiopia from where the castrated slaves were taken. http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/84/12/4324.full. There was a class of Ethiopians who performed the mutliation and then buried the poor boy (usually they were very young) in sand to his neck. 80% died.
The slaves I was thinking of were indeed the eunuchs who served in the houses. And the fact that only eunuchs (not just black, but mostly) does indeed indicate fears about sexuality. I had no idea that this existed in the middle east until I began studying Persian and Arabic writings on which old folk tales that form the core of 1001 Nights, were based.
I don't especially "get" it, but there is no doubt that black men made other races nervous about their "masculinity" for some reason. It goes back a long way, and all over the world.

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

Interesting point that turned funny w/ the last line. Awaiting Sailer's postulation that resistance to hepatitis combined with a steady diet of venison & maple syrup put Canadian stand-up comics on top of the world

Anonymous said...

There was a class of Ethiopians who performed the mutliation and then buried the poor boy (usually they were very young) in sand to his neck. 80% died.

Only 80% died from being castrated and buried up to their neck in the sand?

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing because like a significant number of White males YOU are captivated by black male "masculinity" and sexuality, especially in relation to White women.


Now, the real question is why is this so often the case?


I get the impression that a lot (not necessarily a majority, but a lot) of white American men have a deep inferiority complex, with respect to black men, with respect to women, with respect to Jews - with respect to just about everyone on the planet.

All this peculiar "black men are more masculine than I am" stuff is just one glaring example of this.

As to why they feel that way, I suppose it's the result of several decades of brain-washing about how horrible and worthless white men are. Whatever the reason, I find it intensely irritating.

Anonymous said...

The slaves I was thinking of were indeed the eunuchs who served in the houses. And the fact that only eunuchs (not just black, but mostly) does indeed indicate fears about sexuality.



What fears about sexuality? If you're going to have male slaves around your women it's not surprising that those males slaves would be castrated. And in spite of what you seem to think based on your exhaustive reading of Arabian Nights, it was not only black male slaves who were castrated.


Your own link was to "Long-Term Consequences of Castration in Men: Lessons from the Skoptzy and the Eunuchs of the Chinese and Ottoman Courts". Are you under the impression that the Chinese were castrating black male slaves?

You've got an idea stuck in your mind from somewhere and you're casting about for fragments of evidence to support it.

Anonymous said...

the Bantus did conquer most of Africa.

From who? Other Africans. History does not record the supposedly mighty warriors of black Africa ever posing a threat to a non black African people.

Anonymous said...

"The notion that castration of slaves was a response to the alleged "hyper-sexuality" of black men does not have a shred of evidence behind it."


I think there were quite a few "shreds of evidence" left behind in the sands of Ethiopia from where the castrated slaves were taken.


Then go ahead and offer one of those shreds into evidence. Citing a very small percentage of black slaves being castrated while ignoring the very small percentage of slaves of other races who were likewise castrated is not making your case.

Anonymous said...

The entire Arabian Nights (or The Book Of A Thousand And One Nights) kicks off when the Great King's wife sleeps with a negro slave. The same thing happens to his brother.


That much is an accurate description of the collection of folk and fairy tales which is the "Arabian Nights".


This points to it being a common fear in the Near East.


That part you made up and tacked on to the factual comments.

Truth said...

"Any reason why you chose two non "black" males as example?"

You mean that if your daddy's black, you're not black?

Anonymous said...

Exhibit A in the "White men with deep-seated feelings of inferiority and worthlessness" category.

It doesn't really hurt my feelings that people were honest. Im sure it is not the red hair that is off-putting but the pasty, freckled, almost translucent skin that goes with it. Maybe SCIENCE will find a drug to make me darker, more attractive and cure melanoma to boot


You don't need a tan; you need some balls, some T, some self-respect.

Difference Maker said...

If American Black men are more masculine than there African counterparts, that is a fascinating turn of events. How would the plantation system have created that? One would think servility was selected for, not masculinity.

Weak minds.

Anonymous said...

"and mulatto children born to black women slaves were usually killed."

Something like 35% of the arab genome comes from africa, so this likely isn't the case, though said male children might have been turned into eunuchs themselves if they were discernably african.

Difference Maker said...

torporify wrote...I don't especially "get" it, but there is no doubt that black men made other races nervous about their "masculinity" for some reason. It goes back a long way, and all over the world.

Perhaps to an effeminate like you, but it is entirely logical to use eunuchs in harem duties.

Blacks were more readily enslaved than other populations, for whatever reason.

Anonymous said...

