As child growing up in America during the 80s, what many dark-skin black people will call the “Light-Skin” or “Al B Sure” era, it was not easy growing up as a dark skin kid. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for “light-skin” kids in a more darker hue community as they have been attacked for having intra-cultural “beauty arrogance”. I’m sure that some of the emotionally painful remnants of such abandoned practices like the brown paper bag test or the pencil test still linger. It’s actually quite interesting considering the “Black and Proud” era was only several decades away. It seems like the 70′s became an era of identity regression. It wasn’t until the 90s, what I will now call the “Big Daddy Kane” or “Wesley Snipe” era, that darker skin brothers were back on center stage. What also helped is my father being the handsome and dark skinned man that he was. I’ve long abandoned those adolescent insecurities, but there are always reminders around me that dark skin is still seen as a badge of disgrace or less pleasant.

Many times I want to ignore the present identity crisis that’s either internalized or imposed. I was reminded by this after watching the media avalanche of Fair and Lovely commercials that inundate the TV screens in this part of the world. Just spend a couple minutes on the Fair and Lovely commercials page to get a sense of the overt “skin color” propaganda that light skin makes you prettier, wealthier, more famous, and makes your life full of blissful prestige.

After being in the Middle East for 4 months, I was reminded that “darker skin” is still a sensitive issue. Whether it’s women using make-up that is several “obvious” shades lighter, that the skin takes on a texture that is similar to Vitiligo or men/women getting their Fair and Lovely on at the local supermarket.

I was then reminded again of this silent but deadly identity crisis by Bradin French’s new Documentary called Dark Girls.

Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.

So for those who still suffer from this identity confusion my comical and absurd suggestion is to live in a country where you will be considered the most “fair skin”, because clearly depending on what country you are in, different shades of skin color are considered “the prize” of the cultural pack.

This cultural epidemic has global reach. I’ve seen the likes of this from America, to African cultural circles, to the Middle Eastern/Arab cultural circles, to Indian/Pakistani cultural circles and many others. Please don’t take this as an indictment against “light-skinned” women and men. This isn’t. This is an indictment against those cultural, social and community “institutions” that have normalized beauty bias while reinforcing the idea that different shades of skin color are superior or inferior in beauty. Many times the self-hatred and skin color degradation is intra-cultural.

If anyone is still in denial (regardless of what side of the color line you sit on), just check out Study: White and black children biased toward lighter skin, or The impact of light skin on prison time for black female offenders, or Perception of Race and Skin Color in Pakistan or Skin Bleaching a Growing Concern in Jamaica or Skin Whitening Big Business in Asia or Color Complex in South Asian Diaspora or The Politics and Morality of a Skin Tone Ordering. Or you can read Hochilds’ The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order Social Forces from December 2007 or maybe the documentary Black in Latin America.

Still in denial?

This blog post below was a comment I posted from an article my wife shared on her Facebook wall. My boy Clarence, suggested I turn the comment into a blog post. The article, Black Unemployment Highest in 27 Years appeared on Roland Martin’s magazine/blog website. It seems like you have three typical responses when someone sees these type of “Blacks have a more destitute situation than __________ (insert race of choice here)” articles. The first response is “America is racist, ergo if there wasn’t racism we wouldn’t have such high unemployment”. The second response is, “Blacks are a bunch lazy fry chickin’ eating watermelon cologne wearing, hip hop lovin’, overspending, loud mouthin’ government lovin’, drag on the economy havin’ monkeys that are unemployable who will continue to be the last hired and the first fired.” The third response is, “Oh these ____________ (insert race of choice here) keep taking our jobs. They’ll take so much less to work ______________ job”.

These absurd responses don’t get us any closer to solutions. They are simple knee-jerk reactions to a long-standing problem. I have seen these types of “high unemployment among blacks” headlines since I graduated from college (and before college) and it’s getting worse. The technology shift was supposed to be our golden parachute into prosperity. Didn’t happen. Happen for some but not many and clearly not enough. I wish I finished my If I Had My Own Black Leadership Forum series, but I still have 2 parts left to do. If you’re interested in reading the first 3 parts, you can start here However, I give you My Thoughts on Black Unemployment.

