Being a Black American, I noticed that a lot of the more vocal, fiery, and/or analytical voices within Black Liberation politics often attempt to be at odds with “Western philosophy”, yet, they are indelibly… Western through and through.
Most Black Liberation Politics centers around Continental Leftist and or liberal (in the classical sense onwards) types of ideology centering around concepts such as deconstruction, post-structuralism, Critical Theory, existentialism to many extents, anti-colonialism, post-colonialism, and some degree postmodernism (e.g., hip hop as a late stage capitalist form of music that blurs high art with low art, pastiche, hyper capitalism, the subjectivity of morality, pop culture, etc.).
But, for those within Black Liberation politics, stretching from the Ivory Tower college seminars with the stereotypical dred-locked wise sage professor, to YouTube video essayists with their evermore ridiculous thumbnails to attract eyeballs (yes, I am talking about “Foreign Man in a Foreign Land”, etc.), and all the way to fringe cults pushing antediluvian Black Supremacist origin stories (even throw in a few UFOs or mad scientists, e.g., The Nation of Islam, Nuwabians, Hoteps, etc.), what I notice is…. there is no real black philosophy.
Rather, we what we have is blackness expressed through Western philosophy.
What I’m saying is….is that most of the Black Nationalist or liberation types who are quick to call another person’s “blackness” into question, even going so far as using white supremacist Antebellum slavery monikers towards each other, i.e., house slave, house negro, coon, Uncle Tom, the N-word, etc., but these Black Nationalist and liberation types are….living in the “House”, i.e., the house is the Western civilization including its philosophy.
So, to appear to be at odds with the West, when in essence we are products of the West, including using its language, didactic, etc., is ironic. In other words, don’t pretend that you’re higher or holier or more “organic” simply because you push pro-blackness when we are all living collectively under the roof of the house. The only way to truly alleviate this dilemma is to…leave the West.
Full unplug form the West or rather attempt at establishing a coherent “Black Philosophy” or “Southern Philosophy” that with academic rigor pools various indigenous African philosophies under one umbrella. No conspiracy theory, no anti-white girl paranoid black female nonsense, no toxic masculinity, but literal hitting the books and creating a framework that spans ethics, logic, etc.
I say Southern philosophy because we obviously know that Eastern typically represents Asian and/or Indian Subcontinent frameworks spanning Hinduism, Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc., whereas Western philosophy touches upon everything from the Sages, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Continentals vs Analytics, etc. In other words, we live under a global “Eurasianist” viewpoint, which isn’t bad necessarily, but the problem is that it excludes the philosophical frameworks of other parts of planet, so we can’t have a truly united human specifies until we include other frameworks or test them at least.
My call, yes, Quinton Mitchell is saying, that there should be a Southern Philosophy that emphasis the major categories of philosophy such as Ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Logic, and Aesthetics. This could be done my using game theory, Artificial Intelligence, computer regressions, etc.
Before I start this, I don’t like “Dr.” Umar Johnson, I don’t like the Nation of Islam cult, or generally most black nationalist movements. However, I want the best for black people.
Blackness in the context of Western Civilization was intended to be the “antithesis” to the “thesis” of white supremacy, colonialism, exceptionalism, deification, etc. Better put, blackness is the “yang” to the “ying” of whiteness. Though this is a manufactured dialectic, an engineered binary, etc., which was intended to create a caste system for the benefit of generating wealth for a top-down hierarchy between the ruling class and the peasantry – where race was used as a layer of division to disunite the common human proletariat – the truth is that the dialectic has sunken deep into the ontology, consciousness, what have you, of Western civilization. Even if the dialectic isn’t purely from a wealth accumulation standpoint, the truth is we are all human laboring under the illusion of self, etc.
As a result, blackness as personified by African bodies that were forcibly absorbed into Western civilization during the Trans-Atlantic Slavery and Colonial periods, notably of the Americas and continental Africa itself, is…black. By black, I mean nihilistic.
Blackness is the personification of Western nihilism that was constructed to give purpose and meaning to “solution” of “whiteness”. Black bodies are seen as “challenges” to be triumphed against, trained for, brutalized, humbled, etc. Black culture is seen a reminder of the civilizing tendencies of “white culture”. Black de-valuation is seen as an easy means of boosting “white valuation”, for example, impoverished whites seeing themselves as more in alignment with the white upper class rather than black lower class, i.e., whites at the bottom can appropriate upwards, whereas black people who succeed are continuously dragged down by the “black bottom”, etc. Yet, the irony is that black culture is all of these things, i.e., black people also choose to live in the binary of being polar opposites just for the sake of it, and as a result, the system gets what it wants…an easily agitated and divided public.
The further construction of blackness is the tendency towards self-annihilation, and by that I don’t mean breeding or baby making, but rather the cannibalistic and infectious nature of toxic masculinity (street law, street justice, etc.). To me a black man for example means to push out emotion, care, sympathy, honor, etc. Black men brutalize each other each day as black men jockey over petty squabbles of maintaining societal notions of masculinity, but not just any notion, but this purposely crafted dialectical notion explicitly intended for black people.
The issue with black conservatives such as Candance Owens, Larry Elders, Thomas Sowell, the BLEXIT movement, etc., is that it’s not really….”black” and I don’t mean black in a stereotypical aesthetic standpoint (e.g., A.A.V.E , African American Vernacular English– i.e., blaccent, Ebonics, etc., fashion, lingo, rhythmic music, soul, gospel, hair culture, etc.), but rather black conservatism is ironically…anti-black, i.e., it sees black people as inherently defective, problematic, embarrassing, inferior, etc.
For example, BLEXIT rarely if ever has an uplifting message as an outreach tactic to attract black recruits to their capitalist, meritocratic (in theory), socially conservative mindset. For example, you never see “Today in Black History this accomplishment happened” as a means of showing often urbanized or posing urbanized black people, alternatives to the black culture they were told is the only avenue for them.
Black conservatism often seeks to fit into white supremacy to prove that black people belong, thus by doing so black conservatives often swing down on their own people as a means of differentiating themselves from the stereotypes that white supremacy ironically helped create, though contemporary black people have largely adopted this black creation for themselves and co-opted it and steered it in their own direction (basically just being the ironic opposite of whiteness…”improper English”, sagging, calling ourselves Niggas, etc.).
With black conservatives there is often no love, protection, defense, etc., of black people but rather they join forces with white supremacy (and, yes, white Jewish conservatives such as Ben Shapiro) to bully, shame, etc., other black people.
There is no real non-nationalistic black-centric platform that attempts to solve black issues as felt through the black experience.
Rather, all black conservatives can offer is 1) work hard and 2) have fathers.
It fails to even acknowledge the racism that even black conservatives may suffer in majority non-black spaces (e.g., elite prep schools, colleges, etc.). Black conservatism for example seems incapable of even acknowledging that racism exist notably within structures such as American policing. For example, would it have been so much to ask if BLEXIT at least posted a photo of Elijah McClain, Treyvon Martin, Breanna Taylor, etc.? Nope. Rather, BLEXIT and black conservatives joined forces with the forces of skepticism against black suffering, bullying, harassment, etc.
The goal of figures such as “Officer Tatum”, Candace Owens, etc., was to convince conservative white people that they are right in overlooking, disregarding, making fun of, etc., black feelings and experiences. I am not labelling all black conservatives or black people who fall within the capitalist middle class as engaging in this, but rather certain pundits who are platformed engage in this belittlement, and thus therefore are exacerbating the internal divisions with the black community, notably via the antiquated trope of “house slave vs field slaves”.
Yet, the irony, even if we are to view what I am saying on an even higher level, is that black conservatives are meant to keep the internal division going, by drawing a hard line in the sand between over simplistic binaries. In other words, the black conservative serves as full assimilation within white supremacy without any attempt at having black agency or black value within it, as means of perpetuating and maintaining stereotypical divisions between white and black people. Better put, black conservatives are…black people wanting to be “white”, thus they help create a harsh “either/or”, “you are with us or against us” standpoint. By acting “white” I don’t mean how you sound, dress, or like, but rather acting white in the sense of being against anything that isn’t white. You can still be a suburban black person for example and still feel connection to your roots unlike what many, sadly, other black people think.
I actually defend socialist and even some communists, though I never want to live under Communism.
But the truth is that Communist are annoying.
As an analysis method there is merit in analyzing the world via a non “idealist” and non “metaphysical” way as a means of understanding natural contradictions within nature, notably class hierarchies. There is merit in egalitarianism because to be human means to be a balance between individual and within cooperation with others. Communists reject metaphysics but the truth is we don’t entirely understand the nature of actual physics, so how can we say with certainty that even communism is factual, if the underlying nature in which reason is built from, isn’t entirely understandable to us?
(Note: my theory that shows itself in many of my writings, is that black diaspora culture is essentially a form of “internalized” white supremacy, despite black people coopting that trauma and stylizing it for themselves (prevalence of the N-word, black on black violence, attempting to be the complete opposite to whiteness just for the sake of it, etc.), since it was created or gestated within the materialist conditions of white supremacy, so no matter how militant or “black” a person seems, they are effectively stuck in a manufactured dialectic with the colonial construct of “whiteness”, and the only way to alleviate oneself from that dialectic is to fully “de-program” from Western Civilization, i.e., its ethics, metaphysics, knowledge, aesthetics, etc. Or, instead of fully de-programming we as black people instead accept the evolutionary process of being overtaken by a more advanced organized force — where this advanced nature is not biological but was rather the result of material conditions that just so happened to have developed in Europe leading to the Age of Discovery thus development of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. This acceptance of conquest is the same as other groups, even white groups who were forcefully absorbed into the Western framework (e.g., Germanic pagan tribes conquered by the Frankish Kingdom, the Franks themselves conquered by the Romans, or Baltic peoples conquered by the later Frankish assimilated Germanic kingdoms by way of the Teutonic Orders, etc.), but instead harmonize and venerate our black culture and merge it with Western culture, so blackness with all of its ethics, metaphysics (a good faith, educated, scientific, academic and anthropological approach to topics such as indigenous African religions as opposed to conspiracy theory), epistemology, etc., becomes in part “de facto”, i.e., everyone in theory is a “little black”, i.e., creating a synthesis between the manufactured thesis and antithesis of whiteness and blackness.
The latter solution also being facilitated white people stopping to promote supremacist tropes to justify that conquest as a means of supporting this “synthetization” process, because contemporary people often have contributed nothing to the achievements of the race they claim.
Wow, I was probably nearly a year ago when I was living up in Seattle.
I was sitting in a restaurant for lunch and noticed a man outside pacing around a fairly busy intersection. He was speaking to himself, his pants sagged, and was walking in a defensive posture, as if he was defending himself from the world, a world of his possibly damaged psyche. He held a rod of some sort and twirled it around defensively at imaginary threats, who seemed to be after what few belongings he had on a rollable cart.
Yet even though my defensive senses were raised, I looked at the guy with a bit of sadness.
As I left the restaurant, I crossed eyes with the man, and I saw fear in him. His eyes had the pinkish redness of a crying toddler or that of an adult on the verge of tears – the eyes slightly burning. Maybe he is freaking out over the fact he doesn’t know where his next meal is coming from, where he will sleep, or if his meds might run out? You never know.
This erratic behavior seems to have been a defensive reflex. Maybe he “looks scary” because he has to? He likely was a mentally ill ex-prisoner fighting for survival, but now is basically a homeless man with shellshock roaming the city, fighting whatever demons he has.
Yet, even as he paced around, people walked right past him.
No one is going to call the cops, because people fear that cops might see a mentally-ill black man and treat him like a violent criminal possibly leading to his death. Police in general in the wake of the Summer of 2020 seem to be not doing their jobs as well as they can because of pride, i.e., they want the public who called them out to crawl back to them.
It seems our current times are this odd mix of dialectical (bipolar) tension. The Left is softer on crime, yet way more understanding about the factors that leads to social issues, whereas conservatives are tougher on crime but being tougher on crime doesn’t fix crime, but simply sweeps it away, just for it to reappear later, especially since crime isn’t simply a matter of oversimplified morals (right vs wrong). The conservative approach is to simply to lock up people, evict people, put them on buses to far away states (liberal ones), etc.
But, seeing people simply walk past him and not make much of a fuss, even as the man tried destroying a sign of an ice cream parlor, it made me think of Michel Foucault.
I’m no expert on the guy. Never read him. I’m aware of him. He’s one of those people who was so influential that you sort of gain his knowledge by osmosis since elements of progressive culture, similar to the impact of Herbert Marcuse, was so influential.
One idea that he was notable for writing about was how systems created a clinical gaze towards the mentally ill, whom previously had been a part of the overall community, e.g., the town-square drunkard or babbling homeless guy, but this modernist clinical gaze created inadvertently a new type of oppression, a type of reductionist viewpoint, resulting in mentally ill people not be treated holistically but being attacked by systemic violence that marginalizes their existences (solitary confinement, forced medications, strip searches, showers by hosing, experimentation, shock therapy, lobotomies, sterilization, etc.). Further, Foucault spoke about the prison style known as the panopticon which is a euphemism for the spy and police state.
Foucault seems to have been trying to say is that the mentally ill still have thoughts, even if their thoughts aren’t conventional, and maybe in some strange way, there’s certain levels of wisdom there, similar to how older or more ancient cultures might have looked on a mentally ill person, such as one suffering from what we consider to be schizophrenia today, and figured they were communicating on higher level.
It seems safe to say that Foucault’s then controversial views have made the world a better place by questioning ableism. For example, Greta Thunberg instead of seeing her Aspergers as a crutch, she rather embraced her condition as a superpower, and she shows she can still be a productive member of society who wishes for its well-being.
It seems that cities with progressive policies are today still subconsciously influenced by Foucault’s anti-ableist analysis and are tolerant of the mentally ill in public.
And, sure, let’s say that is all fine. The only issue is that this tolerance is still inhabiting a capitalist system, where I would argue that the capitalist system is making more mentally ill people, so we end up never getting ahead of solutions but always reacting to issues. Since liberals are still related to classical liberalism, it seems that the charity towards the mentally ill gets monetized and absorbed into bureaucracy, more so intent on provide jobs and administration, rather than fixing the underlying problem.
The pressures of working jobs where performance metrics are becoming more and more draconian on the grounds of maximizing profits; a materialist culture designed to emotionally, physically, and even sexually manipulate us into making consumer purchases to maintain our status in hierarchal social systems; the rising cost of living where most of a person’s income goes toward rents thus to entertain themselves they might self-medicate more (the cheaper option) or dissociate into digital fantasy landscapes, and, let’s not forget the postmodern implications of the internet spewing every conspiracy theory, hyper-real depictions of violence, etc.
We need to fund with taxes overnight and/or court-orereded mental health facilities, because A) they provide a place for people to sleep, eat, be safe, etc., and B) mentally ill people aren’t thrown into jails where they can be prey or harmful to others.
As capitalism continues to eat away at every aspect of modern life, commodifying everything in its path, it is no surprise that we in the United States live with crime, homelessness, disparity, mental illness, communicable diseases, police altercations, gentrification, etc., are growing in scope and scale.
The problem is that our society has merged three things which should be separately funded and managed which are prisons/jails/halfway houses/juvenile detention centers, drug rehab centers, and mental health facilities (i.e., formerly called asylums).
The “merging” is likely due to privatization as former government ran institutions were slowly “contracted out” to free-market businesses, where many are public, thus they have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value. The easiest way to maximize profit is of course to cut costs, reduce quality, and merge job specialties, which are argued for with fancy business lingo or phrases such as achieving economies-of-scale, lean management, maximizing shareholder value, reducing redundancy, etc.
