Science Vocab: Despotism

Today's science vocabulary word is DESPOTISM.

It is defined as absolute authority. A DESPOT ( noun) means one who oppressively rules others, as in an tyrannical or autocratic leader.

But in ecology, despotism is used to describe organisms (either individuals or populations) who consume important resources without regard to others or the future need for those resources. These organisms consume, consume, consume and leave little, if anything for others.

It's a word used in social studies that ecologists and evolutionary biologists have adopted to explain the evolution and maintenance of social behavior, cooperation, selfishness, and altruism in many animal species, including humans.

I like this word because it is a great way to name call people - greedy people, or rude people you encounter - who use up public resources without regard to others. For example, the person who eats up all of the shrimp cocktail at the happy hour or the person in your office who monopolizes the copy or fax machine and prevents others from getting work done.

image courtesy of Bluebuddies Gallery.

Greedy Smurf, a classic despot.

Why I Don't Smoke Pot

I grew up around pot, marijuana. My older relatives, including my parents were very unashamed about smoking refer in front of me. In fact, by the age of six I could separate out sticks and seeds from the bag and roll a joint as well as any adult. As I think back, I probably had contact high most of my life. At adolescence, I tried smoking it. I thought it was cool. I got high, got the munchies and giggles. My interest in it faded quickly. I tried it and and was done the same summer I took my first toke.

The war on drugs is an interesting one. Drugs are bad and marijuana, too; but not as bad as cocaine or heroine. Is is a gateway drug? I don't know. Most of the people I know who smoke weed are perfectly happy just smoking weed. So I don't think it's bad for that. Plus, I know alot of hippie-type scientists, so weed is like an academic muse. So it seems not-so-bad.

However, weed is not so good. It's subtle and subversive. I think of it as the "F it drug" because that's how you feel about life or circumstances when you smoke it.

Lost your job. Take a toke. Blow that ish out!

Got arrested. Take a toke. Blow that ish out!

Kids going crazing. Take a toke. Blow that ish out!

When I was working at the infamous job house, the employees would wander off and get high. Or come to work high. WTH? The drug I had known as a kid as a 'party drug' was now being used more as a coping drug. I need this to get by. ** I Get High, High, High**

I don't smoke weed because it robs you of your innate desire and will to be successful. So many of our kinfolks get high all day, everyday. They laze around complaining about a horrible life and pitfalls and get high to pacify the blues away. That pitiful attitude about self-sufficiency, hard-work, and effort is the bane of Black folk, especially poor Black folk. And I blame this drug for aiding and abetting that poor attitude. That's something I can't use.

Poor, Black, & Undereducated. So what's new?

Nothing, but this is an intriguing book review article I've come across in the New York Times - Why the Poor Stay Poor. Richard Thompson Ford is a professor of law at Stanford University, whose book The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse is being published in paperback this month.



An excerpt from the article:

"Today many ghetto residents have almost no contact with mainstream American society or the normal job market. As a result, they have developed distinctive and often dysfunctional social norms."



I encountered this very phenomenon at the job I had and quit last year. The review discusses both sides of the issue - the conservatives and liberals explanation of 'the problem' with/of poor [black people]. But Wilson makes no friends on either side. He sees the problem as complex and an accumulation of both historical institutional racist and classist policies and changes in economic policy which many poor blacks have not been able to keep pace with.

Inauguration Day Commentary - What really makes Conservatives & Liberals Different?

Barack Obama has been sworn in as the 44^th President of the United States of America.  As the primary general election campaigns waged, I realized the pre-occupation we have with this nation’s political topography.  This notion of red and blue states and counties and liberal, moderate, and conservative citizens is interesting to me.  Entire regions, communities and families are labeled as red or blue; and we can trace these party affiliations back for generations.  This idea of political views as a heritable trait has piqued the interest of many, particularly bloggers who comment about the intersection of science and society, like me and Bora Zivkovic.

In a past post of his he writes…“that political affiliations are indeed a trait passed along from parent to offspring, but it is not because of genes. It is inherited via a developmental process.  Conservatives raise their children in such a way that their emotional development results in them becoming conservatives when they grow up, thus perpetuating the trait across generations - that is the definition of inheritance. And it is not teaching conservatism directly - it is providing an environment in which a child will develop conservative traits.”  I think no one exemplifies this more than Political Blogger, Cobb.  He is a conservative, his family had conservative views and he has a host of conservative friends. But what if our political leanings were more than indicators of our upbringing and social environment?  Could there be a biological explanation? Perhaps, according to a recent research article in Science: Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits.

Could your political philosophies be tied to your physiology?

The 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC) showed a tribute video of the 9/11 Tragedy.  A compelling narration along with images the World Trade Center in flames, Americans dying, buildings collapsing and gun-toting-happy-terrorist enemies celebrating the carnage were on the big screen.  It ends with a declaration of “We will never let it happen again”.  The video evoked emotional responses from both sides of the political aisle; however, responses seemed to correspond according to the political leanings of the commenter.   For many conservatives, the video reminded them as to why a leader strong on national security was necessary for the safety of our nation.  Yet, many liberal correspondents – notably Keith Olbermann of MSNBC - found the video disturbing and accused the conservative political party of fear-mongering in order to promote their agenda.  

