BLACK LIKE ME?

From ASCD.org




Somehow I get disturbed when I read black folks telling other black folks to show them their Blacker than me card, like it’s a “get out of jail free” card or something. I understand the inference, but on a deeper level, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to have one. But the obvious problem would be what are the criteria for being so called, “Black”?

From the mind of Shabaka, being limited by having lightly melanin skin that other blacks have to sometimes asked, “Are you Black,” let me put it to you this way. Black is a color. Race is a social construct. Neither has any NATURAL connection to ones genetic blood line. The only things that come close are culture and ancestry. So right away, if we are to be honest and clear thinking, one can’t be “Blacker” than anyone because color and race are really meaningless. One can be more melanin challenged, but that’s a consequence of natural genetics and they are tricky little bastards. However giving agency to culture and ancestry is not tricky if one can accept facts on their face value and not propaganda.

Now that I have hopefully brought into question the notion of color and race being a criteria for owning a “Blacker than thou Card, let me address the only things left, culture and ancestry.

Culture is formed by a particular group living for a long time in a particular environment. In my view there are different levels of culture. I’d call them in descending order, pop culture, nominal culture, and deep culture. Pop culture is the most fluid. It borders on fad. Nominal culture is that which is dictated by a dominant society and enforced as the standard. Deep culture is the culture that’s coded into ones world view. Examples of each would be Hip Hop, the Ballet, and Communalism.

The aspect of culture that is most difficult to detect is its Deep Culture. In scientific terms, it would be akin to detecting the evolutionary biology of our brain.* If humans can give agency to the traits from our early evolution, why can’t some of those traits be cultural as the following essay suggest.

"The Reptilian Brain. The archipallium or primitive (reptilian) brain, or "Basal Brian", called by MacLean the "R-complex", includes the brain stem and the cerebellum, is the oldest brain. It consists of the structures of the brain stem - medulla, pons, cerebellum, mesencephalon, the oldest basal nuclei - the globus pallidus and the olfactory bulbs. In animals such as reptiles, the brain stem and cerebellum dominate. For this reason it is commonly referred to as the "reptilian brain". It has the same type of archaic behavioural programs as snakes and lizards. It is rigid, obsessive, compulsive, ritualistic and paranoid, it is "filled with ancestral memories". It keeps repeating the same behaviours over and over again, never learning from past mistakes (corresponding to what Sri Aurobindo calls the mechanical Mind). This brain controls muscles, balance and autonomic functions, such as breathing and heartbeat. This part of the brain is active, even in deep sleep.

The Limbic System (Paleomammalian brain) . In 1952 MacLean first coined the name "limbic system" for the middle part of the brain. It can also be termed the paleopallium or intermediate (old mammalian) brain. It corresponds to the brain of most mammals, and especially the earlier ones. The old mammalian brain residing in the limbic system is concerned with emotions and instincts, feeding, fighting, fleeing, and sexual behaviour. As MacLean observes, everything in this emotional system is either "agreeable or disagreeable". Survival depends on avoidance of pain and repetition of pleasure.When this part of the brain is stimulated with a mild electrical current various emotions (fear, joy, rage, pleasure and pain etc) are produced. No emotion has been found to reside in one place for very long. But the Limbic system as a whole appears to be the primary seat of emotion, attention, and affective (emotion-charged) memories. Physiologically, it includes the the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala. It helps determine valence (e.g., whether you feel positive or negative toward something, in Buddhism referred to as vedena - "feeling") and salience (e.g., what gets your attention); unpredictability, and creative behavior. It has vast interconnections with the neocortex, so that brain functions are not either purely limbic or purely cortical but a mixture of both.

MacLean claims to have found in the Limbic system a physical basis for the dogmatic and paranoid tendency, the biological basis for the tendency of thinking to be subordinate feeling, to rationalize desires. He sees a great danger in all this limbic system power. As he understands it, this lowly mammalian brain of the limbic system tends to be the seat of our value judgments, instead of the more advanced neocortex. It decides whether our higher brain has a "good" idea or not, whether it feels true and right.

The Neocortex, cerebrum, the cortex, or an alternative term, neopallium, also known as the superior or rational (neomammalian) brain, comprises almost the whole of the hemispheres (made up of a more recent type of cortex, called neocortex) and some subcortical neuronal groups. It corresponds to the brain of the primate mammals and, consequently, the human species. The higher cognitive functions which distinguish Man from the animals are in the cortex. MacLean refers to the cortex as "the mother of invention and father of abstract thought". In Man the neocortex takes up two thirds of the total brain mass.

Although all animals also have a neocortex, it is relatively small, with few or no folds (indicating surface area and complexity and development). A mouse without a cortex can act in fairly normal way (at least to superficial appearance), whereas a human without a cortex is a vegetable.The cortex is divided into left and right hemispheres, the famous left and right brain. The left half of the cortex controls the right side of the body and the right side of the brain the left side of the body. Also, the right brain is more spatial, abstract, musical and artistic, while the left brain more linear, rational, and verbal."

Let’s say that within the Limbic System which controls the emotions, and instincts, feeding, fighting, fleeing, and sexual behavior one particular type of cultural human being took from their environment those Deep Cultural Structures (Nobles) that suited their world view and developed their societies around them. For example, the African who culturally matured in a “relaxed” warm hospitable environment where Nature provided for their needs would have time to focus on and develop their emotions, not worry about feeding themselves thus limiting fighting and also have time to enjoy their sexuality in accordance with what they were close with and respected, Nature. They would develop a sense of community and sharing as well as embrace connectivity because they needed the group to survive within Nature's bounty. The spoken Word was law. Group think!

On the other hand, the European, who culturally matured in a “hostile,” cold ice age environment would have little time to deal with their emotions (in fact they would be a hindrance for their survival), have a difficult time finding resources to feed themselves therefore fighting and weapon development for resource acquisition and control would be a prominent part of their cultural world view. Their sexuality would be confined to the warmth of their caves and because of the confinement would probably increase the opportunity for sexual “experimentation” for inter-group and/or inter-gender relationships. Therefore, they would be more aggressive, protective of their space/resources, xenophobic, technocratic, replace Nature with things artificial and develop deceptive practices for manipulation of the Word for their protection. All leading to Individual think, or at best later, the small controllable “nuclear family thinking”

Similar to the carry over from our early cerebral biological development, I’d say the humans cultural development was also coded and evolved from the environment to create such behaviors. That would mean that today, if we could find out which person would embrace which code of the aforementioned behaviors, than we could very well issue an “African or European” cultural card, depending on their embraced of their ancestral Deep Cultural Structures.

As I see it, the only hindrance to correct coding would be hypocrisy or deceit. For instance, one person from either cultural group, if they wanted to claim African status, could feign “Group think,” when their ultimate goal is to achieve individual advantage. This may be because it’s a part of their ancestral cultural thought and behavior or their own has been hidden and they have adopted another through the adaptation to foreign ideology. For those of us who can't get beyond the idea of skin color or the concept of race, this doesn’t negate the fact that we can issue a “Blacker than me” card once we learn to identify our own cultural behavior and through observation issue them to those who more closely follow their ancestral Deep Cultural Structures which ever one they may be or which ever culture they claim.

Footnote: In this reality, an Asian could be more African than a modern day African if the African has adapted, adopted, as well as practiced, another cultural thought and behavior. Remember Africans, in so called "prehistory," laid the foundation for many of today’s world cultures.