The problem is that the scope of prisons, mental health facilities, and drug rehabs are often merged.
Drug addicts are thrown in jail and many become indebted to criminal gangs, and the inability to pay debts might lead people to be physically or sexually assaulted (pimped out, sexual slavery), etc.
This increases risk of contracting communicable diseases, even if no sexual activity is occurring, e.g., being in a bloody fight with another inmate, being stabbed, etc.
Further, mentally ill people might be exploited outright, and even more so if they have drug addictions. The way the system is designed, it creates a toxic ecosystem. Drug addicts fuel the gang activity, and gang activity is often but not always racially segregated, thus increasing risks of riots and radicalizing inmates who will take their hateful ideology to the public to recruit more people, etc. Many gangs require life commitments, so some inmates once released, potentially fearing for their lives or those of their loved ones, help sustain criminal activity on the inside, .e.g, sending money, smuggling drugs, committing violence against enemies or informants, etc.
Former prisoners often state that the guards purposely created racial division, or rather they sustain it. It’s not uncommon to hear stories of guards watching prisoner fighters, betting on fights, setting up informants to be attacked, assisting in criminal activity such as smuggling, turning a blinded eye to sexual assaults, sexually assaulting inmates, etc.
On top of all these factors, many former inmates have hard times finding jobs or places to live, so drug addicts and/or mentally ill people, or people in general who are on hard times, often become homeless, thus causing another problem. Many inmates once released are given a bus ticket and told good luck and find themselves landing at every seedy bus station in every American city.
Since the night is much more dangerous than the daytime, homeless people might sleep and eat in the day, but are on guard duty the entire night, and many turn to drugs to stay awake.
In other words, everything is connected and understanding those connections and giving each step of the process is the only way to truly bring forth systemic reform. For example, when waging war, counties rarely factor in the high costs of taking care of veterans, and many of these veterans find themselves in the cycles I’ve been mentioning.
We need to fund society, i.e., the people’s government, and not simply take tax money and hand it over to contractors who bloat costs, because bad procurement processes/monitoring by auditing agencies doesn’t do good due diligence.
This is where we come further into conflict with capitalism.
State governments pander to corporations so they come to their state by cutting tax rates, and this ends up leading to a race to zero amongst the state governments. This results in “national austerity” placing long-term pressure on residents and workers who cover the load of taxes to fund society because corporations will threaten to leave if not given what they want. Yet, many people vote for these neo-liberal policies out of desperation, but also good propaganda methods by conservatives who decry big government in favor of “personal freedom”, but they fail to mention that the freedom for a corporation is more powerful than the freedom of a person.
Corporations sell this idea of freedom to the working class so corporate personhood can go untouched. It’s that simple.
Sure, your state might get jobs, but you’ll have underfunded public services, which cost more and more to fix if the problems get too out of control, ironically since private businesses fill the void and there’s no to little control over what they charge for services. The jobs promised by the companies might not pan out, with many creating fewer jobs than they promised to community leaders.
Also, it’s a myth that states without taxes are better off. States that can raise capital through taxes have the ability to invest in the public good, i.e., expanding wi-fi access which helps the poor or young search for jobs or obtain online certifications/education. Well-funded infrastructure is simply good for business. States that invest in mental health and drug reform might see improved relations with communities who see that police aren’t just enforcers of a capitalist system, but rather helpers in the community who can help refer people who need help to the right agencies.
Sure, Texas has a powerhouse economy, and no hate to the state objectively, but it also executes more people than any other state, its separate power grid failed during a winter storm, and I really can’t fathom the amount of pollution or cancer causes by the fossil fuels and corporate farming industry.
How much money did Fortune 500s lose due to Texas’ energy grid disaster? Or, how many Fortune 500 companies have decided to stay in California despite the price because California has the government power to try new things, which has resulted in attracting a skilled workforce?
Every state should have some type of income tax to help fund/hedge public services that serve all people regardless of their identity. States need to stand in unity so all states have some type of income tax so corporations can’t pit the states against each other. This state competition for jobs by reducing taxes causes mass migrations, which can have even more of an impact on social issues.
For example, the popular California vs Texas divide.
Many Californians are leaving the state due to lack of housing (building codes, increased material costs, property taxes, home owner associations, zoning laws, short-term rental market – AirBnB, Vrbo, etc. – which takes homes off the market, and foreign nations buying whole neighborhoods for portfolio assets), taxes, fees, overcrowding, lack of blue collar work, forest fires, state universities prioritizing out-of-state students so they can be charged more money with out-of-state tuition rates, etc.
Yet, the issue isn’t that California has an income tax but it might be an issue of the rate they charge, and the issue with Texas is they have no income tax to create the proper nest-eggs, rainy day accounts or emergency funds, thus corners are cut.
A state like Washington State which is traditionally Democratic doesn’t have an income tax, which is more so to appease the conservative elements of the state, while also appeasing big business who have to deal with Washington’s traditionally strong unionist workforce (IBEW, dock workers, aircraft mechanics, teachers, etc.). Yet, in all my travels and having lived all over the United States, I always noticed the West Coast has a strong homeless or vagabond culture, where people often attribute this to the fact that the West Coast the last destination of the Continental United States. However, Washington State like many other states have been privatizing mental health. A former court-ordered mental health facilities called Western State near Lakewood/Steilacoom WA was closed.
Hitler, the Nazis, the Holocaust, have become, sadly, and oddly, a form of pop culture, and not just any pop culture, but a hyper-real form of culture perpetuated by the omnipotent and fate-sealing power of the “algorithm”.Quinton Mitchell
I call it Nazi Pop.
I understand that history should be taught and preserved. I also understand that having different content creators helps analyze topics form different perspectives. However, I think there should at least be more disclaimers relating to Nazi content or at least some sort more intensive vetting process including but not limited to peer-review for YouTube videos on the subject. Also, creators of such content should have to disclose their public identity rather than hide behind avatars.
A large chuck of the profit percentage should go to charities such as those dedicated to Holocaust education or hate-group watchdog groups.
It seems many content creators have learned that making videos about Nazis is an easy way to get paid, yet many people don’t care about the money but rather they are potential Nazi sympathizers who have adapted to not seeming radical but instead brand themselves as “amateur historians”. For example, the YouTube pages such as the Zoomer Historian and History-at-War.
Sure, not everyone talking about Nazis are bad and the intent is often educational. Yet, even with these good faith actors the need to make money off Nazi content still stands. For example, let us look at lovable and iconic YouTube creator, Simon Whistler.
When I type in Simon Whistler Nazi on YouTube I see the following videos. Why Did So Many Nazis Choose Argentina to Flee to After WWII? (on Today I Found Out); Why Did So Many Nazis Choose Argentina to Flee to After WWII? (on Into The Shadows); Adolf Hitler – The Rise of a Fanatical Fuhrer (on Biographics); The “Nice” Nazis (on Sideprojects); War and Drugs – WWII Soldiers Go Mad on Meth (on Brain Blaze); Inside the Meeting that Engineered the Holocaust (on Into the Shadows); The Rise and Fall of the Nazi War Machine (on Warographics); The 1936 Olympic Games: Nazi Germany’s Gambit (on Into the Shadows); The “XX System”: How MI5 Made Fools of the Nazis (on Into the Shadows)…and honestly, there is at least 20 plus more.
I must stress that I think Simon Whistler is a legitimate content creator interested in sharing snippets of lost history.
Him aside, we have to be real there are likely Attomwaffen SS sympathizers etc. secretly making ambiguous pro-Nazi videos.
This is what I am saying. Is it education or entertainment? Sure, I have hope that humanity has learned its lessons but…we do live in a world that does seem to be dangerously flirting with a nostalgia for strong-men fascism, largely as a means of curbing the externalities of global capitalism (mass migration, free trade, etc.), which ironically is controlled by those who often fund…fascism.
In other words, the elite capital class are responsible for most of the world’s social ills but while they make profit, they also fund isolationist, nationalist, and often racist regimes because these fascist regimes often side with capitalism, especially as a means of opposing egalitarian ideas such as communism.
Elon Musk is the avatar for everything negative I am stating or insinuating in this post. An alleged “autistic savant”, Sorrow of Young Werner, edge lord, “Sit on my face” (Grandma’s Boy film reference), billionaire capitalist who panders to right wing grifters because they are more so aligned with the economic ideology that enables him to exploit, loot, scam, borrow, fake it till he makes it, and profit, etc.
I call this tendency to make Nazi videos for money on YouTube as being Nazi Pop. Nazi Pop Culture.
There seems to be something going on. There are a lot of “historical analysis” videos dedicated to “studying” (cough – worshipping) the Nazis, especially with a target audience comprised of Millennials, Zoomers, and this odd new “Newsweek”-coined generation called “Generation Alpha”. It is as if there is a bot farm spewing out these Nazi historical analysis videos as a means of subconsciously brainwashing a new crop of unwitting racists, “race realists”, etc., notably in the wake of a world that is unfairly – in my opinion – rallying against “wokeness”, where said “wokeness” is often, but not always, code-word in conservative circles for anything that is not white, straight, male, capitalist, selfish and likely Christian.
“Whiteness” has cleverly positioned itself as an “oppressed” status group, however, the political left often can’t help but to not use “whiteness” as the target to most of its own philosophical juxtapositions. Adding to this, because of the burdens of globalism, climate change, poverty, and wars, many refugees have fled into the Global North, thus causing race realist nationalism to rise.
The political left – though not wrong in its political and economic analysis of contemporary issues, at least from a pure analysis standpoint, as opposed to real life political experiments – often uses whiteness as the focal and starting point for many of its analytical arguments, and this, therefore, helps create a situation that actual white supremacist can exploit by providing a “safe space” for the often lost, frustrated, guilty, etc. White people who are tasked with analyzing their privilege but then rejecting the guilt associated with it when they feel they are being unfairly singled out, and at worst, disarmed from self-defense from the basic truths of human nature beyond race or color.
In other words, many white people feel they can’t defend themselves while also being blamed for the ills of society, and many people reject these feelings and are often recruited by bad faith actors who want to inculcate them into race realism, racism, Nazism, etc. Yet, the left or liberals can often be dismissive of this sentiment, but being dismissive doesn’t mean it goes away. However, this does not mean we need to coddle or excuse the truths of toxic masculinity, entitlement, the hypocrisies of patriarchy and the male gaze onto the female form, racism, etc.
I am not saying that whiteness, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, etc., as is, as they are linked in our contemporary society, are not topics worth studying, however, the folly of let’s say…Marxists analysis…is that it reduces everything to base “non metaphysical” material that is in need of study, analysis, etc. Yet, my argument is that human nature is sure able to be understood, yet most humans are not thinking too deep about social issues besides simply trying to survive in peace. Also, my rebuttal to a full acceptance of applying Marxist analysis is that life is inherently…nonsensical and absurd. The Marxist tries to reduce everything to realist, evolutionary struggle in a sort of godless universe where no objective truths actually exist besides the truths we can analyze based on our evolution as a species, here and only here on Earth, based on understanding the crux of class throughout space and time. Sounds somewhat reasonable.
But why do we make art? Why do we do anything? What’s the point? The point is there is no point but there is a point. Life has purpose and in theory doesn’t. Life is a walking contradiction but because it is, we naturally apply some level of metaphysical justification to our actions. Sure, we can debate about the scope and scale about how we apply metaphysical explanation or justification to sustain our existences, yet, still humans often operate indifferent to being “analytical nerds” where everything is seen as a mindless construction of petty human efforts.
The tin-foil hat in me thinks that our current racial situation is in part manufactured. A sort of dialectical warfare situation where those at the top, typically the capital owners, use race as a means of disguising the institutional power that ironically helps maintain the one percent. The left thinks it is immune to this, but I suspect this is not the case because those at the top, are smarter than given credit for, considering that the left spends so much time in analyzing them. The one percent needs a racially divided proletariat in order to maintain the systems that maintains their power, yet, oddly, when someone says that “things are rigged” notably in matters of race, I notice the political-left itself is often dismissive of this allegation (which I can understand because such as allegation can be used lazily as a means of not deeply analyzing systemic power, however, it is naïve for the left to not admit that pitting the races against each other has always been a key strategy in debasing proletarian and labor-centric power). However, those on the Left don’t want to be dismissive of marginalized groups voices by prioritizing class consciousness over intersectionality, so if anything, it’s on said marginalized groups to accept that such divisive strategies are possible, but it may ironically not be good strategy for historically oppressed groups to acknowledge this considering the status quo can use this as a means of furthering silencing specific causes. Just one of the many seemingly, damned if you, demand if you don’t Catch 22’s we live under.
With the toxic revolt and reaction against diversity and inclusion, I, as black man who grew up largely in predominately white environments (which, I admit were often positive experiences, but yes I have experienced blatant racism), I notice on YouTube that many “content creators” are uploading videos dedicated to studying Nazism.
And, sure, there’s a lot of unpackage there, but I often suspect more sinister intentions. The phenomena are similar to the notion or trop of the “edge lord”. Instead of seeing what the Nazis did as bad, rather the Nazis are “pornified”. From their Hugo Boss uniforms, their innovations (rockets, synthetic oils, jet engines, the interstate systems, intercontinental ballistic missiles, propaganda, etc.), their national unity, etc., there is something that many people seem to deeply want to emulate. That is the sad thing about these YouTube videos for example. Many but not all seem to be about nostalgia rather than analysis of evil.
We must remember than since 2012 for example, which was the era that kicked off the police brutality riots – often against black people – than many college age people were children. Many have adopted the tenants of social justice to varying degrees, but others see social justice as establishment. This therefore opens the opportunity for actual Neo Nazis, who have innovated into doing video essays online, owning video game Reddit communities, etc., the ability to recruit a new crop of followers or apologists.
At first, the book White Noise by Don DeLillo creeps up in my mind. In that book, the main character, Jack Gladney, is the professor of Nazi Studies at some Midwest college, yet the character of Gladney was used by DeLillo as a means of detailing how even a monster such as Adolph Hitler became a sort of pop culture commodity in a postmodern and post-capitalist world. Even Family Guy by Seth MacFarlane pointed fun at this with his Hitler talk-show in his cartoon.
Even atrocities of wars gone by and the lessons thereof which should humble us as a species, instead become commodities or a means of gaining an income.
DeLillo’s prophetic words in his 1985 National Book Award winning novel (which were not done with justice in the 2023 movie adaptation in my opinion) sort of became reality. Hitler, the Nazis, the Holocaust, have become, sadly, and oddly, a form of pop culture, and not just any pop culture, but a hyper-real form of culture perpetuated by the omnipotent and fate-sealing power of the “algorithm”.
