I have written quite a bit about white people lately. Here is the overview:
White people (1502- ) are those light-skinned people who come from Europe, the Middle East and parts nearby. Over the past 500 years they have settled in Australia, South Africa, North and South America.
Some say that Muslim and Latin American whites are not white, but if you are going to divide the world into five or so races, there is no physical reason to set them apart – only ones of history and religion.
Even so, in English when people say “white” they mainly mean the whites in North America and Britain. I do too.
Who counts as “white” in America has changed: the Irish and the Jews were not considered to be “white” at first. The same is true now for Latinos. About 40% of Americans who are part African pass for white.
On the world stage, whites are on top, but only since about 1800.
Northern Europe had been a backward corner of the world through most of history. As late as the 1400s Timbuktu, a black city in Africa, and Tenochtitlan, a brown city in Mexico, each had far more people than London, a white city in Europe.
Egypt and China, not Europe, have been the most advanced parts of the world through most of history. China still was as late as 1700 and likely will be again by 2030. Just look at who is studying engineering now.
Many whites think they are on top because they are just better than everyone else. Either because of their race, their way of life or their laws and customs.
Not quite.
Whites got on top because they had guns and ocean-going ships and industry first. Japan has shown these things are not “white”, so whites got them first only through an accident of history.
Whites, except for their power, are the same as everyone else. God did not make them special. God is not smiling on them. Hardly.
Starting in the 1600s in America they came with their guns and pushed the red man off his land and then with their wonderful ships (they were a wonder), they brought black men over the seas in chains to work that land. It is not what Jesus would have done, but it is what they did.
Deep down they knew it was wrong. So to live with themselves they had to believe a lie: whites are better than everyone else. A lie most of them still believe to this day.
Racism is not just some bad habit they fell into. It is built into their sense of who they are.
White American racism was open and naked down to the time of Martin Luther King, Jr. They have since changed. But it seems their words have changed far more than their hearts. They still think they are better than blacks, but their excuses are now a bit more subtle and carefully worded – not so much to hide their racism from the world but from themselves.
– Abagond, 2008.
See also:
- Timbuktu
- Race in America
- white privilege
- white-on-black racism:
- What white people should know
- Whites are still racist
- colour-blind racism
- hearts of white people
- How white people think
- stereotypes
- slave trade was immoral – for those who feel the urge to remind us of Arab slave traders
- others who have to live in a white world:
- white women
- white beauty: a brief history
- White American music
Abagond 
No white people are those defects with weak genes who crawled out of the caves they were banished to because those albino AFRICANS couldn’t behave around superior beings, your genes simply mutated to your setting after a few hundred years, and well there ya go. crackers 101. You know white people have devil-related terms in just about every country and religion? even in the bible it’s said you lost your pigment aka ‘protection’ because of sin.
I feel sorry for the hurt, pathetic black women and men who mate with you simply because they want them some “good hurr” babies, lol. I’m half Korean and black and while Asian genes are just as strong as black I can’t see myself havin the child of a white person, that just seems so nasty to me.
No offense.
LikeLiked by 1 person
IluvYubin you are beginning to sound as if you are a troll
LikeLike
IluvYubin: Your comment seems bitter and sarcastic. Nothing in my post, if you read it carefully, supports that view of whites. You are getting that from somewhere else, not from me.
What I said was that whites got an edge on everyone else in arms and transport and now they think they are better than the rest of us.
If that is either racist or untrue, please tell me how. That is the kind of comments I expect and welcome.
I do not know you, but at a guess from this and other comments it seems you grew up mixed and had a hard time of it. So you are filled with anger. I probably said a few things on this blog that got under your skin and now you are taking all that anger out on me.
The same sort of thing happened to me last week with fat women.
Thin black women also give me a hard time, but compared to you and the fat feminist women, they are sweetness and light. At least they were able to manage their anger enough to have a productive discussion.
LikeLike
You are leaving out some facts as well.
Mostly that it was Askia the Great who sold out most of Africa to Islam, and allowed Islam to take the gold out of Africa. This eroded the economic base of the continent. After that, people were forced to do what they needed to do – which was help the European slave trade get started.
Also, I’m what you would classify as white and I don’t believe I’m better than anyone, except of course Yankee Fans.
-Stal
LikeLike
Off topic: The young lady is very attractive whatever we/she classifies herself as. She has a nice balance of features and I am feel’n the birth mark/mole over her left eye.
LOL @ lluvYubin’s comments with the cherry on top “No offense”. That’s comedy! Don’t kick the door waving the 4-4 and then leave saying, “No offense”.
LikeLike
She is beautiful, especially her eyes!
LikeLike
Stal: I believe I was careful this time to say “many” and “most” white people, but maybe I missed a few 😉
LikeLike
Stal: What does Askia the Great have to do with this post?
LikeLike
I think he’s blaming Askia for the advent of the European slave trade. Islam too, it seems.
LikeLike
Blame? No, just sighting historical happenings to show how if you allow an outside community to take away your economic base, that community will turn on each other.
The historical significance of Askia the Great was to show how Islam came into Africa. As to blaming Islam, no – hardly. We all know it was the Christians who were responsible for the slave trade.
Of course, since most of you are Christians, I would assume that you will defend your church. Or will you?
You know, as long as we are tossing out stones.
As for saying “most” – indeed. Just saying that it will help in your arguments.
Love this Blog.
LikeLike
I think I made it clear in the post that the men who brought slaves to America were Christians: “It is not what Jesus would have done”. Meaning that they were Christians who should have known better. And they did – thus racism. Christianity did not condone what they did nor did it leave them room to be nakedly cynical.
It was Christians who helped to end slavery in America, as they had long ago in England. So long ago that by the time common law was started there was no concept of “slave”. So when men started to keep slaves in America they were treated mainly as property, not people, as they were in Latin countries, whose laws go back to Roman times.
LikeLike
The historical significance of Askia the Great was to show how Islam came into Africa. As to blaming Islam, no – hardly. We all know it was the Christians who were responsible for the slave trade.
I think you may be a little off here. I believe that Islam in sub Saharan Africa dates back at least to the Malian Empire which preceded Askia’s reign.
LikeLike
Good overview but I just wanted to throw some food for thought, what we think of as “white” is relatively new. In the 1700s- 1800s, only WASPs were considered white, Irishman & Eastern/Southern Europeans (i.e.Italians) were considered inferior “races”. It wasn’t until immigration laws in the late 1800s were changed that finally include Irish and other europeans as “white”.
Racism is what built America, It has existed since its founding and will continue until its demise. Yes, things have changed but we still have to keep fighting for equality and I’d hope there would be more whites who would help fight against injustice in America.
LikeLike
All I can say is its f*cked up!
LikeLike
Kat, good point about the Irish, etc. I added it to the post.
LikeLike
Kat’s point is really crucial to understanding the nature and developement of white supremacist ideology. We tend to assume that the ideology produced such abominations as slavery and European Imperialism but the historic reality is the reverse.
LikeLike
Not to battle – But what I was saying was that it was Askia the Great who sent the gold out of Africa and to Islam. I will do some research on this though.
Could be wrong.
LikeLike
So the only way to define white people is to belittle them historically by saying that in medieval times they didn’t had the biggest cities (Timbuktu a major turning point of that “African Coke Classic” The Arab slave trade), where backward compared to China (let’s just ignore the 90% of the modern world that we invented) and then to say how we invented the “unprecedented” evil of racism.
Now since by the 19th century when racism was mainly codified whites had the most advanced civilization ever created who grew to control most of the world (colonialism) and the other races were busy shining their shoes, I think it’s normal that they thought themselves to be better that all and not some evil ploy. Even the Chinese thought themselves better than everyone else before Europe bitch slapped them a little and got them out of the crazy conservatism where they had sunk.
