> Also, simply take a look at the MLB, the NHL, the AVP, the MSL, MMA. Or should I just cherry pick two of them, like you did, instead of looking at professional sports as a whole?

I picked the NFL and NBA for two reasons - 1.) They are the two leagues that I follow most closely, and am able to speak most authoritatively on, and 2.) because they are the two leagues that put the most emphasis on explosive athleticism (I clarify "explosive" because you can make the case that hand-eye coordination and technical footwork are elements of athleticism, but I do not refer to these traits when I refer to athleticism.)

I firmly disagree with the idea that black people are more successful because they train harder. For one thing, the difference between white and black people in basketball and football does not appear with skills that one would typically train. Blacks are not better at shooting the basketball, passing, dribbling or footwork. Nor are they more accurate passers of the football, more adept at catching the ball. The differences arise in athleticism - black people are quicker, faster, and better jumpers. What's more, this is true from an early age. Playing or watching sports with kids who are only 13, 14, or 15 years old, it is already clear that in general, the black kids are more athletic than the white kids.

The black kids are not trying harder than the white kids, but yet they are clearly more athletic. For example, in my high school, one kid was the best 100 meter runner in the state, and became a national-caliber runner. Unsurprisingly, he was black. However, he didn't train any harder than anyone else. In fact, he didn't even run track until it was suggested to him that he join the team, because he was clearly a fast kid. After not even a season of training, he was the fastest runner in the state. There were plenty of kids that were training far harder, and for a longer time than he was, but were not nearly as successful. What's more, there were several other kids in my high school who joined the track team their junior or senior years just because it was clear that they had good speed. They were all black, and within a season, they had formed the state-champion 4x100 team. I think it's worth noting that I went to a private, Catholic school that was 90-95% white. Yet the four best sprinters in the school were black, as was the best player on the football team. I somehow doubt that was a coincidence.

There are millions of white kids who would love to be top-level basketball or football players in the United States, but the top-level players are overwhelmingly black. Why? It's not because the white kids aren't trying hard enough. To say so is wrong, and insulting to white kids everywhere. While by no means the final word, this book attempts to explore the issue from a biological standpoint.

> Which makes more sense? That black Americans train harder in the NFL and NBA and 100-meter dash than other races because of cultural pressure which produces the best athletes in those sports, or black people are just naturally more athletic than all of the other races...but range from non-dominant to non-existent in most professional American sports leagues because of some random fluke no one understands?

That question is both a loaded question, and inherently flawed. Even when they don't compose the overwhelming majority, black people are represented in greater numbers than their share of population in many sports, including cricket and soccer (citation). Blacks are over-represented even on the U.S. soccer team, with a number of black players, including Freddy Adu, Jozy Altidore, Charlie Davies, Robbie Findley, Edson Buddle, Maurice Edu, DaMarcus Beasley, and Oguchi Onyewu, to name a few. And that's in a country in which soccer is more of a niche sport than anything, yet blacks are still over-represented. I doubt that's due to cultural pressure. What if soccer was the dominant sport in America, and all the kids aspired to be soccer players? Most likely, the soccer team would have even more black players. As to why no African teams win the World Cup? Most likely because those countries are incredibly poor and lack the resources to fund and develop a top team. Even so, teams from the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon have had success ont he international scene lately.

TL;DR: Black people do not train any harder than white people in the sports that they dominate. Also, they are still over-represented in sports that are not as popular, which seems to dispute the idea that it results from cultural pressure.

heh i plan on bringing in a few of my favourite rappers - saul williams does a couple of really good tracks directly about masculinity in hip-hop - but i'm not going to get bogged down circle-jerking the artists i like the most, because that doesn't do anything for anyone.

i think the minstrel show analogy really holds true in this situation. M K Asante Jr writes in 'It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop' about the distinction between what he calls the 'real and the reel', which is basically his way of talking about the presentation of black urban / ghetto culture in the media and the actual grim reality of it. he also applies a colonial narrative to the way hip-hop got bought and sold by major labels in the late 80s / early 90s through to the present; the hip-hop movement was essentially colonised and the artists reduced to share-croppers without any stake in the culture they created. he writes about it in a far more eloquent way than me, but that's an awesome book if you're interested in the history of hip-hop from a post-colonialist / feminist viewpoint. it also includes a lot of the history of the genre, so NWA come up a few times.

another great thing to check out would be Byron Hunt's 'Hip Hop: Beyond Breaks and Rhymes' documentary if you can get a copy from somewhere. i almost feel bummed that i saw it, because it does what i'm interested in far more effectively than i could ever hope to heh. still, it's really great - he goes into the queer hip-hop movement and directly analyses various rap videos and songs.

i've got a bunch of other stuff which i'm still sorting through, but yeah - those are some of my bigger influences so far.

