A letter to my wife, on Race, my childhood, and picking a neighborhood (Part 2 of a series on race based on emails to my family)

 … it is definitely a hard time, for the family, and for the world. It's a long freggin deployment, and it's single parenting at a very needy and energetic age, and it's Corona virus, and it's a world gone insane to the point of killing people in the name of not killing people. It's depressing and horrifying. How it looks to me is at least as bad, at least as depressing, I believe much more so, than how it looks to you. The difference isn't in the feeling, or the strength of that feeling.

There's so much I want to say to you, to try to explain to you, but every time I even think about starting, about where to start, it makes my head hurt and makes me feel like I might cry. I don't know how much of the feeling is from being tired, and how much being tired is because of the feeling.

I believed I had explained this before, but the things you are saying, the relation to raising our kids, calling my arguments "academic", makes me realize either I haven't, or I did a very bad job of it.

What you describe, in terms of not being able to sleep, that's why I spend all of my free time, sleep time if I have to, (occasionally missing work), reading and writing.

I have to.

The last time one of these world events with personal significance happened, I tried to ignore it, I tried to tell myself ‘nothing I say will change anything, I’ve already said everything, just let it go’, and I couldn't let it go.

For days I slept bad, worse and worse, it was all I thought about all day, while I worked, at night in bed, until at last I gave in, and I took the time to look up facts and figures and write down my thoughts. It's happened multiple times. I know better now. Either I put everything else in life aside and do my research and write my conclusions, or the feeling that keeps me up at night won't go away, I’ll be preoccupied with it all day every day forever.  So now for the past 3 days I’ve spent just about every free moment on reading and writing, including this.

Being a black male who grew up in a poor, high crime neighborhood, the topic is personal for me in a way you, your parents, my mother and Lois, not to mention black people who didn't grow up in Richmond or Oakland in the 80s and 90s can not and will not ever really understand.
While I don't expect you to be able to actually fully understand, I am having trouble understanding how you don't even remember or acknowledge that I have lived through the significance of the stuff I say, that it was a constant throughout my childhood, that it was things that happened to me, that I saw, that were traumatic. It is the rest of you for whom all this is theory, it is principle, it is an understanding gained from things you heard from other people. I don't fault you for that, but I do fault you for claiming, still, that my interest is "academic", or “debate”.

I'll try to explain myself better

Elementary school race wasn't really an issue. We had the usual black history month lessons, learned about slavery and the Civil War and the Civil rights movement and Dr. King of course. My parents taught us a little about American history, though not too too in depth yet, at that age.
I had black classmates and friends and neighbors and I was aware that it was a fact that different people look different, but that's really about as far as it went. In elementary school people really didn't form into clicks, the playground was integrated.

Then I went to junior high school.
It was a shock, one I wasn't prepared for. Not only did kids start grouping themselves, but there already started to be obvious differences in culture - those differences that some liberal white people like to pretend aren't there, and other whites focus on exclusively, (forming the two polar groups of thought on Black people…)
In elementary school on a very rare occasion a fight might break out on the playground. In middle school it was every week, often several a week. Almost always at least one of the kids was black, and at least half the time both were, and they all acted like this was normal, like it was expected, and like there wasn't anything wrong with it.
They were the ones who would make noise in class, then be disrespectful to teachers when the teachers called them out. (and inevitably call it racism when they get in trouble). They were the group that would make fun of you for not wearing the right brand of shoe, or for being too smart.
It wasn't everyone, there was my friend who was in chess club, there was C**** T****** who was ½ black, there was the D********'s (though I never actually met them then), there were enough exceptions to avoid generalizing. But they were - WE were just that; exceptions- so it was a challenge, a constant conscious challenge. After school it was the black kids you mostly had to worry about. Venturing into the iron triangle it was definitely the black kids you had to be on guard about. Almost all of the drug dealers  and users, gang members and car jackers and people who would jump you on the street, rob you, break into your house, not 100%, but disproportionately black, by a wide margin.  It was like living in The Wire, (except no police were investing so much time and effort and money into stopping it.)

This was my daily experience, for years, even as at school, at home, on tv, at demonstrations, I was told over and over that there was no difference between people, that only racists thought there was, that the police and justice system were filled with racists and this was the only reason for the disparities in arrest and incarceration.

I would be in these other places, around my mom's LGBT people, or just places away from Richmond, out in the world, and outside the ghetto everyone was so civilized, everyone was peaceful, you didn't have to prove yourself constantly, you didn't have to be afraid. And in those spaces good people didn't acknowledge black crime existed; all disparities were caused purely by racism.
And then I had to go to school the next day, and navigate the real world.
It was black men who would be disrespectful to women on the street, black people who played music excessively loud on public transit. 
 
Whenever I saw any of these things, fights, anti-social stuff, disrespecting teachers, even though I didn't identify as part of that group, I knew that in one way I was, that everyone else would, at least at first glance, associate me with that, and it made me ashamed. Probably the only way to get even close to understanding the significance and strength of that feeling of impersonal shame would be as a Jew watching the treatment of Palestinians - but not just hearing about it here in America, removed from it, but if you were actually there in Israel in person, watching it happen, and then having to interact with all your Palestinian friends and neighbors right after it happened.

