A Few Words on Stereotype Threat

A very smart Black man whom I will not name has been emailing me lately about Black-White IQ differences. It’s not exactly my favorite subject, as it’s so damn depressing (since I’m pro-Black), but nevertheless, I have been engaging him. It’s sad that the Nurture Crowd are falling back on Stereotype Threat (ST). At first it sounds like a brilliant argument, since it has apparently been proven in a number of strictly experimental situations.

But there is a problem with this argument, a deadly one that kills it right in its tracks. If you study ST threat long enough, you finally figure out the depressing truth that ST cannot possibly explain B-W differences in IQ or other tests or achievement results. Because all ST does is take the typical B-W differential in this lineup (let’s call it X) and add to it! It creates a score like X-1

Thus, rather than showing that eliminating threat eliminates the large score gap on standardized tests, the research actually shows something very different.

Specifically, absent stereotype threat, the African American-White difference is just what one would expect based on the African American-White difference in SAT scores, whereas in the presence of stereotype threat, the difference is larger than would be expected based on the difference in SAT scores. (Sackett 2004.)

I’d much rather pin my hopes on a continuing Flynn Effect rather than silly stuff like ST. Black IQ’s have already been rising at 3 pts./decade for 70 years or so, and Black skulls have gotten much larger in the meantime. We can measure the scores and the skulls, and it’s all real and something to cheer about. Assuming this effect continues, and especially if it continues for Blacks but slows or stops for Whites, things could get interesting. Even if Blacks can’t make up the difference, 22 extra IQ points and much bigger skulls (and apparently many more brain cells) in the last 110 years is nothing to shake a stick at.

References

Sackett PR, Hardison CM, Cullen MJ. January 2004. On Interpreting Stereotype Threat as Accounting for African American-White Differences on Cognitive Tests. Am Psychol 59 (1): 7–13.

JewAmongYou – New Race Realist Blog

Jewamongyou.

I know this fellow from the American Renaissance comments section. I rarely comment there anymore because I have tons of enemies on that site who think I am a race traitor – anti-White – anti-racist. They refuse to publish a lot of my comments anyway. Also, increasingly, I find that site distasteful. I realize that’s the moderate end of White nationalism, but WN is not a moderate thing.

The site frankly makes me disgusted, angry and queasy a good part of the time, though there is some good stuff on there. It’s the commenters that really bug me. So many of them seem to hate all non-Whites, and it makes me sick to be around such folks.

Jewamongyou was always one of my favorite posters. He’s a Jewish race realist (great handle by the way), and he was always sober, reasoned, intelligent and often eloquent. There was a kindness and decency about him that was missing from most of the posters. So I was happy to see, via the great Kvetcher, that he has his own site now. Usually, jewamongyou is merely a good writer, but at times, he is simply sublime.

He’s a libertarian, as so many such folks are, and he has a post attempting to explain why race realism and libertarianism go hand and hand. I think he avoids the nasty bits, such as that in Libertarian World, the brainy haves don’t have to help the dummy have-nots.

The have-nots? I dunno. I guess they just get to die in the gutter or something. One of the hazards of Libertarian World is that those wonderful libertarians have to keep stepping over the crumbling bodies of the have-nots whenever they step off the curve. But hey! Small price to pay for no taxes, huh?

He also devotes a lot of his site to Jewry, as apparently he is a religious Jew. He has an interesting take on the Jewish Question, including harsh criticism and maybe opposition to Zionism, avoidance of the pogrom and prosecution narrative of Jewish history and a lack of the typical neurotic Jewish obsession with anti-Semites.

He has a piece on anti-Semites in the race realist movement, and of course it’s swarming with them. His take on Nazis in the movement is sensible and well-reasoned, while avoiding the usual Jewish hysteria. Of course he dislikes anti-Semites, but he regards them as more annoying than anything else (like a wasp you need to shoo out of your house), which in 2010 America, is probably the proper non-neurotic Jewish response.

I’m not sure if Black people will find much to like here, but his site is free from much of the anti-Black animus you typically find on these sites. He has known Blacks whom he respected all through his life.