The slaves I was thinking of were indeed the eunuchs who served in the houses. And the fact that only eunuchs (not just black, but mostly) does indeed indicate fears about sexuality. I had no idea that this existed in the middle east until I began studying Persian and Arabic writings on which old folk tales that form the core of 1001 Nights, were based.


Obviously, the black slaves in Arabian Nights who were boning the kings wife were not eunuchs. And since you consider Arabian Nights to be a reliable source of historical information, there were no eunuchs, QED.

Defeated said...

Anonymous 3:32,
My analytical detachment gives me a sense of worth. I was just trying to illustrate that white men don't respond with hysterical indignation to petty slights. We can take it.
What did I mean by the tan comment? I was being facetious; my point is that by studying the biological adaptations that other races have made to their environment, we can create drugs that mimic the process.
If everyone is touchy about race that avenue is closed.
Did I know that in this castration obsessed thread, the self effacing delivery would provoke some emotionally fueled response? Yeah, it is called busting balls. Is busting balls manly? Not while I'm using a pseudonym, still fun though.

torporify said...

"Obviously, the black slaves in Arabian Nights who were boning the kings wife were not eunuchs. And since you consider Arabian Nights to be a reliable source of historical information, there were no eunuchs, QED"

Obviously the stories relate more to fears and fantasies than to real events; any slave caught entertaining the queen in such a way would soon be made eunuch if not one already, and doubtless a dead one as well. As you pointed out, not all black slaves were eunuchs in any case, or there'd have been no such stories at all. Arabian Nights is as valid a chronicle of popular culture, ala ancient Arabia and environs, as any modern day soap opera or film might be of America. Which is to say, they were stories people of that culture recounted and could relate to, whether they actually experienced the incidents described or not. Indeed, in the realm of historic literature, they are at least as authoritative as the Wiki article you linked to.

I believe it is conceptualization of a certain race and gender that is the discussion here.

Truth said...

"Speak for yourself, Anonymous — I'm not anonymous. True, I use my pen name, but anybody who clicks a few time can easily find out my real name. And that is my real picture."

SexiRexi pulls the man card! I knew there was a reason I liked you.

dorian said...

Your own link was to "Long-Term Consequences of Castration in Men: Lessons from the Skoptzy and the Eunuchs of the Chinese and Ottoman Courts". Are you under the impression that the Chinese were castrating black male slaves?

You've got an idea stuck in your mind from somewhere and you're casting about for fragments of evidence to support it."


There are so many "fragments" to look at, it's really no touble "casting about" to dig them up. I cited that link because of this quote: "The Turkish eunuchs were somewhat younger (average age, 44 yr), and were either Ethiopian or Sudanese in origin and might have had higher initial bone densities "


Black slaves did become quite powerful in Turkish society during the 1400s and were at war with the European slaves at one point.

Here's a good fragment from the Assyrian International News Agency, http://www.aina.org/news/2006100394917.htm

"While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Muslim slave trade. Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

While the mortality rate for slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as 10%, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Transsahara and East African slave trade was between 80 and 90%!

While almost all the slaves shipped across the Atlantic were for agricultural work, most of the slaves destined for the Muslim Middle East were for sexual exploitation as concubines, in harems, and for military service.

While many children were born to slaves in the Americas, and millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the USA to this day, very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survive.

While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated, and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth.

It is estimated that possibly as many as 11 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic (95% of which went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions. Only 5% of the slaves went to the United States).

A comparison of the Muslim slave trade to the American slave trade reveals some interesting contrasts. While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Muslim slave trade. Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

While the mortality rate for slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as 10%, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Transsahara and East African slave trade was between 80 and 90%!"

Maya said...

"The problem there is that one of the characteristics of human males is that they possess greater intellectual ability than human females. In defining "masculinity" as being basically a dumb animal, you are attacking men and masculinity in general."

THANK YOU! Ever since those dirty thoughts started to creep into my little childish head all those years ago, The Male of my sexual fantasies was always dominant, not just physically, but intellectually as well. That's the essence of the human male. Both qualities are required, and just as not even the most intellectually powerful woman could ever make me feel like I'm in a presence of a man because she'd lack the necessary physical attributes, there isn't a body out there that could make a real man if he lacks the necessary intellectual capacities. I could never be dominated by a male elephant or a male rhino; attacked-sure, physically overpowered-yes, but not dominated. For that very reason I could never perceive some school yard bully or a silly thug as masculine. Oh, and I take the phrase "Be a man" to mean: "Achieve physical, intellectual and moral superiority and acknowledge it gracefully." A man is confident in his attributes, goals, achievements and abilities, he knows that anyone worthy of consideration sees him for what he is, so he treats those around him with care and kindness. At least, that's an accurate description of all the men in my life.

torporify said...

