Tag Archives: the emo-mandingo

…oh, and about the harvard law student and her “racist” email

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as i’ve expressed here before, one of the reasons i love the NBA playoffs so much is that its one of the few remaining places in america that makes no apologies for being a meritocracy. because of the best of seven game series structure, the best teams with the best players usually win, and that’s that. there are no cinderellas, no overmatched underdogs advancing to the next round, and no room for saccharin sentiment and overemotionalism.

also, because basketball is the only of the major world sports that requires each of its participants to run, jump, throw, catch, and move laterally while also possessing at least an above average amount of bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, to consistently excel in high-level basketball, you need to have teams equipped with world-class athletes. typically, these athletes tend to be giant men, and those who aren’t tend to make up for their shortcomings by being genetic freaks of nature. this is an inarguable fact

although basketball is played by millions of people around the world, the league where the best of the best compete is mostly populated by men with (somewhat) recent roots in sub-saharan africa. this is also an inarguable fact.

with these two pieces of information, someone could deduce that people descending from sub-saharan africa might have certain athletic advantages that allow them to be at the top of the athletic pyramid, traits formed over millions (or, if you’re a literal creationist, around 2,500…give or take a decade or two) of years of evolution, and this deduction wouldn’t be completely unreasonable. sure, how evolution, nature, and nurture interact to create valued athletic characteristics is a much more complicated and nuanced topic than just stating “africans are better athletes.“, but there’s enough physical evidence there to at least have the discussion.

this brings us to stephanie grace.

grace, a harvard law student, was the subject of an andrewsian-level internet firestorm last week when an email she wrote to a few classmates about the possibility that blacks may have genetic intellectual defects was forwarded all over the internet.

from abovethelaw (click to read the entire email):

I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders. This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner

now, i completely understand why this email has been such a lightning rod. first, this wasn’t written by some backwoods tea-bagger with a baby on her hip and an ounce of tobacco in her lip. no, she’s an ivy-educated (soon-to-be) lawyer who belongs to the same law review that president obama was once president of…the complete antithesis of the “type” of white person that comes to mind when thinking of racial prejudice. plus, the entire civil rights movement in america (and any other country where there has been an oppressed people) was based on the fact that all men are created equal, and arguing that there are inherent inadequacies present in some races is all the justification racists need to continue to be racist. also, as a black american who usually thinks he’s the smartest person in the room (or, at least the most able to articulate his impressively witty observations), my first response to grace’s email was “f*ck you, stupid caveb*tch“.

but, while her assertions may have been disturbing, i have to wonder: are we more disturbed by her audaciousness of opinion, her dangerous naivety, or the (slim) possibility that she’s right¹?

my guess? more than anything else, the overwhelming response (which seems to vacillate between “she’s a dangerous racist that needs to be drawn and quartered. ali bomaye!!!” and “really, i’m not that mad. this just shows how white people really feel“) shows that most of us (and by “us” i mean educated black people) are hypocrites. we’ll discuss, debate, and joke about how we have certain inherent athletic, aesthetic, physical, rhythmic, and sexual advantages, but once the subject of intelligence is brought up, anything suggesting that we’re sitting anywhere other than the top of the human pyramid is immediately discounted and dismissed as racist, ignorant, and destructive. the only thing more dangerous than faulty opinions is the refusal to discuss them.

anyway, people of vsb.com, what’s your take on the email and the response it’s generated? was it wrong, racist, or just not very politically correct?

also, do you think it’s possible that evolution has allowed for people in certain parts to be predisposed to be better at certain things?

¹right now, there’s no conclusive evidence about race and its relation to intelligence. sh*t, there isn’t even any conclusive evidence that race itself actually exists. its all theory. for all we know, we (people with recent african) might be genetically superior to everyone else. who knows? my point is that just because something hasn’t been proven yet doesn’t mean it can’t be true.

