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A review by lpm100
Swirling: How to Date, Mate, and Relate Mixing Race, Culture, and Creed by Christelyn D. Karazin, Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn
fast-paced
3.0
Book Review
"Swirling"
Christelyn Karazin/Janice Littlejohn
3/5 stars
"Not bad; mostly inapplicable (to my case) and full of significant amounts of chaff"
*******
Not really that much to be learned from this book.
When I picked it up, I didn't realize that this was specifically meant for black women. (I only found that out about 10 pages into the book.)
For black guys (or, really, any guys) there's not much here for at least two reasons:
1. No man has all of this anguish about whom to date: either you are "into" this type (or not), and life is a series of seeing how many times you can be told "no" at a certain level of women of this type before you decide that it's time to move down one tier. Also, there are certain types of women who just are not into black guys (let's say Arab women), and it just is what it is and it's not worth the a bunch of times spent emotionally anguishing.
2. In the case of black men, I've read at least one journal article that says that they don't show a preference one way or another for any type of lady. ("You turn them upside down, and they all look the same.")
Both of the authors are black women, and they also happen to have white-friendly good looks.
They went through a lot of things that we already know, which is that:
1. For educated black ladies there just are not enough black guys to go around. (All the usual suspects: Too many in the penitentiary/ too many upper income earners choose white ladies, etc.)
2. Reasonably enough, the authors come up with the obvious solution to just go and seek other markets--and being aware that one has to work on making herself available and approachable for these "alternate markets."
That is the gist of the book in those two sentences.... Repeated OVER and OVER and OVER again.
There are a few neat little factoids that are worth extracting:
1. The inter(faith)marriage rate for Muslims in the United States is 39% (p.32).
2. (p.18) A black man who earns > $100,000 per year is less likely to have ever married than a black man who earns $75,000 a year. The highest earning black men are more than twice is likely as their white counterparts never to have married. (And I have seen this: people who have too much to choose from have the "paradox of choice," and unable to make a decision because of excessive options.)
3. Left wing people do not preach what they practice (big surprise there!): of 157 white guys that were matched with black women, 40% of the voters were moderate / 28% leaned conservative / and only 17% were extreme liberals; 17% of them were NRA members.
4. Ready to fight body language signals (p.195):
a. Invasion of your personal space quickly;
b. Aggressors may fake you out and pretend to attack to gauge your response;
c. Don't link eyes with the potential assaulter. Focus on the shoulders and chest, because any attack will most likely initiate from that part of their body. Look for a shoulder to cock or a fist to double up.
5. Some things that are helpful for both guys and girls when meeting the family:
a. Gain some perspective;
b. Be the antistereotype;
c. Relax;
d. Don't go in with your boxing gloves on;
e. Come armed with lots of conversation;
f. Remember your table manners.
*******
The authors appear to be upper middle class, and a lot of their plans of action seem to be for people who have money.
Suggestion #5. (p.114) Do volunteer work. (For people who have to get paid for every hour that they work, this is kind of a luxury.)
Suggestion #14. (p.115). Whisk yourself off to Ellis house wine camp on the East end of Long Island for three night stay (Umm......)
Suggestion #41. (p.124). Live abroad for a year. (Umm......)
*******
A few things were not quite right:
1. (p.201) Interracial marriages are not a tough sell to Korean families *as long as the other partner is White*. Something like 70% of them marry interracially.
2. (p.200) Hmong people are neither Chinese nor from the mountains of China. They live in a lot of different places in Asia, including Vietnam. They seem to be the Eastern Asian analog of Gypsies. In the same way it does not make sense to say that Gypsies are from India (even though that is what they, in fact, are), it doesn't make sense to think of Hmong people as "from the mountains of China."
*******
The book was anticlimactic in that one of the authors conceded at the end of the book that she had been alone for the last 12 years and it seems like she had an occasional booty call from some attorney that she knew.
Anyway, it's like the equivalent of going to a dentist whose teeth has all rotted out of his mouth. (Or, in this case, to a dentist who had half of his teeth left.)
*******
Verdict: Not recommended for black guys. Recommended for black ladies probably at the price of about $4.
