Interesting question and the answer goes to the heart of the difference in being formally educated and continuing in that vein through reading, writing, etc. and how at least 50% often overall population receive their learning/education (after basic education) from word of mouth and television.
To be educated is not simplistically to have read lots of books—-though that is generally a foundational component. To be educated is to be trained in various forms of thinking—-logical thinking, mathematical/computational thinking, divergent thinking, systematic thinking, integrational/synthesis thinking and hypothetical thinking, analytical/evaluative thinking
Often when I’m going on about my life, in general, talking and listening to people, because I’ve been teaching for so long, two decades+, I have an ear for listening to minds.
I can pretty much hear your educational level and type of thinking you are or are not applying to whatever you’re talking about.
I notice a lack of mathematical and computational thinking in cashiers at stores or Lotto cashiers doing lottery machines/tickets. This is often the most fascinating because it requires multiple kinds of thinking.
Say someone is buying a $1 ticket, for the Midday drawing and betting on the numbers 517 to come out in any combination.
Seemingly simple.
But it involves many “pieces”.
Money: $1
Time: Midday
The Number: 517 (Combination: 517, 715, 175, 157)
The above are three forms of data/information. I sometimes ask the attendant (or I can see) how they view/do it on the computer console. It’s Number, Amount, Time but often people relay the information to them in a different sequence. They should actually have a signage that explains simply how to tell your numbers. The best cashiers are the best people with mathematical computational skills/thinking. The worse are those who have an opinion about how they think—-based upon their worldview the numbers should be relayed.
Drawing this all back to teachers and degree holders—-we generally see alternatives to the points or questions.
I’m going to share a political secret about myself, I generally avoid writing about politics.
Both “sides” sound the same. They both hurl the same vitriol and judgement at one another so that it is difficult to understand a core issue and further, for them to achieve a solution. They both do this because they want a visceral reaction from the masses, not a critical analysis one. Also the internet has sort of crowded the world/Zeitgeist “stage” with an opinion/though from everyone who has access to the internet. The measurement of access is not ability or skill, it’s simply access.
Minor Rant Ahead
I saw through several of my social media feeds that Cardi B and Candace Owens had a debate.
Already, aware of who both of them are, I knew it was a disjointed/imbalanced match. No, I hadn’t heard a Cardi B song until last week, though I was aware of who she was so I did some due diligence and understood her entertaining success better, her upbringing, as well as her brief stint into community college. I actually heard her hit song through lip syncing/dance troupe videos before I actually watched her official WAP video, yesterday.
Candace Owens, I’m more familiar with because I’ve watched several of her interviews and YouTube videos. I know about her background, her college education and her political views. I thin she’s intelligent, still young and developing her viewpoints, a rapid speaker/thinker and very incisive verbally.
But to have them debate—-bluntly, bullshit spectacle.
Not saying I agree with Owens but it’s a bit of an mismatched debate. Like if Missy Elliot and Elizabeth Warren debated. Or Missy and Kamala Harris. The two women in those fictional debates and the past real one are unevenly matched. Not saying all can’t have knowledge of social issues but Cardi is an entertainer and Owens is doing this debating, speaking lecture circuit, political pundit, as her direct full time career.
I didn’t watch the debate itself because I thought the concept was a little intellectually pandering and sort of MTV Celebrity Death Match cartoonish. In some ways, not saying they both don’t have opinions and valid thoughts, but that signing Cardi and her annoying voice and rather….urban ways up against Owens was mocking of her. And Owens doing it, was sort of insulting to Cardi as reductive. Just insulting all around. Not to mention as an audience watching legitimate social issues being reduced to this sort of spectacle. We can do better. I’m talking Buckley and Gore Vidal or James Baldwin or Hugh Downs or Brian Lamb. We can do better.
But later in Facebook feeds came the news that weeks later Cardi B said that Owens is being pimped by White men. Then Owens responded with the video below.
Woah, it got THAT nasty?
Ok, two points here and one of them delves into the “Black Problem:” in Black culture.
White Nexus
We’re constantly obsessed with White people as the nexus of all reality, thought, impressions, decisions and ideologies of not just White people but anyone else.