Was the RNC trying to connect to people through shock and fear?  Are political attitudes and reactions to devastating events tied?  Like political beliefs, behavioral and physiological reactions to unexpected events vary by individual.  Our body’s emergency response system, called the sympathetic nervous system, kicks in high gear when are frightened, startled or perceive a threat.  We reflexively react by blinking our eye lids or ducking for cover. Our heart rate increases, skin becomes clammy and we release nervous hormones like epinephrine and acetylcholine.   However, some people respond more strongly to startling events than others.  Would a variation in fear response correlate to a variation in political attitudes about national safety?  Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln set out to find the answer.  

Residents of Lincoln, Nebraska, were randomly selected from the telephone directory and interviewed to determine if they held strong political attitudes.  Subjects with strong political views, very conservative or very liberal, were then asked to participate in a second evaluation.   During this evaluation, subjects’ specific political attitudes were categorized according to their degree of support for protective policies.   Protective policies were defined as a generic suite of political concepts that dealt with enforcing strong security measures in order to protect the members of this society from tragedies.  Eighteen of the 28 political concepts on the survey were those that dealt with security issues such support for increased military spending, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, as well as opposition to foreign aid, immigration, and gun control.   Individuals who indicated concern for protection and security in the 18 key political concepts were categorized as high supporters of protective policies.  The opposite was true of the subjects categorized as low supporters of protective policies.

Two months later, subjects completed two physiological response tests that measured their reflexive reactions to startling images and sounds.  In the first test, subjects were presented a slide show of 36 images, including three disturbing images of 1) a spider on a frightened person’s face, 2) a dazed individual with a bloody face, and 3) an open wound with maggots.  Researchers measured the average level of skin conductance or degree of subtle sweating and activation of the sympathetic nervous system in response to viewing all of the images.  In a second test, subjects’ eye blink response was measured when a loud, unexpected noise was heard.

The team found very clear differences in physiological responses to threatening stimuli between the two groups of subjects.  High supporters of protective policies demonstrated a marked increase skin conductance when they viewed disturbing images but no increased response when they viewed non-disturbing images.   Among low supporters, there was no difference in skin conductance response to viewing disturbing or non-disturbing images.  In fact, these subjects were mostly unaffected by either sets of images.  A similar pattern of response was measured in the startle sound-eye blink test.  Blink responses habituate over time for all subjects, however high supporters tended to blink harder than low supporters, though the differences were not as pronounced as those from the skin conductance test.  

Overall, the study demonstrated a relationship between physiological responses to threatening stimuli and political attitudes of subjects.  However, the biological basis of this relationship is not at all clear.  The research team suggests that the link between a person’s sensitivity to emergency situations and prevailing political attitudes may result in some people having a greater affinity to political policies that seem to offer the best solution to the perceived threat.  However, it does provide some credence to the RNC’s use of startling messages to rally the support of their political base in exercising stricter national security measures.

On Becoming Independent - Hands-off Teaching/Hands-on Learning

I was leading an activity with children at the zoo. We were making luminaries. I explained how to do it, made some myself along side the kiddies, gave kids the materials and cheered them on as they took off. Then I watched the parents. Some parents worked with their youngsters, holding the stencil or the markers. Other parents were doing the craft for the child, particularly if they were very young - which makes sense. But it was remarkable to see how some children were allowed to do the activity with hardly any input from the parents. Those children seemed more creative, relaxed, and spent some time creating some very nice paper bag luminaries. I especially credit the parents for being patient as opposed to criticizing them for being inattentive.

On the other hand there were some parents who took charge of the activity. They directed the child, helped choose the stencil or in some cases selected it for the child. There seemed to be a control over the activity where the child was second chair to the parent. They were compelled to do the activity a certain way, "the right way" - trace the stencil perfectly, don't embellish the picture with color or free-hand art, use certain color markers. Sometimes it was because the parents were impatient and seemed to rush the activity to get it over with.

As I watched those parent-child interactions, it got me to thinking about something I noticed when I was in high school classroom and at the job house. Some formative experiences may have shaped some people to be less independent. Many people (not just children) seem absolutely afraid to take risks and make mistakes. For example, whenever I gave a pre-test or open-lab assignment or an independent project, I had some students who just hated it. They lost it. Got belligerent. They wanted to be told exactly what to do, how to do and immediately rewarded. Free-thinking was not at all appealing to them. There was a right way, a singular way to do things and they did not care about the hows and whys of the matter.

At the job house, my employees struggled with executing projects without serious oversight. They got frustrated and often gave up quickly because things didn't appear to work out the first time. They did not take criticism well, even mild criticism. They always expected a positive response even when they knew they hadn't tried their best or were properly trained to handle a task. I had a host of issues, including managing them, which is why I eventually left the job. I wasn't a great fit.

What I realized is that my preferred teaching/leading style is Authoritative. I give you instructions or guidelines, explain the boundaries, but give you free opportunity to figure the rest out. How I see it, I can only facilitate learning. I can't make you learn. You can ask questions, challenge the rules, be absolutely creative. It's okay if things don't work out the first time or second time. Learning or perfecting a skill involved mistakes. In fact you learn more when don't get in right the first time, because you get positive feedback and the chance to practice what you've learned.

For these frustrated learners/workers they don't want to ponder the mistake or see correctness in alternative views. Thinking back to those kids whose parents made them do things a certain way, they may have a hard time making their own decisions when their parents are absent. What do I like? How can I get this done? Can I feel confident about what I have done? And that confidence in doing something for one's self is very important.