Summary Notes: (1) Women don’t want to feel pressured, guilt tripped, emotionally manipulated or cornered into liking you. It is on them to like you even though you have to show them who you really are and be fine with “rejection”. Don’t see rejection as a sad thing but just another chance at freedom and possibility (2) We often put ourselves into situations where we projected our own expectations onto others, and when hurt, we have a tendency to blame others unilaterally rather than weighing the possibility of mutual or even self-blame. Yet, even if we are to blame, we have to find healthy outlets at coming to self-actualization rather than self-destruction, i.e., avoiding self-medicating, self-harm, lashing out at loved ones just to test their tolerances, etc. (3) Men often get hurt when they are rejected because it is about their utility (use, function, form, status, etc.), whereas women seem to get hurt because the female’s “power of appraisal and selection” is challenged. Men have to be self-aware and able laugh at yourself (4) Many women simply want a somewhat fun or engaging life with positive thinking, so a man having interests, thoughts, ideas, and dreams are central. Women like interesting men but being “too deep” can often scare women away for a platitude of reasons such as A) many women may think that thinking is their territory or B) thinking can come off as self-doubt. Yet, many men actually want women who are intrigued by things as well and who are interesting rather than simply wanting women who just want to “fit in” and conform, i.e., women can’t just sit back and expect people to entertain them, because men too get bored. In a world awash with beauty, beauty isn’t always what attracts a man. Loyalty and the ability to sense feelings and empowering his leadership is what a man often responds to. Men like to strategize, and woman are key forces in consulting men to be feel empowered to make decisions. (5) You don’t have rush into sex, even though that is the “love language” many need to express their feelings towards another. Even though we live in a world where it seems you need sex to vet a person, the truth with age is that emotional, lifestyle and mental connection matters more, because “the mysteries” of woman aren’t that big of a deal to a grown man. Connection is true “aphrodisiac” than the simple physical act of rubbing body parts until release. Would you rather have a few orgasms here or there or…. have a person who gets you, understands you, respects your insecurities, but also have a good love life? (6) check yourself to ensure you’re not being a hypocrite and don’t always gaslight others as the problem (7) never lie to a woman yet don’t asks questions always where you may force a person to reveal something they aren’t quite ready to reveal or talk about since they may have moved beyond something. There’s a difference between being snoopy and invasive rather than wanting honesty when an actual issue affecting both parties arises, and (8) bodies can change, get healthier, etc., so the grass isn’t always greener. Men and women will always respond to physical attractiveness of others, and this often can’t be avoided, or people simply enjoy admiring beauty. As long as a person is being respectful to their partners and not using this to force an image or lifestyle on another, or belittle their partner, then I think people have to be confident and mature in what they have and not read too much into things. Sometimes people look but don’t touch just to appreciate what they have or to get over feelings of what it is they think they are missing out on. (9) Many women are conscious to the fact that they are operating in a patriarchal system, so this is why women often like or find humorous things that subverts the status quo. I can’t define feminism, respectfully so, but if I had to simply describe it, feminism is the study by biological or gender assigned females to determine what it is to be a woman in absence of patriarchal overlordship but also within it and determining value by themselves and for themselves. Though many women wear the supposed “male gaze” version of femininity with honor (I say supposed because I can’t say for example that a voluptuous woman wearing a revealing dress is necessarily forced by the “male gaze) as a means of owning it themselves/re-appropriating power (the sexualized woman, the synthesis between the “Madonna – Whore” complex, etc.), they are too aware that this what they are doing, and that this is all possibly absurd, and they, i.e., women, are actors within the male created system who are simply playing their part as we men project our insecurities onto the world. This is why women sometimes find it attractive when men subvert gender expectations since it shows they are aware of what women are on to and find it partially or equally as silly, which is that men are often operating as bots within a system they created and to their, well — our, own demise, but it also shows a sense of self confidence. Many women see men as boys playing boys game in a manufactured boy’s system where we are ironically killing ourselves as we worship our own cult of masculinity. In this regard, women are certainly smarter because it is us men who often lack self-awareness.
The biggest thing I would tell young men from my experiences would be that women don’t want to feel pressured or cornered into liking you.
A lot of men were trained that “good ole fashioned” “romantic” “can’t eat, can’t sleep” “waking her up with a radio with both of yours supposedly favorite song” “running through a rainstorm” type-of-effort somehow equates to the automatic commitment by a female. This is a reductionist view to female agency, i.e., women are simply machines where if given simple inputs will naturally guarantee intended outputs. The dangerous part of the other side of this coin is that many men find is acceptable to treat women horribly, and sadly some women do respond to this, but that is more so out of a woman’s own self-esteem issues (i.e., many woman have self-esteem issues so I suspect in an unhealthy way that woman seek men that treat them badly, hoping that the man sufficing for their own feelings, will actually venerate them from these emotional lows). Yet, women when they snap out of these self-hatred and self-esteem issues will resent you. Don’t be the guy they end up resenting because they feel like you tricked them into being into some sort of “emotional matrix” full of gaslighting, manipulation, etc.
In other words, the guys who think they are good guys but expect something in return by thinking pre-packaged gestures will equate to romance, and the men who purposely treat women badly to manipulate a woman’s tendency to self-criticize are the same type of man, just using different strategies to control women.
But good men do exist, and it should be a goal for everyone man to aspire to. Yet, the delicate art of being a good man is to just be one, and not “think about being one”.
The goal is to be the man who just is, respects others, makes his intentions known but is cool if they are rebuffed, and to be the man who hopefully finds someone who respects you, gets you, and doesn’t see your vulnerability or openness as weakness but rather a virtue in a world that often lacks virtue.
The sad truth about “Men’s Rights” advocates is that they will…die alone. They like to poke fun at woman by alleging they will be “cat moms who need to invest in cat food stocks”, but many of these men can only achieve transactional relationships where they will never feel of the joy of being their true, nerdy, nice selves (which I would argue is most men — nerds intrigued by things that woman may find trivial like history, strategy, philosophy, etc.). Women are more likely to have social bonds and connections since women often are charged with caring for family members, organizing gatherings or birthday parties, going to churches, shopping, etc. Men’s Rights type of men live within a shell and are likely resentful on the inside, often secretly reflecting on the mechanization of their emotions, where they constantly try to rationalize and even fetishize their own dehumanization, often attaching themselves to surrogate antisocial pop culture figures (Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, Tyler Durden from Fight Club, Trent Reznor in the song “Only” — it is a good song even though Trent was being ironic I think to point out what I am talking about, etc.). You can tell they are hurting because their first tendency is to lash out, insult (call others simps, cucks, etc.), etc., as a means of shrouding their true self, no different than how the Wizard of Oz was a shell of a man behind the veil.
Things can be confusing for men because many of the stories or narratives where romantic tropes such as what I referred above are often liked by many females, and maybe in previous generations, such as our parents, i.e., Baby Boomers, the Silent Generation, etc., did respond to mass media differently, i.e., they copied verbatim what they saw on screen even though the messages may have been absorbing were regressive or at least patriarchal (as opposed to our modern hyperaware, self-referential, recycled and often cynical gaze towards pop culture).
Not only are men getting covertly toxic messages, they are also being told that they are toxic by females and social scientists (which has a large degree of merit considering the world is defined largely by patriarchy so men will naturally be criticized when analyzing structural issues — i.e., a possible type of Catch 22), but… there’s no real outlet for men to reach healthy self-actualization (that isn’t political for example – i.e., many modern men simply think the opposite of masculinity is progressive but this is a logical fallacy, yet a lot of feminist leftist thought does argue that masculinity is not progressive…), and this is why in part opportunists such as the Man-o-sphere (Men’s Rights movement) were able to take up social market-share and partially swing the gender dynamics pendulum back to a regressive place.
We need more of a school for progressive masculinity where there is healthy debate, but the central goal is self-reflection.
It is my personal belief that the Man-o-sphere is the actual outgrowth of actual Right-Wing funding of social sciences with the intention of bolstering the capitalist classes (I am not here to argue that capitalism is entirely bad) but then found itself gaining traction on the coattails of figures such as Jordan B. Petersen (a plant), yet the truth about the Manosphere was never about making the world a better place but rather reinforcing the top-down, elitist, hierarchal forces of market-capitalism and emboldening the status quo of the quasi-liberal bourgeoisie class (who need force often typified by the police-militaristic notions of masculinity and coercion to disrupt class consciousness to dissuade the reappropriating of one-percent’s assets). In other words, masculinity has been reduced to being a natural product, tool and commodity of capitalism and needed to reinforce capitalism’s tendency to be coercive to get what it wants and keep people as sheep within this system that requires a small amount of people to profit the most off of the majority of people exerting their labor energy, “economic caloric output”, etc.
Thus, we need more men to be honest about who we are rather than putting on a front, and help steer men into healthier outlets of self-criticism, but also being firm that men do deserve respect to, just like woman demand it. Respect is a balancing act, a seesaw, which should be fun to ride.
Yet, many women were also indoctrinated by society (movies, Instagram posts of supposedly perfect couples, pastiche of previous pop culture, air brushed beauty standards, etc.) that they are the prizes who should be competed for.
In other words, there’s toxic expectations on both sides, yet, exerting effort isn’t bad, nor is having expectations about how one feels they should be treated is bad. It only gets toxic when either gender uses the efforts of others to lead a person especially when they know there’s nothing forming there (i.e., women have to “woman up” and say they aren’t interested as of now), or if a person forces their way into another person’s life where the other people may feel their boundaries are being violated, even if the party forcing things are thinking they are doing the right thing (men have to realize no means no or get the message).
But, to make things less confusing, if a woman likes you, she likes you. You as the man got to take it slow, even though the “hunt” is hard, i.e., we’re tempted to feel overly ecstatic because men often don’t get as much attention as females do. Females often get so much unwanted attention they have to naturally reject men for their own personal safety, whereas many men get little to no female attention and often read too much into female communication.
But, from experience, a woman will make it easy for you if she likes you. It’s a hard pill for men to process because while she appraises men, you may be beat out another suitor, so this explains why men feel the need to be a little pushy and pitch themselves. It’s a damned if you, damned if don’t situation where you simply have to accept as a man and be cool with. If you don’t try, you’ll never know. Thus, being comfortable with rejection is a good thing, so that’s why you never sell yourself too hard, so the fall isn’t that detrimental.
To re-state, if a woman is interested, she’ll give cues such as a simple…asking you questions back and inquiring deeper about things, asking you for your name again even if she forgets initially (it’s oddly ruder when men forget a woman’s name, but somehow acceptable when women forget a man’s name), accepting and appreciating whatever awkwardness you give off. You just sort of know because he’s giving direct indirect signals. Since women don’t get reject as much, they seem to have a subconscious habit of being indirect and not always forward. I am no love guru, but one thing I used to do is if I met a woman who seemed cool, but I was in a rush, if I had noticed her a few times and vice versa (familiarity is a central), then I would give her my number and say “feel free to text me, no pressure. if not, and we see each other again, everything will be cool and no awkwardness”. This actually worked a few times. I was honest, I tried, and I didn’t push unnecessary pressure on her and disarmed myself that if rejected I wouldn’t be weird, especially at a place of employment where she’s just trying to get by. She may not be ready now, but she may remember (file) you for later. The more “genuine non-expectational interactions” you have, the more of a decent person you seem.
But back on course, women don’t like to feel cornered, or guilt tripped into liking a man.
Many women don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, but the unfortunate part of the “game” is rejection. If rejection didn’t exist, then there wouldn’t be special relationships, there would be no order, no one would know whose children are who’s, etc.
If the guy seems too clingy or emotionally fragile, then a woman might shy away for fear that she’ll be put in a position to “break a person’s heart” and then ruin a person’s life for a given amount of time. Or, even if a woman does give in, she may end up resenting the person who she felt emotionally manipulated her by essentially making her feel sorry for them.
Let’s be real, how many men feel they got their heartbroken by a female, but used that female rejection to make themselves into a better person? Many. So, in theory, who really hurt who? Who was using who? Did we not have the conscious choice to enter into a relationship or shoot our shot? Did the other person hurt you or did you put yourself into a situation where you didn’t get the message or signals and then when brutally shutdown or ghosted, you internalized this as being unilaterally the other person’s fault? It’s a possibility. Sure, maybe you have right to be angry, but all I am saying you have to be able to look into the mirror. Even if you feel you got screwed over, why let the other person still haunt you, hurt you? Don’t even give them the benefit of your inspiration, poetics or artistic abilities.
Yet, we teach men to be “stoic” as a means of hiding emotion rather than controlling and understanding emotion, but the problem with hiding emotion is that emotion isn’t being dealt with. Instead of finding light through the existential struggle of finding purposes and meaning as a “being”, many use stoicism to become…dark. Assholes, jerks, predators, etc. A man being “emotional” isn’t bad, but rather a man has to be aware that he’s being that way, ask why he’s feeling that way, and then determine if what is going on is a “you problem or them problem or a combination of both parties problem”. Many times, but not always, often, it’s a both parties problem, i.e., a misalignment of expectations, poor translation of communication, etc.
As a guy I know too well that many “alpha men” are really just emotional ticking timebombs, whereas many men that society may have called “beta males” actually have a better understanding of their own emotions. I have seen it time and time again and at nauseum. Men trying to live these simulated HBO Entourage fantasies (good show by the way if you get the hyperreality of the show) yet interestingly morph into these sorts of urban dwelling, catty, gossiping, sexually degenerate, drugged up, materialistic, pop culture trivial knowledge having people who can very rude and judgmental of others, because pretending to be a jerk is the laziest way of pretending to be superior. And it’s easy to blame this on “liberalism” but most of these guys are beef jerky Joe Rogan listeners at best and “Fresh and Fit Podcast” listeners at worst, anyways. These men were never intellectually “liberal” in our modern conception of the word (even though the term liberal is a shell-game word anyways considering it spreads the gambit of what we consider to be both Democratic and Republican, e.g., both base on liberal, i.e., enlightenment ideas) but were often clout chasers, going with whatever the wind blew, yet, exhibiting internalized toxic masculine (yes, I said it) traits, once society got tired of “wokeness”, they jumped ship to the nearest surrogate masculine ideology they could.
Yet, many women go after these men which are emotional time-bombs, and what I am saying is, don’t even entertain it. The modern issue with stoicism in men’s rights movements such as the notion of “Sigma Males” is that it’s not teaching men to understand emotion through self-reflection and being analytical about the hypocrisies of society – which includes but is not limited to patriarchal ideas or notions – but rather to make men into “productive emotionless drones” who seem to not care about fitting in, ironically on the grounds of being seen and respective for not caring, i.e., fitting in.
Women don’t to be cornered, guilt tripped, etc.,
However, to move on, women I think have a slight toxic trait which is them thinking they have a unilateral ability to observe and psychoanalyze things, and they are impervious to this themselves. In other words, women want to see everyone else, but don’t really want to be seen for who they are, hence they can put on a mask. Women are people watchers (and, yes, men are too, but I am saying it seems more a female characteristic).
It sounds childish, non-academic, non-intellectual, etc., but from experience, the less a woman realizes you notice them, they sort of notice you. The busier or engaged you are (I mean genuinely doing your thing rather than flaunting that you’re always busy to seem important — women can read through that), the more they seem to notice you, because…they can…observe you. They want to observe your raw emotions, reactions, how you interact with others, how others view you or don’t view you, how you deal being alone, around others, etc., and how comfortable you generally feel in your own skin. They want to see that you aren’t overthinking yourself. I remember playing football and a coach grabbed my helmet and said, “I was thinking too much” rather than “reacting”.
Why do women do this? I don’t know. A person who seems guided by a mission or purposes, even if it means doing the most basic things, i.e., working, taking care of yourself, catching up with people, etc., means a person isn’t really dwelling on life, thus they have survival characteristics. Women want to feel safe, and a way they do this is by observing and vetting your interactions, yet the only issue is women think this is a one way lane or power they have, so I am telling young men to let women have their powers, doing your thing, treat them with respect, but don’t get too hung up on them if they can’t interpret your value…but you have to have value, but having value doesn’t mean superficial, glib, materialistic things, but more so having a sense of being, striving to learn a skill, saving money, learning to appreciate life, finding joy, etc.