 

The bus was the worst. It was so crowded, and all the black kids would sit in the very back, and they would yell and be crazy and sometimes get into fist fights on the actual bus, while it was moving.
I always stayed at the very front of the bus, as far forward as possible. I didn't want to be involved, to get caught up in anything, and I didn't want to be associated with them.
I'm not exactly sure why the bus was the worst, maybe because it was so concentrated, no school yard to spread out in, everyone together, with no teachers to control things, no lessons to distract, the only adult busy driving. All I know is the feelings it triggered were so bad I literally started wearing sunglasses on the bus everyday so no one could see when my eyes started to water.
Avoiding having to be in that environment is the whole reason I started riding my bike to school. On days it rained I opted to walk rather than go back to that bus.
Although I knew it was a select specific subculture, that they didn't really represent me, there was a limit to how much I could compartmentalize and it took a toll on my self esteem.

High school was a lot better. The selection process tended to filter out anyone with a culture hostile to education. It was high performers who got in, involved parents who got them in. We had Shannon Matthewson (who I went to kindergarten with), T*******, M*** D****, G*** B***, the D******'s (who I actually knew this time), all of us black without being ghetto, but the college still had it's share of urban black culture, it was still black people I was robbed and assaulted by, who assaulted my friends, who flashed a gun at me, who did a driveby killing in the crowded campus entryway a few dozen feet from where I and friends were hanging out (and so close to A*** he had to run and hide to avoid getting hit with stray bullets)

I would hear rap music - it was the 90s and the height of gangsta rap, glorifying crime and assault and murder; not just talking about them like it was a tragedy to deal with, but boasting about it, treating it like it was normal, like it was OK. It told me that what I was seeing and experiencing wasn't just a local thing, it wasn't just a fluke, it was a cultural trend that spanned the entire country. The shamelessness of evil was what made me most ashamed of all, and for years I couldn’t listen to any rap at all because of the association I first made.
My first taste of an alternative was the movie Do The Right Thing, by Spike Lee, (in which really no one does the right thing… it's all about race relations in a poor neighborhood, tensions mounting, until a black man gets killed by police, triggering a riot) where I first heard the political rap group Public Enemy, and then I started listening to Digital Underground, who were focused on pleasure and fun and silliness and the good things in life in a way reminiscent of Parliament, and it reassured me that we weren't so rare; young black men who explicitly rejected the culture of violence that had become so prevalent.

All this time, from the very beginning, I never mistook the culture I saw around me for a universal truth.
I always had friends, always had neighbors, obviously always had family, that weren't like that, so I never had any feeling that it was anything inherent or intrinsic to blackness, I never mistook it for genetic or inevitable. More than anything, I had my dad as a role model.

My dad had dark skin and an African name, he wore a kanga hat and he listened to motown and funk and jazz and crazy experimental black musicians like Sun Ra. He had African instruments and wore his hair long and natural and he and his siblings had all been part of the struggle, part of the movement, growing up in the 60s. There was no ambiguity, he wasn’t mixed, wasn’t trying to "act white". And at the same time, he never felt the need to try to act "black" either. He had nothing to prove. He grew up in San Francisco, his father was a cop in a time when most black people considered cops the enemy.

He joined a religion that was an offshoot of Hinduism and became a vegetarian. He was an enthusiast of martial arts, and we used to watch Bruce Lee movies and badly overdubbed Chinese martial arts movies. He played chess and read comic books.

Instead of avoiding everything too "white" on principle, he went to the maritime academy, one of the first ever blacks to do so - resisting the status quo by being the one to trailblaze, to integrate, to break into the all-white space and make it no longer all white, getting himself in a position where he was in charge of white people, a whole ship full of white sailors who had to follow his orders. I believe that took far more courage, and had a far bigger positive impact, then becoming one more in a crowd of angry people making demands.  His life was the change.

He didn't teach me to hate cops or that white people were the enemy. He didn't hide that racism existed or that he had experienced it, he told me his experiences, but he never made them extra dramatic, and he never used it as an excuse for anything. He pointed out racism in media, and in news reports, but he never claimed or implied it somehow made up for black violence or excused crime or rioting.

Two wrongs don't make a right, he would say.
He told me about how he had bought into that narrative as a youth, how he used to use it as an excuse, how he didn't see white people as real people, and he had done crimes and had hurt some random old white guy once and suddenly he realized it was wrong, and ever after that realization turned himself around.

By the time I knew him he had friends of all different races.
He taught me that you don’t have to be or do anything in particular to be black, or to be around certain people.

I knew him first, obviously, and I knew my family (his side was local), before I started to learn all that other stuff, long before junior high, so that was always my baseline, and it's why my later experiences didn't turn me racist. I always knew it was a specific subculture - a really rampant one, but still nothing genetic, and I learned enough about history, both in school and from my parents, to understand how it got to be this way, to understand that it was the ongoing legacy of slavery, and Jim Crow, and poverty. But understanding it didn't stop it from being traumatic and depressing in real time when I was seeing it in front of me.

