“My family never owned slaves” is something you hear White Americans say. Although not racist in itself it has the effect of turning a blind eye towards racism.
The statement by itself is true for most whites: even back in slave days in 1860 fewer than 2% of whites owned slaves! Slaves cost way too much for most people and in half the country it was against the law. On top of that millions of whites came to America long after the slaves were freed, like most Italians and Jews.
The trouble with the statement is not its truth but how it is used: to cut white people off from history. When they say black people live in the past and need to give the slave thing a rest, they are making the very same argument: history does not matter, it somehow magically does not affect anyone alive now. If we are affected at all by history it is only through our families, nothing else.
That is wishful thinking. America’s slave past still profoundly affects its present. Most white people, it seems, refuse to see that: it makes them uncomfortable. By saying “My family never owned slaves” they are trying to buy themselves a pass from American history, both past and present. As if their family had been living on some Robinson Crusoe island all these years – and still does.
Your ancestors did not have to own slaves to benefit – either then or now. If anything the opposite seems to be true: most descendants of slave owners seem to be black, not white, like the descendants of Thomas Jefferson. Most blacks are part white and most of that white comes from slave owners.
A white American saying “My family never owned slaves” is like the daughter of a Mafia boss wearing her diamonds and pearls and saying she never murdered anyone or shook anyone down for money. As if the diamonds and pearls fell from the sky.
America grew rich on the red man’s land worked by black slaves. For a long time cotton was the main thing America sold to other countries. Profits from cotton (made mainly in the North and in Britain, not in the South) in turn helped to underwrite the growth of the country’s industry. The racism that grew out of slavery kept most blacks at the bottom as a supply of cheap labour. That benefited all whites through lower prices.
Even today whites continue to benefit from racism in the form of better education, higher incomes, longer lives and all the other unearned benefits of white privilege that have grown out of slave days.
Whites want to benefit from their ugly past – and their less ugly present – but they do not want to face up to it and set things right. Two attempts were made – the civil war and the civil rights movement – but both were incomplete. “My family never owned slaves” becomes an excuse not to do anything more.
See also:
Good post, Abagond!
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Great post! nothing more to add here.
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I totally agree Well done Abagond!
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I feel exactly what you’re saying, but I think this is one of those articles that preaches to the converted. I’m not sure that an average white person stumbling across this post is going to be able to read this and make any connection to him or herself. White privilege is difficult for whites to comprehend, or rather, difficult to for them to see how it’s relevant in the modern world. To the typical white person who thinks America is now “post-racial” because there’s a black president, I think more concrete examples will have to be given to them so they see the HOW of white privilege.
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i always felt when talking about racist issues with someone its best to stick with the present and recent history (such as jim crow) but most importantly recent history because when you go as far back as slavery, it opens the door all the way for whites to dismiss the argument.
i mean, i know many issues stem from slavery, but since whites won’t listen to that, the best next thing is to prove the racist incidents happening today. which we all know is hard since most whites justify most racist incidents away and won’t listen to reason.
but at least when you stay in the present, and a white person gives that lousy “my family never owned slaves” argument, then you can call them on it and say “since when were we talking about slavery?”.
it just seems like when people use slavery as an example, they seem to lack other more recent examples that really apply to the time we are living in.
its kind of like how republicans only refer to slavery as their example of being for black rights. they lack any further examples to show they are for black rights.
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Most people think people like me who lived during Jim Crow are dead. They also think I have lost my memory. Very interesting when people will contradict your life.
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Abagond ,
I think what’s worst is when they tell you that Blacks owned slaves or that Africans sold more slaves than the Arabs. Of course they never say those Blacks had been separated because they were slave owners children ( they could own property, but had few other rights)or that tens of millions of slaves didn’t swim across the Atlantic.
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ColorofLuv,
The majority of white voters voted Republican last election.
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US. Census Bureau:
80% of population is white
13$ black
15% hispanic
5% Asian
uh… its proven, more than half the white population in this country voted for Obama. It is a fact!!!
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^^^
Obama is in office due to a coalition of liberal whites and a solid voting block of minorities. And he didn’t exactly win by a landslide.
So it is both true that MOST whites did not vote for Obama, and it’s also true that without the significant minority of liberal whites and without minorities voting together in bloc, we would not have Obama in office.
It’s not an either/or thing.
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Thanks for the follow up Tulio !!!
I’m trying to find more statistics. Maybe I got confused because I remember him Taking the state of IOWA in a landslide with somethin like 60% of the white vote. I remember is was a slam dunk in a virtually “all white” state.
I’m trying to double check…
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Obama won 44% of the white vote.
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I think “my family never owned slaves” (when used in arguments) is attempt for white people to make themselves look completely free of racism, not just in a way they’re not racists (hey, in theory, someone whose family once owned slaves, or who had Nazis in his family could be a good person)- but that is not the point. Or the problem.
The problem is in the fact white people do not see their privilege. It looks like most of them can’t understand how they can be privileged. I do think that’s the step one- to make white people learn about the white privilege. Or they would not be able to understand how “my family never owned slaves” argument doesn’t make sense.
I am not trying to sound preachy here. I am the first one who don’t really understand how white privilege works. The first time I was told I had a white privilege (happened on this same site, and Abagond was the one who told me), I thought it was completely ridiculous. To be honest, I still can’t picture myself as having any white privilege in America (because I am completely under the impression that being a foreigner from a “questionable” part of the world would wipe out any white skin privilege – but simply because that’s something that affects my group). It would be nice (well, not nice, but interesting) to test the privilege/discrimination thing and see what happens.
Also:
America grew rich on the red man’s land worked by black slaves.
This.
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Obama won 44% of the white vote.
And what percentage of whites are democrats? (In a way they always vote for a democratic candidate)?
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ColorofLuv,
I believe you are thinking about the democratic primaries, when it was believed that Iowa would “make or break” Obama, meaning it would determine whether he had a real shot at securing the nomination.
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Here in Australia you can hear similar arguments relating to the Aborigines, not in regard to slavery but disposession and other aspects of colonial violence
“My ancestors never killed any Aborigines”, etc, etc.
Now personally, I’m fairly sure that none of my ancestors had anything directly to do with oppressing Aborigines. But I cannot forget that I am someone who enjoys the benefits of a wealthy society built on the subjugation of indigenous people and the theft of their land. Australia is much like the US in this way; a wonderful place to live, but it could not exist without an ugly past of murder, theft and injustice.
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That’s why I think Tim Wise is instrumental. If blacks say what he’s saying, it can easily be dismissed by whites as just another black whining again. I think a white man talking powerfully and articulately about white privilege makes whites sit up in their seats.
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^^
I’ve seen some white people still deny white privilege after reading or watching Tim Wise AND reading “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Some even believe they are the ones who are less privileged since they don’t have special “clubs” or “affirmative action.”
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Natasha W,
Those complaints of “special clubs” and (especially) scholarships for minorities and HBCU’s get me especially riled up. It’s a perfect example of white privilege (and no understanding of history in the country).
I don’t think they ever stop to think that the Harvards, Yales, Ole Miss’, Vanderbilts and UPenn’s of this country ARE historically white, even if (now days) not explicitly stated.
I think a lot of them become conditioned to tune out what minorities have to say because it’s so common to see PoC dismissed as whining, being ungrateful or “reverse racists”. I don’t think there’s actual THOUGHT and reason going on when they make the outlandish statements they do.
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Itsmeagain,
I don’t think there’s actual THOUGHT and reason going on when they make the outlandish statements they do.
Yes there’s quite a bit. I actually read where a white student was awfully upset and claimed reversed discrimination over their admission denial, with their 11 point margin on the SAT of a Black student. That was a few years after the Bakke case, so I don’t remember the source.
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Heard some whites call Tim Wise Jewish because he speaks against white racism. I never heard him call himself jewish.
No, Tim Wise definitely has called himself a Jew.
http://www.counterpunch.org/wise06152005.html
“I am a Jew who was raised to think that part of my cultural tradition was to question everything I was told by authority figures, which by necessity includes my rabbi and the ADL.”
By some definitions he is not. (his mother is gentile like mine…)
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America grew rich on the red man’s land worked by black slaves. For a long time cotton was the main thing America sold to other countries. Profits from cotton (made mainly in the North and in Britain, not in the South) in turn helped to underwrite the growth of the country’s industry.
How were profits mostly made in North and not the South..? I open to the idea but I would like to see a link on that. I had read before the civil that the wealthiest cities were in the South. Cotton trading and ports were almost exclusively in the South. For the most part whatever wealth was developed by slavery was destroyed or substantially reduced by the civil war. The poorest regions of the US were until the 1960s the former slave states. Slavery certain produced wealth for a privileged few but in my opinion reduced the overall wealth and potential of the US.
Look at the country (Portugal) that traded and profited (per capita) the most from Africa slaves was and still is the poorest in Western Europe.
The wealthiest countries of Europe, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. Never had colonies (well Norway was a colony of Sweden) nor were involved in the slave trade. Slavery reduces human capital which brings relative poverty to nations which engage/engaged in it compared to countries which were free from slavery, slave trading, and serfdom.
If you believe that the US is rich from slaves then why is Canada also rich..? (Canada did have slavery but at a much reduced level than the US.. and most of the slaves were house servants not field hands..)
That said you won’t get an argument from me for greater investment in human capital in the Black community.
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thanks, now I have someplace to refer my white friends when they bring this up…
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This is definitly a good subject to address. I think it depends on the context.And , its more like there are far fewer context that it would be posible to use “my family didnt own slaves”, as compared to an excuse to not confront racism and discrimination as it exists today in Amercan society ( lets be clear we are talking about American society here).
Actualy, being in another country that had slaves, more slave trade than the USA, and who abolished slavery in the late 1880’s and people still brought slaves in illegaly after, it is more clear than ever , how slavery passes down enormous burdens , obsticles,and discrimination, generation after generation , the way wealth and privlege can be passed down generation after generation. Many people do escape the boot of poverty that was a legacy for most black Americans, but , they cant escape the discriminitory mentalities that have been passed down generation to generation , some , actualy brutal, Others subtile false lies and promises and manipulations .
Again, after reading those cold blooded statements Lincoln made , about what he wouldnt do “for the negro”, and what he felt “the negro ” was and did or didnt deserve, you actualy see great white American men show their inner reality of how they relate to black Americans . Lincoln was trying to reach out to the defeated southern white man , to try and heal a country that had just been through one of the most brutal and bloody civil wars anywhere.That doesnt lesson the sting of the seemingly cold veiw of “the negro, and there is the deep down inside ring that quite a few white Americans aproximate the same cold unwillingness to really accept black American as their equals in the wealth and riches. Oh , some blacks get it, but its a stuggle every step.
Herneith gave what seemed to be an acurate ascesment that Lincoln really went to war for economic reasons, slavery really didnt have anything to do with it. And we have to realise that the average white men in the army, didnt hear that truth, they heard they were going down to free the slaves,and, it is just a fact that thousands of white men died horrible bloody deaths , going to , as they would put it (i read this somewhere) ” we are going down fighting this war to free the n-word”, which, there again, is that stinging discriminating , seperate , distancing , that even as these men gave their lives for something that wasnt really true , there is a bad taste in it.
It is complex , but, at the bottom , is some basic inability to accept black American into their rightful place into American society. Every step is struggle, a step somewhat ackowledged in a patronizing way, with even laws on the books, but, when a black man and a white man go looking for a job, we all know the real reality that the white man will in much greater odds, get the job.And it plays out in other areas.
But, if we can see this and understand that, it is only another good thing to understand all the players in the history of sub sahara African slave trade. To leave out the Arabs , or the African tribes who conquered the slaves, or the European business men and merchants and their crews to do the transport, all the countries in the Americas that had slaves just isnt the whole picture.Its good to know the whole story , and the truth, if its not used as an excuse to deny racism and discrimination and the legacy slavery has really left right in society now…
And, one of the few excpetions I would make is , why a woman would use as an excuse that all white American represent the history of slavery in his background, to not date? Its the white man who is using todays excuse about being against affirmative action or who baits Obama and Michele in a real put down , almost blatently racist way, who is the guy that you dont want to date.Who would chew on the n word around his freinds but comes on sexualy to a black woman.These of course , are men riding the negative white mentality of that streak passed down from the cival war, and before, even if its white immigrants, they learned fast in th USA.
But at least a black woman or man, can think the idea in general of dating white people is just a turn off ,because of these reasons and just general racism in society and choose to stay away from dating white people all together, or , they can put aside things like thinking the history of slavery in America is not the same for every white person, they ought to be judged on how they really are right now.
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Uncle Milton,
Within 2 hundred years the US as a nation grew to the largest economy in the world. Canada has never ranked close to the US.
http://www.economywatch.com/economies-in-top/
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Within 2 hundred years the US as a nation grew to the largest economy in the world. Canada has never ranked close to the US.
I am referring to per capita wealth. The link says that China is second wealthiest country surpassing Japan and Germany but on per capita basis China is decidedly poorer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita
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Uncle Milton,
Check out the CIA fact book on richest countries ranking. They do per capita income. I think Liechtenstein is first.
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Check out the CIA fact book on richest countries ranking. They do per capita income. I think Liechtenstein is first.
Yes my Wikipedia link about in my previous post has per capita income estimates from 3 different sources including the CIA Factbook. Ahh to be a Liechtensteinian. Or would it be a Liechtensteiner..?
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On swpd macon d had a post on this and how his friend family actually did own slaves,
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/10/point-out-that-theyve-never-owned.html
Willow wrote,
So now I’m wondering, what about people whose ancestors *did* own slaves? What do they say? “Oh, but my ancestors were nice to their slaves…”?!
That’s exactly what they say! Or at least what some of them say. In fact, I’ve heard that often enough, from several different descendants of slave-owners, that I’ve been considering a post on it, something like “claim that slaves were treated well.” Also, I have a friend who just went on a plantation tour in the American South. I asked (sarcastically) if the tour guide talked about how nicely the slaves had been treated. “Basically, yes,” she said. “And other than that, the whole presentation just sort of glossed over the whole issue of slavery.”
I can find the other post but Macon d said he was talking to a friend and her family did own slaves and how they were treated nicely and when slavery was abolished of course the slaves didn’t have anything so they came “right back home”
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Itsmeagain
I’ve been on several websites for these “museums” and what really INFURIATES me is that fact that most of these plantations (: Oak Alley, Houmas House, Destrehan, Myrtles and Nottoway House etc.) are being used for WEDDINGS! Weddings! You know, even the slave quarters at Nottoway have been converted into “Cottages on the Lake”. The disrespect is unnerving. Who the hell would want to spend a romantic weekend on property stained by the blood of hundreds. There’s no telling what kind of tragedy those estates have seen, and these idiots are having picnics on the back lawn.
The whole thing just turns my stomach.
See that is some freshly squeezed bull crap right there who the hell would do that? that’s like buliding a spa on a burial ground it’s one big f-u! Not trying to turn something bad into something nice.
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I think “White Privilege” is a misnomer. If you live in a country where you are part of the majority you are treated fairly, if you are part of the minority you tend to get treated unfairly. I have spoken to white people who live in Japan and they speak about how the Japanese tend to be racist towards white people, and a Japanese boss is more likely to hire another Japanese person over a white person. They don’t have Asian Privilege, but they do have an advantage. Maybe you should change it to Majority Privilege. In the end the majority has the advantage not the skin color.
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“My family never owned slaves” “they are trying to buy themselves a pass from American history, both past and present.”
My family is of Irish decent, and in fact were enslaved for hundreds of years by the British. There have been whites that have suffered just as much from slavery as blacks, but this never gets talked about. In the 16th and 17th the Irish were known to be beaten to death more readily then black slaves because they were cheaper and more numerous. Irish women were forced to have sex with black men to create a larger slave population.
“Whites want to benefit from their ugly past – and their less ugly present – but they do not want to face up to it and set things right.”
I have faced up to my ugly past but it is not up to me to set things right, we human beings as a whole need to set things right.
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To Ó Dachartig:
Irish women were forced to have sex with black men to create a larger slave population.
Do you have a link to a site that describes this..? Many of he original colonies outlawed sex between the races fairly early on (I think Virginia was the first..) For the most part it was not really enforced between white men and black women but it was enforced between black men and white women. There may have been some isolated incidents where a slave owner forced white women and black men to procreate but I believe it was rare.
For reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws
“It has been argued that the first laws banning all marriage between whites and blacks, enacted in Virginia and Maryland, were a response by the planter elite to the problems they were facing due to the socio-economic dynamics of the plantation system in the Southern colonies. However, the bans in Virginia and Maryland were established at a time when slavery was not yet fully institutionalized. At the time, most forced laborers on the plantations were indentured servants, and they were mostly white. Some historians have suggested that the at-the-time unprecedented laws banning interracial marriage were originally invented by planters as a divide and rule tactic after the uprising of servants in Bacon’s Rebellion. According to this theory, the ban on interracial marriage was issued to split up the racially mixed, increasingly mixed-race labor force into whites, who were given their freedom, and blacks, who were later treated as slaves rather than as indentured servants. By outlawing interracial marriage, it became possible to keep these two new groups separated and prevent a new rebellion.“
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itsmegain said:
“I’ve been on several websites for these “museums” and what really INFURIATES me is that fact that most of these plantations (: Oak Alley, Houmas House, Destrehan, Myrtles and Nottoway House etc.) are being used for WEDDINGS! Weddings!”
The plantation mansion pictured at the top of this post is of Oak Alley.
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@ Uncle Milton:
First, welcome back!
Second: most of the wealth created by the slaves did not go to the slave owners, like people think, but to the middle men. In this case that means the American North and Britain. Just as today most of the money made on a Barbie doll does not go to the factory owner in China.
I found that out reading Braudel. I ran across it again a few weeks ago reading about the history of Haiti: Haiti used to produce more wealth than all of English-speaking North America and yet most of that wealth went where? To France. France created Haiti not for the greater good of Haitians but for the greater good of the ruling class of France. Thus Toussaint L’Ouverture.
America started out the same way. Part of why America broke away from Britain was that the shipowners and merchants of New England wanted what they thought of as their rightful share of the action. America was created in the interests of Britain, not in the interests of Americans. Read Tom Paine.
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@ Ó Dachartig:
I need to do some posts on the history of Ireland and Irish Americans. I do not think American history and particularly Black American history can be properly understood otherwise. In fact I hereby declare March as Irish History Month on this blog.
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@ Uncle Milton:
Slavery was bad for slaves and so from a human capital point of view America was shooting itself in the foot – and still is because of racism. I do not disagree with that.
But that is taking a long-term AMERICAN view of it, a view that is rare among White Americans.
From a short-term white point of view both slavery and now racism make a great deal of sense. Both screw black people for the benefit of whites – and harm America overall.
Apart from a few nuts, white people do not walk out their door in the morning saying, “I am going to screw black people”. But they do not have to: their forefathers set up the country to, in fact, screw black people for the benefit of whites. It is still going on. White people tend to think America is a colour-blind meritocracy but if they were black their view would be a bit more nuanced.
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The English oppressed the Scottish, The Welsh and the Irish. In the fifties, people had signs No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs. They were also more likely to marry each other as they were outcasts. Mass migration occured of Irish to America because the English made them farm one type of potato which caused the Irish potato famine where millions died. The crops were diseased. They also dance with their arms held tightly at their sides. The English outlawed their language, Gaelic, I think, and dancing. So when dancing, if they kept their arms to the side, the patrolling English couldn’t see through a window their feet moving. White people arent the same like Africans are not all the same. They have had their tribal warfare(clans). The difference is that an Irish could change their name and accent in one generation to assimilate with the English. An African’s descendants would have to marry White through generations in order to assimilate fully.
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Some Irish feel a deep kinship with Blacks because they suffered as oppressed people under the English. That’s why you see people Bono from the musical group U2 fighting desperately for Africa to combat AIDS and poverty. They’ve felt that pain of being the underclass. U2 was alway one of my fav bands. Their stock went up when they created the Red Credit card to help Africa. Bono is truly a humanitarian, not a racist.
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Angel – good post…
The Irish were used “essentially” as slave labor for the longest time in Great Britain.
For the reasons you mention above, this is why many African Americans actually have Irish last names. There was a lot of interaction between the Black and Irish communities long ago.
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abagond, you wrote:
“By saying “My family never owned slaves” they are trying to buy themselves a pass from American history, both past and present. As if their family had been living on some Robinson Crusoe island all these years – and still does.”
As if their family had been LIVING IN ANOTHER COUNTRY all these years. They were. The US is a nation of immigrants.
A huge percentage of today’s Americans are descended from people who arrived in the US AFTER the Civil War.
But that fact is irrelevant. Contrary to black economics, slavery contributed little to the sustained wealth of this country. Today, there are no Rockefeller-like fortunes linked to slavery.
The belief that America’s wealth derives from the labor of slaves is a myth almost matching the myths of black intellectual achievements in Africa.
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angel, you wrote:
“The English oppressed the Scottish, The Welsh and the Irish. In the fifties, people had signs No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs.”
In the fifties? Yeah. The 1850s.
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No No_Slappz
Why are you speaking of things you do not know – or is that a silly question on my part ha ha ha??
You do not even live in the UK and yet you are going to contradict soomeone – who sounds as if s/he does live here…I do not know if this is the case or not.
Irrespective of my last comments what Angel said is
very true
A case of Slappz stick comedy…Don’t you think so?? ha ha ha
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abagond, I get the feeling you simply spin your ideas from the top of your head.
There is no basis in history and economics to support your claims about the impact of slavery on the US economy. Or the supposedly widespread benefits of the practice.
The US economy was largely agrarian in the South, but the North moved into manufacturing well before the Civil War. It is clear to me you do not know much about the evolution of the American economy, thus, you default to these mythical tales of how the current wealth of the nation owes everything to slavery.
However, based on your reasoning, Microsoft, headquartered in the state of Washington, owes a debt to slavery.
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Capatilism and Slavery by Eric Williams
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B6AWWVGBaswC&dq=capitalism+and+slavery+eric+williams&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=3QuIS4vwCqS60gT9wNXMCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false
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This is the same argument as when people today say: I don’t support child labor, sweatshops, deforestation etc in third world countries. Just because you don’t see it in your back yard doesn’t mean the products you buy aren’t produced using these practices.
We are all part of the system to a greater or lesser degree. What our ancestors did (can’t be changed) may be less interesting than what we do now (can be changed).
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J:
No Slappz only believes the facts he wants to believe. For example, Senegal is full of black people so it must have a high murder rate – despite whatever the statistics say. Or if Philip Roth says he did not write “The Human Stain” about Anatole Broyard, well Roth is simply wrong.
Despite his good spelling and vocabulary skills he is easily the poorest reader among my regular commenters.
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Angel, that’s interesting what you say about the Irish identifying with Black american oppression. I identify with the Irish myself for the same reason, I also am of part Irish descent.
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ha ha!!
I will be honest at first he had some ‘interesting’ comments from his ‘perspective’ – but what he has had to say off late leaves a lot to be desired, and I am being very generous in my choice of words.
What I don’t understand, is if this personal vendetta against you.?? Although the internet is a free-space etc. Having his own board, I am sure he himself would like ‘positive’ contributions to that board, and hence have this understanding with regard to yours, even if he does not agree with your ‘racial politics’.
Personally any individual who is secure in his/her belief system would not spend time, elsewhere debating others on the issue of race, especially when he knows his own view is contradictory to the status quo.
I guess the staying here aruguing helps to convince and/or reinforce his belief system, which he probably doubts is correct.
Only insecurity, or a vendetta would keep such a person here.
Just me playing Fanon…Didn’t someone say I had been reading to much of it ha ha ha ha??
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My relatives were part of the mass migration from the Carribean to England. They experienced seeing the signs No Irish, No Blacks. It was a blessing in disguise because the West Indians ended up buying property because no one would give them a room. And if they married white people, it tended to be almost always Irish back then as they were discriminated against by the English. If you want to get an Irish, Scottish or Welsh person upset, call them English. Even today, they are still upset with how the English oppressed their language and culture.
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To Uncle Milton
“Many of he original colonies outlawed sex between the races fairly early on (I think Virginia was the first..) For the most part it was not really enforced between white men and black women but it was enforced between black men and white women.”
Most of this happened under British rule of America, and the largest majority of Irish were sent to the Caribbean.
Here are some links:
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-irish-slave-trade-forgotten-white-slaves/
http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1638
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.html
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Just a bit of common sense, please: White Americans had slaves for hundreds of years. Clearly it made them money otherwise slave owners would be out on fhe street and other whites would avoid the practice. And, given how they were morally uncomfortable with it but did it anyway, it must have made them quite a bit of money. Not to say there were not planters who lost everything, like Jefferson – but as a whole they had to have made money off of slavery or it would have died out on its own (and not through war).
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Once again – glad you brought up some of the history on the Irish.
Slavery is not about “Black & White”. Slavery is as old as the age of Human Kind.
Whether it was the Egyptians, the Moors, The English, the Ottomans (Turkish Empire), the Incans, it was slavery. (and the list goes on) Here in the “New World”, the most recent slavery was that of White Americans engaging in the slave trade from Africa, and consequently why slavery in general is seen as a predominantly White vs. Black.
Other than Genocide, SLAVERY IS THE GREATEST CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
Because it is not commonly taught in the history books, people seldom discuss the fact that the INCA in South America enslaved, conquered and eradicated many of the other indigenous cultures throughout the Andes. The Inca empire spanned almost 2,000 miles and did so because of slaves. One ethnic group that to this day proudly defines themselves as “non-Inca” descendants is the Aymara. They were one of the few groups able to resist the Inca Empire why they still hold on to their language and culture.
People forget that even today slavery still exists in this world. Fortunately, there are watchdog groups out there working to eradicate this terrible crime.
I just wish we could all come together and stop this black/white hate propaganda.
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Ó Dachartaigh –
Wow… I am Irish descendant and really appreciate some of the links! I knew the Irish were treated as the lowest forms of life but did not know they were actually sold and shipped as well.
Thanks for adding to my education and knowledge on the subject.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!
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abagond,
Slavery as a source of labor is subject to the same realities of the marketplace as any other source of labor.
If slaves were acquired at a low enough price, it was possible for slave-owners to utilize them profitably.
The question of owning a slave versus paying an hourly worker is the standard economic question of “buying a machine outright, or renting it.”
When automation was still a dream and most work was unskilled, it was possible for slavery to have the economic edge. However, well before the Civil War, things were changing and slavery was turning into a money-loser.
Given the direction the US economy was taking in the second half of the 19th century, the South would have collapsed had there been no Civil War and had the Confederacy attained its sovereignty. The Civil War hastened the pace.
The Confederacy would have collapsed because it was failing to change with the times. Agriculture was becoming more mechanized, which raised worker productivity beyond levels slaves could match.
Hence, the market value of slaves was declining. When assets — slaves — lose value, a chain of events put pressure on operating results.
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Funny.
On Macon’s site when I mentioned the history of the Irish, I was accused of trying to use that to defend african slavery.
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But here’s a question, Abagond…
You claim that slavery is a major part of what has made the American economy relatively competitive and successful, correct?
