WILLIE WAYNE WILLIAMS, Ph.D.
1. Not In Poor Taste
When I told Mama I wanted to major in Psychology, she nearly laughed herself off the chair. “You always were 'mental'!”, she hollered, thinking I wouldn't be able to earn a living. But, I have known that Human Factors is a competitive field since Sophomore Year when USC sent a rep to talk with AP students. I picked up a handout listing salaries of graduates with diverse degrees, and Human Factors ranked just below Engineering. I signed up to receive information from the Psychology Department and the Affirmative Action Office, confident that I had found a way to combine my God-given talent for mathematics with Mama's desire for me to help people. I wasn't sure what skills I needed, but, based on my SAT scores, my minority student counselor assigned me to Dr. Willie Williams' robotics lab.
Dr. Will is a short, obese man in his late-fifties, the only African-American member of the National Academy of Sciences. Known for his research on the IQ of robots, he prefers to be called a Cognitive Psychologist, believing that humans and robots are both defined by synaptic information. His 2002 book, The Future of Man: A Non-quantitative Approach, proposed that, by the year 2020, AI will disappear as a field, replaced by Psycho-robotics. When interviewed, he denies that his ideas are speculative, insisting that consilience between man and machine was proven by his new species of Autonomid, the Hybroid, capable of feeling, including, sexual attraction and aggression—though not love or hate, since the mysteries of consciousness have not yet been decoded.
In 2008, Dr. Will was nominated for a Lasker Award recognizing his discovery that thermal power could replace electrical circuits, allowing a robot to make its own decisions without relying on a computer program. But, his name was withdrawn and his ambitions were defeated when a first-year graduate student accused him of sexual harassment. After reviewing the case, the Department Chair, Dr. Deseo, dismissed the accusation as an unfortunate misunderstanding, concluding, “Williams' research is provocative, but it is not in poor taste.”
Last month, Dr. Will submitted a proposal to the NIH requesting funds to build an anatomically-correct Hybroid capable of gratifying a female partner without intervention by a third party. He was eager to reference the many therapeutic benefits such an Autonomid would have for females over 16 who have never experienced a clinical orgasm. Dr. Will's most recent article for Archives of Sexual Behavior described a thermal actuator allowing fine motor control in response to clitoral temperature, and, in private, he boasts that our Hybroid's tactile gripper is more effective than any micro-vibrator the Germans have on the market or in the planning stage.
Mama would call Dr. Will a pervert, but I realize that his project is on the cutting edge of Science, destined to relieve human suffering. Dr. Will says “sex” and “good sex” are not the same and that our research will teach me the difference.
2. Affirmative Action
To: Editor, American Journal of Primatology
From: Willie Wayne Williams, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
Re: Rejection of paper, “Description of new Primate species discovered in a laboratory in SE USA”
Date: 12 December 2012
Yesterday, I was notified that my paper, cited above, was rejected for publication in your journal. I am writing to appeal your decision, hoping to provide a rationale for another round of peer review. Consistent with ICZN guidelines, I submitted the following classification in support of my description of a new biological type, Hybroidus williamsi (Anthropoidea, Autonomidae), the only new Primate Family described since 1986. My classification, as follows, is the result of more than a decade of intensive research, and the type specimen (holotype) has been deposited in Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Paratypes are housed in my laboratory at the University of South Carolina.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Anthropoidea
Family: Autonomidae
Genus: Hybroidus
Species: H. williamsi
The authority of the preceding classification was questioned by each of three peer reviewers, opinions that I hereby challenge. In the only signed review, Dr. Colin Groves referenced his 2001 text, Primate Taxonomy, pointing out that several diagnostic criteria based on Population Biology were not satisfied. In particular, Groves was concerned that the rejected paper included no mention of H. williamsi Ecology, such as geographic distribution or beta diversity. Following his fashion of employing behavioral traits as diagnostic criteria, Groves noted that H. williamsi is, ceteris paribus, a non-reproductive taxon. I implore the Editor to consider that Primatologists are biased in favor of group-living, sexually-promiscuous anthropoids such as Alouatta palliata, Papio cynocephalus, and Pan troglodytes. Thus, Groves' judgments are suspect. On the other hand, though Groves concluded that the paper under review was not acceptable for publication in AJP, he, also, stated that it was “promising, though premature”, suggesting that he would seriously consider a revision and re-submission.