—the champ

the emo mandingo: how to be the sh*t

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hello.

my name is the champ, and i’m the coolest muthaf*cker any of you will ever meet.

i’m cool ass hell. i’m cooler than ice, ice water, ice cream, and debra lee

i’m to cool what crackheads are to home depot parking lots. if “being cool” was “being black”, i’d be the back of shaq’s neck

my coolness is all-encompassing, incessant, omnipotent, and a bunch of other SAT words i could have used because i’m too cool to just say “big”, bitch.

my cool plays chess while your cool eats checkers.

f*ck king kong, the other side of the pillow aint got sh*t on me

basically, i’m the sh*t

being this cool didn’t happen overnight though. while i was born with many inherently cool-ass qualities (dark-brown skin the color of a clear cup of raspberry iced tea, an egg head, an anadromic first name, a shrimp eating mother and a dad with a fro the size of pam oliver’s ass, etc), its taken a bit of work¹ to become the emo mandingo. and, while none of you lukewarm n*ggas will ever be as ice cold as me, here’s ten ways to help you to be the sh*t too

1. answer questions that were never even asked

nothing says emo mandingo like a bespectacled brother who’s asked a question but responds to it with an answer the person wasn’t even asking about.

for instance:

lukewarm n*gga: “yo. did you hear that new ghostface joint?”

emo mandingo: “nah, i don’t want any steak. i’m probably going to get some pizza later anyway”

see?

2. joke about being a nerd

when around company, refer to yourself as a “nerd” or “nerdy” even though you know you haven’t seen the inside of a library since the second season of twin peaks.

3. make randomly nonchalant analogies that noone in their right mind would ever understand, and allusions to people no one has ever heard of

lukewarm n*gga: “yo see that dunk lebron had last night?”

emo mandingo: “yeah, dawg. that sh*t was harder than a bowl of cream of wheat”

lukewarm n*gga: “huh?”

emo mandingo: “seriously. he got higher than a mexican papsmear. the only other cat i’ve ever seen jump like that is roscoe chang”

4. don’t drive anywhere, ever

walk if you can. if you can’t walk, bus. if you can’t bus, go back to sleep

this, by the way, only works if you actually own a car

5. make faces at people

sometimes, your flagrantly excessive coolness will be so overwhelming that words won’t possess the worthiness to leave your cool-ass lips. plus, remember: you’re the emo mandingo. actually speaking all the time is for the lukewarm.

why say a sentence or type a paragraph when a series of simple shrugs or squints will suffice? so what if a sneer doesn’t really translate over the phone. you’re the cool one; the pressure’s on their lukewarm ass to interpret what you’re saying

6. pay for stuff that you can easily get for free

***actually, this only applies to water, babies, drinking straws, purple objects, jitneys, and porn.***

7. start a completely impractical trend

in the summer of 2002, i began wearing inside-out dress shirts to bed at night. why? well, i’m the sh*t, which means that i don’t have to explain sh*t to you.

8. take showers during thunderstorms

cumulonimbus deez, bitch

9. give yourself three completely eclectic for no damn reason theme songs, and play them in your head when you’re talking to white people

for me, monday through thursday its marvin gaye’s “trouble man”. friday’s its fiona apples rendition of “across the universe”, and on the weekends its a collection of cat farts i recorded in the fall of 2007.

10. be unnecessarily descriptive and vulgar when people least expect it

lukewarm n*gga: “hey, can you have those reports done by 3 o clock?”

emo mandingo: “yeah, boss. i’ll knock them out when i get back from getting head on my lunch break from that waffle house waitress i met two weekends ago”

lukewarm n*gga to himself:  “damn. how the hell can one man be so damn cool?”

exactly, lukewarm n*ggas. exactly.

anyway people of vsb, although i know that none of you will ever be as cool as me, how exactly are you the sh*t, and what advice would you give people hoping to be as sh*tty as you?