"Perhaps to an effeminate like you, but it is entirely logical to use eunuchs in harem duties.

Blacks were more readily enslaved than other populations, for whatever reason."

Question is, why were blacks used for harem duties. Because they were. White European male slaves rarely were. They often ended up as Janniseries, but not harem herders.

The effeminate among us want to know.

Kylie said...

"Secondly, the username 'Kylie' is every bit as anonymous as the username 'Anonymous'."

Actually, no, it's not. "Anonymous" means having no name, "Kylie" is a name.

You might be able to stretch a point and claim "Kylie" was every bit as anonymous as the username "Anonymous" if other commenters here also posted as "Kylie".

Anonymous said...

For what it's worth this is my take on this topic and it will be real unPC.

Historically speaking blacks from sub sharan africa was deemed as the lwoest of the low, dim, easily conquered, lacking in technology coming from a jungle enviroment. But most importantly they looked significantly more different than others. So folks everywhere (i am speaking of people all over the known world, in modern and historical times) have this vague and almost mythological ideas about the supposed savages from the jungle where other humanoids are present, and this african man tends to look very different, very dark and with kinky har etc etc ( e.g. black gauard dogs elicit more fear than white guard dogs, people are afraid of teh dark ). Humans are ethnocentric all over the world and equated blacks with other humanoids of africa in order to feel superior and to justify their enslavement of them. e.g. in muhammad's time most tales of slavery mention teh slaves as being dark and abysinian or african( and they were not eunuchs ). Therefore, they were thought of in beastly terms which bled into today's view of black folks.

Now in modern america poor folks both black and white ( esp. ethnics and those in the west ) had similar tough lives at the turn of last century, yet by the 30/40/50s whites have moved up into better living standards esp. with FDR coming in, and in relation blacks were still stuck in poor hellholes. Back then whites guys like jim jeffries and jack dempsey were possible. As more whites moved up, that left more blacks proportionally at the bottom, and with the coming of civil rights, basically they could roam the streets without fear and tussled with cops and other authority figures without getting killed which emboldened them while having a chip on their shoulder to beat back whitey for past crimes, while most whites just retreated to their colleges in teh 50's and the 60's brought on the the feminizing movement on the white population and the streets/violent masculinity became even more black owned, so by the end of teh century you have whites retreating even more into non assertive behaviours like xboxes and emo/metroxual craze, vegan diet etc etc. While black toughs got even more extreme with rap music and overt show of violenet masculinity, gang warfare. So seemingly in a world without any competing ethnic toughs blacks monopolized that niche and the populirazition of rap and black culture among effeminate whites as the recipient have solidifed black folks as the defacto street toughs. Today's white males much rather play xboxes, go to papa john's, play status enhancing sports like HS football ( for the prep jocks ) and lead the good life which in turn makes tem soft. The whole essence of middle class white living seems to me to be about avoiding as much pain as possibel and being entertained as much as possible, no matter how unsustainable or costly it might be in the future. Add to that black dominance in skill sports, which are some of the few places where men can show their aggresive side and you have today's outlook of blacks among modern americans. It's more social & psychological and recent.

No matter what masculine potential he might have the fat white computer punching SWPL PC cubicle monkey wil always be less masculine than the black street thug/rapper/high school kids. Plus society has given an implied free license to black guys to do as they please because of real and imagined past historical injustices.

Question said...

If Steve had left out that last line, would there have been 163 comments as of this writing?

Anonymous said...

--- latest t-level research actually show black males have much higher estrogen levels, and both white males and black males have higher t-levels, are bigger (and should be stronger - hand pressure tests in south africa shows whites to have almost 70% higher ratings than everyone else ) than africans from africa and i believe also 1st generation african immigrant kids ( not too sure on this one )

--- black females have higher estrogen and estrogen related diseases, plus their bodies are the most unmanly, instead of being boxy shaped they have the most curves out of all womne.

--- based on my reading, AA females also have tighter vag relative to white females.

--- Blacks are not necessarily more muscular, they are better sculpted due to the diferent type of muscle fibre they carry, which makes them better in their own niche.

--- evolution goes through spurts and slowdowns due to various reasons, theres no constant rate of change.