Though a very long post on why he has told his Jewish daughter he doesn’t want her to date Black guys will leave most Blacks cold.

In his partial defense, it’s an odds argument, not an essentialist one, and that at least makes mathematical sense. Also, I believe that possibly as many as 35-4

Heck, fully 2

For another POV along the same lines, a Black African poster points out that most African Blacks can’t stand African Americans, they don’t do want their children marrying them!

All in all, Jewamongyou is not bad for a race realist blog.

New Liberal Race Realist Blog

Here.

I know who this guy is, but I won’t name any names. I have not read much of what he’s written here other than the opening statement, but I’m in agreement with this project. He also has some liberal race realists in the comments section. I had no idea that there were so many of us. Rather than pushing some sort of “liberal racism” – the typical PC rejoinder to liberal race realism – he is simply trying to find a way to fashion a liberal or progressive project out of the rather discouraging (to us) facts about race, as they come to light.

Clearly, the whole race realist/human biodiversity (HBD) project is now in the hands of the Right, and it does have some major ideological challenges to the Left and liberalism. Nevertheless, I think we are up to the task. There’s no reason to give this whole issue to the Right while continuing to protest with arguments that increasingly seem like disgusting but well-meaning lies.

Furthermore, there are a lot of Whites and males, and especially White males, who are sick and tired of the whole “White People/Men are Evil” line pushed by the PC crowd.

If you go to a California university now, you have to take a Diversity Curriculum that consists of classes that might as well be called White People and Men are Evil. I’ve talked to some White guys who just came out of that program, and they are hopping mad. The general tendency is for folks like that to move to the Right politically, since the Left and the Democratic Party is seen as hostile to Whites and men.

Well, the Left is hostile to Whites and men!

But I’m all about economics, so I’m not about to support rightwing economics (the enemy) just because the Left is bonkers on race, gender, sexual orientation and other crap.

Liberal Race Realism, along with a Liberal analogue to Masculinist Movement, now completely in the hands of the Right, stands a chance of rescuing some of these White and male souls before they take off into rightwing populist la-la land.

It’s time for some real navel-gazing on the Left. It should be clear by now that 40 years of Identity Politics on the Left, now embodied as Queer Theory, Gender Feminism, Critical Race Theory and other forms of jazzed up bullshit soft science, hasn’t done the slightest damn thing for poor people, and especially for poor minorities, in particular for poor Blacks.

Worse, it empowered a horrible rightwing backlash and siphoned a lot of Whites and males off to the neverworlds of rightwing populism. And if we on the Left are working for anyone, it’s for the working classes, the poor, the lower income people, and in particular the minorities among them, who are hurting most of all.

Liberal Biorealism site goes beyond this one by accepting many race realist presuppositions as facts on the ground. It’s notable that they assume that genetics explains most of the B-W IQ difference.

I’m not willing to do that here, at least not yet. As long as that line can still be credibly disputed, and there is no hard consensus on it, I will hold to this optimistic position. My point instead is to say that the tests are valid, and there are intelligence differences among races and ethnic groups, whatever the Hell is causing them. At this sad point, even that is pouring gasoline on the fire of public discourse.

I realize that there is not much in race realism for Blacks, but Blacks should maybe come up with a pro-Black project that takes race realism into account, since this view is only going to grow in the future. For Blacks to throw the whole thing over to hard racists in the Libertarian and Conservative movements, who have nothing but ill will for Blacks, is a mistake.

For instance, it’s typical for rightwing race realists to argue that HBD means that we need to cut off all or most social spending to minorities, since they are genetically inferior, and you’re just throwing good money after bad. Almost all conservative race realists also want to get rid of all anti-discrimination laws. There’s nothing in that but harm for Blacks period, and not just poor Blacks. By not formulating some sort of a pro-Black response to race realism, Blacks risk throwing the ball over to their worst enemies.

Great Book About Africa

Racism, Guilt and Self-Deceit, by Gedahlia Braun (a fake name).