Land stole from the Indians, too, right?
So….
Why isn’t Brazil also an economic superpower, given that we stole MORE land and had MORE slaves?
I mean if these are indeed the keys to economic success, we should be sitting pretty, right?
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The Irish faced oppression and discrimination because most Irish are Catholic.
The anti-Irish sentiments were rooted in opposition to Catholicism, not the Irish themselves.
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This may be perhaps a slight simplification of the facts. Especially if you start at the very beginning when Norman/French England invaded Ireland making its England first colony.
Remember the Irish were of Gaelic descent…
Personally I would say the English did/do have a dislike of the Irish per se.
Though of course you are correct to say that religion is/was an issue in the whole affair.
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Good point Thad… Brazil imported more slaves than any other country and currently 80% of the total population as some African blood.
I often compare Brazil to U.S. since both have many similarities historically and economically. The primary economic difference being the Industrial Revolution here while Brazil remained primarily based in Agriculture/Minerals.
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J –
not so sure on the slight simplification of facts regarding the Irish slaves and discrimination.
It would be interesting to see what Angel has to say since he (or she?) has a more personal experience with this.
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If I understood correctly what No_Slappz was referring to…
I took his last response as a refutation of Angel’s position
that the Irish are:
“Even today, they are still upset with how the English oppressed their language and culture.”
To which No_Slappz replied:
“…The anti-Irish sentiments were rooted in opposition to Catholicism, not the Irish themselves”.
Perhaps No_Slappz may come and clarify what he was referring to and/or even expand upon his position.
If I have erred in my interpretation – then do forgive me.
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I do find this idea insulting that knowing my family didn’t own slaves somehow makes me complicit. I’m Irish, with family that lived in the NYC ghetto, and built the railroad (not so much by choice, thank you). They worked in sweatshops, and were denied education. Yet, apparently, they are at fault. I voted for Obama because of his outstanding qualifications, personal drive, and standing on various issues, but apparently, according to above posters, this isn’t really the case. It was because of my guilt, or naivete or God knows what else. As a female I make a lower income than males, but apparently even though I obviously have no power to affect this, I am at fault for wage disparity amongst the races. I just grow livid when there is a presumption that because I am white I am racist. There seems to be no acceptable argument to combat this.
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J – ah sorry…
I was referring to some previous comments by Angel, who is Black and in the UK and his (or hers) personal experience with this.
Also by another poster: Ó Dachartaigh
“Many of he original colonies outlawed sex between the races fairly early on (I think Virginia was the first..) For the most part it was not really enforced between white men and black women but it was enforced between black men and white women.”
Most of this happened under British rule of America, and the largest majority of Irish were sent to the Caribbean.
Here are some links:
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-irish-slave-trade-forgotten-white-slaves/
http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1638
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.html
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Katy – I feel you! I am currently in a position making a very low wage and have many Black Friends that make Way MORE money than I do. (By the way, Best BOSS I ever worked for was a Vice President who was female and Black. I have never had the pleasure of working for such an outstanding person in my entire professional career.)
She retired and the team went down hill.
1. I’m white
2. I’m male
3. I’ve lost my job twice to the economy and been unemployed for months at a time taking anything I could to help pay bills.
4. I am a Military Veteran (should help, right? nope)
5. I put myself through college after I got out of the military on my own. (no scholarships, no help, just my money and two jobs – plus GI Bill from the military)
6. I am mult-lingual: Portuguese, Spanish, English
7. I am making nowhere near what I used to make before this economy hit.
I am currently the only WHITE-Non Latino in my company. I was able to get this job because of the languages I speak. (THANK GOD!!!)
I feel for ANYBODY suffering without a job right now. Been there done that and thankful I’m back in the game “fighting the good fight!”
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I am in the UK too…I have got my own experiences as well even though I am not Irish
Just a little secret there ColorofLuv – but remember not to tell anyone he he
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Cool J !!! (did not know!) thanks for the comments…
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To Abagond and others re the Irish:
I remember seeing some cartoons that portrayed Irish people as apes and such, I found a website that has reprinted them:
http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/unit_2.html
Some of these portrayals were still common as late as the 1970s.
As for no_slappz comments about anti Irish sentiment and Catholicism… to the best of my knowledge the same stereotypes did not exist about the French who by and large are also Catholic. (Indeed it was common for the upper class British and Americans to learn French to show a sense of refinement….)
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Awesome paper Uncle Milton!
From WEB Du Bois himself!!!!
“W.E.B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP, and the preeminent historian on slavery in the Americas, wrote: “Any attempt to consider the attitude of the English colonies toward the African slave-trade must be prefaced by a word as to the attitude of England herself and the development of the trade in her hands.”
Du Bois gives us a logical starting place for discussing racism and the legacy of slavery in America: it begins with the “Mother Country’s” dominant role in the Atlantic slave trade. Before all white Europeans are lumped together with the British as colonists and slave keepers, let us consider Britain’s treatment of the Irish and the Africans, and the many parallels of subjugation and enslavement to be drawn.”
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The Irish in England were seen as slovenly,lazy, irresponsible. This stereotype also included the men habitually drinking away their wages the minute they got paid then finishing off the weekend by coming home to a grungy 2 roomed house to beat the wife. Birth control was a no-no as well so the stereotypical Irish wife was perpetually pregnant with already a huge broad of unruly, out of control kids. If you want to get an idea of how life was rough in Ireland, read books by Frank McCourt. His book chronicles the misery of growing up in Ireland dirt poor. Even if you want to see another side of English oppression, watch Braveheart. It’s historically inaccurate but the basic gist of the story,(English abusing the Scots) is true. It also shows that White American mentality is different from Scottish mentality which is different from Welsh and Irish mentality. What White people in America think on race, culture and standards can be 360 degrees different from a White European.
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To Angel:
What White people in America think on race, culture and standards can be 360 degrees different from a White European.
Ummm.. wouldn’t that be 180 degrees…? 😉 360 means you come back to where you started…
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uncle milton, you wrote:
“As for no_slappz comments about anti Irish sentiment and Catholicism… to the best of my knowledge the same stereotypes did not exist about the French who by and large are also Catholic. (Indeed it was common for the upper class British and Americans to learn French to show a sense of refinement….)”
Yeah. Nothing but peace and harmony between France and England for the last thousand years.
The points in life on which the Irish and English differ are found mainly in the clash between Catholicism and Protestantism.
The presence of the English Channel had something to do with why some of the same religious issues were less of a driving force separating the English and the French.
Meanwhile, a little mockery of one group by another hardly matters. But punitive laws and battle cries are something else.
When it comes to punitive laws driven by religious and political zealotry, you should consider the Spanish Inquisition — the Catholics against Jews and others not sufficiently loyal to Torquemada and the Pope.
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Lol. Thanks. It’s a figure of speech which I totally agree doesn’t make sense. Doing a 360 where i’m from means a change completely opposite of the original…
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Katy,
Your Irish family although they faced discrimination, never dealt with legalized segregation. Never were they treated as livestock rather than people in this country. They were allowed to intermarry with other groups, and they now have assimilated into being white, including being able to partake in white privilege, which many whites fail to acknowledge.
Yes Irish people were discriminated again, but they have managed to mainstream. With a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, blacks still have not been accepted, and at this rate never will.
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To no_slappz:
Yeah. Nothing but peace and harmony between France and England for the last thousand years.
Fierce rivals yes, but nonetheless British and American upper class saw the French as cultured and refined. The British had some control of France in the 15th century but were never able to replace the French political and legal institutions and language unlike what happened in the Ireland. Ireland was a colony of Britain for centuries….France was not.
The presence of the English Channel had something to do with why some of the same religious issues were less of a driving force separating the English and the French.
Then why didn’t the Irish sea have the same effect (or lack thereof…) on Anglo-Irish relations..?
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To Katy
“Your Irish family although they faced discrimination, never dealt with legalized segregation. Never were they treated as livestock rather than people in this country.”
When the first large wave of Irish immigrants came to this country there was legalized segregation, there were “Irish need not apply” signs everywhere. Irish people could not get jobs, eat at the same restaurants or go to the same churches that other white Americans could.
As far as being treated like livestock here are some links you should check out, please read them carefully. The Irish were just as mistreated as Blacks, not only that but they were enslaved for a longer period of time.
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-irish-slave-trade-forgotten-white-slaves/
http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1638
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.html
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Hey Abagond
I think this Preacher has something to say to you!!
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^Such a house negro. 🙂
In the beginning of the video, he was making some sense. Blacks do have issues that have nothing to do with racism and that should be addressed, such as the large number of single-parent households. However, when a white American makes a statement which is full of ignorance, and yes, based in racist sentiments (whether they realize it or not), I don’t see anything wrong with calling them out on it. Or would they prefer to stay ignorant?
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Yes, It’s wonder, how white folks can live with themselves. I mean really.
Their history and their consciousis is one that is so ugly, destructive, vulgar, hateful and vile. And they wonder why Black people are angry, and distrusting of them.
What a WRETCHED bunch!
God bless’em.
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As well, after slavery ended in the Caribbean, they tricked East Indians into coming over to work as “indentured servants”
They were also abused, payed barely enough to live on and had to leave families back in India, sadly never to return. My background in addition to African is also Sikh Punjabi, Hindu and Muslim yet my ancestors were forced to give up their religion and language.
The British had no respect for their names. They gave them Christian names and misspelled their Indian names or dropped their last names.
As a result, many of my relatives from the same Carribean island have different spellings of one name that phonetically sounds the same.
There was heavy duty brainwashing as well into believing Whites are superiour. As a result, if you meet an East Indian from a Caribbean country where there is a large community of them, a significant amount are obsessed with marrying ANY White person.
Some would gladly and proudly marry a White gas station gas pumper or a White person on welfare rather than a Black Doctor.
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For the radicals, racism is not about prejudice but about imaginary structures of domination, which are evidenced in any disparities in the status of blacks and whites, that appear to them to be detrimental to blacks. Just as Marxists are convinced that there is class “oppression” when everyone is not economically equal, so race radicals claim that racial oppression exists when any disparity appears between racial groups. As long, that is, as the disparity works against the “oppressed.” No one, for example, argues that the diminishing presence of whites in major athletics is the result of a racial conspiracy by blacks or that it requires a government remedy.
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uncle milton, you asked:
“Then why didn’t the Irish sea have the same effect (or lack thereof…) on Anglo-Irish relations..?”
But you had already answered your own question.
“Ireland was a colony of Britain for centuries….France was not.”
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jalylah, you wrote:
“For the radicals, racism is not about prejudice but about imaginary structures of domination…”
Nicely put.
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Slappz, is that one of your two or three regular posters at your blog? I mean Jaylah.
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Maybe their family never owned slaves, but I wonder how many had descendants who participated in lynchings (watched, picnic, traveled from the next town over, collected and mailed souvenirs)? Especially those with families deeply rooted in the South.
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^^^^^^^^^
I was waiting for the real point of your posts. Why didn’t you write so in the first place?
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Herneith, I knew it was coming too. It’s always coming, lol.
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Believe me they didn’t get “White Privilege” they earned privilege.
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To Natasha W
I don’t get it you act like your the only people that have ever suffered from discrimination. I understand that Black people are discriminated against in America but so are many other Races and Religions as well. If your an Atheist in this country it you may as well be black. Better not tell your boss your an Atheist because you will get fired, this happened to a friend of mine.
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I knew this was coming! SMH!
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Ó Dachartaigh,
No one is saying that blacks are the only people that have ever suffered from discrimination. I think abagond is well aware of other groups being discriminated against, however, that is not the particular topic of this post.
And LMAO at the atheist example. I can’t even believe you are comparing that to being black. Atheists are not facing discrimination in droves and never have; my SO is an atheist so if they were I would know about it. And no one will ever know if you are an atheist unless you tell them. Whereas one can never hide the color of one’s skin.
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To Jade
Ok Jade please explain to me what this blog is all about, why you feel the way you do, and what the rest of the population is supposed to do about it. I actually am an understanding person, I’m trying to understand.
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To Natasha W
Ok maybe I should have compared Atheism to Homosexuality and everybody knows gays are discriminated against, probably more then anybody else. Most people in American Black or White don’t like Gays.
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Like I said, you can hide your sexual orientation, your beliefs, or what have you. But you can not hide the color of your skin.
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Ok maybe I should have compared Atheism to Homosexuality and everybody knows gays are discriminated against, probably more then anybody else.
But the topic is not about homosexuality or atheism.
To Jade
Ok Jade please explain to me what this blog is all about, why you feel the way you do, and what the rest of the population is supposed to do about it. I actually am an understanding person, I’m trying to understand.
She doesn’t have to. Read the rest of the blog and draw your own conclusions. It is not Jade’s job to explain anything to you nor anyone else. If you are understanding, which I am sure you are, you will be able to comprehend this.
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Well, from all I know about the US (correct me if I’m wrong), atheists and agnostics are indeed discriminated, at least in a way that their existence is not understood or encouraged, nor would an atheist have much chance to become a president (again, correct me if I’m wrong).
But to compare it with discrimination against blacks is… a bit tasteless. If nothing else, being an atheist isn’t physical. Being black is. It means that police, employers, random people on the street, etc. can’t know if you’re an atheist and use it against you. You can freely go shopping without being followed, if nothing else.
However, these sort of posts show one important thing about discrimination that we should all think about. People only care about their problems, or problems concerning their group. Not ALL people, of course, but most of them. If something doesn’t concern you or a group you belong to- you don’t care about it. You don’t see it. You see your own problems, and your group problems. Other things don’t exist.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if an ordinary white person could become black for, say, a few months. And an ordinary black person to become white. I wonder if they would understand each other better. I do wonder if white person would finally understand that some things he thought were normal and given (not being stopped by the police randomly, or not being followed in shops) were, in fact, a privilege. And would a black person realize there are still problems in his life, and discrimination, especially if he become a poor white person.
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To Mira
“People only care about their problems, or problems concerning their group.”
I’m trying to understand, that’s why I’m here.
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Mira,
Well, from all I know about the US (correct me if I’m wrong), atheists and agnostics are indeed discriminated, at least in a way that their existence is not understood or encouraged, nor would an atheist have much chance to become a president (again, correct me if I’m wrong).
It depends on where you are. In liberal areas, people wouldn’t bat an eyelash at someone saying they were agnostic or atheist. In fact, they would probably think twice about someone professing devout Catholic or Baptist beliefs. In more conservative areas, it is the reverse.
I don’t think people would have huge problems with an agnostic or atheist president, as long as s/he wasn’t pushing their views.
People only care about their problems, or problems concerning their group.
True. Very true. And it’s quite sad.
If something doesn’t concern you or a group you belong to- you don’t care about it. You don’t see it. You see your own problems, and your group problems. Other things don’t exist.
I’m always trying to see other perspectives, so I empathize with the issues of other groups and other people. When Ó Dachartaigh speaks of the Irish, I understand and I empathize. However, this is not the place for that. As it was presented it seemed like a way to excuse the injustices done against blacks. It’s like telling a person to stop crying about their mother dying, because your mother died too. It doesn’t make things better and it fails to see the big picture.
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Also why aren’t the Blacks in Brazil as angry about there mistreatment, as Americans? I have talked to Brazilians and it doesn’t seem to be as big of an issue.
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@Natasha W
I admit I was making a generalization, but I wrote what I think is true. I do know there are many people who do care about things that don’t directly affect them and their group. However, what you think, and what I think, and what anybody thinks isn’t really important- when viewed as groups, humans do tend to show the tendency I described above. Maybe I do take “a person is smart, people are stupid” way to literally, but I do believe it’s true.
So, in other words, I didn’t accuse anyone in particular here of not being interested in other people’s problems. It’s just the general trend I noticed.
Oh, and thanks for the info about atheism. I guess I was under the wrong impression. Many things I know about America, sadly, comes from media (news, movies), which obviously doesn’t equal the true picture. I did hear some stereotypes about atheists that I thought were ridiculous (I was raised in an atheist family and my husband is an agnostic) so I know those things make no sense, but I guess (I hope) it’s not the prevalent thinking about atheists in America.
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“X people are discriminated against too!” is, 95 times out of 100, a derailment argument. It is called the Oppression Olympics.
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Mira, I was agreeing with you (Hence, “True. Very true.”).
As far as religious belief goes, I think devout Christians are a dying breed in many parts of the US. Most people have Christian beliefs (76.5 percent of Americans identify as Christian), yet there aren’t many active and practicing Christians, just the type that attends at Christmas and Easter, and prays when they fall on hard times. In contrast to the number of agnostics and atheists, which has nearly doubled in the past two decades.
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“X people are discriminated against too!” is, 95 times out of 100, a derailment argument. It is called the Oppression Olympics.
Except when someone’s trying to draw comparisons between, say, two different kinds of oppression. Then the “Oppression Olympics” is a derailment gambit itself.
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To Mira
According to this poll Atheism is the second most negatively viewed belief in America. Natasha W says “It depends on where you are. In liberal areas, people wouldn’t bat an eyelash at someone saying they were agnostic or atheist.” Liberal areas are few and far between in America it is not the majority.
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Ó Dochartaigh,
Are you really trying to derail this topic, as abagond stated? I was going to take your claims seriously, as it seemed you were genuine, but I see you’re just trying to divert our attention away from the topic at hand. Btw, there are more liberals and moderates in this country than there are conservatives. I could discuss with you for days. But that’s not the subject of this post, so I’ll stop right there.
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I’m not trying to derail anything, regardless if there are more Liberals in this country, poll after poll shows Atheist are one of the least liked and understood groups in America. Liberals tend to stay in more metropolitan areas which is not the majority of this country.
The only reason I brought this up is because I’m trying to understand why some Black people feel this way about White people and others don’t. And when Black people disagree with Abagonds point of view they are called “House Negro”, that was your quote not mine.
I’m trying to understand the best I can that is why I brought up the slavery in my families past.
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Ó Dochartaigh,
Maybe you didn’t see what I wrote the first time. Atheists are not walking around with “Atheist” on their forehead. So they don’t have to worry about being discriminated against unless they let their beliefs be known, and even then it is not a sure thing. You’re presenting the issue as if atheists are standing in the unemployment lines, lol. It’s really a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. Bringing them up is just so irrelevant and, really, a mockery of the topic at hand.
Most black people probably feel similarly to abagond, if not as extreme. But it’s fair to say they wouldn’t be jumping for joy at the proclamations of that house Negro. Btw, I called him that because he is trying to shame black people and patting white people on the back. He could’ve presented a more evenhanded argument.
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Ó Dochartaigh said:
“And when Black people disagree with Abagonds point of view they are called “House Negro”, that was your quote not mine. “
Please do quote me: I do not remember saying that.
The term I mostly use is Rented Negro and that is mainly for conservative blacks who support white opinion and so get their books printed, their faces on cable news, etc. People like Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Amy Holmes and John McWhorter.
None of my commenters, so far as I know, are like that. The only one who has opinions anything like theirs is Tulio and I have never called him that – nor would I unless he sold out and got rich off of said opinions. And even in that case it is not the opinions that I object to so much as the selling out.
So far as I know I do not make it my business to police people’s opinions. I expect people to disagree with me, I expect them to think for themselves and come at things from their own experience of life.
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abagond, s/he wa referring to my comment above about the preacher in that youtube video.
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To Abagond
Sorry Abagond I was Quoting Natasha W.
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@ Ó Dochartaigh:
Oh, I get it now: you were talking about Natasha W in regard to house Negroes.
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To Natasha W
“So they don’t have to worry about being discriminated against unless they let their beliefs be known, and even then it is not a sure thing.”
I don’t think it is a for sure thing that Blacks will be discriminated against just because there black. Listen I’m trying to understand this the best way I can, that is why I am bringing up things that I have experienced. Most people don’t even try to understand what it would be like to be a different color, at least I’m trying, but everyone is bashing me for it.
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You’re failing to see the bigger picture. Being black in this country is an issue all in itself. People will always question your credentials or stereotype you based on your color. The discrimination is nowhere close to the same:
Atheists have not faced hundreds of years of discrimination that still effect them today. Atheists did not have to get beaten down for the right to vote. Atheists do not have to deal with subpar housing. Atheists do not have others leave neighborhoods once they move in. Atheists do not have to wonder if they weren’t hired for a job, if it was due to their race. Atheists do not have to get shot, and have their killers go free. Atheists do not have to deal with negative stereotypes in the media. The list goes on. You’re being incredibly shortsighted with this comparison, and even my atheist SO agrees with me on that.
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*due to their beliefs
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To Natasha
The discrimination is nowhere close to the same:
“Atheists do not have others leave neighborhoods once they move in. Atheists do not have to wonder if they weren’t hired for a job.Atheists do not have to deal with negative stereotypes in the media.”
Media Glen Beck Blames murder because of Atheism:
Fox news Bigotry on Atheism:
Man Shot for being an Atheist:
http://www.parallelpac.org/murder.htm
This girl can’t play on the High School Basketball team because she is a Atheist:
Believe me I grew up in Appalachia, and being threatened with death for being an Atheist is not rare.
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See what I mean: derailing.
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I’m not derailing I’m trying to empathize, if you can’t guess I am an Atheist that has seen and felt discrimination for being a minority. Why can’t you understand that I’m not downplaying your situation.
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Ó Dochartaigh,
How long does it take you to Google the links to back up your spurious claims? Isolated events do not prove anything. I could provide links of left-handed people facing discrimination and try to twist it into a major deal the way you are doing. Yet we all know it is nowhere near that level.
abagond,
Yes, I see. I don’t think I will be continuing this debate much longer.
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Abagond you are a cold human being my friend, not every white person hates you. I’m trying to relate and your giving me the cold shoulder telling me I don’t understand, please enlighten me.
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“Derailing” = “Someone brought up a point that I am not willing to look at.”
Most of the time, that’s what it is.
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To Natasha W
Not long this kind of Discrimination is not that isolated especially were I’m from.
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Ó Dochartaigh,
How are you trying to relate? If you were really trying to understand, you would ask more questions instead of providing “answers.”
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To Thad
I guess when discrimination does not involve them personally then I’m am “Derailing.”
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To Natasha W
I have given no answers, all the things I have posted are acts of Discrimination that I have experienced that relate to being a minority; therefore trying to relate.
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No, you are derailing when you bring up a topic that has nothing to do with the subject at hand to try to divert attention away from said subject. Abagond already said he would write about the plight of the Irish next month. So you can discuss that and the woeful discrimation against atheists some other time.
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To Natasha W
“woeful discrimation against atheists some other time.”
Your sympathetic tone makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside lol. I guess what Mira said earlier is right; if it doesn’t effect you personally you won’t care.
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To Natasha W
Oh and the subject at hand was Slavery and Discrimination both of these things are what I have been talking about.
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Ó Dochartaigh,
I care about your issues. I think all discrimination should be addressed, no matter how small. However, this is not the time or place to be addressing it. And since you keep doing so even after being told indirectly to stop, I can only believe you are purposely trying to minimize the issue at hand.
This post was about slavery, racism, and the denial of. Not the catch-all term, “discrimination.”
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Ó Dochartaigh said:
“Abagond you are a cold human being my friend, not every white person hates you. I’m trying to relate and your giving me the cold shoulder telling me I don’t understand, please enlighten me.”
Perhaps I was quick to judge but it just seemed to me that the thread was being taken off into talk about discrimination against atheists – to what end?
Discrimination is a subject on this thread because people who say “My family never owned slaves” mostly think racism is dead and gone, that the slaves were freed and Jim Crow was overthrown and all is peaches and cream now – whatever troubles blacks still have is their own fault (bad fathers, etc).
So your argument, I take it, is that it is not peaches and cream for anyone – not for the Irish, especially in the old days (very true) or for atheists even now.
So fine, if you are not derailing, then what is your point?
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I guess my point is your blog at times seems very angry; many of the Black folks who comment also seem very angry, and I feel this anger is misplaced. Many of your post say things like How White people Think, The Hearts Of White People, or White People Are Still Racist. But it is this generalization that keeps fueling the flames of Racism and separation. I am an Atheist and instead of blaming the Jews for inventing there religion or blaming the Catholics for spreading hate and separation; I blame the individual for there ignorance there lack of understanding, there hate and there willingness to discriminate. From what I have read on this blog your generalizations are screaming for separation. I love all people; I am white, and I wish we could move towards togetherness, not black race or white race but just the Human Race.
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A bad analogy, anti-atheism equivalent to racism. is not off topic?
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Slavery,laws prohibiting Blacks from getting loans, discrimination as well as the utter breakdown of the family is why Blacks are poor. If you look at Black Africans who did not endure slavery, the majority are married and when they come to the Uk and the Us, they consistently excel in education and generally open up businesses so they don’t have to rely on whites for jobs. A study was done in England. Resumes with an English, African and Indian name were sent out to various employers over a period of time. The qualifications were the same. The resume with the white name got more call backs for interviews,the Indians next, then Blacks last. They are now discussing putting a number rather than name on resumes.
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Excellent post, Abagond. Really nothing of substance to add here.
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Great post. And some of the most VICIOUS interactions post-bellum Blacks have had were with Irish and Italian American communities. The NY Times recently exposed 2 communities in the Bronx for their ongoing anti-Black housing policies: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/nyregion/06housing.html?ref=nyregion
Chicago suburbs (predominantly Italian) were fiercely anti-Dr. King. And we all know Boston’s reputation. What’s strange is, both of these groups were marginalized by mainstream whites.
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To Tragimulattos – “What’s strange is, both of these groups were marginalized by mainstream whites.”
so true… There are probably a lot of reasons for this but I don’t feel educated enough on the topic to give it a good shot. (Keep in mind the Irish were slaves. When many came to the U.S, there was close proximity to a lot of the Black neighborhoods and more mixing between the communities than many are aware of. As I’ve stated previously, this is why many Black Americans today have Irish last names. (Not because Irish owned slaves, they were slaves!)
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And some of the most VICIOUS interactions post-bellum Blacks have had were with Irish and Italian American communities.
Granted. And yet can you name one major city that was dominated by the Irish or the Italians that countenanced legal segregation?
BtW, regarding the Irish, it`s not a black thing. I think that any ethnic group can state the same. The only difference with regards to the blacks is that the Irish were actually a step or two farther up on the social ladder. Normally, it was they who were getting pissed on.
But remind me to write sometime about the big Irish/capoerista war in Rio de Janeiro in 1829…
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@Ó Dochartaigh
“I guess my point is your blog at times seems very angry; many of the Black folks who comment also seem very angry, and I feel this anger is misplaced”
I can’t speak for all black people, but as a young black American woman “anger” is quite exhausting. If I speak up, no matter how calmly I’m speaking, I’m immediately labeled as the “angry black woman”
My parents both grew up during the civil rights movement and my dad was 10 when school integration happened and he told me that some white little boy spat at him and called him the “N” word–and back then my father had no idea what that word meant and asked my grandmother what it meant. My parents saw the ugliness at that time and they never told me or implied “I don’t want you playing with those people b/c they’re (fill in the blank)” They didn’t care if I brought home friends that were non-black.
