June 26, 2014

"Is America's dominant 'man up' ethos a hypermasculine cultural construct, a tenet rooted in biological gender difference or something in between?"

Asks Eric Westervelt at NPR, in a great example of a question that assumes a fact.

America has a "dominant 'man up' ethos"? I doubt that, and yet let's move on and ask what this phantom ethos is — the old nature or nurture question.

Or no, right after asking that question, Westervelt introduces the real subject of his report, a particular character — a teacher named Ashanti Branch — and we are told that he either doesn't care or "doesn't have time to care."
Branch tries to foster emotional maturity through conversation, play and community. The big goal is to help give boys a bigger emotional tool box to better handle the challenges of school and life now and into the future.

"The pain that they're holding on to that they don't really have a space to [let] go, the anger, the sadness — all those things. How can I help them tap into that in ways that they can let it go and not walk around angry all the time? I told one young man the other day: 'You walk around with a tool box full of hammers. You hammer everything. All you needed was a little screwdriver.' "
In the context of NPR, everybody already knows boys are a problem and boys have problems, it's gently inserted that "black and Latino boys" are the main problem, and we don't need to question that assumption anymore or ask why it is happening, because we can feel good about hearing about one good man, "a burly, 39-year-old African-American with long, braided hair," who's got a solution that's exactly what white American females would most like to get males to do: Talk about their feelings.

For the annals of classic NPR radio.

60 comments:

campy said...

"Man up" = "shut up."

It's a way of ignoring men's issues and keeping the focus on womyn 24/7/365.

Bob Boyd said...

"You walk around with a tool box full of hammers. You hammer everything."

I don't know what the long term solution is, but for now let's keep this kid out of the hallways at the EPA.

Original Mike said...

Talking about things that make me feel bad just makes me feel worse, so I don't.

Anonymous said...

Suburban Feral Child says:

I am full of anger and hate and I'm angry and I hate you I hate all of you. I hate your cars I hate your stores I hate your money I hate your face I hate everyone's face: I have a T-shirt that tells you all not to mess with me. Me and my friends, we sometimes smoke weed and ride our skateboards, then throw bottles at the mall parking lot, we are angry. Sometimes I play angry music in my earphones really loud. Walk on the other side of the street, f**ker.

The Drill SGT said...

So it's all about the masculine construct?

How about inner city absent fathers? Perhaps that is why Mr Branch impacts the boys as the only mature male role model in their lives rather than the fact that he is teaching them about emotional screw drivers

The Crack Emcee said...

I'd like to get white American females to talk about this book and what it means to the white American female's sense of identity, considering their prevalence of wealth and entitlement, today.

How white Americans assume that, through the shear over-whelming preponderance of other minor distractions they throw at us, they can take our minds off the most important subject to be discussed in this time and on this continent - the unfairness of black's lives under white supremacy - astounds me.

I can wait to act surprised when - without prodding or effort - white's historical injustice against blacks will pop up to dominate American headlines again.

Because they're not COMMITTED to the last instance, or changing anything, in the first place.

Which is why they need distractions from the evil done to greatly benefit one group's wealth - at almost 20 to 1 - over the other.

And then they wonder - openly - why blacks don't trust them.

Nobody would under the circumstances,...

Anonymous said...

Suburban Feral Child says:

You are all lil' bitches, all of you. I own this mall, I own this parking lot, me: I own it. Look at me funny and I'll key your BMW, you lil' bitch: don't think I won't do it. I have black friends, we're down, you best believe we'll mess your shit up, spray-paint your fence and shit. You better walk on the other side of the street, f**ker.

The Crack Emcee said...

Whites need to "man up":

And even stop stealing black phrasings, too,....

Anonymous said...

Suburban Feral Child says:

My step-dad, he knows better than to even try to get in my shit, I'll pop his ass on the lawn and leave him on his knees cryin' like a lil' bitch. Just 'cause you marry my moms and wear dumb-ass Dockers don't mean you can all act like you're my dad, I'll go to bed when I damn well please, and I'll listen to my earphones as loud as I want: there better be pepperoni Hot Pockets in the freezer, dude. You better walk on the other side of the street, f**ker.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

The Crack Emcee said...

And even stop stealing black phrasings, too,....

Word.

Gahrie said...

the unfairness of black's lives under white supremacy

You know what is the best part? We tricksy Whites are hiding our oppression of Black people behind an administration dominated by Black people. We also make sure that most of them live in areas governed by Black people to keep the ruse growing.

