A pissing contest at BlackProf.com

Last week I linked to a post at BlackProf.com concerning infant mortality rates. The great thing about BlackProf – in addition to its steady supply of intellectually engaging posts – is a rollicking comments section where all kinds of points of view do battle.

Often, the battles get flamey (within the parameters of the blog administrators’ enforced rules of civility).

I got caught up in a hot back-and-forth over that infant mortality post. My antagonist was a regular BlackProf commenter, Craig Nulan, who is also part of a group blog called The Assault on Black Folk’s Sanity. (Shockingly, according to his LinkedIn profile, Nulan is an MIT alumnus.)

“Cnulan” callbacked to an earlier exchange we’d had regarding the black homicide rate. Which he seems to think is nothing to be worried about.

I present below our latest exchange. It includes a comment from Michael Fisher, Nulan’s colleague at Assault on Sanity, which blames me, David Mills – me, personally and directly – for the high incidence of black-on-black murder, because of my newspaper article about Professor Griff 18 years ago. You gotta check that out.

CNULAN: So, the basic question confronting researchers has been whether racial discrimination and racism is stressful, and to what extent might this stress impact pregnant women?

Search “Ostracism: The Cruel Power of Silence” to find a good article about the degree of neurological stress incurred as a baseline by the victims of racist ostracism and racist social scorn. Links to continuing research in this area should be available with the article – it’s rather old, but it’s findings have been subsequently borne out and extensively elaborated upon, so there’s no question of the neurological implications and effects.

(of course – as might be expected – the article doesn’t deal with racism as a form of ostracism – though it’s clearly by far the worst)

Note also the reciprocal effect on the bullies who anonymously practice this “personal responsibility”, “low-class”, “ghetto” scorn against the victims of ostracism? Consider the extent to which they’ve been dehumanized and have become relatively low-functioning as contrasted with human beings yet capable of empathy or understanding.

One of the things that delights me so much about inflicting rhetorical scorn on racist and conservative bullies is the way they shriek and tattle just like the psychological and spiritual infants they are – at the very first hint of even the least psychic discomfort.

What loathsome, spineless scum these sorry excuses for men have proven themselves to be......,

KEN: “What loathsome, spineless scum these sorry excuses for men have proven themselves to be.....,”

my, my....

It seems all so artificial from a man who wasn’t at all concerned about the homicide rate. And you know what they both hover at around 8000 deaths.

Here’s a city who is effecting their infant mortality rates, along with while adressing their other problems.

www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2006/pr088-06.shtml

They are still trying to do better, and at the bottom of the article you can see what their programs are.

CNULAN: liar...,

I wasn’t ready to accept your ever-eager efforts along with the disappointing so-called undercover black man to racialize the homicide rate. Cast in global socio-economic context – it’s comparatively modest. What’s immodest and unique is the disparate rates of incarceration, colonial policing, and disparate penalties.

so no rev..., nothing artificial going on here. It’s genuine. I sincerely believe that the “personal responsibility” touting, racism denying conservative (your ilk) is a loathsome, spineless scum and a sorry excuse for a man...,

just like back in the day, when your ideological progenitors touted “states rights” as a code word for “Jim Crow” – so also the moralizing conservative pharisee – with no personal skin in the game – sits back in judgement but proposes and does nothing of consequence himself.

and heaven forbid he man-up and adopt the moral high-ground of anti-racist policy and praxis....,

KEN: Do you really think your cute little post of projections and insults makes me think you are concerned about this subject? You are just race baiting here. He is your quote from the abortion thread from prof Jefferies:

“I fully support abortion up to and including infanticide and accept that as a strictly maternal prerogative. ...”

... Do you understand why I think you might lack a little sincerity here? According to your beliefs these babies aren’t even human yet. And if you have no care for the homicides, how much less for these diapered blobs.

CNULAN: ... Your first mistake is imagining I give a rip what *you* think. For the record, what I’ve stated is that women have an inalienable prerogative concerning carrying and bearing children. Superstition-induced interference with that prerogative by those of your ilk is profoundly offensive.