I’m only twenty-eight and I’ve learned that you cannot change the minds of people that decide that they want to judge you because of your ethnicity. If they have a problem with me being black, it’s really not my problem but theirs. My frustration is mostly geared towards the way that the system is set up. I think this Equal Opportunity Employer stuff is a bunch of bull. I had a friend from the Phillipines tell me that she’s glad when she sees the EOE note at the end and I asked her what difference does it make? To me, you wouldn’t need to put that there if you’d just JUDGE the person on their qualifications and not their ethnicity! I also hate when jobs ask for my race, because in the back of my head, I feel like they’re doing a secret “diversity” survey like we have x amount of blacks, x amount of whites, asians, etc…so we need to hire more (fill in the blank with whatever race you feel like).
It seems that to some people it doesn’t matter that I have a Bachelor’s and a Master’s. They don’t care that I speak two other languages besides English. Or when they do learn this about me, I’m seen as “unique” black person. Sometimes I wonder if I were white, would I get this “unique” sentiment?
I have friends from Asian and European countries and I feel that I’m most able to comfortably discuss racism with them without being told “Maybe it’s something else” or “Stop playing the race card.” I’m in no way saying that discrimination doesn’t exist in Europe, because it does–I dated a French guy and he said that the French are quite racist towards N. Africans and another friend from Spain said that the Spanish pretend everything is all peaches. The only difference, I think is that we’re talking openly about it over here.
I think what riles me up the most is that when some white people–please note that I said some and not all–make it seem that the U.S. is/was only set up for them. My lineage is also made up of Cherokee Indian from my mother’s side, so I get annoyed when I’m repeatedly told to go back ‘home’. I feel that I’m repeatedly silenced when certain incidents do happen, I’m almost told that it’s in my head, etc.
Also, since I’ve moved to Los Angeles–a city that claims that it’s so diverse–I’ve been approached by several white men who feel the need to remind me of my skin color by saying “I dated black women, “etc–when I’m not even thinking that! It’s weird for me, because my ex-boyfriend was white with blonde hair and I tell them this and then ask them, why do they bring up my skin color? I’ve gotten it(still get it) so many times that I now respond by saying, “You mean I’m black? I thought I was just a dark skinned white person.”
BTW I also think that this “politically correct” attitude has done this country more harm than help. Sorry about the rant, but that’s my two cents.
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To SickandTired,
You sound a lot like me and share some similar experiences, except I am a dark-skinned white person! (please don’t take that as condescending. It is not. I’m being serious.)
Actually, I am not ‘dark skinned’ per say, but am white and have passed for Black/”Mixed”.
Stick around for a “solutions to colourism” post that Abagond is working on!!!
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Thad –
“But remind me to write sometime about the big Irish/capoerista war in Rio de Janeiro in 1829…”
I would love to hear about it. By the way, I should have been an anthropologist! I opted not because I was told they didn’t make any money. (Hey, I still don’t make any point so what was the point? LOL)
Thanks for your posts.
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tragicmulatto said: Chicago suburbs (predominantly Italian) were fiercely anti-Dr. King. And we all know Boston’s reputation. What’s strange is, both of these groups were marginalized by mainstream whites.
Dr. King- Housing March in Gage Park Chicago, 1966
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Great to hear your experiances and insights, Sickandtired…
Jade, absolutly riviting that youtube , I was 16 or so in Chicago at that time, I remember that interview and having to accept that white racism in the North was actualy more brutal and “hostile ” than even in the south.
I feel so blessed that my parents wanted me to be raised in an integrated envirnment, it profoundly influenced me and made me the person I am today. Im not saying everyone raised in an integrated envirnment would feel like I do, but, I could never imagine being raised in a white neighborhood that had that much hate for a great man like King and so threatened by black people….just riviting.
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Does anyone care about modern slavery – i.e., human trafficking?
Or are we too busy fighting ancient battles?
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Thad:
Please use only English.
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Abagond, don’t you think it’s just a wee bit reactionary to censor a post for one phrase – not even a complete sentence – in Portuguese? 😀
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No. Read my comment policy.
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Why should you take the blame for someone else’s wrong? I don’t take credit for anyone else’s good.
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Maybe you should.
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Thad,
The Italian American suburbs of Chicago were anti-integration. What else do you need to know about it.
Furthermore, the “Irish” thing was anti-black. Part of it stemmed from economic competition. The other part was that although they were maligned by mainstream whites, they still felt racial entitlement. PERIOD. Especially the 20th century immigrants.
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My family was a part of the American Revolution – I can trace it back that far and earlier to Ireland, Scotland, France and Germany.
My Irish/Scottish/French side did own slaves – they also were negotiators in the treaties with the Native American Indians in Virginia.
I grew up *not knowing* that they did indeed own slaves until February of this year – my great grandparents didn’t live in Virginia so discussing the family history of slavery wasn’t brought up since they raised my grandparents a good distance from Virginia.
Slavery is part of my family history though, a fact.
Owning another person is inhumane and disdainful, and I don’t know how many white people share in knowing their family owned slaves, but I do.
For what it’s worth – I would offer a sincere apology to the people on this blog today for my ancestors role in subjugation and the dehumanizing ordeal of slavery. It may be lame to apologize on a blog – I don’t know for sure, but I am sure I will find out – but I just want to say I’m sorry for the past, my families past and the dehumanizing affects my family’s role has played in the history of Africans and Americans.
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tuesday said:
“My family was a part of the American Revolution – I can trace it back that far and earlier to Ireland, Scotland, France and Germany.
My Irish/Scottish/French side did own slaves – they also were negotiators in the treaties with the Native American Indians in Virginia.
I grew up *not knowing* that they did indeed own slaves until February of this year – my great grandparents didn’t live in Virginia so discussing the family history of slavery wasn’t brought up since they raised my grandparents a good distance from Virginia.
Slavery is part of my family history though, a fact.
Owning another person is inhumane and disdainful, and I don’t know how many white people share in knowing their family owned slaves, but I do.
For what it’s worth – I would offer a sincere apology to the people on this blog today for my ancestors role in subjugation and the dehumanizing ordeal of slavery. It may be lame to apologize on a blog – I don’t know for sure, but I am sure I will find out – but I just want to say I’m sorry for the past, my families past and the dehumanizing affects my family’s role has played in the history of Africans and Americans.”
You have nothing to apologise for! You yourself had nothing to do with american slavery!
I don’t and neither should anybody blame you for something that you had no control over!
Sins of the father should never be upon the son, or something like that!
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Vindicator – I disagree with your opinion. Apologies are never too late and since I seem to be one of the few who come here whose family owned slaves, I am making an apology. Now, back off.
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For what its worth, here is an article in todays New York Times about slavery and the blame game that is relavant to these discusions.
Im the first to tell you no white American should hide behind the Arab slave trade and Africans selling Africans into slavery to diminish the affect slavery has on America in the past and into todays society.
However, I do feel the whole truth about African slave trade is valuable
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vindicator- its actually the sins of the father will be put onto the children for multiple generations… which does bring up karma, but karma could be applied to all who have suffered. Are they suffering for past sins and when does the suffering stop? I havent suffered in my life much at all, and I don’t experience racism daily. I have benefitted greatly from being white despite my efforts to self induce struggles. White people should own up to our privilege and apologise for our role in the past and make the efforts required to affect change in the present.
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Oh…*shudder*….if I hear this excuse one more time….
*cue fountain of vomit*
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what excuse?
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I would never say that we should forget History, and yeah some white people “cop out” like that, but the truth is, that the U.S. prides itself on individuality. I don’t want my children to pay for my mistakes, so I seriously don’t want them to pay for what a far-off distant relative MIGHT have done. Not to mention the fact that not all “white” people in the U.S even have family lines that far back in American history. They could’ve come from some random country in Europe that didn’t participate in slavery. And even so, the reason I even found this site is because I am doing a report on black/Native American slave owners and there were A LOT of them, especially in Latin America. Slavery was an economic system. And we shouldn’t forget it, because as the old parable goes “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” …nonetheless, just because someone’s skin is white does not mean that they should have to live their lives feeling guilty or pay anybody anything just because their skin is black. As far as blood lines go, the white person could have had slave ancestors too, should they get reparations? Not all blacks had ancestors here during slavery either. And most importantly, I wish people would stop acting like the U.S. invented slavery or something. It has been around forever. Sure, the south got out of hand, and it was almost a blessing in disguise, if not, who knows how long it would have been before it was abolished.
And hello! Did you ever take a History class in your life? Do you know what happened to the very small minority of whites who still owned slaves during the Civil War? During Reconstruction they lost everything. White and Black Union soldiers raped the wives and daughters of slave owners, burned down everything they owned, killed their livestock, killed them if they were not off fighting in the war. The slave owners had to start from scratch. Now, this is nothing in comparison to what the poor, newly “freed—if ya wanna call it that” blacks had to endure. But nobody was “profiting” after that I can promise you.
And don’t even get me started on Africa. Do you think scared little white prissy boys were going deep in those hot African Jungles to search for slaves…heck no…African men met them at the dock with them.
And if you do your homework, it is reported that black slave-owners were the cruelest masters of all.
All those wanting an apology for something I DID NOT DO, and sure the heck am not BENIFITING from, well, I am a Christian so I won’t even tell you what I think about that. But get off your lazy behind and do something with your life like the rest of us. I am “white” whatever the heck that means, and I grew up in a small town where whites and blacks didn’t hate each other because they are equal NOW, and nobody was pointing fingers about what strangers did. WE all work side by side to better our community.
There will always be racism—ON EVERY SIDE—just like there will always be discrimination between sexes, against homosexuals, old people, kids, you name it. Sure, people were idiots, some still are, but don’t make those of us who just want to live peaceful lives suffer for it. All the programs offered out there, mostly the ones started by the Carter administration, make complaining about it being unfair a bunch of bull-honkey.
It is people like you that keep the hate percolating. For once, just trying treating people like you want to be treated, instead of how you think they should be treated because someone who Looked like them hurt someone who looked like you 200 years ago. I’ll pray for you…
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I know you won’t post my comment because it proves that your arguement is phony; however, I do hope you read it. You really need to do some research and let go of all the hate and anger you hold in your heart. I don’t know you but I love you, because that’s how I am. Nonetheless, i do not like your attitude, and I will continue to pray for you daily. In fact, I have already added you to my daily prayer list so that I cannot forget. God Bless you
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sounds like another self righteous fake christian…yet another example of why many are turning atheist.
I am so tired of racists using God like that. People like that are better off worshiping Satan. Their perfect for each other.
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Nonetheless, i do not like your attitude, and I will continue to pray for you daily.
Pray that I win the lottery on Friday night! Perhaps then, we will all let go of the hate and anger in our hearts, as we will be too busy shopping! God Bless you dear!
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^^ Your comments always crack me up
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Can’t help it when people make absurd remarks!
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“‘My family never owned slaves’ becomes an excuse not to do anything more.”
What do you want done?
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im curious…what does anyone expect white people to say about it? im white…but i didnt have anything to do with slavery, even if my family did own slaves. which they didnt. but even if they had…do i owe an apology? im sorry for the injustice that comes towards people. i dont understand why people are racist…doesnt make sence to me, but all i can do is be myself and be fair to people, no matter who they are and what they look like.
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i believe you’ll tell me i’m derailing again, but, the CIVIL WAR had nothing to do with slavery. i’m sorry but, if you think that, you’re sadly mistaken. good ol’ abraham lincoln said himself that he didn’t care about the slaves, and the south could keep them. the civil war was about much more than that.
other than that, like the person above me posted, what ARE we supposed to say about slavery? really? i don’t agree with it, but i didn’t have anything to do with it. neither did my irish and indian ancestors. and i may be stupid here, but how on earth does slavery from hundreds of years ago, affect the life span of a black american today?
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The Civil War was really about socialized health care.
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“other than that, like the person above me posted, what ARE we supposed to say about slavery? really? i don’t agree with it, but i didn’t have anything to do with it. neither did my irish and indian ancestors. and i may be stupid here, but how on earth does slavery from hundreds of years ago, affect the life span of a black american today?”
Good point. It’s often the case that those who harp on ancient grievances that nobody currently living was responsible for are those who are unwilling to take charge of their own lives and work for their own betterment.
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the civil war, was about the south succeeding from the union. the south wanted out, and abe liked the tax money he was getting from the south.
that’s the truth no one wants you to know about.
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I asked this question back in May and have not received a response. What do you want done?
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the civil war, was about the south succeeding from the union. the south wanted out, and abe liked the tax money he was getting from the south.
that’s the truth no one wants you to know about.
And the south wanted out WHY, exactly? They just woke up one morning and say “Hey, let’s secede?”
What was the PROXIMATE reason for succession, according to practically every major southern politician of the time? (Hint: it wasn’t taxes.)
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^secession
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read, and be enlightened:
the slavery issue was not a factor in the civil war until the emancipation proclamation. the confederate states seceded from the union over the issue of states rights and the power of state governments to totally rule over its land and decide its own issues.
the south broke away for a number of reasons, one of them was not slavery. this is fact because of the use of common sense. Tell me how the north can fight for the emancipation of slaves in the south when this peculiar institution still existed in the north. slavery wasn’t abolished until 1868, 3 years after the war. thus kentucky, missouri, maryland, and delaware still had slaves. (Union States)
this struggle was over the power in government. the south was rich in the agriculture industry and traded with europe, the north was industry and had no trading partner whatsoever. so when Lincoln was elected president, he taxed all southern goods and bankrupted many. thus the south broke away because of balance of power. hmmmm this sounds like the original 13 colonies ehh? well they wont ever teach you that in our kids history books. slavery was not an issue, lincoln even asked president davis that slavery would be intact if they came back into the union. davis’ response was no because slavery is not the struggle we fight in this war.
and just to make you happy:
the primary cause for secession was states’ rights. therefore, slavery played a role here since the union was trying to strip Southern states of their “right” to own slaves, but slavery wasn’t the full cause.
slavery was not what the south wanted, RIGHTS was what we wanted. think about the revolution. this country was trying to turn into the SAME THING all over again. and the south DID NOT want to be a part of it.
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slavery was not what the south wanted, RIGHTS was what we wanted. think about the revolution. this country was trying to turn into the SAME THING all over again. and the south DID NOT want to be a part of it.
Are you from Texas?
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Ooh! Enlightenment! Such a deal!
the south broke away for a number of reasons, one of them was not slavery.
O rly? Y’know, that’s extremely odd, because when I read the quotes from the great southern politicians regarding why the south needed to secede, I find stuff like this…
Jeff Davis, in 1861:
[For the development of our economy] the labour of African slaves was and is indispensable… with interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperilled, the people of the Southern states were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced.
Or how about South Carolina’s declararion of independence in 1860, which listed in its “Declaration of Causes” the following: “Fourteen of the States [free states] have deliberately refused for years to fulfill their constituional obligations.” And what were those obligations, according to the South Carolina Congress? they had “ssumed the right of deciding upon the rights of property established in fifteen of the states [the slaveholding states] and recognized by the Constitution;…”
So the North was saying let’s confiscate the South’s property? But they must have meant ships and cotton and other things, right? No. South Carolina goes on and is quite specific in its complaint:
“…they have denounced as sinful the instittuion of slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the the peace and carry off the property of the citzens of other States [that’s the abolitionists they’re talking about there, Heather]. they have encouraged and assisterd thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection”.
And what about this missive of March 1861, written by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens?
The foundations of our new government are laid, their cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. Thus our new government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physcial, philosophical and moral truth.
Heather, dearie… The idea that the seccesion had nothing to do with slavery was invented AFTER the south had its ass well and roundly kicked by the north. After the confederacy had lost the war. This is just like what happened with all those ex-Nazis who all of a sudden roundly hated Hitler when they were creamed by the Allies.
If you go to the hundreds – no thousands – of declarations made by southern leaders in 1860 and 1861, you’ll clearly see that while there were indeed many issues dividing the two sections, the southern people themselves found the spectre of the abolition of slavery to be the last straw. This is a very well supported fact, in spite of what southern revisionists would love you to believe.
Read the original documents and be enlightened.
Tell me how the north can fight for the emancipation of slaves in the south when this peculiar institution still existed in the north. slavery wasn’t abolished until 1868, 3 years after the war.
Any freshman American history text will give you the answer, Heather. Lincoln did not intend to abolish slavery: he intended to keep the republic whole. It’s well documented that he never intended an abolitionist crusade. The leaders of the south didn’t see things that way, however. Lincoln’s position was that slavery would no longer EXPAND. The south would not be allowed to export it into the west. The South saw this as an ipso facto declaration of abolitionist intent and revolted.
Lincoln was real clear on why he eventually made the Emancipation Proclamation: not because he was a die-hard abolitionist, but because it was a great weapon to be used against the south at that injuncture of the war – principally because with one stroke of the pen, Lincoln thus blocked any chance of British intervention in the war. He didn’t do it until September 1862 (note: 18 months after the war began and not three years as you claim) because the Union had been getting its ass kicked by the CSA up until then and a declaration of emancipation, in those circumstances, would have been seen as a desperate attempt to win political points. For that reason, the Declaration only occured after the Union’s first major victory at Antietam.
But you’re right: Lincoln WOULDN’T have abolished slavery if the south had stayed in. The south didn’t see things that way, however, and thus they left. This interpretation is backed up by pretty much everything their leaders said upon secession.
The South thus began the war out of PARANOIA: paranoia that a Lincoln presidency meant the end of their way of life. It didn’t necessarily mean that, but southern reactionism ensured that it eventually would. I leave it to the readers to draw parallels between that situation and today’s white southern insanity over Obama. (But I myself think it means that when it comes to matters racial, you folks are not now and never have been wrapped very tight).
the north was industry and had no trading partner whatsoever.
?
Sorry, honey chile, that’s just not true. The North was trading a plenty in the Americas already. Yes, tariffs were a big gripe between the two regions: the North liked them to protect its industry and the South hated them because they wanted to sell cotton to Britain. But the North was fighting to EXTEND its trade – not eliminate it. And with the northern victory, the American empire took off precisely because American manufactured good COULD compete with Britain’s all across the Americas.
So the fact that you’re here chatting with us now via computer instead of hoeing cotton out back for some British (or, more likely, American) company is due to the northern victory, sweetie. Brazil, the country I live in, followed your dear South’s route and was progressively underdeveloped as a result. We are only now beginning to climb out of that hole. There’s a reason not a single agricultural export economy of the 19th century generated a world power in the 20th.
Not a one, Heather. Exporting farm goods to Britain was not the path to a solid economy.
For what it’s worth I wish the north HAD let you secede in 1861. The blacks would have still flooded north and you southerners would be living in the third world right now, instead of sucking down our taxes and filling up the American congress with lunatic Christian extremists. Yankees would own anything of substance in your country through their control of your tiny elite and people like you would be good rickets-wracked, toothless southern patriots literally whistling Dixie.
Humanity definitely lost an opportunity to isolate the most reactionary, uneducated and lunatic fringe of white America when the North decided to fight for Union. If I could go back in time, I would let you folks be on your merry and don’t let the screen door hit you on the ass on the way out.
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“For what it’s worth I wish the north HAD let you secede in 1861. The blacks would have still flooded north and you southerners would be living in the third world right now, instead of sucking down our taxes and filling up the American congress with lunatic Christian extremists. Yankees would own anything of substance in your country through their control of your tiny elite and people like you would be good rickets-wracked, toothless southern patriots literally whistling Dixie.
Humanity definitely lost an opportunity to isolate the most reactionary, uneducated and lunatic fringe of white America when the North decided to fight for Union. If I could go back in time, I would let you folks be on your merry and don’t let the screen door hit you on the ass on the way out.”
really? honestly, what does it matter to you, being that you’re in brazil? and the whole south doesn’t agree with the “lunatic christian extremists”.
and it seems to me you missed the whole “it wasn’t slavery we didn’t want taken away, but the RIGHT to have slaves.” it was about RIGHTS – states’ rights, to be exact.
like i said here:
“slavery was not an issue, lincoln even asked president davis that slavery would be intact if they came back into the union. davis’ response was no because slavery is not the struggle we fight in this war.”
you also left out an explanation for this part:
“Tell me how the north can fight for the emancipation of slaves in the south when this peculiar institution still existed in the north.”
how WAS the north fighting for emancipation of the precious slaves when the north STILL HAD THEM, themselves?
do you even realize the importance of STATES’ RIGHTS that the south fought and died for? it was the right to make your own laws, for each state, so the country would be a REPUBLIC [A republic is a form of government in which at least a part of its people have some element of formal control over its government, and in which the head of state is not a monarch. The word “republic” is derived from the Latin phrase res publica, which can be translated as “a public affair”.]
but, i guess i digress. because as you did in your last comment, you pick PARTS of what i say to argue with, ignore what you CAN’T argue down, and pretend to be superior.
by the way, i may be a WHITE SOUTHERN young woman, but that isn’t why i disagree with this blog, or [i’ll be flayed alive for this one] why i don’t like president obama. if you wanna know why i don’t like him, it’s his political platform. ask any obama supporter,
“why did you vote for him?”
“because he wants ‘change’.”
“what kind of change?”
“i don’t know…..just change”
i got that from MANY obama supporters, and from my black friends who didn’t agree with his platform, i got this:
“i feel like it’s my duty as a black person”
really now? because i thought it was your duty as an american to vote with your conscious. not with your race.
if you wanna know WHY i don’t agree with his platform, have you heard of ron paul?
maybe, maybe not….i voted for HIM. check him out….or don’t. and just babble some more about the south and how dumb we are. it amuses me….really.
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really? honestly, what does it matter to you, being that you’re in brazil?
Because I am still an American citizen, Heather, and I vote.
and the whole south doesn’t agree with the “lunatic christian extremists”.
Indeed. But that is by and large how the south VOTES, isn’t it?
and it seems to me you missed the whole “it wasn’t slavery we didn’t want taken away, but the RIGHT to have slaves.” it was about RIGHTS – states’ rights, to be exact.
There was only one right that was threatened: the right to human property. And that right was not even REALLY threatened, according to the majority of serious historians that have looked into the issue.
Can you cite us any other “right” in property that was threatened by the North, other than the right to own slaves? Hell, can you show us any proof that the leaders of the North even intended to do aay with slavery?
No, you can’t.
Face it, Heather: you southerners let your mouths run away and sign a check you couldn’t cash. If you’d have kept quiet, slavery would have gone along probably until close to the 20th century, just like it did in Brazil.
Oh, and by the way, your English trade partners? They would have eventually pushed you into abolition, just like they did Brazil. So all your southern piss-and-vinnegar bought you was devastation and a position as the U.S.’ poorest region for the better part of a century and a half.
Well done, guys! 😀
how WAS the north fighting for emancipation of the precious slaves when the north STILL HAD THEM, themselves?
I answered that. apparently, southern schools are still churning out sub-standard readers.
The north wasn’t fighting for the slaves: it fought to maintain the Union. Slavery, as an issue, had nothing to do with the north’s goals and everything to do with the south’s FEARS. You people FEARED that a Lincoln presidency meant the end of slavery. This is a fact supported by every utterance made by southern politicans in 1860-61 and YOU YOURSELF, above. Said fear pushed the south to revolt and the North acted to preserve the union.
So you’re right in saying abolition wasn’t a northern war goal until late 1862. Where you’re wrong is in saying the war wasn’t about slavery: you southerners obviously thought it was. The supposed “threat” to your “rights” in human property posed by a Lincon presidency pushed you to revolt. The war was most DEFINITELY about slavery then, according to the Southern leaders themselves.
In the grand southern romantic tradition, your foolish ancestors went and shot themselves in the foot, then whined that it was all due to an evil Yankee conspiracy.
do you even realize the importance of STATES’ RIGHTS that the south fought and died for?
Nope, I don’t. My great-great was a German-American republican abolitionist who fought at Vicksburg in a Wisconsin regiment. Piss on those rebel terrorist traitors and their so-called “states’ rights”.
A republic is a form of government in which at least a part of its people have some element of formal control over its government, and in which the head of state is not a monarch. The word “republic” is derived from the Latin phrase res publica, which can be translated as “a public affair”.
Nice to know that Southern schools at least teach their students how to use Wikipedia, even if they don’t teach them reading comprehension.
Heather, the U.S. government is and always has been at least partially formally controlled by at least a part of its people. The head of the U.s. state has never been a monarch. So what do your so-called “states’ rights” have to do with this issue again?
but, i guess i digress. because as you did in your last comment, you pick PARTS of what i say to argue with, ignore what you CAN’T argue down, and pretend to be superior.
Why do you looney southern so-called patriots always claim no one can argue you down when that’s precisely what happens all the time? You folks are the flat earth society of American history: the last blind adherents of the great lost cause. No one can “argue you down” because you have faith in your ignorance and will hold to it no matter what facts are presented.
I presented three 1860-61 quotes from key southern leaders clearly claiming that they revolted to protect slavery. I could present another hundred or even a thousand. The documents and newspapers of the time are full of such claims. None of that is going to make a whit of difference to you, Heather, because history is not based on facts for you: it’s based on faith and emotional, unreasoning loyalties to a cause which died a century and a half ago and which was dedicated, body and soul, to the proposition that some human beings should naturally be the property of others.
A thinking, rational southerner would be ashamed of your igniorance and the bigotry which it is based upon. I know the south, however, and am well aware that the whites there have little to be proud of other than their mythical lost cause, which is why i understand where you’re coming from.
It’s also why, however, I think it’s a pity that you yahoos didn’t get what you wanted and so richly deserve: your own country, followed by political and economic colonization and abject poverty.
by the way, i may be a WHITE SOUTHERN young woman, but that isn’t why i disagree with this blog, or [i’ll be flayed alive for this one] why i don’t like president obama
Oh, perish the thought. Why would a Confederate appologist dislike Obama because of his race? What a completely unusual thought!
really now? because i thought it was your duty as an american to vote with your conscious. not with your race.
By your own admission, you’d rather be living in an independent CSA, so what the hell would you know about responsabilities to the USA and – moreover – why would you care?
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maybe, maybe not….i voted for HIM. check him out….or don’t. and just babble some more about the south and how dumb we are. it amuses me….really.
People in general don’t ‘babble’ on about why they voted for a particular politician? Anyhow, what does voting for Obama, or any other politician have to do with the topic at hand? The discussion isn’t about present day politics. How is it you managed to interject Obama into the conversation?
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i’m not letting anyone here pull me into anymore arguments. i’m done. i’m over this. i don’t even know why i got involved with this hugely racist blog anyway.
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i don’t even know why i got involved with this hugely racist blog anyway.
Because you’re a poor lil’ southern belle who’s been hugely done for by that big, bad, mean ol’ Unka Sugah? 😀
Hey, Heather, you go ahead and vote Republican and watch them cut corporate taxes and rape the south even more than the Democrats. People like you have been cutting your own throats at the polls for 150 years, so I doubt that you’ll stop now.
The Demos are jerks, I agree. But only a fool – or a white southerner – would believe that that somehow makes the Republicans white knights.
