Feelings and Ideas

I do root cause analysis and in many cases the answer is "You have stupid ideas." 

And to me that's EXACTLY like "The porch needs to be repaired." Because that's why you're hurting, either figuratively or sometimes literally.

In my twenties while in therapy for my sexual and relationship problems, I dreamed that I went to a Laundromat to do my laundry. There were people patiently waiting in line for an available machine though half the machines weren't in use.

The attendant immediately ushered me forward to an empty machine and everyone standing in line glared at me like I was preventing them from getting their needs met immediately.

In my thirties, I got a diagnosis better than hypochondriac and whiny bitch and my physical health began to improve dramatically. I had a similar dream about going to the hospital and signing in and being called up for my appointment to see a physician while people sitting in the waiting area without signing in glared at me for being helped before them when they had been waiting longer.

I have read that aid organizations have trouble treating things like stunting because if you try to tell poorly educated villagers to not let the children play in the same dirt where chickens poop, they complain you are criticizing and interfering with their culture.

I write elsewhere about my opinion that high consumption of pork while being advised to limit salt intake is likely a major factor in high blood pressure in Black Americans. Their high pork diet is rooted in historic slavery and it's an extremely thorny issue to try to address, especially as a nominally White American (I identify as mixed race and explain that on Native Influence).

My father dropped out of the tenth grade and later taught college ROTC. He had all kinds of baggage about college educated assholes.

I was involved in the online gifted education community in my thirties and as part of that I attended a Beyond IQ conference once. It was at that point I began to think differently about my parents and their views they were humble, uneducated working stiffs -- my mom identified as The Maid for decades -- and also everyone they knew was a MORON.

I NEVER said it to either of them but I began to snarkily think "If you are average AND everyone you know is dumber than you, where is the other half of the population that's smarter than you???"

I am my father's daughter and one of my rude hobbies used to be taking down the arguments of people with PhDs in online forums that aggravated me. Sometimes, moderators apparently approved of that hobby because they once approved my emails doing that when I was on review because my medical situation gave me rampant foot in mouth disease.

I probably stopped doing that after getting a Certificate in GIS, the equivalent of Masters level course work though I still didn't have a bachelor's degree. Life has gotten in the way of further education and I don't have big feels about that because getting my Certificate in GIS without a bachelor's did something for me emotionally and I care a lot less about something in that regard.

The point I'm trying to make and probably failing to make is my daddy was part Cherokee and he absolutely hated college educated White men in positions of authority. My parents said things like "How do you know a politician is lying? His lips are moving."

So I think I understand why Black Americans don't really want to hear the opinions of ANY White people about anything about their lives.

I'm not White people. I'm Doreen Traylor and I wish you would try to see me as an individual and not as a White American.

I know and I write about the fact that America is rife with poisonous IDEAS KILLING your people.

Like it's YOUR fault you have high blood pressure because you eat too much salt.

And you don't exactly welcome some honky saying you should eat more salt and less pork because I'm attacking your culture. 

First of all:

I'm not actually SAYING that. I'm not ACTUALLY instructing ANYONE to do ANYTHING. 

I'm a BLOGGER running my big fat mouth on the Internet and I don't have ANY authority to "tell" you what to do in the sense of issuing orders.

Furthermore, what I ACTUALLY say is "I THINK this is probably going on. AND you could check it for yourself if you want to. Here's a post with information on how to do that SAFELY."

IF you WANT to. 

Second of all:

That culture is based on and rooted in historic slavery and I wish you could separate out pride in their survival instinct and creativity in coming up with ENOUGH to eat at all from high pork consumption per se.

You can STILL eat pork. Just LESS of it. And/or salt it MORE.

I'm not asking you to outright abandon your traditional foods. Just rethink them a little and tweak your diet.

This post is not REALLY intended to be about Black Americans and high blood pressure. That's like a case study.

It's about: Your ideas have health impacts. 

That's not woo. It's a fact.

And sometimes feelings and social baggage etc. get in the way of fixing that particular problem. If I had ANY sense, I would do something else with my time, because THIS ain't paying my bills.