If you and all other like-minded fundamentalists were raptured off the planet tomorrow, satisfying your fondest delusional desires, and, ridding the earth of essentially useless biomass, that would be a total win/win situation. ...

The women described in the article anchoring this thread are attempting to exercise their inalienable prerogative. They’re finding their affirmative exercise impaired by the toxic emanations of the culture and society in which they’re embedded.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: You know what else might contribute to the stress of pregnancy... aside from fast-food restaurants, worries about understaffed schools, and crime? How about being UNMARRIED?

Sounds stressful to me... knocked up outside the security and stability of marriage.

Might the massive racial disparity in out-of-wedlock births contribute to the infant-mortality problem?

I mean, shoot... 23 percent of white women’s babies are born out of wedlock... compared with 68 percent of black women’s babies.

How easy (and useless) it is to blame the system, blame racism, blame whitey, blame America... rather than even consider the choices and behaviors of the women getting pregnant.

Values matter. Personal responsibility matters.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: cnulan wrote: “I wasn’t ready to accept your ever-eager efforts along with the disappointing so-called undercover black man to racialize the homicide rate. Cast in global socio-economic context - it’s comparatively modest.”

Glad to hear you’re not losing any sleep over the 20 young black men murdered today by other black folks... and the 20 who will be murdered tomorrow... and the 20 more the day after that...

Murder (which we should all agree is preventable) is the No. 1 cause of death for black men between the ages of 15 and 34.

There isn’t a damn thing “modest” about that. And your bitching about the “toxic emanations of [American] culture and society” will do nothing to change it. Not that you seem to think it needs changing.

CNULAN: ... 20 young drug dealers murdered by 20 other young drug dealers is the predictable collateral cost of doing that business. Extremely modest when compared with the homicidal excesses of the retail drug trade in other, non-U.S. markets.

There isn’t a damn thing “modest” about that. And your bitching about the “toxic emanations of [American] culture and society” will do nothing to change it. Not that you seem to think it needs changing.

It’s a necessary counterpoint to your impotent whining about what you perceive as the moral depravity of poor Black folks rather than the moral depravity of America embodied in some Americans.

It’s you and reverend Ken who insist on racializing crime and immorality. Guess you’ve internalized enough anti-Black animus to be an incognegro indeed....,

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: ... My main focus, in the short term, is simply to broaden the public discussion... and to oppose those leftists and racialists who try to shut down certain subjects by name-calling and other anti-intellectual bullying tactics. Those people aren’t going to make the world better for anybody.

It breaks my heart that cnulan seems proud to conduct himself this way in a public conversation.

CNULAN: ... It will never cease to amaze me how closely identified folks become with the thought extrusions of their anonymous online avatars. A cynical man might be led to conclude that these wannabe gonnabe pranksters take it so “personally” because they have $omething at $take.

Clearly, an honest, good faith, promoter of our collective well-being has nothing to fear in sharing his/her truths with the rest of the world and proudly taking ownership of the same?

Only liars, criminals, terrorists, and the abnormal seek recourse to anonymity in their personal and political conduct....,

such persons have no rights I’m obliged to acknowledge.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Cnulan: Anonymity? Moi? Get hip, baby... everybody knows that UBM is the nom de plume of David Mills, Emmy-winning television writer and former staff writer for the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Read Wikipedia for more details of my brilliant career.

You are so self-unaware, it’s comical. You slag me and others for “racializing crime and every other statistic you happen to come across”... in a comment thread launched by a post titled “Racism and Infant Mortality.”

Is Prof. Bracey likewise guilty of racializing the statistics on infant mortality?

The days of your style of chest-pounding rhetoric are drawing to a close. No one is intimidated by you.

CNULAN: incognegro, you may be all that in your own imagination, but you’re a less than an undercover nullity to me...,

Prof. Bracey posited a series of questions. If you have some answers, contribute them, otherwise stop pretending that what you have to say is deeper than your hurty feewings at being upbraided for your own tiresome and sold-out contributions to the negro conservative chorus of irrelevance and anti-Black propagandism.

Don’t you think that the supply side of the happy negro market is fairly saturated right now? Or do you bring something special to it? Are you the “hip” happy negro?

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Cnulan... how’s the weather on your side of the Bell Curve?