New vocabulary:
rainbeau
Cognitive valence (theory)
"Swirling"
Christelyn Karazin/Janice Littlejohn
3/5 stars
"Not bad; mostly inapplicable (to my case) and full of significant amounts of chaff"
*******
Not really that much to be learned from this book.
When I picked it up, I didn't realize that this was specifically meant for black women. (I only found that out about 10 pages into the book.)
For black guys (or, really, any guys) there's not much here for at least two reasons:
1. No man has all of this anguish about whom to date: either you are "into" this type (or not), and life is a series of seeing how many times you can be told "no" at a certain level of women of this type before you decide that it's time to move down one tier. Also, there are certain types of women who just are not into black guys (let's say Arab women), and it just is what it is and it's not worth the a bunch of times spent emotionally anguishing.
2. In the case of black men, I've read at least one journal article that says that they don't show a preference one way or another for any type of lady. ("You turn them upside down, and they all look the same.")
Both of the authors are black women, and they also happen to have white-friendly good looks.
They went through a lot of things that we already know, which is that:
1. For educated black ladies there just are not enough black guys to go around. (All the usual suspects: Too many in the penitentiary/ too many upper income earners choose white ladies, etc.)
2. Reasonably enough, the authors come up with the obvious solution to just go and seek other markets--and being aware that one has to work on making herself available and approachable for these "alternate markets."
That is the gist of the book in those two sentences.... Repeated OVER and OVER and OVER again.
There are a few neat little factoids that are worth extracting:
1. The inter(faith)marriage rate for Muslims in the United States is 39% (p.32).
2. (p.18) A black man who earns > $100,000 per year is less likely to have ever married than a black man who earns $75,000 a year. The highest earning black men are more than twice is likely as their white counterparts never to have married. (And I have seen this: people who have too much to choose from have the "paradox of choice," and unable to make a decision because of excessive options.)
3. Left wing people do not preach what they practice (big surprise there!): of 157 white guys that were matched with black women, 40% of the voters were moderate / 28% leaned conservative / and only 17% were extreme liberals; 17% of them were NRA members.
4. Ready to fight body language signals (p.195):
a. Invasion of your personal space quickly;
b. Aggressors may fake you out and pretend to attack to gauge your response;
c. Don't link eyes with the potential assaulter. Focus on the shoulders and chest, because any attack will most likely initiate from that part of their body. Look for a shoulder to cock or a fist to double up.
5. Some things that are helpful for both guys and girls when meeting the family:
a. Gain some perspective;
b. Be the antistereotype;
c. Relax;
d. Don't go in with your boxing gloves on;
e. Come armed with lots of conversation;
f. Remember your table manners.
*******
The authors appear to be upper middle class, and a lot of their plans of action seem to be for people who have money.
Suggestion #5. (p.114) Do volunteer work. (For people who have to get paid for every hour that they work, this is kind of a luxury.)
Suggestion #14. (p.115). Whisk yourself off to Ellis house wine camp on the East end of Long Island for three night stay (Umm......)
Suggestion #41. (p.124). Live abroad for a year. (Umm......)
*******
A few things were not quite right:
1. (p.201) Interracial marriages are not a tough sell to Korean families *as long as the other partner is White*. Something like 70% of them marry interracially.
2. (p.200) Hmong people are neither Chinese nor from the mountains of China. They live in a lot of different places in Asia, including Vietnam. They seem to be the Eastern Asian analog of Gypsies. In the same way it does not make sense to say that Gypsies are from India (even though that is what they, in fact, are), it doesn't make sense to think of Hmong people as "from the mountains of China."
*******
The book was anticlimactic in that one of the authors conceded at the end of the book that she had been alone for the last 12 years and it seems like she had an occasional booty call from some attorney that she knew.
Anyway, it's like the equivalent of going to a dentist whose teeth has all rotted out of his mouth. (Or, in this case, to a dentist who had half of his teeth left.)
*******
Verdict: Not recommended for black guys. Recommended for black ladies probably at the price of about $4.
New vocabulary:
rainbeau
Cognitive valence (theory)