Marion Brothers

Marion Brothers

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Mad Science use in Race Suppression

Commentary by Eddie Griffin
[Pseudo-science created scientific racism]

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

There have always been mad scientists in the world. Think tanks are full of them. They are called mad scientists because they try to reshape the world to the liking of the elite establishment. Whenever kings and lords of Europe were overthrown, the people also beheaded the “great thinkers” of that day whose ideals and philosophies had justified and rationalized the oppression of the masses by the monarchial government.

Mad scientists came up with some of the most ingenious pseudo-sciences of their day, such as the Science of Eugenics, which prognosticated a person’s social status and human potential by the shape of their heads, the width of the nose, and the thickness of their lips.

Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. The goals of various groups advocating eugenics have included the creation of healthier, more intelligent people, to save society's resources, and lessen human suffering, as well as racially based goals or desires to breed for other specific qualities, such as fighting abilities.

Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral and is based on, or is itself, pseudoscience. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons who appear to have - or are claimed to have - genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, outright genocide of races perceived as inferior or undesirable.

Eugenics was an academic discipline at many colleges and universities. Funding was provided by prestigious sources such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Institute of Washington, and the Harriman family.

Because of its normative goals and historical association with scientific racism, as well as the development of the science of genetics, the western scientific community has mostly disassociated itself from the term "eugenics", although one can find advocates of what is now known as liberal eugenics.


Scientific racism refers to scientific theories of the 19th century, which drew on physical anthropology, anthropometry, craniometry, phrenology, physiognomy and other now-discredited disciplines, in order to provide a typology of different human races, based on a biological conception of the race. Such theories, which have been now discredited as pseudo-sciences or proto-sciences, have provided ideological justifications to racism, slavery and colonialism during the New Imperialism period in the second half of the 19th century. Unsurprisingly, their popularity coincide with this period of European expansion in the world. These scholarly theories sometimes worked in conjunction with racism, for example in the case of the "human zoos", during which various human beings were presented in cages during colonial exhibitions. They were strongly denounced after World War II and the Holocaust, in particular by the UNESCO 1950 statement, signed by internationally renowned scholars, and titled The Race Question.

Eugenics was invented by Francis Galton and popularized at the turn of the 20th century, such theories, which often postulated a "master race", usually "Nordic" and "Aryan".

QUESTION: Is ADHD a return to pseudo-science since it largely affects on black children?

The National Institute of Mental Health symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD):

Historical Background

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was first described by Dr. Heinrich Hoffman in 1845. In 1902 that Sir George F. Still published a series of lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in England in which he described a group of impulsive children with significant behavioral problems, caused by a genetic dysfunction and not by poor child rearing—children who today would be easily recognized as having ADHD.

Symptoms

The principal characteristics of ADHD are inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. These symptoms appear early in a child's life… Different symptoms may appear in different settings, depending on the demands the situation may pose for the child's self-control. A child who "can't sit still" or is otherwise disruptive will be noticeable in school, but the inattentive daydreamer may be overlooked. The impulsive child who acts before thinking may be considered just a "discipline problem," while the child who is passive or sluggish may be viewed as merely unmotivated. Yet both may have different types of ADHD. All children are sometimes restless, sometimes act without thinking, sometimes daydream the time away. When the child's hyperactivity, distractibility, poor concentration, or impulsivity begin to affect performance in school, social relationships with other children, or behavior at home, ADHD may be suspected.

Hyperactivity-Impulsivity

Hyperactive children always seem to be "on the go" or constantly in motion. They dash around touching or playing with whatever is in sight, or talk incessantly. Sitting still at dinner or during a school lesson or story can be a difficult task. They squirm and fidget in their seats or roam around the room…
Impulsive children seem unable to curb their immediate reactions or think before they act. They will often blurt out inappropriate comments, display their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for the later consequences of their conduct.

Some signs of hyperactivity-impulsivity are:

Feeling restless, often fidgeting with hands or feet, or squirming while seated.

Running, climbing, or leaving a seat in situations where sitting or quiet behavior is expected.

Blurting out answers before hearing the whole question.

Having difficulty waiting in line or taking turns.


Inattention

Children who are inattentive have a hard time keeping their minds on any one thing and may get bored with a task after only a few minutes. If they are doing something they really enjoy, they have no trouble paying attention. But focusing deliberate, conscious attention to organizing and completing a task or learning something new is difficult.

The DSM-IV-TR gives these signs of inattention:

Often becoming easily distracted by irrelevant sights and sounds.

Often failing to pay attention to details and making careless mistakes.

Rarely following instructions carefully and completely losing or forgetting things like toys, or pencils, books, and tools needed for a task.

Often skipping from one uncompleted activity to another.


Children diagnosed with the Predominantly Inattentive Type of ADHD are seldom impulsive or hyperactive, yet they have significant problems paying attention. They appear to be daydreaming, "spacey," easily confused, slow moving, and lethargic. They may have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as other children. When the teacher gives oral or even written instructions, this child has a hard time understanding what he or she is supposed to do and makes frequent mistakes. Yet the child may sit quietly, unobtrusively, and even appear to be working but not fully attending to or understanding the task and the instructions.