What I've seen, consistently, in every context, is that black people who are integrated are people who are black. Even if they verbally "identify" as first and foremost "black", and consciously adopt certain cultural aspects, they act like normal civilized people.  They don’t claim police brutality or capitalism or government or white people as an excuse for their own immoral behavior.
Whether it's in a school, or mixed into a neighborhood or job, in the military (where military culture dominates everyone), wherever we are evenly distributed, we are regular happy healthy smart successful people.

But for some reason, once a certain threshold of concentration occurs - especially if there’s a certain level of poverty compared to surrounding regions - people start dropping to the lowest common denominator, and we become the people with a legacy of slavery again, we start acting out the worst stereotypes we have.

Not everyone, of course, but it starts to get disproportionate enough to be noticeable.  It has something to do with the narrative itself: it starts having a self-reinforcing affect proportionate to the concentration of people who believe the narrative applies to them, that they start acting in ways that makes true.  The Narrative is self-fulfilling

I completely understand – and share – your desire to raise our son in a neighborhood where we are surrounded by diversity, neighbors of multiple shades and hues within the same block, which is at least 20% black, and which is nicer than our current one: lower crime, more home ownership, higher standard of living; where everyone is respectful of each other and takes care of their property, and everything is affordable enough for us to actually live there.
Of course I’d want that as much as you!  Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist.
If you look at the list of best places for Black people my mother sent, notice that it almost exactly mirrors the “most segregated cities in America” list. From my experience, living in the most segregated city in America will not be a positive experience for a mixed person, or a mixed family.  Black people who live in 100% Black neighborhoods are just as racist as white people who don’t want to live near any blacks.
Note that the majority on the list have between higher to much higher violent crime rates than average.  You’ve lived in both Florida and the DC area, so you would perhaps know better than me how good race relations are in those cities that are at the top of the lists, but for the number two spot for black women, Baltimore, they concede that it has “extraordinarily high rates of maternal and infant mortality, cancer, domestic violence, police violence, and poverty.” 

But they are only looking at the biggest cities, and looking specifically for a certain threshold of Black people to even consider it for the lists. 

In Marin county, there aren’t a lot of Black people, but those that are there have much higher average incomes than the ones in Atlanta, or Boston, or Columbus Ohio.  They live among less crime, less police brutality, higher standard of living.

We could live in the Iron Triangle, and be surrounded by lots of Black people – ½ of whom would be like the people the boy and I saw in the park that day when I made the mistake of trying to go down into that neighborhood for diversity – or we could move to Pt. Richmond, where there is a much smaller percentage of Black people, but those few include R***** and her husband. 

I think it matters way more to have positive role models, than just having high numbers of colored people around.
I don’t want him to grow up seeing Black people commit proportionately more crime, or doing non-criminal but anti-social things. 

I don’t want to start him off early teaching him the narrative that most cops are racist and they are all out to get him, that the deck is stacked against him and America wants him to fail, and have him internalize it, as so so so many black youth do,

Because:

 

1) its just not backed up by the data,

2) believing it often turns into self-fulfilling prophesy, and

3) regardless of outcome, hearing that message in the first place is emotionally traumatic. 

 

It affects self-esteem, it affects the ability to trust and to connect with people, it affects belief in what you can do.  

Nothing positive comes from telling people that message. 

It would be worth not telling kids that narrative even if it were true, but the statistics just don’t back it up, its not even factually accurate, so you end up hurting a person both psychologically and affecting their potential life outcomes for the worse, for no real reason.
I don’t want him to ever learn to fear black people, to learn to be extra cautious around them, or that he has to talk or act or dress a certain way to be accepted (or just not get beat-up after school).  This is the reality of being a young black male in a predominately black neighborhood, all around the country.  It isn’t just my experience, you can see it in every first hand account.  Fighting is just considered a normal, expected, inevitable part of the culture.
I don’t want him to have to have the long way around to understanding all this crap that I had.

If that means having to prioritize things about where we live other than just the raw numbers of demographics, I feel like that is a worthwhile trade off.

The percentage of Black people in the Bay Area, this liberal bastion, Mecca of diversity, is almost exactly the same as the percentage in Portland, formerly known as the “whitest city in America”.

 

If the goal is to be around large numbers of black people, most of them in the East Bay are concentrated in just two spots: south west Richmond, and East Oakland (outside the East Bay, also a lot in Vallejo). 

The same two places with the highest crime rates and the lowest incomes - and consequently, the most affordable housing. I know it feels racist to acknowledge this, but those facts are all related. The places with lots of Black people are the places we want to upgrade away from.  Moving to a “nicer neighborhood” means moving to a neighborhood with relatively fewer black people.  But it doesn’t mean no black people at all.  The ones there are will likely be much better role models.