¹by “work” i just mean “living“, because emo mandingos don’t work for sh*t

—the champ

why your “number” matters so much to us

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its a story we’ve all heard before:

boy approaches girl at lupe fiasco lookalike contest afterparty. girl is charmed by boys proper use of “peripheral” when describing her booty, and gives phone number to boy. boy calls girl three and a half days later, and continues to charm girl with the type of detached emo-negro affected behavior that sistas with glasses, asses, advanced degrees, and daddy issues love more than crackheads love stilts.

girl and boy plan date. girl is so enamored with boy that she requests boy as a friend on facebook. boy happily accepts, but is troubled when an email titled “yo…” ends up in his facebook inbox a day later. apparently, boy’s buddy recognizes girl as “easy e” –a name girl (ericka) was given while she was a sigma sweetheart in college– and warns boy that girl has been around the block more times than a mailman with alzheimer’s. boy investigates buddy’s claim, and finds that it is true. girl has actually slept with somewhere between 4 (confirmed) and 124 (rumored) guys.

upset by the fact that girl “hid” this info from him, and relieved that he found out before he actually kissed her, boy cancels date with girl, citing “shingles” as the reason for the change of plans. disappointed girl curses to herself, and begins to write and market memoirs about her experiences as a successful and single black woman.

the idea that a woman’s number –how many sexual partners shes had– greatly effects how society and (most) men will regard her has been practically embedded in our brains since birth.  little girls are taught how to properly sit down “like a lady” by their grandmothers two minutes after they first learn how to stand so that they won’t appear to be “fast”, and little boys are taught to avoid fast girls while we’re still so young that we’re still grossed out by what fast even means. this stigmatization intensifies as we age, as even an unsubstantiated rumor about a young woman’s excessive sexual activity is enough alter everything from her social status to her career arc.

nowhere is this idea more evident than in the dating and relationship game, where men are not only given carte blanche to insult, degrade, and dismiss promiscuous women…we’re actually dissed if we don’t. the only thing worse than a ho is a captain hell-bent on saving them.

there are myriad evolutionary and physiological reasons used to explain why this mindset has been ingrained in us, but these three are cited a bit more often than others

1. because there’s more of a likelihood that sex will do harm to a woman’s body (ie: pregnancy, an increased vulnerability to STD’s, etc) than a man’s, women who sleep around and continually put themselves in harms way have their decision-making abilities and sanity questioned, damning traits for anyone hoping to be a mother.

2. only in the past half-century or so has a man been able to verify without a doubt that his kids were undeniably his. because of this, its easy to understand why we hold relatively chaste chicks in higher regard than wanton women. its kind of hard to take someones word that “it’s yours” if you know they’ve already slept with the entire 2010 AFC pro bowl roster

3. men are natural explorers and discoverers, and no man wants to claim some scorched earth thats already been explored and discovered by the next n*ggas tribe.

thing is, none of these oft-cited reasons directly address the most important element in all of this, the real logic behind the continued animus towards wanton women, the driving force behind the boy from the story canceling the date plans: our dicks.

you see, for a woman to truly understand how neurotic men can be about our own sexual prowess/performance, take your hang-ups about your body, your weight, and your hair, combine them, and multiply them by ten.

why is this important?

well, if a woman’s been “around”, its assumed that she’s been exposed to an array of different people, penises, and sexual practices and positions. in the (typical) man’s mind, this exaggerated sexual experience means that there’s an increased chance that he’ll be unable to please her, and, subsequently, unable to keep her faithful. this is the main reason why most savvy men learn to adapt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy if they’re really into someone, but would have had serious trouble even getting to the “really into her” point if he was made privy to her past. even if this thought-process is completely off-base and untrue, we tie so much of our self-worth into our ability to satisfy the woman we care about that even the assumption that a woman might be sexually unpleasable automatically makes her unwifeable.

who knows, maybe one day things will be different, and women will possess the same relatively unstigmatized freedom to act on their sexual whims that we currently do.

until then, my advice for all the “easy e/erickas” of the world? build a time machine. if that doesnt work, just date reggie bush

—the champ