These children don't show significant problems with impulsivity and overactivity in the classroom, on the school ground, or at home. They may get along better with other children than the more impulsive and hyperactive types of ADHD, and they may not have the same sorts of social problems so common with the combined type of ADHD. So often their problems with inattention are overlooked. But they need help just as much as children with other types of ADHD, who cause more obvious problems in the classroom.

FOOTNOTE:

These symptoms are appear so arbitrary that the diagnosis can be made to apply to any normal child. So, why are a disproporate number of black (particulary male) children are diagnosis ADHD and prescribed to a life-long regimen of Ritalin?

1 comment:

  1. The following is only tangentially related to your topic, but it's on my heart and I want to share it with you:

    The Washington Post says,

    The contest for black support in South Carolina mirrors the national struggle Democratic candidates are waging to win black elected officials' support. Many have long-standing ties to the Clintons or Edwardses or others but are nonetheless tugged by racial solidarity with Obama and the excitement they see his campaign generating among their constituents. Moreover, Obama's early fundraising prowess has convinced observers that his campaign will be formidable to the end.

    I'm not going to address Hillary v. Obama, because that's something everyone will decide for themselves. Here's my biggest gripe with that paragraph and with the whole article from which it's excerpted: the word "racial." The word race is a synonym for "species" and the Washington Post is saying that we will vote for Obama because he from the same species as us, just like dogs hang out in packs with other dogs because they are from the same species.

    I'm not buying that. I'm not going to let anyone say that I am from any species other than the human species.

    Let's face it: What we have in common with Barack Obama but that separates us from whites is not our "racial" species, but simply our skin color. Is that so hard to say and accept?

    Of course whites like to exaggerate our difference so they can rationalize the exaggerated differences in the way we are treated. That's why the word "race," that appears no where else in the biological sciences, is applied to the difference in SKIN COLOR between Blacks and whites.

    Let's face it: There's no way we will ever win equality in America for so long as we concede that we are not even from the same species as whites. I don't think "separate but equal species" is our best argument for equality.

    Now, someone will insist that the word "race" is essential to our efforts to gain equality and fight racism. That's like saying that the "N" word is essential to our efforts to fight against epithets! The word "race" is itself a badge and mark of inferiority and the word "racism" unless you accept that concept of "race."

    I am never going to use the word "race" again without referring to it as "the disproved pseudo-scientific theory of race."
    Nor will I use the word "racism," which is a word whose definition is premised upon the existence of the disproved pseudo-scientific concept of "race".

    Let's look at this linguistically and decode the word "racism": Any argument about Marxism implicitly accepts the fact that there was a man named "Marx," which is true. Any argument about "capitalism" implicitly excepts as a premise the fact that "capital" exists, which is true. Likewise, any argument about "racism" - pro or con - is based on the premise that "race" exists, which is false. NO ONE anywhere can offer me even a half-baked argument that there is more than one species of human beings!

    Only "racists" believe in the color-animus motivated pseudo-scientific concept of "race." And so the literal meaning of the word "racist" has to be "someone who believes in the concept of "race." " From now on, to avoid being taken for a "racist," I'm not going to use the word "race" anymore, neither claiming or conceding to be from a different "race" from white people.

    Just as black cats and spotted cats from the same family are all from one species - "cats," likewise, Black people and white people who all came from Africa originally, who interbreed, who have transfuseable blood, who organs can be transplanted one to the other, we are all from the same species. If the word race is superfluous in discussing differences between animal species, it is also superfluous in discussing differences between humans.

    The word "race" serves only one purpose: to gloss over the fact that there is no evidence that we and whites are from different species and to gloss over the fact that we and whites MUST, by all evidence, be of the SAME species, that our only difference is skin-color.

    So, what term will we use instead of "race"? How about simply "skin-color"? And what term will we use instead of "racism"? How about "skin-color aroused antagonistic behaviors of individuals, groups, organizations and societies." Yeah, it's a little longer than "racism" but has the advantage that it doesn't concede that we are, like dogs, being from a different species from whites.

    If there is inherently, innately something more to the difference between Blacks and whites than skin-color, then what is that "something more"? "Inherently inferior intelligence?" "Inherently inferior values?" "Innately superior bongo playing?" "Genetically superior sexual drive and potency, but with less impulse control?" All of the possibilities are both unproven, improvable and absurd as a matter of science but also profoundly insulting to us as a people, and intentionally so. The word "race" (and every word derived from it)is inherently and irremediably an insult wherever and whenever it is used. Unless you can tell me what innate characteristics make us inherently different from whites, you have to admit that the concept of "race" adds nothing that the phrase "skin-color" of "phenotype" doesn't. All "race" add is baggage and highly negatively charged linguistic discrimination.

    For so long as we agree that we are from a separate species from whites, we will never, ever convince them that we are from an equal species. As the Supreme Court said in 1954, "separate but equal" is an unconstitutional fallacy that simply never, ever works.

    If someone asks me, "Are you equal to whites?" it does require more letters for me to write "yes," (3 letters) than it requires to write the word "no," (2 letters) but I think it's worth the extra effort, considering how important it is. Likewise, I think it's worth taking the extra time to write "skin-color" instead of "race," because "skin color" preserves our humanness and equality while using the words "race" (and logically therefore also "racism") negates our humanness and equality.

    ReplyDelete