LikeLike
Stuff white people like:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/07/05/white_people/
LikeLike
I personally enjoy the quote (I haven’t attempted to authenticate this — it could be an internet myth) by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) about Bush43: “Well, I really think he shatters the myth of white supremace once and for all.”
LikeLike
And Rep. Charles Rangel is, of course, an outstanding specimen of humanity. That’s the trouble with stones and glass houses, you see.
And with anecdotal evidence.
LikeLike
Actually, zane, the Chinese still think themselves better than everyone else. So do most of the other racial groups. It is only whites who are expected to “transcend” race — but when they do, they’re accused of blindness to their own ineluctable racism.
LikeLike
“White people” is a phenomenon that has oppressed and attempted to subordinate the rest of the world. However, nuestro momento viene. Stay tuned.
All you reap and all you sew, is all your soul will ever know.
v/r,
P
LikeLike
Your honesty about your intentions is appreciated, Mango. Hopefully, it will awaken racial consciousness in at least a few more white people.
LikeLike
zane: the point of this post was not to say good things or even bad things about whites, but instead to tell you how I understand white people, in particular their racism. I do that by looking at their history.
In short, I understand that they are no better than anyone else and that their racism is a cover for their crimes, past and present.
LikeLike
Your honesty about your intentions is appreciated, Mango. Hopefully, it will awaken racial consciousness in at least a few more white people.
Are you actually a member of the National Alliance, or do you just play one on the internet?
LikeLike
Ad hominem means you’ve lost the argument.
LikeLike
“Whites got on top because they had guns and ocean-going ships and industry first. Japan has shown these things are not “white”, so whites got them first only through an accident of history.”
And may I add that the invention of gunpowder was obtained from Europeans turning fireworks components into gunpowder, then bullets. The Chinese used fireworks for celebration. The Europeans created killing machines (Remington, Winchester, Thompson, M-16, etc.) from firewoks=gunpowder to maim, destroy—and conquer.
On the slave issue in colonial America.
Under English Common Law, the child’s race ORIGINALLY followed the race of the father. During indentured servitude, landed gentry white males saw many white women having babies by black men, and as indentured servitude began to give way to the establishment of American slavery, the white man changed the English Common Law statue from a child following the father’s race, to the child following the mother’s race.
ANY child born to an enslaved black woman therefore was a slave for LIFE. Any child born to a white woman was free for life.
Did not matter who the father of the child was:
-White mother, child free;
-Black mother, child enslaved
For many reasons the white man did this, but mainly to increase his slave population on the plantation.
American slavery is the only known slavery in the world where the following happened:
-Slaves were acquired through natural increase, ergo, “breeding” human beings into existence (enslaved black women werecalled “breeders”), instead of the importation of slaves into America [the African slave trade was abolished January 1, 1808];
-Black Americans as they are known today are a race of people CREATED in America; they are literally a race of people RAPED INTO EXISTENCE;
-White fathers sold their own flesh and blood because black humans were considered CHATTELS (on the same level as a cow, goat, dog, horse, chair, sofa, etc);
-Unlike slavery around the rest of the world (past, PRESENT, and future [I do not see slavery ending while humans exist on this earth], slavery all over the world allowed slaves to buy or work their way out of freedom. Not so with American slavery.
LikeLike
Did not matter who the father of the child was:
-White mother, child free;
-Black mother, child enslaved
A clarification is in order:
“Did not matter who the father of the child was”
That was menat in reference to the child of a BLACK MOTHER. The hwite woman was forbidden to have any more children with indentured black men around 1641 [when race-based American slavery was codified into law.]
LikeLike
Apologies for the typos 😉
LikeLike
Ad hominem means you’ve lost the argument.
You obviously do not know what an ad hominem is.
LikeLike
Calling an opponent a neo-nazi definitely qualifies.
LikeLike
Calling an opponent a neo-nazi definitely qualifies.
The only person who used the term “neo-nazi” is yourself.
In the event, labeling someone, or even calling them names isn’t an ad hominem. An ad hominem is when you reference some aspect of a person’s background which may or may not be related to the argument they are making and assert on that basis alone that the argument may be dismissed. I did nothing of the kind. Your “arguments”, if they can charitably described as such, are easily refuted by facts alone.
What I did do was ask you a provocative question in order to elicit information. You have helpfully provided that information. To whit: You are aware of the National Alliance as an organization and what its ideological character is. This indicates that you are unrepresentative of the vast majority of so-called “white-people” who have never heard of the NA, much less delved into its Nazi ideology.
Does this information constitute a refutation of your “arguments”? Of course not. But then I never claimed it did.
LikeLike
So your “point” is that I hold unpopular opinions. Well, duh.
I’m also aware of the NOI as an organization and what its ideological character is. And, for that matter, of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ as an organization and what its ideological character is. As well as of the National Council of La Raza as an organization and what its ideological character is. For the record.
LikeLike
Your initial “neo-nazi” outburst was prompted by me taking exception to Mango’s racial triumphalism. Which leads me to believe you have no problem with his words and ideas. Shockingly.
LikeLike
So your “point” is that I hold unpopular opinions. Well, duh.
My point, as I said, was to elicit information. Since you’re such a stand up guy concerning your unpopular opinions, perhaps you’ll be more forthcoming in future about their character.
LikeLike
Ann: good points about the nature of American slavery and race and how it is different than the rest of the world.
That is something that always got to me: how any man could willingly sell his own sons and daughters into slavery – or not free them any chance he got.
LikeLike
nonserviam: Do you believe all this stuff you are saying or are you just playing devil’s advocate?
LikeLike
“No offense”? LOL. Black people marry white people so their kids can have “good hurr”? So your black parent chose your Korean parent so you would have good hair? After all, in the ass backwards system of hair ratings, isn’t East Asian hair deemed superior to white hair?
For some reason, I sort of separate “ethnic whites” (Irish, Italians, Greeks, Arabs, white Latinos, etc) from white whites. They aren’t the default.
LikeLike
I enjoy a good intellectual workout, but not to the extent of advocating something just for contrarianism’s sake. So, the former.
LikeLike
I enjoy a good intellectual workout, but not to the extent of advocating something just for contrarianism’s sake. So, the former.
Whatta shock.
LikeLike
nonserviam: do you see that you are just as racially triumphalist as Mango, only way smugger about it?
LikeLike
I am reasonably proud of my group’s achievements, but I bear no ill will towards others. Nor any desire to dominate and exploit them.
LikeLike
I am reasonably proud of my group’s achievements, but I bear no ill will towards others. Nor any desire to dominate and exploit them.
This is, of course, unresponsive to the question posed. It doesn’t address the point, which is the comparability of Nonserviam’s views to that expressed by Mango.
One can reasonably inquire as to whether or not nonserviam believes that standards of logic and conduct are “racially” specific. That is, are behaviors and attitudes which are objectionable when expressed by “non-whites” acceptable or even admirable when engaged in by “whites”?
I think it plain that, far from being blind to his own racism, Nonserviam celebrates it as a positive virtue.
LikeLike
I am not going to explain the fundamental difference between racism (i.e. race hatred) and race-realism or race-awareness. It should be self-evident.
LikeLike
That is, are behaviors and attitudes which are objectionable when expressed by “non-whites” acceptable or even admirable when engaged in by “whites”?
No.
LikeLike
I am not going to explain the fundamental difference between racism (i.e. race hatred) and race-realism or race-awareness. It should be self-evident.
Good thing too, since your attempt to reduce racism to race hatred is transparent nonsense. Racism is a doctrine that holds, among other things, that race is intrinsic and determinant in human affairs. You clearly hold such views. Ergo, you are a racist, although not quite the stand up sort.
LikeLike
Race has both biological and sociocultural components. Determinant — to a degree, but not to the exclusion of other factors.
Transparent nonsense is a radically expansive definition of racism. Which is a part and parcel of the left-liberal (postmodernist, deconstructionist, whatever) assault on meaning.