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one more point i wanted to make, since this wasn’t a push into an argument…
anyone with a brain knows your typical “john mccain” republican, or “george w. bush” if you will, are exactly the same as the democrats, behind closed doors. they say what you want to hear, then when you AREN’T listening/watching them, they do the same things.
i don’t vote specifically for republicans. i voted for ron paul, in 2008. when he didn’t win in the primary, i wrote him in anyway. not because he’s republican, but because i agreed with his platform. i will vote for a libertarian in the ga. governor’s race. i vote with my conscious, not with a party. and when i DON’T agree with ANYONE’S platform, i don’t vote, out of protest. [i know someone will tell me, i don’t have a right to say ANYTHING if i don’t vote, and i have my own views on that, ask me if you wanna know.]
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I am Irish in Boston. My great grandparents came here in the early 1910’s. While trying to understand my own heritage, I know full well that my family may have been racist, but also that they were very poor living in the projects in Boston, working as servants in rich people’s homes and although things may have been ‘easier’ for them than for blacks, it still wasn’t easy and it wasn’t a life of privilege. There was racism against the Irish, and the English made indentured servants out of the Irish too. My parents moved out of the projects as a young adults and now our family is doing alright. But, sometimes I feel an accusatory stance from black people who assume that we’ve had it easy because we’re white and that we’re all responsible for what happened 200 years ago. I’ve never used “my family never owned slaves” statement in a conversation or argument with any black person ever in my life, but I can understand where it comes from. I disagree with the analogy of the mafia daughter with the pearls. Not all white people in this country have benefited from slavery. And I think it is legitimate for many of us who are white and who are trying to get a true sense of our own family history to know outright that the ugliness of slavery does not have to be incorporated into our personal sense of identity.
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I asked this question back in May and earlier in August and have not received a response. What do you want done? What I see is a great amount of discussion about slaves, whether one’s ancestors “owned” slaves or not. I merely want to know what action is wanted, what should be done now? Bottom line.
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@ Integrity
You should check out Abagond’s posts on Irish Americans and Ireland. I enjoyed the posts and there are a lot of interesting comments there too.
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(caps mine for emphasis)
abagond says,
America grew rich on the red man’s land worked by black slaves. For a long time cotton was the main thing America sold to other countries. Profits from cotton (made mainly in the North and in Britain, not in the South) in turn helped to underwrite the growth of the country’s industry.
The RACISM that grew out of slavery kept MOST blacks AT THE BOTTOM AS A SUPPLY OF CHEAP LABOUR.
That BENEFITTED ALL WHITES THROUGH LOWER PRICES.
Even TODAY WHITES CONTINUE TO BENEFIT FROM RACISM IN THE FORM of BETTER EDUCATION, HIGHER INCOMES, LONGER LIVES, and ALL the other UNEARNED BENEFITS of WHITE PRIVILEGE that have GROWN OUT of SLAVE DAYS.
laromana says,
The essence of White privilege are the UNEARNED benefits it gives ALL Whites SOLELY because they’re White and the UNEARNED disadvantages it creates for ALL Blacks SOLELY because they’re Black.
If ALL Whites/Other Non-Blacks (who BENEFIT from White privilege) gained a clear awareness of why/how White privilege harms/has harmed ALL Blacks and were WILLING to ACTIVELY work to DESTROY it, we would be on our way to ending the negative effects of slavery/racism on American culture.
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I think we shouldn’t forget about the Africans that sold their own people into slavery. We should trace their bloodlines to see who of the African decent is guilty for slavery as well. Selling your own people into slavery is just as bad(or worse) as owning a slave of another ethnicity.
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@ Abe
How are you going to do that?
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My family DID own slaves. My great grandfather owned slaves until the Yankees illegally “liberated” them without just compensation in 1865. I AM racist. And NONE of my best friends are black. And I think the election of a black man as president signals the irrevocable demise of America into a second-rate nation — as happens wherever Africans dominate and whites are in powerless minority. So what? Living Whites don’t owe blacks anything for the deeds of Dead Whites. And I don’t owe Blacks anything because I am racist — any more than a homosexual owes heterosexuals anything because he prefers his own sex. Yet Blacks STILL demand the “right” to associate with me!
The problem with blacks is that they have a lower average group IQ than other races. This low IQ prevents Africans from creating a civilization on par with Whites or Asians. That’s why Whites, as a group, will ALWAYS have more than Africans — because Africans are too stupid to invent an alphabet or a mathematical system that is the necessary foundation of an advanced civilization. White oppression or racism had NOTHING to do with Black stupidity. Blame God for that. In fact, the more white blood Africans have, the smarter they become. It’s called genetic up-breeding.
Yes, Africans did labor that helped build America — just as horses and mules did, but the brains behind it all were White. There was no way Blacks could ever have crossed the ocean to get to America without Whites. Yes, Whites, led by Jewish slave traders, foolishly imported
Africans into the bosom of their White civilization. By doing so they imported the Black Plague into their heartland and cursed their descendants with Black Death.
As Blacks flourish, White civilization withers. When the White Host dies, Africans will inevitably resume a place befitting their native IQ and temperment in the natural order of human species. There won’t be a White Supreme Court to stop Whites from prefering their own kind. There won’t be a White Congress to redistribute the wealth of White taxpayers. There won’t be any more White taxpayers. The non-white races will continue to shun the African, just as the White man did, because self-improvement and self-preservation dictate the shunning of the inferior — and virtually all races instinctively regard the African as inferior.
That’s what Racism, aka ethno-centricism, is all about, and it’s inevitable. Racism is why Africans are incapable of seeing themselves from the perspective of non-Africans. It’s impossible for Blacks to comprehend or reconcile the massive disconnect between their own self-affirming, positive self image and how free, uncensored non-Africans instinctively see them: as giant, walking, talking cockroaches. It is likewise impossible for Whites to affirm the unflattering view that Blacks have of them. What is unforgiveable or detestable to one race is perfectly acceptable and understandable to the other. That’s why segregation is essential for ethnic self-determination and preservation — and why I make no apology to Blacks for preferring my own kind over theirs. The only thing I’m willing to give to Blacks (as a matter of national policy), is a one-way ticket back to Africa. Any takers?
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What are we as whites supposed to be sorry for slavery? I am not sorry but I don’t feel accountable….Asking any white person to say sorry is just stupidity. People around the world and Black American’s think that our president was voted in by blacks only what B.S. Blaming all white people whose family may or may not have even lived here in the days of Slavery is just stupidity again.It would be the same if white people asked for an apology from black people over any crime they commit towards white people. Which black people have and still do target white people for their non-sense hatred towards everyone who is white (And I am not talking about every black person). I have known for years that only the rich white people owned slaves it wasn’t only in the south either it was all over the country. It is a known fact that Gen. Sherman didn’t like black people and thought black people was beneath white people he thought the only reason we were at war with each other is the south broke the law. But most of you hold him in high regards.I don’t hate black people,I don’t hate anyone. But I am not going to be ashamed because I am white or say sorry for anything. I am pretty proud to be white just as Blacks and Hispanics are allowed to be. If you still feel like white people are holding you down it’s your own fault.
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“Pollynkorect”: Writes lengthy, hate-filled missives to “cockroaches”. Probably makes late-night crank calls to ‘ants’. Not to be taken seriously.
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Pollynkorect bears a stunning resemblance to the astounding She- Monster:
Sh is probably a minion of Cthulu!
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Some people really do need to get a life.
@Herneith:
Witty and humorous as usual. 😀
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i am shocked the chick had the nerve to have her picture up here. But then again, true racists have lots of nerve! 😀
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You mean this one?:
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Just looked up family tree to 1400’s on three lines..original settlers of Va., Mass., N.C., Texas..found many old wills…most were planters, not farmers…several were high peers of the crown, original settlers of Virginia….and they owned slaves…dozens and dozens of them…..
The black tribes in Africa enslaved other tribes and sold them…or else it would not have ever happened…
Chaka Zulu killed a million black people to satisfy his blood lust and ego…there has never been a “civilization” in Africa…and now as per Yahoo news 47 rapes an hour in the Congo…every hour on the hour…..the blacks brought over here were better off than the ones in Africa in that era or any other era…
Not an ounce of racism here…isn’t racist if it is true…
And the blacks here now are reaping the benifits of any infrastucture…economic or otherwise the slaves may have bought with their labor….
If you want to experience racism in America today, try being white, a college graduate, well mannered, and you stop at stop signs…the most racist here are the Mexicans….
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In short, who cares? Is slavery in the past causing black women to have five bastard children by the time they are 21? With birth control free at Planned Parenthood..With at least four fathers?….seriously…..and sell poisonous crack , heroin, and meth. to black children in the Hood? The only racism I have seen with my eyes was from blacks and hispanics towards whites…for real…..and to pretend somehow that any white person that ever lived is in any way to blame for their life somehow not being fair….? Get real…wake up…..finish high school at least…stop having bastards…..get a job and don’t just loaf when you get there and call it racism when you get fired…oh, don’t worry they are afraid to fire you…unless you just don’t show up for a month….
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^THIS^
White dude above me is the EXACT reason why I am saying addressing racism to whitefolks is useless. Too many are just too damn delusional to get through to. How many blog post does Abagond have dismantling every damn argument this dude just made? This is why we need to worry about taking care of ourselves and not clueless white people. Your average black person doesn’t need you to tell them why all of those arguments are dumb. This man does and we waste time explaining to him(as if he will understand once we are done).
Black people, stop wasting time and start being proactive.
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Actually reading Polynkorect found the average IQ of South African blacks is 65…other areas range from a low of that to a high of 72….
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^ The internet is full of half baked fools. We both know this isn’t representative of anything but his own ignorance.
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@ TW
Click on the “see also” links at the end of the article.
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Delusional…..?…Did Martin Luther King die so clueless black kids in the hood could walk around with their pants sagging? Is that the best response they can muster to their environment….
I am not even angry..give every person respect if I interact with them…but it is getting old…
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@TW
I didn’t even read past the first sentence. Find somebody else to give a damn about your opinions
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Delusional because I won’t indulge and enable your dysfunctional concepts that blacks are owed a living here? Or that someone else is the cause for their unhappiness?
It is the complete lack of a family structure…or a positive family structure…in the black community….no role models except pimps, drug dealers, con artists…
And the latest scammers are the three hundred pound ministers…opps they all call themselves Bishop….
Bishop Willie Green…pimpin’ Jesus….and all for the sex they can get, food, money….gluttony…and control
What about the Rwandan genocide…are white people responsible for that….
I am saying get honest…get the chip off your shoulder and go on with your business…are are you just going to keep the old tired train rollinig? For other young blacks growing up to pimp….that is all it is….
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Is anyone even taking TW’s obvious lack of education seriously?
Did he actually say that there was no civilization in Africa, and that white people had nothing to do with Rwanda? His talking points are the ones of old, that current White Supremacists don’t even use anymore. All because they’ve been quashed that hard.
He’s obviously a troll…
And before he predictably responds with this, I don’t call him a troll because “He sees the truth, and I don’t like it!” or whatever “stupidity protecting slogan” he wants to use, but because he’s actually quite unintelligent.
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Wrather than keep beating this old dead horse on your blogs, why not something productive like a blog to keep black youth in high school at least. Or a link to Planned Parenthood in every community..
Or is it that you made it past community college and you are doing these blogs so the crack heads back in the hood don’t accuse you of acting white….just because you use proper English.
And the blog about white women not so attractive….black women are not in the least attractive to me because beauty is not just skin deep…Because the family stuctures they are raised in influence them to basically be on the ball to play men for a sucker before they get played…
Did white people have anything to do with Rwanda? Once it became open season on bloodlust..it just went wild…are the ones there not responsible for what they did? Or is it like the murder lust now along the border with Mexico with the drug trolls…oh, I forgot, it is the demand for drugs here in the US that turns them into blank minded brain eating zombies….they couldn’t have been mindless brain eating zombies to begin with….
Actually, the Republicans may be racist in their whole point of view, don’t know..not a Republican…I did vote for Obama, not anything to do with race..he was the most intelligent one running and I agreed with most of his policies…not the Republican, sell out the middle and lower classes to the Corp. machine….
What about the whole “NO SNITCHING” thing in the black community…if people would turn in the drug dealers selling poison to young black kids..the ones that are stealing the souls and all hope..of several generations by now..maybe a neighborhood or two could get turned around..and a productive economy could exist there…..I do think for first or even second offenders drug related…rehab. may save a few and not just hard time where they are ruined for good….but there is a time to weed out the ones killing the spirits of black youth…
But this whole Black intellectual angst about racism is counter productive….please, address the real problems in the black community…and blaming helps no one…education, family planning, nutrition, preventive health care….how to start a small business, and racism with banks etc. may be a factor there….
Not saying racism doesn’t exist…it does…but in multiple directions….
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So, educate me…what will make a real world difference in the black community? I grew up extreme inner city…in 1971 all the other kids in the neighborhood within a half mile from my house, white and hispanic at my High School were on IV heroin. In Jr. High the hispanic against white racism and violence was so extreme I did 500 punches a day altenating between heavy bag and speed bag, ran a mile every day..every day for two years….to have the courage to go to school…I was not that tough, I was that scared….broke seven noses in the seventh grade to finally get the street credit so they left me alone….later was youngest bare knuckle open weight senior black belt in karate (Isshinryu, a legit style) in the state of Texas. Last week, still living in same neighborhood, did move out twenty five years, inherited house..back free rent..own..someone came on my front porch…took cat box with four kittens in it…cut mother cat’s throat, later three kittens ended up dead on my front yard…did call police..wanted neighborhood to see…no problems with any neighbors…random..
Also, while doing loss prevention security at most inner city Family Dollar in town…loss was $200 dollars a day with security and cameras there…a black man with a ski mask came in…pointed a snub nosed revolver at my chest and said ,”Get on the Floor”…I said, “Just take the money”…he did…we all lived…
Not to pat myself on the back…but I have seen inner city…and problems that lead people to crime…don’t hate any black person…but realistic, what will change this in the short term and long term is what is needed…
To preemptively negate that there is no need to “pull oneself up by the bootstraps” seems to worsen the situation..if a person doesn’t do what they can to improve whatever their lot is…waiting for someone else to or for the situation to magically change worsens the situation…
Education, HIV awareness and treatment, not having unplanned children, employment, whether jobs or starting a legit. business, nutrition…both food availability and nutritional awareness, health care, esp. preventive…on an on…are what need to be addressed, short term and long term…..
And yes, black people do not need to look to white people to get their identity…but too many inner city black youth look to the drug dealers, the pimps, the fast talkers…with a racket, the mothers with five children working the system..trading baby formula for smokes on the street are two often the ones emulated…
So, please, you tell me what will work….
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@ TW
We’re not experts on what will work. We seek the same solutions that you do. Many of us work in our own communities trying to make a difference.
Sometimes it’s rewarding. Sometimes it’s discouraging.
You want a straight answer? A problem that took centuries of slavery and Jim Crow to create (over generations) is not going to get totally fixed in just one generation.
I truly wish that it could.
That’s not an excuse for bad behavior, but it’s going to take time to negate all of the negative effects that have been building up from many decades of screwing things up. When you mess up family structure, and economics, and education, and socialization, it doesn’t just snap back like a rubber band.
We all just have to keep on working at making it better, both Black people and White.
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A few points were brought up earlier that I”d like to comment on.
1) Comparing the experiences of atheists and African-Americans is talking apples and oranges, but one point: there is a (self-identified and visibly) black president, and no such parallel for atheists. The Democrats won’t run an openly atheist presidential candidate because they fear it would galvanize voter turnout among the Christian Right.
Of course there most likely have been atheist (or at least agnostic) presidents who have concealed their beliefs. So atheists can certainly conceal themselves in a way people of dark skin cannot; but I ask, would you really consider things much better if you could avoid discrimination by changing your skin?
2) No discussion of privilige and oppression should ignore homosexuals. In America, Africa, and most of the world homosexuals face a level of discrimination and violence that is unmatched by any ethnicity. We know of the enslavement of Africans by European Americans, of their continuing oppression under Jim Crow, modern discrimination (and yes, white privilege), and the wounds all of this inflicted on black American culture. You know why so many people think that “all these gays” are a new thing? Because homosexuals were so fiercely persecuted that they couldn’t risk having the gatherings and rituals that create a shared culture.
3) I found a way to “change my colour” and be a minority – I moved to China. What strikes me most is how pyschologically exhausting it is to be stared at all day. Some people just call me “laowai” (foreigner) and don’t bother to learn my name. But most people are just curious and like me for being different. Of course it’s not at all like being black in America, but it’s a change from being white in Canada.
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Amen….
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are you kidding me? this is the stupidest post I have ever read. Your comparison with the mafia daughter is completely off.
If someone in my city has a slave how does that make me a slave owner? Slavery is alive more now than ever, there are over 100 million people in slavery worldwide and thats more than ever so why dont YOU do something about it and stop blaming white people for something that happened 2-3 generations ago. If you do your research the big city of 500,000 + people close to your home also has slave labour. Does you not doing anything about it make you as guilty of it as the people who are forcing the slaves to work? 1 million people per year are being trafficed across borders internationally to force work in the sex trade. Stop whining about the past and if you care about the issues do something about the situation today.for example spread awareness.
About the race issues…..America is so stupid with that, they dont realise that the day people stop caring and joke about race is the day the problem goes away. When you are so serious about it all, wondering whether you should call a black guy an african american or whether you are saying some stereotype of the blacks, than the contact is very distant and not real. thats still ways to go maybe america is on its way, I’d say 7-8 generations perhaps than things will be much better.
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@ bobbi
And why do you assume that nobody is doing anything about it? There are many people who give money to anti-slavery organizations or volunteer time. I have made donations myself..
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For other young blacks growing up to pimp….that is all it is….
Can I be a she-pimp? Because you’d be the first man-whore I’d turn out! That is if you could stop babbling for a moment and get to work!
Is anyone even taking TW’s obvious lack of education seriously?
No. Hence some bizarre responses from myself. Anyone care to join in?
Delusional because I won’t indulge and enable your dysfunctional concepts that blacks are owed a living here? Or that someone else is the cause for their unhappiness?
Delusional because you have the audacity to post such racist drivel. Did you do it with a straight face?
Or is it that you made it past community college and you are doing these blogs so the crack heads back in the hood don’t accuse you of acting white….just because you use proper English.
No, he is writing these post for folks like you who post these absurd and sometimes hilarious responses(I guess in many instances unintentionally so). Most of all, it provides endless comic fodder and for me personally. The racist responses are like something out of a satirical magazine. How literally ignorant some people are! You seem to ‘know’ alot about blacks and the ‘ghetto’ they all hail from. Anything to bolster your own self worth eh? Oh, the author of this blog has the patience of Job for your ignorant insults about ‘crackhead’ back in his old neighbourhood.
Because the family structures they are raised in influence them to basically be on the ball to play men for a sucker before they get played…
I see you were spurned by a black woman, that explains everything.
So, educate me
Nope, you will not get lessons in ni****ology from me. Perhaps someone else will be willing to give it a try. Besides, you seem to be already educated in the current stereotypes, why shatter you illusions? Also, people who teach get renumeration of some kind.
In America, Africa, and most of the world homosexuals face a level of discrimination and violence that is unmatched by any ethnicity.
Who taught these people homophobia? In many aboriginal cultures for example, such folk are referred to as two spirited and are almost sacred. Now when the white man came, he forced them to his viewpoint via residential schools etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar occurred in many African societies, pre-colonialism. Of course all homosexuals are white, so they are the only homosexuals that count. Oh and how about being black in Canada? Oh, that must be out of your purview.
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@Herneith
Who taught these people homophobia? In many aboriginal cultures for example, such folk are referred to as two spirited and are almost sacred. Now when the white man came, he forced them to his viewpoint via residential schools etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar occurred in many African societies, pre-colonialism.
I’m sure Christian missionaries (and not just white ones) had some influence in spreading homophobia in Africa. However, I’d also point out that Islam has been just as influential. Finally, Uganda just passed a law establishing the death penalty for homosexulaity – a position on the issue more extreme than anything inherited from colonial times. Clearly there is more at play here than white influence, and I think your position denies the ability of Africans to think for themselves.
Of course all homosexuals are white, so they are the only homosexuals that count.
I don’t even know what that means. Homosexuality seems to be common across all human societies, although practised with different levels of discretion. They all “count” for the same amount, whatever that means.
Frankly, if you’re going to assign arbitrary views to me I wish they were a bit better thought-out.
Oh and how about being black in Canada? Oh, that must be out of your purview.
You’re right, I’ve never been black in Canada. But you have, and therefore your views on the repression of homosexuals are the only ones that count? Or did you bring that up for no reason at all?
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However, I’d also point out that Islam has been just as influential.</em.
Oh, and Islam isn't capable of proselytising like Christianity is? I wrote pre-colonialism, that includes the Arab colonizers as well.
Finally, Uganda just passed a law establishing the death penalty for homosexuality – a position on the issue more extreme than anything inherited from colonial times.
It didn’t pass. Anyhow, who do you think is spearheading this movement—The inheritors of the colonialist Christian missionaries’ ideologies!
Homosexuality seems to be common across all human societies, although practised with different levels of discretion.
Racialized homosexuals are marginalizes in the white gay community, therefore, the white homosexuals are seen as the default homosexuals just as whites are seen as the default race.
But you have, and therefore your views on the repression of homosexuals are the only ones that count?
You brought up the fact that about being white in Canada as compared to being seen as a minority in China. I was referring to your ‘being white in Canada’ quip. I could care less who someone is humping in the scheme of things. But lets not be disingenuous here about the racism of white homosexuals towards black people, this would include both heterosexual and homosexual blacks. In fact the homosexual blacks have it worse than the white ones overall. Let me ask you a question. This post is about a common retort whites give when American slavery and it after effects are discussed, ‘My family never owned slaves’. It is not about Uganda or homosexuals. Why are you bringing it up?
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To Herneith:
Can I be a she-pimp? Because you’d be the first man-whore I’d turn out! That is if you could stop babbling for a moment and get to work!
I don’t know about Canada but in the US women can be charged with pimping:
http://easterniowanewsnow.com/2011/04/14/cedar-rapids-woman-charged-with-pimping-again/
I guess in common parlance if you ran a house filled with male sex workers, then you could considered a madam. If they were physically attractive and capable and you routinely engaged them in quality assurance sessions then I know some women (and a few men…) who would call you lucky.
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@Herneith
iOh, and Islam isn’t capable of proselytising like Christianity is? I wrote pre-colonialism, that includes the Arab colonizers as well.
Yes, of course Muslims proselytise, that’s why I brought it up. To point out that homophobic influence on Africa wasn’t limited to white preachers.
It didn’t pass. Anyhow, who do you think is spearheading this movement—The inheritors of the colonialist Christian missionaries’ ideologies!
Glad to hear it didn’t pass. As I recall, the proposal was met with considerable international condemnation (including from the former colonizers). Yes, there are powerful Christian lobbies pushing for these kinds of laws in developing nations, but outside of the existing context of African homophobia it wouldn’t be possible.
Racialized homosexuals are marginalizes in the white gay community, therefore, the white homosexuals are seen as the default homosexuals just as whites are seen as the default race.
I had no idea there were default homosexuals. I guess I’m not as in tune with the nuances of gay culture, but in the few gay clubs I’ve been to I’ve seen people of all ethnicities mingling easily. I assumed that if anything, their own experiences with prejudice and discrimination would make homosexuals less prone to racism.
In fact the homosexual blacks have it worse than the white ones overall.
Well the ones in Uganda certainly do.
Let me ask you a question. This post is about a common retort whites give when American slavery and it after effects are discussed, ‘My family never owned slaves’. It is not about Uganda or homosexuals. Why are you bringing it up?
That’s what the post was about, but the resulting discussion touched on everything from Irish slavery to atheism in high office. I was just picking up a few of the interesting threads.
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“I assumed that if anything, their own experiences with prejudice and discrimination would make homosexuals less prone to racism.”
That would be a mistake. If anything, White male homosexuals often give themselves a pass on their ow racism, siting their own minority status.
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King said:
‘…White homosexuals often give themselves a pass on their own racism…’
Bulanikgirl said: ‘I have, more than once, spoken with white gay men white who have actually told me, quite openly, that they are ‘racist’ because Black people are ‘homophobic’!
In part I agree here. This is one group I have encountered who are the most likely to stereotype people. Also, in my experience and surprisingly, they often harbour misogynistic and disrespectful opinions on women particularly black women. Whilst often they admire and revere the physique of black men, I have never found that this translates to black women. The gay people I have known over the years much prefer to picture BW as chariacatures and unless she is strong and has an ‘athletic’ build they dont initially get their respect. The amount of rows I have had with gay guys who try to liken the predjudice they have received as the same as what I go through and then, mostly unwittingly, they insult me and my intelligence by foisting their stereotypical opinions on me. Maybe I have been unfortunate and met with a ‘bad individuals’, over the years I dont know.
I’m pretty sure that these people are not reflective or representative of the whole gay community….
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@Bulanikgirl
I suspect the term “breeder” or it’s non-English equivalent has been used in all slave societies in some form, as slave-owners have usually equated slaves with livestock.
That said, I’ve always taken the use of term by gay men and women to be more innocent. Although at first glance it carries the same connotations of superiority, referring to heterosexuals as breeders also acknowledges the inability of homosexual unions to produce children. It’s a rather self-depreciating slur, and dare I say… it’s kind of funny?
Maybe if homosexuals were the majority I might not have laughed out loud the first time I was called “breeder”.
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I guess I’m not as in tune with the nuances of gay culture, but in the few gay clubs I’ve been to I’ve seen people of all ethnicities mingling easily.
Perhaps they were looking for a leg-over, and any racist concerns went by the wayside. Are you familiar with that free newspaper ‘Now’? Many a time I have read the ‘singles’ advertisements for entertainment. In fact I have burst out laughing when reading an obscene one. It read like something a early adolescent boy would come up with. Anyhow I digress, quite a few contain stipulations that no blacks or asians need apply. This is apparently a common complaint. I think the black men and the asian men should get together! The racialized gays seem to be afflicted with the same self-loathing woes as their straight counterparts. My philosophy is more men for me to appreciate! Except for their sexuality, gays ain’t different than their heterosexual brethren.
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I talked about this over at The Fighting 44s (the legendary Asian American Blog) a ways back.
http://www.thefighting44s.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6720
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@King and Bulanikgirl
King: I read your blog with interest. It brings forth much that I have experienced in my encounters with gay white men, even down to the ‘you go girl’ finger clicking/head snapping that you and your bloggers discuss.
Whats the saying about people making jokes of things they really do admire?? Anyway, I think deep down there is an admiration for the strength of black women and by taking on this persona, it gives them courage. Unfortunately, they chariacature the most negative facets of any BW and use this as the measure for all BW. They cannot/will not except that we are all different and individual.
Its amazing how they will discriminate in terms of looks too. If a BW is attractive and confident with it they will steer clear, labelling her ‘bitchy looking’ with ‘attitude’.
Well this breeder felt like sending them Grace Jones to give ‘em a good whipping!
