Cynique

Everyone has intelligence. Some people simply have more of it, than others.

If comprehension is linked to understanding, then how can it and knowledge not be the same. I think the difference is between knowledge and education. Knowledge you can acquire on your own by the comprehension acquired through experience.

Colin had a job as Quarterback for the 49ers. He had to have known that his knee-bending protest would jeopardize his being re-signed, but he made a choice. I don't think money is that much of an issue with him the way he has been throwing it around, donating it to black causes. He may even be ready to move on from football. If he wanted or needed a job, wouldn't he have sued the NFL?

@TroyI said the woman was mixed "breed" and your breakdown of her ethnic make-up, verifies this. And i regard both Pioneer's statement that he knows Italian women who look like this woman except that they have darker skin and your agreement that race is in the eye of the beholder, ambiguous to the point of being meaningless.

@Pioneer1That's really an ambiguous response. But i'll let Troy deal with it because you directed your answer to him.

@Pioneer1The Good Times episode wasn't what i had in mind, when i said your observations sounded familiar. Something is always learned form what living human beings experience. What is learned from observation is subject to remaining ignorant because looks can be deceiving.

Kaepernick recently signed a million dollar book deal with a Random house publishing company to write his story. He may have forfeited his football career but he won't be hurting.

Humm. Wonder why those observations sound familiar??

Until Pioneer responds, as someone who wrestles with the idea of race being an artificial construct, i would guess that this woman is a mixed breed. That's permed hair. Hair is always the giveaway.

So reading comprehension is not comprehended by those who test for it. Another example of "experts" coming up with the wrong conclusion because their propositions are stated wrong. This happens across the board which is why, in the work place, so many people are promoted to their level of incompetency; why street-smarts can often trump book-learning. I've always been impressed with how articulate black athletes are when asked, in post game interviews, why their team won or lost a game. Sports jocks, however, are notorious for being uninformed about academic subjects. i don't have to read an article to know that the educational system needs to be overhauled; class rooms are tailor-made for the convenience of teachers, not students. Not disrupting the class room and regurgitating what the instructor has dished out to you is the main way a pupil will be rewarded with a letter grade that corresponds with excellent. But "C" students may be more capable than "A" students when it comes to surviving adversity because the "C" ones have gotten into the habit of figuring things out for themselves. Of course comprehension is enabled by your environment. Who doesn't know that experience is the best teacher??

@TroyI'll take credit for being right that Kaepernick's knee-bending accomplished what dramatic protests are designed to do: make waves and create repercussions. NFL owners, Donald Trump and other black athletes, were either agitated or inspired by Kaepernick, and a majority of white Americans showed their true colors when they disapproved of this demonstration because it forced them to stomach the idea that the American flag flies over a racist country, and is a meaningless piece of cloth when it comes to equal just for all under the law. Most NFL owners have been forced to find ways to placate their players, - nudged into putting their money where their mouths are to the tune of donating 85 million dollars to black causes, while Trump and the defiant NFL owners has been further exposed as the racist numb skulls that they are. The media has given honorable recognition to Kaepernick's for sacrificing his career to call attention to police misconduct in the black community. This a moral victory, which is pretty much all that black people can hope for in this shitty country. What would have to happen for you to consider your call to boycott Amazon a movement that produced results? Or is it simply a gesture?

Not surprising, Del, since you have no idea what Pioneer looks like due to the fact that he has chosen not to provide a profile picture of himself. (He has previously informed that the man pictured under his screen name is not him.)

@Del Did i say Pioneer wasn't being cautious? Being "chicken" and "tiptoeing around" is a form of exercising caution.

To me, the whole tone of the above post was one of petulance and indignation. But that's an impression more than a projection. When i said you sounded disillusioned i didn't mean with this country, but with people you interacted with here. i have no love for America but i wouldn't move to a faraway location. For me, that would be more trouble than it's worth and i like poking fun at black folks who do love this jive-assed country.