On an extreme end of this idea, it plays into the notion that a woman notices you once you get a woman or attention from others. Women use other women to vet men, i.e., if she thinks he’s good enough, then he must be. I joke it is how women wear or sometimes take each other’s clothes. Men seem to operate differently. Even though men may lust after the same women, once that woman is taken, i.e., used, then a male’s tendency to be competitive over women sort of kills off the attraction, and even more so if the woman is seen as being “passed around” by a group of men, it’s not necessarily that she’s sexual but indecisive in herself and emotionally not independent, i.e., she may be more of a headache to deal with and unstable herself. Also, the more partners a woman is seen has having to me doesn’t have to do with sex with age (feeling sexually insecure others “had her”) but more so safety, i.e., the more men she deals with more instances of possible hostility or even violence, especially if previous men from her past disrespect her. I am not saying this is right or wrong, or fair, but I am saying it is a social phenomenon, which can be triumphed over, but for the sake of this section I am appealing more often than not to base human reactions, desires, feelings, etc.
Why do women get hurt?
Women from my experiences get hurt when they get rejected too, but whereas a man gets devastated because his effort, utility, etc., were rejected, thus is being, a woman gets hurt when she realizes her “power of appraising, vetting, and observation” didn’t work out. How men are betting on their effort, women are betting on their ability to have selected right.
This power is so central to females that when a relationship goes sour and the man she wants is no longer interested, she sees it as something wrong with her ability to have appraised correctly. Women are the shoppers of the species. The are the “genetic furniture arrangers”. I say this because shopping requires consent, i.e., in order for a woman to be happy and for the species to consensually procreate, the woman ultimately has to choose, even though the product, the man, has to pitch himself. Imagine being rejected by your own clothes, the furniture in your house, i.e., the things you purposely put into your life to doll up your life (control it) to make into the vision you had for yourself.
In a way, a woman getting rejected, just like men getting rejected can be a growing experience, especially if one looks into the mirror and doesn’t put all the blame on the other but takes ownership of their own mistakes. The same way how Incels on the extreme fringes, all the way to the normal everyday aggrieved men try to paint women that hurt them as femme fatales, many women likely do the same with what I like to call the “Billie Holliday broken female” musings.
The same way how men can set up women to be the villains of their “glow up” “get back into the gym, eat beef jerky or protein powder” “triumphant story arc”, women can do the same thing with men, i.e., using men as the villains to get back to their “little black dress, hoping a random stranger buys you a drink at a bar” “Stella got her groove back” moment.
So, this goes back to what I was saying about irony previously. Who really hurt who?
Maybe we are all using people as objects to test our own realities/challenge our own ontologies, selfishly (where selfishness is in part a natural part of existence, i.e., self-preservation, self-comfort, etc.), but we often but not always make this mistake without realizing it (since we were indoctrinated to think certain behaviors guaranteed success), yet, when our realities and expectations are challenged, we either internalize the hurt in a purely narcissistic way of being unilaterally aggrieved, or we can positively use this existential situation to check our own behavior, and that of the other person, yet hopefully come to a sort of balanced situation.
A healthy person can put themselves on trial (a very healthy person may come to the verdict that in some cases he or she alone were at fault), whereas the opposite points fingers at others, blames others, and instead uses the hurt to encase and reinforce their potential toxic tendencies (note: I am saying toxic as opposed to “anitsocial” because antisocial is an actual clinical designation framework that I feel is personally misused by the general public as means of pointing to behaviors an individual subjectively doesn’t like).
But I am not saying don’t blame others if blame is actually due, but rather just don’t jump to automatic conclusions all the time that how you feel is someone else’s fault. Sometimes the people we think hurt us don’t even realize it and once confronted with it, they don’t know how to handle it. But you do have legitimate sociopaths out there who simply want to see what other can do for them and then will hurt, triangulate, etc.
As a disclaimer, throughout this post I am talking mostly about situations where people have choice to enter and leave, and where there was no sort of physical force or detrimental emotional manipulation involved. For example, if a person is physically attacked or assaulted, it is never the victim’s fault. I am speaking purely from non-criminal, awkward, daily interactions between men and woman (however, I am not trying to be exclusionary to any same sex or non-binary people who may resonate with any of the words I am talking about, but I can only speak from a straight viewpoint, i.e., Westernized, biologically male, cisgender heterosexual perspective).
Before I end this, I want to say never lie to a woman.
It’s tempting or maybe even a knee jerk reaction to embellish our lives a bit to seem more interesting, tough, cool, important than what we are, but genuine honestly will always serve you best.
If you don’t know something, say I don’t know.
However, you are entitled to your privacy. For example, there’s certain questions I just wouldn’t ask my partners because what does it matter anyways? I am not one to ask about “body count” or past relationships because A) why make your partner relive the past and possibly relive a romance or trauma? and B) sometimes prying too much just to set up a person with being forced to tell you the truth is a little…rude. Somethings are just left unasked for. As long as things from a person’s past aren’t criminal or public to the extent of affecting the present of future in a detrimental sense, then I find it best to leave things in past.
For example, I wouldn’t ask a woman what her body count is, however, let’s say a woman was…a porn actress. This hasn’t happened to me, but it seems to be a trope recycled through men’s talk shows, but to me is, if it’s public, i.e., something that will affect our future or require me to defend her honor or social standing or even job (even if I accept her past) then I should know so I am prepared, but I don’t need to know about private encounters. You just have to hope that the person you’re with now is a decent human being who didn’t do things in the past out of pure selfish indulgence knowing they could bury things and then lead a boring life that neuters or domesticates you, where you as the partner are on the hook for conforming to overly conservative standards and denial of your legal desires.
Summary to the fellas. Be cool, be chill. Come in peace. Learn to live with rejection but also don’t beat yourself up. Realize sometimes we have the blinders on and try to force things and we set ourselves up for being hurt, etc. Don’t corner or guilt trip women, but also don’t unnecessarily pander to them either. Sympathize when sympathy is due.
(1) Many Christian conservatives often fall into conspiracy theories, yet, isn’t obsessing over conspiracy theories a sign of not having faith? If their faith is so strong and God is in control, then it seems that Christians don’t really believe God…is…in…control. Once could go further and say that Christians who engage in conspiracy theory are actually engaging in blasphemy despite their conspiracies being against what they consider to be Christian blasphemies.
(2) It’s funny how people say the Second Amendment is about protecting us against a tyrannical government, yet, if that’s the case then why did so many white people not pick up arms to liberate black people from Jim Crow? Or, at a minimum be supportive of black people taking up arms to liberating themselves? Maybe it’s because what is “tyrannical” is subjective, i.e., just because you don’t like something you call it tyrannical, but what’s tyrannical to one is not to another. A lot of people seems Ok when a segment of the population was being oppressed.
(3) It’s interesting how conservatives said that COVID was a hoax, yet, the only way how Trump kept out migrants and refugees was through acknowledging that COVID existed with his use of Title 42 laws (the ability to keep people out of the USA because of public health concerns). So either COVID is real and was a real threat, or the Trump Administration used a hoax per conservative logic to keep out migrants, and in theory, per the law, violate the ability for people to seek asylum.
(4) Republicans say they want to bring money home, such as when talking about the Ukraine Russian War, etc., yet, this is the same party…. that wants to cut public education, raise social security (thus, increasing the chance of not getting it since you’re closer to dying, etc.).
(5) Conservatives are trying to argue that religion should not be separate from state, yet this just leads to xenophobia because society therefore becomes a battle of which religion has more power over the other because people don’t want to be rulee by a religion they don’t align with. Christian Nationalist also wanting secular power also negates their faith because in theory God is control and has a plan, yet it seems Christian Nationalist want to control the plan because deeply they don’t have faith and/or their faith is “bad faith”, i.e., for selfish, racist, sexist, etc., reasons. Which church would even rule? There are thousands of Protestant churches. Will we be…Church of God, Southern Baptist, Missionary Baptists, Anglican, Episcopalian, Methodist, African Methodist Episcopalian, Seventh Day Adventist, Unitarian, Roman Catholic, Coptic Christian, Orthodox, Quaker, Mennonite, Amish, etc.?
(6) Conservatives say the dislike government, despite hailing police agencies which are government institutions. Not saying that is good or bad, but just admit that conservatives do like elements of government.
(7) Conservatives want to ban adult content yet state they value free speech between consenting adults, where adults are legally allowed to enter into contracts, including contracts that includes the use of their bodies. By banning legal pornography all you do is create the market for illegal pornography which empowers criminals and ironically may help increase human trafficking. It’s also insane how Conservatives try to merge legal desire between adults with crime as a low IQ and strawman strategy to guilt people away from not being sexually empowered, educated, fulfilled, etc.
(8) Conservatives were saying All Lives Matters or say “I don’t see Color” but then freak out when a person of color is cast in movie in a role that was traditionally played by a white person.
Washington has lost a third of its team, but I think there’s oddly…hope…? This me rambling, free flow thinking, note taking, etc.
One team I have followed is the Washington Huskies since I went to middle school, college, and then later settled down here as an adult in Washington State despite all my moves, my own military service, etc. I have seen them play Oregon when Oregon had Johnathan Stewart and Dennis Dixon, Arizona when they had Rob Gronkowski (Husky fans call this game the Immaculate Interception since UW won on an interception that deflected off another player’s foot), and then later Auburn when they played UW in Atlanta at Mercedes Benz Stadium. I would say that I have followed their recruiting (with some lags in recent years) probably since I was a sophomore in college around 2007 when I was attending a small college in Washington State. This was the era of Jake Locker and Keith Price under center.
The University of Washington Husky Football program (The Purple and Gold) is in a precarious position despite having a rich history.
Washington is a sort of one the public “Ivy” schools as far as academics, and UW and Michigan are just two of many teams that harken back nostalgia to the “gee golly jeepers” days of early twentieth century football notably from the Roaring 1920s to the end of World War II (i.e., when Army or Notre Dame mattered, Harvard vs. Yale mattered, or when postcards depicting trolly lines on the way to the Pasadena Rose Bowl in a still rural Los Angeles metro-area mattered, etc.). They could be considered a part of the Norman Rockwell nostalgic teams of college football.
However, (1) coach Kalen DeBoer is leaving for Alabama, which seems a little odd because he seemed so reserved as a coach with Washington as compared to the old-school, chew you out, Bear Bryant-esque style of Nick Saban within the deep-rooted football culture of the SEC. (2) Today, for the Huskies, one third of the team is gone. (3) Their AD Jen Cohen, who was on the CFP Selection Committee, left of USC and was replaced by Tulane’s AD Troy Dannen. (4) They’re going to a new conference, thus with the help of USC, UCLA, and Oregon are helping to severe decades of regional tradition, which to me reminds of what happened with the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers when they too joined the Big Ten after leaving the Big Twelve and were never the same since then. (6) Recruits and transfer prospects are changing their minds, etc.
2. Bad Mojo in the 2024 CFB National Championship, Purple Reign and the Theory of Aesthetics
This is going to be a weird section.
It is sort like me pretending to be on a marketing team or something. Thinking outside the box about what are the “aesthetics” of UW.?
The superstitious and cynical/realist/realpolitik part of me, with the latter encompassing a very business, marketing, aesthetics, Las Vegas gambling spreads, TV rights, etc. – viewpoint, knew that UW was likely going to…lose.
What I call the “mojo” (throwback to Friday Night Lights and having been born and partially raised in the Southern U.S.A) was…off.
The Cinderella Stories were more so favoring Michigan with Jim Harbaugh needing to win as to not feel like a total failure in his coaching career (with him currently being partially embattled in alleged recruiting violations and a call-stealing scheme), and if his brother John Harbaugh can win the Super Bowl with AFC win-leader the Baltimore Ravens, this would be the first time in history that brothers have won the NCAA and NFL Championships in the same season.
JJ McCarthy, who seems like a good kid, is – from my “realist viewpoint” – being prepped to be some sort of Tom Brady like Irish American golden boy QB, because to be honest, and to be respectful, most Americans have Irish ancestry and Irish-ness has permeated the popular culture lexicon with the stereotype of being jovial and fun but tough, pious, hardworking, and honorable. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if the Patriots with their dismal QB situation brings on players such as JJ McCarthy from Michigan and to pay a nod to nostalgia for receivers Wes Walker, Danny Amendola, etc. such as potentially drafting Ladd McConkey from Georgia, etc. The McConkey selection may not happen, but it’s not too far off considering Ladd was injured at UGA, so other teams may overlook him and in perfect Patriot fashion where they seem to be good at getting “bargain buys”, a Ladd pick up may not be out of the ordinary.
All I am saying is that the NFL is in part a story, a movie, etc., and it seems teams such as the Patriots notably try to input players that resonate within their community for nostalgia purposes such as the city being define by Irish Americans, Jewish Americans (traditionally from around the Brookline area. Players like Julian Edelman. Boston has a deep-rooted Jewish community, e.g., Benjamin Netanyahu worked at Boston Consulting Group and attended MIT and owner). Italian Americans (the Patriots tried with Jimmy Garoppolo), African Americans (typically in RB, OL, and Defense positions, but the organization did try with Cam Newton and Jacoby Brissett at QB), and Anglo-Americans. You can even throw in a few the fact that Boston and Massachusetts/Rhode Island, etc., have a strong Portuguese, Cape Verdean, and Caribbean population.
Aesthetics and marketing matters to a degree. In the NFL we can stereotype the Seattle Seahawks, especially when they had Russell Wilson as being marketed as a type of backyard football, video game, Bill Gates and Paul Alen Microsoft tech money, grunge, neon signs, smoothe jazz, rainy, drizzling, coffee drinking but with a low-key wealthy and cultured vibe, with a few hard drinking Scandinavian fish eating sailors or every-day Raymond Carver blue collar workers. Thow in a little black soul or hip-hop culture spanning from all the way South to Lakewood, WA all the way to the Hill Top (crypt gang territory back in the 80s-90s) neighborhood in Tacoma and all the way up to the Rainer Valley and Central District up in Seattle, which permeates through all communities but notably the black, Asian, and the pacific Islander community.
Of course we have to remember the Native Americans where the Puget Sound area has many reservations and successful native American tribes.
For example, back to my JJ McCarthy “aesthetics theory” in relation to the Cinderella stories leading up to the UW vs Michigan game, I think back to the early 2000s when the Boston, as the stereotypical hub of everything Irish American, and by proxy…white American, you had the Boston Patriots, Celtics, Bruins, and Red Sox dominating but in the pop culture sphere you had Boondock Saints, The Departed, Mystic River, and even HBO’s Entourage produced by Boston native Mark Wahlberg. Boston pop culture and Boston sports helped produced the primordial ooze that gave us American Pie throwback frat-boy gamblers like David Portnoy of Barstool Sports.
Also, Blake Corum at RB was featured in pre–National Championship coverage detailing his backstory, etc.
As far as the Cinderella pre-game stories lines – which do a play a role in shifting public sentiment- I didn’t notice the same thing with the Huskies. It is almost as if the entire media was slightly hiding us from who Michael Penix really was as a loveable down-to-Earth player, despite the media obviously showcasing his insane throwing stats. But, being in the Puget Sound region, it did not seem as if the rest of the country really cared. Michigan, Harbaugh, McCarthy, fight songs like Victors, and the Big 10 just mattered more.
Winning is not only about game play but business, marketing, TV rights, etc., because that all equates to money and money separates good programs from elite programs. I can’t even imagine the levels of alumni engagement that schools such as Michigan and Ohio State have.
Washington is an elite academic institution but because of its location nestled in the far corner of the lower-48 states, as compared to the generally deep history of the Midwest and East Coast, its fanbase and alumni are known but not really on the insides of “institutional power”. How many alumni from the Big 10 as high paid government officials, sit on corporate boards, are high ranking military officials, etc.?
