Statistics

Welcome back! Hopefully none of you raptured on Saturday...because from what I hear...it didn't happen. I don't know about you, but I hate to be the first to the party! Don't fret, I'm sure Harold Camping will have a newly revised date for us soon. I betcha he's regretting that decision to put his pets down right about now. But that's enough about that. Let's move on to something a tad bit more...consequential?

So I was reading this article last week about how Psychology Today published a piece last week by Satoshi Kanazawa, entitled "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" and honestly, I was just appalled. You would think that in this day and age, any publication with any type of clout would have the sense enough to weed out the riffraff and only publish articles of true substance. This story brought about several questions and points for me. 

What demographics do you think his focus group consisted of? How many women were rated in the study? What did these women look like? Was there a control group? How can a person qualify something as subjective as a personal opinion regarding attractiveness? And most importantly, what was Psychology Today thinking?? I think my favorite part of this whole study is that black women on average are "heavier than other women" AND that black people on the whole are "less intelligent." 

Really? Less intelligent? I beg to differ. At the very least, I am intelligent enough to know when smoke is being blown up my ass (and not because it feels good). Furthermore, I am intelligent enough to realize a half-baked moron who just needed a platform from which to spout his cockamamie racist bullshit ideas. Hmmm...but I am half Korean. Perhaps my Asian half is the top half. You know, the half with the brain? Yeah, that must be it.

This brings me to a point that I have always screamed from the rooftops, but no one ever seems to listen. Statistics are stupid. They can be manipulated to yield pretty much any end result you're looking for. Especially when you're a racist "psychologist" who is more interested in stirring the proverbial race pot than reporting true findings. You can't just introduce study results as inflammatory as these without giving hard facts to back them up. It's a little fishy to me that he never really gave any real information about his interviewees or the people they judged. I don't know about you, but I'd like to see what they look like. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all...and if the beholder isn't so beautiful...their standard for beauty may be skewed. 

Luckily, Psychology Today woke up and realized how bad this article was really making them look (and received a ton of irate hate mail in response to this idiots ignorant musings), and they have since removed it from their website. Too little, too late, as far as I'm concerned. I don't know if this was a terrible attempt at playing devil's advocate, but all they did was succeed in pissing me (and hopefully everyone else who wasted their time reading this malarky) off. The funny thing is, not five minutes after I finished reading about Shitty Kanazawa's article, did I come across this article, singing the praises of the beauty of women of mixed race. (I can't say I disagree. *toot toot* That was my horn being tooted.) Apparently this survey was given to a very different focus group that Kanazawa's. 

In lieu of leaving you with my typical biting wit, I will instead leave you with a piece I wrote several years back that I feel relates perfectly to this topic. I don't often share my poetry, but this seemed as good a time as any. See you next time!

Statistics

The colored girl is not known and hence not believed in;

She belongs to a race that is best designated by the word “problem,”

And she lives beneath the shadow of that problem,

Which envelopes and obscures her.

For years, I have possessed the spirit of men –

Bold and enterprising,

Fearless and undaunted.

Statistics (your statistics)

Show a people (my people)

Bound by their own ignorance.

Ignorance?

Do not sit up on your flowery bed of ease and attempt to bury me

Under something as simple as your statistics.

Do not waste your time attempting to suppress me

Because my intelligence is boundless and my knowledge is infinite.

For an eternity, you will find yourself trapped

By your own jealousy and hatred.

Shall it be said any longer that the daughters of Africa,

They have no ambition,

They have no force?

Any individual black woman who is forced to

Remain motionless on the outside

Will develop on the inside, a changed consciousness as a sphere of freedom.