LikeLike
Transparent nonsense is a radically expansive definition of racism. Which is a part and parcel of the left-liberal (postmodernist, deconstructionist, whatever) assault on meaning.
Nothing radically expansive here at all. Racism has never been defined simply as race hatred except, perhaps, in your own self serving, idiosyncratic view.
You are now engaged in self contradicting double talk. You have stated elsewhere that civilization is dependent on white people. That is not a position that allows for “other factors”.
This is just more dodging and twisting on your part to avoid coming to grips with the actual arguments and evidence against your views. You’re not interested in a real “intellectual workout”. Rather, you’re interested in rhetorical gamesmanship aimed at reinforcing a misplaced sense of your own superiority.
LikeLike
You have stated elsewhere that civilization is dependent on white people.
Necessary, but not sufficient.
LikeLike
Nothing radically expansive here at all.
Then it’s a meaningless definition. Race hatred is, transparently, a bad thing. The belief that race is real and consequential is, also transparently, a morally neutral notion. Any definition that includes both is thus demonstrably fatuous, useful only as an ideological bludgeon.
LikeLike
Then it’s a meaningless definition. Race hatred is, transparently, a bad thing. The belief that race is real and consequential is, also transparently, a morally neutral notion. Any definition that includes both is thus demonstrably fatuous, useful only as an ideological bludgeon.
Racism is a discriptive term for a system of ideas. The fact that any particular idea in isolation might be described as “morally neutral” has absolutely no bearing on whether it is classifiable as part of a general doctrine.
Your claim above is lacking in elementary logic. It amounts to asserting that unless a thing is bad in and of itself, it can’t be a part of something that is bad. As anyone who has studied actual human history as opposed to contenting themself with comforting mythologies would know, that is a non sequitur.
LikeLike
As anyone who has studied human history would know, there’s virtually no significant idea, good or bad, true or false, that hasn’t been used to fuel and justify bad things, at one point or another. This guilt-by-association, if given free reign, would leave humanity without any usable cognitive corpus at all — which is, of course, the radical deconstructionists’ endgame.
But you know what — I predict that the race controversy will become moot at some not-too-distant point. We will “science” our way towards greater understanding of human nature in general and human biodiversity in particular, discarding hateful nonsense and comforting mythologies in the process. Stay tuned, to quote that charmer Mango.
LikeLike
Racism is not just some bad habit they fell into. It is built into their sense of who they are.
The very concept of race as we understand it today was to justify the oppression of people of color and has very little to do with personal identity. It is the desire to maintain privilege that is the issue. THis applies to not only race but class and gender…it is ‘othering’.
LikeLike
Renee: yes, racism was used to justify oppression and maintain privilege, but then later it became part of how people thought of themselves, both black and white.
LikeLike
nonserviam: “white” is not some good idea that got put to bad uses. No one thought of themselves as black or white until the 1500s when the Portuguese began to sell African slaves.
Our whole sense of ourselves as being either black or white comes from the days of white empires and black slaves, ideas created to make that world order seem right and good, at least to white-skinned people.
The comforting mythologies of those times live on. Partly because they took on a life of their own, partly because they still help whites feel good about their unfair advantages and position in society.
LikeLike
As anyone who has studied human history would know, there’s virtually no significant idea, good or bad, true or false, that hasn’t been used to fuel and justify bad things, at one point or another. This guilt-by-association, if given free reign, would leave humanity without any usable cognitive corpus at all — which is, of course, the radical deconstructionists’ endgame.
Nonserviam, this is utterly incoherent. You earlier argued that the “morally neutral” character of an idea innoculated it against being described as “racist”. You now admit that the character of a particular idea is no bar to its use or misuse. Having made this admission, you go on to claim that recognizing this evident reality is somehow a form of “radical deconstructionism.” It seems increasingly apparent that the only internal logic that your arguments follow is that of a desperate effort to cling to a fixed idea regardless of its connection, if any, to reality.
Your latest obsession with misidentifying me with “radical deconstructionism” is yet another example of this. Presumably, you are using this term in the context of postmodernist or poststructural theory. Such theories, in their extreme forms, argue that there is no such thing as objective fact or objective reality. Rather, there are only subjective impressions or “narratives.”
Whatever psychological validity such ideas may possess, they are no part my arguments. To the contrary, I have consistently argued from a position premised on the existence of objective historical fact and the requirement that when subjective views run counter to such facts they ought to be discarded. Far from attempting to liquidate a “common cognitive corpus” this approach presumes its necessity.
What is actually going on here is a conflict between two perspectives. One which relies on an analysis of historical fact as its basis and another which relies on subjective wish fulfilment, fleeing any standard of objective evidence or accountability.
The intelligent observer can determine for themself which is which.
LikeLike
“Unfair”? Hardly.
LikeLike
Excerpt from a lecture by Dr. Marimba Ani
Cont-
“Knowledge in this system becomes an act of aggression, that is, its power over the object. Now, if that’s the case then you’ve got to have an object to have power over, and that means that you’ve got to have separation. So everything in their system of thought is based on separation.
Where does that separation begin? It begins in the self. They split the self. They dichotomize themselves, separate themselves… as though reason and emotion were separate and we even find ourselves talking like that, but that’s not true! The African conception tells us there is a whole person, so these things are part of each other.
They have to visualize it as being separate, okay? So first you make the separation, you make the splits, then you make them what we call hierarchical, or you put it like this, where one is better than the other. One is superior the other is inferior. Then the logic of this system says that the superior one should have power over the inferior one. Okay? The one that you value should control the one that is devalued.
That’s the key. Once we understand that process you can understand everything that they do, everything that they say, and everything that they write and think and so-forth. All the so-called philosophies that people try to say are different, they come from that culture it’s all the same in this regard.
So that the thinking is confrontational.
We go back to African World View and we have complimentary pairs. As Ama created people with the female principle and the male principle working together so the societies then have with the female and the male working together cooperatively. That’s got to be our model. This model says,“No, got to be separation and confrontation”.
Since… then Fanatically rationalistic… What does that mean?
Rationalism here is not reason. Rationalism is the imposition of the control onto the universe, the imposition of the mental order of the European onto the universe. It’s saying that things were created for you, by you. You become God where you are the European and that they were created in the way that you think about them. So it is not a way of thinking where you try to become in tune with the universe. It is where you impose your own mental order on the universe. That is what rationalism is, but you see there is this need for control and the need for control comes from the deficiency in the being. The deficiency in the asili, okay?
Since knowledge is an act of power then it is necessary to have something that your having power over. What is that? That is the object. The object becomes the most important thing for them, creating this object. What is the object? We said before it is a dead thing. Something which is disconnected. Something you’re remote from. You have no emotional involvement with. That is the object.
For them that is all that you can know is the object, this dead thing. This thing which disconnects YOU from the rhythm of the universe. The object is that which disconnects you from the senses. If you look in the dictionary, look up the word object and see. You’ll see some very interesting things there.
The object breaks the rhythm. It is the rhythm that the European cannot deal with and so what they have to do is reconstruct things so that they have the illusion that,“well, I don’t have to deal with that. That’s okay, and I can know truth”. So they redefine truth.”
—I think he is on point with this one.
LikeLike
No one thought of themselves as black or white until the 1500s
No one thought of themselves as bipedal primates of the family Hominidae until the late 1800s, either (and many still refuse to). Like I said, we’ll science our way through.
LikeLike
No one thought of themselves as bipedal primates of the family Hominidae until the late 1800s, either (and many still refuse to). Like I said, we’ll science our way through.
If you could show an equal amount of scientific evidence for the existence of a “white race” as you can for the Homindae you might have a point. Since you can’t, you don’t.
LikeLike
LifeSource:
It’s really too bad that only the white man’s voodoo (rationalism, science and technology) seems to be able to produce all the toys that so many others crave, isn’t it?