As these thoughts were on my mind, I was listening to NPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge program about craftsmanship (Reconsidering Crafts, Dec 14, 2008). A Craft is a skill, an effort to work hard at something, to do it well and produce a product that is sound and sometimes beautiful. Skills such as carpentry, or quilt-making, landscaping, candle-making - these are crafts. But service jobs are also crafts - such as nursing, surgery, plus hair and skin care. How seriously one takes his or her profession in providing the best possible product or service to enhance or enrich the lives of your clients. Lack of facilitated learning, positive feedback, and the requirement to practice and revise actually hurts some people, at least I think so.

This idea of working hard and doing something is essential to personal pride and satisfaction with one's place in life, I think. From my personal observations, poor people are not respected or treated as if there is something in life that they CAN do, do it well, and enjoy doing. Regrettably, urban schools are so frustrating and confusing that children aren't given the chance to truly learn. They forced to listen and regurgitate and get it right the first time. Learning, particularly hands-on learning is thrown away by 4th grade. This hands-on learning is much like the act of learning a craft, becoming skilled at something. My employees did not want to work hard, so no value in it and as a result struggled to fit into the work place and it very program that was supposed to help them out of poverty seemed to fail them.

Please check out entire show on NPR. It was enlightening, especially the segment with Sociologist Richard Sennett. He talked about his book "The Craftsman" in which he makes the case that our definition of craft should be expanded to include any job a person commits to executing to the best of their abilities. He tells Steve Paulson that lots of working-class people care about what they do, with no expectation of material reward.

Science Vocab: Heritability

Here’s a pop quiz. Read the following statements and select the best answer from the choices below.

A: Snoring runs in my family; it is genetic.
B: Snoring runs in my family; it is heritable.

1. Statement A is true
2. Statement B is true
3. Both Statement A and B are true
4. Neither Statement A or B are true
5. Don’t know

The answer: Only Statement B can be true. Heritability deals with the likelihood or probability of traits running in families. But here is the catch: something can be heritable due to genetics or environment. In this case the environment includes culture or habits and behaviors that you experience and accept as a normal and everyday. Everything that shared among related individuals isn’t necessarily because they share the same genes.

Here’s another snag – heritable traits and inherited traits are not synonymous. To inherit something means you received it or get from your parents. Think about an heirloom. Your grandfather has this amazing fishing pole. When he passes on, he gives the fishing pole to your father and your father gives it to you. You get the exact same thing your father and grandfather had. Genetic inheritance works the same way. One parent has a gene or allele and he or she gives to you.

Heritability is the likelihood of getting something…in other words, you might get it. It’s not automatic – like genetic inheritance, but the chances look good.

Here’s an example: Autism: highly heritable but not inherited
Arthur L Beaudet of Baylor University examined genetic causes of Autism. He found specific gene disorders that can result in autism de novo, automatically or off the top. These disorders include an alteration of the genome causing complete loss of copy, gain of copy or disruption of a dosage-sensitive gene.

But research by Sebat et al. indicates that other genomic deletions and duplications may point to genes in which mutations may lead to autism, but doesn’t automatically cause autism. In other words, having these genes doesn’t mean you will automatically have autism, but your chances are high.

Thinking about human behavior and habits, many of us confuse genetic and cultural heritability, especially when comparing family members to one another. If it’s something positive like – good looks or being smart, then it is thought to be an asset. You feel like you’ve got the deck stacked in your favor. "Natural with no extensions. She get it from her mama."

But all too often we hear people say unpleasant and hurtful things and characterize failure as a family curse. For example, making bad grades or getting into trouble. “You get that bad behavior from your father”. The good news is that these behaviors are NOT genetic, not ingrained in that person. The similarity is coincidental or because of a habit. Habits can be changed. Genes cannot.

Science Vocab: Dulosis - Slave-making in Ants

Ants, like other social Hymenoptera, are some of the most fascinating animals there are. They live in societies – fully functioning, every-individual-has-a-role-and-must-contribute-society. Though I talk about the ups and downs of human societies, animal societies are just as interesting and complicated. Even the unattractive aspects of human social behavior exists among our animal cousins. Dulosis is the slave making behavior of some species of ants.

Here is how it works:

The Parasite species exploits the parent care (brood care) of another species. They steal pupae from another species (the host species). An all-out fight ensues between the species and it is not pretty. Ants die…lots and lots of ants die. If the raiding party is successful they will kill the workers of the host species leaving too few to worry about. The raiding party carry the kidnapped pupae to their nest where they complete their development. The pupae stage is the last metamorphosis. Pupae require no special care for food. It is very much like the cocoon stage of a butterfly.

Days later pupae emerge as fully adult worker ants and accept the Parasite Queen and parasite workers as their own kin and commence with the jobs they were kidnapped to do – raising the larvae of the Queen. Sounds eerily familiar to slave dynamics in the Americas. Slaves were kidnapped from Africa, brought to the New World and forced to work the plantations and females often nursed and cared for the young of the owners.

But like all tenuous relationships, there are is co-evolutionary war at hand. This has and will always occur when two individuals or groups have a relationship but conflicting goals. This, too is eerily familiar.

The host species have some defenses against this colony attack and pupae kidnapping, for a long time, everyone thought that these defenses must all be pre-take-over defenses. And that makes sense. These Pre-take over defenses include enemy recognition and physical defenses (fighting) against the parasites. At the same time, no one really thought that post-taker defenses were possible. For one, once the ants emerge they smell the odor of the colony and imprint to it, and everyone thought this locked everything in place. Plus, no one imagined a scenario of rebellion. What good would it do the kidnapped ants to rebel? They can’t “go back home”. They wouldn’t know where it is, besides, everyone was killed in the battle to take them as pupae.