--- In dynamic sporting enviroment power/force is the ability to exert as much of your strength onto an object in the quickest amount of time. To be powerful you need a solid base of strength to derive your power from. Olympic weightlifters are the most powerful/forceful guys out there, the lifts snatches, cleans etc etc are geared to improve the ability to exert more power. Also most olympic lifters are caucasian. Plus little, slow guys can be very powerful too joe frazier, shane mosley, marciano, frankie colombo, fedor emelianenko etc etc. AA phenotype makes them fast and explosive in quick burst, but not necessarily powerful.

--- Strength is not high priority in boxing, but it helps and the higher up you go in weight strength becomes more important. mike tyson benches close to 300 i believe, most boxers do not touch heavy weightlifting, it's bad for boxing and benching is kinda really useless unless you are a football lineman.

--- 35% african genomes in arabs seems to be a little too high, maybe some parts esp. peninsular arabia and it's tribes, but definitely not the whole middle east, plus the "african" genomes are also found at a hgiher rate in greece and the genomes are of different subclades therefore not really african, but derived from africa. Fst values shows ME and Europeans to be similar if not sister groups.

--- most black slaves were not eunuchs. Eunuchs were teh norm everywhere in the world, so having black eunuchs wasn't due to weird obsesions, it's fear of slave revolt and getting humuliated by sexual revenge drove evryoen to use eunuchs. Whites slave tended to be better soldiers, beurocrats, scholars etc etc. The local lords and rulers of the middle east were actually suspicious of the european slaves - they were popular with the people and with the women, got many concubines and eventually took power for themselves. e.g. egyptian mamaluks, ironically the slave class recruited from slavs lording over the local arab nobility.

Simon in London said...

anon:
"Simon In London,

Try turning on MTV sometime (or at least one of its sister channels that still plays music).

You might not listen to that stuff, but the young'uns do."

The internationally renowned black(ish) pop singer of the moment is Rihanna - neither male nor African-American; she's from Barbados. Obviously there are black male singers, but getting onto MTV does not make you an internationally renowned icon. Lady Gaga is an icon; Rihanna is an icon. Katy Perry. There are no comparable black male singers at present.

dcite said...

"No matter what masculine potential he might have the fat white computer punching SWPL PC cubicle monkey wil always be less masculine than the black street thug/rapper/high school kids."

There have always been tough guys with little brains from hard-scrabble or even horrifying backgrounds throwing their weight around. The smarter ones rose, the mass of them did not. You can find references in literature all over the world and all through history. They are a force of nature. In the modern U.S., a lot of them happen to be black, but the rude fellow (an epithet in the past) in a Shakespear play served much the same role.
However, they don't create society; they prey on it. At best they provide some exicitement and entertainment for those who don't get too close. Fortunately, a survival instinct keeps most people at a distance.
Oh, and btw. The more highly educated are not often fat. They tend to be in very good conditionl. They're also usually a lot better looking on average, than the poor and dumb, thought that's not always the case.
I and some other women remember noticing that when I was in college in a large, working class metropolis. The men we were comparing were white. With very few exceptions, we didn't bother thinking much about blacks (except to avoid most of them and be v. nice & polite w/the nice ones, esp if we worked with them.)
This idea that blacks are a fantasy item for a majority is very strange. Very few white women feel that way, especially if we've been around a lot of them.

Anonymous said...

"at least I grew up wrestling and fighting them myself, rather than just watching basketball."

Super Nintendo doesn't count, Svigor.


Haha. You didn't know I was talking about thumb wrestling?

(True story, I once fooled a bunch of black kids with the "heads I win, tails you lose" schtick. The key is Bugs Bunny-like rapid-fire delivery. Okay, they figured it out about 20 seconds later, but I did get 'em)

I bet Mike Tyson from Mike Tyson's Punchout could bench quite a bit. Get it? Video games, bits? I slay me. I'm here all week. Try the veal.

P.S., I liked the "black girls don't count" reply better, but you can only go to the well once I guess.

Anonymous said...

Black slaves did become quite powerful in Turkish society during the 1400s and were at war with the European slaves at one point.

What are you referring to?

Anonymous said...

Wade is retiring? that really sucks. how do you know this, Steve?

G Joubert said...

Youse guys need to go watch King Kong again. Yes, the ape was attracted to the blond. Everybody above room temperature and above the age of, oh, about 2 and a half got that much. But please note that much all by itself plays in the racial stereotype of black men lusting after white women. But that's less than half the story. Apparantly, youse guys missed most of the story. First, the love affair developed into a mutual attraction and relationship. In the end the Ann Darrow character is protective of Kong and is traumatized by his killing, playing into a deep-seated fear white men have, that their women really secretly want some of that sweet mandingo.