There are no short turnarounds for the high black unemployment rate but at the root of our problems is a misallocation of economic resources. Whether you believe the misallocation of economic resources was driven by a bunch of klan sympathizing racists in corporate america (and the general workplace) and our political system or self inflicted by the black community, we are clearly dealing with a misallocation of economic resources in the black community. This situation has been going on since our “inclusion” into the main economy. Many of you have heard me say this before (and I’ll say it again):

The total GDP of the African-American community makes us the 13th largest economy in the world. That’s right, only 0.6% of planet earth (African Americans) represents the 13th largest economy in the world. The African American/Black Market profile from the Magazine Publishers of America has slated the purchasing power of African Americans to hit the 1 trillion dollar mark by 2012. How can the 13th largest economy in the world, have one of the highest unemployment rates in America? Umm..misallocation of economic resources. (I said it in my quiet e-typing-voice so you don’t get annoyed by me saying this a billion times. I might say it a couple more times)

There are only a few individuals that have actually outlined real solutions and they are the following:

• Powernomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America by Dr. Claud Anderson
• Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown by Tony Brown
• Blueprint for Black Power: A Moral, Political, and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century by Amos N. Wilson
• The Entrepreneurial Secret To Starting a Business: Without A Bank Loan, Collateral or Revenue (Volumes 1, 2, 3) by Cedric Muhammad

Although I have huge issues with their past prejudice/religious theology, the other organization is the Nation of Islam. With all it’s past faults, prejudices, and warped theology, Message to the Blackman by Elijah Muhammad was the first book that had me thinking about how my income and productivity in the economy made other folks rich and not my local community. I repeat, the book’s religious theology is rife with shirk, misinformation, hatred and black supremacist theology. However, it’s economic prescriptions are 21st century. The book should be republished, minus the hatred. If I was part of the NOI, I would include a public apology in the introduction of the book.

If you look at many black media communication vehicles, including Black Enterprise mag and BET (Viacom), many of them [black owned or not] have never mentioned any of these individuals. If they mentioned them, there hasn’t been any real effort in promoting their ideas. The average black person has no idea who these individuals are. That is not a simple oversight. It’s intentional. Not in a conspiratorial way, but in a “these individuals will upset the apple cart” type of way. Unfortunately, Amos Wilson has passed on but his rich wealth of economic information lives on in his seminal work, Blueprint for Black Power. It might be tempting to dismiss many of these individuals as a bunch of black supremacist separatist who long for a day when the black seperation movement will transform itself into a 21st century authoritarian movement. No, this is a immature characterization of their intent and economic ideas. They were concerned with the flimsy social contract that America promised it’s black citizens and wanted to usher in a concrete economic platform which we could depend on with certainty. Clearly we are in uncertain times and the social contract that America had with it’s black citizens is gone.

If Black America studied these ideas in these books with vigor and dedication, I believe we can significantly lower black unemployment into the lower single digits in about 20-30 years while becoming a viable and powerful economic engine for growth. There are no easy answers. It’s going to take time, skill reallocation, and a lot of money from those wealthy black individuals to invest in this plan. The government and non-black corporations have already moved on. This is what many of the individuals I mentioned above were trying to say 50 years ago. There will come a time when African Americans will be completely on their own. No jobs programs, no social institutions, no nothing. So in short, they were saying we have to build our own institutions and local economies of scale because the “support window” is going to eventually close. Now that the American economy is in such disarray, its going into hardcore economic Darwinian mode.

Obama and any other government employee can do very little for the black community. His jobs bill cannot overturn hundreds of years of economic mismanagement and social degradation. The government and too many “black leaders” are absentee landlords, time to look within our own community for answers. If they had your back, you would of been out of this mess a long time ago. We are on our own.

If there is any one question that was asked (or implied) before I left, it was “Is it Safe?”. Some other more indirect rhetorical questions/responses sounds like this:

– Really? Wow (But like Wow, as in “He’s sending his family to the equivalent of Iraq)
– Are you sure? (translation: Are you sure you want to work in a war zone?)
– I’ve even had folks suggest that they fear being kidnapped or forced being wrapped in a burqa like Taco Bell wraps burritos. Just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with the burqa or the niqab or any other covering. Women have the freedom to wear what they want, but they shouldn’t be forced or unduly prohibited from wearing these types of coverings. For more information on this. go here.

I have no idea what other warped ideas swirl in people’s minds when you mention any country in the Middle East, but the ones above are the more obvious fears. At the same time I can’t be too hard on folks being that their main intention is concern for my safety. But like an over-protective parent can be for their children, some of this concern is grounded in a bit of fantasy, xenophobia and misinformation.

I do realize that there are a lot of revolutions/upheavals going on in the Middle East, but we have to be able to distinguish one county from another and one region from another. Yes the Arab Awakening (known in the states as the Arab Spring) is in full effect. Yes there are wars and civil wars going on in Iraq, but that doesn’t mean it’s happening all over the Middle East nor does it mean that these skirmishes have the potential to bleed everywhere in the Middle East or North Africa. I’m going to address two things in this post. The proximity of some of these skirmishes and some basic demographic data of Qatar.