But you know, I’m perfectly happy to let everyone pursue their own destiny. I reject the “white man’s burden” and have no interest in its old reward.
LikeLike
Whiteness, of course, is a delusion — as the insane Captain Ahab of Moby Dick demonstrates. Scientists today agree that there is no such thing as “race,” at least when analyzed in terms of genetics or behavioral variation.
Every human population is a mongrel population, full of people descended from various places and with widely differing physical qualities. Racial purity is the most absurd delusion, since intermarriage and miscegenation have been far more the norm than the exception throughout human ethnic history.
“Race,” then, is what academics like to call a “socially constructed” reality. Race is a reality in the sense that people experience it as real and base much of their behavior on it.
Race, however, is only real because certain social institutions and practices make it real. Race is real in the same way that a building or a religion or a political ideology is real, as each is the result of human effort, not a prescription from nature or God.
Thus the concept of race can have little or no foundation, yet it can still be the force that makes or breaks someone’s life, or the life of a people or a nation.
-Gregory Jay
LikeLike
Beyound this, nonserviam claiming how well whites are faring over blacks and others is ignoring the real issue here, which is HOW or WHY they acquired what they did and HOW did that effect those they exploited; this aspect is often ignored because it doesn’t reflect well on the “white race”.
LikeLike
(But you know, I’m perfectly happy to let everyone pursue their own destiny. I reject the “white man’s burden” and have no interest in its old reward.)
For white people, race functions as a large ensemble of practices and rules that give white people all sorts of small and large advantages in life. Whiteness is the source of many privileges, which is one reason people have trouble giving it up. It is important to stress that to criticize whiteness is not necessarily to engage in a massive orchestration of guilt. Guilt is often a distracting and mistaken emotion, especially when it comes to race. White people are fond of pointing out that as individuals they have never practiced discrimination, or that their ancestors never owned slaves. White people tend to cast the question of race in terms of guilt in part because of the American ideology of individualism, by which I mean our tendency to want to believe that individuals determine their own destinies and responsibilities. In this sense it is un-American to insist that white Americans benefit every day from their whiteness, whether or not they intend to do so. But that is the reality. Guilt, then, has nothing to do with whiteness in this sense of benefitting from structural racism and built-in privileges. I may not intend anything racial when I apply for a loan, or walk into a store, or hail a cab, or ask for a job — but in every circumstance my whiteness will play a role in the outcome, however “liberal” or “anti-racist” I imagine myself to be. White men have enormous economic advantages because of the disadvantages faced by women and minorities, no matter what any individual white men may intend. If discrimination means that fewer qualified applicants compete with you for the job, you benefit. You do not have to be a racist to benefit from being white. You just have to look the part.
-Gregory Jay
LikeLike
What, no James H. Cone’s quotes? I’m sure there are some juicy ones.
LikeLike
W.B. Reeves is right; you never address things straight on because there is truly nothing you can say; you’d rather ramble around the argument instead of taking on the issues addressed straight on. It’s called denial.
LikeLike
What, no James H. Cone’s quotes? I’m sure there are some juicy ones.
What, no quotes from Instauration? I’m sure there are some juicy one’s.
LikeLike
But that is the reality.
OK, I have a quote of my own. I’m sure the author (Lawrence Auster) is no more an authority to you than the clowns you quoted are one to me, but I prefer to use his actual words rather than trying to paraphrase them here:
Race and race differences are a part of the total fabric of human reality. Further, racial and ethnic differences overlap to a great degree with cultural differences. While race and culture are not identical, there is no human way to separate out race entirely from culture. The result is that if the majority population of a country opposes the mass immigration of foreigners because they are culturally unassimilable to themselves, the foreigners’ racial difference from the natives is going, ineluctably, to be part of the total package of traits describing the foreigners. Similarly, a restrictionist policy aimed at keeping out people from backward countries because they will drag down our economy to Third-world conditions is going to affect non-whites disproportionately. The point is that even if you sincerely do not care about race at all, but only care about preserving certain cultural or political or economic qualities of your country, your position is still going to have racial implications.
As long as restrictionists keep running away from the racial side of the issue and frantically denying that they’re racist, they are trapped in the left’s own definitions and moral terms. In the eyes of the left, they will always seem at best hypocritical, claiming that they’re not racist while pursuing a policy that would disproportionately slow the immigration of non-whites. There is therefore no alternative but for us to take the initiative and deal with the racial issue head on. We need to acknowledge the simple, commonsense fact that race is an integral part of human and social reality, one of several factors that significantly differentiate human groups from one another. Race and culture are to a certain degree linked, though of course, as I said, they are not identical. Individuals of any racial background can, potentially, assimilate into a culture different from their own. But the greater the racial and cultural differences between the newcomers and the host population, and the greater their numbers, the more difficult and unlikely such assimilation becomes. The upshot is that if it is legitimate to want to preserve our own culture, it is legitimate to want to preserve a country in which people like ourselves continue to be the majority, culture-defining population.
That is the reality.
LikeLike
Those “clowns” have PhDs in related fields;I doubt the same can be said about your author because….
Scholars who study race generally agree that the modern meaning of whiteness emerges in the centuries of European colonialism and imperialism that followed the “Renaissance”. There have always been families, clans, tribes, ethnic populations, nation states, etc but whole “idea” of race just emerged recently.
LikeLike
Auster’s example is the immigration policy, but the larger point is that the reality of racial differences all but ensures that any policy or principle (such as meritocracy) will have a racial dimension, even if race is not a factor in its formation.
LikeLike
Any geneticist will tell you race is just an illusion.
LikeLike
No, that’s what any CompLit PhD would tell me.
LikeLike
There have always been families, clans, tribes, ethnic populations, nation states, etc but whole “idea” of race just emerged recently.
Actually, the nation-state is a less tangible phenomenon than the others: not coming into full existence until the 19th century, and now seemingly on its way out in some parts of the world.
If race is not real, then neither are family or species.
LikeLike
I’d suggest you upgrade yourself because you are extremely outdated and have officially malfunctioned.
You just can’t face the facts, even if they are right in your face and as simple as 1+2. You now tell me geneticist do not know what they are talking about and, indeed, little ol’ you knows so much more than they do when it comes to genetics? You are simply in denial, but it is OK nonserviam; we are all works in progress.
LikeLike
You obviously do not know the definition nor the history of race, family, or species. When you correctly define and indentify their historical basis; we’ll talk.
Until then, upgrade, my friend….upgrade.
LikeLike
I’m telling you that “race is just an illusion” is not a scientific notion, but an ideological conceit.
LikeLike
No, that’s what any CompLit PhD would tell me.
So speaks one who is clearly ignorant of both biology and genetics and whose arguments consist of strings of self serving propositions lacking any scientific foundation whatever.
LikeLike
“let’s just ignore the 90% of the modern world that we invented)”
YOU ARE COMPLETELY, UTTERLY DELUDED. Rome was considered a city of CHILDREN compared to Egypt. Fool.
LikeLike
I’m telling you that “race is just an illusion” is not a scientific notion, but an ideological conceit.
Fine. Show us the scientific proof that your notion of race is valid. For some reason you haven’t managed that yet. All you do is repeat stale dogmas and ignore evidence that doesn’t suit your prejudice.
LikeLike
A perfect description of the “race is an illusion” conceit.
I make my living in a biological field, btw, but I’m not interested in argumentum ad verecundiam.
LikeLike
*sigh* No gene has ever been found that establishes race. That is a fact by means of science.
Here, play around with this: https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/overview.html
LikeLike
Did you skip over genetics during your studies?
LikeLike
No gene has ever been found that establishes race.
Race is simply common (mostly common) ancestry,
child. As such, it is tagged by the clusters of common gene variants, not any single gene variant.
LikeLike
More than 90% of our DNA is the same; the rest are merely mutations. The “white race” of people as well as other people were not here since the beginning of man kind, as you may think, they are merely mutations from the source—one group of people coming from another group of people. There is no such thing as race, other than the idea of it.