But according to some research by Susanne Foitzik, rebellion can happen and she has documented it. She studies ant species are found in the northeast United States, Atlantic Region: slavemaking ants Protomognathus americanus and Harpagoxenus sublaevis and their hosts Temnothorax spp. and Leptothorax spp.

Photo of a Harpagoxenus sublaevis– credit: antclub.ru

Photo of a Temnothorax – credit: bugguide.net

Even after the slave ants have accepted their “new home” there have been some recorded incidences that slave workers will actually kill the larvae of the parasite brood they were supposed to raise...but only the female larvae. In some cases slave workers actually attack, mutilate and rip the larvae apart. In other cases, the workers will simply neglect the larvae by not feeding them and discarding them in “dump piles” in the nest. Some host species are more vicious than others with some species more likely to rebelling than others.

Why would this happen? Well the running reason has to do with the fact that perhaps the slave workers are keeping the Brood colony in check. By doing so, they prevent or decrease the number of raids on nearby host colonies that are likely to be comprised of their relatives…a sort of indirect group selection.
But how do they know which pupae belong to which species? It seems the chemical and olfactory cues – hydrocarbon profiles are different for each species; and the slave worker ants can distinguish between the female pupae of their own species and that of the parasite species. However, they cannot distinguish between male pupae of their own or parasite species.

And this is why some think the workers don’t kill male pupae. The proposed answer is believed to be related to odor…male larvae “smell” different than female larvae and some experiments suggest that the male larvae of parasite species smell a lot like the male larva of the host species. Moreover, male ants aren’t considered a real threat. Males don’t participate in colony affairs like work, defense, or raiding other ant species nests. Simply put, males mate, then die.

Science Vocab: Sexual Selection

Sexual Selection is the umbrella term for all of those natural forces that influence and shape animal sexual and reproductive habits and outcomes. It is a sub-set of natural selection that deals with one and only theme – SEX. Biologically speaking, you’re only a winner if you successfully reproduce and the one who leaves the most number of healthy and viable offspring.

The truth is there is much similarity between human social behavior and that of our other animal kingdom cousins. This seems especially true when I think about mating behaviors (courtship, sex, and relationship habits). I have read several papers on the subject of sexual selections and thought to myself … “Dang, that sounds an awful lot like the relationship games people play.” And what’s more, you probably know (and act out) a lot more about sexual selection than you ever realized.


Related terms: Intra-sexual Selection and Inter-sexual Selection

Intra means within, in this case the competition of members of the same-sex to get the attentions and affections of an opposite sex mate. Typically, males of the species are the focus of scientific studies of intra-sexual selection. Think back to your science lessons or National Geographic Specials…..
Two male rams, broad and large in size, with impressive horns on their heads are stalking and sizing each other up, then they bolt in a run and Clash! Bump heads with one another. It continues until a winner is determined. The prize: the chance to mate with the female goats and sire the offspring of next season. But there is also female-female competition, but it usually less dramatic.

Inter means between, in this case how the sexes choose one another. In the case of our National Geographic rams, the female goats can decide they like the winner or the loser of the battle or some other male altogether.

So what about us…
Imagine the scene… A night club, music is hot the dance floor is crowded, lots of lovely people in the house. A group of guys are hanging out together and they spot a group of girlfriends kicking it too. Assuming everyone is available for dating here’s what’s happening….

Intra-sexual Selection: The guys, though friends, are all trying to figure out which one of them will probably step up first and what type of game he’ll put down. And these guys are competing with every other guy in the club, too – not just their friends. You’ve got to figure out if it’s worth it and when to step up, check your breath, your wallet, and your rap. The Ladies are doing the same thing and in this case comparing themselves (physically) to every woman in club – adjusting herself, checking makeup, etc. The signals she sends matters and the signals other women send matter. It’s not a big push-and-shove, but it’s a jungle out there.
Basically each person is competing, whether directly or indirectly with every other person in the club of the same sex. Basically, everyone is hoping to get noticed or make eye-contact, share a glance and a conversation that might lead to more.

Inter-sexual Selection: After all of the posing and posturing and adjusting you finally step to that guy or girl. You chose them, but will they choose you…or ask about your friend? That’s inter-sexual selection.

From now on, I’ll routinely share more science info about Sexual Selection and related vocabulary.

Is it really about Sounding Black?

The Black Blog Buzz is all about a recent social science research study about Speech Patterns and Wage Inequalities in the US work place, by Dr. Jeffry Grogger at the University of Chicago.

I like how Cobb framed the discussion as an ability/inability to Code Switch. Code switching is an important tactic among ambitious people (race, class, and nationally doesn't matter). And in my interactions with urban youth and young adults, I believe lacking this skill frustrates their lives, especially when they encounter civil servants like police, social workers, or even customer service personally at stores and service providers.

One commenter on YPB Guide thought this study was a waste of time and energy, but as noted by the author, though this subject has received much attention there has never been an empirical analysis of the phenomenon. In fact, this study "represents the first attempt to determine empirically whether native-language differences between blacks and whites help explain racial wage differences." That is a big deal. To not only document but demonstrate how perceived differences in people, based on language patterns, can have a big impact on their employment status.