Although there have been other incidents in Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, the main players in the Arab Awakening have been Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. Now keep in mind that the Arab Awakening is about reforming policy in the Middle East and North Africa. People are fighting for their right for freedom and the pursuit of happiness just like any American during the American Revolution. However, the whole entire region is not going up in smoke which might be the perception being that the MSM (Main Stream Media) presents just the conflicted areas of the Middle East without presenting the areas that are politically and economically stabilized.

So now to answer the million dollar or riyal question: Is it Safe?

Yes. It’s extremely safe. People leave their cars running while they hop inside and outside of stores. Yes gas is $1.00 a gallon and yes it’s really hot (people keep their cars running to keep the A/C on), but the safety is there. You guessed it, the country with the highest per capita income is Qatar and has been for the last 10 years. And can you take a wild guess which country has one of the lowest crime rates in the world? Um..Qatar again with a score of 1.0 while United States has a score of 5.0 and has a higher homicide rate that close in numbers to such countries as Yemen and Ukraine. Iraq, a U.S. occupied country, has a score of 7.3.

If you look at the 10 most dangerous cities you’ll be surprised by the cities that made the list. You can go here, here, and here. Although the list is different for each site (in regards to which city is the most violent), there are two American cities that make the list. Detroit has 43.7 murders per 100,000 and New Orleans has 52 per 100,000

If you take the distance between Qatar and Libya we are looking at a distance that reaches from New York to Las Vegas. [2233 miles] [show diagram]. If you take the distance between Qatar and Tunisia you are reaching a distance that almost spans the entire length of the United States of America.

Distance statistics:

• Distance between Qatar and Libya [2100 miles]
• Distance between Qatar and Tunisia [2500 miles]
• Distance between Qatar and Cairo, Egypt [1300 miles]
• Distance between Qatar and Bahgdhad, Iraq [680 miles]
• Distance between Qatar and Bahrain [70 miles]

Below you can click on the map below to get a sense of where Qatar is located and it’s proximity to other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. I specifically highlighted those countries that are tied to the Arab Awakening.

Now when so-called “super powers” share a list with such countries like Mogadishu, Somalia, Karachi, Pakistan and Baghdad, Iraq (650,000 civilians dead since 2003), Cape Town, South Africa (50 murders a day) in regards to the most violent cities, you have to wonder who is really safe? I do understand that the proximity of many of these awakenings or uprisings are probably closer than any one individual would like but I can assure you, I do not see burning tires and bellowing smoke from my window. I don’t hear gunfire and I don’t see a legion of militias driving banged up Nissans pickups with AK-47s. The only Nissans pick ups I see are from construction workers. The only thing that lights up the sky is the moon, not tracer fire from a machine gun. Notice that the only Middle Eastern country that made the most violent city list is Iraq and this is an occupied country. The countries violence is attributed to U.S. occupation and not necessarily something inherently violent in Iraq. Suicide bombing didn’t start until the 2003 invasion of Iraq. More on that that here.

It’s time to separate fact from fiction. Many people are doing themselves a disservice by limiting their world view to the border of the United States of America. Com’ on over to the Middle East where the sun is always shining and the diversity is as beautiful as the people who live here. I’m not here to spin away the problems from the region, but put some context and clarity as to what is going on in the Middle East and North Africa. In the next installment of Qatar Times, I’ll give a bit more detail about the people of Qatar and how our experience has been.

Bonus Infographic

If you want to get a sense of the size of the North Africa and Middle East, click on the image below. I’ve layered the United States of America over the map. The length of the United States is about 2900 miles across. Depending on where you are measuring it could be less or more. I tried to scale this as best I could. Enjoy!

The latest scandal against Muslims is the ban on the wearing of the Niqab (full face veil that reveals only the eyes) in France. The ban, enforced throughout France on April 11th, 2011, further demonizes the choices and rights of all Muslims globally. Muslim women who publically sport the Niqab are faced with a fine of 150 Euros ($215). Men found guilty of forcing women to wear the Niqab may be fined up to 60,000 Euros ($87,000) in addition to a possible two-year jail sentence. An estimated 1900 women wear the Niqab in France. Two-thirds of these women are French nationals with an estimated 90% over the age of 40. President Nicholas Sarkozy’s law was passed after the majority of French parliament and the public supported the idea that the Niqab imprisoned women and contradicted the secular nations values of equality and dignity.