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080220-dna-evolution.html
LikeLike
A perfect description of the “race is an illusion” conceit.
I make my living in a biological field, btw, but I’m not interested in argumentum ad verecundiam.
As pointed out earlier, one side of this exchange is committed to objective proofs while the other is not. The latter is either sadly delusional or simply dishonest.
LikeLike
More than 90% of our DNA is the same, and rests are merely mutations. The “white race” of people as well as other people were not here since the beginning of man kind, as you may think, they are merely mutations from the source—one group of people coming from another group of people. There is no such thing as race, other than the idea of it.
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html
LikeLike
Here.
And here.
More than skin deep.
LikeLike
Only 90%? Humans are ~99% genetically identical to chimpanzees — so it looks like it’s the 1% that counts (plus the fact that phenotypical differences, in that case, are determined more by the differential gene expression, rather than the code itself).
Furthermore. Given the fundamental commonality of eukaryotic cellular machinery, we share ~40% of our genomes with yeast. Does it suggest any philosophically or morally meaningful similarity between yeast and humans?
LikeLike
Only 90%? Humans are ~99% genetically identical to chimpanzees — so it looks like it’s the 1% that counts (plus the fact that phenotypical differences, in that case, are determined more by the differential gene expression, rather than the code itself).
If you actually were a biologist you would know that differences between species are not comparable to differences within species, statistically or otherwise.
LikeLike
Pardon. I wrote comparable when I intended to write reducible.
LikeLike
Still doesn’t make much sense.
LikeLike
More sense than your assertion that humans collectively are genetically closer to Chimps than they are to one another.
LikeLike
Obviously, you have reading comprehension problems.
My point is that even seemingly small or hard-to-pinpoint genetic differences produce tangible phenotypical manifestations.
LikeLike
From what I read, no one is arguing that there are not phenotypic differences among species, that’s obvious, more specifically among the human race even though they are minute.
You’d be suprise to learn that someone you may considered “white” has DNA closer to someone considered “black”. This may come as a shock to you, but I’m sure you’re not all “white”.
The problem starts with the fact that our gene pool is very much a mixture; no one is pure “white”, “black” or anything but there is no doubt that people of these different “races” came about from one people, or group of people.
With that being said, how can you argue “race”? If groups of people came from other groups of people, are they not essentially the same people just with more mutations?
LikeLike
You’re not arguing with me, LS. You’re arguing with some contrived “white supremacist” image in your pretty head.
LikeLike
nonserviam: at #58 you said:
“Unfair”? Hardly.
But the very reason you say that is because you have bought into the comforting mythologies that make up white racism. The whole point of white racism is to make the unfair seem fair (to whites).
LikeLike
nonserviam:
I never called you a white supremacist, but if the shoe fits…..
I’m sure you saw the question; do not have a justifiable answer? For someone who claims to work in the field of Biology, you mostly come of as a dilettante.
LikeLike
nonserviam, based on his comments here, is a white supremacist and he does have a habit of not answering direct questions.
LikeLike
Disagree to agree.
See, there are certain principles that make a society well-functioning. They’re no great mystery, and in the today’s world, everyone is free to follow them if they so choose.
It gets trickier, however. Nearly all of these principles have been “invented” by the dead white males. And the inconvenient reality is such that only the historically-white countries (with some notable exceptions) have been able to practice these principles with any degree of success. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to adopt a working hypothesis that whites are more receptive to these ideas and more capable of implementing them in practice — due to their cultural and perhaps even biological (still very much an open question, but a possibility nonetheless) peculiarities.
Now, a lot of people want the white man’s toys and luxuries, but far from everyone is willing or able to adopt the white man’s ways — or indeed, to comprehend that this is what it takes. This produces inequality — which, although a natural state of things, is anathema to modern liberalism, especially when a racial dimension is present. So, liberalism (itself a dead white male invention, ironically) seeks to eliminate inequality by undermining the white/Western civilization’s legitimacy and enabling its enemies. Which I find not cool.
LikeLike
What “direct questions”? LS’s utterances are childish nonsense.
I outlined my position in the long post above. If it makes me a “white supremacist” in anyone’s eyes, so be it. But like I said before (apparently into deaf ears), I have no desire to dominate or exploit anyone. Everyone should be free to follow our example or to pursue their own destinies. The only thing I demand is the freedom for us to pursue ours.
LikeLike
Oh, wow. “Childish utterances”….did you bring out the BIG GUNS? LOL. Then you should be able to address the question directly, especially if it’s so elementary, but you can’t; there’s nothing more to be said about that issue other than you are obviously full of it being that you have proven nothing and made no valid points. So moving on…
INDEED—Let’s talk about the “white” man’s “toys”; you can’t speak about the good unless you speak about the bad–especially when the only way the white man achieved any good was through bad means.
The MAIN problem with this is that almost all the things the “white man” achieved–his toys and all– he achieved it through the exploitation of others, their resources, and their lands. If you are proud of achieving any of these things through these means, then your pride is in excessively vain.
Atomic Bomb—Hmmmm; this is defiantly a “white man’s toy” but look at the devastation it bought about and the era of nuclear warfare at hand, near and far.
Slavery–Hmmm; this could be considered a “white man’s toy” as well. Do you know what this did? Blacks built this country and Indians owned it….how nice of the white man in all his GOODNESS to exploit people and their lands, then say it was by their own invention by with this great country. America was built on the backs and blood of slaves and Indians. With independence and justice for all-he awe-inspiring “white” man protrays himself as a hypocrite.
Colonization- Hmmmm, after repetitious raping other people’s resources and causing conflicts in their lands and among the people of those lands, raping, murdering etc…the white man did a GOOD DEED.
Global warming- It’s NO wonder why America..”white “man’s land….is at large, a majority of this problem–in spite of the fact that China’s population is heavily out weighs the American population. The white man and all his wonderful inventions never gave a damn about anything but making money, everything else was non existent.
Other technology-although technology has proven useful—it has equally proved very harmful—most often, in the wrong hands—which are usually by the way, a “white” man’s hands—these technologies are abused to a large degree because of the “white” man’s GOOD INVENTIONS.
Who are it’s enemy…anyone not white? You sound gravely insecure. I think you are your own enemy
LikeLike
Like I said, childish nonsense.
LikeLike
The “white” man’s way is to do none other than kill, steal, and rape people of everything then claim it as their own. There’s not pride in that.
That makes the “white” man no better than a common man off the street raping a young girl of her youth, but at a grand scale. What moral person would want to “adopt” his ways? It’s clear the “white” man is his own enemy and everyone else’s as well.
You are as transparent as you believe your skin to be; you have nothing value to bring to the discussion because you know the truth but are too afraid to admit it for what it is. However, nothing, most notably your ignorance, will change reality.
LikeLike
Wel, kid, you’re right about one thing: today’s white man is his own worst enemy (see “liberalism”).
LikeLike
This otherwise absurd exchange has been useful in one regard. It has given ample illustration of the strategy and tactics that conscious white supremacists have adopted since white supremacy lost its de jure status as the official ideology in US society.
Chief among these is the sophistical use of semantics. For example, the white supremacists will claim that they are not supremacists since they don’t openly advocate the domination of one race by another. This shrewdly elides the fact that the logic of their doctrine dictates that such domination isn’t volitional but a natural outgrowth of presumed “racial differences.” Race is determinant, ergo they aren’t supremacists, just “naturally” supreme.
In reading the late Carl Sagan’s last book, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, I came across the following quote, taken from a 20th century politician. I think it useful in comprehending the nature of the white supremacist mindset.
“A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising,an explanation based on will rather than knowlege. There is no truth, in either the moral or the scientific sense.