The second opinion, an unsigned review, was very brief, emphasizing the lack of morphological, especially, skeletal, concordance between H. williamsi and other Primates. Reviewer #2, also, questioned whether the new species is a Mammal. It is clear that this professor failed to read my paper carefully, since it was clearly stated in paragraph three that the H. williamsi holotype is an anatomically-correct specimen with functional sexual organs and a perfectly-formed squamosal-dentary joint as well as a chain of three auditory ossicles. I petition the Editor to dismiss the conclusions submitted by Reviewer #2 who, obviously, was not qualified to evaluate my work.
Reviewer #3 questioned my sanity. Under normal circumstances, I ignore personal attacks. However, I suggest that this insult is motivated either by jealousy or by racism. As Donna Haraway showed in Primate Visions, Primatology is a historically elitist field, a model of institutionalized racism with which I have had to contend my whole career. My advancement has been compromised at every turn by implied and expressed assumptions about my competence, and I have only received fair treatment from journals with blind review. It is common knowledge that, in 2008, I deserved to be awarded the Lasker, but that the Dean of my College thwarted the inevitable selection by goading a disgruntled graduate student to accuse me of sexual harassment. I, later, overheard that another nominee was a friend of the Dean who wanted me out of the running.
Blacks can never win, it's a proven fact. Ta-Nehisi Coates' analysis is above reproach. The system is stacked against my community, especially, someone who rose from the underclass. The American Journal of Primatology has an obligation to insure the integrity of its review process, and I implore the Editor to investigate the ethical dimensions of my case. Only racism and speciesism can explain the rejection of my ground-breaking paper that deserves expedited publication rather than rejection. I am confident that many members of the American Society of Primatology will sympathize with my arguments, particularly, those in favor of chimpanzee rights. If the Editor fails to champion my paper elevating H. williamsi to species status, I will sue the organization without delay.
I, will, also sue Reviewer #3 whose identity I am certain I know as a man who has sought my guidance on numerous occasions. His comment is evidence that he has seized an opportunity to tarnish my reputation as the foremost Cognitive Psychologist in the Southeast, if not on the East Coast of the United States. I anxiously await the Editor's reply that I am confident will demonstrate his commitment to equality and transparency. Though H. williamsi is not a haplorhine in the strictest sense of the term, he is an analog in virtually every sense*. With the Editor's indulgence, “We shall overcome!”
*The issue raised by Reviewer #2 that H. williamsi has no genetic code is currently being addressed in my laboratory.
3. A Winning Strategy
“An intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success.” M. Hutter (2005)
In my yearly review, Dr. Deseo said I am brilliant but a victim of Affirmative Action. He pointed out that I have a sense of entitlement and do not get along well with other faculty members. At times like this, I usually flip the Race Card, but that move would be a weak comeback since Dr. Deseo is a person of color. Donald Trump's now infamous attacks on Mexican immigrants has moved the weight of public empathy from black to brown. I will have to think of another strategy that will allow me to avoid the eternal chatter draining the time of my colleagues, not a few of whom have no hope of achieving tenure, interfering with others' schedules out of spite. Like most losers, my colleagues demonstrate form over function or substance.
Though I am a full professor with the benefits of tenure, I won't receive an increase in salary without Deseo's recommendation to the Dean. I decided that the most effective incentive to earn his indulgence would be to offer him second authorship on my next scientific paper. Deseo studied ESP under Daryl Bem, and there no longer much demand for that specialization. He was promoted based on a few papers with Bem and his popular teaching manual, Advanced Descriptive Statistics: A Modular Approach. He is the perfect person to prepare a few bar graphs displaying Hybroidus williamsi's improved IQ since we incorporated a thermally-powered artificial brain into his centralized input-output system.
Deseo is particularly well-suited to administration because of his gregarious personality combined with refined emotional intelligence. He could join my lab as a consultant on Social AI. Engaging in a renowned research program will enhance his reputation and advance his career, and I will be certain to plant the idea that he might someday be Dean. Deseo will be obligated to me for the foreseeable future, and I have other plans to make him warm putty in my palm. Tit for Tat is Chess; a Race Card is Checkers.