The Niqab is a controversial issue in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. Muslim scholars have argued for and against the wearing of the Niqab for centuries. Some look at the face veil as oppressive while others find it liberating. Who is right? Who is wrong? I don’t know the answers to the prior questions as absolutes but what I do know is the mere ban of the Niqab in itself is an act of oppression. France pride’s itself on being one of the leaders of the “free” world. France labels itself a country that tirelessly fights for women’s rights. France boasts laws that support the practice of religious freedom. Ironically, a country of liberty for all feels entitled to oppress a group of women who choose to wear the Niqab. There are two ways to examine this situation; firstly, from a religious perspective and secondly, from a human rights perspective.

Let us delve into the possible religious explanation of the Niqab. I have researched the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah and found a few evidences that may be interpreted as support for wearing the Niqab. There is ample evidence that proves the Prophet’s (SAW) wives covered their faces in the presence of non-mahram (non-guardian) men. There is evidence that proves Asma, who was not the Prophet’s (SAW) wife, covered her face. Easily, one can conclude that wearing the Niqab is halal (permissible). The aforementioned evidence can be used to argue against the ban on the Niqab from a religious perspective. According to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,”No one may be questioned about his opinions, [and the] same [for] religious [opinions], provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law” and “The law has the right to ward [i.e., forbid] only actions [which are] harmful to the society. Anything which is not warded [i.e., forbidden] by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it [i.e., the law] does not order.” The prior two clauses candidly state the French government cannot subjectively regulate and prohibit religious activity and may only do so to the extent that there is a need to safeguard the public.

Religious profiling based on dress choice is not an effective manner in securing the public as many examples confirm. On August 29th, 1969, Palestinian Muslim Leila Khaled was part of a team who hijacked a flight from Rome to Athens. She donned no Niqab, not even a headscarf. In June 2008, Maite Aranalde the world’s most wanted female terrorist and a non-Muslim, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted in a Paris Court for criminal association with terrorist intent. In September 2010, France was on high alert after a would-be Muslim female suicide bomber threatened the transport system in Paris. Her whereabouts are still unknown and there is no connection to a Niqab. Colleen LaRose, a non-Muslim from Pennsylvania more popularly known as ‘Jihad Jane’ did not fit the popularized version of a “Muslim” terrorist. There have been very few women who have worn the Niqab and committed terrorist acts. In collaboration with prior mentioned examples one can safely conclude that the wearing of the Niaqb is not a security matter and the French government has yet to prove that it has been in the past.

Let us examine the human rights aspect of the Niqab ban. Let us remove the presumed religious affiliation of the Niqab from the equation. Let us focus solely on women’s rights in France. France has long been known for boasting its fight for all women, regardless of class, ethnicity, religion and race. Women in France are free to walk in Daisy Dukes and bra-type tops. Women in France are free to wear mini skirts with tank tops. Women in France are free to wear the hijab. Women in France are free to laze around topless on public beaches. Women in France are free to tattoo their entire bodies including their full face. Women in France are legally allowed to work in strip clubs that accommodate any paying member of the public. Women in France are allowed to pose in Chantelle bras and lace thongs on human-sized billboards. Yet, Muslim women are being banned from wearing a Niqab.

Banning the Niqab violates the rights of women who choose to wear the Niqab. This ban is a so-called movement to liberate women and ensure public security. However, one can equally argue that women who strut the streets half-naked may be a public security issue as well. One may argue based on statistics that the rate of rape and sexual harassment is higher in secular nations that have no limits on women’s dress. One may further argue that nudity and avant-garde dress are unhealthy for our children. However, such arguments would be considered a violation of women’s rights and thrown out of court in a heartbeat. There is no hard evidence that wearing the Niqab threatens public safety, public order, health, morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. The ban on the wearing of the Niqab is only a hindrance in helping women who are coerced into wearing the Niqab and does absolutely nothing except impose unjust laws on those who choose to wear the Niqab. This ban will only serve to imprison women to their homes rather than liberate them.

Let us not be imprudent in our judgment and unjust in our laws. A ban on the Niqab violates the right to freedom from discrimination on the basis of both religion and gender. Furthermore, a ban on the Niqab is as much as a violation on women’s rights as it is a violation to force a woman to wear the Niqab.

A couple days ago, I mentioned on my FB status that I was going to write a post about my discussions with atheists (what I’ve read and personal discussions) and I was warned not do this post. Many times these discussions go nowhere. Maybe this one will too, but my intent is not to have a discussion on the merits (or from many atheist’s perspectivej…lack of merit) of believing in God, but list some of the arguments I’ve heard from Atheist why we shouldn’t believe in God. Most of this commentary is stuff I’ve heard over the last 10 years and what’ve I’ve read.