I once looked up who he really is, but I’ve forgotten the name. He taught philosophy in Africa for many years. This guy is straight up right about Africans in so many ways that it is incredible. This is how Race Realism ought to be but almost never is. The saving grace in his analysis is a lack of hostility towards Africans. In fact, he likes Africans very much, especially African women. Apparently he has been involved with a number of African women.

According to standard PC thinking, this is a racist book and the author is a racist. Racism is about about hostility towards a group. It’s beyond me how you can be racist towards a group of people whom you like, as long you don’t discriminate against them. However, to be fair, Braun does support segregation and apartheid in South Africa, so in that sense at least he is a racist.

But he’s an awfully mild one. If you’re average White racist was like this guy, the antis would really have their work cut out for them. A Stormfront type makes a nice, fat juicy target. In contrast, guys like Braun are as hard to pin down and get a handle on as a mercury blob.

Furthermore, almost all race realists have animosity towards Blacks. Braun is one of the first race realists that I have run across who seems to actually like Blacks.

The fact that he supports colonialism, segregation and Apartheid, though, is disturbing, since most race realists end up favoring getting rid of an anti-discrimination laws at least. Many also supported colonialism, segregation and Apartheid. Once again we see the disconcerting connection between race realism and support for forms of discrimination and domination of Blacks. Will race realism typically lead to such backwards qualities, and if so, why?

I figure this guy is just telling it like it is. He has lived in Africa for many years, and over that time, developed some interesting views about African culture and thought processes. What’s wrong with that? He lived there, he observed things with an open mind, and these are his conclusions. He’s entitled to them. Who are we to slam him, call him racist and liar? Why do we get to saddle that high horse anyway?

There’s more truth in what Braun writes than in 100 PC anti-racist tomes, most of which are full of laughable anti-scientific, untestable or non-falsifiable joke-theory.

One area that I disagree with him is in trying to draw parallels between Africans and US Blacks. 20 IQ points difference is a Hell of a lot, plus US Blacks have been heavily de-Africanized culturally during their centuries here. Braun discusses an impoverished concept of love (compared to the Western view of romantic love) common to Africans, suggests it may be related to IQ, and then leaps to the idea that US Blacks may experience the same conceptual impoverishment to a lesser degree.

Well, it’s an interesting theory, so I decided to test it out. I don’t know what the average IQ of the Blacks on the Internet is (Is it higher than average?) but the Black women you meet on the Net seem to have a very Western view of romantic love that is about the same as White women’s. Do Black women in the ghetto feel the same way? I’m not sure, as I haven’t had much dealings with these people.

But looking at other groups with average IQ’s of 85-87 (US Black IQ is 87), the females at least in these groups seem to subscribe strongly to the Western version of romantic love. So US Black IQ should be high enough that their views of love should be about the same as the rest of ours, assuming the full concept is IQ-dependent.

The book costs money, and I have not read it, but I’ve read a number of Braun’s other pieces, and the guy is fantastic.

“Keeping America Safe,” by Alpha Unit

The First World War had its last gasp in 1971.

At least that’s one way to look at it, from the perspective of those whose job it is to defend and protect the United States from those who would aid the enemy in wartime. People like leftists, radicals, Communists, Socialists, and other subversives.

When the United States decided to enter World War I, President Wilson knew that he had to have the American people on his side. In fact, he insisted on it. So on April 13, 1917, with the stroke of a pen, he created the U.S. Committee on Public Information, for the express purpose of getting the people’s sentiment in line with their government’s.

George Creel, the newspaperman enlisted to head this operation, set about propagandizing. He was aided, among others, by journalist and commentator Walter Lippmann and by “the father of public relations” in America, Edward Bernays – the man who saw his job of shaping public opinion as “the engineering of consent.”

To say that this effort achieved its purpose would be an understatement.

This was during the same period that revolution and civil war swept Russia, producing a corollary fear in this country that some of those socialistic, communistic spores could drift across land mass and ocean to become embedded on American soil. It wasn’t a great time to be a Leftist in America. (Is wartime ever?)

