Wild elephants raping rhinos. What does such behavior tell us about black/white relations?

[Fasci-Nation]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/080725.html

Dear Cecil:

I've read that elephants are now exhibiting aggression previously
unseen — including raping rhinos on the African savannah. Have we
truly screwed up the elephants that much, or is this merely one of
those myths that is now perpetuated in the media? — K. Honey,
Georgetown, Ontario

Cecil replies:

As far as I've seen, the most unambiguous published claim that male
elephants do with some regularity rape rhinoceroses appears in an
October 2006 New York Times Magazine article titled "An Elephant
Crackup?" In opening his argument that a specieswide breakdown in
social cohesion has led to an upsurge in violence by elephants, author
Charles Siebert offers evidence that elephant aggression has been
marked by what he calls a "singular perversity": "Since the early
1990's, for example, young male elephants in Pilanesberg National Park
and the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in South Africa have been
raping and killing rhinoceroses; this abnormal behavior, according to
a 2001 study in the journal Pachyderm, has been reported in "'a number
of reserves' in the region." That's an assertion guaranteed to catch
the eye of even the most inattentive reader, and it's since appeared
in other discussions of animal behavior, often phrased in ways
suggesting the NYT article was the source.

But is it true? Sitting down with the Pachyderm study Siebert cites —
Slotow et al, "Killing of Black and White Rhinoceroses by African
Elephants in Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park, South Africa" — we learn that
between 1991 and 2001 the park's elephants dispatched 63 rhinos,
mainly by goring. The authors suggest that the animals responsible
were young males who had grown up in social groups from which older
males had been "culled" (read: slaughtered by government-commissioned
hunters as a population-control measure) and as a result entered a
state of heightened, testosterone-fueled aggression called musth much
earlier in life than they ordinarily would have. Since similar
incidents at Pilanesberg stopped after large adult males were
reintroduced into the population, thus reestablishing the natural male
hierarchy, the authors advocate trying the same thing at Hluhluwe-
Umfolozi.

Wait a minute, you say — what about the raping part? That's what I
said too. I went back through the study a second time, then a third.
The reference to abnormal behavior seen in "a number of reserves" has
only to do with elephants killing rhinos; nowhere is any mention made
of rape. Seeing a clear need for some inside info, I had my assistant
Una get in touch with one of the article's authors, Rob Slotow,
director of the Amarula Elephant Research Program at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal. Professor Slotow's reply was straightforward: the young
elephants seemingly got into ritualized combat situations with the
rhinos, as males are wont to do, but having no experience being in the
musth state, didn't know they were supposed to back off when the
rhinos backed down, with the result that the rhinos wound up dead.
"There was," Slotow concluded, "nothing sexual about these
attacks." (He went on to report that, sure enough, the attacks on
rhinos subsided almost entirely once older males were brought back on
board.)

That would suggest a problem in the NYT quote above. Best case, I
figured, was that the article got the underlying facts right — i.e.,
elephants really were raping as well as killing rhinos at the parks in
question — but named the wrong study in support. That was Siebert's
best guess as well, and he sent me to G.A. Bradshaw, an animal
psychologist at Oregon State, who'd been a key source for him on the
Times piece. Bradshaw maintains that the elephants have been observed
mounting their rhino victims and that it's ridiculous to dismiss the
possibility that the attacks have a sexual aspect. Though she prefers
the term "false copulation," she says, "it is unlikely that the act
was consensual as so many rhinos were killed, so in that context and
in light of current science, 'rape' is not inappropriate."

There's little doubt that decades of poaching, culling, and habitat
loss have played havoc with elephants' complex social and emotional
lives, and a traumatized elephant is clearly capable of some scary
behavior. But so far experts don't agree on what to call it.

QUESTIONS WE'RE STILL THINKING ABOUT

In my personal and family development class (home ec) my teacher said
that salt and pepper are married, so that's why they always have to
stay by each other. If they are, then one has to be the husband and
the other the wife. All of the people I've asked have agreed that the
pepper would be the husband and the salt the wife. Well, what if the
fork, knife, and spoon were a family? Which would be the dad, the mom,
and the kid, and would the kid be a boy or a girl? Also, what if
thunder, lightning, and rain were a family? How would that go? —
MoxieMolly

I'm proud to say that my kitchen recognizes same-sex marriages for
condiments and cutlery.

—CECIL ADAMS

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This straight dope column explains a lot about why we have so many
problems with blacks.

Let’s say blacks are elephants and whites are rhinoceroses. Elephants
are bigger and stronger—and fiercer—than rhinos (though rhinos can be
mean too).

Anyway, the article says it’s YOUNG elephants that do the killing,
maiming, and raping of rhinos; these young elephants live outside
social groups dominated by big patriarchs. With the absence of
patriarch-dominated order, young elephants run wild without any
rules. As there is no social structure to restrain and guide their
aggressive and sexual tendencies, young elephants attack and kill
rhinos—which are no match to elephants.

