Speaking of the Barbadian-American attorney general Eric Holder ... from the Barbados Free Press, 12/19/07:
The Ugly Secret Of Barbados Revealed Worldwide: Rihanna “I Was Bullied At School For Being White”
The hidden secret of Barbados has just been splashed all over the world as the most popular music star on the planet says in a new media interview that she was bullied in school for being “white”. (ShowBiz Spy: Rihanna says she was bullied at school – for being ‘white’)
This might be the best thing that ever happened to those of us on this island who have shades of skin that are “not dark enough” – because it will focus world attention on that dirty little Bajan secret that we all live with: a virulent new strain of racism is alive and well in Barbados and it is being nurtured by our own government to serve a partisan agenda.
Racism raises its head in schools, when applying for a government job, when shopping for groceries. And especially in politics.
Racial division is encouraged by a Barbados political elite that regularly dismisses valid criticism on the basis that the opponent’s skin is not dark enough. Bajans with lighter skin colours are often given as a reason for failure – be it personal failure or failure of government projects – much like the Russian Communists would attribute production shortfalls to “wreckers”.
Oh yes, the “whites” and “asians” are the cause of all trouble on this island of mongrels.
Bajans who have never traveled abroad are almost always surprised that persons considered “white” on Barbados are considered “black” in North America or Europe!
Who among us is of “pure” racial stock? We are truly an island of mongrels.
A college roommate of one of my sons said, "Here in America, everybody calls me black, while back home in Jamaica, everybody calls me white."
I discussed the West Indian middle class marriage system that produced Rihanna and Holder in my review of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.
"I discussed the West Indian middle class marriage system that produced Rihanna and Holder in my review of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers."
ReplyDeleteNo mention of any marriages in this review.
Are the Barbadan ruling elites light-brown? If so, Rihanna's problem was most likely being too light-skinned for her low-class school?
ReplyDeleteDivide and conquer. Use the sexes and races as tools of political manipulation, to gain and maintain power. Preach unity and inclusiveness while constantly creating special groups, classes and castes, all of whom unite, however loosely, against one scapegoat.
ReplyDeletePlay off human envy and the race-resentment and projected shame that so clearly motivate folk like Michelle Obama and Eric Holder. For whom no law or reparation or EWM bashing will ever suffice.
Cheers.
Not surprising. Bob Marley, whose father was a white British Soldier, had a hard time from Jamaican blacks when he was a boy.
ReplyDeleteIf Rihanna is considered "White" in Barbados, than someone like Rashida Jones would be considered an Albino there.
ReplyDeleteCertainly the current chairman of the NAACP Benjamin Jealous would not be considered Black enough by Barbados standards.
Rihanna comes from an inbred multiracial family who had arranged marriages with each other.
ReplyDeleteOf course, she was also obviously bullied for being more light-skinned and beautiful than other more pure Black African people.
Rihanna is definitely black. You can see Sub-Sahara characteristics in her. Even though she has other ancestry, the Sub-Sahara characteristics come out.
ReplyDeleteWhite + Color = Color
Sounds like those calling themselves white in Barbados or Jamaica is grade inflation.
ReplyDeleteSays more about them and what they think of whiteness than anything else.
Jefferson:"If Rihanna is considered "White" in Barbados, than someone like Rashida Jones would be considered an Albino there."
ReplyDeleteActually, Rashida Jones occupies an ambiguous state even in the USA. For example, she routinely plays White parts on TV and in the cinema. And POC academic activists tend to discount her as well. At a recent seminar on Race and media at my university, no mention was made of Rashida Jones' role on PARKS AND RECREATION. When I mentioned her, the speaker gushed forth with a lot of squid-ink about "specular definitions of racial identity." The upshot, as near as I could follow, was that Rashida was not Black enough to count as a POC.
Anonymous:"Rihanna is definitely black."
ReplyDeleteOnly if you follow the one-drop rule. She looks, at best, part Black.
Anonymous:"You can see Sub-Sahara characteristics in her."
You can also see a lot of Caucasoid characteristics as well.
Anonymous:" Even though she has other ancestry, the Sub-Sahara characteristics come out."