The whole thing about drawing electoral districts to ensure Blacks get elected? Window dressing.

The laws passed that discriminate in favor of Black people and against White people? Just a sign of how crazy White people are.

The trillions of dollars in wealth transfered to the Black community by the goverment in the last 70 years? A start.

Gahrie said...

And even stop stealing black phrasings, too,....

Hey..you're the one writing in English, a clear cultural appropriation. I expect you to take a course in Swahili immediately and desist from using a European language.

The Crack Emcee said...

The Drill SGT,

"How about inner city absent fathers? Perhaps that is why Mr Branch impacts the boys as the only mature male role model in their lives rather than the fact that he is teaching them about emotional screw drivers"

Trayvon Martin had a father.

Jordan Davis had a father.

All those blacks who got shot, asking whites for help, had fathers.

Shut up about blacks needing fathers and talk about what we don't need:

White supremacy killing us.

Fucking delusional murderous assholes - of course, racists want to talk about black fathers. Is that anything new? Look at the black! Look at the black! That's all whites know and all they've ever known. They're almost shocked to think anybody's ever noticed they're alive - but WE do.

Because you refuse to look at yourselves as the problem. That's historical fact. American whites have got a mental problem. Blacks. Focus on it.

Then, and only then, might we - as a problem - go away,...

rhhardin said...

Girls used to yell "man up" in their dorm when men visited, expressing this preference long ago.

L Day said...

Talk about somebody that needs to "man up".

Michael said...

Crack:


"Man up" is not a black phrase. Sorry.

As to everybody dropping everything to have a discussion about something they give not one shit about: not going to happen. You might be astonished by that, you might even protest in all capital letters, the really important ideas deserve all capital letters, but it won't change anything. Especially with white women. No one gives a shit about the past. Everyone but you is looking to the present or the future. Including almost every single one of the 39,999,999 black people who are not you.

Put two and two together, Crack. Whites are supremacists. They are not going to give that up. And you can't make them.

And some white lady sitting out in Nebraska is not under any circumstance going to read the book you linked to.


chillblaine said...

I think at that age boys are too emotionally immature to be expected to talk about their feelings. I do think that they should be taught to be accountable for their behavior.

Bravo to this man for trying. His kids still haven't convinced themselves that they should try to succeed.

Michael K said...

"Trayvon Martin had a father."

That father was at the basketball game with his girlfriend and left the two boys home alone. Trayvon went out to "score" some pot and the ingredients for "purple drank." He saw that "white Hispanic" watching him in the gated community that had had a bunch of burglaries and decided to "pop his ass."

Trayvon had been living with his mother but she kicked him out and sent him to live with his reluctant father because of his behavior.

Great example !

George M. Spencer said...

Ethos

Hypermasculine

Cultural Construct

Tenet

Biological Gender Difference.

What gibberish...glad I stopped listening to NPR years ago.

Anonymous said...

Suburban Feral Child says:

Me and my posse, we're the East Magnolia Street Gangstas, don't be actin' like you don't know about us, we real. We the ones who tagged that Dry Cleanin' store at the corner, damn'd owner called the police on us for smoking pot in the parking lot, now he best know better than mess with us. Now the guy at the Subway shop, he knows what's down, we piss in his bathroom without buyin' anything and he lets it all be cool, straight up. You better walk on the other side of the street, f**ker.

Ann Althouse said...

For what it's worth: The Oxford English Dictionary finds this as the earliest use of "man up" (to mean "To demonstrate manliness, toughness, or courage when faced with a difficult situation"):

1996 Palm Beach (Florida) Post 2 Mar. c1/2 He made a commitment, and to his credit, he manned up to it.

Ann Althouse said...

"One notable forerunner of man up as we know it today is cowboy up, a phrase that has been used in rodeo circles for decades.... Cowboy up wasn’t much known outside of rodeo country until 2003, when it became the rallying cry for the Boston Red Sox.... Man up owes its early popularization to another American sport: football, where it originally had a more technical meaning relating to man-to-man pass defense...."

"The Meaning of ‘Man Up.'"

Ignorance is Bliss said...

The Crack Emcee said...

Trayvon Martin had a father.

Yes. He had a father who left his mother when Trayvon was ~3. Trayvon was raise by his father and step-mother until his teens, at which point his father dumped his step-mother for another woman, and dumped Trayvon with his mother. It was only after this that Trayvon got suspended from school repeatedly.