Two groups stood above the rest – the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, the latter also known as the “Wobblies.” Both groups came out strongly against U.S. involvement in World War I and were targeted almost at once by the government. And any activity that might even have the whiff of their involvement became suspect.

The Wobblies had been one of the first labor unions to admit women, Blacks, and immigrants – this was subversive enough in early twentieth-century America. During the war it was led by “Big Bill” Haywood, one of its original organizers. Eugene Debs, who ran for President several times as a Socialist, had also been one of its founders, as well as Mary Harris “Mother” Jones.

In spite of Haywood’s attempts to lower their profile in light of the group’s anti-war stance, the organization was targeted and made an example of under the recently enacted Espionage Act. Laws against espionage were not at all new, but this law expanded the definition of espionage to include openly expressing political opinions that could be construed as “helping” the enemy. Over 150 of the Wobblies’ leaders were rounded up, tried, and convicted. Haywood was among them.

A series of amendments to the Espionage Act, the Sedition Act of 1918 prohibited “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the United States, its flag, or armed forces during wartime. Included was any language that caused anyone to view the United States with contempt.

Both the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch were absolutely serious about shutting down dissent.

A series of strikes in the period right after the war continued to stoke fears of revolution and anarchy in various quarters. The first major strike took place in the shipyards of Seattle in 1919.

After two years of wage controls during the war, workers launched a strike in an attempt to get pay increases. The shipyard workers were joined by other unions, including the Wobblies. It wasn’t long before some in the press connected this incident to the Russian Revolution, since some of the union workers evidently supported it. A pamphlet entitled “Russia Did It” was being distributed during the strike. It read in part:

The Russians have shown you the way. What are you going to do about it? You are doomed to wage slavery till you die unless you wake up, realize that you and the boss have nothing in common, that the employing class must be overthrown, and that you, the workers, must take control of your jobs and through them, the control of your lives instead of offering yourself up to the master as a sacrifice six days a week, so that they may coin profits out of your sweat and toil.

The Seattle shipyard strike didn’t even last a week. There was no violence. But it was seen as the work of “Bolsheviks,” so there were reprisals. The Wobblies were targeted, predictably, as ringleaders; several dozen were arrested.

Subsequent strikes were blamed on “Reds,” including a strike by Boston police and a nationwide steelworkers strike.

The federal government was on a mission to unearth the Bolshevik menace in America. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer appointed J. Edgar Hoover as head of a new radical-hunting division in the Bureau of Investigation. Thousands of “radicals” were arrested; some were imprisoned and others were deported. At the same time, numerous state legislatures were smitten with anti-radical fever. Famously, the New York legislature expelled five Socialist members from its ranks.

Anti-radical sentiment was at its peak.

But by the spring of 1920 a pushback was underway in the country. As one writer summarized events:

In May twelve prominent attorneys (including Harvard professor Dean Pound, Zachariah Chaffee, and Felix Frankfurter, who later became a Supreme Court justice and a proponent of Sacco and Vanzetti’s innocence) issued a report detailing the Justice Department’s violations of civil liberties.

The New York Assembly’s decision to bar its Socialist members was met with disgust by national newspapers and leaders such as then-Senator Warren G. Harding, former Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes and even Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer who felt it unfair to put Socialists and Communists in the same category.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes criticized proposed anti-sedition bills possibly because the proposed bills were viewed as censorship; most newspapers came out against the anti-sedition bills. Industry leaders, who were early proponents of anti-Communism, began to realize that deporting immigrants (as many of the Communists were alleged to be) drained a major source of labor, which would result in higher wages and decreased profits.

But what really made this Red Scare come undone was The Plot That Never Was.

J. Edgar Hoover’s agents told the Attorney General that radicals were planning an attempted overthrow of the U.S. government on May Day 1920. Palmer and Hoover tried to brace the nation for the terror to come. All kinds of preparations were made to thwart this overthrow.

May Day came. And nothing happened.

Newspapers across the country ridiculed the Attorney General. This was the beginning of the end of what is now known as the First Red Scare of America.

In December of 1920 the Sedition Act was repealed.