Sure, football is just a game but it’s also a billion-dollar industry.
University of Washington had a great PR campaign that still is in existence called Purple Reign, i.e., a spin on the school colors, the fact it rains so much, and the goal of UW wanting to be a major player in national CFB. It is a cool campaign that seems to touch on the coolness of Jimi Hendrix, the suave of the Artist Name as Prince, etc.
The Seattle area has had two major spikes in popularity in recent times.
The first was the mid-1980s through 1990s dominance of Microsoft based in Kirkland, Washington in the upper middle class suburbs northeast and true east of Lake Washington. This era coincided with the grunge movement of Nirvana, Alice in Chains, etc.
Secondly, there was the early twenty-teens era that was refined by Paul Allen’s influence where he bought the Seattle Seahawks in 1997 and during his tenure as owner, the Seahawks made the Super Bowl three times following NFC Championship victories (2005, 2013, 2014), and won Super Bowl XLVIII in February 2014. Seattle by the late 90s had already established itself as a tech hipster hub but by the 2000s this was solidified. Music wise, Northwest indie was the rave with the Postal Service from Bremerton, WA, and Modest mouse for Issaquah. There were also Seattle hip hop groups such as Blue Scholars.
Yet, in the 2020s, Seattle is different. High prices have removed the traditional working-class neighborhoods. Drug abuse in the homeless population is rampant, especially in the wake of anti-cop brutality protests. Inflation is high. Culturally, there’s no big…spark making Seattle stand out on the music, fashion, or arts scene. Seattle is either transplants renting or hanger-ons who were lucky to inherit a house who walk with a level of coolness in that they can stake claim in the older days of the city. Also, lots of real estate was bought up by Chinese or foreign investors causing a housing crisis. In other words, Seattle is in a flux transition, but often from these tough times comes creativity, but I am still waiting to see what that is or looks like. But this is happening all over the country as cities are more and more expensive, younger people aren’t starting families because of student loan debt/housing shortages, stocks are super expensive, and the cost of living in high as businesses offload increases onto consumers.
3.The web of corporate media, money, broadcasting, etc.
Washington going to the Big Ten is more about money it seems, even though UW is a good academic school, arguably better than schools such as the University of Nebraska.
According to the Associated Press (2022) which was posted by CNBC, the Big Ten’s new $7 billion media rights deal will string the conference’s top football games across three major networks each week, creating an NFL-style television schedule on Saturdays. The Big Ten announced Thursday it has reached seven-year agreements with Fox, CBS and NBC to share the rights to the conference’s football and basketball games (Associated Press, 2022).
The deals go into effect in 2023, expire in 2030 and eventually will allow the conference’s soon-to-be 16 member universities to share more than $1 billion per year, a person familiar with the terms told The Associated Press (Associated Press, 2022).
UW going to the Big 10 means they will get a chuck of this pot of money and get a larger audience that spans both coast and hits major media markets such as New York, Chicago, and LA.
UW is also benefiting from its Adidas deal, even though culturally speaking Nike still retains dominance but we still associated Nike with basketball, etc.
Yet, UW making it to the national championship means they were the first Adidas sponsored team to making it to the National Championship. This means Adidas is very happy.
Disney owns 21st Century Fox (not be confused with Fox Corporation), but also via Disney’s Entertainment division, they own ABC. ABC in the past procured ESPN, thus Disney is also the parent of this. Further, HULU was initially shared between 21st Century Fox, Disney (ABC ESPN), and Comcast NBC Universal (Peacock), but Disney now owns all majority shares via their 21st Century Fox acquisition and NBCUniversal selling their shares. Yet, Fox Corporation (no longer owns 21st Century Fox) with the Big Ten jointly own Big 10 Network, but Big10 Network can be accessed via Hulu…owned by Disney. In other words, all roads in a way lead back to…Disney.
The Big 10 is essentially rubbing off on all major networks with the Disney (ABC/ESPN, 21st Century Fox. Hulu, Disney+) …. Fox Corporation (Fox Sports and the Big10 Network – where the Big 10 can still be access via Disney’s Hulu. Fox also ownsTubi Streaming…. NBCUniversal Comcast which includes Peacock, and Paramount Global, i.e., CBS Viacom (who own Paramount and CBS but has an agreement with Warner Brother’s Discovery which owns MAX, i.e., formerly HBO Max which as an apps holds rights to TNT, TBS, etc. Paramount Global also owns PlutoTV and FuboTV – with FuboTV’s share ownership still be undisclosed). Big 10 Network can likely be accessed via satellite companies such as ATT – DirectTV and Dish Network (owns Sling TV) as well.
Side Note: Fox is confusing. Old New Corporation was divided into “new” New Corp (more for publishing such as the New York Post, Wall Street Journal) and 21st Century Fox (more for entertainment and film – though not of the same name, 21st Century Fox was the de jure legal successor to old New Corp, i.e., its spiritual successor more focused on TV, film, etc.). Yet, when Disney bought 21st Century Fox (media like The Simpsons), the remaining assets were organized and listed as simple Fox Corporation. So, Fox “holdings” today is New Corp and Fox Corporation, stock symbols Nasdaq: FOXANasdaq: FOX (where Fox Corporation owns Fox Broadcasting i.e., TV shows, Fox Sports that includes Big 10 Network partially, Fox News, Tubi, etc.).
** Disclaimer: This is not investing advice and I hold no financial title or fiduciary responsibility.
5. Where are We? Wait, what just happened?
After going undefeated in the 2023 season and playing (but losing) in the 2024 College Football Playoff Championship, it feels like the Huskies left a lot on the field. The game was generally off all the way around. From weird punts giving Michigan decent field position, to Penix overthrowing on plays he’s made to beasts like Rome Odunze on a regular basis, to Penix overlooking receivers, to missed opportunities such as a painful drop by Will Nixon, to the offensive line with RT Rosengarten getting bullied, to UW penalties that were caught, and Michigan penalties that were not caught.
The game overall wasn’t the high flying, potential overtime thriller that many expected.
I knew going in that this was a battle of two different philosophies. UW with their Air Raid offense that lacks defense but can score quick if the QB is given time has no pressure versus UM with their more balanced run, grind, and hope to bust a long run philosophy mixed with aggressive defensive play, where McCarthy at QB was more of a dual threat game manager focused on minimizing personal mistakes, going down his reads, and if need be using his legs. UM also highlighted they had more depth such as Michigan substituting their QB and RB. If UW didn’t make those mistake, I think that UW’s kicking game would have been more of an X-Factor considering they have one of the best kickers, if not the best kicker in college football, with
They left a lot to be desired. I am an interesting college football fan because I was raised a miliary brat, so I grew up in many areas where I would follow the local college teams, but I also had my family teams or just teams that fascinated me because of their rich history despite, maybe, having fallen from grace in recent times.
6. Crisis Mode – Crunching Numbers and a future crash on offensive production.
Washington’s top three wide receivers have declared for the NFL with Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk, and Jalen McMillian combined in total for 3,358 yards. If we add Senior Jack Westover who accounted for 433 yards, our new total is 3,791 yards.
The top three WRs accounted for 27 touchdowns and if we add Jack Westover (TE) the new total is 31 TDs.
Think about this, Michael Penix threw for 4,903 yards so his top three receivers who are now going to the NFL accounted for 68.48% of his total yards, and if we focus on his top four receivers that number increases to 77.32%.
Michael Penix threw 36 TDs total. His top three receivers thus accounted for 75% of those TDs but his top four receivers in total accounted for 86% of those TDs.
So, Washington is losing their 4K+ yard passing “super senior” QB in Michael Penix, so thus losing anywhere between 77%-68% of what made up their passing production and losing 86%-75% of what made up their passing TD production. In other words, UW (U-dub) is a heavy passing offense who loses most of what made up their offense production. I didn’t count TDs considered to be rushing TDs by Receivers in these stats, so even more of UWs offense production is going away Polk, McMillian, Odunze, and even Westover accounting in total for another 4 total TDs.
Ironically, this over emphasis on pass production concentrated among seniors or NFL eligible receivers has left the Huskies with a Wide Receiver crisis, where younger receivers aren’t as proven or battle ready.
Further, on the running side of the ball, Dillon Johnson (Junior RB), their leading rusher with 1,195 yards on 233 carries and a whopping 16 TDs. Out of the top three RBs which includes Will Nixon (33 carries for 201 yards and 1 TDs) and Tybo Rogers (44 carries on 184 yards with 0 TDs). The top three in total accounted for 1,580 yards in which 1,195 was attributed to Dillion Johnson, so with Johnson declaring for the NFL, that’s 75.63 or roughly 76% of rushing production now gone. Dillion Johnson out of the top three accounted for 75.2% of the rushing production on carries. In summary Dillion Johnson leaving the Huskies is taking away around 75-76% of running offense production.
This means that UW this season was operating in a “make it or break it” “the stars must align” season, where they put so much offensive production on seniors or NFL eligible players, that if UW didn’t win it all, which they didn’t, then they would have a massive drop in offense going into next seasons. We must remember that players like Penix, Polk, Dillon (three years at Mississippi State), etc., are transfers into the program, so some of their development was developed in part outside of the Husky system. Will Nixon in 2023 had 201 carries, being number two in that category. Dillon who as freshman back at Mississippi State had rushed 51 times for 225 yards, yet Nixon as a sophomore only touched the ball 33 times for 201 yards, yet, this means Nixon is capable of averaging 6.1 yards, which interestingly was average 1 yard more than Dillon. In other words, UW fed the ball so much to Dillon who is now leaving, when Nixon in theory should have seen more action. It’s all hearsay and in the rear-view window now, but if UW had employed a more balanced approach in its RB core rather than over-relying on Dillon, the Huskies would have had more opportunities to assess Nixon’s ability to carry the team and work out bad habits going forwards.
6b. Crisis Mode – There is no loyalty in business. New Coach.
Depth is what in part separates good from elite teams. A potential rocket-rise and a potential rocket fall.
But I don’t think Husky fans saw it this way because they were so excited to be winning the way they were that why would you question?
Based on DeBoer habit of resume-building, typically serving no more than two years in any position, it seems that DeBoer and OC Ryan Grubb were sort of worrying more about their future job potential than the longevity of the Husky program overall.
However, this would not be the case if Washington naturally promotes Grubb to Head Coach so he can keep the culture that he and DeBoer built together. Yet, there is the issue of can Grubb as a personality attract the attention to garner a reputation as an “elite coach” or legendary coach.
However…Grubb may be joining DeBoer at Alabama.
DeBoer used the Huskies as a launch pad towards a more prestigious coaching job, and the OC was likely hoping to either replace DeBoer or get an opportunity somewhere else as a Head Coach of OC at a more elite team. It’s just the nature of the business of the game. It’s not about loyalty per se but climbing to the top and this is an important lesson that we can all take to heart in our careers. This is how people earn more than others, i.e., they take the higher paid positions when they open and see no long-term loyalty since organizations see no long-term loyalty to you.
As of breaking news on Sunday 1/14/2024, UW has hired Arizona’s coach Jeff Fisch
I am not sure how I feel about it.
My idea was to hire a well-connected coach with personality. Pete Carroll, he considers Seattle home now, still embedded with the Seahawks. His NFL ties would attract prospects. His son is OC, Brennan Carroll under Arizona HC Jeff Fisch. Pete could have been a sort of publicity filler role (who is also a great coach) to help fundraise, be a local media darling, inspire kids, and be a good connection for NIL players who want a direct plug for NFL scouts. Pete could also continue close ties between the Seahawks and Huskies organizations.
It’s a stretch but by doing this Pete would have been the first person to coach a Seattle NFL team and college team. Since he has one Super Bowl, in theory could compete for a National Championship which never has been done in my opinion as far as a head coach. Sure, this is unlikely considering the Husky’s current roster woes.
Pete Carroll is a part of the Seattle community and I think he wants to coach still. Even though is over 70 years of age, he could be a sort of nice filler coach to attract talent and raise up the new crop of assistant coaches who can then compete for the head coach. He was links to help players get scouted by the NFL. Seattle also has a habit of recruiting Huskies.
To me the two best scenarios would have been1) Have Pete Carroll be the filler role for no more than two years, use this for an aggressive marketing campaign, and bring over Brennan Carroll to be OC, thus prepping Brennan to take over as HC after Pete retires. This would give Pete the rare stat of having coached the Seahawks and Huskies. But mainly leave the Huskies coaching staff intact, or (2) Outright hire Brennan Carroll for HC instead of Jeff Fisch.
Brennan Carroll enters his third season with Arizona in 2023 after being hired as the Wildcats offensive coordinator and offensive line coach by head coach Jedd Fisch on January 1, 2021. Carroll joined the Wildcats from the Seattle Seahawks where he spent the previous six seasons as running game coordinator and offensive line coach following a decade in the college ranks at USC and Miami.
In his second season with Arizona in 2022, the Wildcats averaged 461.9 yards of total offense per game to finish 22nd nationally. Arizona passed for 318.4 yards per game, representing the 8th ranked passing attack nationally. The Wildcats development and growth on offense was historical as quarterback Jayden de Laura threw for 3,685 yards and 25 touchdowns in 2022, which ranked sixth and third respectively in program history for a season.
6c – Crisis Mode – Big losses on Defense, the Linemen corps, and Tight Ends corps.
Defensively, UW is losing LB/Edge Bralen Trice who led the team with 7 sacks, 1 Forced Fumble, and 1 Fumble Recovery to the NFL. Also, going away are Zion Tupuola-Fetui is a senior and likely going to the NFL with him as the number two leader in sacks with 3.5 sacks. Faatui Tuitele (FL) is retiring from football.
Further, leading CB Jabbar Muhammad (who spent three seasons at Oklahoma State) with 14 Pass Deflections and 3 Interceptions is going to the NFL.
Also, Junior Safety Mishael Powell, a local kid from O’Dea High School who turned down scholarships to Ivy League schools to be a walk-on red-shirt freshman a few seasons ago is transferring and he had 3 interceptions.
Cornerback Jaivion Green at 6-foot-2, 207-pound is leaving too.
Super Senior, Cornerback Dominque Hampton with 101 Total Tackles and 2 Interceptions is going to the NFL since he’s maxed out his eligibility.
Super Senior, Edefuan Ulofoshio whose name means “Unafraid of War” with 94 Total Tackes, 1 Interception, 2 Sacks, 1 Fumble Recovery, 3 Pass Deflections, and 1 Defense TD has maxed out his eligibility.
On the Offensive line, LT Troy Fautanu and RT Roger Rosengarten are going to the NFL.
6d – Crisis Mod – Bye Bye Walk ons and Starting TEs
Walk-ons Griffin Waiss and Austin Harnetiaux, a tight end and a linebacker are leaving (Dan Raley, Sports Illustrated, 2024).
Senior TEs Devin Culp and Jack Westover, the first from Spokane, WA and the other from Bellevue, WA are done, unless they can get one more year of eligibility in some sort of graduate status.
6e – Crisis Mode – Loss of a Starter, loss of two QB Transfers, loss of a QB Back up, etc.
As far as transfers, QB Will Rogers from Mississippi State University committed but is likely to re-enter the transfer portal. This is a big deal because with Penix now gone, the back up to Penix, Dylan Morris had announced that he was transferring to James Madison in the FCS (D1-AA). Also, according to Dan Raley (2024) the Huskies are also losing one-time San Diego State transfer and sophomore Will Haskell (back in the portal).