Make Love, Not Babies; reframing "trying" to conceive

I should start with a disclaimer:
The opinions and experiences expressed in this post are purely that of the author.
This is not meant in any way to be directed at any particular person or be in response to any particular comment.
I fully acknowledge that my own personal experience is nothing more than an anecdote, and a data set of one (1) generally proves nothing.


My wife was (is!) really excited about starting a family. I've been looking forward to it too.
I convinced her to agree to wait just a couple more months after we got married to save up some money so we can both take 6 months to a year off to be full time parents.

And I also asked for one critical thing:

Can we please not "try" to have a baby?


Can we instead just make conditions such that it is possible, and then "allow" it to happen?
She agreed to this.
No testing kits, no books, no thermometers, no fancy expensive lubes, and no pills of any kind.

Of course she took vitamins with folic acid and DHA, and she has a free app where if you put in the dates of each period it will predict the next one as well as likely fertile days based on the historical pattern. But she was doing both of those things for the past year anyway.
The app has the option to add temperatures to improve accuracy of fertility prediction, but we just took the calendar based prediction as a good enough rough guide. Fertile days start several days - up to 5 days - before ovulation anyway, and only last about a day after, so knowing the exact day is of limited usefulness anyway - once you know for sure its basically too late.

Landlord Who Supports Rent Control

[Background - the city council of my town, Richmond CA, has had a very heated political debate for a couple years now over whether or not to institute rent control.
Richmond is currently one of the more affordable pockets in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially for being close enough to the center to have its own BART stop, but like rents everywhere in this popular and rapidly growing area, they are climbing fast.
With rent control measures, landlords would only be able to raise rents they charge by a certain percentage (generally close to inflation levels) each year, and could only evict tenants if those tenants actually did something wrong (or if the landlord wants to move in), not just as a way to get new tenants to pay higher rent (rents can be increased between tenants, assuming they move out voluntarily or are evicted for a legitimate reason).

In the public discourse around the issue, those against it are constantly making the claim that it would "hurt small-time landlords".
I posted the following to a couple neighborhood discussion groups on the topic:

Not that any one cares about one random individual's opinion, nor that they should... 
...but since so many who talk about the subject feel entitled to speak on my behalf, I just wanted to set the record straight. 
I grew up in Richmond, and I live here now. I worked for the downpayment money for our triplex home from scratch, on an ordinary working class salary (averaging around 20k a year). I was able to save money by living in trailer parks most of my adult life.

Today I am a "small time" landlord. I own just a couple of units, which share the same land as my own home is on. I put a lot of money and time and work into upgrading it and making it a nice place for my tenants to live, and I still have a giant mortgage on it.

And there is absolutely no way I could honestly claim that rent control would "hurt" me.

Bakari Willsky Kafele*

I had no expectation that my partner would take on my last name.

My intention was to do like one of my clients when they got married: he took her last name as his middle name, and she took his last name as her middle.

But my partner wanted everyone in the family to have the same last name, which certainly seems reasonable.
She also wanted to keep both of her parent's last names, in honor of them.  But she didn't want to have 4 names.  Also reasonable.
So she decided to hybridize her maiden middle and last names (one of each of which were her parent's last names) and make that her middle name, and then take mine for a last name.

Brotsky Williams becomes Willsky.

Me, being all egalitarian and such, found it acceptable for her to take on some of my name only if I was doing the same.  And, conveniently, I had no middle name.  So I'll take her new middle name as my own as well.

Ninja Warrior

Compressing my entire life into a minute and thirty seconds was almost as much challenge as actually doing the obstacles! 
This is a quick summary of my life followed by some samples of stuff I can do. Even if I don't make it on, making this video was a whole lot of fun already.

Guest Starring the beautiful intelligent and generous Rachel Williams, (who took most of the video I didn't take myself)

Cameo by Didi the dog

Extra Special Thanks to Joe Zimmerman of Alameda Ninja Warrior (i.e. Joe's back yard) who encouraged me to try out. Dude built a whole mini course by himself, and then invited people to come play there - for free! Awesome guy.

Music credit: Pork and the Spork / Flumberger Fishbulb (i.e. my high school band, music and lyrics by Alex Staten and Bakari Kafele)

The wall at the end is "only" 10ft high, but on the other hand, all 10ft of it is straight up!


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:
Failure.


Oh well,
Though, with at least a little comfort from caveats...

The new Tick Tock took me out.
Along with most of my fellow competitors.

Somewhere between 100 and 200 got to attempt to run the course at Universal Studios Hollywood, but only about 30 got past this one. 
As the ANW producer's often do, this was a brand new obstacle, different than anything they've done so far, and of course the course is a secret until the night of competition, so nobody had any possible way to train or practice, or heck, even try it one time, before doing it with the cameras on.