The Espionage Act, its parent, has never been repealed. One of its first victims was Eugene Debs, who was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison; after about 3 years he was pardoned by President Harding. Another famous victim was the poet e. e. cummings, who got in trouble while serving in an ambulance corps in France during the war. Supposedly he had been guilty of not being sufficiently hateful in discussing the Germans. He actually spent three and a half months in a military detention camp.

The last time the government applied the Espionage Act was in the case of New York Times Co. v. United States, otherwise known as the Pentagon Papers case. The government lost in its attempt to keep this information from going public, but the Espionage Act was not specifically ruled to be unconstitutional.

As I said at the outset, it was the final whimper of President Wilson’s quest to keep the world safe for democracy.

More On Epic Bearded Man

The Epic Bearded Man (EBM) video which went viral all over the world for a bit until it seems to have settled down after a few million views, roused quite a bit of commentary on the Web.

Once again, the video shows a fight between Michael, a 50 year old somewhat ghetto-appearing Black man, and Thomas Bruso, a 62 year old White man on a Muni transit bus. The Black man is the aggressor, but EBM retaliates and pummels him badly.

There were many interpretations of it, the best one seeing bullies finally get their comeuppance by harried victims. Also, it was interesting to see a 62 year old White guy, a former Marine wearing an “I am a motherfucker” t-shirt, kick some ass. As older people are of course more victims an aggressors in our society, this ties in with the first one, rooting for the underdog/victim and seeing bullies get their just desserts.

A less noble and more disturbing aspect was that in the world of Black-White crime and general aggression, nowadays anyway, it’s pretty much Blacks doing all the crime and aggression against White victims and not a whole lot going on in the other direction. In fact, the reverse is so unusual these days that the media goes nuts whenever it happens (Duke stripper case, West Virginia sex torture case). So it was a case of of One Man Is Fighting Back.

This is similar to the Arab pride in Osama bin Laden after 9-11. With all the aggressions that the Arabs see being perpetrated on the West, One Man Is Fighting Back. That man being Osama. This is not so much White racism as similar to the Arab reaction of the victims finally standing up and fighting back for once against powerful aggressors who are inflicting a lot of damage. As it’s tied in with victims fighting back, this reaction is related to the first two.

The more disturbing reaction was the mass outpouring of White racism in the comments threads on the EBM video. “Nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger!” Commenter tulio seemed to note that there was an almost sexual, orgiastic or dare I say ejaculatory aspect to these comments. Like they were getting a racism speed high. The EBM video was forwarded all over the White nationalist and White racist web, and this probably added to the comments.

Anyway, a typical reading of the video was, “Niggers just can’t behave like civilized humans.” Another reading was from Blacks, defensive in nature. They saw EBM as a White racist who started the fight by making racist comments. Michael was just fighting back against racist baiting.

The timeline of the incident is hard to figure, but it does not appear that EBM was making racist comments. At the bus stop, he had been going on and on about his new shoes that he bought for his Mother’s funeral and how he was going to get them shined. “My boy is gonna shine my shoes,” he was saying. I guess that means his White friend or something. He got on the bus and kept talking about the shoes and how he was going to get his boy to shine them.

Michael, drunk, got on the bus and overheard them and read racist intent into the comments: that Bruso was going to get some Black guy, a boy, to shine his shoes. This started the whole misunderstanding.

As we learn more in later days, things become even more confusing. Bruso is a regarded as a sometimes-violent loon with unknown mental issues that sound like PTSD.

Here is a photo from Troy Holden in 1996 of Bruso in San Francisco. Bruso used to walk past Holden’s shop on 2nd and Market every day with a loaf of sourdough in his hand, stop in front of the shop, wave the sourdough in Holden’s face, give the finger and scream obscenities about the San Francisco 49’ers. So Bruso is a long-term street loon in the Bay Area for at least 14 years.