About Will Rogers, Raymond Lucas, Jr., of 247Sports (2024) stated “He threw for 8,713 yards and 71 touchdowns in Leach’s final two seasons at the helm. His numbers regressed under now-fired coach Zach Arnett this past season, throwing for 1,626 passing yards with 12 passing touchdowns and four interceptions in eight games. One of his top performances of the season came when he threw for a career-high 487 yards during a 37-30 loss to South Carolina Sept. 23.”
Dan Raley (2024) of Sports Illustrated stated, “The biggest concern is the quarterback position where the Huskies have just 17-year-old Austin Mack and Demaricus Davis, presumably 18, holding down the spot without any college game experience.” At the same time, Mack, an incoming freshman, provides hope for the Huskies’ future. Originally a 2024 recruit, Mack decided to reclassify and enroll early, demonstrating his enthusiasm to contribute to the team.
Mack went to the same school as Jake Browning at Folsom High School
The remaining quarterbacks on the roster include walk-ons Tyson Lang (Sophomore), Camdyn Stiegeler (Redshirt Freshman), Teddy Purcell (Sophomore), and Alex Johnson, a junior transfer (Karley Sibert, 2024). So if we add Demarcius Davis from Raley (2024), we now have Alex Johnson (JR), Tyson Lang (SO), Camdyn Stiegler (Redshirt FR), Teddy Purcell (SO), Demarcius Davis (FR), Alex Mack (Green Shirt, i.e., Early Enroll FR),
7. Some Good News
However, transfers DL BJ Green from Arizona State, WR Jeremiah Hunter from UC Berkley (Cal) seem to be still committed to Washington.
No. 1 center and second-team All-Pac-12 selection Parker Brailsford, offensive guards Nate Kalepo and Julius Buelow, linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala and cornerback Elijah Jackson (Dan Raley, Sports Illustrated, 2024).
Junior CB, Elijah Jackson, who made the game winning pass-deflection on Adonai Mitchell in the Texas vs UW game, is likely to come back and he had 61 Total Tackles this season.
8. UW’s Historical Recruiting Woes and Accomplishments
I would say that the Huskies in my opinion on a scale of 1 star to 5 stars is a 3 star on average team. They always have NFL caliber players, but they are often the only ones carrying the team, it’s very cyclical in their on the team, etc. In other words, they’ll have one player on each side of the ball that is going pro but it’s not a deep roster of NFL talent. Many of the guys on the team will graduate and go onto live normal professional lives, etc. To an extent that is honorable. Football isn’t just what makes UW special.
UW traditionally has a strong basketball program with plenty of NBA draftees, many locally sourced from the Seattle Tacoma metro area. Seattle is a basketball town. Doug Christie, Jamal Crawford, Dejounte Murray, Kevin Porter, Jr., Nate Robinson, Terrance Williams, Marjon Beauchamp, Brandon Roy, Tari Eason, Will Conroy, Jaylen Nowell, etc. And this isn’t the entire list.
Washington does a decent job of retaining in-state top talent but also does lose some highly recruited kids often to Nike’s money/facilities at Oregon, the sunshine and glitz of Southern California, and even powerhouse schools such as Ohio State.
But Washington outside of the state often recruits well from the Inland Empire, LA Area catholic schools such as the Trinity League which features schools such as St. John Bosco, the South Bay region of LA, Sacramento, the San Francisco-Oakland East Bay Area, etc.
Also, Washington has done a decent job of recruit some kids from Texas, Louisiana, etc.
Washington is often a three star out of five star average team
For Washington to continue to do well in recruiting it has to A) keep in-state talent, period, B) focus on the top schools in adjacent states such Jesuit HS from Portland, Bishop Kelly HS from Boise, etc., C) Continuing to recruiting kids from the Pacific Islands D) utilizing the Transfer Portal and JUCO system E) Continuing to do work on the Strength-Conditioning Front F) Invest in Defense and Run Game
Since the 2000s onward…
Notable In State Talent: Jermaine Kearse (Lakes High School), Buddha Baker (Bellevue HS), Desmond and Marcus Trufant (Wilson HS), Cade Otton (Tumwater HS), Bishop Sankey (Gonzaga Prep), Austin Seferian Jenkins (Gig Harbor HS), Jake Locker (Ferndale HS), Myles Gaskin (O’Dea HS), Kaleb Mcgary (Fife HS), Danny Shelton (Auburn HS), Kasen Williams (Skyline), Austin Sefarian Jenkins (Gig Harbor HS),Drew Sample (Newport HS)
Notable In State Loses: Johnathan Stewart (Lacey, WA but went to Oregon), Myles Jack (Bellevue, WA but went to UCLA), Zac Banner (Tumwater WA but went to USC), DeAndre Coleman (Garfield HS), Leon Jackson (Pasco HS but went to Nebraska/Hawaii), Emeka Egbuka (Ohio State), Tre’Shaun Harrison (Garfield HS), etc.
Currently, On the recruiting side, In-state talent and Five Star recruit LB Zaydrius Rainey-Sale from Bethel High School in Bethel, WA has de-committed from University of Washington.
Other teams besides the University of Washington Huskies I follow either due to family, having been a military brat or just general love of college football tradition are the University of Georgia Bulldogs (though the Dawgs are an elite program so it’s fun to root for teams who need help, i.e., the Dawgs with always be great but I never really felt like I fit into the “Southern” fanbase, so I’d say they’re my 3rd favorite team). University of Kansas Jayhawks (my mother was an alumnus and I only care about Kansas BB but I do follow their football, so I’d say really, it’s a time between UW and KU for my favorite teams).
University of Miami Hurricanes (my mother is from Miami). Florida State University Seminoles (my father grew up not far from Tallahassee). University of Central Florida Golden Knights (my mother worked in the student health clinic for some time). Kansas State University Wildcats (before my mother was accepted to the University of Kansas Nursing School, she and my father took undergraduate classes at Kansas State University. Manhattan, Kansas is not too far from Lawrence, Kansas, and both not far from Kansas City, KS/MO). For HBCUs I would say Florida A&M (had two cousins who went there), Bethune Cookman (had one cousin who went there), and Grambling State University was my paternal grandmother’s favorite team. Other teams I like because of tradition or being a kid playing NCAA Football by EA Sports are the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers as my favorite Great Lakes region team (since they had one of the best college running back duos with Marion “The Barbarian” Barber and Laurence Maroney) and Boston College Eagles (my favorite Catholic football program). I do also like the Montana Grizzlies for an FCS Team.
First off, black people can be racist despite this insane notion these days that black people cannot since black people “lack power”. But to believe this actually defeats Black Nationalist claims of supremacy and fosters a victim mentality, yet being ambiguous between victim and bigot is a form of power but being deceptive about it. Believing black people can’t be racist ironically is dehumanizing which defeats the claim of being empowered. Black people can be racist yet the scope of that racism is lesser if talking in terms of systems. So it’s not that black people objectively can’t be racist if we’re to entrain this often leftist notion, but rather their racism has little impact on larger systems; however, within smaller or interpersonal dymanics, of course black people can be racist within the context of tjem being minorities. Not holding us to the same standards is proof that certain forces want to instigate and perpetuate the racial divide. Everyone can punch but some punches have more weight behind them.
Regardless, I don’t want to hate Umar Johnson. I feel his intentions to want to help are correct but his prescription to solve the problems facing black people are unnecessary. He is playing the racial dialectic game without realizing that in many ways that is…the point of America, i.e., to keep the black-white binary (or, black-white and white adjacent binary – which includes white Hispanic, Arab, Asian, etc.) in perpetual struggle as a means of dividing the public, where such division notably amongst the traditional white poor (and, more recently the social climbing first to second generation Latino still figuring out where they stand in the racial hierarchy scheme) serves to protect the capitalist ruling class of predominantly white or white adjacent men.
Instead of a true class struggle beyond identity politics, figures like Umar Johnson exploit the more-so Left Wing (anti-colonial and self-deterministic) sentiment which calls for the need for certain communities to have their own “incubation period to resolve the issues of colonialism”, etc.
Umar usurps this calling for what I call the “incubation/healing phase” for oppressed groups and instead hijacks it to create a version of black supremacy and what I would argue is black fascism.
Hence, why I say Umar Johnson is the perfect example of the Horseshoe Theory, i.e., in the case of Left-Wing politics, if you go too far Left (for example through “woke territory”) you end up at the opposite end of the spectrum and wind up in Right Wing territory. Same can be said if you go too Right Wing, i.e., what we see to be white racial collectivism abandoning notions of individualism as seen in the liberal tradition in exchange for dictatorial leaders who oversee an expansive police-government state, i.e., a sort of Communist totalitarian state.
In theory, Umar is an unwitting agent to give the system what it wants (a continuation of the colorist and racial caste system needed for divide-and-conquer purposes over the proletariat) because it wants segregation and will use anything, including the political left or wokeness on top of the traditional right-wing methods to achieve that.
I do not think that black people attempting to incubate our own wealth and prosperity is bad thing at all considering the truth of our history, yet, you can do this without being a racialist, colorist, patriarch, etc.
One simple flaw that black people or activist seem to make without realizing it is that they don’t have to call every initiative that attempts to help black people as being “black”, because we already know who the initiatives are for, and often “the system” uses such “exclusive-seeming marketing” as a means of encouraging the further solidification of white supremacy. For example, White Power actually was a reaction to Black Power in the 1960s through white supremacist figures such as William Luther Pierce (author or The Hunter and The Turner Diaries), and sure, of course, we know that Black Power and White Power are two different things – at least in their origins and original intent – but still, black people need realize strategically speaking that marketing every helpful black movement as explicitly black, ironically and systemically is used to continue the oppression black people.
Yet, many black activists would reject my analysis on this because to them they are wanting to make a firm statement and they see anything that doesn’t go “hard enough”, i.e., seen as being un-apologetically black, as not being authentic.
However, my rebuttal to such an accusation would simply be…don’t broadcast all your moves, i.e., don’t put a target on your back just to make a moral or figurative statement. In other words, do not make this about prideful proclamations when you can achieve more without people noticing you often.
For example, “white companies” which are the majority don’t market themselves as “white owned” even though it is understood that most of the profits are going into white hands. Yet, black people wanting to make a powerful statement, flaunt, flex, etc., to prove “we can” always want to slap the “black” this or that label on everything, which ironically limits one’s market-size and potential for market capitalization because…most people will think it’s “only for them”. This is ironic because white or Asian business firms will take money from everywhere rather than just their own respective race or ethnic group, and thus have more capital to assert their dominance over institutions. For example, if we are to accept that hierarchies form naturally in society, then self-segregation limits the scale thus power of your “pyramid”.
And that last paragraph brings me back to the adage of “By Any Means Necessary.” By Any Means Necessary does not necessarily mean “by our own means only”.
Regardless, back to Umar, he cherry picks from the Marxist or Communist/Socialist or Critical Theory analysis of intersectionality and class struggle (spanning black leftist figures from Cornell West, Angela Davis, Huey Newton, Omali Yeshitela, Bell Hooks, etc.), yet, inserts his deep-rooted desires to have a conservative, Right Wing, “blood and soil”, male-driving nationalist community.
The mixing of Left-Wing analytical methods with that of Right-Wing concepts such hierarchies, firm binaries, hyper masculinity, etc., is textbook…fascism. We cannot forget that Mussolini started as a Communist before becoming a fascist. We cannot forget that even though Nazis were not “true Socialist” according to many socialist, notably the Communists because the Nazis hated Communism, we still must realize that early Nazi ideology was influenced in part by post-WWIs strong socialist sentiments. Hitler just so happened to reject the Marxist interpretation of history and co-opted socialism by infusing it with a Right-Wing traditionalism, which interestingly became advantageous to the pre-existing capitalist and industrialist class (i.e., Nazi economics was essentially corporatism ruled by a dictatorship of profit seeking industrialists operating in state-sponsored cartels who owed allegiance first and foremost to the German people and state, i.e., state capitalism nuanced by a cultural or racial supremacy).
Many fascists though they agree with concepts of collectives particularly on a racial-cultural sense, often reject the erosion of hierarchies. Fascist economics could be seen as a “Third Way” or “Third Position” framework where they combine some elements of socialist or egalitarian thought but often reject the Marxist view of history (class struggle), yet, through a type of Will to Power (coopted from Friedrich Nietzsche) via an unconscious “spiritualism” (e.g., Carl Jung’s emphasis on subconsciousness and archetypes) in the “zeitgeist” (i.e., collective spirit as in the writings of Hegel) apply a Right-Wing political framework that justifies the needs for rigid hierarchies, notably in a world of cyclical disorder (e.g., the Kali Yuga in Hinduism which inspired the Occultism elements of European fascism) and where people-groups are engaged in perpetual battle (for example through Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection).
This is why fascist countries, though seeming to emulate elements of socialism are effectively “modern feudalist states” shrouded with cultural imagery, religious devotion, etc. Yet, feudalism evolved into capitalism and capitalism into corporatism, thus current definitions of fascist countries could be defined as “hierarchical corporatist states”.
This is what Umar really wants. A black fascist state, but he could only achieve such goals by band-wagoning or “Trojan Horse-ing” off of current black Left-Wing movements such as Black Lives Matter or even the capitalist inclusion of black empowerment as a marketable product with Disney-Marvel production such as the Black Panther franchise. For example, we live in the era of hashtags such as #staywoke #BLM #wakanda or #wakandaforever. Yet, like most aspiring autocrats, they are often failures at something in their buried past they wish not to be discovered. They also lack the technical expertise to achieve their goals so instead they rely on fiery rhetoric to convince enough smart people to accomplish their goals for them.
In other words, Umar wouldn’t be the Umar we know without him using the current chaos of political discourse and Left Wing wokeness though he opposes the Left Wing and liberalism. Like fascism which has caused many debates about its actual definition, Umar represents a sort of logical ambiguity yet expresses emotionally his deep-rooted desires and dreams of grandeur. He splices ideology to achieve a fascist conclusion.
There are a lot of scars and traumas within the Black Community and in theory that is what wokeness attempts to heal.
Wokeness simply means aware, i.e., being aware of topics such as systemic racism, voter suppression, lack of access to capital markets, police brutality, gentrification, mass incarceration, the complex systems of industrial scale slavery, Jim Crow, Jim Crow’s effects on the modern prison industrial complex, unauthorized and/or inhuman experiments on people such as the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments or how economically weakened African nations are given foreign aid to fight diseases such as HIV/AIDs or malaria, etc., only on the condition they remain cheap resource depots for the “imperialist powers”, etc. We can go on and on. WTO, IMF, World Bank, etc.
I purposely rapped off all that because…that is what wokeness has become. Knowing so much but what does knowing do once it reaches a logical conclusion? It either A) creates a depressive state in a person once they realize how “smart they are” but how helpless they are, B) it creates anger and radicalism to resolve said problems of A, or (C) it creates a manic rollercoaster ride between A and B.
Wokeness is a mixture of factual analysis but also an emotional desire for self-empowerment in the face of a civilization that defined blackness to be the “antithesis” to the thesis of whiteness. Woke is also not inherently political but just so happens to lean to the Left. For example, figures such as Joe Rogan who often expresses Right Wing views could be considered “woke” himself because he too engages in the “factual rapping” of statistics or events to explain how our world works, why its oppressive, and why systems should be seen with suspicion.
So woke is not bad, however, the constant deconstruction, Critical Theory, qualitative studies, anthropology, intellectualism, and faux intellectualism, has not really achieved the goals of what communities such as the black community wants, because in many ways there is an underlying notion that someone owes us something or the reason why we can’t build ourselves up is because no one is providing us our “just dues”.