Methinks this would be more of a pleasurable experience to some rather than a punishment – but that goes for many hetrosexual men too lolol 😉
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Bulanikgirl Undermine the most attractive BW with confidence because they draw the sexual interest of MIP (men in power) and are a direct threat,
Champion the less attractive BW for the opposite reason, but this would also bring with it the kudos of Black and female support when needed – because BW didn’t like beautiful BW either! And an instant bodyguard too. No matter the build or stature of the woman in question there is a perception that if you are black, you must be able to turn it on and be aggressive.
This seems to make sense and would explain a lot Bulanikgirl. Divide and conquer is the approach many ‘groups’ take so this would be a way to achieve any particular goal.
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@ Bulanikgirl & Demerera
In my opinion, who you sleep with does not give you a pass on racism. A White man does not suddenly become a POC because he fancies other men in bed, or as long-term partners.
And the whole idea of taking on the ghetto stereotype of Black women, then magnifying it as a caricature of the flamboyant gay man (oh no he di’nt) does not pass the smell test. If there is a 40-year-old White guy, purposely walking around trying to sound like he’s a 19-year old Black rapper, it will raise a few eyebrows. However, if the same man happens to be attracted to other men, then he is somehow welcome to impersonate Foxy Brown? I don’t get it.
Then you have other problems with the “Blacks need not apply” dating ads, and the rice queens, and other race-selective behaviors, on top of the obvious prejudice comments. It’s not that I think that there is some specific conspiracy of racism amongst gay Whites, I just point out that sexual preference does not erase either your Whiteness or your prejudice. A White gay man can be just as prejudice as a White redneck, albeit probably expressed in different ways. My point is that gayness is not an excuse to stereotype, exclude, or impersonate.
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@King
A White gay man can be just as prejudice as a White redneck, albeit probably expressed in different ways. My point is that gayness is not an excuse to stereotype, exclude, or impersonate.
I totally agree. Just as homophobia can’t be justified by tradition or culture.
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@ awryguy.
Agreed.
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@Bulanikgirl
You’re probably using this slash \ instead of this one /
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@ Bulanikgirl
There is homophobia in the Black community, as there is in All communities. I can’t be sure that it’s higher among Blacks than elsewhere. In my experience, it isn’t, but I can’t be sure, based on my own observations. Much of it depends on your definition of “homophobia.”
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@Bulanikgirl, King, Awryguy
It is my view that the experience of homophobia – especially the cruel, and sometimes violent end of it – is not that different from some experiences of anti-Black racism.
‘Demerera, I am not sure what direction your discussions with white gay men took as they likened their experience with yours of racism?’
Yes, Bulanikgirl,
It is much as you initially describe, likening their own experiences to that of anti-black racism. On discussing things the people I spoke with certainly could relate to many aspects of being on the sharp end of discrimination and prejudice. In a general sense it was agreed that we have that in common but the way this manifests itself for the gay guys I have encountered, unless they are openly ‘camp’ and proudly parade their sexuality, it is not as immediate as what I have encountered as a black woman. But, when bigotry does rear its ugly head, it evokes the same/similar feelings in the ‘victim’ – for sure. I have never thought about sexual preferences being a ‘choice’ though like you I have come across hetrosexuals who are disdainful of gay people and who think that somehow it is!!
In terms of the experiences I have aluded to in previous posts though, being honest, I have been left perplexed when particular individuals have reverted back to the cliche ridden sterotypes. Particularly when they have been so candid about their experiences and felt things so acutely themselves. Clearly, I am not speaking about ALL gay men here and not even about all the gay men I have encountered or know. In fact, if I think about it objectively, the people that I am referring to are of a certain age and generation anyway so a significant factor is potentially that they are just a product of their time but, in light of what they have and do go through, I would have hoped for some sensitivity/tact/awareness to be more apparent.
My bisexual friend came ‘out’ to me years ago, I wasnt surprised and half suspected it but when she revealed this to some of our other friends, they would discuss it in her absence and as I was particularly close to her they would say ‘don’t you feel uneasy around her…etc etc’ which I didnt. She always had a ‘colourful’ sex life and she used to delight/shock me with tales of her sexploits too lol but one thing I always admired about her was that she never judged anybody. She would have been deeply hurt by what those guys thought about her had she of known, but to be fair, they too learned to overcome their prejudices and fear – she was too decent a person and too good a friend to lose for anyone to ‘hold’ that against her for any length of time. Now, I’m not saying they were all enlightened but certainly more aware and in as diverse a society as this is, that can only be a good thing.
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I understand your are hurting and are in need of some reconciliation but writing a post about a problem without offering up solutions is a waste of everyone’s time – including that of the writer. You’ve made no ground whatsoever on this topic; you’re just stirring the pot. As a very empathic white person (I’ve had nearly debilitating guilt since I was 8 and first learned of the treatment of Native Americans and Africans) I was hoping to add to my understanding of the black person’s position on this issue specifically: what response does an AA desire when confronting a WA with the enslavement of AA?
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As a very empathic white person (I’ve had nearly debilitating guilt since I was 8 and first learned of the treatment of Native Americans and Africans) I was hoping to add to my understanding of the black person’s position on this issue specifically: what response does an AA desire when confronting a WA with the enslavement of AA?
You had debilitating guilt since you were 8? Maybe you are mentally ill. As for what to ask an AA(Alcolholic Anonymous?), how about a forty ouncer and a case of beer? Oh…enslavement! Give me my 40 acres and a mule factoring in today’s money and inflation; that should be a couple of billion dollars..Yes I would be willing to forgive!
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My family owned slaves. Not really ashamed of it either. My great-something-grandfather treated them well, even let them become educated and had them write a book he dictated (he actually never learned to read and write). Every race has been a slave at some point. Its just how human history went. Time to get over it. Wounds can’t heal if you won’t let them.
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Also, while thinking about it, slavery was actually a good thing for modern black people. I don’t think anyone can argue that living in the U.S. is worse than living in Africa. Not saying it was right, but saying a lot of good came out of it too. Diversity = Prosperity. And as for me benefiting from my family’s slaves, not always. I’m going to school on loans, my family is on welfare from lack of job opportunity, and we get wonderful reverse racism living as a white minority in a black majority in our area. I think it’s time to stop looking at black/white and look at human/human instead.
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@Unashamed
I can’t even.
Why don’t you let Black people tell you whether they think being in the US or Carribean or Latin America is indeed better for them than being raised in Africa.
FYI, Africa is a continent not a country…some places good some places bad just like most of the world. Having lived here my whole life, I can confidently say I would never want to live anywhere else.
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My family did own slaves and owned quite a bit of land in Northern Alabama and used their sweet and blood to profit. I know that and acknowledge it. But I refuse to feel guilty for something that my family did several generations before I was even born. I agree, slavery is a horrible thing, something that must never happen to anyone, but I cannot do anything about my family’s past, so why feel guilty about it? One probably reads my post and thinks of me as a racist or a bigot; well feel free to do so, but I am a avid support of civil rights, not just based on race but nationality, sexual orientation, and religion. For me as an American I feel the obligation to support such things because American will not live up to its own creed until there is equal rights for all people in all circumstances.
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@Pollynkorect Is it just me, or is there a distinct correlation pride in one’s racial ancestry and lack of anything about oneself to be proud of?
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@ Sid,
You’ve hit the nail on the head right there.
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Well, both your (Abagond’s) post and the myriad number of posts that agree with you prove that “white” people aren’t the only ones that can make bigoted generalizations.
I am glad that you at least mentioned that millions of people came here from Europe AFTER slavery and many African-Americans (not sure if most, but it is possible) have White slave-owner ancestry. The truth is, likely EVERYBODY in this world has ancestors that were slave owners somewhere at some point in time, whether they were “White”, “Black”, “Brown” or “Yellow”. However, the rest after that are gross generalizations.
Many of the people considered “White” today were not back then, especially those that arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries of Sicilian ancestry (I have Sicilian ancestors on one side) due to their complex racial and ethnic heritage, which includes Arab, North African Berber, Italian, Greek, Black African, Catalan,Aragonese and Norman, among others. Black slavery and Jim Crow are definitely not ignored in school. I don’t know how much it is mentioned in the South, but it is definitely taught in the North and in the West. You know what’s NOT talked about in schools? The lynching of 11 Sicilians in Louisiana in 1891 (considered the largest mass lynching in U.S. history) for a crime they were not guilty of. The people involved in the lynching were people of Irish and French ancestry AS WELL AS some Blacks. Lynchings of Sicilians continued in the years after that. Here is a one link: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lamadiso/articles/lynchings.htm
It includes pictures of three of the men in the later 1899 lynching, all full-blooded Sicilian (a rarity these days). There are many other documented cases of lynchings of Italians in different parts of the country besides Louisiana including: New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and Colorado, amongst others. In no way am I trying to claim that it happened more to those of Italian descent in this country than to African-Americans, nor should we forget that Mexicans, Chinese and Native Americans were also lynched, but is also certainly happened to Italians.
Sicilians in general were not considered “White” by white Southerners and their children were often not allowed in White schools and so went to Black schools. Sicilians were often called “Dagos”, “Guineas” and “Wops”, among other things and still continue to be called those things, in addition to “Greaseball”. Sicilians are continued to be stereoptyped as being in the Mafia, including, it seems, by yourself, although you didn’t explicitly mention “Sicilians” in regards to that, but that is often what is implied.
I’d also like to inform you that besides African-Americans, many Sicilian-Americans were instrumental in the formation of jazz, which paved the way for other muscial styles, but is most often mainly attributed to African-Americans. Many of these Sicilian-American pioneers included African-Americans in their bands, even when they were told by segregationists not to. From the Wikipedia page on Louis Prima:
“He became interested in jazz when he heard it streaming out of clubs and by fellow black musicians, including Louis Armstrong. At the time, segregation between blacks and whites was extremely prevalent. However, Italians and African Americans got along famously. Each shared the same economic, social, and political values. They also embodied similar entertainment rituals. Clubs such as Matranga’s, Joe Segrettas, Tonti’s Social Club, and Lala’s Big 25 were all owned and operated by Italians but allowed Blacks and Italians to play[3].”
During the tragic Hurricane Katrina crisis, all I heard on the news referring to New Orleans’ great jazz musicians was the African-American ones. Not a single Sicilian-American jazz musician was mentioned, not even Louis Prima. What a shame. Unfortunately, he is RARELY even mentioned when talking about the history of jazz and swing. And when people hear his songs, featured in many popular movies (such as “Analyze This” – a Mafia movie – uggh), people assume that it is Louis Armstrong singing (their voices were quite similar).
Prima had visible African ancestry in his Sicilian bloodline (do a Yahoo! images search for him). Then there’s the 1922 case of Rollins vs State in Alabama, in which Jim Rollins, a Black man, was convicted of “miscegenation”. He argued that the woman in question that he was with was “not white” because she came from Sicily. The court found him not guilty, because they found that: “The mere fact that the testimony showed this woman came from Sicily can in no sense be taken as conclusive that she was therefore a white woman, or that she was not a negro or a descendant of a negro.” Link: http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~thematic/umbach/fallpolice/rollins.html
There were also Italian-Americans (with ancestry from various regions of Italy) that made contributions to the Black Civil Rights Movement. Among them: Father Groppi (in Milwaukee), Vince Lombardi (parents from Salerno in mainland Italy. He was denied service at a restaurant in the South because the waitress thought that he was Black. Among many other strides, he refused to allow White segregationist hotel owners to make his Black players stay overnight in the bus. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Lombardi) and Mario Savio of Sicilian descent, who also worked hard for Civil Rights for African-Americans and others in the 1960s.
Watching any of Spike Lee’s movies that have become such a big part of popular culture, one would never have any idea about the history of Sicilian-Americans, the prejudice that they,too, have gone through, their close historical relationship with African-Americans and their part in advancing Civil Rights. So, how exactly are all people considered “White” by you benefiting from Black slavery in this country?
You said: “Even today whites continue to benefit from racism in the form of better education, higher incomes, longer lives and all the other unearned benefits of white privilege that have grown out of slave days.”
Not all “White” people fit that description. Many don’t. And not just in the Appalachians, as many people assume. Contrary to your assumption, not all who aren’t considered “Black” have peachy, happy, trouble-free lives. Also, how is a “longer life” necessarily a good thing? It depends on what age you are talking about and how much of an age difference there actually is. The difference in life expectancy between Euro-Americans and African-Americans is less than 5 years. Not only that, but Latino Americans have 2 years greater a life expectancy than Euro-Americans and Asian-Americans have a life expectancy almost ten years longer than Euro-Americans. Most people that live into old age suffer badly from all sorts of health problems, anyway.
You said: “Whites want to benefit from their ugly past – and their less ugly present”
Again, you are lumping all “Whites” together, as if everybody that falls under that label has the same history in this country. Quite contradictory to what you stated at the beginning about only 2% of whites owning slaves, millions of “Whites” coming to this country after slavery and that Blacks are far more likely to have White slave owner ancestors in this country. So, if you believe all of that to be true, wouldn’t that imply that Blacks are the ones with an ugly past? Also, if reparations for slavery were ever to be imposed in this country (which I’m guessing you’re all for), wouldn’t that mean that the vast majority of people paying into it would be Blacks? So that they would essentially have to be paying themselves?
Please stop making hateful generalizations about those of European ancestry, when NOBODY’S ancestry in this world, including Black-Americans, is totally “clean” and “innocent” of wrongdoings.
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Celo, interesting information you have there about Sicilian history
Nothing against Louis Prima, one of the greats, but, there is nothing in Italian culture that has the syncopation and call responce layering of pollyrythms that the Afro diasporic cultural contribution brought to the table. And, it is the foundation that jazz is built on. For sure , black American jazz musicians were part of their American culture, and , some, exactly because Jim Crow laws forced them to have to play with only black people, were classicly trained and brought harmonic knowledge from all the European countries that had contributions to the classical music cannon, including Italy and its rich opera history.
And, there have always been white men who loved jazz, and white players who went the extra mile to really understand it. Like you point out , Louis Prima, there were also Cuban musicians who were early associetes of Loius Armstrong.
In Chicago, Benny Goodman , who is Jewish, had one of the first integrated bands with Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson
Mezz Mezzrow was anothe white musician who understood many things in black American jazz…he never was as important a player as Loius Prima, but, he knew what the deal was.
But, jazz is black American music. The grooves and dances are from AFro diasporic concepts,. The harmonies are from all over Europe , filtered through the blues, another black American concept
You just dont have the groove concepts in Europe that they have in black Africa
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@B R
It would have been enough to state that Jazz was a synthesis of musical concepts that couldn’t have taken place anywhere else in the world. “Jazz” as such may have been named by black Americans, but nothing exists in isolation nor is started from scratch. Once the synthesis was made, it spread far beyond its roots and became a major music form.
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You can listen to some great Jazz from the early 1900’s at this site:
http://www.redhotjazz.com/buddy.html
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No , Joshua, trying to make it seem like jazz was a magical synthesis put together by various influences is not doing justice to the basic Afro diasoporic roots that is the backbone and foundation of what jazz music is.
There is no culture that puts together pollyrhythmic duple triple , call responce, syncopated , made for certain kinds of dancing meant to go exactly with these beats, like the Afro diasporic cultures
The same dynamic played out in any country black African slaves were brought to, Cuba, Brazil , Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Haiti, etc
Just look at their popular musics and dances
Dont fool yourself, really research these musics and you will find the truth
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By the way, this debate about jazz belongs on this thread:https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/miles-davis/
Id be happy to meet you over there to debate this subject
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The race of people who have been picked on worse than blacks is the ginger. No black person alive today can say they are picked on and experience more negative judgement than gingers.
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This guy is just tryin to keep racism alive. If you want racism to be over than quit blamin present whites for something they had no control of hundreds of years ago. NAACP keeps racism alive also, the whites don’t have an organization that claims racism every time something happens to a white person. Im not sayin forget the past but quit blamin whites today for what happened years ago. If my family owned slaves or not has nothing to do with me and how I view other races.
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john, please allow me to introduce you to:
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So, discussing racism is what causes racism?
Is discussing murder the cause of murder? Will there be fewer incidents of murder if our society pretends that murder doesn’t exist?
Let’s give it a try and see what happens….
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Several centuries of social engineering based on race has resulted in a present-day racist reality. In the past white American society actively and openly opposed, enslaved and terrorized black people in order to attain social, economic, and political advantages. Now racism is camouflaged by claiming that it is not about the multi-generational misdistribution of wealth and power but about whether black people can use the same latrine as a white person. The latter is just the open sore while the forrmer is the much more deadly septicemia.
The Klu Klux Klan, for example, used intimidation and violence to achieve political, demographic, and economic aims. Even during segregation black people made economic progress and racist whites were not at all pleased. Ever heard of the Tulsa race riots in which the successful black town of Greenwood (‘Negro’ Wall Street) was torched (even bombed from the air) and hundreds killed? It was never rebuilt to its former glory. In fact, they’d hatched a plan to play with re-zoning and property values in order to prevent its reconstruction. These events were swept very much under the carpet with scarce reporting even in the newspapers of the time.
So when today’s whites comment on whatever ills they claim exist within the “black community” after centuries of slavery and Jim Crow it is really like cutting off someone’s legs and then calling them shorty. They should shut up and worry about fixing the psychopathical tendencies within their own group. But despite their predilection for discussing the problems of “others” whites tend get nervous whenever POC sit and discuss white racism. They often show up lecturing POC on how much they need to “forget the past”. It is not in their interest for POC to understand WHY society is structured as it is but to accept it as a given. Even if they claim they’re not racist they instinctively know that.
Broken record indeed!
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Fiamma “Is discussing murder the cause of murder? Will there be fewer incidents of murder if our society pretends that murder doesn’t exist?”
No. Pretending murder doesn’t exist won’t stop murder. But not inciting racial hatred will probably result in a few less. Abusing history and making false claims of racism against others does create racism. Which is, of course, exactly what abag and most of you nutbags want.
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“…Which is, of course, exactly what *abag* and most of you *nutbags* want.”
*****
Hmmm,,,, seems to me that mr. (perennially agitated/agent provocateur/agenda troll) duckgoofs is trying awfully hard to get himself BANNED from this blog.
: / Can’t you ban yourself, or do you need some moderated assistance??
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You always hear from some white person that they had nothing to do with slavery so why should they have to endure hearing about the consequences slavery has created. Its hard to imagine with all the evidence on the table, of discrimination and outright racism and the obstacles thrown directly and purposfully in black peoples way ( Jim Crow laws or segragation in national sports just back in 1949 or so police profiling etc etc) that they cant get there is racism in society and if you are white, you dont get the institutional racism or discrimination that came directly out of slavery.
And I understand the black people who say , dont worry about slavery in the past, just deal with the very blatent racism in society right now…at the same time , I do see how slavery has still left ugly traces of its existance on anyplace in the Americas that had black African slaves brought to their shores
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Please compile all your posts together in a book. We need it.
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so a white person saying ‘i never owned slaves’ is like the daughter of a murdering mafia boss wearing jewels saying she never killed anybody? That is the worst analogy I ever heard. Did the guy who lived 2 blocks away get any diamond jewelry? If white people today benefit from the slavery of the past, then everyone benefits from it. Because what you are saying is that the reason things are so good in the US is because of slavery, then every person living here is a beneficiary of it.
I don’t care what you say – my family was poor, late immigrants, farmers or small neighborhood business runners. My great grandfather was an immigrant, who worked a small farm until he was 99. My grandfather laid cement until well into his 70’s. Obviously my farfar’s far didn’t arrive until slavery was over & I don’t know of any special benefit he received, because he worked hard land labor until the day he died. I, myself, had a young mother, divorced with 2 kids, poor, free lunch at school & I never got any better or special treatment at school or anywhere else because I was white. Anything I obtained it was because myself into an almost early grave, some years working 6 days a week with no vacation time, 50-60 hours a week for years.
How dare you talk about some murdering father and a hypocritical diamond encrusted daughter receiving the benefits of his killings as a comparison to all white people – that’s the most racist pile of garbage I’ve ever heard.
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to say that the anti-irish sentiment amongst the anglo-protestant community at the time was wholly based on religion is ridiculous, ignorant, and completely unfounded in reality. after my ancestors land was taken by the same group that owned most of the slaves, my family was FORCED to immigrate to America or starve. So any benefit you see in my bloodline was forced upon me, not that I dwell on that. history is ugly. for a lot of people. I, born in 1984, am the first male in my family on either side to not work in a coal mine, steel mill, or as a subsistence farmer. my great great grandfather was killed while working as an indentured servant of the railroad company outside media, pa and buried in an unmarked grave to the side of the tracks, killed by a “nativist” mob because he was Irish, not solely because he was Catholic. i am from a mixed neighborhood in Philly widely known as one of the “worst” in terms of poverty and crime. I still live here. my family goes back 4 generations here. we never made it much farther than the piers we arrived on from Ireland. did your family have a terrible shake in the hand fate dealt? absolutely. worse than most? probably. but black people as a group are the only oppressed people to ever try to survive in America. I’m more interested in evolving as a species than assigning blame, particularly in a society that is clearly making progress, albeit not as fast as anyone would like. I don’t blindly and generally hate the English for what they did to my ancestors because that would be ridiculous. we need to see each other as individuals and judge based on the content of the individual, not the assumed group identity based on generalizations. that is the only hope we as a human race have for a decent future – a future i believe could be realized. call me dopey and optimistic, but anger and blind judgement doesn’t get us anywhere. it makes me sick to think of the africans plight in this country and the centuries of abuse they have endured. i do not mean to lessen it or trivialize it by my comments. but it is time to accept the past for what it was and put our collective energy in to making a better future while accepting the horrible truths of our collective past. by the logic presented in the original post, I would have every right to expect ALL people of protestant English decent to assume blame for something they as individuals had no part in, regardless of their ancestors actions. if you think all white people in this country have an easy ride, you’ve never spent time in Kensington, Philadelphia, PA.
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I’m Russian. My family didn’t own slaves OR benefit from slaves. Not African ones at least (and if we’re talking about enslaving your own race that opens a whole different can of worms. One in which your ancestors are not innocent.)
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My family did own slaves – and a lot of them, in South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi and Louisiana. My family still owns a few of the plantations. It was another time and though I fight for civil rights and equality, I do not dwell on the past, but work to make the present and future better for all people.
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[…] “My family never owned slaves” […]
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I just can’t.
I am interested about learning more about the plight of the Irish. I appreciate the links provided. I also like the experiences shared.
I understand your ancestors suffered, were poor, and never owned slaves.
However, whatever stereotypes they may have had then, for the most part, does not impact you now. If you fill out a job application TODAY no one cares if you are Irish. No one follows you around in the store, And no one assumes you are lazy, child-like, and can’t take care of yourself. No one assumes you are criminal. No one tells you are so much better off in America so you should be glad your ancestors were slaves. No one acts like they did you a ‘favor’ or ‘saved you’ from a backwardness.No one displays your human reminds as primitive until the late 70s. You do not have to radically change/permanently alter a feature of your body to become accepted or get employment (like hair for example).
For the most part, you are just another white person. I am speaking for where I am in America.
The same cannot be said for a black person. And how does this relates to slavery?
The stereotypes were created during slavery as an excuse for enslaving blacks (they are ‘childlike’ and need guidance, can’t take of themselves need white help/masters, black women are sex-hungry, baby making machines to explain all the mixed children running around). Or they were created after slavery to keep whites at the top and blacks firmly at the bottom. And in the end, even those former, poor immigrants joined in the discrimination to get a chance to be in white society.
These stereotypes of blacks are TO THIS DAY still widely held and even defended by white folks and a few misguided blacks. The amazing thing is, none of them are new. At all. They are very, very old and they are based in slavery and it’s immediate aftermath.
I don’t want white people to feel guilty about the past, nor do I suggest that people forget it.
What I want is for people to dismantle the system that favors them *today*. Whites argue that they had nothing to do with the evils of the past, but are content to live with all the benefits that those evils brought. You cannot sit in contentment in an oppressive system and claim innocence. I bet during Jim Crow there were whites who told themselves they never owned slaves, so who cares if a black man is shot unarmed, if black schools are unfunded, if black schools are being closed and prisons built in their places, if black men are serving longer sentences for the same crimes, if black men need two more years of education to get the same pay etc.
These problems go on today.
Instead of thinking how much better you are than the people before, what are YOU, today doing about it?
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Gee, I wonder if Grant believes in the Teflon theory of history
We want to learn the past, and learn from the past, not *dwell* on it. So much of the past has been erased from our consciousness that what most people “know” about the past is a fairy tale version.
Why do we need to learn about legends such as the Pilgrims or Columbus or Daniel boone or the Pony Express and esp. the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”? We certainly shouldn’t be dwelling on those things.
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@Emma, when talking about enslaving your own race, Russians are guilty of that too. They had serfs.
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Reblogged this on keytruths blog and commented:
Since writing, “We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church” – and now working on a documentary film based on this book – I’ve heard lots of statements similar to the title of this 2010 post, in which blogger Abagond offers a response we whites may not want to hear, but desperately need to know.
For generations, we’ve let our own defensiveness keep us from acknowledging and addressing what we’ve been party to and/or benefited from that deeply hurts whole groups of people and deeply offends God. Yet, much as we may try to do so, we cannot buy ourselves “a pass from American history,” nor from the racist fallout still occurring today.
Many of us don’t even see that we’re clinging to privilege (and fear and pride), but we’re all experiencing the results of it. For privilege built on grave injustice may seem a blessing, but always carries a curse.
Profound denial will keep us in a cycle of hurting ourselves, mistreating others and misrepresenting God. The only way out is to do what Abagond suggests: face up to these things and seek God’s ways to truly set them right.
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My ancestors DID own slaves, and I feel terrible about it. My 6th great-grandfather, James Glenn, had seven slaves listed in an inventory of his estate, dated February 1781. Their names were Daniel, Jenny, Dilsey, Morning, Jude, Nan, and Lucy. Dilsey was sold in 1792 by James’s widow, Patience, to their son Thompson Glenn. Other than that, I don’t know what happened to them. I feel a deep, deep sadness that my good life was built on the backs and by the suffering of these seven people. And, James is not the only ancestor I have that was a slave-owner, though his story is particularly poignant because I have the names of the people he owned. It pains me that I can find any number of documents and stories about my ancestors, but the descendants of their slaves will probably never even know their ancestors’s names. These seven people deserve proof of life. While I don’t feel personally responsible for the wickedness of my ancestors, I do feel responsible for what I do with the knowledge I have of it. I know many white people don’t want to talk about slavery, but I feel like I have to talk about it because it’s the least I can do…the very least.
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Kelli Ann Wilson wrote:
” While I don’t feel personally responsible for the wickedness of my ancestors, I do feel responsible for what I do with the knowledge I have of it. I know many white people don’t want to talk about slavery, but I feel like I have to talk about it because it’s the least I can do…the very least.
********
It’s usually good to follow one’s own conscience, or instructions.
Why do you think that many white people don’t want to talk about slavery – or racism?