Thank you! I really appreciate the offer. Academics often don't have anyone to edit them for things like grammar, wording, etc. and it definitely shows. Glad I could teach you about something new! If you're interested in reading a popular science book on a similar topic, you could try reading something by Brian Fagan like this.

I made it into reddit format!

Is that so?

Women have been a leading force in sanitation strikes, calling for equal treatment and job security. This particular service industry has been the focus of multiple feminist manifestos and employment goals. Women fought long and hard to gain the right to work in sanitation, and they’re continuing that effort to open up the field more. This issue is so big that Parks and Rec even made an episode about it.


Female sewer workers have repeatedly sued the DEP for unfair treatment, seeking to open up the industry and gain equal status with their male peers. Sewer work is often targeted for its biased hiring practices. Hundreds of female candidates fight for limited available positions, but most are turned away, despite having the necessary experience and skills. Feminist workers recognize that these women are willing and able to do the work, but aren’t getting the opportunity to gain employment here.


Historically, coal mining is one of the most highly targeted careers for gender bias. Women have been petitioning for the opportunity to mine safely since the Industrial Revolution. This is actually one of the primary and best studied examples of women fighting to enter traditionally male fields. Lots of women, who both succeeded in the mines and didn’t, continue to petition for increased access to this field.

And yeah, women want white collar jobs too. Go figure - A diverse population of women, with different abilities, interests and levels of education, are all fighting for the right to seek diverse forms of employment. Fighting for equality in one sphere doesn’t mean that we’ve forgotten about the others.

Just because you aren’t paying attention to the feminist movement doesn’t mean that the feminist movement is nonexistent.
Actually, my mom wanted to be a garbage truck driver and the employer said she was “too pretty” and rejected her employment. So yeah, pretty unfair :/
The person who sent me the ask about women in male dominated jobs- this is what I was talking about!

whatever you decide, just make sure it makes you happy and that you keep striving to be a good person. He was a Christian, but I would absolutely recommend Tolstoy's A Confession. He had his own crisis of faith but came through it still believing. I'm an atheist and I found the book very powerful and meaningful. I think anyone having a crisis of belief or who's questioning or who's just interested in belief in general can get something out of it. Also it's Tolstoy, and Tolstoy was a genius. It might help you.

Just remember that your faith is personal. No one can tell you what to believe. It's your job to discover what feels right for you.

Well god can be seen as a gender neutral term.

The general belief in the Christian and Judaic (and I assume Islam but I don't know EDIT: Allah is gender neutral) is that God is a gender neutral being.

A theologian Elizabeth A. Johnson wrote a pretty good book about referring to the Catholic God with only feminine pronouns to make up for the overuse of male pronouns used for God.

In reply to wahoowa0711 on "Am I the only one who is suspicious about Invisible Children, the organisation behind Kony 2012?":