So let’s get right into. There’s a landslide of reasons why Atheist find people who believe in God completely irrational, but here are the ones that stand out:

1. The existence of God (and his related miracles) can’t be verified scientifically. God is no different than Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny
2. Religion is an opiate that people use because they fear the unknown of death
3. Science and religion are incompatible. They cannot co-exist
4. It’s impossible that any ancient scripture has been preserved to a point where man hasn’t corrupted the teachings. In short, these books are not the word of some powerful and omnipotent all-seeing being, but the word of man. This man (or men) were able craft a wonderful story to lead billions of people down the gingerbread path of delusion

I’m okay (as many religious people are) with not having a scientific script for everything that occurs in the world and that is probably where atheists and similar idealists draw the line. However, If you study world culture and the history of spirituality you’ll see that that there is something beyond what we see, smell and taste. My main criticisms are not leveled at some of the mainstream atheist (although I disagree with them), it’s the amateur “lazy” atheists that regurgitates the talking points of the mainstream atheists without doing any research themselves.

Can you imagine someone calling themselves a “scientist” and when asked what work he’s done, he or she regurgitates the works of their predecessors, while calling it their own? Being that the atheists consider themselves the “owners” of absolute reason and logic, do they make better decisions on economics, politics, dealing with human suffering, morality, altruism, poverty, cleanliness, human relationships, love, ethics, consideration, social causes, etc? Do they believe their logic and reason is superior to those who believe in God? Sometimes it feels that way. Is this just some “knee jerk” reaction from the religious loons who proselytize and annoy the heck out of us on subways, cable stations, and the like? I get a sense that atheists believe that anyone who believes in God, has invalidated their sense of reason. Somehow our logic gene has been destroyed and we now live a world between Candy Land, the North Pole, and Care-A-lot.

Many of the books I’ve read (Stephen Hawkings, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, etc) all have an air of superiority that would make the KKK blush. Instead of white superiority it’s reason superiority. They see themselves as the masters of pragmatism and logic while the God believers are bunch of wayward delusional bandits who can’t add anything to the human project of civilization. We are a lost cause of ancient book thumpers and we must be viewed with skepticism on our intentions to move the needle of humanity into the next evolutionary cycle. Here is a brief history lesson: America was founded on the principle of religious freedom, which includes all walks of life. I don’t remember anything in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that said, “Hey be skeptical or weary of these “Godly” folks, they have other plans for this country”.

My favorite is seeing atheist pepper their twitter and FB feeds with the “Oh, look at this crazy thing that this person did in the name of God” act. As if these individuals represent the general religious population? As if people who are atheists don’t kill, murder and make illogical decisions? The rebuttal I usually get is “But the atheist don’t proclaim that they did XYZ act in the name of atheism”. Why don’t you ask someone who gets shot in the back of the head whether it mattered whether the person believed in God or not? Guess what, the person is dead. However, grabbing edge cases (which too many atheist do), to make the case against believing in God or religion is “fringe” science. Because we have economic crises, why don’t we just get rid of money? Let’s go back to the barter system. Why can’t we agree that there are illogical people from every walk of life, irrespective of whether they follow a religion or not?

Blaming religion is like blaming the hammer manufacturer for creating a hammer which was eventually bought and used to bludgeon someone to death. Any tool can be used for destruction, no matter what the intentions of the owner. While we’re at it, why don’t we blame the iron ore mineral company for providing the hammer manufacturer with the iron ore to make the hammer. While we’re at it, why don’t we blame the dirt for providing the atmosphere for allowing the creation of the iron in the first place. While we’re at it, let’s blame the Big Bang for creating the explosion that provided the elements to allow iron to come into creation. What an evil, sick, and sadistic Big Bang you are. Look how much evil you have spawned? Oh, you mean ole Big Bang. Look what you did..you created the perfect atmosphere…which then allowed humans to flourish..which then allowed those same humans to get weapons and kill people. I hate you Big Bang. I hope your next Big Bang implodes on itself.

The bigger issue is you have too many atheist peppering their criticisms towards believers in God with words like illogical, hypocritical, irrational, delusional, ridiculous, infantile, ignorant and anti-intelligent. In addition, your alternative is often a bland and vacuous space of hi-brow vernacular that is more of a grandstanding irritant than a soft balm of constructive criticism. I’ve been talked to like I’m some lost cause. That’s okay because I believe that many religious people have had that tone with atheists. At this point we are both fighting fire with fire.