You wrote: “Prof. Bracey posited a series of questions. If you have some answers, contribute them...”

No, he racialized the issue of infant mortality.

And I say, if you’re gonna go around pointing out racial disproportions... nothing beats the fact that black people commit more than 50 percent of the murders in this country. It is the crisis of our time.

Oh, and I did contribute an answer to Prof. Bracey’s question, but obviously it skated off your Teflon brain. So here it is again:

ILLEGITMACY.

Out-of-wedlock births appear to be a correlating factor to infant mortality. If we urge young women not to get pregnant until they’re married, no doubt that would reduce some of that life-threatening “stress,” don’t you agree?

By the way, Prof. Bracey’s got a book coming out soon on the rise of black conservatism. It seems that 30 percent of the U.S. black population identifies as “conservative.” That percentage has grown much in recent years.

Your brand of anti-intellectual black racialism is destined to become a relic of the past... like blowout kits and the Hustle. (And a “hustle” is what it is.)

MICHAEL FISHER: David Mills is a low life. F-Word that N-Word. And I sincerely mean it.

He misused Prof. Griff’s trust to get ahead and deliver the first major blow to Public Enemy when they were at the height of their influence. The S1Ws (not Griff) told me the background story on that one. He is a piece of s-word who tries to get ahead by snitching to white supremacists on black progressives and black nationalists. Thus the moniker “undercover black man”.

His attack on PE enabled low lifes such as Jerry Heller to finally convince the Jewish folks who run the music industry to inaugurate THE radical change in their signing and marketing strategy. After that interview the instructions came from the top to cease signing black conscious hip hop groups and to finally concentrate on Gangsta as Jerry Heller had been advocating out in LA.

Mills is single-handedly responsible for the demise of conscious black Hip Hop and the rise of the likes of NWA and 50 cent as well as the resulting and accompanying black murder rate among black youth and the concomitant rise of disrespectful lyrics and behavior towards black women.

He was the black snitch they used to set the whole sh*t up.

Hypocrite

CNULAN: Your brand of anti-intellectual black racialism is destined to become a relic of the past... like blowout kits and the Hustle. (And a “hustle” is what it is.)

Evidently you know a great deal about a “hustle” or is that a sell-out David “incognegro” Mills. Is the happy negro conservative schtick your current modus operandi? Or is it your pathetic and hardly recognizable attempt at atonement for the unpardonable dirt you’ve done? Was the 32 pieces of silver you received for your perfidy worth it in retrospect?

CNULAN: By the way, Prof. Bracey’s got a book coming out soon on the rise of black conservatism. It seems that 30 percent of the U.S. black population identifies as “conservative.” ...

I would’ve pegged the percentage as much higher than that. Doesn’t mean we’ll be joining your anti-Black negro conservative bandwagon anytime soon though.

Frankly, given your rather profound personal failings David, I don’t think you’re going to realize very much success in your own efforts to make negritude “hip”. ...

I mean, shoot... 23 percent of white women’s babies are born out of wedlock... compared with 68 percent of black women’s babies.

well gosh darn incognegro.., 5% of white women live in semi-permanent poverty while somewhere between 21-25% of Black women live in semi-permanent poverty. I wonder whether the number of unwed white mothers would rise precipitously if the white poverty number ran in the 21-25% range?

I wonder if racist custom practiced as both de facto and de jure facts of life in America throughout the better part of the 20th century, (though now rendered unfashionable) had any bearing on those relative poverty percentages?

hmm..., if poverty skews the “illegitimacy” data, I wonder what it does to the participation in the retail drug trade numbers with associated homicide statistics, as well?

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Cnulan, here’s where you just argue yourself in circles. If poverty is the cause of the high infant mortality and the homicide rate... and poverty is the government’s/white people’s fault... then there’s nothing black people can do to elevate the black community except ask/beg/demand that the government/white people fix it.

That is the ultimate position of weakness. Even though it masquerades as a kind of strength. (“Speak truth to power, brah!”)

You should read what W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about black crime more than 100 years ago. That long ago, he was arguing that it was up to black people to rise by means of the values of education, law-abidingness and work.