> /edit: Originally posted on the other article, but I wrote a lot, so I'm reposting.
>
> /edit2: Read The Graves Are Not Yet Full if you're interested in African issues. From Publisher's Weekly:
>
> >"This is a book about evil." With these words, Berkeley launches into a gripping exploration of some of the worst African atrocities of the past 20 years, which he has covered as a journalist for the Atlantic Monthly and other publications. Focusing on several flash points the genocide in Rwanda, the political violence in Zaire and South Africa's apartheid killings, for instance he avers that the violence that has permeated these societies is born of the same evil that motivated Hitler to kill six million Jews: racially and ethnically based tyranny, which, he says, is the result of Western colonization, not "age-old" hatreds. Berkeley is at his best when he is reporting; he conducted interviews with African leaders, such as Liberia's Charles Taylor, with ordinary people and with high-level American officials involved in formulating African policy, like former Assistant Secretary of State Chester A. Crocker. He is particularly effective at pointing out the links between longstanding Western attitudes and policy and Africa's atrocities ("Tribalism solved the colonial dilemma of how to dominate and exploit vast numbers of indigenous inhabitants with a limited number of colonial agents"), and he shows how maniacal tyrants have exploited ethnic divisions. But the reader is still left wondering how so many people could have taken part in the mass killing of their own countrymen. Though Berkeley writes that "most African tribes live side by side without conflict," the book leaves the opposite impression. (Apr. 1)Forecast: This is one of several books about Africa due out this spring. Perhaps the critical mass will turn the interest of serious readers toward that strife-ridden continent.
>
> I just want to point out that while there may be/are concerns with the Invisible Children campaign, I feel that people should be able to donate money to any cause they see fit. I don't think they are necessarily misrepresenting the dangers of the LRA, and if you watch the video, they clearly state that the LRA has moved out of Uganda. And they also state that they want to keep advisers, not necessarily start a military intervention with the US acting unilaterally or even leading.
>
> As for the "national" politics of Africa (which is misleading in itself, since its like referring to the national politics of North America or Asia), of course there is major stability. European (and American) nations basically made the vast majority of Africa dependent on Europe and the US in order for these African 'countries' to survive, and once these nations stepped out, they left instability in their wake. A major cause of this instability is a result of the European division of Africa into countries in way that purposefully grouped peoples that fought against each other and divided those who allied with each other. Africa did not develop with huge ethnically-identifying groups, like Europe did, but rather many, many small groups with a shared history. No wonder political/social/military strife often crosses borders nowadays -- these borders were politically and imperialistically drawn, not a result of a natural progression. One can hardly act in one country (Uganda, for example) without affecting another country, as eluded to in the wiki article for the LRA (edit: this also supports the claim that the IC does not necessarily want direct military involvement since they support this action in the video):
>
> >On October 14, 2011, President Obama announced that he had ordered the deployment of 100 U.S. military advisors (with a mandate to train, assist and provide intelligence) to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army.[66] It has been reported that the bulk of the troops are from the Army Special Forces.[66][67] Obama said that the deployment did not need explicit approval from Congress, as the 2010 Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act already authorized "increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability". The military advisors will be armed, and will provide assistance and advice, but "will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense". The advisers will operate in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, subject to approval by those states. The military advisors will not operate independently of the host states. Human Rights Watch welcomed the deployment, which they had previously advocated for.[68] General Carter Ham, the head of US Africa Command, said that his best estimate was that Joseph Kony was probably in the Central African Republic, not located in Uganda.
>
> But I digress.
>
> All of this is to say, whether or not you agree with the IC's Kony 2012 campaign, I think they have a right as a non-profit to get their message out. Of course their aim is going to be narrow and involve special interests, that's what non-profits are. As for their finances, that's up for the BBB to deal with, but people can give their money to what ever campaign they want to (look at Kanye's "charity"). And that's their choice, whether or not you agree.
>
> I do agree that people should do their research and look into what they are supporting, but I think that one should critique the organization, not the idea. Yes, IC may be sketchy, but I think that it is important to get the word out about those committing crimes against humanity, even though it's a bit delayed (better late than never).
>
> And by the way, the IC makes it very easy to get out the word on Kony without giving them any money (providing PDFs for free; posting the video; using social media; signing a petition) so I don't feel bad at all when I think that Kony should be apprehended for this:
>
> >There are 33 charges, 12 counts are crimes against humanity, which include murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement and rape. There are another 21 counts of war crimes which include murder, cruel treatment of civilians, intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population, pillaging, inducing rape, and forced enlisting of children into the rebel ranks. Ocampo said that "Kony was abducting girls to offer them as rewards to his commanders."
>

At 2012-03-07 15:48:40 UTC, bdobba wrote [+25 points: +32, -7]:

> > Yes, IC may be sketchy, but I think that it is important to get the word out about those committing crimes against humanity, even though it's a bit delayed (better late than never)
>
> I think one of the issues people are more concerned about is the possibility that this organisation is essentially a lobbying group designed to promote american military involvement in the central african region, especially because the recently passed 2009 Bill ,which the organisation has lobbied for extensively , states that it allows for:
>
> >(1) providing political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army, to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield in the continued absence of a negotiated solution, and to disarm and demobilize the remaining Lord's Resistance Army fighters
>
> Barry (linked in the original post) makes the point that:
>
> > ...This deadly bill clearly gives the President full authority to provide "military... support" to attack one thousand persona non grata that may be located in Uganda. However, they may also be located in nearby areas like the Sudan. Since a venue is not cleanly indicated in the language, any President could use this military authority to go into nearly any country in the region...
>
> To me it seems like the main purpose of this organisation is to support an Afghanistan style american intervention Uganda, whose mandate for military operation would extend to the surrounding regions. This combined with the increasing importance of the regions resources, specifically cobalt, copper and coltan as well as the growing chinese presence in Uganda in addition to neighbouring areas such as the DRC (Democratic republic of Congo) and Kenya gives the impression of geopolitical motives behind what seems like an innocuous campaign.