It’s a contradictory sentiment. We preach how strong we are to not need anyone but then often want someone to help us, and this contradiction can be heard in Umar Johnson’s rhetoric. Also, wokeness meaning aware does not actually mean intelligent, and if so, only means intelligent enough to sense things, but not necessarily to do anything about it.
What I mean by that is the black community needs science, technology, engineering, and math to navigate the complex challenges of the modern/post-modern world, yet, the resounding resolution within most woke circles is simply more…analysis, i.e., an emphasis on social sciences, political science, history, video essays, book publishing, etc.
Better put, wokeness has only solved a fraction of the problem, i.e., we know how to see the sickness within the body (problems within the community) but often don’t push for technical skills to do the surgery. Umar wants to get credit for organizing the surgery though he too is helpless hence he overcompensates with toxic rhetoric. In other words, he’s in his feelings.
For example, why would Umar Johnson start an all-boys residential school that will likely not going to achieve accreditation from any governmental body, when he could have had an online education model? Why invest in physical property with taxes, safety guidelines, health guidelines, FDA and Department of Agricultural school meal guidelines, etc., when he could have had a collective of certified educators via online subscription service? Yet, when Umar was talking on VLADTV, Umar made more excuses by saying that black people in charter schools can’t teach because they need professional certifications. But…wouldn’t you want educators to be certified? Also, there’s plenty of educators with certifications. The thing is, is that Umar wants a school with no accountability so he can craft it in his own image, but to do so he must simply blame the system for not giving him what he wants, though this is on the belief that the rules of the system aren’t there for good reason. For example, we don’t want an Aryan Nation Nazi Schools with no accreditation and un-certified educators teaching children about the superiority of the white race and teaching pseudo-science such as…white people are from Madame Blavatsky root races who once lived on Atlantis or some nonsense.
Umar Johnson at this point is just trying to stay relevant with his racist bombastic style.
I honestly think he is crazy, and I mean as far as mental health. I can’t prove it on the clinical front, but he seems to have some sort of narcissistic personality disorder (dreams of grandeur and with an emphasis on being chosen) and I suspect it may be childhood trauma induced (since he rarely speaks of his past, family, etc.). His professional work involves studying the effects of ADD/ADHD diagnosis on black male youths, which is a noble endeavor, but I’m suspecting that Umar (Jermaine) was one of these kids and held a grudge about his possible experiences. But, this is speculation. He’s set himself up like many online figures to not be criticized because he’s stitched himself to the movements he’s co-opted, so to many people criticizing Umar now somehow means…criticizing black empowerment, but this is the fault of certain segments of the black community for consistently searching for what I call…a “Fuhrer” or Chosen One.
As a side note, this emphasis on looking for a chosen one interestingly can be seen in hip hop with figures such as Tupac (who depicted himself on the Cross in Killuminati – The 7 Day Theory, i.e., Makaveli), the Biblical Ezekiel-like prophetic rage of DMX, and of course the current Charles Manson-like delusions of Kanye West (Ye) who associated with Nazi like figures such as Nick Fuentes.
Umar hiding his past to me is a sign of distancing one’s true identity, a possible sign of embarrassment, etc. This seems especially true since he specializes in family and childhood counseling. In other words, he is not providing any examples of his home life, experiences, traumas, over-comings, etc., to explain or relate to the advice he is giving. If anything, Umar (Jermaine) doesn’t practice what he preaches which will be discussed in this section of my post/paper.
I stumbled upon a video on Instagram by user ” Commonsenseeli” in which Umar is in a room filled with clutter with some odd speech patterns (repeating the same thing over) but he says he was moving to Wilmington, Delaware – where his school for black boys is at. I assume he was just practicing a speech or pitch.
As far as absurd rhetoric, recently he has told black people not to vote in the USA and South African 2024 elections, adding to the already cynical and paranoid public (post CV19 lockdowns, Donald Trump & January 6, the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the riots over George Floyd, etc.) as if not voting will somehow mean someone won’t win and won’t take power.
Even if black people do not vote, you are just increasing the odds of having a party that has openly said anti-black rhetoric or at least uses coded language to criminalize black people. In other words, he is suppressing the black vote or getting black people to suppress it themselves. But, Umar just like Elijah Farrakhan (who won’t die) want this because they are advocates for…Race War.
I personally think that how Marcus Garvey admired the KKK, Umar admires the modern Alt Right and GOP (defined by MAGA). He’s not a liberal. He admires power and a patriarchal form of it. Imagine Umar with unlimited power. It would not be a good thing. [See Article: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/garvey-must-go-campaign/%5D
It is as if the GOP and its wealthy donors realized the Candace Owens, Turning Point USA, etc., route can only work so much with black – especially “hood black” – audiences, so the GOP is getting “multi-racial and religious” in its caucus such as using patriarchal, anti LGBTQ rhetoric etc., within certain elements of black and/or Muslim political discourse.
For example, Patrick Bet David while hosting Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA advocates for including more Muslims into Republican politics despite a likely apprehensive Kirk realizing a big element of right-wing, predominantly white, and Western liberal (in the classical sense) politics has anti-Islam as a key cornerstone (e.g., the European Identitarian movement, the Deus Vult movement of Right Wing Catholicism — typically defined with an anti-Pope Francis undertone for his progressive and reconciliation views).
Culturally, the online space as of 2024 is a mix of “Capitalist grind culture” (which is nuanced by the concept of “manifesting”, i.e., the belief in using psychic power to create your dream reality — which thus links to Zodiac, astrology, and New Age beliefs), memes, A.I. videos pushing conservative tropes (e.g., Thomas Sowell, Pat Buchanan, Milton Friedman talking points, etc.), Jordan B. Peterson musings, the anti-feminist Manosphere/Men’s Rights movement, conspiracy theories with often pseudo-science and religious undertones, etc.
Many black people – some not doing too well economically – seem to be “chronically online” and find themselves absorbing information from the Black spaces of the Red Pill space.
Umar’s core demographic is “woke” people from low income urban areas, black women (despite his patriarchal overtones), and maybe many Africans or Caribbean peoples with online access to black American media. Yet, these African and Caribbean cultures often apply what we would consider in the West to be pseudo-science such as spiritual medicine, witch doctors, but also the residuals of Christian missionaries where many pastors in Africa and the Caribbean use faith-healing, etc. You can also add on indigenous “pagan” religions, Rastafarianism (which has nods to Zion, i.e . Blackness as ordained since Ethiopia for instance has a biblical link) etc.
What we are witnessing in “woke” black culture something similar to European white reactionary politics which also “rejects modernity” and strives for a “racially pure”, organic, etc mindset.
For example, the Fresh and Fit podcast despite being hosted by two black men where one is a Muslim, are linked to figures such as “Rollo Tomassi”, author of the Rational Male, who has ties to racist figures such as Stefan Molyneux, who therefore leads to figures such as Lauren Southern, which therefore links to figures such as Jay Dyer who has contributed to Alex Jones’ InfoWars. We know Alex Jones is the kink between the conspiracy Right Wing to the MAGA movement, with Alex Jones even being on-site with Kenneth Chesboro of the Trump fake-elector plot scandal.
Popular black YouTuber, DJ Akademics (of a conservative Jamaican heritage) is a vocal Trump supporter and he’s collaborated with Fresh and Fit thus by proxy Andrew Tate, Kevin Samuels, and Rollo Tomassi. All are Trump supporters. This thus creeps further and further down the Rabbit Hole leading to the Young Americans (whose clips have been used by Fresh and Fit), the Alt Right, and back to literal Nazis.
In other words, figures like Charleston White, Umar Johnson, Fresh and Fit, etc., represent the “Red Pill of Black Culture”, but the Red Pill community is adjacent to conspiracy culture across racial lines, since conspiracy theories often have the underlying agenda of preserving the status quo by vilifying progressive movements.
Who is Umar Johnson?
But, who is he? He was born Umar Rashad Ibn Abdullah Johnson (Jermaine Shoemake) on 21 August 1974 to a father named Jamal Abdullah Johnson. Doing a simple Google search of Jamal Abdullah Johnson, I see a Jamal A. Abdullah-Johnson, Appellant,v.William J. Henderson, Postmaster General, United States Postal Service (Allegheny/Mid-Atlantic), Agency.
Umar’s possible father filed a suit against the US Postal Services in 1998 alleging discrimination for his race, religion, and mental health issues. KryeirBut this Mr. Abdullah Johnson was denied. Could this possibly have influenced Umar? Umar in an interview admitted to having a disciplinarian father.
I also found online Jamal Abdullah Johnson who served in the US Marine Corps from 1975 – 1985. Possibly, if this is Umar’s dad, that means his dad enlisted just after he was born and possibly after 10 years, went to work for the Postal Service, likely working there for a long time before he had his lawsuit. So, possibly a Black Nationalist, intense Marine, postal service worker father but had a gripe with the “white man” and government. His marine only served 10 years and not the 20 years required a pension. Also, there’s a chance he also didn’t service his 20 years as a postal worker which would give him a pension.
Yet, Umar’s real name may be Jermaine Shoemake, according to a Facebook post I had found, his name was changed by his father per this post when he was in the 3rd grade while in North Carolina. The idea of changing your child’s name when he’s already at least seven years old insinuates his father was a true believer in the Pan Africanist cause.
Philadelphia has always had issues with race like many Northern cities which emphasize racial/ethnic neighborhoods, yet poverty, crime, drugs, etc. are rampant. From New York, Boston, Philly, D.C., Baltimore, etc.
Philadelphia is where the 1985 Move Bombing happened in which the Philadelphia Police Department dropped C4 on the home on the MOVE organization. MOVE is an Afrocentric, anti-government, and naturalist movement founded in 1972 by US Army veteran Vincent Leapheart, i.e., John Africa. 61 homes were destroyed, 250 homeless, and 6 adults with 5 children were killed.
Umar’s possible father if he was the US Marine left the military in 1985, the same year as the MOVE bombing. So, if Umar was born in 1972 by the time, he was 13 the MOVE bombing happened, but Umar’s father likely got involved in similar Pan Africanist movements earlier in the 1970s. I am sure such as event played a role in the Umar, we see but would have likely influenced his father’s beliefs as well.
On VLADTV, he stated he grew up in North to North-Central Philadelphia. He attended George G. Meade Elementary School in Philadelphia. Per a Facebook post, he also attended at least two other elementary schools in the Philadelphia area such as Hartranft and Duckery Elementary. But he didn’t go to an HBCU, which could’ve been for various reasons, yet there are many HBCUs in the Mid-Atlantic such as Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, Delaware State, Morgan State, Bowie State, Howard, etc. I assume this is because interestingly, Umar may have benefited from some sort of affirmative action or racial scholarship to attempt Millersville.
In the interview, he stated he went to the Scotland School for Veterans Children which I found is near Chambersburg, I Pennsylvania. According to Matthew Christopher (2019) of Abandoned America, “According to a state website, “Founded in 1895, SSVC is the only residential school in the nation specifically designed and accredited to educate and care for the children of Pennsylvania military service veterans.”
This would validate the possible link to Jamal Abdullah Johnson.
In the same VLAD interview, Umar said his goal is to open an all-boys residential school…
When I googled Scotland School for Veterans with the word “abuse” a few articles comes up.
I have said aid this before but Umar as an aspiring Right Wing black authoritarian is a rare example of the “Horseshoe political theory” being true in which contemporary progressive discussions/movements of the Left opened the Pandoras box of fringe Afrocentrism which is ironically ultra conservative (patriarchal, homophobic, etc.) and contradicts reason because it is often in alignment with New Age conspiracy theory/cults.
He has a doctorate in osteopathic medicine which is widely considered pseudo-science using practices such phrenology.
Also, for all of his racial division standpoints, Umar claimed descent from Frederick Douglass (which has been denied by the Douglass estate) yet Frederick Douglass had a white wife despite Umar being so against interracial marriage. So, either Umar is a partial descendant of European ancestry (common among some Black Americans) or he hates (well, per his own theory) his family…for being interracial?
Further, Umar says that a “non-African” can’t be good at things “created by Africans or black people”, but sports like basketball were created…by a white guy. Yet, I am sure Umar’s rebuttal is to simply say…black people invited this or that, etc.
Umar also continues to live in a multi-racial country which is 60%+ white and could leave anytime he wants just as Marcus Garvey – who Umar wants to name a school after – would have advocated for. Umar says he respects Kanye because of his antisemitism (a lazy way of explaining the complex issues affecting the world), but Kanye was married two non-black women.
He says the “Prince of Pan Africanism” (a clear sign of narcissism) but then wants to rep Foundational Black Americans who are theoretically opposed to Pan Africanism since there’s an inherent territorialism to FBAs. For example his xenophobic comments about Daniel Kaluuya.
Further, he plans on opening a school, which in theory is noble but…who will accredit the school especially with a curriculum that could be argued as fostering racial supremacy? Not getting accreditation would make the children’s education be worthless as far as higher education, etc.
About the author: I have a Bachelors in Business Administration, an additional Associates of Applied Science degree with Contracts Management, and a Master of Science degree in Management with an Operations Management focus. I am honorably discharged veteran of the United States Air Force and veteran of AmeriCorps. I current work in corporate America.
Basic Summary and theory by Quinton Mitchell: There is no distinction between the “House Slave” and “Field Slave” because ultimately the House is “Western Civilization”, so for people who call black Western peoples as being “House Slaves” – often as a means of calling their blackness or lived-existences into question, i.e., shaming, de-legitimizing, etc. – this is actually ironic because even for those who espouse an often Leftist or Marxist, or “woke”, or de-colonial/post-colonial sentiment (e.g. black separatism, black nationalism, black supremacy, etc.) they too are a part of the Western framework (the House). Think about that… Marxism even as a combative ideology to capitalism/imperialism/colonialism IS STILL a Western framework of analysis. If anything those who consider themselves “Field Slaves”, insinuating to themselves as if they are more authentic because they claim to reject the “House”, are disingenuous because they have the decision to fully be unprogrammed from the West but choose not to (often because of comfort), and often come up with an excuse/gas-light to not deprogram (e.g., de-colonize and expatriate back to Africa). At least, those considered “House Slaves” are attempting to carve their own space (room), e.g., the black bourgeoise, within the House (Western Civilization), rather than constantly criticizing the “House” while still technically living in it such as the alleged field-slave. Adding more irony, many of the “field slaves” want what they consider to be the lifestyle that the “house slaves” to be, so in many cases this shaming tactic of “field slaves” (e.g., the urban and rural poor) is jealousy, resentment, taking out their trauma on those who may have had slightly more stable upbringings, etc. The “Field Slave”, i.e., the supposed “that nigga”, the “real nigga”, i.e., the black equivalent of a “chad” (Alpha Male) or self-ascribed unapologetic black person, is…speaking Western languages, using Western philosophy, didactic, has a Western spiritualism, etc. If anything the goal of the Field Slave, i.e., the “woke nigga” within the context of how its used in black cultural discourse, is not to really… achieve what it is they claim to want achieved, logically that is. The logical conclusion of all de-colonial thought is to expatriate, unless the goal is to maybe have some sort of incubation period without outside influences, but on the future goal of re-integrating within the larger multi-cultural society. If this logical conclusion is not followed all we end up with is a sort of “perpetual, spiritual, never-ending struggle”, because people never realize the solution is to de-program if they truly have an issue or see no reconciliation with the “program” (the West). To further add irony, this “perpetual, spiritual, never-ending struggle” becomes something equivalent to “intellectual masturbation”, because it’s not really achieving anything (just as the act of having physical intimacy, i.e., doing something in the real world), but rather is pretending to do something while tricking brain into thinking that it’s achieving something real, e.g., black intellectual talks a lot, but don’t do a lot, but the ultimate “do” is to “de-colonize”, i.e., put your money where your mouth is rather than being in perpetual “thinking” “analyzing” “deconstruction”, etc. The black intellectual notably of the Left, often leaves people with no “solutions” and still while profiting within a capitalist structure (if we are to agree capitalism is bad) say statements such as “there’s no ethical consumption in capitalism”, i.e., this is the best I can do, I can’t change anything, but I’m still going to get my money. Yet, even if giving a solution, the logical conclusion still remains which is to fully de-program.