He “goes off his meds sometimes,” and then he can become violent and troublesome, but mostly he’s a nice guy who is also funny. He’s just a local character.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I1r3dhMUO4]

A new video is available with an interview with the Black guy. The Black guy, whose name is Michael, may not be as ghetto as he dresses and acts in the video, as he doesn’t come off that way in the interview. Even more strange is that the word on the street is that he is gay! He sounds pretty effeminate in the interview, but he also talks about his fiancee back in Georgia.

Rather than being a ghetto thug, he’s just some belligerent drunk. He’s troublesome rather than menacing. You know, like Bruso?

After Bruso got out of jail, the cops were driving him around to coffee shops and giving him free rides all day. He was a local hero with the Oakland police, which probably has quite a few Black officers. Bruso was back in downtown Oakland the next day, which is where he hangs out. Many of the local young Black guys were surrounding him – he was their hero! Bruso was eating it up and hanging out with his new Black friends all day. By the end of the day, he was starting to talk and walk like the young Black males of Oakland, his new best friends.

The more you hear about this case, the more it seems that r had little or nothing to do with it! But so many people tried to read a racial or worse, racist, line into this story. That says more about us than about the protagonists.

Fight Between Black Woman and Chinese Woman on a Bus

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rm4SazjKsQ]

This video, like the Epic Bearded Man video earlier, is also going seriously viral right now. All of the versions combined have about 2.1 million views so far.

Similarly, it is being promoted by White nationalists and White racists online who are linking it and forwarding it around. Instead of a fight between two middle aged men on a Bay Area Muni bus, one White and one Black, this is a fight between two young women on a Bay Area Muni bus (this one in San Francisco’s Chinatown), one Black and one Chinese. The Chinese woman wins the fight, and the Black girl goes off the bus and sulks.

It looks like the Black girl starts it by putting her stuff across two seats. The Chinese girl moves some of the Black girl’s stuff to sit down, and the Black girl goes nuts.

There’s some funny dialogue in there because the Chinese girl can hardly speak English.

“FUCKA YOU!” “SHUT UP!” “YOU A STUPID!”

The Black is being the aggressor, invading the Chinese girl’s space and repeating moving her hands toward the other girl’s face. The Chinese girl is backed up against the side of the bus, defensive. The Black also throws the first blow.

Black girl: “Say it again, say it again…” Chinese girl: “FAK YOU!” Black girl: “Say it again, say it again…” Chinese girl: “FUT YOU!”

Then the Black girl punches the Chinese girl! Bam! At about 1:16.

Then after she throws the punch, she runs away like a typical chick (LOL). The Chinese girl follows her, they grapple a bit, the Chinese girl karate chops her a few times (LOL) then she Kung Fu kicks her a few more times (LOL). Some older Chinese woman breaks up the fight. The Chinese woman is speaking Chinese the whole time, so it’s hard to figure out what’s being said.

As tulio noted in the EBM post, likewise with this video, it’s produced a veritable flood of anti-Black racism in the comments section, mostly by Whites but also quite a bit by Asians.

The Black woman is a stand-in for Blacks in general, the Chinese woman is Civilization Fighting Back. The general tone of the comments is, “Look how Black people can’t control themselves.” This is really just a fight on a Muni bus, and I’m not sure what race has to do with it too much, but once again, the tsunami of anti-Black hatred these random videos provoke is pretty breathtaking to behold.

Homicidal Music

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Numk9kXDV1o]

Really, is there anything better than homicidal music? I don’t mean better than anything. Of course homicide itself is way more fun than just listening to songs about it, but unfortunately, most of us lead sheltered lives and can’t let our darkest fantasies run wild.

This is a great song, “If I Had a Gun” by a great new singer. Her name is Diana Jones, and she’s 45 years old. She has an interesting history. She was adopted and never knew her real parents. Moved around the Northeast a lot as a kid, ran away from home at 15 and lived on the streets for a while, then to dead-end jobs, and finally she got accepted at a major university.

She got a degree, then went into an MFA program at another university. Later she wandered around Europe, the whole time painting and playing folk songs trying to sound like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

Around 10 years ago, she decided to look up her birth parents. It was hard to do, but she finally found them in Tennessee. She went to visit them, and there they were, people who looked just like her, mountain people. Her grandfather took her to Great Smoky Mountains National Park where they have a redone old village.