When people talk of children needing fathers, we are talking about fathers married to the child's mother, living in the same home, and committed to raising the child to the best of their ability.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you don't understand that concept.

Ann Althouse said...

"Whites need to "man up": And even stop stealing black phrasings, too,…"

It would be good to cite some evidence that "man up" began as a black phrasing. I'm interested in the topic. The article I found connected it to football. Do you have some further connections or is that just casual observations? Because it's hard to know who started what. Arguably, it got started with "cowboy up" in the rodeo milieu, which I take it leans white.

Anonymous said...

Suburban Feral Child says:

We East Magnolia Street Gangstas, we hang out at the mall parking lot at night and watch all the people get off from their crappy lil' jobs and get in their crappy lil' cars, you won't find us EMGs doin' any of that shit. Mom, she knows to give me my money, every week, straight up. I tell her I ain't needin' to do no chores or mowin' no lawn, I earn my way by providing the house protection, no one messes with the house of an EMG. You better walk on the other side of the street, f**ker.

Drago said...

Ann Althouse: "It would be good to cite some evidence that "man up" began as a black phrasing."

LOL

Crack goes full-blown "angry black man" performance artist crazy and Ann oh so delicately attempts to engage in civilized/academic discourse.

Well, I suppose deference in these matters is called for since "Bro's before Ho's".

George M. Spencer said...

All this stuff is a manifestation of the wealthy elites of a civilization who think they have nothing better to do that prattle prissily.

The unemployment rate is over 10 percent and far worse for minorities. Detroit is in ruins. California has a major drought. The health system's in decline, and the Middle East is increasingly in chaos.

Hyper-construct that!

The Drill SGT said...

Fucking delusional murderous assholes - of course, racists want to talk about black fathers.

Crack,

I don't consider myself a Fucking delusional murderous asshole racist.

I don't call you names.

I said inner city absent fathers. You converted that to absent black fathers through your racial lens not mine. Yes, the dissolution of black families is an issue, but beyond that, lower class Latino and Whites are headed that direction as well and that does not bode well for any functioning society. Consider blacks as thought leaders in the destruction of the traditional family and society...

ron winkleheimer said...

"It would be good to cite some evidence that "man up" began as a black phrasing. I'm interested in the topic."

Me too. Wonder if it is related to:

"Now gird up your loins like a man."

Job 38:3 - God telling Job to "man up."

Bob Boyd said...

The first person to say "Man up!" was a woman.
Eve.
She said it to Adam right after the gate clanged shut and he was blubbering about how he never should have listened to her and now what are we gonna do and these fucking leaves are making him itch.

Anonymous said...

Suburban Feral Child says:

I been workin' on my raps, Imma gonna blow up big soon, you know it: Eminem ain't the only white guy who can bring it real from the streets. Check this out:

EMG in the house
I'm the big cat and you the little mouse
I'm the big cat that gets all the lil' pussies
Hell no this ain't "I Love Lucy'
I like 'em juicy and I like 'em thick
I rock the mic like I rock my dick
I'll stick you with a shiv just like prison
I ain't even need no reason
I'm real from East Magnolia
you just veal from Gay Fagnolia
I'll broil ya like a steak
I'm stainless steel and you're a paper plate
The mall is my mine
You'all best fall in line
Or I'll key your car
I'mma EMG superstar
I'mma EMG HumVee and you're a Ford
When I'm rockin' hard on my skateboard
I'll cut you quick like an umbilical cord
and leave you hangin' by your lil' baby feet
You better walk on the other side of the street, f**ker,
You better walk on the other side of the street

That's how I roll, bitches.

The Crack Emcee said...

Gahrie,

"You know what is the best part? We tricksy Whites are hiding our oppression of Black people behind an administration dominated by Black people. We also make sure that most of them live in areas governed by Black people to keep the ruse growing."

And when whites - or even the country - takes credit for the things blacks do themselves! Oh man, it doesn't get any better than that.

"The whole thing about drawing electoral districts to ensure Blacks get elected? Window dressing."

Window dressing erected by WHITES!

"The laws passed that discriminate in favor of Black people and against White people? Just a sign of how crazy White people are."

Written and put in place by WHITES!

"The trillions of dollars in wealth transfered to the Black community by the goverment in the last 70 years? A start."