@DelYour transparency is showing, babe. i find you much too emotionally involved in all of this. I've often wondered why you, a black man, took up residence in faraway Australia. Curious as to whether it was because you wanted to get away from it all, - that you were disillusioned with what you were dealing with in America, and you needed a change of scenery. i get the impression that you are hyper sensitive and take things very personally when it comes to having your postulations devalued, and you have difficulty in handling what you perceive as not being given your due. It's like Troy's arbitrariness has bruised your ego. So now you turn to Pioneer, who you previously dismissed because he didn't take your predictions and astrological claims seriously, and you do an about-face, heaping flattery upon him to get back at Troy. Meanwhile, Pioneer settles into his false modesty mode by "deferring" to the academic credentials of others even as he totally rejects their educated rebuttals, preferring his "scientific" versions which originate in the school where he is the principal and whose motto is: "we are right, no matter what". Troy cruises along, insulated by his unwavering loyalty to science, seizing any chance to confront and squelch people with what he denotes as proof of their wrongness, exuding a confidence that borders on smugness, too entrenched to even consider that even Einstein's “E = mc² " equation is now being challenged by scientists. This clash of the "titans" all boils down to the competitive spirit of males and it is interesting to observe their stances. i'm sure you each have your opinion about me which, of course, will roll off my back.

@Pioneer1Yes, i was ignorant of what the phrase meant.That's why i couldn't give an answer. That's the core meaning of what ignorance is; to not know. You can't be confused about something you are not aware of. Meanwhile, you try and pat yourself on the back for being too chicken to just state what the phrase meant, instead of tip-toeing around it, waiting for Del to validate what you were reluctant to say for fear of being wrong. LOL

@Pioneer1This ain't your nation. You are just a stepchild, a member of a group who many would have no problem with deporting back to Africa, and who the idea of rewarding reparations for slavery to, is laughed off. There is no large concentration of "wealth " in the black population, no black manufacturers or black monopolies.There are very few black traders on Wall Street, no sports franchises owned exclusively by blacks. Blacks don't even have a representative in the U. S. Senate. and only a right-wing conservative lackey on the Supreme Court. We had a figure head black president whose legacy is being systematically erased by Republicans. And currently have a bunch of mayors presiding over deteriorating urban metropolises. There was a thriving little self-sufficient black community in Oklahoma back in the early 1930s and The Great White Father annihilated it. Why? Because this ain't your country and never has been. Was America really built on the shoulders of black men, thereby making this country theirs?? Slaves, who were considered 2/3rd human, were just a part of the manforce that built this country. The difference between them and white immigrants, is that the immigrants were paid meager wages. The Chinese built the railroads on the west coast, and the labor gangs of Italians and Irish, who were once regarded with almost as much contempt as blacks, built the infra-structures of the cities. Today black males make up over half of those incarcerated in privately-owned prisons, where they are paid less than a dollar an hour. Blacks in this country are currently relegated to the roles of entertainers and athletes existing for the amusement and diversion of white fans. They also populate a large underclass of common laborers, and a modest middle-class of traditional professions that provide a few high profile tokens to enhance the image of well-known corporations. They are also a part of the rank and file of the military. All blacks are primarily consumers, dependent on the goods and services provided for them by white companies, and they take great pride in being able to afford the brand names of these stores. As for the China towns and Mexican sections in big cities, they are not industries. They are cloistered ethnic enclaves, sustained by outsiders and tourists who patronize them primarily for their food and novelty souvenirs. These areas are actually monolithic ghettos. Furthermore, what is the incentive for blacks to become entrepreneurs when it's so easy to be catered to by people hungry for your dollars, a choice that will relieve them of the stress and strain and failure that await all but the most capable among those who strike out on their own, pursuing the elusive American dream. Worst of all, things are not getting better; they are getting worst in a country that is coming apart at the seams. It has reached the point of being a case of every "man" for himself, - of finding a way to just avoid the pitfalls of not being white and rich. Like Del suggests, if you want to solve a problem, you need to correctly state it, or you will get an irrelevant solution. Blacks need to set forth a pertinent viable proposition and the logical conclusion will go a long way toward dissipating their "problem".