Now, I've always thought that the idea of 'sounding black' had more to do with the sound and rhythm of the speaker's voice. But according to linguistic standards there are variants of speech based on indices, one called Standard American English (SAE) and African-American English (AAE). Both are characterized by several several variables including syntax, grammar rules, phonology, and acoustics - basically, at every linguistic level.

The author had recordings of young people being interviewed for a summer program. There were a team of volunteers who listened to the recordings and were asked to indicate which group (black or white) they think the caller belonged to. They were also asked to indicate the speaker's sex, education level, and region of origin they thought he/she belonged to.

Listeners were able to accurately identify the sex of the speakers (98%). 84% of white speakers were accurately identified and 77% of black speakers were accurately identified by the listeners. The listeners were not able to identify education level of speakers and did not do well at identifying the region of origin of speakers, either.

The author then applies a statistical model and asks - Could these perceived differences in race, based on language impact wage differences between these groups. So the rest of the paper explores how such perceptions can the reason for wage inequalities between these groups. Though I'm not about to get into all of the statistical modelling stuff, it is an interesting thing to connect together. Could speech be a basis for discrimination? It certainly has been demonstrated in housing discrimination.

But a better question is: What do we do with this information? Help people speak better SAE or how to code switch or help people understand that using AAE doesn't mean you less intelligent, productive or profession? I think a little of all three.

Reinforcing Class Roles in Public Education

I was reading one of my listed Blogs - Education and Class - and responded to an article about Teaching Working Class Kids. The part that caught my eye was how "real "to do keep it when teaching kids. The fact is there are barriers out there that get in the way of working class and poor students, but as Eduwonkette pointed out we can’t tell kids, “Forget it. The deck is stacked against you. Give up.” But if we simply tell them, “Work hard. Be nice” . We teach compliance with a system structured to favor some over others. How, then, to navigate this chasm that is also called the “achievement gap?”

Here is my response.

Working hard and being nice is good, but not enough. At least by middle school age (definitely high school) kids begin to see the class differences - school district a vs b or kids in college track classes vs vo-tech classes. They may not be able to describe it, but they recognize it and begin to respond (rebel). The most clever kids realized it, called it what it was and was able to manuever. I think I was that kind of kid. I hate unfairness, but I accept it is real, confront it when possible, and exploit the technicalities in my favor if fairness fails.

I always favored telling students what was real — giving them the playbook to how successful people do it. The challenge is that parents and most other adults in many working-class kids lives tell them the be nice, make good grades speech. So even if a teacher does give the youth the real deal, the message is overwhelmed by the more common, but vague messages from home.

Many of these kids rarely get detailed explanations or descriptions of what to do or how to do things in life or what is expected of them in adulthood. I noticed the exact opposite among my better-off friends in middle and high school. Their parents gave them specific suggestions or instructions about what to expect from life & what they expected of them.

I sometimes thinks it’s these details - or lack thereof - that lay the foundation for some kids taking off after high school & some just hanging around the neighborhood hoping for a break.

Update:
Jazzy at Because I Said so has some interesting words related to this subjectreat M
The Great American Equalizer

Class-culture shock

At the jobhouse, I got a front-row seat to what I call Class-culture shock. Looking at class as a cultural influence, I noticed some surprise and often awkward reactions of my people when they were placed in "different" cultural settings. In the case of my job it meant placing them in a professional setting - 1) a white collar work environment where people were valued for their knowledge and expertise in a subject as opposed to completing assigned tasks over a period of time; 2) most of the people were white, which I later learned made them TERRIBLY uncomfortable; 3) interacting with people with college degrees - even educated Black people made them antsy after a while.

When individuals are placed in a social or public settings so very different than that of their primary culture (and they haven’t been prepared for it) it is not uncommon for them to 1) feel uncomfortable, 2) remain quiet or give little to no response to others, and 3) respond inappropriately or “act out”.

With my employees I was able to assemble a whole list of behaviors that they would engage in after about 30 minutes into a professional meeting or similar setting.

I called it the “Things That Seem Like No Big Deal To You, But They Really Are” List.

1. Repeatedly needing to be reminded that a meeting has started or re-convened.
This includes returning to a meeting after scheduled breaks or disappearing altogether for huge chunks of time. I lost a lot of meeting time searching for them and corralling them back.

2. Being reminded multiple times to interact with other participants. Sequestering self from others and not interacting with unfamiliar colleagues. They would push back chairs or hide in corners - just uncharacteristically shy. They weren't the paying-attention-quiet, but the I-don't really-want-to-be-here-quiet.

3. Doing other things during a program or meeting – all the time. For example, texting, talking on cell phone, leaving to talk on cell phone, loud fumbling and moving around, grunting and other complaining noises.

4. Not being observed being studious, including sleeping/dosing off. Being observed doing trivial things more often. This one happened all of the time - especially at Board Meetings.

5. Verbal and non-verbal signs of complaint and dissatisfaction, including signs of hostility and using foul language are especially taboo.

6. Slow or no response to direct instruction.

It was no secret that the Program was treated like a big Ghetto Joke by many of the outside partner Agencies. I explained to my employees that demonstrating any of these behaviors makes one appear not serious. If you’re not behaving seriously, then others won’t take you seriously. And that's exactly what happened. They employees weren't taken seriously and neither was the program. That's one of the reasons why I left the job.

Culture as a factor in Classism

I’ve come to accept that class issues are also about culture influences. And confronting classism means putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. We seem to be able to do that more easily for other “culture identities” but less so with class as a culture identity.