Because anytime whites fail at accomplishing something, once, the correct answer is to stop - because stopping surely improves the lives of Americans who WHITES abused and, that way, EVERYONE knows how much whites care about all the harm they've done to their fellow citizens over 400 years.

Compassionate conservatism at it's best,...

The Crack Emcee said...

Gahrie,

"Hey..you're the one writing in English, a clear cultural appropriation."

No "appropriation." It was forced on blacks under penalty of death, or haven't you forgotten, white man?

"I expect you to take a course in Swahili immediately and desist from using a European language."

If you're paying for it, I'll take any language you want - Ta-Naehisi Coates is taking a French emersion course, as we speak,...

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael,

"Put two and two together, Crack. Whites are supremacists. They are not going to give that up. And you can't make them."

How can you tell when someone's failed American history?

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K,

"That father was at the basketball game with his girlfriend and left the two boys home alone."

What a fucking criminal!!!!

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K,

"Trayvon went out to 'score' some pot and the ingredients for 'purple drank.'"

An offense that warranted the Death Penalty. Really - no kid into "purple drank" deserves to live. White rules.

And BTW - putting score in quotes outs you as the evil Ralph Malph from "Happy Days"….

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K,

"He saw that 'white Hispanic' watching him in the gated community that had had a bunch of burglaries and decided to 'pop his ass.'"

Because a black man attending a basketball game with a woman,...

Plus his kids wanting something to wash down a case of cotton mouth,…

Plus walking,…

This was a problem - warranting death for black kids - in Whitey World,…

And I'm supposed to pretend to see the homicidal maniacs this culture produces - scared little white losers, like you, who think this way - as being normal.

And then you wonder why I'd celebrate your inevitable defeat at every possible juncture.

Say goodbye to America as you know it, Mikey.

Stop crying that anybody's cheating - we're going to cheat.

No whining as Obama outflanks you - we're going to outflank you.

No bitching as Jay-Z convinces your daughters to twerk - we've owned your daughters since the day you showed disgust for us.

And, please, just for me - when "What Amount Of White Money Do Blacks Deserve?" becomes the ONLY topic on the nightly news for a few years - I don't want to hear shit.

Nothing.

Just say goodbye...

holdfast said...

To be fair, the Obama Administration IS really a facade constructed by a bunch of far-left white people, many of them women.



Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom had parents too, parents who loved them. But no, that wasn't a hate crime or anything.

Anonymous said...

Once you imagine yourself living in a large EuroState, California, or a vaguely free collectivist paradise, NPR makes a lot more sense.

Despite their high production values and standards, I'm guessing if this were Canada or Britain, they'd be delighted to oversee a huge public budget and quasi-bureaucracy with Westervelts and Totenbergs at the helm: A permanent class sympathetic to Left-liberal feminism, environmetalism, multicultural causes etc.

Michael said...

Crack:

Masters Degree in History, dude. You?

You leading the revolution as a Freedom Rider on the Althouse Blog?

You make us all laugh and for that we are grateful.

Good luck with the revolution, reparations, the music career. They all seem to be proceeding apace.

Thanks for keeping us up to date on Coates. We love those updates. Would like to know what he's been wearing these days. Still the goofy cap?

The Crack Emcee said...

Ignorance is Bliss,

"When people talk of children needing fathers, we are talking about fathers married to the child's mother, living in the same home, and committed to raising the child to the best of their ability.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you don't understand that concept."

In a country that doesn't hire black men, puts women's needs ahead of a husband's, and demonizes his child - yeah, knowing all that, I guess you shouldn't.

What DOESN'T surprise me is how you left out white supremacy's role in any of it:

Because of white supremacy, the black man doesn't work - but whites blame him.

Because of the weak white men behind white supremacy, the black man doesn't have a true role in the home - the wife does - but whites blame him.

And because of white supremacy, black kids are seen as adult menaces or hunted targets instead of the children they are and can be killed by white men - but whites blame him.

Shit, only a stupid white man WOULD hang around to endure all that abuse,...

ron winkleheimer said...

"She said it to Adam right after the gate clanged shut and he was blubbering about how he never should have listened to her and now what are we gonna do and these fucking leaves are making him itch."

Actually, they would have been wearing animal skins.

"And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them."

Genesis 3:21

The Crack Emcee said...

Ann Althouse,

"It would be good to cite some evidence that 'man up' began as a black phrasing."