Foreword #1 - The World is More Segregated Than I’ve seen in a While… Unfortunately… I blame the Far Left and Far Right
The Far Left and Far Right, who both have gripes with “Liberalism”, i.e., Democracy, Republicanism, the notion of individualism, etc., are sort of the same on race but from different directions. Yet, liberals, which includes was consider to be conservatives, are not off the hook either. Where as the Far Right fascist wishes to have racial segregation by positing a sense of racial hierarchy. The Far Left, often Communists, incidentally pushes racial segregation by position de-colonial self-determinism, which is basically, leaving races to purse their own paths. Yet, the liberal in the middle, often has an idea of commodifying race which by proxy creates its own unique segregation that can be profited off of.
Regardless, things are bad. Umar Johnson and Nick Fuentes are essentially the same but just different races. The Nation of Islam in the internet age is able to spread is ideologies under the guise of Pan Africanism so you get their borderline Nazi ideology spreading not only through the “Black West” but also the Caribbean, Africa, etc.
In the wake of Black Lives Matters, there’s been a split between African American and Asian American communities which is in part being addressed by the Stop Asian Hate movement, where many urban Asians see themselves under threat from “unaccountable black violence”. The BLM movement despite its noble intentions of humanizing black bodies, was always going to be scapegoated and gas-lit by white or other supremacists who have always had issues with black people.
Anyways, it seems like this segregationist movement that is on the rise because of Far Left Communist, Woke or “Clinical Gaze” Liberals, and Far Right Racist is…planned. As the world becomes more globalized, many the powers at be need to keep “groups in their zoo cages”. Racial segregation has always been an easy way to control the population.
Foreword #2 – Slight Problem with White Liberals: First off, separate from the core purpose of this post, I want to say that white liberals are sort of annoying, though I find Black Leftist living/benefitting under capitalism, especially those I would consider to be separatist, nationalist, “racial gatekeepers”, etc., to be equally if not more annoying. But relating back to white liberals, I only say this not because they are bad because, in theory, they are allies despite what old snippets of Malcolm X warning black people about white liberals being recycled in the ether of the internet is saying. Yet white liberals (allies) have a bad habit of being supportive of very problematic black ideas largely because they feel they can’t say anything for fear of pushing the “white savior” mentality.
White liberals, despite mostly good intentions, seem to be obsessed with finding the “blackest of black people” – a type of philosopher stone journey for “raw”, “tough”, “Mandingo”, “mama-san”, blackness – because they feel frustrated not being able to fully understand – at least from their perspective – the black experience.
As a result, white liberals end up elevating radical black voices where some are very inquisitive/helpful, but many are actually problematic and self-serving, i.e., grifters. For example, figures that are sexist, patriarchal, or, even woke – where woke to me is first off a subjective term, but how it has morphed in the public lexicon simply means “annoyingly aware to the point of deconstructing reality and slipping into New Age, i.e., “Far Out”, Neoplatonic, esoteric, quasi-Occultic nonsense“, which ironically can lead to cult-like thinking, and arguably in my opinion is a way of inadvertently controlling the public since the “proletariat” is riddled with relativism, thus unable to coordinate, act, plan, and execute).
Woke objectively is not bad. It’s really something akin to barbershop quasi conspiracy and intellectual fact rapping associated with black or BIPOC people as a means of inserting our roles, history, and contributions within the larger superstructures of society (e.g., the field of history itself), but the fringe of wokeness is pure post-truth relativism, paranoia, and conspiracy theory, which feeds back to tropes such as “woogedy boogedy“, i.e., black people stereotyped as overly superstitious and afraid.
White liberal support, though appreciated (and, I sincerely mean that, for example with white liberal support of global protests in support of Black Lives Matters calling out police injustices), often “pornifies”, “fetishizes”, etc., the black experience with a sort of “clinical gaze”, yet, many are just being played ironically by bad-faith black activists who simply want unaccountable power, i.e., a sort of racial cuck-holding, not only over other black people (by playing the “gate keeping and cultural-purity testing game” which i will speak about below) but also others in general. Yet, this behavior that I am criticizing can be done by anyone of any group (and, if anything is the just the dark-side of intersectionality – which in and of itself can be a helpful tool for analysis if used properly). So I’m not trying to insinuate that “white liberals” or even black activists are bad, but rather in many instances, the relationship can come off as mutually exploitative, and often defeatist since many opposing voices within black political discourse are cancelled for appearing not to be “black enough” from this black fetishized aesthetic of the “Black, Marxist, revolutionary, de-colonial” radical.
Foreword #3 – The Dark Wokeness of Umar Johnson, Rizza Islam, and Black Cults
For example, there’s so many “sinister woke” figures nowadays. Nation of Islam with Rizza Islam, followers of Umar Johnson who I call “Umarites”, Hoteps, Moors (Moorish Science Temple), Carbon Nation Cult, Nuwabians, Black Hebrew Israelites, The Nation of Yaweh, the Black Aboriginals (i.e., the fringe ideology that Black Americans are indigenous to the USA and not from Africa), and Naturopathic Con-spiritualist thinkers such as Yahki Rapha Elohim, etc. We can even include Kanye “Ye” in this.
Black people seem more conspiratorial in nature because we’ve had our roots stripped so there’s a deep rooted insecurity when constantly reminded by Western Civilization that we are “lesser”, rather than our African roots being fully included in the West. You add the legacy of segregation where people are left in “echo chambers”, the legacy of mass incarceration (often where Muslim conversion happens), etc.
Yet, instead of intensive, mainline research and anthropology it seems many use “dues ex machina” to fill in the gaps. For example, there’s a movement now saying that Black Americans are indigenous Native Americans, yet, this seems like fringe black though similar to the white supremacist “Vineland movement”, where they believe they as a Germanic peoples are entitled to the Americas because of Vikings settling parts of Eastern Canada.
Umar Johnson, who really doesn’t say anything original but his oration skills mixed with his ability of rapping off facts has elevated him as an important voice in black culture, despite his racial segregation ideas, sexism, and patriarchal tendencies that are often in alignment with the Manosphere (Kevin Samuels, The Fresh & Fit Podcast, etc.) which is prevalent online (e.g., such as his stance of patriarchal polygamy, yet, denouncing feminism and those on the LGBTQ spectrum, or even denouncing those not physically seen as black enough, i.e., dark enough, i.e. spreading colorist ideas but in an inverted way to support black supremacy as opposed to whiteness as purity in favor of white supremacy).
There’s also Rizza Islam of the black supremacist group and cult, the Nation of Islam, who has in my opinion as a person who spends a lot of time online, is simply appropriating conspiracies from other online conspiracy theorists but packaging them for the black community (for example, Rizza Islam’s discussions on transhumanism are no different than Jay Dyer, a white Eastern Orthodox YouTube conspiracy theorist who often spreads anti-West and pro-Kremlin adjacent conspiracies who has links to the MAGA movement via his relationship to Alex Jones). Let’s not forget other black cults such as Nuwabians, Carbon Nation, Black Hebrew Israelites with Brother Nathaneyl, and the child abuse case of Mother Anna in North Florida (who was later arrested in the Metro Atlanta Area), etc.
Main Paper/Post
You often hear in the political Left people say that race is social construct, and by Political Left I mean Socialists (a spectrum of ideologies), Communists – a type of socialism with specific criteria (often under a Marxist ideology which seeks to have a cashless, classless, stateless world by way of a centralized dictatorship of proletariat, i.e., working class), and to some extent Left Liberal (i.e., a progressive who isn’t socialist or Communist but still has liberal principles, and by liberal I mean deriving from the “classical sense” of liberalism to the early modernist definition of liberalism, i.e., believing in private property, separation of church and state, taxes on the rich, etc. We can even throw in some “Centrists” (who have learned to accept or at least tolerate this stance from the Left).
Yet, even though the Left says that race is a social construct, often as a means of challenging and deconstructing the manufactured social systems within colonial/post-colonial nations which are synonymous with the word “Imperialist” (e.g., capitalist, elite, bourgeoisie), it seems that the Left ironically is…race obsessed.
And race obsessed to the point of being a type of inverted version of the “race realism” and “segregation” notable within the Political Right. For example, what the Left ends up pushing self-determination, which is great, but often that self-determination is fueled by a type of race-based (arguably dialectical) anger towards whom a particular group sees as the responsible for their current and/or past treatment.
Adding to this, you get “gatekeeping” of culture where race and culture are often seen as intrinsic, rather than culture being what I call an “ontological construct nuanced by historicity” (i.e., ideas that just so happen to solidify over time and space, often as a people “anthropologically” interact with their environment and where such as ideas or expressions of ideas, e.g., art, are eventually seen as natural when in fact they are mental and social constructions in and of themselves.
As a result of seeing everything in culture as racial in nature – even though the Left refutes race existing in nature – what we end up with is…”purity testing”, which could be re-named “cultural eugenics”, which of course if…eugenics, i.e., the appraisal of purity based on often made-up ideas.
Ironically, for black people in contemporary Left-Wing politics, there’s something disingenuous about this because many people are accepting of the fact that race is a social construct, but many black people under the notion of self-determination are doubling down in their belief of race. Sure, it could be argued that we as black people just simply need our time to ourselves to peacefully process our existences within Western civilization that fell upon us (e.g., creating stable systems that do not “otherize” black peoples).
Yet, black people are more so protected – relatively speaking – compared to the past because of this idea of race as a construct being accepted by “non-blacks”, yet, with black people doubling down in racial consciousness, often where certain actors are not only gate-keeping but perpetuating a typical of “cultural eugenics test” on “outsiders” and “insiders” (i.e., “you’re not black enough” types), this all makes people fall in alignment with a culture (black culture) that ironically was produced by the same white supremacist system we as black people claim to want to transcend above.
Does that make sense? To restate, the political-left says that race doesn’t exist, often as a means of challenging white supremacy/colonialism and by default uplifting black/”BIPOC” peoples, yet, black peoples while using this notion to their benefit in one hand are double-downing in the other hand into a strict adherence to the concept of “blackness”, where such as blackness is ironically a byproduct of white supremacy, where blackness was designed to be the manufactured dialectic to whiteness (AAVE, i.e., African American Vernacular English, i.e., Ebonics vs King’s English, sagging vs wearing your pants up, fluidity vs rigidity, spicy vs bland, etc., etc.) . In other words, black people doubling down on racial purity/separatism are actually giving the white supremacists what they want because the white supremacist wanted black people to be segregated whether white supremacy (Right Wing) did it or black people did it themselves (via Left Wing ideology or even Right-Wing ideology, it doesn’t matter).
Sure, even though we as black people “claimed this culture from our manufactured situation of oppression for ourselves and turned it into empowerment” such as calling ourselves Niggers (niggas) and being polar opposites to what we consider to be “white”, the truth remains that what we are now empowered in what was and still is highly influenced by white supremacy.
In other words, black people will never be “free” unless we totally remove ourselves from this trajectory regardless of if we take it for ourselves. Better put, no matter how black you think you’re acting, you actually acting in many ways what were simply designed to be opposite. In other words, black simply means opposite of white. Just the way I am sure our Founding “Fathers” wanted the colonial caste system to be. To reiterate, acting “black” doesn’t mean “free”, but just opposite, but black to me is not a monolith, yet many black people have a hard time processing away from the monolithic viewpoint of blackness they too were indoctrinated with.
Most Black Americans, including those who claim to be woke, “down”, “bought it, bought it”, etc., aren’t really willing to fully be “unprogrammed”, i.e., leave Western Civilization. Nothing is stopping black people from going back to Africa, taking their US currency, and totally forgetting about all the trauma we seem to be obsessed with reminding ourselves about. But the truth is, most don’t want to leave and will always come up with a “saving face excuse”, such as “We’re still waiting on reparations”, as if reparations – especially in the form of controversial cash payments (only controversial because many people in the US now are not descended from the situations that created black oppression such as slavery) will ever happen. For certain extreme Pro-Black voices, they still desire their capitalist food, TV, sweatshop shoes, etc. So, if anything, most extreme Pro-Black types are not only disingenuous but are really just…talking but talking as a means of pushing what I talked about which is purity testing (cultural eugenics). They want to be rewarded and idolized for saying the most woke things to establish themselves atop a cultural hierarchy. Better put, the extreme Pro-Black woke talker is actually just using culture as a currency in a social hierarchy where performance, words, and aesthetics are more valuable than the actual construction of physical infrastructure, let alone advanced infrastructure. It’s easy to be Pro Black and segregationist and open a food stand, barber business or print T-shirts than it is to build…computers, rockets, etc. If anything, our obsession with race has resulted in a type of intellectual laziness were analyzing culture, qualitative studies, liberal arts, etc., takes precedence over hard to learn sciences such as math, engineering, etc. Instead of the hard things we are content with talking, “preach!”, “oh! snap!”, “he ain’t wrong!” intellectual “rap battles” which at this point have slipped beyond tolerable wokeness and instead have gone into literal La-La land of Ancient Alien, Neoplatonic, Occultic and Antediluvian conspiracy theories (with personalities like Kanye West as the extreme avatar this madness) .
Western Civilization colonized the entire planet. So be it. Who cares? Because Western Civilization doesn’t necessarily mean “white” because a civilization is simply the accrual of ideas that have embedded themselves into systems. Yet, ideas that created Western Civilization, despite being mostly “brewed” in Europe, since Europe offered the best real estate to do so (e.g., a temperate, seasonal area with access to fresh water and ocean access, without major viruses and predators as that of Africa), were derived from “ideas” from all over, be it Muslim math which played a big role in navigation technology, being awe inspired by the Egyptians, philosophy from the ancient Iranians, and let’s not forget that the oldest human activity is from Africa.
But, still there’s black nationalist, Pan Africans, etc., who want to be in the United States yet are continuing to use the antiquated tropes and manufactured dramas of “house niggas” vs “field niggas” as a means of analysis, which just further proves how black minds seem to have the inability to escape dialectical (us. vs them, either/or, Ying Yang) thinking, and if so, they go totally far into the deep end of conspiracy theory.
The irony of Black Extremists or woke types such tropes such as House Nigga or Field Nigga is sadly comical in a nihilistic sense because…we’re all in the house. The house is Western civilization.
For a people birthed from dialectics and who seem to not be able get over dialectical thinking, i.e., white vs black, house nigga vs field nigga, the only solution is dialectics, which is to assimilate or at least be more tolerable to the fact we are now a Western people or to…leave, seriously, go back to Africa. Man or woman up and go back if you give up on the West or the United States. Because, if this does not happen, blackness will forever be an Escher Maze
Black people’s inability to provide acceptance amongst themselves and accept differences will result in a brain drain as black people who climb the ladder will blend with others as they find themselves shamed by their own people but relate to others because they have expanded tastes or see that there’s a larger world outside the constraints of black culture, but also we will have a smaller more radical group of black people where black people will likely be fourth in place as Hispanics and Asians move in and outperform black Americans.
Mitchell Research Group 