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Hmmm…I probably should have said “some” instead of “many” because it’s usually best not to make generalizations. I would say that some white people don’t want to talk about slavery because it makes them feel uncomfortable, either out of guilt or just not knowing a whole lot about the specifics (given that most of us are living several generations after the fact). I think I fall into both categories. Even though I have an undergraduate degree in History, I still feel like I don’t know as much about slavery in America as I should. That makes it hard to have a fruitful discussion. But, I am more than willing to learn what I can and I’m also willing to admit that what my ancestors did was wrong. Interestingly, my great-grandmother, whose ancestors owned the slaves I mentioned, worked her whole life picking cotton and lived in poverty, which isn’t what I would necessarily call “privilege.” But, the difference between her experiences and those of the slaves her ancestors owned was that, although she worked hard, she was free.
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Thanks for your reply!
Regarding your great-grandmother’s economic status… WHITE privilege isn’t necessarily about financial security, wealth or one’s ability in making ends meet.
It might be helpful if you would understand how she was privileged vis-a-vis to a typical black woman of her generation – and income, even aside from being free… and how this same privilege lives on to this day.
There’s plenty of information (posts) here on this site that will further your understanding on the nuances of racism.
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@Kelli Ann Wilson: Thanks for your candor. I respect that.
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@Matari You touched on something else that I think makes white people feel uncomfortable with the prospect of talking about slavery and racism — the fact that, being the privileged ones, we are completely oblivious to what the experiences of others might be, and yet we know that things aren’t as they should be. Having grown up as a white person in New England I honestly do not know what it is like to be someone of another race, and I wouldn’t even pretend to try. But, that doesn’t excuse me from attempting to understand the experiences of others or to engage in dialog about it. Also, and I do think this is important, I think a lot of white people don’t actually know much about their heritage, especially not back beyond a couple of generations (which excludes much of the era of slavery for those of us in my generation). The only reason why I know about my ancestors owning slaves is because I am very interested in learning about my family’s past, and I have spent a lot of time researching it. A white person born in the latter half of the 20th century could say “my family never owned any slaves” with total sincerity and still be 100% wrong; it’s not that it didn’t happen, they just don’t KNOW about it. Oh, and you’re absolutely right about the difference between economic privilege and white privilege. I have a lot to learn, and I am trying. Thank you for having patience with me 🙂
@Mary Burrell I just think honesty is the best policy, and skirting the issue isn’t going to help me to understand the legacy my ancestors left behind, or how the repercussions of their actions are working in the world today.
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I feel very little guilt about slavery in America. The more one studies history and learns the truth, perspective eases the guilt. Knowledge is power, the truth sets us free.
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” Thank you for having patience with me :)”
*******
Not a problem! It’s far easier for me to converse with someone being sincere as possible, especially one who is willing to understand/listen/learn/believe than it is with an individual who pretends to know everything while living in denial, derision, deflection, etc.
G said, “I feel very little guilt about slavery in America.”
*******
I see no benefit in guilt – unless guilt is a catalyst to do otherwise, to change for the better.
*******
” Knowledge is power, the truth sets us free.”
Agree!
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@Matari I thought of a couple more things this morning. The first is that, to me, the way that slavery is taught in the United States, or at least here in the Northeast, shifts almost all of the blame onto those living in the Southern states. That makes it really easy for those with Northern roots to say “but it’s not my fault!” While it’s true that the slave-owners themselves, in the hierarchy of “blame,” are probably most responsible for the devastation caused by slavery, all white people living in the United States during the era of slavery benefited from it, and still do. Here in the Northeast we are taught that we were on the “right side of history” but that’s simply not true, and denying the role of Northerners in the perpetuation of slavery isn’t at all helpful. Second, I think that talking about slavery necessarily requires acknowledging the advantages that we, as white people, have undeservedly enjoyed at the expense of others (including Native Americans). Along with that acknowledgment comes a whole rash of unpleasant emotions ranging from guilt, to fear, to indignation, even hopelessness — as in, even if we want things to change, what can be done about it? Who wants to volunteer to feel bad? But, still, if that’s what it takes, then that’s what we must do, because maybe there are answers and wisdom on the other side.
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@G
GREAT We don’t need guilt. What do you feel?
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/needed-white-anger-at-racism-not-white-guilt-about-it/)
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Maybe they want the blame in as much any random black person would the blame for the current criminal statistics. Individual adult people make their own personal choices.
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Maybe they want the blame in as much any random black person would want the blame for the current criminal statistics. Individual adult people make their own personal choices.
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My family never owned slaves, but we were slaves… in the Americas… This is true.. My family were peasants in Ireland and forced into slavery.. we were sold to other white people in Spanish territory for 5 shillings.so what do I say?
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A white American saying “My family never owned slaves” is like the daughter of a Mafia boss wearing her diamonds and pearls and saying she never murdered anyone or shook anyone down for money. As if the diamonds and pearls fell from the sky.
————————————————————————————————-
What if she says:
“all the males in my great grandfathers, fathers family died fighting in the union army during the civil war except for him; he lost his left leg, right hand and was blinded in one eye.”
Now, how you gonna get around that?
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Kelli Ann Wilson
My ancestors DID own slaves, and I feel terrible about it.
————————————————————————————————-
Do you feel terrible enough to send me a check for $17,000?
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The problem is, blaming ‘white people’ for the actions of a small minority of their race,150 years passed is no better, and arguably worse (given how removed from the present it is) than blaming all Muslims for terrorism, all blacks and Hispanics for gang crime and all blacks for the genocide in Darfur (which is being committed by black people). You cannot blame an entire group for the worst of its race. That’s basically the definition of racism. So when people say whites are responsible for slavery, or that they must attone for it, you are being a racist against white people.
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“You cannot blame an entire group for the worst of its race. That’s basically the definition of racism. So when people say whites are responsible for slavery, or that they must attone for it, you are being a racist against white people.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rusty,
I’m willing to bet that a lot of white people said a similar thing to what you said here, during the Jim Crow era … all while enjoying the benefits of so-called separate but equal accommodations. You know, separate railroad cars, restaurant entrances, sun-down towns, segregated schools, better loan terms, and so on.
Do white people TODAY still benefit from being WHITE?
In other words, is it still advantageous to be “white” rather than “black?”
If the answer to this question is YES,
then why is the majority still permitting “the worse of its race” to practice and maintain white-supremacy/racism?
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Kiwi
I’m not convinced that the “evil deeds” (racism) comes from just from just a small minority among them.
As long as INDIFFERENCE, lack of empathy, belief in stereotypes, seen as less than human and SILENCE (looking the other way…going along to get along..) is carried out by the majority of white people when witnessing or hearing about racism/white supremacy in any of its irrational forms, then this complicity or cooperation empowers the more obvious practitioners of white-supremacy/racism to continue to do the harm that they do.
But to discuss these things (realities) openly and truthfully today marks us – according to the adherents of whiteness – as the RACIST ones.
smh @ the fact this has been said thousands of times in thousands of ways, but for naught… why do we bother.. it’s like speaking to the deaf and blind, or the dead.
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it’s like speaking to the deaf and blind, or the dead.
You’d be better off farting in a wind tunnel…you’d get better results, hot putrid air!
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You people have created an unhealthy environment in which any white person who doesn’t agree with your hypocritical double standards, or just doesn’t care, is automatically an enemy, and a racist by racial association, and any minority is a traitor to their race.
Would you blame 1.5 billion Muslims because a few commit terrorist acts? Would you blame every black person for the black-on-black genocide in Darfur? Then why blame whites for slavery?
The fact is, you’re all a bunch of racists, and you need to look hard in the mirror and think about the life you’re leading, because its sick and detrimental to yourselves and society at large.
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Racist – a participating member of THE group that BENEFITS from the ills of racism.
(Pretty slick how whiteness has transformed the definition of racist to the extent that now any non-white person can be deemed as one. Under this supposition MLK Jr and all the protesters/marchers/demonstrators during the Civil Rights era were also hard-core racists.)
Double standards? Will their delusion ever end?
Herneith, once again, was right on the money. Randy came back here just to prove it!
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I said Randy but I meant Rusty … not that there’s that much difference…
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The actual dictionary definitions for racism that the majority of the world agrees on and isactually in line with the word itself, and not your warped prejudicial fantasy of what racism means:
1:a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 :racial prejudice or discrimination
Neither of these well accepted and historically accurate to the etymology of the word definitions implies in any way that ONLY the ‘majority’ can be racist. Furthermore, I am an individual, not a hive mind collective of my race. I would like you to treat me as such.
Also: “I said Randy but I meant Rusty … not that there’s that much difference…”
What’s exactly are you implying here?
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“History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names”
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“Neither of these well accepted and historically accurate to the etymology of the word definitions implies in any way that ONLY the ‘majority’ can be racist.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Typical delusional/deluded “white thinking/white framing/white lens” here… seeing what’s not there, and unable to see what is!
Where in MY definition of “racist” did I mention anything about only the ‘majority’ can be racist? Nevertheless, here’s a news flash for you (if you can take this IN), white people are not, and never have been a majority.
At any rate, this is my own bad for engaging you, the type of individual that persistently demonstrates his inability to adequately comprehend what he is reading.
“Furthermore, I am an individual, not a hive mind collective of my race. I would like you to treat me as such.”
Hey, LOL…. if it talks like a Borg, walks like a Borg, and looks like a Borg (showing up here trying to assimilate us victims of racism with your drivel about who YOU SAY are the RACISTS), then you are in fact part of that hive mind collective known as the Borg! (or a typical “white” person!)
But, you should know that every effort you make here is, and will be, futile.
Your technology (racism/white supremacy’s lexicon refinements) are RUSTY… corrosive.. old… tiresome, worn out, weak.
Drones like you (aka trolls) don’t assimilate anyone – who’s awake – here.
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Rusty where do you get the idea that we blame every White person for slavery? I’m not sure that this is accurate.
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@ Rusty
The post does not blame present-day Whites for slavery. It does not even say they are personally racist. It says that they are COMPLICIT in slavery and racism by benefiting from it while doing little to undo the damage.
The analogy I use in the post was the Mafia:
For the daughter to say that she never killed anyone is missing the point. And so is the argument by Whites that their family never owned slaves.
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King: I apologize. I was mostly referring to guys like “Just Me” who clearly do believe this.
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Russell Brown, I will not get into what commenters believe what, but I do think that often out in the world, Whites misunderstand the very point that Abagond is trying to explain. Often “complicity” is confused with “blame.”
Also, if I could give a small example. I notice with the whole Muslim situation, that Americans often charge of the body of Islam with indifference to the actions of their extremists. Why don’t the “Good Muslims” stand up and loudly renounce the actions of the jihadists? But a lot of Black people ask the same question about Whites. Yes, Whites did change the laws back in the 1960s but do you know if modern-day White people speak out against racism and White Supremacy wherever they may find it?
Any day of the week you can go to sites like Yahoo (and many others) where White commentersare calling Serena Williams a gorilla every time she wins a championship, or are literally cracking jokes when an unarmed Black man is shot by police. how many White people are fighting their “extremism” and how many couldn’t care less, or else somewhat agree with the sentiments? Why isn’t Stormfront overrun by Outraged Whites who think that such sites make ALL Whites look racist? But if not, how can they demand this of the Muslims?
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Rusty = Russell Brown?
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“Whites want to benefit from their ugly past – and their less ugly present – but they do not want to face up to it and set things right. Two attempts were made – the civil war and the civil rights movement – but both were incomplete. “My family never owned slaves” becomes an excuse not to do anything more.”
In the U.S., slavery ended 150 years ago. Both slaves and slaveholders and their children are all dead. As abagond has said, American blacks have better economic circumstances than blacks anywhere else in the world, including, especially, majority black countries like those in Africa. There is almost no movement whatsoever by African Americans to return back to Africa, even though it is their ancestral homeland (many more whites travel to and move back to Europe).
Therefore, it is clear that present day African Americans have also actually benefited from this “ugly past” vis a vis blacks whose ancestors were not slaves.
Expecting whites to “do anything more” sets them up to be perpetually guilty, perpetually having to make amends for a past they did not choose and which, arguably, now benefits American blacks much more than American whites.
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@ Jefe
Rusty is a nickname for Russell, they have IP addresses within driving distance of each other and Russell acts as if he is Rusty.
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@ Biff
That is BS and you know it: you yourself use US racial inequality to prove that Whites are better than Blacks.
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@ King
Great point! It is a double standard.
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“you yourself use US racial inequality to prove that Whites are better than Blacks.”
Abagond, saying “better” doesn’t make sense. Who is “better” at basketball or sprinting? The world is what is is. Complaining that YKW as a group perform better than anyone else on standardized tests doesn’t change the fact that they do. If it were something that only existed in the U.S. and didn’t exist on a global scale, that would be very different.
There is plenty of individual variation among people. However, there are easily observable differences between groups. To deny that is to deny observable reality and replace it with a fantasy world.
In your heart of hearts, you also know that blacks and whites will never be “equal” in the sense of having the same economic outcomes overall. Yet, you won’t even consider that part of that could be due to innate differences because your religion is equalism and to entertain such thoughts would be sacriledge.
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Abagond and King
I don’t share your faith in Rusty’s reading ability and powers of discernment.
Why would he suddenly absorb your lucid points after already failing to comprehend the original post, or even the clear comments made by Kiwi and myself?
Anyway, perhaps it’s good (though it remains to be seen) that y’all held his “complicit” hands and attempted to walk him through some of the basic principles found in RACISM 101.
Note to self: Leave the stupid (people) arguments alone.
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King – The fact is, I don’t blame Muslims. Many Americans do, and if you saw my twitter feed, YouTube comments and news article/blog comments, you’d know that I adamantly fight against the notion that Muslims somehow have a greater responsibility than anyone else in taking an active role in trying to dissuade people from terrorism. We are all trying to eek by our little existences. We can’t all take a major active role in every social movement that exists. That doesn’t mean we’re complicit in those acts. We’re allowed to be Switzerland and remain an uninvolved party, for whatever reasons we choose. This “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality is wrong headed. I understand that racist comments still happen about African Americans, just as they do about whites, including on this very blog. I don’t agree with those either, and I call people out regularly for them. I don’t find it funny when an unarmed black man is shot, or strangled to death by the police, and police brutality in general, regardless of race is something I find abhorrent and disgusting and often comment about. Again, here are the facts of the situation: We cannot all be involved in everything 24/7. What have you done to end the genocide in Darfur, or sex trafficking across the globe, or any other horrible situations going on in every dark corner of this globe? Nothing. You’ve picked and chosen which battles you want to fight for, and that’s fine, but don’t act morally superior because you’re fighting for the battle you choose to fight for. I personally have chosen to take an interest in a particular religious ‘school’ in the United States which robs young girls of their education, self worth, dignity, hygiene, health, etc. The people that run this school do disgusting things, like not allowing students to talk to each other, directly hand objects to each other, force them to drink gallons of water, but only allow for 2 bathroom breaks daily, call them ‘strange women’ and say they’re going to hell for being prostitutes. They restrict access to their parents (you never see your parents unaccompanied at any point ever), open, read and destroy their mail, make them eat expired canned goods every day. They do all of this 24/7, 365 for years. Upon entry to the school, you are given a forced pap smear without your consent or your parents consent, administered by a doctor in his 70’s, with no bedside manner, who may or may not have a license to practice, and accompanied by a ‘nurse’ that definitely has no qualifications, who holds you down if you attempt to resist. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like rape to me. They don’t allow you to leave the school when you turn 18 unless your parents come to pull you out. To this day, there are people over the age of 18, trapped in what is ostensibly a sick and demented prison, because they have been robbed of the will and knowledge that they’re legally free to leave. It’s unclear whether they would be stopped from leaving if they demanded it. The police have yet to do anything about the situation, in-spite of many protests and testimonials from former students. Many of the girls finally leave this school, only for them to discover from a real doctor that they are malnourished, and then to discover that the ‘education’ they got was unaccredited, which means they can’t go to college. These women are trained to be pastors wives, and silent baby makers, and it’s sick. I bet you didn’t even know this was happening, and I’m sure you will probably take no action to stop this from happening, but would I blame you for being complicit in these sick monsters actions because of it? No, I wouldn’t. Why? You’re not involved, it wouldn’t be fair.
abagond – In regard to your point about the daughter of the mob boss. I have a few problems with this analogy. For one, the mob boss’s daughter is either too young to not accept her fathers money, in which case she is neither complicit in his actions, nor responsible for them. She may have benefited from them, which I do not disagree that whites benefited from slavery, but as biff eloquently stated, so have blacks. In fact, the entire United States of America greatly prospered off the backs of slavery, and I believe that we would not be as prosperous a nation as we are today without our dark and shady past.
jefe/abagond – Yes, Russell Brown = Rusty. I was using my phone when I posted as Rusty (which is a nickname for Russell) and my desktop when I posted as Russell, which was already filled out for whatever reason. I didn’t realize that. My bad for the confusion.
biff – I agree with some of the sentiments of what you say, but I do believe this country belongs to African Americans as much as white Americans, so any implication of “if you don’t like it, you should leave” is unfair. It’s also patently ridiculous to say that blacks can never achieve economic equality or even superiority (in the sense of per-capita income) than whites in America. We are all capable of amazing or terrible things. Black people have been increasing their position in society, economically speaking, for decades, and they will continue to do so. You should recognize that your thought patterns are arguably racist, or at minimum border on racism.
Just Me – Where others in this forum are level headed, you express your contempt and hatred for white people in some of the most grossly obvious and offensive ways possible.
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@ Rusty
1. I think it is clear I am talking about a grown daughter – otherwise she could not be held fully accountable for her actions.
2. This post is not about saving the world. It is about people who make a particular, morally blind argument that comes up repeatedly, on this blog and elsewhere. That is why I wrote it.
3. Right, anyone who lives in the US benefits from slavery to one degree or another. But Whites, because of slavery and racism, benefit way more, more than they should. Slavery represents a theft from Black people of their labour, one that built the wealth of Whites at the expense of Blacks. It led to a wealth gap that lasts down to this day.
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M-m-mh.
Next thing I expect to read is that the USA is prosperous today because of its history of apartheid, genocide, free land grabs, failure to honour treaties, ethnic cleansing, interning people up in reservations and concentration camps and its perpetual war machine.
Are we saying that there is no way a nation can become prosperous without some atrocities along the way? As long as there are some survivors who benefit?
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@ BIff
Your thought is rooted in these two myths:
They do not square with my own knowledge and experience. But they do fulfil the ideological needs of most Whites in the US.
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Should Blacks benefit from slavery? Damn straight they should. It was the labour of their very own families!!! The trouble is that most of the benefit has been taken from them and pocketed by Whites. Whites got rich by robbing Black and Native Americans, by raping Africa and the Americas.
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Thinking about what Rusty said, I can see why he (and other white people) might feel overwhelmed about every social movement out there
They will not understand or empathise with the legacy that slavery has left us with today, even if some of that legacy is benefiting them.
Still, that does not absolve any from using the “My family never owned slaves” argument. Although it is true for most whites, that is beside the point. Anyhow, as nearly all US blacks have some white blood in them, most of them DO have ancestors that owned slaves. So, probably 95% would be factually correct if they said their ancestors owned slaves.
So, the actual fact of whether one’s ancestors owned slaves or not is not the factor of who or what modern population segments benefit disproportionately from slavery.
In any case, as Abagond said,
– no one is expecting anyone to save the world over this.
– he was pointing out one particular morally bankrupt argument that is used primarily by white Americans
– he does not write this blog for the purpose of making whites feel better about themselves.
Finally, we have modern day slavery. There are more slaves today than there have ever been in history. But we don’t expect most Americans, black or white, to stop their indirect benefiting of slavery to go out and stamp it out. Or in any case, it is not the subject of this post.
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“Although it is true for most whites.”
I’m not so sure that that is even true. If you consider how many ancestors one has ten generations ago, it is not that unlikely that some owned slaves or profited directly of the slave trade.
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Rusty, as a White American, I suspect that you may be exceptional in that regard.
Well, you can’t in exactly be “Switzerland” on a social issue if you are benefitting from it. If Black crime is up then I don’t have a particular obligation to run out and try to stop it. But if I am running a pawn shop that makes money trafficking from the increase in stolen goods, I can no longer be “Switzerland” where these crimes are concerned. I may not be breaking into people’s windows, yet I am making money from those who do. I can’t just pretend that I don’t realize where the increase in used goods in coming from.
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Note to self: Leave the stupid (people) arguments alone.
Bingo!
Again, I agree. I’m pretty sure biff will just bring up IQ and biological differences again to explain why Serena Williams looks like a gorilla. He’s become a one trick pony, sadly.
Yes biff’s ruminations are sadly predictable.
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King: I find myself unable to believe that the majority of white Americans genericly blame “Muslims” for terrorism. It makes no logical sense to blame an uninvolved party for the actions of others. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and there are maybe thousands of terrorists. The numbers just dont add up.
As for being a pawn broker; I am not one. I make my money developing software which has no use for, and cannot profit directly off the spoils of crime. If a pawn broker accepts stolen goods knowingly, that makes him a criminal. If he does it unknowingly, that makes him a victim of a crime as well, and not complicit or at fault or liable or responsible for those crimes. I prefer in all cases to blame the criminals and only the criminals for their actions. If a lone white nutjob shoots up a school, or if a black gang member commits a drive by, or if a Muslim bombs a building (I used these stereotypes intentionally to illustrate the point), the only one at fault is the person who committed the act and those who directly and knowingly aided them in doing it. Nobody else is responsible for another persons actions.
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One of the most amusing things about white denial slogans like “My family never owned slaves” is the various rhetorical devices some use to avoid reality.
The devious ahistorical resoning and silly personal responsibility blather are often hilarious tropes though they are pretty transparent nonsense.
Anyway, the evidence is clear. Slavery was merely a big part of a system of white supremacy (e.g. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, etc.) that explicitly and overtly benefitted whites economically, socially and legally well into the 1970s. So, so what your family never owned slaves. They certainly benefitted from the system that was, and still largely is, in place.
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@ Rusty
Well, its more like a “partial blame.’ I think it’s more something like… “You may not literally DO the terrorism yourselves, but you certainly make it more likely to happen by not strongly condemning it in your own community.”
Well there are Pawn brokers and then there are “pawn brokers.” You do realize that I don’t imagine that you are literally own a pawn shop, it’s just a handy way to talk about “indirect benefit” and indirect accountability. To move from the abstract to the concrete, the analogy is about benefitting from the crimes of using, cheating, and abusing people, for personal gain.
You see, people can more easily excel, if they are being propped up by an unfair system. I had an aunt who was the fastest typist in her secretary school. Not only that but she was the ahead of her fellow students in just about everything else. She graduated at the top of her class. But she had trouble, after graduation getting the kind of Executive Secretary job she had been training for. It didn’t phase her, until she started to realize that many of the White applicants from her same secretarial school had gotten some of the jobs she had applied for. She became more dejected when she discovered that all of the Black graduates that she knew were having the exact same problem.
Now, it wasn’t the fault of the other secretarial applicants that the firms they had applied to had some racist tendencies. But nevertheless, they did BENEFIT from the racism. At some point, many of them even became aware of the racism within their organizations. So what then? Are they Switzerland? Or, having benefitted from racism, do they have some moral obligation to at least make am effort within their company to fight it?
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Rusty said:
“You should recognize that your thought patterns are arguably racist, or at minimum border on racism.”
Lol. Ooh, he said a scary word that begins with the letter r. I reject the current usage of the word “racism”. What’s the opposite of racism? Equalism. You automatically assume people of all races must on average be exactly the same. That’s frankly ridiculous, even though it’s taught in schools.
abagond, Germany and Japan were basically burned to the ground in the second world war. They bounced back in a ridiculously short period of time. Meanwhile, SSA languishes, even with its superior natural resources. You will make excuses for literally all the observable results in the world, including billions of standardized test scores taken all over the world, because they doesn’t fit in with your equalist religious beliefs.
Yes, blacks added some economic value for whites at one point, though this was concentrated in a minority of slaveholders (and, to be clear, I believe the institution of slavery was morally reprehensible). But, then we had a civil war and tons of whites were killed. Then, later, blacks received more benefits and paid less taxes than whites on average. They are responsible for more crime with a virtual police state now in force. Do you still think whites are better off materially speaking by having blacks in the U.S. at the current moment? If so, why do the ones who can pay lots of money to escape living around blacks? If not, isn’t it at least possible that most whites in the U.S. would be materially better off today if no slaves had ever been imported into the U.S. and there was no civil war, etc? Life in most of Western Europe seems pretty nice by comparison to most of the U.S. urban areas…
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@ Rusty
Also, ks is correct above in saying:
Slavery was merely a big part of a system of white supremacy (e.g. Slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, etc.) that explicitly and overtly benefitted whites economically, socially and legally well into the 1970s.
If you look only at families who owned salves, it’s easy to focus on those few people as the only real “bad guys.” But how about all of the people in their state who didn’t own slaved, yet voted again and again to keep themselves a “Slave State?” It’s like saying, “I didn’t kill any Jews myself, I just supported the Nazi’s.” But then how about all of those who didn’t live in Slave States? Well unfortunately, most of those states revealed their own side of the white Supremacy assumptive model. So, “I didn’t own slaves, but…”
1) I did vote for segregated schools.
2) I supported politicians who voted for “no- coloreds” lunch counters
3) I supported excluding minorities from certain jobs (especially good paying)
4) I knew that unfairness was happening in my neighborhood, in my local schools, in my police department, among my friends, but I did nothing,
OR MY PARENTS OR GANDPARENTS DID… Then it becomes apparent that MANY more Whites are complicit in the system of White Supremacy than would be supposed by a simple head count of slaveholder families.
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biff,
LOL! Like a broken record. You really do say some stupid things just to get attention. Yeah, Japan and Germany just “bounced back in a ridiculously short period of time”. Like magic! In particular, you know that the post WWII Marshall Plan was key to reviving most of Western Europe as well as Germany. Stop playing. The rest is another mash up of your usual silliness.
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@ biff
You mean that you don’t accept the science on what a “race” really is (or is not). You’ve been told 1000 times but still refuse to understand the readily apparent.
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Biff,
once again, you lose something that you barely had__credibility
boo-hoo hoo, A white person calls you out for what you truly are — “a racist” and you respond like a 10 year old because you realize he is not your ally, but an individual who thinks for himself.
isn’t Rusty the type of white person that you should be trying to turn –isn’t that in the race realist manual _ you suck as an HBDer apostle.
anyway, every thing you said to Abagond is a bunch a BS– everything you utter has already been discussed on other posts and your lies debunked… good try though
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Rusty wrote:
“Would you blame 1.5 billion Muslims because a few commit terrorist acts? Would you blame every black person for the black-on-black genocide in Darfur? Then why blame whites for slavery?
The fact is, you’re all a bunch of racists, and you need to look hard in the mirror and think about the life you’re leading, because its sick and detrimental to yourselves and society at large.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Obviously two different groups of people can’t be racist/supremacists at the same time, so I have a problem with any white person coming here and calling me a racist.
The last time I checked Black people weren’t able to systemically deny any group of people: a loan, an education, a job, housing, justice or anything else. We don’t have the power to assign or steer white people into neighborhoods full of toxic waste dumps, poor schools and grocery stores that are incredibly lacking in quality fresh produce and meats. We’ve never had sundown towns or counties where whites could not live – by the force of law.
