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Yesterday, the website of Psychology Today allowed an evolutionary psychologist named Satoshi Kanazawa to post a set of bar graphs meant to prove how black women are “objectively and subjectively” uglier than white, Asian and Native American women.

The post, which was an installment of Kanazawa’s “Scientific Fundamentalist” blog, was titled “Why Are African American Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?”—until someone at Psychology Today tweaked the headline to read, “Why Are Black Women Rated Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women, But Black Men Are Rated Better Looking Than Other Men?”

Although the change simply shifted the emphasis from racism to sexism, I’m thinking the editors were attempting to science-up things a bit. Sadly, changing a headline—then yanking the post without explanation—didn’t change the truth: a national publication that claims to have created a space for “leading academics, clinicians and authors in our field to contribute their thoughts and ideas in the form of blogs,” has hosted some of the shoddiest scientific racism since “The Bell Curve.”

Why Kanazawa’s Work is Shoddy 

I resent using my time on Earth to debunk bullshit. But since I’m arguing about how racist, sexist and tacky Kanazawa’s argument is, here goes:

Kanazawa, who draws a paycheck for teaching students at the London School of Economics, built his graphs on data from Add Health. Add Health is a massive longitudinal study commissioned and funded by the United States federal government to examine adolescent health outcomes. Starting in 1994, thousands of 7th to 12th graders from across the country filled out detailed surveys at their schools and some participated in follow-up interviews at their homes. Researchers wanted to identify factors that “may influence adolescents’ health and risk behaviors, including personal traits, families, friendships, romantic relationships, peer groups, schools, neighborhoods, and communities.”

Over the next 14 years, the multiracial group of participants continued to take Add Health surveys. According to the study administrators at the University of North Carolina’s Population Center, the adult phases of Add Health have “enabled researchers to study developmental and health trajectories across the life course of adolescence into adulthood.”

Now, Kanazawa didn’t base his baseless invective on the thousands of survey responses. Instead, he looked at how researchers rated the appearance of the adolescents and later the adults taking the survey. Here’s how he explains the data he used:

“At the end of each interview, the interviewer rates the physical attractiveness of the respondent objectively on the following five-point scale: 1=very unattractive, 2= unattractive, 3=about average, 4=attractive, 5=very attractive. The physical attractiveness of each Add Health respondent is measured three times by three different interviewers over seven years.”

I’m confused about how these data are objective. Did some bias-free robots from the utopian ether descend upon each testing site to perform this portion of the evaluation? Or were the interviewers human beings, subject to the same racism, sexism, ablelism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, fat phobia and whateverthehellelsephobia that undergirds beauty standards?

My intention here isn’t to dog out Add Health. I don’t trust Kanazawa to use their work properly, and since he doesn’t identify which subset he’s using, who the interviewers were, or what the study’s architects hoped to learn from the ratings, I can’t cross check this mad scientist.

What I know for sure: Kanazawa is just a bigot with a Ph.D, tenure, and a blog. He’s a twisted man who in 2008 championed Ann Coulter for president because he believed she would have dropped “35 nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East killing all of our actual and potential enemy combatants, and their wives and children. On September 13, the war would have been over and won, without a single American life lost.” I could go on, but it’s a waste of energy.

Why This Matters

To wind up this post, which gives Kanazawa way more attention than he deserves, I’m going to share a few personal anecdotes about black women and our alleged ugliness. Most women I know have such stories, but what makes them real and dangerous rather than one-offs of bad luck or true indications of attractiveness is the legacy of racist pseudoscience like Kanazawa’s. His mess is overt and sloppy, so it’s easy to debunk. I’m worried about how the underpinnings of his ideas have transcended centuries and nations, and how there’s still a financial incentive for publishing them.

Anyway, a few real-life examples of Kanazawa-style theorizing:

  1. On my second day of high school, a black girl who had befriended me described how a crew of boys and girls had been discussing my appearance. The consensus was that I was cute, until one outlier announced, “She ain’t cute; she look like a monkey!” My so-called friend wouldn’t name the outlier.

  2. In college, when I had my short, natural Ceasar and wardrobe of long, flowing skirts, a black boyfriend from Harlem told me I was very attractive—to him. “My boys at home wouldn’t get it,” he said of my “big eyes and big, white healthy teeth.”

  3. In my mid 20s, a Dominican-American gentleman leered at me during New York City’s infamously hectic Caribbean Day Parade. When I didn’t respond, he announced, “It’s funny how the ugly ones have the worst attitudes. And she got a flat ass. And she’s black?”

  4. Working at a now-defunct magazine, I had heard that a high ranking member of the fashion team didn’t “use” black models because they were “ugly and fat.” That didn’t stop me from suggesting a conventionally attractive black friend of mine for a column that set everyday people up on blind dates. The photo editor, an often disheveled white woman, groused about having to shoot “these ugly people.” When I pointed out that one half of the supposedly unsightly duo was a close friend, she replied, “And?”

See? Science.

For a PDF of Kanazawa’s post, click here. Over at Racialicious, Latoya Peterson has five easy steps to debunk crap science—with pictures!