However, acting like a scientist doesn’t make you any more logical and reasonable than me. You can wear as many proverbial labcoats, pocket protectors, and beakers hanging off your sleeve, but your rationalization of the “delusional believer” has no legs. If you are going to act like a scientist, at least immerse yourself into the subject matter. I’ve had people suggest to me (the same individuals that say they are logical and reasonable) that they are skeptics when it comes to religion, while not picking up one sentence of any religious material to see where the person who believes in God is coming from. How can you be a skeptic on a subject you haven’t immersed yourself in? Just reading Stephen Hawking’s and Richard Dawkins’s blog doesn’t count.

I’m going to take a page from my 2 year old son’s favorite show Yo Gabba Gabba. Although we have our differences, at the end of the day:

All My Friends are Different, But We (I) Love Them All the Same

• Salon: Going Beyond God – Interview with Karen Armstrong
• Discover Magazine: Atheism/Religion Turing Test
• Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
• On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
• Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
• The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
• The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever by Christopher Hitchens
• American Atheist: http://www.atheists.org/
• Reasonable Doubt: Your Skeptical Guide to Religion Podcast http://doubtreligion.blogspot.com/
• YouTube: The Roots of Morality: Does Religion Play a Role or is the Tail Wagging the Dog?

As some of you know, there is a huge campaign that has gone surprisingly viral over the last couple months which was sparked by Manal al-Sherif showcasing her “dastardly” driving skills in Saudi Arabia via a YouTube video. I guess it’s no surprise that what started out in the social space, has now continued to spawn in just about every social media corner imaginable. It’s truly fascinating to see the outpouring of support for many of the sisters in Saudi Arabia who want to drive.

The nature of this post is not to further elaborate on the injustice of the female driving ban in Saudia Arabia (just about every blog and media outlet has written about it ad nauseam from the NYTimes to Foxnews). What I want to touch on was a conversation that my wife (who is Saudi) and I were having this morning regarding the importance of other issues that have had deleterious effects on the region. For starters, how about the 62% Divorce rate in the Saudi Arabia?

Many people’s reaction to the driving ban in Saudi Arabia exhibits a certain type of repulsing, almost gaging response as if they saw a mass grave in front of their eyes. I do believe the ideology behind the female driving ban has a very gender-jim crowish feel to it. However, I would like to remind people of Ian Bremmer’s the J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall.

In short, countries move at their own evolutionary social, political and cultural pace. Depending on what country you grew up in, different social issues have a varying degree of importance and priority. What is socially horrific and unacceptable in America might not exhibit the same response in Saudi Arabia. We need to understand that issues are not black and white. They have varying degrees of complexity and concern. Our ladder of what is “I’ll burn the world down if I didn’t have this” is different from other countries. I’m not here to justify injustice, I’m here to put things in their proper context and priority. Let’s make sure we keep our eyes on the ball. If you’ve gone completely bat crazy because of the female driving ban, you should have gone just as bat crazy knowing about the other injustices that have had deeper, if not more negative effects on the empowerment of women in the Kingdom.

So when you wave your fist in rage from your armchair revolutionary seat at the alleged “backwardness” of certain countries just make sure you don’t spill your $6.00 Iced Vanilla Mocha Caramel Latte on your $100 dollar designer jeans and $200 dollar shoes while sitting in a country that has to print money to prevent a sovereign default, in addition to having a murder rate by firearm higher than the Czech Republic and Lithuania. It’s all about perspective.

So who are the “Bickersons”? (the first time I heard this used is from the book Spousonomics) In my view this is any couple who quarrel a lot. It’s like walking around with steel shoes through a field of egg shells laced with magnetic dynamite. No matter what the topic, an argument is going to pop off and more than likely it will be explosive. It’s taking the most nuanced issues and blowing them up into stellar battles of galatic proportions. In most instances the root of the “bickering” is something else, but these smaller issue serve as “death by a thousand cuts” to the relationship which can leave both people extremely unhappy.

I’m reaching the last couple books to round out my research on my beige paper (We’ll it’s actually a white paper but I’m not a professor or a man with a P.h.d so it will be a beige paper for now) on the Science of Relationships. What started out as an idea for a blog post on some of the neurology and psychology behind how men and women interact in their relationships eventually grew into a “beige paper” on this same subject. One of the books is called Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes by Paula Szuchman. Wait…now before you run to the hills and say “There’s no way I’m taking relationship advice from some economist”, you should realize that out of the 15-20 books that have contributed to my research over the last 3 years, this book is one of the most pragmatic and helpful books on rooting out some of the underlying dysfunctions of many relationships. I’m not saying this because I love economics, I’m saying this because the information is very straight forward, honest and pragmatic.