Add to having no idea what the right technique should be (several swings to increase momentum, or one single smooth jump?  Aim high or aim low?  Catch with arms first, or legs, leaning forward or back?), I was among the very last to go.  They told me to arrive by 10pm.  My run was just slightly before 5am.  For almost 7 hours I stood around waiting, on the fenced in asphalt waiting area off to the side of the course, with not even chairs for the waiting athletes to rest on.  By the time I got to run, cold, stiff, and not having slept the entire night, I wanted to get it over with and go home almost as much as I wanted to finish the course!
At the very least, I wasn't taken down by the new version of the quintuple steps - harder than the old one, but basically the same.  A few people went down there, so at least I wasn't dead last :-P
In fact, I came off the rope smoother than many.  But on the trapeze, I felt like I didn't have enough momentum to make the jump, swung back and forth a few times, and landed high on the pendulum with a bit too much speed and force, and basically bounced off before I could get a grip on it. 
I wasn't planning on falling, so it was not a graceful dive.  I pretty much landed flat on my back, but there was no time to pay attention to little things like stinging pain, because I was on the bottom of a giant pool.   The water has a weird smell to it.  Probably some kind of sanitizing agent.  I started to climb out, but the crew told me I was on the wrong side.  Across to the other shore, they gave me a blanket (with a sponsor logo :) ), and they asked what happened.  I slipped.  What else is there to say?

Why I don't own a smart phone

Because I know I wouldn't be an exception:

Smart phone users spend an average of 131 mins per day on mobile communication. Thats out of only 480 minutes of discretionary time (not work or sleep) or about 1/3 of all free time. And that doesn't even include non-communication apps like games.

The average user checks FaceBook 14 times per day

75% of smart phone users sleep with it on and in the same room

25% have phone on and in reach 24hours a day

80% all but an hours or two

a quarter check while driving

almost a third check during meals with others

almost 2/3 check at least once an hour, even if it doesn't ring or vibrate

20% check their phone every 10 minutes

84% said that they could not go a single day without their cellphones

one in three would rather give up sex than go a week without their phones

A third admitted that being without their mobile for even short periods leaves them feeling anxious

Well... technically I do own an iPhone.
Its an "obsolete" iPhone 3, with no service. I got it in one of my dump runs.  I use it 99% as a music player.

My actual cell phone (with service) folds in half. It is water and shock resistant. The battery lasts more than a week.
The plan is $12 per month.
I have never run out of minutes and only once in over a year run out of texts.
It has a camera, including video, a built in music player, and even a few games.
It can actually access the internet, and occasionally I check emails in the field if I need some information I forgot to write down at home, or if I'm just really really really bored.

I'm not a luddite - I have a Roku and a wireless home network and a harddrive-mp3-based-car-stereo and traffic-aware GPS, for example.

I just have no need to carry a tiny computer with me where ever I go.

I never really wanted one to begin with, but having watched what they do to people who own them made me decide I wouldn't accept even if I was offered both the phone and plan for free.  Because before long I would be an addition to all the statistics above.

Basically, the smart phone is the opium of the 21st century.
Although I suppose a good drug addiction can cost a lot more than the $160 per month the average smart phone user pays, so I guess its a pretty good deal...

Information on my genes provided by 23andMe and Promethease

Finally got my DNA analysis back from 23andMe:

Since the FDA stopped allowing them to interpret the data for their customers, I had to spend an extra $5 with https://promethease.com/ to get useful information out of it.
Here's the most interesting and useful stuff they found:

gs 229 & i3003137(A;T)- Sickle cell trait; resistant to malaria but a carrier for sickle cell anemia. Note some believe gs229 individuals should be identified by screening before being exposed to extreme physical exertion due to ~30x higher risk for sudden death
 Sickle Cell Anemia carrier - "Bad news: You are a carrier for Sickle Cell Anemia. You should consider having your partner tested before before having children. The good news is that you are naturally resistant to malaria."
[I learned this at Coast Guard bootcamp. The info the doctor gave me said there is rarely any real life effect, other than sudden death during extreme activity such as mountain climbing or... military bootcamp! I didn't die though :P ]

gs251 - Beta Thalassemia carrier (Beta thalassemia is a hereditary disease affecting the hemoglobin - similar to sickle cell)
[I guess I should go visit the tropics, take advantage of the fact that I am malaria proof]

rs738409(G;G) - higher odds of alcoholic liver disease, increased liver fat While found in 55%+ of all people, alcohol seems to be 3x more damaging to your liver than typical
[That's ok, I rarely drink anyway]

rs7294919(C;T) Moderately enhanced hippocampal volume
The hippocampus is a critical brain structure involved in learning and memory. In particular, it is associated with the ability to form long-term memories of facts and events

rs2237717(T;T) - roles in general neurodevelopment and in the development of autism . Rs2237717 has been linked to schizophrenia, and the ability to recognize facial emotion.  Possible cancer protection.
[I've always suspected I may have just a touch of Asperger's / ASD.  Not enough to be diagnosable, but enough that I often sympathize more with the experience of aspys than of NTs.  Wonder how much of that is related to rs2237717(T;T) ]

The downsides to empathy

"You have a SNP in the oxytocin receptor which may make you less empathetic than most people. 
When under stress you may have more difficulty recognizing the emotional state of others which impacts loneliness, parenting, and socializing skills 
Lower levels of reward dependence (reliance on social approval). Lower autonomic arousal while perceiving harm to others." 