Second, the racial metaphor going on with King Kong has been noted, discussed, and commented about almost continuously since 1933. What, is the plot of white people going to the Third World to capture a large black ape with a flat nose and bring him back in chains, then have him fall in love with the white blond)who falls in love with him too) just too vague for you to get? At least with the 1976 and 2005 remakes they changed the location of Skull Island to the South Pacific for this very reason to try to disguise it and to deflect the criticism. But it's still there and it's not all that subtle either.

Anonymous said...

e.g. black gauard dogs elicit more fear than white guard dogs, people are afraid of teh dark ).

Rottweilers, Doberpersons?

Maya said...

"No matter what masculine potential he might have the fat white computer punching SWPL PC cubicle monkey wil always be less masculine than the black street thug/rapper/high school kids."

Again, depends on your definition of the word "masculine". According to the one you're adopting, my new foster pitbull is the most masculine of them all because he poops on the kitchen floor, licks his genitals publicly, and when I walk him, all the street thugs steer clear. Of course, I can easily trick him and manipulate him into getting house trained, but hey, being a scary, uncivilized brute makes him a real man!

My definition of manly is somewhat different from yours. Your fat computer SWPL should practice some self control and show some self-respect by getting fit. Otherwise, I assume he knows how to fix my computer when I do something wrong with it, again. Being able to fix and program electronics is a masculine trait. Also, being able to make sound, complex financial decisions is a very masculine trait. When I'm buying a car, taking the car to the shop for a quote, thinking of buying a house or buying insurance, I like to have my daddy or brother or boyfriend there, or, as it usually happens, my boyfriend is there on the phone with my dad, comparing notes. It makes me feel safer. A person who got through linear algebra or organic chemistry, built a respectable resume, traveled internationally, progressed in a hobby he is passionate about and so on is a lot more assertive than a person that harasses people on a street corner. A large feral dog is much better at harassing people on street corners than any thug, and yet that dog can't develop a plan to get himself what he really wants. Throwing a physical tantrum to get immediate wants taken care of while settling yourself with more problems in the very near future is not manly, it's childish (more like toddler-ish or animal-like). How can people confuse the two?

Anonymous said...

Humans are ethnocentric all over the world and equated blacks with other humanoids of africa in order to feel superior and to justify their enslavement of them.


Dear God, man! Are you actually under the impression that blacks were the only slaves? How did people justify their enslavement of all the other races?

You're another fine product of the American "educational" system.

Anonymous said...

"No matter what masculine potential he might have the fat white computer punching SWPL PC cubicle monkey wil always be less masculine than the black street thug/rapper/high school kids."

But even white trash thugs are less tough/rough than black trash thugs. And middle class blacks who aren't into thug behavior still maintain their manliness. Obama is only half-black and doesn't act black. But he comes across as more commanding than all the white politicians combined.

Anonymous said...

"The entire Arabian Nights (or The Book Of A Thousand And One Nights) kicks off when the Great King's wife sleeps with a negro slave. The same thing happens to his brother. This points to it being a common fear in the Near East."

Maybe the book should be called BIRTH OF A TRIBE.

Anonymous said...

Question is, why were blacks used for harem duties. Because they were.

No, they were used as harem slaves at certain times and places - specifically, in the Levant during the late Middle Ages. They were not used "for harem duties", period. There were not any black slaves in the harems of the Far East, for instance.

So that's your factual problem.

You also have a logical problem, which is your peculiar insistence that the use of black eunuchs in harems (in certain times and places) indicates that black men were seen as hyper-sexual. Because apparently nothing says "hyper-sexual" like a man with no testicles.

Anonymous said...

Here's a good fragment from the Assyrian International News Agency, http://www.aina.org/news/2006100394917.htm


That is indeed a fragment. Unfortunately for you it is not a fragment which supports the contention that black men were perceived to be "more masculine" during the centuries of the slave trade.


A comparison of the Muslim slave trade to the American slave trade reveals some interesting contrasts. While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Muslim slave trade. Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.


So the Americans wanted farm labor, and the Muslims wanted household help/sexual playthings.

corvinus said...

"While many children were born to slaves in the Americas, and millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the USA to this day, very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survive."

It seems to me that the Maghrebis more often enslaved women from Sub-Saharan Africa, with some Southern Europeans. Consequently, modern Maghrebis now very often look like they're mulattos. That's because they are! (Zacharias Moussaoui anyone?) The Ottoman Turks seemed to enslave white women more, which may explain how so many Turks are European-looking.