LikeLike
One more quote that may prove enlightening on the character of the conscious white supremacist. From Robert O. Paxton’s Anatomy of Fascism
Although one can deduce from fascist language implicit Social Darwinist assumptions about human nature, the need for community and authority in human society, and the destiny of nations in history, fascism does not base its claims to validity upon their truth. Fascists despise thought and reason, abandon intellectual positions casually, and cast aside many intellectual fellow-travellers. They subordinate thought and reason not to Faith, as did the traditional Right, but to the promptings of the blood and the historic destiny of the group. Their only moral yardstick is the prowess of the race, of the nation, of the community. They claim legitimacy by no universal standard except a Darwinian triumph of the strongest community.
LikeLike
The distinction is almost certainly lost on you, W.B., but “current political orthodoxy” does not equal “truth”.
LikeLike
nonserviam: Do you have any idea how completely smug and condescending you sound? Just curious.
LikeLike
nonserviam: you hear what you want to hear and believe what you want to believe. You completely brush aside LifeSource’s point in #102. You brushed aside the same point when W.B. made it. And now I will make it, for the third time:
You like to tell us how wonderful whites are and their civilization but then say nothing about the Holocaust, slavery, world wars or any of that. Or: whites screw up Africa and then when they leave it in a mess they blame it on blacks and then use that to prove how much better whites are. What kind of sick reasoning is that?
Compared to India and China, the West is shockingly violent. Not just its world wars and death machines, but even its city streets.
LikeLike
nonserviam: Do you have any idea how completely smug and condescending you sound? Just curious.
Abagon, I suspect that is the psychological payoff. It’s all about asserting one’s own “superiority.”
LikeLike
Nonserviam comments on this thread here:
http://discardedlies.com/entry/?41612_what-kind-of-columnist-is-niggardly-with-sense
Note that he is not called nonserviam there but solus rex.
LikeLike
It’s not much of point, but since you’re making it more coherently and articulately than the kid(plus, you’re the blog owner, so I’m in a way your guest), I’ll respond.
Whites are not uniquely, or even especially, violent or greedy. Our shortcomings are universal flaws of human nature. Slavery had been universally practiced throughout the world (and still is practiced in the “third world”), until whites ended it in their corner of it; so has been warfare and genocide. True, there may have been disparities of scale (then again, you simply never hear about successful genocides), but they’re due to the techological advantages, not the uniquely evil nature of the white people.
I’m not buying your comparison with India and China. Besides, it is meaningless to talk about crime in the modern West without taking the racial (we’re talking about the white folks’ badness, right?), immigrant-status etc. factors into account. Also, China is a quasi-fascist regime, so they may be simply channeling the violence elsewhere.
As for Africa — let’s compare notes in a hundred years or so, shall we? Or however long you think it would take to get over the white man’s iniquities.
LikeLike
nonserviam: Do you have any idea how completely smug and condescending you sound? Just curious.
Yes, I respond to LS’s infantile incoherence with condescension. Humani nil a me alienum est.
LikeLike
Interesting that the nom de guerre and the nom de blog reflect fantasies of the warrior hero and kingship.
LikeLike
Literary references, actually.
LikeLike
What are the literary references? Just curious.
LikeLike
nonserviam: No, it is not just to her that you have been condescending and full of yourself.
LikeLike
“Non serviam” — to James Joyce, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and ultimately the Bible (more cultural than purely literary, I suppose).
“Solus Rex” — to Vladimir Nabokov’s oeuvre (one unfinished novel, traces in many other works).
LikeLike
nonserviam: about #113:
You argue that whites have not been particularly greedy and violent compared to others, though maybe their technology has allowed them to do things on a vast scale.
But that sort of reasoning, which you apply to the bad things about whites, should also be applied to the good things too. I think it is safe to say that their inventions and discoveries would have been made by anyone who was on top at this point in history.
Just as whites have the same hearts as everyone else, so they also have the same brains.
LikeLike
Hm, I see I’ve correctly guessed her sex (not to be sexist on top of everything, but there was certain “girlishness” to her writing).
LikeLike
I did not guess. I know.
LikeLike
I understand that.
LikeLike
#120:
But that sort of reasoning, which you apply to the bad things about whites, should also be applied to the good things too. I think it is safe to say that their inventions and discoveries would have been made by anyone who was on top at this point in history.
Would they also have ended the Atlantic slave trade when (some) whites did?
But your point is granted, arguendo. However, the next question is: what led to those inventions and discoveries being made by those people at that point in history? I know that Jared Diamond and company argue that it was all a complete accident. However, some other thinkers and scientists maintain that it wasn’t, or not entirely. I’m sure these latter ones are all bad, bad people — but what if they’re right, or more right than wrong?
There’s still room for disagreement at this point — but I believe it will be shrinking with each next scientific advance in the relevant areas. Time will be the arbiter.
LikeLike
Just as whites have the same hearts as everyone else, so they also have the same brains.
Well, that’s not what a lot (or most) of your posters seem to believe. In their view, the hearts of whites are completely black.
LikeLike
There’s still room for disagreement at this point — but I believe it will be shrinking with each next scientific advance in the relevant areas. Time will be the arbiter.
There you have it. A belief absent proof.
Of course the expression is artful. It could be claimed that the belief is in science as the arbiter. However, the contempt expressed by the author towards current scientific consensus argues against such. More likely a complacent assumption that belief will be vindicated, eventually.
To clarify the literary allusions mentioned above, the reference in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is to its protagonist, who rejects the priesthood in favor of the life of an alienated and nonconformist artist. In Milton it refers to Satan who refuses to serve God and makes war against heaven.
The title of Nabakov’s unfinished novel translates as “The Lone King” and is drawn from the terminology of Chess where it describes the circumstance of a player who has lost all major pieces other than the King.
So in addition to the myths of the heroic rebel/warrior and kingship, which are embedded in the literary sources, we may add the conceit of the chess player.
Of equal interest is the connection/comparison to great literary works and figures implicit in the choice of such aliases.
LikeLike
BTW, facts are neither moral or immoral. They are amoral. Morality only attaches to our judgements and uses of them.
LikeLike
nonserviam, in regards to comment #124:
White people did end the slave trade and freed the slaves. Not everyone would have done that. But made them do it was not their whiteness but their Christianity.
I also think their Christianity helped them to come up with a science that has proved far more fertile than any in history. But again, it is religion, not race that is the cause.
LikeLike
W.B. and nonserviam: thanks for the background on the names. I thought “nonserviam” had to do with war or country.
LikeLike
You’re welcome.
LikeLike
Nonserviam said:
“I am reasonably proud of my group’s achievements, but I bear no ill will towards others. Nor any desire to dominate and exploit them.”
Oh, please. The only way you people achieve so much is to dominate and eliminate others. So don’t give me that you don’t want to exploit others.
Go wear you white hood and robe and be done with it, you white supremacist fool.
Steph
LikeLike
Right: it is a pretty hollow thing to say you do not desire to dominate or exploit and yet enjoy the very fruits of such domination and exploitation.
LikeLike
Jealous much?
Somebody had to be first.
It’s not my fault that you were born black and I was born white. It’s not my fault that your family probably has no generational wealth, while my family survived the Great Depression and WWII in Europe, scrimping and saving and living in squalor so that they could pass something on (eventually) to me.
No, I will not give you the money that they worked and sacrificed for, just because it’s not “fair” that I have it instead of you. I am not rich. What I have to give wouldn’t amount to a penny to every black person in America. Life is not and has never been fair. I do not ask Jeff Bezos to give me some of his billions of dollars, even though it’s just an “accident of history” that he founded Amazon.com instead of me.
No, I don’t think that I’m “better” than you, but I am grateful for what I have and I acknowledge that I’m fortunate compared to many. Just as American blacks are fortunate that their ancestors were unlucky enough to be brought over as slaves. Those people (who all died 100 years ago) were unlucky. But of the black people in America today, not many would trade places with the average person in Africa.