Indeed, I've been told by many people that I am not empathetic enough, and I have social skills only slightly better than someone with Asperger's. 

But I object to the characterization of this as "dysfunction". It is different than the norm, sure.
Does empathy imply more morality?  Is lack of empathy a pathology? Not necessarily


Just because I can't tell how you feel from your expression doesn't mean I'm any less likely to care. It just means I need more explicit communication - which is generally a good thing anyway. 
Combined with good communication, I bet it makes for less misunderstandings: while I do worse than average on "Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test", I KNOW when I'm not sure, while people who do better are often confident even when they are wrong. Therefor I'm more likely to ask. 

A study published in the journal Science by Dr. Hillel Aviezer of the Psychology Department of the Hebrew University, together with Dr. Yaacov Trope of New York University and Dr. Alexander Todorov of Princeton University, confirms my theory: "viewers in test groups were baffled when shown photographs of people who were undergoing real-life, highly intense positive and negative experiences. " (as opposed to the typical "Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test" which uses actors). "When the viewers were asked to judge the emotional valences of the faces they were shown (that is, the positivity or negativity of the faces), their guesses fell within the realm of chance. " 
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1225 
Nobody can really "mind read". But people rated more empathetic absolutely believe they can. Sounds like dysfunction... 

Reliance on social approval is a terrible thing! 
This study http://mic.com/articles/92479/psychologists-have-uncovered-a-troubling-feature-of-people-who-seem-too-nice isn't really about "niceness" as it claims, so much as about the politeness that stems from a high reliance on social approval. In other words, ASDs are a lot less likely to hurt others in order to fit in or be accepted.
The typical human will deliberately choose what they know to be a wrong answer, just so they can fit in with everyone else: http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
 Reliance on social approval is the basis of peer pressure, of group think, of failure to act in crises (if others are around), of the negative feelings of shame and low-self-esteem. And as the study above shows, it makes people more likely to be evil. I'm at a loss for what positives come from it. It sounds an awful lot like dysfunction to me. 

Lower autonomic arousal while perceiving harm to others is probably a trait you want in, say, a rescuer (USCG Search and Rescue, for example, which I am, or a firefighter or cop or paramedic) - similar as I said above, the fact that I don't have a strong emotional reaction to your distress doesn't mean I don't care. It means I can stay calm and collected during your crises, which makes me more effective at helping you. Do you really want your rescuer to be so sympathetic that they freak out or start crying when they see how much pain you're in? 
A highly sympathetic pediatrician would develop lots of stress from continually causing children pain, even though they know the shots are in the child's best interests. Again, that sounds like dysfunction to me. 

Aspys and similar folk tend to be more intelligent and better at all sort of tasks. The fact of being less common doesn't automatically imply pathology - if it did, being overweight would have to be reclassified as normal, and a healthy BMI would have to be considered disfunction (at least in the US). 
Evolution has gone from pure stimulus response to instinct behavior to emotional reactions to higher order reasoning and logic. I propose the rise of the Aspys, who are less emotional and more logical, is another step in that direction!

Construction Project Portfolio

A sampling of some of my larger projects over the past few years

Bed Frame (from wood reclaimed from a previous deconstruction job), with Driftwood Headboard

The lumber was originally a retaining wall that held the fuel tanks in place in the original BioFuel Oasis, when they were housed in a garage.  I was hired to deconstruct it, so the still perfectly good lumber wouldn't go to waste.

I used part of it to build a large compost bin for a small alternative high school to use for cafeteria waste, and the rest to build this custom bed frame

As you can see, the new owner of the bed helped with the labor.

All of the money stuff I sometimes talk about, condensed

A lot of my personal friends and family have heard me mention something regarding saving money and investing, probably remember hearing me referencing "Mr Money Mustache" or "Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme".

Chances are, though, you chalk it up to one of those random Bakari nutty things, or maybe you even glance briefly at one of the links I send you, but it's long and there's like 300 other articles, and you don't have time for all that.

I'm going to try to explain all that stuff in a condensed and untechnical manner.

Of course, the majority of my readers who I don't know in real life found me through MMM, and all of y'all feel free to skip this post, as you won't learn anything new - it might be perfect for forwarding on to your own friends and family though who haven't come around yet.

Very early on into adulthood I discovered that I don't particularly care for employment.

Its not just about the work itself - it doesn't matter how much fun, how creative or rewarding or self-directed the job is - its just the fact of being forced to be some specific place doing some specific thing for almost exactly 1/2 of your discretionary time (factoring in mandatory lunch hours and commute time), for the majority of your life.

Luckily, I grew up poor (there were 73 of us, living in a cardboard box), plus I self-identified as an environmentalist since about age 9, plus being non-conformist, all combined to make rejection of all forms of materialism come naturally.

I never felt much need for "stuff".  Living in my RV felt plenty luxurious enough.