There they bought an Alan Lomax album. Alan Lomax was an interesting guy. He was a professor at a university, a musicologist who wandered around recording “forgotten music,” especially folk music.

They were listening to the songs, called mountain music, on the way home, and to her surprise, her grandfather knew them all. Turns out he had been a mountain music musician. That got her interested in the genre, and she has been recording mountain music ever since. The phrase mountain music is hardly known, but this type of music is better known as “old-time music.”

This is is the original American folk music.

It goes back to the early 1800’s and possibly even prior. Its roots were generally in English, Scottish and Irish folk music, and you can hear some of that in this song. The banjo is an essential instrument in this genre, and it has an interesting history in the US.

Most of us think that the Black contribution to US music began at the latest in the early 1900’s with Ragtime. Not the case. The banjo in the US was originally a Black instrument, modeled after some sort of an instrument used in Africa.

In Appalachia, Black musicians introduced the banjo in the early 1800’s. There are not many Blacks in Appalachia now, but there were more back then. There were few if any slaves there, even though most of the Appalachian states were slave states. In the Appalachian parts of these states, there was no use for Black slaves.

Many Black slave runaways probably ended up there after taking off from plantations in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. Once you got into the mountains, probably nobody was going to find you anyway, and the mountain folk didn’t care about runaway slaves. These areas were very isolated. Many people never left their small Appalachian town in their lives, and most outsiders never went there.

Old-time music was biggest in Appalachia, but it was also present elsewhere, such as in New England, the Midwest, the South and the West. Since these other areas were less isolated, old-time music tended to go out as people were exposed to newer styles, but the remoteness of Appalachia allowed the music to continue on into the 20th Century relatively unchanged.

Old-time music is folk music, but it is not country or bluegrass music. But! Both country music and bluegrass music came out of old-time music. What’s fascinating is that we never think of all the all-White, redneck country and bluegrass music as being even remotely Black-influenced, but if they both came out of Black-influenced old-time music, there is even Black influence in the Whitest of American music.

I’m not too wild about folk proper, and a lot of bluegrass leaves me cold, but this song is killer! I’ve never heard a woman write a song about murdering her abusive husband before – what a great topic!

Her guitar? A 1967 Gibson. What else?

Further, it’s an excellent rejoinder to “Hey Joe,” the great song by Jimi Hendrix.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mBjG9chIFw]

Another great homicidal song is “Violence” by Mott the Hoople. Mott was only one of the greatest rock bands of all time, but almost no one has heard of them these days. They were a pretty big underground band in the 1970’s, and their albums Mott and The Hoople were pretty big hits, but then they broke up. Ian Hunter later went solo.

Viiiii-o-lence, viiiii-o-lence, it’s the only thing that’ll make you see sense!

Well, of course. Once you’ve experienced violence up close and personal, you will respect if for the rest of your life. That’s how it makes you see sense.

I’m a missing link, poolroom stink, I can’t talk (Well that’s too bad) What’s going on, something’s wrong, I can’t work Can’t go to school, the teacher’s a fool, the preacher’s a jerk (Well that’s such a drag) Got nothing to do, street-corner blues, and nowhere to walk Violence, violence It’s the only thing that’ll make you see sense Gotta fight, nothing’s right, livin’ nowhere (That’s so sad) Watch out for the gun, snake on the run, hide in my hair You keep your mouth shut, or you’ll get cut. Haha – I like to scare (Bet you’re so mad) I’m a battery louse, a superstar mouse, I don’t care Get off my back or I’ll attack, ‘n I don’t owe you nothin’ (OK) Head for your hole, you’re sick and you’re old ‘N I’m here to tell you something Violence, violence It’s the only thing that’ll make you see sense

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2LbujFtaUQ]

From the punk era, there was “Homicide” by 999. Great song!

I believe…in homicide!

Resign to it…

Yo!

Sorry for this morbid post, but I was in a killer mood tonite and I could not resist.

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