Anonymous said...

Obviously the stories relate more to fears and fantasies than to real events

There is a third possibility - that the stories are not related to real life, are not related to "fears and fantasies", but are simply intended to be amusing and entertaining. The story would be less amusing and entertaining if the storyteller had the kings wife sleeping with some soldier.

It does not seem to occur to you that if the Muslims really felt this "fear" of black men which you attribute to them, they could simply have avoided using them as slaves in their households.

Anonymous said...

why were blacks used for harem duties. Because they were. White European male slaves rarely were. They often ended up as Janniseries, but not harem herders.


The answer is simple and straightforward, if you can let go of the mistaken assumption that black men are potent and mighty warriors while white men are effeminate pansys.

White men were used as warriors because they are better at it. Black men were used as harem eunuchs because the Muslims could find no better use for them. It's very simple and straightforward.

It only appears to you as an inscrutable riddle to be solved by the deconstruction of ancient fairy-tales because you are attempting to square the historical reality with your unhistorical belief in black men always being viewed as very "masculine".

Kylie said...

"Anonymous" means having no name, "Kylie" is a name.


"Kylie" and "Anonymous" are both strings of letters signifying nothing and identifying no one. Both "Anonymous" and "John Doe" are just as much names, in the context of a comment section, as is "Kylie".

Your claim to your superior bravery would only hold water if you were actually identifying yourself to the world. But you're not doing that any more than I am.


You might be able to stretch a point and claim "Kylie" was every bit as anonymous as the username "Anonymous" if other commenters here also posted as "Kylie".


Like I'm doing here?

Anonymous said...

The change in diet for mid-continent Africans brought into slavery and transported to the Americas must have been abrupt and enormous. Is there any informed literature about this matter and its health impacts?

Anonymous said...

1. t-level studies actually show black males have higher estrogen levels, and both white males and black males have higher t-levels, are bigger ( and should be stronger - hand pressure tests in south africa shows white boer to have almost 70% higher ratings than blacks ) than africans from africa.

2. black females have higher estrogen and estrogen related diseases, plus their bodies are the most unmanly, instead of being boxy shaped they have lots of curves and more round.

3. Blacks are not necessarily more muscular, they are better sculpted due to the diferent type of muscle fibre they carry, which makes them better in their own niche.

4. In dynamic sporting enviroment power/force is the ability to exert as much of your strength in the quickest amount of time. To be powerful you need a solid base of strength to derive your power from. Olympic weightlifters are the most powerful/forceful guys out there, the lifts snatches, cleans etc etc are geared to improve the ability to exert more power. Also most olympic lifters are caucasian. Plus little, slow guys can be very powerful too joe frazier, shane mosley, marciano, frankie colombo, fedor emelianenko etc etc. AA phenotype makes them fast and able to execute quick explosive movements, but they are not necessarily powerful.

5. Strength is not high priority in boxing, it has it's place in boxing and the higher up you go in weight strength becomes more important. mike tyson benches close to 300 i believe he started benching after retirement, but most boxers do not touch heavy weightlifting, it's bad for boxing and benching is kinda really useless since you dont work the body as a unit while benching.

6. 35% african genomes in arabs seems to be a little too high, maybe some parts esp. peninsular arabia and it's tribes, but definitely not the whole middle east, plus the "african" genomes are also found at places like greece and the genomes are of different subclades therefore not really african. Fst shows ME and Europeans to be similar if not sister groups.

7. most black slaves were not eunuchs. Eunuchs were teh norm everywhere in the world, so having black eunuchs wasn't due to weird obsesions. it's because fear of slave revolt and getting humuliated by sexual revenge that they feared most . Whites slave tended to be better soldiers, beurocrats, scholars etc etc. The local lords and rulers of the middle east were actually suspicious of the european slaves - they were popular with the people and with the women, got many concubines and eventually took power for themselves. e.g. egyptian mamluks, ironically the slave class recruited from slavs lorded over the local arab nobility.

Emma the Student said...

Why is this even up for debate?

Look, maybe it's their skin color, maybe it's their type of musculature that's less hidden by subcutaneous fat, maybe it's just that cold, animalistic stare they seem to have, but when you see a West African or West African-descended black guy you do think 'masculine.'

