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Monday, January 26, 2015

Blacks far better at compliments

One consistent pattern I've noticed is that black people give far more effusive -- and effective -- compliments.

A young white guy once told me that he had been in a bar in New Orleans with some friends when a 6'6" 300 pound black man had come up to him, clapped his hand on the young man's shoulder, and said, "Man, you sexy as fuck! We gonna get us some pussy tonight!" It turned out that the huge guy was a football player in town for a game; he happened to be coked up. The young guy was initially a little shocked, and wasn't even sure at first that the football player wasn't somehow hitting on him (he wasn't). But he remembered the compliment, and felt good about it later.

This same young guy once wandered, semi-drunk, into a nightclub in New York City by himself. He chatted briefly with the bouncer, a huge black man, then made his way in. When he emerged an hour or two later with a girl, the bouncer said to him, "I knew you wouldn't be leaving alone." The young guy later said it was one of the highest compliments he'd ever been paid.

The same young man, a connoisseur of strip clubs, once told me that white strippers will all give the same few rote compliments in hopes of a better tip. They'll either say, you're cute, or, you're not like the rest of the guys who come in here, or something to that effect. But he had been to a club recently where he'd chatted with a black stripper, and she had told him, "You have the eyes of a killer." The young man, who prides himself on his toughness, was extremely flattered by this.

These are all compliments that simply mean more to a guy.

Whites will give you some lame compliment like, gee, that's a nice shirt. Or, you did really well on that test -- congratulations! (In one ear, out the other.) But black people will give you a compliment you'll remember.

Seriously, what would you rather be told: that you worked hard on a project, and your team spirit is really appreciated -- or that you're sexy as fuck?

Black guys simply don't seem to worry about being mistaken for gay, the way most white guys do. So they'll compliment another guy on his looks, or his build, or his voice. There's something very appealing about both the self-confidence and the straightforwardness that entails.

My own experience has been similar. Blacks have simply been more uninhibited when giving me compliments. A white guy might say, "Hmm, you're a good butterflier," or, worse, "Did you swim competitively?" I can recall three different black guys who've told me something to the effect of, "I love watching you swim butterfly. It's so beautiful!"

(If you're getting a compliment, uninhibitedly is definitely the way you want it delivered.)

One other point. Half the time when a white gives you a compliment, there's an agenda behind it: they want something from you. But with all of the compliments listed above (with the probable exception of the stripper's), there was no agenda. There was simply a certain generosity of spirit.

I'm the first to point out racial differences in IQ, and racial double standards. So let me be the first to point this difference out as well.

34 comments:

Steven said...

Nice tie.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Ha! Exactly.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes, I prefer the black males to the black females, tending to be friendlier.

-birdie

John Craig said...

Birdie --
That may be a competition thing; as a male, I've generally found most black females to be friendly too. It's also a class thing; middle class and above blacks will usually be friendly, lower class is a different matter.

Anonymous said...

In college, I had a suite mate who was friendly, fun to be around (a good personality). I also had a friend who was a cheerleader (another good personality), an exceptionally nice person. In the "real world," I've encountered blacks from all walks of life, agreeing with your point about the different classes. I try and take people on a person-by-person basis, attempting not to be too opinionated (or judgmental) about a whole race (sometimes, I fail in this way though, sad to say).

-birdie

John Craig said...

Birdie --
That's all anyone can ask of anyone else, to be judged as an individual.

There is a world of difference between judging an individual by his race (patently unfair) and judging a race by its individuals (which would be ostrich-like not to do).

Jokah Macpherson said...

"Your race is good at compliments," is kind of a lame compliment. You're clearly not black.

John Craig said...

Jokah --
It's not nothing. And I'm not suggesting it's anything but one of many differences.

Anonymous said...

Spartan said…

Good observation. When i was really heavy into the weights and juice, blacks would go out of their way to shoot a compliment, and it always seemed sincere.

John Craig said...

Spartan --
Thank you; your experience rings true.

I'm curious: have you suffered any adverse aftereffects from having been on the juice?

PeƱaflor said...

Recently discovered your blog and have become impressed by your insights and your candor.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried to give people the same kind of generous compliments you see black people give? The few times I've done it to white people have caused dismay and confusion (I'm Asian). But Asians seem fine with it.

John Craig said...

Penaflor --
(Sorry, don't know how to put that accent mark there.)

Thank you very much.

Actually, I have given those kinds of compliments to whites, and in my experience, they've always been flattered. (Maybe I just missed it if I somehow upset them, but I'm pretty sure I didn't.)

I've even told other guys they're good-looking, though I've always taken pains to make clear I'm not gay, and generally they've been fine with it.

taylor said...

I think there's some truth to what you've said here. When I lived in Harlem I was frequently accosted by the black hookers on 125th. Their compliments were always the best. One time I was grabbing dinner to go and I heard "mmmm I'll take you home and feed you sexy"

Anyways I think the difference is MUCH more noticeable with insults...

On the rare occasion I've been insulted by anyone black it's always stung a little extra.

John Craig said...

Taylor --
That's funny, and that does sound like a black compliment.

I honestly haven't noticed that difference with insults. I think the worst insults I've gotten have been from whites. In my experience, blacks just don't get bitchy the same way whites do.

Steven said...

You are painting black people in a very positive light here John.

John Craig said...