In our modern society, no word is dirtier than ‘patriarchy’. For many
years, feminists have argued that if we get rid of patriarchy, there
will be freedom, liberty, and such. But, without patriarchy, it also
means young men will run wild and free. And, since there are no social
brakes founded on moral hierarchy based on age, young males come to
dominate society. So, we have many communities which have become
thugocracies.
Without society controlled by elderly patriarchs and traditional
social institutions founded on values, we have the modern inner cities
run by faceless/value-free government institutions and ruled by
muscled young men who own the streets. Since young males have not been
acculturated into any moral or social system, they do whatever they
feel like AT THE MOMENT—crime, using drugs, wild and loose sex,
joining gangs, and etc.

The biggest problems exist among black males but isn’t negligible
among Hispanic, white, and Asian youth who have also been raised in a
society increasingly composed of broken families. Though patriarchs
can be oppressive and brutal, there is an idea in patriarchy that
there is more to manhood than mere toughness and strength. Patriarchy
says man must also be mature, take on responsibilities, and live by a
moral code. At its extreme, we have craziness of the Taliban. But, a
total and radical rejection of patriarchy leads to what we have in
Jamaica, Haiti, Africa, and black communities in the US. We have
unanchored young males pumped with hormones going into the streets and
doing whatever they feel like. We need only see the Brazilian gangster
film “City of God”. That is thugocracy at its most extreme. Indeed,
it is the worst of all possible worlds.

When we look at US today, black males who grow up within patriarchal
environments—ones ruled by mature big elephants—tend to be far less
dangerous and less crazier than black males who grow up without the
guidance or moral leadership of the black equivalent of mature big
elephants. Mike Tyson never had a big mature black elephant to look
over him, but he was still most sane and decent when under the
guidance of an elderly white coach who set strict guidelines on
Tyson’s behavior. But, after the old white man—who had played the
elder elephant—died and Tyson was free to do as he chose, he totally
ruined his life and hurt many around him.

So, it’s no wonder that white Americans pray for black communities to
come under the control of Big Elephant blacks who will play the role
of grandfathers, fathers, uncles, elders, etc. Minus such people,
black communities are dominated by young thugs who act like young
elephants in Africa that attack and rape rhinos.
Of course, the rhinos in our national equation are non-blacks—whites,
Jews, Hispanics, Asians, etc—who are attacked by young black males.
Rhinos are safe from young elephants ONLY IF older/bigger elephants
step in to enforce some semblance of social order upon the young
elephants. Similarly, whites are safe—or safer—from blacks ONLY if
patriarchal and older blacks step in to provide young black males with
some semblance of values, morality, and codes.

The problem is what leftism, feminism, and liberalism have done to our
society. For many years, the left has attacked the family, the
‘patriarchy’, traditional responsibility and morality, etc. Among
whites, loosening of family ties and traditional values may have been
workable as whites have been far more acculturated over the centuries
and also because they tend to be less violent and aggressive. In
contrast, the cultural level among blacks has been low. Also, blacks
tend to be naturally more aggressive. So, when traditional
institutions broke down in the black community, there was nothing to
replace them for the sake of social order.
In Europe, most white individuals are highly educated, well-read, and
so on. So, a Swede who rejects traditional family values is still
likely to be well-educated, disciplined, and have some sense of moral
code. But, this is not so among blacks who lag behind or lack in
intellectual vigor or cultural life. A white yuppie who will not
marry and ‘settle down’ may substitute traditional values/conventions
with devotion to art, foreign cinema, and such. But, people without
intellect, culture, or art will substitute discarded traditional
values and institutions with baser, meaner, more animalistic, and
cruder forms of freedom. A Jew who rejects the traditional life
watches the films of Alain Resnais, reads Marcel Proust , has safe
sex, and joins a literary club. A negro who rejects the traditional
life listens to rap, joins gangs, fuc*s every loose pussy in town, and
terrorizes the streets. Even poor Jews of yesteryear were more
responsible—and more intellectual--than many middle class blacks
today.

White liberals thought the loss of patriarchy would lead to the same
kind of liberty everywhere. Among educated whites, the weakening of
patriarchy may have led to more freedom, liberty, and openness. Among
the uneducated and crass—especially among blacks--, loss of patriarchy
led to young males acting crazy and young females acting like a bunch
of welfare skank sluts.

It’s not a zero sum game where patriarchy is all good or all bad. But,
we must reject the feminist idea that all the evils of the world can
be eradicated by combating patriarchy.
Ridiculously, feminists target white male patriarchy 99% of the time,
which is hilarious since white males are the least ‘patriarchal’ men
on Earth. But, notice how feminist criticism of Muslim
patriarchalism--the most extreme in the world—is muted. (So, it’s only
‘white’ patriarchy that seems to be truly evil.) Patriarchalism has
its dark sides, but we must not ignore the much darker side of
thugocracism. Patriarchalism offers some semblance of social order,
moral order, and civilization. But, thugocracy—like the one we see in
“The City of God”—is end of morality itself. It is Idi Amin’s Uganda,
a nation ruled by someone like Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson or Jack
Johnson.