Asymmetric

Roy Masters has said some of the most profoundly insightful things I've ever heard. Sometimes, he's just plain wrong like when he predicted disaster in the year 2000. He said something interesting last night- that America's enemies won't attack America while Obama's president because Obama will destroy America for them. Now, go get your grain of salt.

Popular music can be a powerful sociology tool because it's most often an unconscious, organic reflection of prevailing attitudes (an soon-to-be-updated analysis of Cuban attitudes towards America is here) The last couple of months having been a time to meditate on race, I wanted to see what Cuban popular music of the time can tell us about race relations in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

Methodology.

Pre-revolutionary Cuban music is more reliable for this purpose because it wasn't a government propaganda tool. The songs I've assembled for this post are representative of the general themes in Cuban music in pre-Castro Cuba- not exceptions. I will use no other sources except the music, a story, and my own brain.

Blacks' place in Cuban society.

One of the first items on my father's “to-do" when he arrived in Miami, Florida in the late fifties was to acquire a driver license. He set out to accomplish that task one fine tropical morning and, upon entering the Miami DMV, noticed that one side was bustling with people while the other side was empty. Neither a fool nor the only man in history who wished to extend his DMV experience, my father went to take the test on the empty side. The security guard gently nudged him back to the populated side and pointed to a sign. The sign indicated that side was for “colored” people. The experience surprised my father.

Blacks, you see, were generally regarded as being of lower social status in Cuba, but their status wasn't codified into law. In the American South, black inferiority was a legal reality. Cuban blacks had a greater amount of social mobility than American blacks- their race was an inhibition, not an impenetrable barrier.

The pre-fifties Cuban approach to race was encapsulated in the terms, "money whitens" and negro fino (literally, "fine black person" to be read as "classy" or "articulate."). All things being equal, whites had a social advantage. Of course, all things are never equal (money, looks, talent, etc.). The song above, "Negro de Sociedad" by Orquesta America tells of a black wife who embarrasses her black husband at an upscale affair by dancing the rumba, the “blackest” Cuban dance, seen by the party attendees, apparently, as uncivil.

The song's very name and that the singer's embarrassed shows the black disadvantage, that the black person is there in the first place proves the possibility of black social mobility, and that Orquesta America makes a joke about it says that people didn't take the “money whitens” concept completely seriously. One imagines the situation closer to a modern black businessman's rapping cousin busting a few rhymes at a corporate cocktail party than a turn-of-the-century Alabama woman bringing her black boyfriend home to pa'.

Cuba Morning: Great Bands of the Fifties

“De Que te Vale,” by Antonio Machin asks, “What good is it to be blanco y rubio ("white and blond") when you have no shame?” Both physical traits, then, were good ones to have in pre-rev Cuban society. Like any moderately well-ordered society, however, character trumps phenotype and race.

Ese Soy Yo by antonio machin

Black and white beauty.

In “Negra Bembon” by Arcano y sus Maravillas, a girl puts on airs because her hair is straighter and her skin color lighter than the rest of the people in the solar (ghetto). The narrator doesn't criticize her for thinking that lighter and straighter is better- the concept. He mocks her inaccurate self-image. She is, in fact, big-lipped and black, “just like him.” One can interpret "Negra Bembon" as the singer both acceding to white superiority in appearance and not questioning its justice. His only complaint is the woman's false pride.

The Best of Cuba

A white beauty standard, then?

Not quite. There are far more pre-revolutionary songs celebrating the beauty of the Cuban mulatta* (literally, "mule." It's a person of mixed black and white heritage.) than there are songs lauding white features.

Similar to how the Rolling Stones see black women in Brown Sugar, classic Cuban music praises mulatas for their beauty, dancing ability, and warmth, the last of which may be a euphemism.

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Tags: afro-cuban, afrocuban, contrast american racism, ethnomusicology, history, how were black treated in cuba, racism in cuba, racismo en cuba

Question, if Obama's plan will reduce health care costs, why will it "cost" 634 billion dollars? We also know the uninsured figure is a lie.

Article.

Obama is also proposing a $634 billion health care "reserve fund" aimed at reforming the system. In order to fund it, Obama will ask wealthy Americans to accept a tax increase and wealthy seniors to pay higher Medicare premiums.

The reserve fund will be used only for reforming the system by cutting costs and trying to deal with the 46 million Americans without health insurance.

My friends brought the story below to my attention. It's an example of how government, the legal system especially, makes people worse. McDonald's doesn't want to pay for Nigel Haskett's medical bills because they're being selfish. The positive publicity itself would justify the cost.

The only reason that McDonald's hesitates is to avoid liability: they're afraid of the lawsuits that would arise from not sufficiently discouraging heroic behavior. In other words, the legal system forces McDonald's to implement rules that promote docility in the face of evil.

If McDonald's were to accept responsibility for Nigel Haskett (God bless him), they may have to pay more money in the long run because employees would feel empowered to act bravely and thus possibly incur more injuries. Or, McDonald's would open themselves up to more litigation as attorney's would find fault with McDonald's for not having as clear an intervention policy.

The McDonald's policy should be to have a list of good practices while rewarding good decisions when they're made. Such a policy would only be possible if McDonald's weren't completely responsible for all of the damage that may ensue.

In the Haskett case, specifically, McDonald's should not set a precedent by accepting responsibility while finding the money, through donations, to pay for Mr. Haskett's injuries. I know that I'd be willing to give a few bucks.

In a sane world, good deeds like paying your mortgage on time, being brave, and making cars that people like, would be rewarded. We, however, live in a Bizarro world. Our legal system sometimes benefits the bad and greedy. It makes people worse.

Final point: Most of the commentary from the left has been a variation of "McDonald's is rich, etc." Once we accept the premise that whoever has the most money, should pay, we cease to be a justice-based system and become a relativistic and, by definition, unjust one.
Story below:

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Tags: mcdonalds hero, mcdonalds stingy

**update**

Our esteemed Attorney General called all of us out last week. Ok, Mr. Eric Holder, I accept your challenge- I'm no coward. I will bravely stride across the minefield that is race conversation and bring to my readers the most gorgeous women, by race. You can listen to Eric Burdon and War's great paean to Benettonism, "Spill the Wine," as you browse.

The Best of Eric Burdon & War

Rules:

Since Eric Holder specified "race in America," all of the women on the list have to be apple pie-eating, girl-next-door, bona fide Yanks. I realize that I can pick Rae Dawn Chong and be done with it, but I'm not that lazy. Also, the "Raquel Welsh rule" is in effect (no "in her day" provisos).

The most beautiful Armenian woman in America is Kim Kardashian.

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Tags: "hetersexuality test", "most beautiful girls by race", "most beautiful indian woman", "most beautiful mexican", "most beautiful race", "prettiest girls of each race", "prettiest race"