Defining Culture

Culture is a tangle of word. I think of culture as the air we breathe or water we swim in that sets our mind-meters to what is normal or the usual ways of doing things or reacting to things, etc. I remember moving to different region of the States and was amazed how “fish out of water” I felt. It wasn’t until then that I appreciated regional influences of my enculturation. I was put off my people’s reaction (or lack) of reaction to me when I walked into a room, to notice men not holding doors open for women…That kind of thing. So I realized that being Black wasn’t the end-all-be-all to my identity or cultural influences. I had been influenced by several unnoticed variables. And it wasn’t until I was removed from my “fish bowl” could notice that the pH had changed and I wasn’t responding well to it. Cultural influences can include:
· Race or ethnic heritage
· Regional or neighborhood affiliations
· Family traditions
· Social group affiliations and traditions (including church, social clubs, union halls, etc.)
· Age or generation – the older vs younger generation run-ins that ALWAYS exists and becoming increasingly more common among Black Civil Rights Organizations
· Gender, reproductive status, and/or marital status (Men vs. Women, Married Women vs. single women, parents vs non-parents)
· Education or work level/title or economic status -- which smacks dead-on class issues. I list these together because they are all involved in the CLASSISM mix.

Whether intentioned or not, people cluster together according to these differences. Clustering and socializing is one thing. But once one segment has some control or influence (or gains privileges then we have a CLASS struggle. These things start happening on the school yard and by high school the lunch room is pit of classism. Identifying it is one thing, an important thing. Confronting it is still a big matter.

Talking down to people

I’m no official student of sociology and class, but it is a topic of serious concern for me.

At the former jobhouse, I got a front-row seat to class-culture shock. In so many ways, the social dynamics of that job reminded me of the social dynamics at the urban high school I was assigned to. It reminded me of the Pedagogy of Poverty – post graduation style. I even thought my employees behaved very much like my high school students. Despite their ages, they behaved so much like teens, or rather immaturely or inappropriately in the given professional contexts. But as I was alerted to by a reader, perhaps my own “class prejudices” interfered with my ability to interact with them.. I accept this probability.

I was working with adults, grown people, many of them with children and real-life issues that rivaled my own. Some of them were older than me. My internal reaction to them was WTF?, but I made deliberate efforts interact with them as an adult to an adult. But I was tempted to publicly call them out and reprimand them, like I would a child. I felt uncomfortable telling adults to sit down, stop talking, quit cursing, and get back to work. I gave non-verbal cues and talked with them privately explaining why what they may have done is considered inappropriate and encouraged them not to do it again. Reprimands (of some sort) were in order, but I admit I was professionally naïve. But eventually, I got overwhelmed and disenchanted. I left. Not because they weren’t worth it, but because I learned that micro-managing people isn’t comfortable to me. I’d rather work with (teach, volunteer with, lead, or whatever) people who want to be there. And if you don’t want to be there, then please let me know how I can help you get to where you want to be. But I also left because I was disgusted my how others, even my superiors regarded my employees. They often referred to them as kids or children. They spoke down to them and didn’t take their social services needs seriously. They treated them like children.

Curious. In many urban school districts, teachers and administrators talk to students and parents similarly. In fact, that’s a common complaint among struggling people from lower SES, that civil servants or professional people treat them poorly – are condescending. I’ve observed that people from lower classes (or less educated people) are often regarded, treated, and talked to like they are simple children – no matter their age or title. Is that what it means to talk down to someone, because they are on a lower rung than you? Like a child, you would look down (literally) to speak to them. Has that become the figurative way we react to people from lower SES levels?
What’s up with that?

Unconcious classism

Jeanne Burns at Social Class & Quakers has made a few really good and insightful comments on my page. Often, when I have vented about my frustrations at the soon-to-be-vacated-job house, she has offered some food for thought.

She has pointed out that many of the things I am frustrated about with my employees
- not doing a job well, not caring to do a job well, acting out behaviorally, not using time wisely, poor problem-solving, etc. are perhaps because such tasks or performance measures require more middle and owning class skills.
Skills like - networking, research, asking the right questions and of the right persons, constructive critique, socially-accepted behaviors, etc.

She suggested that I may have class blinders on - expecting my employees (and some students I have had the past) - behave "middle class" so that they can succeed or at least take advantage of opportunities presented to them. So in spite of wanting to help, my blinders hinder me.

This blog is about class so this topic is right on topic. And it's completely fair to vet my own short-sightedness and inadequacies. I'll accept that I have class blinders on. (Wow. who'd've guessed. I grew up poor and working class and I'm trying to reach out and I've got the unconscious nerve to be snobbish).

But that still leaves me wondering.
How do I remove these blinders? and What do I do to make an impact/help others?

Fear of messing up may cause whites to avoid blacks

I came across this interesing post at ScienceBlogs: Fear of messing up may cause whites to avoid blacks.

Here's a snippet.

Now a provocative new study from Northwestern University suggests that whites who are particularly worried about appearing racist seem to suffer from anxiety that instinctively may cause them to avoid interaction with blacks in the first place.

“The Threat of Appearing Prejudiced and Race-based Attentional Biases,” by Jennifer A. Richeson, associate professor of psychology and African-American studies and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern, and Sophie Trawalter, post-doctoral fellow, IPR, recently appeared in the journal Psychological Science.