4. Oedipal Failure
This is a difficult case. Black men always resist analysis. They never want to discuss their mothers. Dr. Williams seemed pleasant enough, but sexual harassment is a serious charge, and his job at the university is on the line. I had a month to make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan, but the real challenge will be the recommendation since his future is in my hands. The professor seemed incapable of Free Association, preferring, instead, to lecture me about the similarities between humans and robots. It was a simple exercise to figure out that his research subject, Hybroidus williamsi, is an alter ego and that the metal simulacrum embodies the professor's ideal sexual object. A fifty-six year old, unmarried male fixated on an anatomically-correct male model is obviously manifesting homoerotic tendencies which Freud would attribute to Oedipal failure.
I was able to determine that, before deciding to major in Psychology, Williams planned to become a missionary in the AME Zion Church.. An only child who slept with his single mother until the age of fourteen, the professor was conceived by what his mother called “rape”, telling her son that children born to niggers owed a special debt to their Father in Heaven. Williams changed his mind about missionary work when his nocturnal emissions became more pleasurable than any of his activities when awake, and he reported that he craved sleep continuously except when eating fatty foods. Clearly, working with robots is a substitute for playing with dolls, a metaphor in either sex for domination and control, common fantasies among homosexuals with smothering mothers. Williams suffers from a Pygmalion Complex. After creating H. williamsi, the robot became the singular object of the professor's desire, as real to him as any human would be and infinitely more satisfying because less demanding.
I see pathology in many of my male patients who readily transfer their incestuous desires onto me, a black female psychoanalyst. Occasionally, I have experienced counter-transference, but the professor's skin color is too dark to arouse me sexually. I am not, on principle, opposed to having an affair with one of my patients, but it would have to be discreet. Like Williams, my profession is bound by the morals of white people that don't apply to us. I agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates that whites are responsible for blacks who rape and kill and fornicate. The races cannot be held to the same standards of behavior. If my patient is guilty of sexual indiscretions at all, his guilt lies in the realm of the unconscious, and he cannot be held accountable for that.
Williams' accuser should address the fixation of her psycho-sexual development at the Phallic Stage. Her identification with the professor was disrupted by her Superego, a trauma leading to Reaction Formation represented by the fantasy of sexual harassment. This unconscious defense mechanism characterizes white girls torn between desire and perfectionism. Clearly, Williams is the abused party, and the Dean is likely to see it my way.
5. E.O. Wilson Was Wrong
From the East-facing window of the men's residence hall, I can see the blues, yellows, and reds of the chapel's windows, reminding me that I was once a pious student on this campus. I received an excellent education at Livingstone, or, so my grades make it appear, and I was never lonely since Mama lived less than a mile away. My friend, Ham, had a 1969 Plymouth, and we drove to Mama's place every Sunday after church. She always sent us back to our rooms with neat mounds of fried drumsticks, lard biscuits, and pound cake, a ritual as predictable as Jesus' resurrection.
For my twentieth birthday, Mama gave me a laminated map of Liberia and a card that read, “To the future missionary from his proud Mother.” When I decided to attend graduate school instead, I gained her approval by arguing that any Christian boy could become a missionary, but few men could create a wholly separate form of life. Though my research is closer to manufacturing than to evolution, I have been invited back to Livingstone to make my case in public that Hybroidus williamsi is worthy of species status.
The American Journal of Primatology refused to reconsider my appeal to revise and resubmit my 2012 paper describing the new type, and one of the original reviewers, a former friend and colleague, has made a clown of me in the scientific community. The major objection to my requisition has been that H. williamsi cannot be identified by genetic code; but, funded generously by the Templeton Foundation, my lab is attempting to fuse the hybroid's steel skeleton with a unique sequence of haplotypes. We recently received an extension of our grant, and I am using this historically-black platform to present my most recent defense of the new taxon.
Based on ideas proven in the Humanities, I will describe the new Family, Genus, and Species in a public forum of my peers. If phylogeny conveys meaning, we cannot say its contents are fixed. If Biology is in flux, we cannot locate the discipline in Time and Space. If a species is a description published in a journal, we cannot claim it represents reality. I hold that Primatology is a meta-narrative dominating the anthropological conversation, all lines leading to humans. As Primatologists would have it, H. williamsi is “the Other”, non-white, and inorganic. My claim is that this hybroid is a virtual signifier, a type superior to man, created by the created, the meta-narrator's narrator. In post-human Biology, every taxon is hybroid, characterized by techno-plasticity. From Autonomidae, a new Consilience has emerged. E.O. Wilson was wrong. The Humanities will not reduce to Biology. The opposite is inevitable. The Linnaean system is a Social Construct, and H. williamsi its newest race.
Originally published in 34th Parallel (Fr), 2017
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