We were never part of the group that destroyed communities, neighborhoods, homes and businesses by crisscrossing Black areas of town, nationally, with a highway system designed to decimate our enclaves for the ease and convenience of others.
Rusty later apologizes to King but he doesn’t say what he’s apologizing for… is he sorry that he didn’t read the post, or is he sorry that he said we were a bunch of racists?
Rusty, IMO, is the quintessential, typical white person!
He is as ‘individual’ as all the rest of these present day whites who scream *reverse racism* and how racist Black people are. Cry me a river… poor victimized white dude. Your WHITE privilege is painted all over you, yet you dare not see it.
James Baldwin was right about those like you. .. it must be nice.
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Hat tip to Rusty for coming here, calling Black people a bunch of racists, and being exhibit number 1 in proving the following Baldwin quote to be true.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded – about themselves and about the world they live in.
White people have managed to get through entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac. …
People who cling to their delusions find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn anything worth learning: a people under the necessity of creating themselves must examine everything, and soak up learning the way the roots of a tree soak up water. ”
James Baldwin
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@ biff
Unlike Germany, Blacks in the US did not get a Marshall Plan. They did not even get 40 acres and a mule. Unlike Whites they were largely shut out of the Homestead Act and the GI Bill, among other things. Instead they got welfare, which was hardly a leg up, which even the right sees as making things worse, creating a dependent underclass.
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abagond said: “Instead they got welfare, which was hardly a leg up, which even the right sees as making things worse..”
This is misleading. It’s not “even the right” it’s “only the right”, the left is still under the delusion that mass welfare is a great idea, with extra cash and prizes for each extra baby you can pop out.
Anyway, do you actually think SSA would join the first world if they could just receive “Marshall Plan” type financial assistance? Is the issue that we aren’t throwing enough money at the problem? I don’t believe that for a second.. a huge amount of aid to Africa is just embezzled by corrupt regimes. Do you really think giving out reparations, even say $100K per person, to African Americans would make blacks perform as well as whites in the long term?
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Welfare?
HOW THE WELFARE STATE HAS DEVASTATED (by RACIST DESIGN) AFRICAN AMERICANS.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
excerpt:
“The calamitous breakdown of the black family is a comparatively recent phenomenon, coinciding precisely with the rise of the welfare state. Throughout the epoch of slavery and into the early decades of the twentieth century, most black children grew up in two-parent households. Post-Civil War studies revealed that most black couples in their forties had been together for at least twenty years. In southern urban areas around 1880, nearly three-fourths of black households were husband-or father-present; in southern rural settings, the figure approached 86%. As of 1940, the illegitimacy rate among blacks nationwide was approximately 15%—scarcely one-fifth of the current figure. As late as 1950, black women were more likely to be married than white women, and only 9% of black families with children were headed by a single parent.
During the nine decades between the Emancipation Proclamation and the 1950s, the black family remained a strong, stable institution. Its cataclysmic destruction was subsequently set in motion by such policies as the anti-marriage incentives that are built into the welfare system have served only to exacerbate the problem.”
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1672
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In fact, the ENEMY soldiers both in the German and Japanese armed forces were much more likely to get better jobs and better pay in their rapidly rebuilding countries than that of the Black American HEROES returning from the war. Does that reflect badly on the Black soldiers… or on the degenerate and despicable White American society?
They got Welfare… ONLY AFTER after about 30 years of Welfare being almost EXCLUSIVELY paid out to “shiftless” and “lazy” White people!
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@ Biff
You’re missing the point. It’s not about cutting a check to Black people. It’s about new federal policies doing what old federal policies didn’t do.
Think about it, federal policy decisions helped Whites more than any ethnic group in America. Let’s look at the Social Security Act of 1935. The SSA provided a safety net for millions of workers, guaranteeing them an income after retirement. But the act specifically excluded two occupations – agricultural workers and domestic servants, who were predominantly African-American and Mexican. As low-income workers, Blacks and Latinos had the least opportunity to save for their retirement. They couldn’t pass wealth on to their children. Just the opposite. Their children had to support them.
Like Social Security, the 1935 Wagner Act helped establish an important right for White people. By granting unions the power of collect bargaining, it helped millions of white workers gain entry into the middle class over the next 30 years. But the Wagner Act permitted unions to exclude non-Whites and deny them access to better paid jobs and union protections and benefits such as healthcare, job security, and pensions. Many craft unions remain nearly all-White well into the 1970s. In 1972, for example, every single one of the 3,000 members of Los Angeles Steam Fitters Local #250 was still White.
I can go on and on with the Federal Housing Administration, redlining, blockbusting, federally-assisted urban renewal projects, Housing and Urban Development, which created a “second ghetto” in urban America.
History would attest that government-sponsored racism created the wealth gap between Whites and Blacks. As Abagond mentioned, welfare-dependency made it worse – not better – for Black people, socioeconomically.
So just remember that it’s not about reparation in the form of dollars or “$100K per person,” it’s about creating social policies that would lead to prosperity for the descendants of Black slaves.
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@ Kiwi
I agree. But it’s not “Welfare” alone.
It’s like this. Any “help” that Whites give Blacks, historically and traditionally comes with too high a cost. Sharecropping, IMF, World Bank, Welfare, Predatory Loans, Car Loans, Pay-Day Loans… Whites always set themselves up to be usurious beneficiaries at the expense of Black people.
Contrast this with the type of WELFARE Whites receive.
Banks bail-outs
Farm Subsidies
Research Grants
American Car Manufacturer Grants
Wall Street bail-outs
Favorable Tax loop-holes
Off Shore Financial Havens
Military Industrial Complex (Neo-Cons)
Even White men with criminal records fare better than Black men with no records… and so on.
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Michael Cooper said ” History would attest that government-sponsored racism created the wealth gap between Whites and Blacks.”
Michael, I think you have provided a very articulate summary of the Narrative(tm).
The alternative hypothesis is that differing abilities (on average) between whites and blacks, reflected in all standardized tests, including e.g., IQ tests, are primarily responsible for the wealth gap between whites and blacks.
How would we test to see which hypothesis/explanation is most correct (it could be that they both are correct to varying degrees)?
Has the economic status of average blacks improved dramatically since we put into place progressive social policies taking e.g., 1972 (a date you referenced) as a starting point? Nope. Of course, you would blame welfare for this, but for whatever reason, blacks still overwhelmingly vote for the party that advocates disastrous policies for the black community (including encouraging welfare dependency and destroying families by disincentivizing marriage and encouraging single motherhood).
So, if we can’t look at recent performance of the African American community how about other metrics?
Are Asian Americans similarly handicapped by past discrimination in terms of current economic performance? Nope (though I anticipate Kiwi will say, oh but we’re more educated than whites, wahhhh).
Can you find me one country or one city anywhere in the world where there is a large sample size and blacks perform better or equal to whites economically? Nope.
I know the standard responses you would have to the above (cause I’ve heard them all here). The point is you would not be willing to think up even one test that could legitimately be used to test the two hypotheses noted above might in any way be correct.
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@ biff
I’m your Daisy…
Come… lets try be reasonable, shall we? In the U.S. there really hasn’t been the kind of time necessary for Blacks to catch and exceed Whites, apples to apples. That much should be clear, even to you.
As for Africa, that requires an entire lesson. Perhaps Abagond will blog about the economics of Africa one day. But suffice to say that neo-colonialism, the World Bank, and quite a few other economic interests have played a large part in shaping African economics in the previous century (which in turn effects everything else). And before that, of course we had this:
I can’t imagine why Africans think that Europeans bear much of the responsibility for many of the modern problems of Africa today, SINCE THEY TOOK OVER THE WHOLE BLOODY CONTINENT!!! But I must try not to lose my patience..
The REAL question is do you REALLY want to know the answers??? Because once you have them, there will be nowhere left to hide… no warm comfortable HBD diaper to wrap your big messy bottom in and tell yourself that you’re somehow superior.
Do you really want to go there????
Probably not. Hahahahaha!
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“The REAL question is do you REALLY want to know the answers??? Because once you have them, there will be nowhere left to hide…”
Absolutely. If all races were actually (on average) equally intelligent and equally competent and equally good at running long and short distances and playing basketball, being investment bankers, etc., then a future of living together in real harmony and equality (the equalist utopia) would be possible. For instance, I’d be thrilled to learn that the black crime rate was plummeting compared to whites and that the achievement gap was gone, so there was no more need for affirmative action. I don’t don’t see any evidence at all that points to that unfortunately…
So you’re saying that there’s no way at all to test the hypotheses anywhere in the world now. None of the past 50 years means anything. We have to wait another few hundred years… or maybe more. Nice.
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Well remember, its not quite as easy as that. For one thing “race” is fuzzy and hard to define. But also, choosing to do something is not the same thing as not being capable of doing something. For example, your family may choose to be closely associated with teaching at university. Whereas my family might choose to manage a small bed and breakfast in Hawaii.
Those are two CHOICES, they have nothing to do with genes. One is not “bad” and the other “good.” Now, one may take more dedication to academics, but that doesn’t mean that the family at the beach is lazy or backward. They just want to live a different life than the other family.
There he ONLY point I’m trying to make is that choosing a lifestyle, (For Whatever Reason) is not some kind of proof that the people who do so are genetically backward.
Doesn’t that much make sense?
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People or “races” or cultures can be different (in general) because they choose to be different. Human beings can live at different stages of technology, and still have an equal CAPACITY for intelligence. It’s not all about the outcomes or the choices, its also about the potentials.
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King,
I see. So it may be that non-whites (particularly non-YKW) and non-East Asians CHOOSE to do less well on all standardized tests en masse (even though good test scores could get them into better schools, provide better life results, etc). It could also be the case that Chinese runners CHOOSE not to sprint as fast as folks with West African heritage (even though winning gold meals could be incredibly lucrative for them).
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Not quite THAT simple.
But I am trying to take something simple to begin with, to make a fairly simple point. People CAN make choices that have nothing to do with genetics.
And the other side of that equation is that sometimes people don’t have a choice. Sometimes their environment or their circumstances may impose certain choices (or even mindsets) upon them.
Again, nothing to do with genetics.
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Now we’ve already dealt with you sprinter example in a previous discussion, but since you still seem to think it makes your point, I will refute it again.
Firstly, MANY countries on all continents have produces very fast runners, and the difference between them can be measured in tenths and hundredths of seconds. I agree that the Blacks of West African decent have dominated sprinting as the fastest of the fast, but lets be clear that the Russian, Chinese, and German Olympic sprinters are much faster than most Black people in the world can run.
So having fast sprinter AMONG you race does not mean that fast sprinting is a racial characteristic. Most Blacks may not be fast sprinters.
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King:
A lot of the choices we make seem to have strong genetic components. I think this would make an interesting read for you and others here:
It’s basic stuff prepared by a black Jamaican guy who is actually politically liberal. Maybe it’s easier hearing it from him than me…
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My eyes are too tired tonight. I’ll read it in the morning.
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Kiwi said: “Also, you would think that Asians outperforming whites means he’d advocate Asians replacing whites as the American ruling class, but he’ll contradictorily cite that as a reason to limit Asian immigration so that the US remains under white domination.”
Wow… you can’t stop putting words in my mouth. When have I ever said I don’t want Asians in the American ruling class? Chiggity check yourself. I’m not the one who is wanting white domination here.
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Just examining a mind, Kiwi.
@ biff
OK biff I read through it. A lot of guessing going on, but I can’t deal with everything he said in this space. I’ll take it under advisement, for now.
The problem is that guessing at genetics doesn’t get us anywhere. You have to know for sure, (evidence) or it’s no use. I mean, we can guess that maybe genes determine exactly who we will marry, or what our favorite flavor of ice cream is. We can believe that genetics determines what breakfast cereal we prefer, and how good we are at checkers. But all this would only be a revival of an old nineteenth-century philosophical idea called Determinism, which was itself a revival of ancient Democritean philosophy. Blaming genes for controlling all of our limits or interests is more of a religious or philosophical exercise than it is a scientific one.
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@ biff
Also, it’s hard to draw the line between where genetics may be at work, and where good old hard work may be the descisive factor.
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/28/157503759/kenyan-runners-dash-to-olympic-gold-and-wealth
Often what is assumed to be “genes” may in fact have a large social or cultural element attached.
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King:
Thank you for reading and giving it some thought. That’s really all anyone can ask. Jayman actually quotes more scientific studies (especially twin studies that look at effects of environment) than anyone else I am familiar with (though they may not all appear in his abbreviated FAQ).
In any case, sure there may be a cultural element, but as I mentioned before, Chinese runners (if they could beat the Kenyans) would absolutely get huge amounts of cash and prizes… and there are like 30 times as many of them as Kenyans.
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@ biff
Yes, but there are also some environmental factors involved. In time, the Chinese may in fact, study exactly how the Kenyans have been training and adapt their own program more precisely. At that time, the Chinese may catch or exceed the Kenyans. Nobody knows for sure, but the current Kenyan domination is NOT a prof of genetic superiority. Other factors also may be at work.
But going to the more obvious claims of “genetic intelligence,” what do you think the implications would be? If it were true (it’s not) how would it make any difference?
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King said: “In time, the Chinese may in fact, study exactly how the Kenyans have been training and adapt their own program more precisely. At that time, the Chinese may catch or exceed the Kenyans. Nobody knows for sure…”
Um, it sure looks to me like Kenyans and West Africans are built differently and Chinese are also built differently (on average). To say that these differning builds (mostly the product of genetics) don’t play a major role in determining the fastest runners at different lengths seems pretty naive to me…
“But going to the more obvious claims of “genetic intelligence,” what do you think the implications would be? If it were true… how would it make any difference?”
Interesting question, and I think I could do a post on that, but I guess it wouldn’t be the type abagond would want on his site.
First and foremost, it would become very clear that the world is heading for dysgenic catastrophe, which will result in much more stratification and inequality. Basically, low IQ people are out-reproducing higher IQ people globally, and no it hasn’t always been this way.
There would be different ways to approach this issue, but smart women need to be convinced to have more kids. Meanwhile less intelligent women should be incentivized to have less. An easy fix could be making long-term birth control a condition for women with children to receive government benefits.
This could go either leftist social planning or to the right with reinstitution of more traditional morality, where divorce is frowned upon and having children out of wedlock is highly frowned upon. These institutions worked pretty well in years past.
On a national level, this might give the U.S. the willpower to stop illegal immigration and deport illegal immigrants. Then, immigrants that will be let in to the U.S. and Europe (and East Asia) should be chosen more carefully. I hope that at least Europe can adopt a plan to maintain it’s Europeanness (i.e., supermajority whiteness). It may already be too late for the U.S., and the U.S. is founded on different principles, but the U.S. could at least make efforts to severely limit low IQ immigrants from the third world. Also, the West can realize that a quadrupling of Africa’s population by the end of the century is not really in anyone’s interest, and they could at least cut back on aid payments that are mindlessly facilitating this.
On a larger level, people need to realize equal outcomes for all pople groups are not realistic…. and white people need to stop beating themselves up and save themselves from extinction.
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@ biff
I didn’t say that genetics doesn’t play a role. I just said that we don’t KNOW for certain that it does.
You will no doubt be familiar with Liu Xiang? In the 2004 Athens Olympic Game he won the 110m Hurdles by a decisive length and took the Gold. He finished in a world record equalling time of 12.91 seconds, matching the finish time of Colin Jackson (in a non Olympic event). This set a new Olympic record that was almost three tenths of a second faster than the runner-up Terrence Trammell.
But Lui doesn’t look anything like the West-African Athletes. He doesn’t have the same musculature, and he doesn’t have the same look or the same genes, so how is this possible??? The answer is that nature can reach the same goal using different tools. A person may be fast, based on certain physical advantages. But another person may be fast based on TOTALLY DIFFERENT physical advantages! BOTH paths succeed in creating exceptional human speed.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V09H08Q0UQA)
However, in recent Olympic games, the Jamaicans have suddenly become the fastest runners on earth. They are faster than the better funded, more scientifically trained Americans… But of course genetically the runners are BOTH West-African in their descent. Are the Jamaican genes somehow mutating to create superheats runners!!?? Or is there a more practical explanation?
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haha! Nice to have you back Kiwi! 🙂
And there are so many more!
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Kiwi:
will respond to you
“Does this mean Kenyans, West Africans, and Chinese are three separate races? Where do you draw the line, anyway? Why fixate on “race” when morphology provides a better mechanism to explain individual differences?”
Does the fact that colors exist on a somewhat arbitrary spectrum mean that red and blue don’t exist or, more to the point, that it’s not possible to differentiate between light blue and dark blue?
“Vast IQ changes for all groups have occurred within mere decades but humans basically haven’t evolved in the last 100,000 years. Why didn’t this happen until now?”
See the link provided above, as this statement doesn’t seem to be accurate. The Flynn effect could be accounted for largely by advancements in nutrition and public health.
“Europe was 99% white in the early 1900s but that didn’t stop Germans from devising and implementing plans to wipe out half the continent’s population for racial reasons, like Aryan/Nordic supremacy. Again, where do you draw the line?”
Hanging all of that on “Germans” is disingenuous. The Nazis would never have come to power without a very real communist threat (they never received majority of the popular vote, for instance). Communists ultimately killed at least an order of magnitude more of civilians than fascists ever did. Equalism is the moral successor to communism.
“It is far too late for the US. America lost its supermajority nativeness hundreds of years ago.”
Yup. And it has lost its most recent super-majority as well. Expect to see more de facto segregation and in-fighting. Ultimately, Hispanic societies tend to be much more “racist” in practice than primarily white ones.
“Whites cannot go “extinct” because white people are not a species. The notion that whites are still going “extinct” despite having mixed and spread their genes into growing nonwhite populations is only proof that race is social, not genetic.”
Eh, yes, one could say that if strands of previous genes existed in some form that the original people are not entirely “extinct”, but this would go against common sense understanding. Kind of like saying saber tooth tigers aren’t extinct because well we definitely have some tigers around now that probably have some of their DNA. Race is certainly both social and genetic.
So, I’ll pose an alternate question. If differences in genetic intelligence existed and could be demonstrated pretty reliably, would it still make sense to deny and conceal these differences in the hope of creating a more “equal” world?
Has the U.S. been getting more or less “equal” in practical terms in the last 50 years? (avoiding apex fallacy where we only look at individuals at the top, e.g., the POTUS, and instead looking at lives of average people).
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@ biff
So let me get this straight. For 99.9% of human history, we didn’t even understand what ‘genes’ are. We didn’t really have any notion of what an I.Q. was either. That wasn’t even mentioned until 1912. Now suddenly the dumb people are having more babies than the smart people which is leading to the dumbing down of humankind. Is that the imminent crisis you are describing?
Even though, the Flynn Effect tells you that I.Q is rather increasing (not decreasing) across the board, every decade?
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Just wondering if various special survival mechanisms might be operating.
Richer populations tend to consume more natural resources per capita. They also have less children.
Maybe that is the key to the survival of the species. As a population gets wealthier, it should reproduce less. Otherwise the resources would be exploited and exhausted even more quickly. So minimizing reproduction among populations which consume more resources would be nature’s way of optimizing species success.
I also think about HG Wells’s “The Time Machine”. Humans evolved into 2 separate subspecies, one of which is resource dependent on the other. The “smarter ones” were the descendants of the working class forced to survive underground. They domesticated the population that lived on the surface. The forces that ensure species survival might have little to do with IQ as measured by 20th century western tests. And it might have nothing to do with “race”.
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^ Maybe that is nature’s way.
It is more costly for them as they expend more resources to raise them. Obviously, this additional expenditure is not a necessary factor to ensure species survival, or is even nature’s way of making sure that they do not reproduce as much.
But it makes the concentration of what resources there are concentrated in smaller and smaller segments of population.
Until there is a revolution or something. Or the smaller segments of population want even more, so they take it from the populations with less.
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@ Biff
You and I are both products of the public (or private) school system, which is based on western thought, right? The only difference is that I broke away from the yoke of colonized education and you became engulfed in it. So I’m NOT surprised that you missed the point. once again.
Let’s not bring Black slave labor into the equation. I know how sensitive Whites get when a Black person brings up slavery, so I’ll bypass “ancient history” (slavery in the Americas) and start with public policies in the decade that freed Black folks but, in turn, hurt them in the following decades, economically.
Simply, ‘yes’ or ‘no’
* The 1862 Homestead Act – did it benefit Whites or Blacks?
* Sharecropping – did it benefit Whites or Blacks?
* Jim Crow – did it benefit Whites or Blacks?
* The 1890 Organic Act – did it benefit Whites or Blacks?
* The Land Runs in the 1890s – did it benefit Whites or Blacks?
* The Wagner Act – did it benefit Whites or Blacks?
* The New Deal program (FHA) – did it benefit Whites or Blacks?
* The Black codes – did it hurt Whites or Blacks?
* Redlining – did it hurt Whites or Blacks?
* Race-oriented restrictive covenants – did it hurt Whites or Blacks?
Give me your answers, Biff.
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Kiwi:
Again.
“Reading comp fail. You cite differing builds of Kenyans and Chinese to highlight racial differences, but then contradictorily categorize Kenyans and East Africans as the same race despite these differences.”
Never said they were the same race. Color and race can have arbitrary levels of specificity, but they still exist. And a trained eye can tell a large group of Kenyans and a large group of West Africans apart pretty easily (Kenya is in East Africa).
“Reading comp fail. This only reinforces the point that environment is a major factor in IQ.”
It is in terms of nutrition being important. However, kids in the U.S., Europe, etc. are now pretty well nourished and there is no evidence at all of a narrowing in the gap of IQ/standardized test scores. This is the most frustrating thing for educators.
“It is disingenuous. In regard to racial ideology, Germany was greatly inspired by the United States (eg: racial hygiene, eugenics, compulsory sterilization, immigration restriction, Aryan/Nordic supremacy), which had adopted these concepts well before communism became a threat.”
Um, yes planned parenthood is related to racial hygiene, eugenics, etc., but the left still supports it. Anyway, my point stands that the n***, who implemented the worst of these policies, would never come to power without the communist threat.
“It is clear to me that you have never sat through a biology class. White people vs. other races is not analogous to Saber tooth tigers vs. modern-day tigers.”
It’s true that white people still exist and won’t go extinct in the very near future. Nevertheless, the trends point to a dwindling white population. Same goes for East Asians. These trends will become even more apparent soon.
“This is easy to test. Nonwhites, women, and other marginalized groups would be more reluctant than white men to hop into a time machine that travelled 50 years into the past.”
People wouldn’t want to give up their iphones, gadgets, internet, current friends and family, etc. However, surveys have shown women getting progressively less satisfied with their life during the last 50 years. Where have all the good men gone (answer you took their jobs, so they are busy playing warcraft)? Black families have disintegrated (what if you told a black boy he would get to live with his father and mother together in relatively better living conditions if he went in the machine)? Yeah, I guess Asian Americans have done OK in the last 50 years. No need for you to jump in the time machine, Kiwi, especially if you might practice an alternative life style.
Re: richer people not having kids, it’s largely women putting their careers first and not starting the marriage hunt until their late 20s. Recently, for the first time, a majority of women in the U.S. in their late 20s are not married. Their prime reproductive years are behind them. I don’t know if financial incentives alone are a practical solution to this, but it’s not a sustainable trend and leads to ever increasing inequality, as jefe has noted (rich having more kids and poor having fewer would pretty clearly lead to greater equality).
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MC:
I’m not trying to deny history, M.C. I’m sure the U.S. had a lot of policies to benefit whites.
My question was whether, all things considered, the descendents of slaves were in general better or worse off than the descendants of those who were not slaves and remain in Africa.
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@ Biff
“My question was whether, all things considered, the descendants of slaves were in general better or worse off than the descendants of those who were not slaves and remain in Africa.”
It’s interesting that you mentioned the question pertaining to the descendants of enslaved Africans and Africans who weren’t enslaved and remained in Africa. Tomorrow my family and I will watch a 91-minute documentary titled “Bound: Africans versus African-Americans” at the 23rd Annual Pan-African Film and Arts Festival located at the Rave Cinemas in Baldwin Hills, California. The documentary is about tensions between continental-born Africans and African-Americans that are rarely addressed. The documentary also reveals personal testimonials exposing the rift. It will take us through the corridors of colonialism and slavery, laying bare how their effects have divided and bound the two.
There will be a Q & A session after the documentary. I’ll present your question to the guest speaker(s) of the documentary film. Whatever answer I get I’ll present it to you on this forum.
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MC:
That sounds cool. If I were still in SoCal, I might stop by to check it out myself.
I would predict that you will receive a complicated non-answer (like “it’s just not possible to weigh material advantages versus psychic generational grievances” (even though most African communities have suffered from a lot of other ills)), rather than a straight answer like “there are exceptions, but in general it would be African Americans, since their material circumstances are generally much better”), but we’ll see I guess.
Anyway, I’m not denying that a lot of bad stuff went down in the U.S. I just don’t believe that this history fully or primarily explains the “failure to close the gap” in the last several decades even a bit, even with very concerted efforts over the past few decades. If I’m right, it still leaves a lot of difficult questions like what is the best way to move forward towards a better more equal/harmonious society. However, the one thing I don’t think will lead in this direction is the continued desire to blame white heterosexual males for all of society’s ill’s while ignoring disturbing, but undeniable trends (e.g., Hispanization of U.S. leading inexorably to more inequality and conflict).
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Kiwi:
One more time (and then I’ll let you have the last word, since I know you can do these back and forths ad infinitum).
“If it’s all arbitrary, then there’s no point talking about an arbitrary divide like “white people” and “black people”, neither of which you can define.”
I know you will never use words to describe colors anymore. You will remove “red”, “blue”, “green” and “purple” totally from your lexicon, because who knows the exact shade you would be referring to? Good for you. Just like you will never reference a dog breed anymore, because breedism.
“There’s also no evidence of a narrowing in the gap of disparate media portrayals of racial minorities relative to whites. Stereotype threat exists. Teachers treat students of different races differently, too. Much of it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact that segregation causes blacks and others to attend worse schools than whites doesn’t help.”
This is ridiculous. These factors wouldn’t exist in the same magnitude every time, all over the world. You don’t really believe it’s all because of media portrayals, right? Are they also the reason Asians overachieve? That doesn’t make any sense.
“Reading comp fail. White people are not a species separate from the rest of humans. I do realize this will go way over your head again, though.”
You do realize you stole “reading comp fail” from me, right? Anyway, I realize whites are not a “separate species”. You don’t have to like the analogy, but people use the phrase “white people” all the time and they are treated distinctly, which is like the whole subject of this blog.
Anyway, I’m out and happy V-day night home alone.
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Kiwi:
That’s it, blame everything on white people. Things were going great in Africa before white people showed up, and things have been getting so much better since white people were kicked out of power.
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@Kiwi re: your reply
LMAO
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Now suddenly the dumb people are having more babies than the smart people which is leading to the dumbing down of humankind.
If the smart people are so smart, why oh why, aren’t they breeding more offsprings? Not so smart after all eh?
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Give me your answers, Biff.