Please. In a world where white guys are wearing their hats backwards, rocking oversized shorts, greeting each other with shoulder hugs, fist bumps, and, "Whassup?" I'm not EVEN inclined to defend that statement.

American whites, generally, just don't inspire slang anymore,...

The Crack Emcee said...

Ann Althouse,

"Arguably, it got started with 'cowboy up' in the rodeo milieu, which I take it leans white."

Talking to white people can be mind-bending - that's how that statement hit me, even with the "arguably" in there, like entering the Twilight Zone:

"On cinema screens and paperback covers, the cowboys of old were heroic, hard-bitten and -- almost always -- white.

In reality, the American West of the 1800s was traversed by an assortment of black, white, Mexican and Native American cattle hands. Contemporary records are rare but historians now estimate that up to one in four Texan cowboys was African American, while the number of Mexican cowboys was even greater.,...


I think whites know less American history than probably any group in the country.

If I were white, I'd protest for reparations for that,...

Drago said...

crack: "..scared little white losers,..."

LOL

It appears that crack has promoted Hispanic George Zimmerman from "White Hispanic" to simply "White"!

Did crack perform a DNA-ectomy to achieve this racial/genetic "miracle"?

Does Crack even know what DNA is?

Frankly, it would be a "big win" if crack simply understood that islands don't tip over because lots of people walk on them.

Bruce Hayden said...

An offense that warranted the Death Penalty. Really - no kid into "purple drank" deserves to live. White rules.

No - he died because he picked the wrong victim to physically assault and cause to reasonably believe that he was in danger of his life and/or great bodily injury. Remember, that Martin was shot while sitting on top of Zimmerman, pummeling his head into the concrete walk, and then trying to strangle him when he yelled for help. Either of those actions could have resulted in Zimmerman's death or great bodily injury.

Sure, maybe the cause of Martin's actions was the lack of his father in his life at a critical time, or maybe it was innate racism in this country. That doesn't affect that he was in the midst of committing a violent felony at the time he was shot in justified self-defense.

I will not accept a society where self-defense can somehow be negated by the race or other characteristic, where you cannot defend yourself against violent attack because the attacker has somehow been deprived at some point in his life. I am pretty sure that this sentiment is shared by a large majority in this country, and probably even of the Black community.

The Crack Emcee said...

The Drill SGT,

"Crack,

I don't consider myself a Fucking delusional murderous asshole racist."

I know - delusional people are rarely aware of their delusion.

I don't call you names."

No, but you do root for an entire nation designed to grind me down - you even help - and you see yourself as a good guy as you do so.

I disagree.

"I said inner city absent fathers. You converted that to absent black fathers through your racial lens not mine."

Because whites haven't turned "inner city" into code for blacks? My bad.

"Yes, the dissolution of black families is an issue, but beyond that, lower class Latino and Whites are headed that direction as well and that does not bode well for any functioning society."

But the problem isn't fathers - it's racist white supremacy - which hurts white fathers, too.

"Consider blacks as thought leaders in the destruction of the traditional family and society…"

Then thank goodness for black thought leaders in America!

Of course, the man who wrote the words "All Men Are Created Equal" while holding slaves is the so-called thought leader to blame for the cockamamy, racist, ass-backwards, nonsensical, un-American and dangerous manner by which you allegedly "think."

For instance, blaming blacks - for the failures of a society whites ran, alone and by force, for 400 years - is the height of Alice In Wonderland lunacy and evil. Let me clue you in:

Your "traditional" America is falling because whites are racist sociopaths, trained by culture to compartmentalize unimaginable evil, with not a care for justice and nothing more.

The evidence is everywhere and overwhelming.

But only whites don't see it.

But, still, they think they should lecture others - especially on ethics - a subject they are as ill-equipped, to speak on, as I am skiing.

White's mass mental illness - and that's what it is - IS a bizarre phenomena to witness...

Bruce Hayden said...

I do think that the big problem with violence in the inner cities is the result of lack of fathering. And, that is probably worse in the black community because they are ahead of the rest of the country in this regard. And, that is where Crack should be aiming his ire - at those who put his community in that situation, which is the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK, and the rise of fatherlessness is a direct and consequential result of progressive Dem policies that subsidized the breakup of families, starting coincidentally about the same time as the Civil Rights Acts were enacted that ended legalized discrimination by those same Democrats. I have long wondered if LBJ's Great Society and War on Poverty were the slave party's answer to losing Jim Crow. And, yes, I do think that the Black community was more susceptible to the pressures of subsidized single parenting due to historical oppression (by the same Dem party that financially incentivized single parenting).