So while I feel for the disadvantaged in America, I cannot compare their plight to the starving, diseased, truly destitute poor of the world, or to the critically endangered and threatened species of plants and animals. I can’t even feel bad about slavery when compared to the horrific genocide of the indigenous Americans. Hell, the Holocaust was committed by white people, and those individuals were probably more closely related to me than anyone in America during the slavery era.
Constantly blaming whites in America for something their great-great-grandparents might have done (since most whites, even in the south, didn’t own slaves) only further reinforces racial divides. I’ve met many African immigrants who come here and celebrate the opportunities they have, without being jealous of those who have it better. They have no “chip” on their shoulder and try to make the best of what they have, which is all any of us can do.
LikeLike
You should read what I wrote about racism in New York:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/race-in-new-york/
and also about white privilege:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/white-privilege/
LikeLike
its fun to read how much HATE there is against us whites..like we are the worst and only race that ever did harm to other..look in the mirror..are we the ONLY opressors ever??..
LikeLike
if we are going to consider ALL whites guilty of slave-trade..colonialism and racism..then we can consider ALL arabs ALL jews ALL spanish guilty too. Jews & arabs participated in the slave trade as well as white christians. Jews owned slaves..aswell as white christians..”dark” spanish christians participated in the slave trade, and owned black slaves in South America. White Christians stole the american natives countries in North America. Spanish Christians stole the Latin & South America from its natives. The is no doubt that Whites have brought much pain to the world the last 500 years, btw whites has also been slaves to arabs in North Africa & the Middle East..the word slave is belived to originate from “Slav-Slavic”, Eastern Europeans that was slaves in the Middle Easter.
P.S sorry for my grammar, but english is not my first language. D.S..
LikeLike
miker, don’t forget Africans.
Africans did a whole lot of slaving.
LikeLike
racerealist.
i know they did, but far away from as big slavetrade as whites,jews, spanish and arabs did.
(Are we whites evil because we are white..OR because of the opportunities the rich european kings and upperclass had to get even richer and more powerfull by slavetrade and Africas natural-recourses,i mean..if the Africans have had the same opportunity to exploit “us” whites and “our” recousces in Europe..would they have done it??)..
LikeLike
Well the Afrocentric viewpoint is that Africans invented all of “our” technology and the only reason they didn’t enslave us is because they are morally superior.
My personal viewpoint is that history happened and trying to analyze “what if” scenarios is an exercise in futility.
LikeLike
by looking at websites by old Nation Of Islam, Black Israelites etc etc it seems like they think White Men is responsible for Everything wrong in the world..EVERYTHING..even HIV, Aids etc etc..was reading that White men was created by a mad Black Scientist named Yakub 6000 years ago, do actually any Black people people belive those things??..anyone interested to read it??..please take a look for yaself, google the names i wrote.
LikeLike
do actually any Black people people belive those things??..
A miniscule few, which is why it is not worth getting all worked up about.
LikeLike
miker said:
(Are we whites evil because we are white..OR because of the opportunities the rich european kings and upperclass had to get even richer and more powerfull by slavetrade and Africas natural-recourses,i mean..if the Africans have had the same opportunity to exploit “us” whites and “our” recousces in Europe..would they have done it??)..
Yes, they would have.
Whites are far more evil than blacks but that is because they have far more opportunities to do evil.
Whites are not born evil, not any more so than blacks are, but power corrupts….
LikeLike
Point 3. Racism is not exclusive to America and America was not built on racism.
Although I disagree with most of this point, I can’t even address most of the comments on this point as they are mostly opinions. And everyone is entitled to their opinions.
LikeLike
Stumbled on this by accident. But felt moved to add a comment. There is no such thing as racial superiority only racial differences. look at international athletics, you won,t see many whites on the podium of the sprint events, or many blacks getting medals in the swimming races. Differnt races (no pun intended) have different abilities. On the subject of white evilness; this should be man’s (not race linked at all) inhumanity. We can compare the Nazis to the ongoing genocide in Rwanda and the Congo, the opression in Zimbabwe and the turmoil in Ethiopia and Somalia. We should also remember that slavery didn’t start with white men taking slaves, the inter tribal practice of taking slaves had been well established in Africa long before Europeans turned up. This does not condone European actions but neither does these actions absolve the Africans of their part in the procedings
LikeLike
Whites, except for their power, are the same as everyone else. God did not make them special. God is not smiling on them. Hardly.
Lawd…preach.
Northern Europe had been a backward corner of the world through most of history. As late as the 1400s Timbuktu, a black city in Africa, and Tenochtitlan, a brown city in Mexico, each had far more people than London, a white city in Europe.
China, not Europe, has been the most advanced part of the world through most of history. It still was as late as 1700 and likely will be again by 2030. Just look at who is studying engineering now.
Mm-hm. *nods* Preach. And up until the late 1800s, kingdoms and empires flourish in Africa, home to great centers of learning, and the gold and ivory trade (why do people think the Europeans were so drawn to Africa in the first place?)
Asians also now make up 60% of the human species. Africans worldwide are projected to also reach the billions, as I believe indigenous Americans (as a whole) already have. Survey says?
The White, White West really needs to sit down and hush now.
LikeLike
What about the arab slave trade that took about 11million blacks out of africa and into the middle east. This slave trade started long before (almost 900 years before) the trans atlantic slave trade. Were these arabs white? You say whites were on top because they got guns and ships first. Gun powder and wepons powered by this came from china. Gun powder made its way to europe during the crusades. Ships and world wide transportation has been around for a lot longer then I guess you care to think. The chinese controled the whole of the far east long before the europeans had a deep water navy. Even the greeks and the romans had ocean going ships that could have traveled out of the medeteranian (some people think they did).You conveniently place everything into a modern era but you need to know people out there know history. You are right though no race is superior to another but, also remember that people will do things to survive just like those african tribal leaders who took other prisoner and even sold their own tribesman into slavery
LikeLike
Blacks can be racist as whites its fact
They have the comb test the one drop black rule and the you cant be white even if your black and white.
Hello Blacks have the Black Panthers while whites have the Klu Klux Klan
LikeLike
nonserviam
Actually, zane, the Chinese still think themselves better than everyone else. So do most of the other racial groups. It is only whites who are expected to “transcend” race — but when they do, they’re accused of blindness to their own ineluctable racism.
EXACTLY Nonserviam!
No other races can be racist since the whites had an iron grip on the slave trade even though the blacks are the one who started it.
LikeLike
This blog was seemingly interesting at first, but posts like this, and the dismissal of the “background” factor (in the “Seiler” post) are quite disappointing. I’m not yet sure, but it seems that the author just replaces a simplistic explanation (“it’s racial differences”), for another (“it’s the omnipresent-intrinsic-quasi-invisible irrefutable belief in racial differences of those evil whites”).
Both the roles of racism and group/individual self-sabotage have to be taken in consideration, along with class, to account for all this stuff. We can’t just pick from personal impression/”feeling” one main cause and proclaim it as the virtually sole cause to the exclusion of everything else. It’s the kind of thing that has to be carefully studied, measured. And, as far as I am aware, studies show varying degrees of influence of all factors all over the US (the main example that comes to my mind are the experiments with resume letters with black and white sounding names and their rates of interview callings; in some places it didn’t matter, in some places it was quite substantial, to the point that a resume with white sounding name had more chance to receive a call than an equivalent BSN resume even if the first had an admission of being an ex-con). Not mentioning other countries.
Ironically, the “background” factor when used to explain issues affecting black people (albeit not exclusively) is seen as a form of “soft racism”, but it seems that we can readily assume a universal “background” explanation for the universal vileness of whites, without worrying about being racist, not to mention being just reasonable. But this sort of generalization is no different than those of white racists that fear monger about black crime rates and such things. Just that the crime here is specifically racism.