And a lot of her Caucasoid characteristics come out as well: her light eyes, fair skin, etc.
Anonymous:"White + Color = Color"
I mentioned this previously, but it bears repeating. As Razib Khan has pointed out, loss of function is easier than gaining function. Hence, it's easier for a dark-skinned population to become fair than vice-versa.
How so? Aren't most of those "loss of function" alleles recessive?
DeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:"Rihanna is definitely black."
Only if you follow the one-drop rule. She looks, at best, part Black.
Anonymous:"You can see Sub-Sahara characteristics in her."
You can also see a lot of Caucasoid characteristics as well.
Anonymous:" Even though she has other ancestry, the Sub-Sahara characteristics come out."
And a lot of her Caucasoid characteristics come out as well: her light eyes, fair skin, etc.
...
==========
1st anonymous reminds me of those people who say that mulatto kids or grandkids look **nothing** like their White parents or grandparents. They obviously don't care to take a good look.
I ran into some really, really White Haitians yesterday at the store. The White haitians I usually see are Arabs but those people looked pretty much like Spaniards and one looked like a friend of mine of Greco-Rumanian origin.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said before, nothing about race leaves Americans more perplexed and uncomfortable than the phenomenon of Creole culture. It's going to take a Louisianan one day to really explain it.
ReplyDeleteFrom reading these comments, seems that mixed race people like Rashida Jones causes a loss of cognitive ability in many individuals. She has a mix of features, it's not that hard to understand. Stop thinking like primitive apes (if you have the IQ to do so).
ReplyDeleteWhite + Color = Color
ReplyDeleteWhite is a color, you idiot.
Rihanna is definitely black.
No, she definitely is not. Rihanna is definitely a mongrel.
You can see Sub-Sahara characteristics in her.
And you can also see European characteristics in her.
If Rihanna is considered "White" in Barbados, than someone like Rashida Jones would be considered an Albino there.
ReplyDeleteIt's amusing to see the way Americans take it for granted that their own very peculiar notions of race are the correct ones and everyone else in the world is wrong. America is the only place on Earth where somebody like Rashida Jones would be considered even remotely "brown", never mind "black". And what makes it doubly hilarious is that the people pushing this preposterous "one drop rule" are the same people who claim to be anti-racist.
"""""""""""""The hidden secret of Barbados has just been splashed all over the world as the most popular music star on the planet""""""""""""""
ReplyDeleteWoah, woah, woah. Hold it a second there.
Beyonce will soon be standing up to dispute that statement?
Most popular in the world?
It's Queen Bey's planet, and they're just lucky to live in it!
If you scroll down on the linkthe Bajan racial advice is more explicit - many social climbers in the Caribbean or with Caribbean roots think this way:
ReplyDelete"The Old Ways
My own grandfather was, in the vast majority of his ways, a good man – and I am sure that God loved him and loves him still in Heaven. But he was of the old ways, and he could not change. When I would walk a certain girl home from school, he would chide me that she was “too dark”.
For my grandfather, the ideal wife would always have lighter skin so the next generation could be lighter still."
Hey, guess what? I know who Rihanna is.
ReplyDeleteI saw her in 'Battleship'. She was good. Her job was to push the firing button - which she did several times foiling the alien invasion.
I know I'm not supposed to like that movie, but I do. I must have low common tastes.
Pat Boyle
loss of function is easier than gaining function. Hence, it's easier for a dark-skinned population to become fair than vice-versa.
ReplyDeleteIn what way is being white "a function"? At one time, it might have been adaptive to prevent Vitamin D deficiency but nowadays we put that in milk so you don't need to get it from the sun. If anything, being dark is more functional to prevent skin cancer.
"as well as increase turnout among White Americans who already consider themselves Republicans.“
ReplyDeleteThey couldn't be more wrong. Conservatives are staying home or voting third party in increasing numbers when the choice is between an Establishment republican and a democrat. If online posts are any indication, White conservatives are ready to dump the republican party in large numbers if amnesty legislation passes the in house.
"Rashida Jones causes a loss of cognitive ability in many individuals. She has a mix of features"
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd become visually sensitised to American notions of race over the years - twenty five years ago I'd not have thought of Rihanna as black, or any particular race, really - but I just image searched this Rashida Jones person, and not only does she look white, she looks whiter than most whites. She has that slightly drippy SWIPL/Whiterperson look about her.