@Pioneer1Has The White power structure gotten this memo? And shall blacks hold their collective breaths in anticipation of this controlling force allowing what you recommend to happen? Pie-in-the-sky dreams; tired, empty rhetoric that dates back to almost a hundred years ago. None of what you parrot will come into fruition unless African-Americans amass in a separate territory and establish their own nation. The logisitics of doing this is mind-blowing on so many levels. Oration is one thing. Accomplishment is something else.

@Pioneer1That's not an example of confusion on my part; i was clueless. Confusion was when you weren't sure whether or not what you thought Wednesday, Thursday, Friday meant was right. Something you admitted to.

@TroyThe superficial physicality of the term "breed" serves as a convenience when it comes to distinguishing one person from another. Its parallel in the canine species would be exemplified when it came to identifying a pit bull as the dog who bit you as opposed to a beagle. i don't think there is really a need to come up with a single word that encapsulates all that you imagine. Like-minded humans naturally gravitate toward each other in the course of interacting, and their common mentality draws them into groups which various adjectives can be used to describe. "Cosmopolitan" is one adjective that comes to mind when describing humans of a certain ilk. The ultimate ideal goal should, after all, be for individuals to transcend the physical and relate to those with whom they are intellectually and emotionally in sync with; a meeting of the minds. For instance, i am more at home with "white" individuals who share my meta-physical and philosophical interests than i am with blindly religious or Afro-centric "black" people yearning to elevate their self esteem. And believing that there are different races is not an example of being "poorly educated". But is a case of science correcting itself when different facts were considered. The idea that there were 3 racial stocks, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid, each of which was divided into sub-divisions was all that was taught until fairly recently, and this theory was accepted because it made sense.That's why it is so hard to refute. And at this point, contending that there is only one race is an exercise in futility, because the claim does not hold up in practice. In the real world, there is no color blindness when it comes to human perception and that's the bottom line. Our eyes, defy science.

@Pioneer1I displayed a specific picture and referred to the man in it as my "fantasy". And, as usual, you endeavor to contradict a fact by offering a response that is both false and illogical except in your confused mind. A perfect example of how your addled brain works. Yum, yum, fellow human being of another breed.

@harry brownYes, we can thank Colin Kaepernick's knee bending protests for nudging the AFL owners into making this gesture. Unfortunately, your are right about whether the money will trickle down to the people it is meant to help. Sports Illustrated magazine honored Kaepernick with the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, and GQ magazine named him "Citizen of the Year". He was also honored by Native Americans at an indigenous peoples sunrise ceremony.

This whole discussion about race boils down to semantics, and like most of the arguments on this board, it is rife with "specious sophistry". Since a blond blue-eyed Scandinavian and a black African and a yellow hued Japanese all look the same inside then, like dogs, humans can be categorized by breeds. if the word "race" is interchangeable with the word "breed", then the argument dissipates. When language becomes a barrier rather than a doorway, then resolution is locked out. (Oxford dictionaries should consider inducting into its annals the word "breedism" if it ever becomes common usage.) "Cognitive dissonance" is a lot more prevalent than we realize. It's very difficult to separate individuals from their dogmas. Any attempt to do this is complicated by challenging and discrediting the sources of those with whom a person is disagreeing. We tend to believe that science is infallible in spite of how many scientific axioms have changed with the discovery of new data. We also become mesmerized by anecdotal evidence. In my search for the truth, it has become increasingly evident that truth is relevant because there is a truth, and then there is the whole truth. Now pardon me while i return to fantasizing about my fellow human being pictured below. Wonder if he is descended from the Barbarians "living in caves and killing each other for food' while Egyptians were being conquered by Rome???

Are these scientists concerned about climate change being real, or about climate change being unrealistic?

Yada, yada, yada. i don't really care about what you can't figure out. Which is most things.