In a general analysis and comparison of Cardi, a formerly all around stripper, con artist, rapper and after watching the WAP video, somewhat, vulgar performer. (Erotic, tasteless, profane and porno being a spectrum. I wouldn’t call the video “porno” but it wasn’t erotic either. It was graphically tasteless and profane. But I would just as eagerly defend her right to make/do it even if it’s not my cup of tea that I would watch, partake of regularly.)
However Atlantic Records, White owned almost 75 years now, as it’s changed hands, has made a killing off of Cardi and she’s had a colorful past——where she robbed men and didn’t own the clubs she stripped in. She sort of understands the complete quantification of being “pimped”.
Now Owens might on her side be beholden to several White men, including the President for noticing her political leanings and pushing/advancing her as a Black conservative pundit. If we absolutely quantify both of them, their media outlets and parent companies being White male owned/dominated—-they’re both being pimped and exploited—-if we believe they are being done so.
Misogyny and Patriarchy
The insult though was hurled by a woman of color at another woman of color! (And ironically the FB post was from a reverend, a woman of color, siding with Cardi on her slurring.)
Now as I call foul at White Nexus-ing, I also call foul to expecting people of color to side with one another just because of melanin similarity.
But as to public women of color, it was a little icky from the get go for two vastly unequal/different women to be pitted against each other and for the pitting to continue. A potentially valuable arena to discuss/debate in is sensationalized in this way. Ironically just as WAP comes out? Coincidence? I think not. lol
- So as a teacher and a degree holder, I’m a poor opinion provider because of what I can “see” intellectually below the surface of cashiers having to check the register’s calculations and answer and not knowing the amount of change back.
- (I recently bought 4 Pepsi’s for $6 at CVS. Two of the attendants had to change the 4th soda because the sale price wasn’t coming up. One of them whips out a calculator—-I thought they were trying to figure out the percentage amount to take off of the regular priced soda t make it a 4th of the $6 sale price. No, they’d voided it. What they were BOTH using a calculator for was to figure out how much 1 Pepsi is of the 4, divided from $6!!!! I was shocked! One of them is a college Junior!)
- How lotto cashiers and people relaying lotto purchases are speaking multiple languages and how some of the best lotto cashiers can hear numbers without having to stop and visualize them or can also hold a number in their head and perform a computation—-rearranging the language sequence of information.
- How sensationalistic media trivializes two women of color by creating such a debate of serious issues with reductive inequality so that it gets snarky.
- In the debate snarkiness and afterwards, women of color, reduce one another to prostitutes—-ironically the one hurling the insult, really being the closest to the definition in a specific sense. But the reductive insult is patriarchy based about female sexuality/impropriety against a patriarchal expectation of not just chastity but women not having control of their bodies and resources. The insult hurled by a woman in a video just wearing pasties…….
- But further this slur is posted by a reverend, a Latina, a woman of color. So now all three of them are in some sort of cluster-judgement of each other.
- But wait, there’s more—-the reverend (!) goes further when I comment on this. She says if Owens is insulted by this then she isn’t strong enough to be in the “game” and should shut up.
- I point out to the reverend that this is the refrain of men—-women not being strong enough to handle…anything and that a “weak” woman should shut up.
- I then point out to the reverend that men, yes, are dismissive of women and enact harsh patriarchal misogynistic treatment towards them
- But women do it far more often. To each other. Case in point.
Facts, Opinions and Critical Thinking in Action
Teachers and degree holders, taught to think deeper than just their visceral, emotionalized opinion, often see more bullshit and irony and even hypocrisy because we’re not blinded by our opinions. Minimizing your own opinion to look at subjects and folk through multiple lens, suggesting that we, as the individual, are not the “only” thought/being in existence, is another foundational action taught in higher education.
This doesn’t mean that I politically side with any of the women in these examples or that I don’t. What I’m doing is exampling the range of issues implicit in their drama.
My mother used to tell me having an opinion/feeling is a fact, but a feeling is often not a fact.
As a final thought, the power structures and absences of women, pointedly women of color, has to do with exploitation, misogyny, patriarchy, White Nexusing and intellectual/social maturity. That’s my opinion! lol
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Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
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