Steven --
I just try to stick to the truth. What I've said here is true, just as what I've said about race and IQ is true. Or maybe I should say, this has been my experience, anyway. I'm not anti-black. I'm just anti-hypocrisy and anti-dishonesty, which means I'm sick of media hypocrisy and sick of all the lies we hear about how there are no racial differences in intelligence or behavior. This is one of the differences I've noticed, and this one comes out in blacks' favor.

Steven said...

Yeah I get that John. I can see you're not motivated by animus against black people. You're just truth telling and I think on race issues, you've pretty much got it worked out. There's no sign of hostility towards black people.

There are bloggers who write about black people in a hostile and hateful way and when you read it, it can temporarily rub off and make you feel hateful. I try to stay away from such people and I don't get that from you at all.

If you are hostile, its towards the liberals who are almost propagandists on race and gender. They believe all groups are innately equal in every way as a matter of dogma and so they have a vested interest in denying and distorting.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Yes, you get it, thank you.

Anonymous said...

Spartan said….

I did experience shrunken testicles, which led to a diminished sex drive while on the juice. once i discontinued, the effects were reversible. I never experienced "rood rage".

John Craig said...

Spartan --
Thank you for the honest response. I've heard that 'roid rage is much rarer than commonly thought.

But I'd also heard that while one is on the juice, one's sex drive is out of control. I wonder if it depends partly on which steroid you take...

Anonymous said...

Spartan said….

John, injectable testosterone is the steroid that really amps the sex drive. That makes Rosie O'Donnel more attractive than a pint of Jack.

John Craig said...

Spartan --
Ha! Thank you, and well put.

Steven said...

We were talking about how you're a truth teller on this blog. I will comment frankly but I think I would be reluctant to promote some of those ideas. If the idea that there are natural IQ differences gained widespread traction, it would certainly clarify some things but might it not also cause harm? Less mature individuals might use that info to be oppressive and nasty.

I think this is a concern a lot of people have. They don't want to empower the far right or fuel the kind of nasty racism that used to be more common in the past. What do you think of this kind of worry?

Steven said...

"That makes Rosie O'Donnel more attractive than a pint of Jack."

Is that why black guys like fat women? More t..

Black men love big white women:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZGIBFevQPY

Or is that just a quirk of black genetics to prefer bigger women?

John Craig said...

Steven --
I think it's a legitimate concern: people will generalize. But it's certainly not enough of a concern to justify the widespread lies that get disseminated, which in turn engender only more resentment from people who realize they're being lied to. And the fact is, people are pretty much aware of these differences anyway. If they were to be made public, the responsible way would be to do so while also emphasizing that every population has its own bell curve, with people distributed throughout, and that everybody should be judged as an individual.

John Craig said...

PS --
I asked my son about the soldier's video, he said it was cool that an SAS guy would say that, but at the same time that guy was an outlier, most Special Forces types did not feel the same way, and that the idea that one should be loyal to all of humanity when there are lots of people whose primary loyalty is to their tribes is silly.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Got no answer for you on that last comment.

Steven said...

I wonder what percentage of the black population would have to be removed (I stress I'm not advocating this) for the rest to have the same average IQ as white people. If its 30%, that means that the top 70% of the black population are like a white population intellectually. So, a black country would have the human capital equivalent to a 70% European country, plus a bunch of very low IQ people. Interesting way to think about it, although I don't know the actual figures.

Note: you can't get a sense of the figures from looking at the bell curves. That shows percentages so as you took the ones on the left away, there would then be a higher % on the right so the whole bell curve would automatically shift to the right.

Thanks, interesting answer from you son and sounds about the kind of answer I'd expect from him.

John Craig said...

Steven --
One of the strange things about IQ and race is that no matter the IQ of the parents, whites tend to revert towards a mean of 100, and blacks tend to revert towards a mean of 85. (This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence on the subject of racial differences, and reversion toward the mean is a well known mathematical phenomenon.) So even if you removed part of a population, which I also do not advocate, you'd still end up with close to the same discrepancy.

Steven said...

What is obviously true is that if you don't remove the bottom x%, then you will always have that top 70% (equivalent to whites) in each generation.

That tells me that as the extremes regress to the mean, new extremes must be produced from the more average people. Or the average wouldn't be maintained in each generation.

I think in our isolated top 70%, more high IQ people would be produced in the next generation than low IQ people as the high IQ people will likely come from combinations of quite high IQ people, which are more common.

There would maybe be a new mean for the population extremes to mathematically regress to.

Think of it in physical terms... you eliminate the bottom x%, and there is now a higher frequency of IQ boosting genes in the population.

I don't know if I'm reasoning correctly here but I think I am.

John Craig said...

Steven --
There would be some eugenic effect from that, but I'm not sure it would be that simple.

Steven said...

I asked a guy. He said:

'I think you can just find the percent which exceeds the white mean and double it. So if the d-value was 1, about 15% of the Black population would have IQs above 100, so to get a population with a mean of 100 one would just double the 15% -- but maybe not.'

Yikes, if there is a 1 standard deviation difference ( black IQ 85), only 15% of blacks are above 100.

John Craig said...

Steven --
The standard deviation for whites is 15 points. I've never been clear on whether blacks have the same SD or not.

Steven said...

Okay but that is always said to be the gap- 1SD, 15 points (however they come by that). That's what he was referring to in the quote.