 

Update: Just seeing how Psychology Today’s race blogger Mikhail Lyubansky, Ph.D. did a thorough rebuttalyesterday. Not thrilled with sending traffic to the site, but his column is on point. 

>via: http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/05/satoshi_kanazawa_is_a_scientific.html

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When we embrace our curvy bodies, we’re told we’re fat. When we accept our thin frames, we’re accused of lazy or bad cooks. We’ve been charged with nursing and caring for  the children of our white employers from Antebellum times through today, but we’re constantly being portrayed as bad mothers. We put a weave in our  hair trying conform to a beauty standard that has nothing to do with us and we’re still called “nappy-headed hoes”. When we go to school, get degrees and a career, we’re “un-marry-able”. If we work and have kids early instead of going to school, same thing happens. When we or others decide to celebrate us, white women scream out “REVERSE RACISM” but we have to comb through 50-11 magazines with white women on every page to find ONE with a Black woman on the cover. We bare it all in a video or keep condoms in our nightstands and we’re called  sluts. We dedicate ourselves to The Church or are decidedly single and we’re prudes or “bitter”. All too often, we are forced to choose our race over our gender or risk feeling the wrath of our Brothers, despite having to live with the realities of both. From Saartjie Baartman aka “Venus Hottentot” to Satoshi Kanazawa’s “scientific” study claiming Black women being less physically attractive than EVERYBODY else, we’ve been studied like freaks of nature instead of just regarded as human beings with the same value as all others.

We’re pretty much damned if we do, damned if we don’t. So, the stereotype of “The Angry Black Woman” is rooted in a very visceral truth. We’re tired of this shyt. Stop telling us to stop getting upset. Stop telling us to not be mad despite having to deal with this crap  ALL THE TIME. Why are we supposed to put up with this reckless disregard for our humanity with a smile on our face? Because we’re women? Because we’re Black? Please, miss me with that bull. We are HUMAN first. This anger is righteous and all ignoring it and the causes of it will do is create a dyspeptic breeding ground for spiritual, psychological, social and physical dis-ease.

 

–Excerpted from “The Matriarchal Legacy of The Black Woman’s Anger

Photo Credit: Lynette’s Two Cents

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Racialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. Check out our daily updates on the latest celebrity gaffes, our no-holds-barred critique of questionable media representations, and of course, the inevitableKeanu Reeves John Cho newsflashes.

Latoya Peterson is the Owner and Editor of Racialicious, Thea Lim is the Deputy Editor, and Arturo García is the Site Lead. You can email us at team@racialicious.com.

>via: http://ht.ly/4Xpzu

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Academic slammed over 'black women less attractive' research

Academic slammed over \'black women less attractive\' researchATTACKED: Satoshi Kanazawa

AN ACADEMIC at one of Britain's most reputable universities has come under fire over his 'research' supporting the idea that black women are less attractive than other races.

An inflammatory blog from London School of Economics (LSE) psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa was hurriedly removed from the US-based Psychology Today website on Monday (May 16) just hours after it was posted.

Kanazawa has a history of racially-charged research and has been attacked for using flawed science to promote racist stereotypes, including the claim that sub-Saharan Africans have poor health because of low IQ and not poverty.

Fed-up students, graduates and academic contemporaries are now demanding that the LSE reconsider his position at the institution.

Professor Paul Gilroy, a sociology lecturer at the LSE and author of seminal text There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, said: “Kanazawa’s persistent provocations raise the issue of whether he can do his job effectively in a multi-ethnic, diverse and international institution.

“If he announces that he thinks sub-Saharan Africans are less intelligent than other people, what happens when they arrive in his classroom? What happens when they feel that they cannot take his classes because of his widely publicised opinions?”

He added: “The LSE risks disrepute if it fails to take a view of these problems.”

Kanazawa based his piece on the findings of a survey of men and women across the races who were asked to rate each other’s attractiveness. Black women scored the least, even though they marked themselves highly.

Among the criticisms was his motivation for the research, the lack of scientific grounding and a lack of context. He did not explore the idea that women were measured against the dominant European ideals of beauty.

Kanazawa, whose website carries the slogan ‘prepare to be offended’, was himself unable to draw any serious conclusion.

After musing it had nothing to do with black women’s ‘lower IQs’, or because they were ‘much heavier on average’ than women of other races, he added: ‘The only thing I can think of that might potentially explain the lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women is testosterone.

‘Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races… Women with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive.’

A campaign group has been formed calling for an end to Kanazawa’s tenure at the leading institution.

Women’s rights activist Rukayah Sarumi, who co-founded LSE: Home of the Racist Academic. Say No, said: "This kind of pseudo science is not only dangerous for black women, but society as a whole. When racism is given legitimacy through the power of science, it emboldens racist and prejudiced organisations and adversely affects the confidence and esteem of young black people. This is not the kind of thing that can be allowed to fester in a progressive society."

>via: http://www.voice-online.co.uk/content.php?show=19692