And yes, that white guy in the corner may or may not be able take him in a fight. What's important is the display. If you're squaring up for a fight, black males can look quite intimidating just standing there (I went to a very mixed public school). On top of that, you have to contend with the fact that they're known for sudden, unpredictable and sickening violence. He has all those disturbing and grisly news reports you read behind him. You don't have to be Whiskey or an Evolutionary Psychologist to know that displays of violence = masculine.

Your thought processes before fighting a black guy are different to those before fighting a White or Asian guy, even if you know you'll probably win.

An army of Japanese would easily defeat an army of blacks due to IQ trumping brawn. In day-to-day life, however, high-agression, complete lack of fear of the law, desire for instant gratification and, above all, willingness to use violence = masculine. Ever seen black guys hitting on girls? They have no fear of rejection, they just hit on girl after girl until one responds. To any observer, that would seem masculine as it correlates with an alpha mentality of not caring.

Phew, that's all I wanted to say. I guess there's a little Whiskey in all of us.

butt in said...

"It does not seem to occur to you that if the Muslims really felt this "fear" of black men which you attribute to them, they could simply have avoided using them as slaves in their households."

They were in the society already as slaves or freed descendants. There were thousands of descendants of black slaves living in southern Iran and Iraq. There was no turning back. Like today in America.

lol said...

"But he comes across as more commanding than all the white politicians combined."


Oh give me a break--I mean WHERE would you get the idea skinny big-ears is commanding? He's as commanding as a black(ish) Alfred Newman. Mad Mad Magazine material. I thought the Obots had slackened off.
No, Obama does not come off as "Commanding". He comes off as a know-nothing who reads teleprompters. His incompetence and sheer lack of world class information is so obvious now that nobody but the most deluded could see him as a "leader."
Anyway, I still see him cowering in the corner in that picture of him and the staff watching while Bin Laden is dealth with (or so they said.) Hillary was the commanding presence. Obama seemed benumbed by it.
That man has never been in the military, but he's been in diction-rhetoric school.
Obama commanding? What a bloody laugh. A debate with a well informed 8th grader could knock him on his skinny butt.

Anonymous said...

"Also most olympic lifters are caucasian."

But why would blacks go into weightlifting? It's no fun and there's no money in it. If you're black and powerful, would you rather rake in millions and gets tons of chicks by making it in baseball, football, or basketball... or go into weightlifting?
Even most whites don't go into that stuff, which is why Chinese often dominate in the lower-weight weight-lifting.

Anonymous said...

"Blacks are not necessarily more muscular, they are better sculpted due to the diferent type of muscle fibre they carry, which makes them better in their own niche."

More nonsense. Blacks have more muscle in ratio to fat than whites or Asians do.
And people with more fast-twitch muscle are MORE MUSCULAR because it's the kind of muscle that is hard and firm.
I mean who is more muscular? A 100 m sprinter or 5000 m runner?
Who is more muscular? A running back in football or a swimmer?

Anonymous said...

"Strength is not high priority in boxing, it has it's place in boxing and the higher up you go in weight strength becomes more important."

If by this, you mean strength alone won't win boxing matches, I agree.
But all other things being equal--skill, stamina, experience, training, etc--, the boxer with more strength will beat one with less.

Anonymous said...

maybe it's their skin color, maybe it's their type of musculature that's less hidden by subcutaneous fat, maybe it's just that cold, animalistic stare they seem to have, but when you see a West African or West African-descended black guy you do think 'masculine.'




What you meant to say was ".. I think masculine". Don't attribute your own flights of fancy to other people.

And you are wrong about "musculature that's less hidden by subcutaneous fat". Black man have exactly the same percentage of body fat as white men. You could look it up.


yes, that white guy in the corner may or may not be able take him in a fight. What's important is the display.Your thought processes before fighting a black guy are different to those before fighting a White or Asian guy, even if you know you'll probably win.


Would you kindly stop telling me what you imagine my thought processes to be? I've fought both black and white guys, and my thought processes are identical in each case.


high-agression, complete lack of fear of the law, desire for instant gratification and, above all, willingness to use violence = masculine


You have the low intelligence down pat. Now if only you lost your fear of fighting you too could be "masculine" as you define it.


Ever seen black guys hitting on girls? They have no fear of rejection, they just hit on girl after girl until one responds. To any observer, that would seem masculine as it correlates with an alpha mentality of not caring.


To an intelligent observer it seems consistent with stupidity and immaturity, which are not actually masculine traits at all.

Jacob Roberson said...

Simon in London said...
Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger - American


Schwarzenegger what?