Psychologists say that money spent on experiences produces more happiness than money spent on stuff - but I've found there is a practically infinite supply of entertaining and educational and downright amazing and wonderful experiences to be found for free almost everywhere I look.  No, not even that - I frequently don't even have to look; often times they come to me!  Sometimes when I was looking for something else, other times they just literally come seek me out.

I've never even had the desire for the stuff most American's spend money on: cable TV, a new car, fashionable clothes, or a "phone" that is really a tiny computer.  So, after food and rent, I never had all that much to spend money on.

And here is the point of all that backstory:
 
 

I discovered early on that if I don't spend a lot of money, then I don't need a lot of money, and if I don't need a lot of money, I don't have to spend so much time working.

Skating

Today was an absolutely beautiful warm and sunny, (but not hot), day.

I got off of work at noon, biked to Coast Guard Island to drop off a couple uniforms to get new patches sewn on to reflect my status as a certified search and rescue boat crew member and the promotion I should be getting some time soon.

This past weekend I caught up on all the little tasks I had to do around the apartment building (where I am superintendent in exchange for almost free rent), so I had most of a day free.

I had $1500 sitting in my safe in cash, failing to earn any interest, so I decided to make the most of the weather and deposit the cash as an excuse for a nice long skate.  See, I live in Oakland, and my Credit Union is in Richmond (about 14 miles away)

While I was at it, I used the opportunity to finally test out the replacement 18650 LiIon cells for the battery pack I made for my boombox (2 five-cell packs in parallel, attached directly to the outside of the stereo, plugged into the regular 120v port so it keeps the ipod charged at the same time)

By the time I got to Lake Merrit I started getting terrible shin splints.  This happened last time I was skating, but I thought (rationalized?) it was because of a detour over an unpaved road.  Guess I just get weak really fast in any muscle group I'm not using more or less constantly, and running, hiking, jump rope, just don't hit the tibialis anterior the way skating does.  I'm hoping the pain will fade into the background, like every time I run long distance, but it doesn't get any better, and I bail at MacArthur BART.

In the mean time though - man, you know, I always get the occasional stares, smiles, points, laughs, thumbs-up, and honks when I'm skating (often shirtless, often singing) with headphones on.  Typically at least one of those on any one long trip, sometimes a couple.
But when its a boombox, and not just headphones, and every one else can hear what I'm rockin, well, then the stares, smiles, points, laughs, thumbs-up, and honks are more like one every couple of blocks!
Plus, people start spontaneously dancing along as I pass.  I tried to move over to let a car pass, until I realized they weren't going slow trying to get around me, they were going slow because the passenger was taking a picture!

;-P

In progress...

So, my regular readers (I found out recently that I actually have regular readers!) may have noticed I have repeatedly promised an indepth essay on capitalism, I have said at least once that it would be my next post, and I keep posting other stuff.

Well, it really is in progress.  I've written a lot of it.  But there is a lot more to go, and I decided not to start posting the finished ones until the entire thing is finished.

In the meantime - since I am saving each section in my drafts folder - I discovered a whole bunch of stuff I wrote, sometimes years ago, and for reasons I can't even guess at, I never posted. 

I'm going to start posting those, while I work on my biggest writing project to date.


Oh, and by the way - if you read 5 Years Later and Not A Great Start to the New Year, and you were wondering if I was still in a bad place... noooo.  I am not.  Not even a little.  A very very good place right now. 
I don't want to get into it too much here - its very exciting, its very mutual, but its also very new and we all know my patterns.  I can't be objective. 
As far as I can tell thus far, there is real potential, and regardless of how it turns out I am having a hell of a fun time in the moment.  If you remember, way way back, New Year's (2009); I honestly did not think it would be possible - I mean, literally, physically possible - to top that experience.  Well, it turns out it is.

Not a great start to the new year / new life

Lets see...

After almost 2 months of trying to sell my RV trailer with no success, I finally found not one, but at least 2 serious buyers who had the cash and wanted to buy within the week.
Then I got about 7 calls and emails of other people interested in seeing it (after I listed it for $500 more than the first two were expecting), and I was considering if I should try to get the best price or just get it sold and over with.

And so, of course, that's when it gets stolen.

Its 35ft long, 15ft tall, 8ft wide, and 7500lbs.  It requires a 3/4-ton truck and a class IV hitch at a minimum to move.  It had a solid hitch lock on it.
Someone, some how, hooked it up in the middle of the night and took off.  Several witnesses (people interested in buying, and the police, who were about to ticket it for being in one place too long) saw it one afternoon, I went to move it the next morning, gone.

5 years later

Four months since I have written anything at all here.

I am really letting my two or three readers down! I'm sorry. Well, not sorry enough to necessarily do better, but enough to write this, right now, even though I'm not really feeling inspired.

My next real post will be on the difference between capitalism and the free market, how they are actually opposed, how government favors the former, and how it could (and why it should) be doing the opposite. Actually, it might even be a series of separate posts.
I already have basically everything I want down in my head, but it still may be a few months or a year before I get around to it. But I have always eventually written all the things I said I would so far, haven't I? So, unless I randomly die before then, it will really happen.