Many of the problems that are identified in this book have been painstakingly researched over decades and although the book has a “economics” wrapper, you don’t have to know anything about economics to understand how to run your relationship like an economy that is experiencing robust growth instead of a depression (which unfortunately many relationships are). Below you’ll find two audio snippets from the book that highlight a couple issues that bring about much angst in too many relationships. Suprisingly one of the biggest pain points for most relationships (that eventually lead the decline of the relationship) is household chores. Before you dismiss this as some strange aberration, check out this quote from the book Spousonomics:

If arguing over chores seems petty to you, consider this: In 2007, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey that asked “What makes a marriage work?” The number one answer was faithfulness, followed by sex. Makes sense. But third, ahead of everything else, including kids, money, and religion: sharing household chores.

Other research backs this up. According to a 2009 survey of working women by the Boston Consulting Group, the second most common thing people argue about with their partners are household chores. That’s behind money but ahead of sex, work, and raising kids. In our own Exhaustive, Groundbreaking, and Very Expensive Marriage Survey, 73 percent of women said they did more than 50 percent of the housework, whereas only 40 percent of men said they did more than half the housework (you have to a least give the men credit for honesty)

A couple days ago I was on a thread talking about relationships and many of the complaints were related to the roles and responsibilities of the house. To be honest, that was about 50% of the complaints. There seemed to be a wide dichotomy (of Grand Canyon proportions) on who should do what in the house. However, enjoy the audio snippets:

50/50 Household chores vs Comparative Advantage

The importance of changing the Rules in your relationship

You know, for a very long time I’ve tried to ignore the Birthers who started what appears to be a tar and feather campaign to smear President Obama since early 2008. I dismissed the Birthers as bunch of closet white supremacist cranks who would rather see the country led by Howard the Duck then a Black president. I figured they’d pause because the man is half white. However, the “one drop” rule nullified any possibility of getting good with the good ole boy (and girls) network.

Some may dismiss the Birthers as a fringe movement of the country that don’t hold any power and are just leftover DNA from the evolutionary soup that remained in it’s primitive state since the dawn of man. However, their numbers are nothing to laugh at. There about 55 million registered Republicans and I’m going to assume that the 14% of Americans that believe Obama was not born in the USA are mostly Republican. However you slice it, this is by far not a fringe movement.

I watched the Obama “submitting his long form birth certificate” press conference (i.e. black tax) and although he carried a dignified response you could can see the pain of disappointment on his face. The pain of being treated like a nigga after Columbia, Harvard, and being president of the one of the most powerful countries in the world. This is the worse type of racism—the cloaked kind. The type of racism that carries an invisible white hood. The type of racism that when decoded, carries 128 bit decrypted noose. The type of racism that lives in the back room of dusty bars and dinner tables. I find this particular brand of encoded hatred detestable. Personally I will continue my verbal assault on the Birthers because what they stand for is a throw back to the Jim Crow brand of white privilege that we, as a country, have so ardently tried to remove from the hearts of millions.

I’ve spent the last couple weeks cruising through the documentary Collapse on my IPhone. The documentary is on Michael Ruppert, a police officer turned independent reporter who predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness.

There is some pretty scary stuff in Collapse. Mr. Ruppert goes way beyond just fractional reserve banking, fiat currency and Federal Reserve monetary policy, but spends a substantial amount of time on the potential societal impacts for the human population because there are limited resources on planet earth.

This documentary serves more of reality check than another boilerplate conspiracy theory piece. As Mr. Ruppert so eloquently stated:

Of course I’ve been called a conspiracy theorist but I don’t deal in conspiracy theory, I deal with conspiracy fact

The audio above is by far some of the truest and honest reality check I’ve heard since Alan Moore’s Culture of Steam quote regarding the doubling of information.

Another other choice quote from the documentary so you know what we are dealing with:

If your in a camp with a bunch of campers, and a bear attacks, you don’t have to be faster than the bear. You only have to be faster than the slowest camper. – Michael C. Ruppert

Use History as Guide to Help Your Present Situation

If you’ve made it this far, then I applaud you, and if you haven’t then I applaud you anyway. In today’s modern day junk food culture it’s extremely difficult to keep anyone’s attention-even when the information is ripe for the picking, like picking a succulent mango off a tree on a hot day in Kingston. Su, whua yu a wayt fa, pik it, nuh man? (patois translation: What are you waiting for, pick it?)