Study participants indicated that they worry about inadvertently getting in trouble for somehow seeming biased. As a result, the study suggests, they behaved in a way that research shows people respond when faced with stimuli that cause them to feel threatened or anxious: they instinctively look at what is making them feel nervous and then ignore it.

In this case, study participants, 15 white college students, indicated that they were motivated to respond in non-prejudiced ways toward blacks primarily for appearance’s sake because of concern about social disapproval -- rather than because of their internal values.

Self-Imposed Casting

The Caste System is a way of organizing social groups. Throughout history, many societies have created and established very strict social distinctions among its people.

Quick and Dirty: Here is how Casting works
Your parents, grandparents, and their parents before them are all tradesmen – carpenters, blacksmiths, mechanics, etc. You approach adulthood and you want to be professional – doctor, lawyer, merchant, banker, etc. You cannot. You’re locked in. For some historical reason, it was deemed that people from certain levels or castes just aren’t capable of achieving certain kinds of work or higher level thinking. Accept your station in life.

Perhaps the best examples of casting are those once practiced in India and Apartied South Africa. But the United States once had a casting system and some contend still does. Africans (Blacks) were servants and laborers. This caste was institutionalized as Slavery and legally prevented Blacks from having say over their own lives and systematically excluded them from educational and intellectual development opportunities. This meant, even if one wanted to become a professional, the deck was stacked against him. Even after Slavery was abolished, most Blacks were still occupying servant and labor trades and later branched into entertainment. Other groups had their own hang-ups, too.

What I find interesting today is that many Black people still unconsciously buy into this. An example: While teaching a Fair East-side, I recruited some great bright students to do a summer research internship at the university. Now, I’m the only Black graduate student in my department, so I managed to convince my very liberal, mostly white faculty to support this program. The students worked alongside professors and graduate students and made significant contributions to their research projects. As the program came to a close, I realized that most of my students had virtually no family support. They were dogged by their families and accused of wasting their time with those “white folks doing science”. Especially, for the girls, their families told them to focus on more meaningful activities so that they could take care of themselves or ‘get a man’ to take care of them later. Basically, they were wasting their time developing their minds because they should have been focusing on being more domestic. One student wanted to go to college and become an ornithologist, another a marine biologist. Both of their families recommended they become nurse assistants – not even nurses or doctors – but someone’s assistant! They graduated a year ago, neither one is in college yet. I am so upset. These are VERY bright young ladies, but their families were CASTING them.

Now, my employees: Same thing. They just don’t see themselves (truly) as fully capable pre-professionals. They so often count themselves out because they are black or come from a poor black neighborhood. They are casting themselves. The liberal in me is reluctantly conceding to some of Dr. Shelby Steele's points.

Back to Accept your station in life.
This notion seems to the underlying tone in the class struggle of Blacks in America. Whenever colleged or ambitious blacks try to do something more than the rest of their peers, they are often knocked back and told to not get too uppidty. They are teased and sometimes harrassed byt their less-ambitious low achieving black peers. Why is that? If you're having a hard time visualizing this, there are 2 cinematic examples of this self-casting madness.

Example 1: Raisin the Sun. The sister wants to be a doctor and the brother insinuates that "she thinks she's too good", being a doctor is inappropriate for her because she is a female, perhaps because they are are black and poor.
Example 2: School Daze. The Fellas are trying to enjoy some fried chicken and the neighborhood guys are harassing the college boys. In the parking lot, Samuel Jackson's character tells them "you think you're better...but you just Niggas, just like us."

These negative attitudes sicken me because there are enough *other people* who think that Black folk are less intelligent, less motivated, less caring, and less capable of professionalism.
"Accept your station in life. Stop trying to jump caste." Why do some of our people play into that racist madness psychology?

1 in 100 Americans in Prison or Jail

Sumitted by BJS on ScienceBlog, a recent report by the Pew Center, found that a higher ratio of Americans are in jail or prison this year.

Here are some excerpts/main points:

• At the start of 2008, 2,319,258 adults were held in American prisons or jails, or one in every 99.1 men and women, according to the study. During 2007, the prison population rose by more than 25,000 inmates
• 36 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons saw their prison populations increase in 2007
• While one in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, the figure is one in nine for black males in that age group.
• Men are still roughly 13 times more likely to be incarcerated, but the female population is expanding at a far brisker pace.
• For black women in their mid- to late-30s, the incarceration rate also has hit the one-in-100 mark.
• In addition, one in every 53 adults in their 20s is behind bars; the rate for those over 55 is one in 837.
• Last year alone, states spent more than $49 billion on corrections, up from $11 billion 20 years before, a 315 percent jump

At this rate, it'll be cheaper and safer to lock up law-abiding citizens and let the inmates run free. Be sure to read the entire article.

Inferiority Complex of low SES blacks

Today at work – yes, I’m still hanging in there – one of my 2 employees did and said something that really disturbed me.
While completing an assignment - which included proof reading, making some corrections and putting everything in the right format (font, spacing, etc) - he exhaled loudly and complained. He didn’t want to finish the work and exclaimed that “these white people were getting on my nerves. They can do all of that kind of stuff. I can’t do it.” Do what I asked. “All of that specific stuff. White people are better at that stuff.” I asked why. Does being black mean we are any less capable of doing detailed work? “Yes”, he replied. I corrected him. The other co-worker chimed in too. I finished by saying that as long as he had that type of attitude he had counted himself and every other Black person out.
But his remarks aren’t uncommon. Actually, among all of the team members (15 in all), such subtle remarks about black people’s inferiority and white peoples superiority are made often. These young (and not-so-young) Black adults from this crazy poor neighborhood all express in one way or the other that being Black means 2 things.
1) Exempt from meeting standards. e.g. don’t have to be professional; don't have to treat others with respect – namely members from partner agencies and organizations, people in the office building; feel entitled to do whatever and it should be okay - everyone else should just know and understand that we’re black and that means we can be loud, cuss, talk about personal business; not dress appropriately; show up late, etc.