I think that part of why so many people reacted badly to the Julia commercials during the last election is that we have seen what fatherless childrearing causes, and, yet, the President is pushing for more of it. He was essentially saying to single women, one of his larger demographics, that they didn't need to bother getting married to the biological father of their children, because the government would be there to support them. But, his government won't be there when their teenaged sons tell them to shut up, just give them the money they want, and quit whining. And claims of caring by the government aren't going to give their daughters the same sort of self-confidence that a father would give a daughter that would go a long way in keeping her out of the sack with guys, while seeking male love, and in junior high and high school instead.

Fernandinande said...

google ngram shows usage of "man up" to 1800, peaking around 1920 - though it could be referring to things like "there's a man up in that tree":

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=man+up&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cman%20up%3B%2Cc0

Fernandinande said...

Biological Gender[sic] Difference.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0029265

"Sex differences in personality are believed to be comparatively small.
...
We found a global effect size D = 2.71, corresponding to an overlap of only 10% between the male and female distributions. Even excluding the factor showing the largest univariate ES, the global effect size was D = 1.71 (24% overlap). These are extremely large differences by psychological standards.

Significance
The idea that there are only minor differences between the personality profiles of males and females should be rejected as based on inadequate methodology."

Rusty said...

Crack has father issues.

Fernandinande said...

French emersion course

Someone should take an English immersion course.

mikee said...

I got Crack Emcee and Betamax3000 confused after a few comments and wondered why Crack was doing white rap and Betamax wanted reparations.

I laughed aloud when I realized my mistake.

Best comedy comment thread EVAH!

Michael said...

Crack:

OK, time for a confession. Last night at the all-the-white-men-in-the-world-meeting which is held every night and in which we talk about all the women and black people in the world individually, we spent a little extra time on you, debating whether or not the boot should be lifted from your neck and whether or not we should let your music career flourish or continue to fail. Two things were decided. First, Joel Lipswitch of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY said he would take the place of Albert Wilson of Jones, ARkansas in keeping a boot on your neck. So there is that. Next, by a pretty big margin, I think 102% to 0, the vote was to let your music career proceed on its current trajectory.

They will have my ass at tonight's meeting for telling you this.

Gahrie said...

Because whites haven't turned "inner city" into code for blacks? My bad

The ones who did that were your allies, the Left. They invented the term so that they wouldn't have to confront certain unpleasant demographic realities.

Gahrie said...

Please. In a world where white guys are wearing their hats backwards, rocking oversized shorts, greeting each other with shoulder hugs, fist bumps, and, "Whassup?" I'm not EVEN inclined to defend that statement.

So you assert that these White people are behaving in a Black manner correct?

Now why would a bunch of racists emulate those they despise?

Drago said...

mikee: "I got Crack Emcee and Betamax3000 confused after a few comments..."

In the future, if you simply focus on which of the 2 is coherent (Betamax3000), it's easier to tell them apart.

Paddy O said...

1 Now when Polycarp entered into the arena there came a voice from heaven: "Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man." And no one saw the speaker, but our friends who were there heard the voice. And next he was brought forward, and there was a great uproar of those who heard that Polycarp had been arrested.

2 Therefore when he was brought forward the Pro-Consul asked him if he were Polycarp, and when he admitted it he tried to persuade him to deny, saying: "Respect your age," and so forth, as they are accustomed to say: "Swear by the genius of Caesar, repent, say: `Away with the Atheists'"; but Polycarp, with a stern countenance looked on all the crowd of lawless heathen in the arena, and waving his hand at them, he groaned and looked up to heaven and said: "Away with the Atheists."

3 But when the Pro-Consul pressed him and said: "Take the oath and I let you go, revile Christ," Polycarp said: "For eighty and six years have I been his servant, and he has done me no wrong, and how can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"

--from ch. 9 of Martyrdom of Polycarp (early 2nd century)

exhelodrvr1 said...

Crack,
Trying to get revenge for what happened to your ancestors and addressing the problems that face blacks today are mutually exclusive. And you're picking the wrong one.

chillblaine said...

"Because of white supremacy, the black man doesn't work - but whites blame him."

100 % Correct!

Voting in aggregate for the Democratic Party (the white supremacy), the black person endorses a party that imports a million unskilled workers every year,and the black man doesn't work.