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History

• 2012-03-08 18:10:24 UTC [+25 points: +32, -7]
  
• 2012-03-08 18:41:41 UTC [+23 points: +32, -9]
  
• 2012-03-08 19:12:45 UTC [+24 points: +33, -9]

Yeah, I remember them with the ribbed texture. The school counselor was the ref in the games, and made sure we didn't throw at the head. Here's one on Amazon. Great fun.

Apparently, there's even specialty dodgeballs that hurt less.

i was curious, decided to search for penis wipes

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008LXBZF2/ref=pd_aw_fbt_121_img_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=2E0M8RXZ0KT8W33BDTC6

read the product description, see photos of the founders, tell me that isn't the most white dudebro thing you've ever seen

what is so "dude" about them anyway? it seems like luxury wipes, why would they only market them to men LOL


my, this was a fun couple of minutes

Cats are like people. There's always the RISK you won't get along. But if you treat them with respect they will generally eventually warm up to you. It's all about trust. It may take a while but one day you'll wake up and they'll be purring on your chest and you'll be like "what the fuck changed".

If you want to try cat ownership without the risk of getting stuck with a bad roommate, try fostering one. If you guys turn out to be compatible, adopt the little bugger!

Edit: Additionally, litter boxes are probably the biggest downside of cat ownership, but https://www.amazon.com/Omega-Paw-Self-Cleaning-Litter-Pewter/dp/B005E2S77C this litter box I've found is an engineering marvel that has made dealing with stinky kitty poopies super easy.

Has anyone actually read the Sexual Politics of Meat A Feminist-vegetarian Critical Theory. It's super interesting though I haven't read it in a decade now. It was my vegan - feminist primer in the 1990s. I even wrote a huge feminist-vegan zine article about how abstaining from eating meat is a feminist political act using the book as a resource.

Acceptance is immediately useful while still looking to change and grow, but it's frustrating when it's presented as the solution by itself - especially if the issue is public meltdowns.

There's masking but there's also skill-building. If you know the areas you want to work on, a professional should be able to help you move towards your goals. Frustrating too that a lot of the resources and professional work are aimed at children.

You might want to check out behaviour analysis and self-management strategies. It's divisive in the community when used with kids but as an adult you're completely in control.

PEERS is useful for breaking down social rules etc., though it's aimed at parents and educators so it might be patronising.

https://www.amazon.com/NEXT-AMERICAN-NATION-Nationalism-Revolution/dp/0684825031

Edit: From wiki.

>Lind's book focuses on criticism of two trends. The first, multiculturalism, he characterizes as an "unmitigated calamity" and "a repellent and failed regime". Thus, Lind opposes affirmative action and racial quotas, and identifies the elimination of them as a "nonnegotiable demand". The second is a series of compromises struck by what Lind calls the white "plutocracy", "overclass", or "oligarchy". In the "first American Republic", he says, this "Anglo-American nation," the compromise was between North and South to keep blacks in bondage. "The Second American Republic", what Mr. Lind calls "Euro-America," saw the bargain struck between the oligarchy and the white working class to keep blacks marginalized.[1]

>Lind further writes that multiculturalism is the basis for another such compromise, in which the "white ruling class" has, in fact, used racial quotas to appease blacks and other minority groups by promoting token numbers among them, but leaving the majority unhelped, while abandoning most whites to impoverishment. This, Lind argues, has led not to Balkanization but "Brazilianization", a toponym which he defines as "a high-tech feudal anarchy, featuring an archipelago of privileged whites in an ocean of white, black and brown poverty."

>"Brazilianization", Lind writes, is characterized by the "increasing withdrawal of the White American overclass into its... world of private neighborhoods, private schools, private police, private health care, and even private roads, walled off from the spreading squalor beyond. Like a Latin American oligarchy, the rich and well-connected members of the overclass can flourish in a decadent America with Third World levels of inequality and crime."[2]

Obviously don't agree with all his points, but it's thought-provoking for a European-American writer.

Edit2: He's very proto-Bernie Sanders. This was written in the NINETIES.

A part of feminism has always been about making having a baby be a choice for a woman rather than a requirement, but if that comes across as ignoring the plight of mothers, well, that's not intentional. For me personally the fact that women have taken on both the burdens of being a "provider" and taking care of children and housework is a big deal to me. I don't know if this counts as feminist, but this idea has been studied in detail.

This is entirely guessing, but there is a good chance that if she hadn't quit her job the woman in the op's comment would have been doing both engineering and child care, without that much help from the husband. That's extremely common, and sucks.