Anonymous said...

t-level studies actually show black males have higher estrogen levels, and both white males and black males have higher t-levels


No, T studies have not actually found that. T studies have been inconclusive and inconsistent, with some showing that blacks have higher T and some other studies showing them with lower than average T. Here is an example of one such study: "Serum Estrogen, But Not Testosterone, Levels Differ between Black and White Men in a Nationally Representative Sample of Americans". (It's black men with the higher levels of Serum Estrogen)

Anonymous said...

You don't have to be Whiskey or an Evolutionary Psychologist to know that displays of violence = masculine.



No, you just need to be a semi-intelligent human being to know that displays of violence != masculine.

It's amusing that the nerdy dweebs who populate the HBD-sphere have a such a high opinion of brute animalism, and that it's left to ex-soldiers like me with considerable experience of violence to defend those qualities which make humans human and men, men.

Anonymous said...

In support of 'blacks have more estrogen rather than testosterone',

Higher estrogen in black males from puberty to old age

Blacks have higher bone density than whites, black females suffer less from osteoporosis,

"The most important risk factors for osteoporosis are advanced age (in both men and women) and female gender; estrogen deficiency following menopause or oophorectomy is correlated with a rapid reduction in bone mineral density"

black women have higher levels of estradiol and lower androstenedione-to-estradiol ratios throughout the menstrual cycle compared with white women

"Studies indicating higher incidences of estrogen-associated conditions, such as breast cancer and earlier puberty, among black women "

"Higher estradiol in the face of similar androstenedione and FSH levels suggests enhanced aromatase activity in AAW. Such differences may contribute to racial disparities in bone mineral density, breast cancer, and uterine leiomyomas."

Anonymous said...

"This is probably a little bit off topic.. but there’s a very interesting Norwegian TV documentary called ‘Hjernevask’ (Brainwash)"

First read about this documentary from this blog itself:

brainwashed isteve

The most hilarious and easily remembered passage:

He could look naive, but he often knew more about the subjects than the scientists he interviewed, which made some of them look like arrogant ignorants. One of them fled the country, declaring that Eia had «ruined her life».


I wonder which one of them was it.

Wikipedia Citation said...

To the commentators arguing over this history of masculine stereotypes of African-Americans, wikipedia has a very un-PC summary.

Relevant to the debate over masculinity, read the entry for the Mandingo substerotype if you are interested.

Ortu Kan said...

Anonymous said:

"the Bantus did conquer most of Africa."

From who? Other Africans. History does not record the supposedly mighty warriors of black Africa ever posing a threat to a non black African people.


That's only true in the case of the Bantus if you consider the Capoid populations they steamrolled (the Khoisan & co. at whose expense they most dramatically gained ground) to have been "black".

That said, a lot of these comments seem to be underlain by bizarre and ahistorical presumptions about what is "supposed" to happen when Sub-Saharan Africans come into contact with outsiders. (Who here is familiar with the prehistory of Madagascar?)

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

"Obama is only half-black and doesn't act black. But he comes across as more commanding than all the white politicians combined."

He does?

What he comes across as is a man completely out his depth.

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

re: Obama 'commanding'-- I agree with above. At this point he mostly comes across boring. See his recent orange video from Iowa. Like one of the teachers talking in a Peanuts cartoon.

Wandrin said...

"You don't have to be Whiskey or an Evolutionary Psychologist to know that displays of violence = masculine."

Christ.

threat display != impulsive sadistic violence

Self-control = masculine
No self-control = animal

All healthy cultures promote the cardinal masculine virtue of self-control - civilization is impossible without it.

The people who promote the animal version of masculinity as a cultural ideal are poison.

Maya said...

So the veterans in this thread seem to be less enamored with thuggish behavior and ghetto qualities than an average keyboard warrior? Interesting. Maybe the military does make men out of boys.

Simon in London said...

corvinus:
"The Ottoman Turks seemed to enslave white women more, which may explain how so many Turks are European-looking."

I know a lot of Turks. I always thought they were European looking because western Turkey and north-east Greece have been genetically European for millenia. The original Turks presumably looked like other Turkic peoples (eg the modern Uighurs), but that was a very long time ago.

It is very noticeable that the Turks are so different from the Arab populations to their south, though. Going by the dozens of Turkish students I've met and graded, I'd put their median IQ at least 10 points above the Arabs, 20 points above the Gulf Arabs. If anything they seem slightly better than the Greek and other Balkan students on average, though it may just be that as Turkey is not in the EU we recruit from a slightly higher bracket. They are not as bright as the Italians on average; they are roughly the same as the Spanish.

«Oldest ‹Older   1 – 200 of 215   Newer› Newest»