Knowing the TRUE history and it’s related value is like having a homing beacon in the vast darkness of unchartered space. It’s there as guide to direct you to safety. Why? Because history is a set of examples that that give you a foundation to build an intelligent blueprint for self-mastery and cultural development. As Malcolm X so eloquently stated:

History is a people’s memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.

I have broken this post up into 3-mini parts. This is 3a and 3b/3c will be coming in the next couple weeks. I’m trying break up this post into smaller chunks to make it more digestible. In this very integral part of the BLF, we are going to utilize this segment to enlighten people with the seeds of historic truth. We will bury the hear-say and uproot the facts based on empirics. We must all remember that no matter how wise we think we are we will always be students. In this segment we will not only expound on cultural history, but economic, religious, mass-media and nation-state history.

To shorten up the post I have added show/hide buttons on the details of the Forum Participants. Just toggle on/off the more button to see the participants for a particular topic.

A Brief History of African Civilization

Unfortunately, there is no way we can cover the 10,000 years of African Civilization in one segment, but what we can give is a window into some of rich cultural history that Africa has laid for present day societies. Contrary to popular belief, Africa is not only the starting point for civilization, but has contributed an immense dearth of cultural and spiritual enlightenment for today’s societies. This segment is not about “Africanizing” areas in history where there was no African contribution, but to simply give credit to where credit is due. We must understand that Africa was not at the foot of civilization, but one of many heads of civilization that help lay down advanced societal frameworks. Some might scoff and say “Yeah right, look at Africa today, no way a continent like this was part of anything great”. Under this same upside-down logic we can use that same yard stick for many Westernized nations today.

Look at the current economic state U.S, Japan, and many European countries. Currently saddled with so much debt they have to print fake currency and maintain their fiat based scam economy to pay their bills. All your hundreds of years of resource plundering, cheap labor (and slave labor), financial schemes, ponzi political system, draconian usury system, ethnic supremacist legal system and “crony capitalism” cannot save your economies. Where are you now? These are advanced civilizations? Inflating away your problems by printing money out of thin air? Imploding the global food supply by subsidizing your failed agricultural infrastructure with more printed money? Is this what you call a “free market”? Creating financial schemes and hiding behind debt with your off-balance sheet antics? Murdering people in other oil rich countries because you don’t have the courage or the brains to revamp your current energy needs? This is civil? Here’s a reminder from Dr. Henrike Clark on what civility is all about:

Civilization is the art of being civil. The word civil means being peaceful, and there’s nothing peaceful about aggression.

Presently there are many areas of Africa that are going through an economic revolution. All is not well, but there are power centers that’s transforming the entire continent. Now that the past IMF and World Bank loan schemes of gargantuan debt have been forgiven for some countries (rightfully so, because these were draconian and unjust sovereign debt schemes in the first place), many African countries have a bit more wiggle room to use that extra capital to rebuild their country. The goal of this segment is to put the history of African civilization in it’s proper context.

The History of Race and it’s Socio-economic Impacts

Although many would like to deny the acute relationship between race and economics and the rampant level of inequality that still exists today, this section is by far the most insightful. Why? One of the most important systems for wealth preservation is a system known as “generational wealth transfer”. Unfortunately this is social structure that African Americans have been privy to only in last 50 years, and by comparison to other cultures are generational wealth transfer capacity is extremely weak. In short, wealth that was generated at one point in history is systematically transferred to future heirs and family descendants so they can use that same wealth and generate more wealth. A colloquial term for this is “old money”. Old money has been sloshing around for hundreds of years-earning interest and being re-invested in the economy within certain cultural circles. Although many would like you to believe that everyone who is in power today “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps”, I believe that certain circles have “pulled themselves up”, but have hidden the story of how they received the bootstrap in the first place. Some might bask in the self-serving glow of this idiom, but let’s remember that someone needed to produce that “bootstrap”, so you could pull yourself up in the first place.

In this segment we dig in on several types of history-ranging from religious history, history of wealth generation, socio-cultural history, and how the power of media transforms cultural identity. In order for any individual to understand the cultural and social paradigms of today, you HAVE to go back hundreds of years. There is no way around it. However it does not have to be a precarious “Where’s Waldo” approach. History leaves it’s cultural imprint on the minds and behaviors of the masses. It’s akin to tracking your lineage, but instead of “DNA” the empirical imprint is left on the people that you interact with on a day-to-day basis. The people of this world are a dynamic and living embodiment of history in action. We just have to pause and identify why and how we got into our present day situation.

Any questions, comments, or suggestions for this series are welcome. If there are subjects that you believe should be included, let me know. Thanks for reading.