A part of why I stopped writing was the time and thought and energy that went into a major life transition.

Timeline of my life

Fushi and Saiba

I first met Fushi and Saiba in January of 2004.

They were only about a month or two old at the time.

I had lived with their mother, Midnight - a tiny all black cat who liked to hide under places so she could attack my ankles when I walked by - throughout the previous summer, at a traveling carnival in the midwest.
She was the only cat in the household, and was indoors only.  She got out just once, for just a few hours, but then, that's all it takes.

My aunt Joy, who was Midnight's human, came to New York (where I worked at the time) to visit, since the carnival is closed during the winter.  When we met, she asked if we might want a kitten.  Since me and Aileen (my wife at the time) both worked full time, I said we should get two, so they would have someone to keep them company during the day.
We got one boy and one girl, both with gray and black tiger stripes, and white "socks" on some feet.

They were so tiny I could literally hold them both in the palm of one hand.  We brought them home (to our RV in NJ) in a backpack.  The boy curled up in a tiny ball at the bottom, while the girl stood on top of him so she could reach her head out the top and look around.
That pretty well summed up their personalities for the rest of their lives.

My Green Living Projects

Remember the scene in The Jerk where Navin (Steve Martin) gets really excited because the new phonebooks has arrived?
Well, the new phonebooks are here.

The mini-documentary on my life that was filmed by Faircompanies.com several years ago now has a sequel.
In this one I talk about my truck mods and driving style that lets me get almost double the mileage my truck initially got, saving me a couple grand in fuel charges each year.

My last video with them is up to almost a quarter million views, but the company has gotten a lot more subscribers since then, so there is potential for this one to be even more popular.

If you have already seen it, this post answers the most common questions, comments, and criticisms I have gotten so far:
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/03/mad-max-hypermiler-questions-and.html

Welcome

Blog.
What a funny word.


Hi, I'm Bakari Kafele.

You may remember me from such blogs as:
http://apps.biodieselhauling.org/blog/
http://neapolitanblog.blogspot.com/
and
http://www.myspace.com/pyrococcus_furiosus/blog

If so, you may have noticed that I have content scattered all over the place, none of which is well organized or easy to find or read.
Well that is all about to change.

For anyone who doesn't know who I am:
I'm Bakari Kafele.  I already said that.
I often use the name Jacob Aziza when I am writing on the internet.  I also sometimes use the name David Craig Hiser.  And Lenard E. Simpleton (or sometimes just Lenard Simp)
We are all the same person, (like Tyler and his best friend, except that I have always been aware of it.)

I'm just a random ordinary guy.
I live in an RV which is partially solar powered, both for the environmental benefit and the major cost savings.
Living with me are girlfriend Jessica and non-human roommate Fushi, who also goes by the name Chairman Meow.

I run a small independantly-certified-green moving, hauling and handyman business BioDiesel Hauling, using my biodiesel powered truck.  I've been doing this for over 5 years, beginning immediately  after I finished 4 (simultaneous) associate degrees.
Before that I held over 30 jobs in my lifetime, including biology lab tech, bicycle messenger, private security officer, armored truck driver, carnie, factory worker, fundraiser, liquor store cashier, bicycle mechanic and gigs as a TV commercial actor, ditch digger, medical test subject, "adult" actor, and election polling place supervisor.

Currently, in addition to BioDiesel Hauling, I am in the Coast Guard Reserve, and I still take occasional shifts with the BikeStation where I used to work.

I am vegetarian, I drive a motorcycle with a very small engine, and I am very opinionated on just about everything.  I also go through phases where I really enjoy writing, although I have been out of that phase for over a year now.

My old blogs have several years of content, some of which (at least in my own narcissistic opinion) is pretty good, so to begin with, I will be reposting old content which most likely no one has ever read (MySpace anyone?) to here where it will be more accessible.

I realize I will probably never get a huge following, since I have no real theme and no motivation to seek publicity, but if you happen to want to subscribe, I've made it easy with the top boxes in the right side bar.

Enjoy.

Minor celebrity

Minor celebrity

I guess I'm not all that surprised.

A video I did for an environmental blog (faircompanies.com) was posted on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJc8973GURk

It is almost up to a quarter million views!

I have been getting people all over the country tracking me down on Facebook and asking to be friends and asking questions after the see it.

Since there are probably plenty of people with the same questions who don't go to the trouble to track me down, I'm reposting my answers to some of those questions here:

I have been appointed polling place inspector

• Apr 23, 2010

I have been appointed polling place inspector

OMG
I am going to be the person in charge of my local polling place.
Democracy will literally be in my hands.

It will be my responsibility to ensure every vote in my neighborhood gets counted.

I am proud, and slightly terrified.

How it is I skipped over getting experience as a clerk first, I am not entirely sure, but I just got a very official looking notice in the mail, informing me that I'm gonna be the guy in charge this primary election, June 8th.

I start at 6am, work until 9pm, and I will have a crew of 5 people.

My designated polling place happens to be the same as where I normally go to vote, and its easy walking distance from my house.