LikeLike
This is incredibly simplistic post. Even wikipedia has a rather solid description of Western (“White”) civilization & its achievements:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world
LikeLike
You can blame whites all you want but all you have shown is your racist attitude for whites. And by the way white people were enslaved long before blacks were but hey white kids don’t have this rammed down their throats on a daily basis do they. MORON.
LikeLike
Okay so Racism is when someone or a group of people is discriminated against because of their ethnic background. So if you hate ‘whites’ just because they’re white then doesn’t that make you racist ? Also I’m 99.9% sure that “Many whites think they are on top because they are just better than everyone else. Either because of their race, their way of life or their laws and customs.” isn’t true, I have never met a white person who i thinks they’re better than anyone else just because of their skin
LikeLike
“White people” are light skinned people thus JAPANESE are white! many Europeans are light brown or tanned and so are Chinese and Egyptians! The term white people was invited to unit antagonistic western European countries (mostly Spain, England, French and Germany)
LikeLike
@IluvYubin You want be banned?
LikeLike
you all are just mad that we are better than you history supports that
LikeLike
@ryan
History supports that you are mass murders. So if that is what you want then by all means hold on to it.
LikeLike
I would like to address the premise of the writer’s mentioning of whites seeing themselves as a superior race. All whites don’t share this sentiment, though some of that group do not simply because they do a pretty good job of suppressing their true feelings. However, most of them do believe outright that they are superior as a race. As long as the Caucasian image of Jesus remains in existence in the world society, racism will continue to be a problem. Because Jesus, in Christianity, the predominate religion in American society, is believed to be the son of G_d, Europeans feel a relationship to a racial image that is relevant to their own. This false image of the divine, which is a clear transgression of biblical teachings where G_d forbids the worship of images and idols, gives the European a false image of themselves as one of superiority. For those of African descent, it gives them as equally a false image of themselves because they are not able to identify with this racial, Caucasian image who does not reflect their features. Thus, because of the overlying circumstances of the African American, having been historically placed in servtitude slavery in their history, there is a natural progression that follows of a sense of an inferiority complex.
LikeLike
@George Ryder – Knowing, and realizing are two different things. For example, cigarette smokers know that smoking cigarettes are harmful to their health, yet because they know it does not prompt them to stop smoking because it is not a reality in their minds.
LikeLike
Jesus’ race, and/or color is not what is important. What is important is the message that he brought to the Jews. Since the bible subliminally, and seemingly suggest to the reader that Jesus was of a darker ethnicity, if that image were promoted to the society, it would have the same effect that the promotion of a Caucasian has up until now. The solution is to remove all racial images from worship that attempt to portray the divine. What effect would the black racial image of Jesus hanging from a cross have upon white children sitting under this images in the churches for 400 years?
LikeLike
All one has to do is look around you. Practically everywhere you look, there is a picture, or a cross with the image of a Caucasian image of Jesus hanging on a wall in homes, offices, churches, etc. It’s not really about how the bible describes Jesus as being black. Psychologists have found that the effects of images have a far greater impact on the human psyche after being displayed over a prolonged period of time than words in a book ever could.
LikeLike
To clear it up in your thinking for you, think back to where I said that the Christian theologians are telling us that a white Jesus is the son of G’d. If any white person is the son of G’d, then what color does it automatically suggest to be the color of G’d? Words make people what they are. Images represent those words, that in turn shapes the thinking of a person.
LikeLike
Could you please address the Muslim role in african slavery from say 1600 to 1870’s? I believe most people would like learn about the Muslims penchant for slaves. Especially how the Muslims are responsible for the majority of the slaves sold to the European markets as well as transporting 130,000 a year, of which an estimated 80,000 a year died crossing the sahara, to Zanzibar to feed their own slave markets! Just curious as to how that was left out of your narrative! Does this mean most Muslims are supioror to blacks and other people of color?
LikeLike
First of all, and foremost, you are speaking very broad in stating”the Muslims” were involved in the slave trade during the periods you reference. There is no doubt that there were Arabs who claimed Islam as their religion who were involved in the trading of slaves during that period, as well as today, just as there are Arabs who sell liquor to our people in our black communities. But it does not justify using such a broad brush in suggesting that because they were Muslims, that slavery is a Muslim thing. Would it be fair for me to suggest that slavery was a Christian thing since ultimately Christian whites overwhelmingly benefitted from slavery? In fact, they claimed Christianity as their banner to support their desire to own slaves. And yet I am intelligent enough as a Muslim to reason that slavery doesn’t go hand in hand with Christian philosophy. Why is it that so many Muslim haters demonstrate so much inability to do the same? You give people the false impression that Islam is an Arab religion, when the largest Muslim population in the world live in Indonesia. There are Muslims all over the world. If Islam is so bad, why is it that all of us don’t support slavery and own slaves? It is time for you Muslim haters to open your minds and stop spreading this hatred of Islam, and instead, study the tenents of the religion. All Arabs are not Muslim just as all Muslims are not Arabs. Everyone is not what they claim to be. Open your minds to more rational thinking. The human mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work unless it is open.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ A B Madyun
Well crafted response.
Islam did start out as an Arab religion, but you are correct that it outgrew those bounds some time ago as far as global reach.
Correct me if I am wrong, but don’t all serious Muslim scholars and imams have to be fluent in Arabic? Is it not true that Arabic plays the same central role in Islam that Latin played in Catholicism?
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ A B Madyun
I like your post i hope you become a regular poster your post on Islam and Muslims was very enlightening.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You say it’s an Arab religion because it started in Arabia. Couldn’t I just as easily say that Christianity is a Jewish religion because Jesus was believed to be a Jew? How could Islam be an Arab religion when Jesus, Moses, and all the prophets recognized by Christianity are mentioned in the Qur’an. Moses is mentioned in the Qur’an more than any other prophet of G_d. No Muslim has to”craft” any answers concerning our religion if we know it. You have the impression that I am arguing with you. But every word I submit is in the Qur’an. You don’t have to take my word for it. Research it for yourself. It is all documented for your inspection. It’s either that, or you can continue conjecturing with unresearched, and unqualified opinions. Opinions are like a you know what. Everybody’s got one.
LikeLike
BTW…Latin is a dead language that is only used by the Catholic church. Arabic is the language of the Qur’an which makes perfect sense because the Prophet Muhammad was an Arab, and the classic form of Qur’anic Arab is alive and well, and is spoken all over the world by all practicing Muslims, and not just the leadership. That is because our prayers are Qur’anic, and we recite them five times a day. You are now learning some of what Islam really is, rather than what most non Muslims think it is.
LikeLike
@ A. B. Madyun
“You have the impression that I am arguing with you.”
I complimented you on a well thought out response to Colored Sleeves 2017 comment.
I also asked you a couple of questions and you answered to the best of your ability. If that counts as an argument to you, so be it.
LikeLike
The Bible says you are not suppose to mix, it is a sin and those that do it will burn in the lake of fire AKA hell. The verse says Do not let your sons marry their daughters. Do not let your daughters marry their sons. Do not make a covet with them. In Acts it says you can not have clean from unclean. In Genesis it says to preserve your Daddy’s seed AKA meaning no race mixing. The UN which is United Nations forbids racial genocide of any race , religion or genocide in general. In the Holly Bible King James pg 210 211 forbids race mixing. Do not let your cattle breed with another kind. Do not mingle your seed. A 1959 judge said God almighty created all the races and separated them on different continents areas because God did not intend for them to mix. I repeat God did not intend for them to mix. Ted Cruz read a Bible verse and quoted it on TV that homosexuals are to be put to death meaning gay and lesbian which is an abomination to the Lord just as race mixing is also. Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because society was too sick and disgusting to survive. This is when the family left the city and was told not to look back, but what does the mans wife do? She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, READ YOUR BIBLES AND DO NOT DISOBEY GOD. Send all blacks back to Africa. Africa +Jamaica+ Hattie =black people.
LikeLike