If Rashida Jones can be black, any white person can be black. My blond son is probably 1-2% black; he looks probably blacker than she does and is presumably in line for Affirmative Action.
Anonymous:"In what way is being white "a function"?"
ReplyDeleteIt's not. Being White (i.e., having a pale complexion) is a loss of function (cf. Razib Khan's articles on the subject).
bleach:"How so? Aren't most of those "loss of function" alleles recessive?"
ReplyDeleteRazib explains it all in detail here:
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/to-gain-pallor-is-easier-than-losing-it/
bleach:"How so? Aren't most of those "loss of function" alleles recessive?"
ReplyDeleteHere's some more stuff from Razib dealing with the complexities of this issue.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/10/mixed-race-people-are-mildly-complicated/#.U30YNtJdWHg
Plenty of people in the US are bullied for being white, too.
ReplyDeletebleach:"How so? Aren't most of those "loss of function" alleles recessive?"
ReplyDeleteSeems not to be the case.Razib Khan:
"Finally, now that we have elucidated the genetic architecture of pigmentation to a great extent we can make assessments of dominance and recessiveness on a locus by locus manner. If you plot skin complexion darkness as a function of reflectance you can turn it from a dichotomous or discrete trait to a continuous one. So individuals can have a “melanin index,” an integer value equivalent to their position on a scale of lightness and darkness. Converse to expectations above it turns out that on the two largest effect genes explaining difference between Africans and Europeans the light alleles are more dominant than the dark alleles! In other words, if the two alleles had an equal effect you’d expect a value between the two in their homozygote state. As it is, the values tend toward higher reflectance (light) than dark. I would caution that terms like “dominant” and “recessive” can be highly subjective and dependent on how you code the trait, the nature of the population you sample from in a polygenic character, or even scale the of values. So in this case you notice that switching from a dichotomous code of white vs. non-white to a continuous value corresponding to reflectance flips the model from the light trait being recessive to the dark, to the dark being recessive to the light (albeit, only mildly)."
(http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/10/mixed-race-people-are-mildly-complicated/#.U30YNtJdWHg)
A quote from a Kenyan: "Obama was the 1st black president of USA but if he'd been elected president of Kenya he would have been the 1st white president."
ReplyDeleteWhite, black, whatever her race, Rihanna sure does love the black American Chris Brown and the beatings he administers on her; he must be alpha.
ReplyDeletePat Boyle,
ReplyDeleteRihanna is far prettier with her clothes on. The tattoos ruin it.
@Corn: Rihanna is far prettier with her clothes on. The tattoos ruin it.
ReplyDeleteJust in case you missed it, tee hee, long blog discussion on tattoos a couple of days back.
From reading these comments, seems that mixed race people like Rashida Jones causes a loss of cognitive ability in many individuals.
ReplyDeleteIf Rashida Jones is a person of mixed race, then everyone in the world is a person of mixed race and the term is empty of meaning. Seriously, just how white does a person have to be before you'll call them white?
I did not miss the details when Chris Brown allegedly beat up on Rihanna,but apparently most people did miss
ReplyDeleteit.
Chris was driving on the highway at highway speeds when Rihanna found something in the car which angered her. She took her spike heel shoe and started hitting him with it.
You can badly injure or kill someone with a spiker. He had only two choices. Let her beat him up with that spiker, and perhaps die in the wreck.
Or, hit her exactly once right in the face and live. He chose to live. Good man.
This was in the news exactly once. Then, the tendency of the MSM to lie for political reasons took over, and they did not repeat the truth about the incident again.
It was not a case of her 'deserving' to be hit. It was a case of setting him up so he had no choice in the matter.
The truth is, Rihanna is a very violent person. Find PRONE TO VIOLENCE, should be free online to understand Rihanna. It was written by the woman who opened the first modern DV shelter for women.
Anonymous age 72
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ReplyDeleteTHERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A
LIGHT-SKINNED BLACK person.
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https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/102311719580461249997/102311719580461249997/posts/YB15Rfa5wat
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