2) Can never achieve true success. e.g. Black people can’t afford to live in lofts or nice homes; people in certain neighborhoods or businesses don’t want us someplace and therefore we should avoid certain things; can never really be promoted or have real authority in a company, successful blacks are tokens or puppets that work at the will of (often lower-ranking) white people, etc.

Crack smoking, ain’t it? That’s why every chance I get I introduce them to successful black people – accoutants, Engineers, COOs, Supervisors, etc., if possible people from their neighborhood or similar neighborhoods. They seem excited to meet a successful black person, ask good questions, and seem inspired. But they still say crazy stuff like this.

Getting a Good Job vs. Finding the Perfect Career

I visited with family and friends of family this weekend. Catching up was nice. But visit after visit, the conversation was all about economics -- the economics of poor folk. Everyone was on the same tip - I'm going to truck driving school and make some good money. Great, I thought. Driving trucks is great. Entrepreneurship is wonderful. But I've always been concerned about false hope of entrepreneurship. Owning your own business is good, but if you don't plan, budget, save, invest, and spend wisely, then the moment you stop working, then you're back to being as broke as you were before.

I see it all the time, with my family, friends, former students, even my own employees. They want more, but have no idea what to do. They are tired of being broke, are eager to try this job and that job, anything that pays good money, but still are chasing the rabbit. What's up with that? I thought of one friend in particular. I thought she could really benefit from what I called a career fitting. Just like getting fitted for a tuxedo, or ladies for under garments, one should be sized up (by a capable and experienced fitter) to find the career that wears best on you. I thought mysellf very clever, such a perfect phrase to describe the best way to help people figure out their life's work. I was going to copyright the term, but before, I did a quick google of the term. Seems someone else has also (independently) arrived at the same phrase and definition. So please, check it out. They defined and outlined it so perfectly, so why reinvent the wheel?

But I think it's the perfect thing to help folks like my employees and others from the working class poor transition into a more financially secure lifestyle.

Bad Behavior and Future Success

I've worked with high schools and it can be frustrating. And though all teens are a pain the neck, I was up-in-arms over the youth I worked with at "Fair East-side". They were bad. Unruly. Foul-mouthed. Promiscuous. Violent. Unashamed. But I also saw their human side. The youn man who came to school smelling of weed who slept in 1st period everyday. I soon found out he was the only able-bodied, sane-minded person in the house and sold drugs all night to keep food in the house and a roof over his, his ailing grandfather and (I suspect) cracked out mom's heads.
No easy answers. All hard questions.

But they were all knuckle heads. Just didn't want to listen. Angry. Many for good reason. Others because of lack of patience with older adults and the 'failure' to comprehend socially accepted ways of behaving.

I'm no psychologist, sociologist or social worker, so I won't pretend to know all of the right things to say. And I am aware of the challenges but it just still seems to me that...Not acting right can get you in a whole heap of trouble and block your blessings.

Take my employees. Though adults, they are emotionally & psychologically grown-ass high schoolers. Immature. Behave unprofessionally. Easily riled. Take all criticisms personally. Want to react (and often) fight if anyone calls them on their inappropriate behavior. Uncouth..Not only are they unprofessional, undisciplined, they are oblivious. They fail to take note of the models of professional behavior of others around them (me, other supervisors, adminstrative personnell, etc.) They have to be reminded of what they are doing wrong, what to do right..ALL OF THE TIME. I really hate that part of my job (and no, I can't get rid of them. The social workers who I work with and work for, aren't as frustrated or alarmed by their behavior as I am. Interestingly, they also don't offer any assistance with addressing these behavior issues).

But a team of researchcers, funded by the NSF, have found that young children who are disruptive (read, bad assess) in school can keep up educationally. However, if these behavioral problems aren't stemmed and continue it can interfere with some aspects of academic achievement. But even more compelling is the relationship between bad behavior in school and lack of success later in life...in other words the inability to get along well with others, take direction, improve performance, can interfer with one's chances to a land good education &/or job opportunities.

I swear I see that in my crew of employees. And they even talk about how much time they spent in trouble in school, dropping out, fighting (all of the time) cursing out teachers, etc. Billy Bad Asses they were and still are.

And this isn't lack of intelligence. No the opposite. My employees are smart, not formally educated, but full of potential. And the study hints to the same thing. I think these little devils are bored, finish their work early and then terrorize their classmates in the freetime. Teachers & other students get tired of them and socially ostracise them (I don't blame them. I want to pitch them off of a tall bridge, too.) Having failed to become 'properly' socialized they don't the same kind of education (formal or informal) or chances as other, well-behaved children. They just don't fit it. They aren't invited to participate in door-opening activities and clubs. And I think this might be especially important for black kids from the hood who have been bussed into wealthier schools with white students or to an intergrated school. They miss out on better educational opportunities or job offers. They're the smart, but unrefined and failed to meet their potential, and become the you-just-don't-belong-here adults.

What to do? What to do?