Please, don’t encourage him. He doesn’t have any answers just soundbites.
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richer people not having kids, it’s largely women putting their careers first and not starting the marriage hunt until their late 20s.
How do you explain stay at home moms with 40 year old sons living in the basement? What did the stay at home mom do wrong? Not breed enough br…I mean offspring? Had she bred 15 or 20 bas…I mean kids, instead of the one, she may have had at least ten living in the basement along with their offspring.
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Now THAT made me laugh!!!! Hahaha!!!
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@ biff
It should be clear to you that I.Q., as most people understand it, is a flawed concept. The term “quotient” is a rather exacting one, it means the degree to which a specific quality or characteristic exists. But the trouble is when it is taken to mean that it is measuring the degree to which a specific quality or characteristic WIIL FOREVER EXIST. In other words, if you think that an I.Q. test means that you have measured the cognitive potential of an individual at age 9 or 14, or 22, and that this “quotient” cannot be changed, then you are misapprehending what the I.Q. actually is.
Any psychologist will tell you that if you want a truer measure of I.Q. then you will need multiple tests over time to confirm the results. You can’t go in out one day, and administer a bunch of tests, and come out with a solid and reliable I.Q. number that means anything about the people tested. But when you look at how most of these “racial I.Q. tests” were derived, you will find that the subjects were never followed or retested. Nobody knows whether they ate a bad meal the night before, of if they were in the middle of a divorce, or if their parents had just died. All of those things could easily effect concentration, which could in turn effect the test score.
But even if you could confirm consistently low test scores for a subject, that still doesn’t speak to any genetic component. AND THAT IS KEY to determining how to react to it the test findings.
– If the low test scores are genetic there is little that can be done about them
But…
– If the low test scores are due to nutrition, amend the diet
– If the low test scores are due to poor education the improve education
– If the low test scores are due to a poor social environment change it
– If the low test scores are due to endemic poverty and hardship… etc.
The problem with the unproven “It must be the Genes” theory is that it is the only theory that nobody has to do anything about.
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@King:
Right. And it’s therefore the only theory that lets them believe that American society is wonderfully fair and just, a land of happy prancing bunnies and pink flowers and so they can feel all smug and superior (and all smug and superior to those “dull” black people)…
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@ Kiwi Hahahahaha!!
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At the risk of providing aid and comfort to the white supremacists, it is still very important for all black people to come to terms with the fact that not only did Africans sell other Africans into slavery; but their methods were often more savage and brutal than the white buyers.
Check out this excerpt from the Zong Massacre:
“ship’s surgeons were typically involved in selecting slaves for purchase in Africa, so their medical expertise supported the determination of “commodity value” for a captive.[13] If the surgeon rejected a captive, that individual suffered “commercial death,” being of no value and was liable to be killed by African handlers”
So when the white crew of the Zong threw 54 women and children overboard, and 78 males when they ran short on water; they have may simply adopted values they witnessed in Africa to help them make the decision.
The problem was they tried to collect an insurance claim on the dead Africans LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zong_massacre#cite_note-15
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Kiwi:
You’re being ridiculous. You can openly insult my wife and call me a “retard” here, but when I try to let people know your game here, the comments get deleted because they are too personal. So, anyway… you are the only one who keeps going and going in the back and forths. It gets repetitive. I know you are a young student without much to do. I have a job and family. I haven’t encountered the same issues with other people here, e.g., King or jefe.
King said:
“But…
– If the low test scores are due to nutrition, amend the diet
– If the low test scores are due to poor education the improve education
– If the low test scores are due to a poor social environment change it
– If the low test scores are due to endemic poverty and hardship… etc.
The problem with the unproven “It must be the Genes” theory is that it is the only theory that nobody has to do anything about.”
King, what you said is true. However, people in the U.S. absolutely have worked on diet, education, social environment, poverty, etc., for minorities, but the gaps don’t budge (once you get past basic dietary levels). Look again at the resources cited by Jayman. They have tons of twin studies and studies re: adopted kids. The house environment seems to have almost no affect on how these kids perform. It’s kind of shocking to me, because I had intuitively thought it was more likely to be something like 50/50 nature/nurture.
Anyway, when you ignore all of the evidence (every single standardized test given with a large sample size), there really is no way to “prove” the genes theory is there? I mean, if low test scores (correlating closely to IQ and “g”) lead to bad life results, it will ALWAYS be possible to see the bad life results and then blame the low test scores on such results.
My point is just that if there wasn’t a huge genetic component, we would expect to see some of these efforts to work on education bearing a lot more fruit in terms of closing the gap.. at least in some cities somewhere…
Herneith said “If the smart people are so smart, why oh why, aren’t they breeding more offsprings? Not so smart after all eh?”
This is actually a profound comment. It may be that, in a resource rich environment, such as the one we live in now, whites and East Asians are demonstrably “inferior” from a survival of the species standpoint (and, no, I don’t really believe whites will go “extinct” anytime soon, but when they become ever dwindling minorities in countries they once populated the character of those countries will change profoundly, and I think not for the better generally speaking in terms of average quality of life.).
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thwack: do you see me as a “white supremacist”?
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“So when the white crew of the Zong threw 54 women and children overboard, and 78 males when they ran short on water; they have may simply adopted values they witnessed in Africa to help them make the decision.”
*******************************
“… have may simply adopted values…”
Thwack,
According to Dr Bell’s five rules on racial standing, I’d bet that white people often recruit YOU (along with the likes of Thomas Clarence, Larry Elders, and other sell-outs) for super-standing status. I bet you breathe to be validated (and vindicated) by white people.
You do it so well..
what?
suck up.
I’m wondering why you haven’t yet said that whites aren’t the truly malevolent racists originators that began racism/slavery/white-supremacy … because they got their ideas on color-ism and such from the dark continent.
or maybe you already have, and I just overlooked it.
whatever… tally-ho good chap!!
keep up the good work!
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Deleted comments about the sex lives of commenters.
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# biff
But “working on” diet, education, social environment, poverty, etc. is not the same thing as SOLVING the disparities in diet, education, social environment, poverty, etc., is it? I could tell you that I’ve been “working on” fixing your car for the last two weeks, but that doesn’t mean you can drive it.
In the inner cities there are still budget shortages, bad teachers, social problems etc. There always have been. In some places schools have improved, in a lot of others they haven’t.
But even more invisible are the long-term social obstacles that are sometimes hard to explain. Sometimes, even if a Black kid is being raised by adopted White parents, the child responds (consciously or subconsciously) to what society expects of him. This can come from teachers, from the media, from the community, from friends both Black and White. As a Black male the following assumptions/expectations may be made.
– Athletic /into sports
– Street smart
– Aggressive
– Funny
– More interested in socializing than studying
– Sexually aggressive
– Cool
– Academically “challenged.”
– Easily angered
and those assumptions/expectations may have a pronounced effect in how the child grows to see himself. He will often grow to fill the mold that expectation has left for him. So even without genetics, you may see Blacks following certain guidelines through society and therefore ending up in a lot of the same places.
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King:
If all those were the real explanations, I would still expect that some cities would have the issue a lot more than others and the gap would be gone or significantly narrowed in certain places where the most enlightened policies were in place.
If the gap isn’t narrowed at all after 50 years of targeted work, maybe it won’t be narrowed at all in the next 50 or 100 years either… at what point would you be willing to admit that it’s likely that genetics plays a role in different performance levels? I think you’ve said before that it may take hundreds or thousands of years, but most people don’t have that long to decide on current social policy.. It seems like no amount of evidence would be enough to convince most Narrative believers…
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biff, it hasn’t been 50 years of CHANGE, it’s been 50 years of “slowly attempting to change.” In 1964 Civil Rights legislation was passed, that is all. It’s still been very slow change since then. Some of the policies (like the way Welfare was structured) did much more harm than good. The generation that marched with Martin Luther King are still walking the earth! After centuries of violent oppression, deprivation, and degradation, just how many generations do you think it should take to heal? What gives you the right to be impatient at the 50 year mark when Whites haven’t even been able to fix their own damn unequal system in that time? Yet Blacks are expected to change their entire culture, DESPITE this perpetual White failure?
Besides, there has been improvement in Black college enrollment since the the 1970s
The same is true of Black income, I’m not quite sure what it is you expect? You need to understand that the centuries of White abuse have taken their toll, just as they have on the Native American peoples. Have you seen their crime rates, and their rates of alcoholism? Their lower rates of education? Do you think that’s just a coincidence? How long do you give THEM until they are expected to reach an “acceptable level” of cultural improvement for your approval?
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The other side of this is that if the problem was truly genetic then it should also be unresponsive to efforts to significantly improve performance. Yet, in many schools who have found the right methodology, entire Black high schools (thousands of students) have suddenly shown complete academic turn-arounds. How could that be if the problem was really deep in the genes? I can list many of the schools I’m referring to if you like?
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King said: “You need to understand that the centuries of White abuse have taken their toll, just as they have on the Native American peoples. Have you seen their crime rates, and their rates of alcoholism? Their lower rates of education? Do you think that’s just a coincidence?”
Certainly not coincidence, but, well, we’re going to have to agree to disagree re: whether everything can be chalked up to “white abuse”. In any case, that chart just seems to show that everyone is going to college more than they did 30 years ago. To me that’s not much evidence re: improvements in underlying intelligence as it is marketing by greedy colleges and predatory lenders.
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King: “Yet, in many schools who have found the right methodology, entire Black high schools (thousands of students) have suddenly shown complete academic turn-arounds. How could that be if the problem was really deep in the genes? I can list many of the schools I’m referring to if you like?”
Yes, I would be interested in reading more about this. Certainly educational methods can improve, especially with respect to learning certain subject matter. (You could also just have massive grade inflation, not signalling much of anything.) It’s harder to improve performance on standardized tests that tend to function as proxies for IQ. If the results, for instance, clearly showed that students in these schools went on to score just as highly in standardized tests (e.g., SATs, etc.) as students in neighboring white schools, that would be something.
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@ biff
But you say that as if our opinions and experiences should carry equal weight. I am a Black person telling you that White abuse and oppression has deeply effected Black people. You are an external White observer who can only go by second-hand information and dubiously motivated speculations.
And it’s not really a question of whether EVERYTHING can be chalked up to “White abuse ” or not. If I kill someone’s parents, and it drives them to become an alcoholic, later on in life, it doesn’t mean that my actions gave them no other choice but to drink. However, my actions certainly would have set them on a course that they would not have been on if it were not for my actions. The fact that there might have been healthier ways to deal with my abuse does not release me from culpability for causing the problem in the first place. Neither should the victims be blamed for not having a more perfect coping mechanism in place when the abuse occurred. They are simply dealing with a tragedy in the best way that they can at that time.
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@Abagond
I did not think my comment was about biff’s sex life in the slightest. Biff states above how kiwi insults his wife, but really no more than he does.
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@Just Me
You beat me to it. I don’t believe whites learned their slave mistreatment from blacks simply because those who brought slaves would have little or no contact with the African Traders to know how they treated them.
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those who brought slaves would have little or no contact with the African Traders to know how they treated them.
——————————————————————–
Since when does a white business man NOT study and investigate every node and aspect of a commercial enterprise they are engaged in?
Some white traders even joined African cults and secret societies in order to gain more information about the slave trade and thereby get a leg up on the competition.
Do your research.
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Abagond, You hit the nail on everything. I was astonished to find out how white people think when I joined the military. I learned all of their stock arguments and how to combat them. What gets me all the time is their twisted morality and their bootstrap theories. They usually get mad at me when I expose them or bring in their feelings, the one I laughed at the most was I have a black____ or im not all white, im part Indian, as if that excuses their racism. two new trends im seeing a lot are young White people embracing black culture because its popular right now and saying the “n-word” a lot! and a lot of “swirl” love. It disgusts me because it’s mostly black women being self hating. They bs themselves into it and seek so much attention from it, they spit on black men while doing. I know its internalized racism. That’s real big here in the usmc, a lot of whitewashing too. I never cared about interracial relationships until now, they do it to drag their race through the mud, and the sisters don’t know that they look down on them as dirt beneath their feet, and the brothers dont know they are making themselves look ignorant by hating their own women. White people view black people as fun. I cut one of my high school homies off because he allows his white friends to act black and say the nword constantly, but he tries to bs me saying he’s running game on them. I laugh at him because he’s bullshitting himself. He’s running a damn minstrel show. They call’em white nwords, it’s funny because these types white people are like the hipsters of the jazz age. They are trying to integrate into black society because they want to be looked at as cool. That;s how privileged they are. They dont know how sick in the head they really are. Black culture is seen as fun, the street tough life etc, all in all, the Underworld. They taste it and slip back into their white worlds. They do it because they are ashamed of being white. It neutralizes their fear. One got offended when I asked him why does he constantly say the nword as if it’s cool. Surprisingly, he wanted to fight me, lol. All i could do was laugh, and my “homie” was mad with me! LOL, he lost all my respect time and time again because of activities like this. I cannot stand to see how a black woman and a black man can be so black power this, revolution this, blah blah, but goes and sleep with racism, especially the black woman. That’s what swirl love is all about in the end. The attraction from what i’ve seen is built on curiosity, lust, racial hatred( for black women) and the men that use them want to assimilate into black culture or throw shit into black people face. They say so much trash about black women. , they act like they are Moses or somebody! Like they are on a crusade. its placage at best lol. Black women/men are trying to assimilate into whitetopia and trying to status hop from being black. It’s a disgusting system. Not all swirl love is like this but MOST of it is. I cant date white women because of this reason, they say things like you a white womans dream or do you have this or that, I think “turn-off”
If you ever get a chance Abagond PLEASE write a post on it! I will LOVE to hear your opinion, I personally believe they lose their right to speak on racism because they opened it to themselves, they chose that life. Like all these whitewashed “black” celebrities, how they spit and s*** on the black community as a whole ( Halle Berry, thandie, the list goes on and on) Being whitewashed while Black to me is trading in your black card. Lol, help me erase some of my ignorance. I see it everyday in the military(marines) I need help now, to make sure
Im thinking of starting my own blog pretty soon.
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I forgot to mention, a lot of white people believe they are discriminated against also!
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@Thwack
I have no doubt they studied them but the issue is whether what they saw actually translated into how they treated black slaves. Also a matter of whether or not some slave owners in the states copied or were even aware of this treatment by African traders.
You have presented a nice story but no proof.
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@Blase’Suave Roses
I have no doubt white people believe they are discriminated against, but in reality very few of them are. What they think is some discrimination usually ends up not being the case.
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King said:
“But you say that as if our opinions and experiences should carry equal weight.”
For discussion purposes I would say yes, we shouldn’t automatically throw out/dismiss other people’s statements based on their identity or it’s not really possible to have a civil discussion.
Sharina:
I tried to respond to your assertion and that got deleted, but yeah apparently I’m not even allowed to talk about my own life (I didn’t include any sexual details).
Kiwi said “Grades, like GPA, are a better predictor of overall academic performance than test scores”
GPA is actually a reflection of academic performance,so this is like saying past academic performance is a better predictor of future academic performance than test scores. Wouldn’t disagree with that generally. Still doesn’t mean the test scores aren’t very useful, especially in connection with GPA.
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sharinalr
@Thwack
You have presented a nice story but no proof.
—————————————————————————————
Proofs only exist in mathematics; EVIDENCE is as good as it gets for all other disciplines.
Pre-colonial diaries, journals and letters from European explorers/traders are some of the best EVIDENCE of pre colonial African culture and behavior; only African art speaks in a more pure voice.
Do your research.
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That’s not really the point. This isn’t about automatically dismissing anybody’s ideas. Its about recognizing that opinions are not equal, particularly if opinions are all that you have. If you are discussing facts, then that is different. But to say that you personally disagree that “White abuse” has had a major effect and impact on Black-American culture, means that such an *opinion* must be subordinate to opinions more seasoned by first-hand experience.
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@Thwack
Why should I do research on something you are claiming? I need do nothing more than say the proof or evidence is lacking. Again you have presented a nice story but you have not presented much else.
So what I said stands. Your European explorers is not really saying anything about what Joseph and Mary in the south knew about how to treat their slaves.
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“Pre-colonial diaries, journals and letters from European explorers/traders are some of the best EVIDENCE of pre colonial African culture and behavior; only African art speaks in a more pure voice.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
@ Sharina
Thwack – if he could – would have us discount/dismiss all or any of the African/Black experiences/testimonies (journals, letters, diaries, BOOKS) in favor of only the White evidence/perspective/fantasies.
Notice how well he falls EXACTLY into Professor Bell’s first 2 rules of racial standing.
.
“only African art speaks in a more pure voice.”
What exactly do you define as African art, Thwack?
And why aren’t other African/Black experiences deemed as pure as African “art,” whatever that might be?
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“Art” is what people do/produce AFTER they have done what they are required to do/produce; especially by others for material and utilitarian purposes.
Its an attempt to make/keep a connection with the transcendent.
(This includes music, dance and other non material, non linear, information rich sets of behavioral instruction)
African artwork is pure because it is what an African DID; not what he says he did, or even worse, what some white person SAYS he did.
Art is mans connection with the first cause; the cause without a cause; the eternal; the truthful, the beautiful – the transcendent.
Western culture is designed to cut people off from the transcendent and make them slaves to their 5 senses.
Try not to be one of em.
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“Art is mans connection with the first cause; the cause without a cause; the eternal; the truthful, the beautiful – the transcendent.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ROTFLOL
Wow Thwack… every time I think you’ve reached a new pinnacle in your compilation of bull-sh#t, you amazingly come up with some new baloney that surpasses even your last excrement.
Anyway, thank you for the comic relief!
Oh, and should you ever see J.W., please give him my kindest regards.
He is surely (and sorely) missed.
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thwack: do you see me as a “white supremacist”?
Does a bear poop in the woods?
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King said, “Its about recognizing that opinions are not equal, particularly if opinions are all that you have. If you are discussing facts, then that is different.”
We were discussing facts, i.e., whether genetics plays a role in IQ, not opinions about how it feels to be oppressed. If anything, I think a neutral third party observer would be more impartial on this point. There probably isn’t anyone completely impartial when discussing these issues frankly, but certainly blacks aren’t on the question of whether historical oppression has lowered black IQs all over the world (when it clearly hasn’t done so for East Asians of YKW), so maybe their viewpoint is less valuable (if not all viewpoints are equal as you say)?
Kiwi, then use IQ tests instead or, find a school district with blacks and provide free high quality SAT tutoring that is better than what is normally received in the neighboring white school district. I’m pretty sure that’s been tried at some point.
Herneith, is your name thwack?
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@Herneith
LOL 😛
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Just Me
“Art is mans connection with the first cause; the cause without a cause; the eternal; the truthful, the beautiful – the transcendent.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
ROTFLOL
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Females lack a truly creative and artistic ability because they have no use for a language to describe such an ability, what it is or where it comes from.
This is because their only agency is to use their sexuality to get a man who already has it and try to make it their own. Neither music, nor poetry, nor for any fine art have they any real or true sense and ability. It is mere mockery on their part, in their desire to please, if they attempt to produce anything truthful or beautiful.
They are incapable of taking a purely objective interest in anything,
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Kiwi:
The point is that it’s not really clear that oppression leads to decreased IQs (though severe malnutrition certainly does).
Anyway, as I stated above, I think the idea that most current U.S. whites have received a net benefit from slavery (factoring in the civil war, etc.) is debatable. We can’t go back and know how the U.S. would have developed if slaves weren’t part of the picture.
It’s a much easier argument to make that current day white Americans, black Americans AND Asian Americans still continue to benefit from the conquest of the Native Americans. Do you feel personally guilty for that?
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Kiwi said: “Anyhow, I know you neither understand nor care about such distinctions and you will not realize that I answered your question.”
Translation: “No, no personal guilt at all”. My ancestors were “immigrants” not “conquerors”.
Guess what? Me too.
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Kiwi:
It’s not written “for” me, but it’s written primarily “about” me, since I am a straight white male.
Anyway, I appreciate abagond’s openness. It’s weird to me that there’s so much overlap between here and sites like CH and Steve Sailer. I guess these days there are not many places where people really want to (or are allowed to) have candid discussions about race and ethnicity.
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@ Biff
The documentary film – ‘Bound: Africans versus African-Americans’ – was very, very, very informative and interesting. Of course, a packed audience of conscious minded Black, White, Asian and Latino individuals watched the film. Anyone can visit the creators of the documentary on Twitter: #BoundAvAA
Biff, you missed at great documentary. In three months you can buy it on Amazon.com.
The documentary started with the Akan story of two brothers (Africans and African-Americans) – one was taken from his homeland and brought to the eastern shores of what is now America. As the brothers became grown adults they didn’t even recognize each other in the States. In ignorance, one brother would call the other brother “booty scratcher” while the other brother responded with the bitter terms “cotton picker” and “lazy”.
The informative documentary had groups of African immigrants and African-Americans explaining their experiences among each other, which, 85% of the time, weren’t good. The documentary got deeper with the history of slavery and colonialism on the African continent. Slavery on the African continent dealt with captives of war. Interestingly, some captives were adopted into villages.
The Arab and European slave trades had more of a devastating effect on Africa than rivaling African “tribes”. According to the documentary, some African kings from what is now Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, and Nigeria participated in the European slave trade. European slave traders traded rum and weapons for African captives while many others (Europeans) would straight out kidnap African men, women and children.
The documentary broke down the negative effects of European colonialism on the African continent. It mentioned how European colonialism raped Africa of her natural resources – oil, diamonds, ivory, gold, coltan, tropical food (such as baobab and mango fruit). It also mentioned King Leopold’s “private property” – the Belgium Congo and his atrocities toward the Congolese people, which resulted in severe punishment, rape, and murder. Unfortunately, many young Congolese workers had their hands amputated for not working “hard enough”.
(Below) Congolese amputees
https://iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/index.jpg?w=700&h=402
Like in other African countries, White colonialists (Belgians) gave the Congolese their independence in the mid-20th century, but they took a lot of wealth (natural resources) with them to build an elegant Belgium, especially its cities – Brussels and Antwerp. Today symbols of the Congolese amputated hands (from colonialism) are seen throughout Belgium.
(Below) Statues of the amputated hand
Like the corrupt African kings that participated in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (European Slave Trade), corrupt African leaders, who have always been backed by European and American leaders, keep African countries from prospering, economically and technologically.
To answer your question on who’s better or worse off – descendants of enslaved Africans or descendants of Africans who weren’t enslaved? My answer to you is that neither descendants of African people are better off. African immigrants (victims of corrupt African leadership) come to America seeking a better way of life. They excel very well in higher education. However, they still face discrimination in the social and corporate world of America.
As mentioned in my earliest comment, racist policies in America have affected African-Americans, which, in turn, have contributed to the racial wealth divide. People, like today’s Whites and African immigrants, only see the aftermath of America’s racist policies. African immigrants weren’t in America during the era when African-Americans were hit by jim crow, redlining, restrictive covenants, etc.
Africa and Black America MUST unite to prevent worse conditions. Until then we, African-Americans and Africans, will remain in the same sinking boat, Biff.
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MC, WB and many thanks for your well-written and comprehensive post.
Sounds like it would have been an interesting documentary to watch.
I’m aware of Belgian atrocities. Frankly, most of the 19th century colonization experiences seem to have had more mixed experiences (e.g., you won’t find many hard feelings towards the British in Hong Kong or Singapore), but what went down in the Congo is truly gut-wrenching.
In any case, I’m not sure how Africa and Black America could “unite to prevent worse conditions” in practice, though it’s a noble sentiment. Africa is going to be dealing with a huge population explosion in this century. It will be interesting to see how Africa and the world choose to deal with it. Mindlessly giving out foreign aid (since We are the World, Ethiopia’s population has tripled and is poised to continue to multiply) and indirectly encouraging the flow of refugees to the West frankly seems to me like a recipe for disaster.
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Europe and the Americas have benefited from Africa’s natural resources and her greatest resource – African people. Many of Africa’s natural resources have been the main “ingredients” of European manufactured goods.
http://go.grolier.com/map?id=mtlr001&pid=go
In the 17th and 18th century, Black slaves helped build the economic foundation of what is now the United States of America. In fact, the free labor of slavery was responsible for bringing Southern products to a global market.
Africa’s greatest resource – her people – was the laboring force of the new economies in the Americas. Between the 16th and 19th centuries sugar, tobacco and cotton were dependent and expensive items. A bowl of sugar could only be found on the table of the elite class in Europe.
How did rifles and guns get in the hands of West African warriors? Many manufactured goods, such as guns and machetes, were sent from Europe to Africa to help participating African slave traders. In fact, the Asante (Ashanti) people of Ghana are well-known for their participation in the slave trade.
People failed to realize that Black people in America have only been emancipated for 150 years whereas slavery in America lasted for 246 years. As for as time length, emancipated Black people are only ahead of the horrible life of Jim Crow by 52 years.
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@ Biff
What are your efforts in helping Africans prevent this “recipe of disaster”? Is it a continental issue beyond your help or human issue that’s worthy of your help?
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@ Kiwi
I agree.
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@ Kiwi
You and I know that many Whites are overtly and covertly proud of the fact that their European ancestors sailed across the Atlantic blue and wrecked havoc on a people called native Americans. Not knowing Biff I can’t say if he’s overtly or covertly proud of the history among Whites and Native Americans.
Of course, to Biff (himself), he is the descendant of European immigrants. But to any conscious-minded Native American Biff is a typical descendant of European invaders. The same can be applied to White people in South Africa or Australia. I guess it’s no big deal to most White people.
You and I, on the other hand, are the descendant of Asian immigrants and enslaved Africans, respectively. If I were the descendant of Africans who weren’t enslaved by Whites then maybe I would be like the typical Nigerian or Ethiopian-American – a descendant of African immigrants. But regardless of the fact of what we are, America, with except of Native Americans, is a land of ethnic foreigners and you, Biff and I are from them.
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MC said: “What are your efforts in helping Africans prevent this “recipe of disaster”? Is it a continental issue beyond your help or human issue that’s worthy of your help?”
Whether I can help the Africans directly I don’t know. Helping Western governments to cut off aid to and control of (largely intertwined) to Africa is more feasible, but even that is very difficult to get involved in. I have a family to support. If I were independently wealthy, perhaps I could publicly and vocally espouse views even if they were very unpopular with the ruling liberal elite (of both political parties). Right now, even being anti-illegal immigration is difficult, even though a clear majority of the U.S. population supports enforcement of existing immigration laws. Even though California’s proposition 8 supporting traditional marriage passed (meaning a majority of Californian voters supported it), Mozilla’s CEO was forced out when it was learned that he made a small contribution toward proposition 8 (massive contributions against proposition 8 would have been no issue). Espousing traditionally conservative positions openly can often be career suicide. Right now the greater hope is that Europeans can wake up and throw off the liberal elite masters who would destroy their countries for political and economic gain.
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MC, by the way, the graphics in your comments are excellent!
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@ biff
Where is Occam’s Razor when you need it? So despite the unchallenged facts that:
1) It was ILLEGAL to educate Blacks in the U.S. for decades
2) When Black education came, it was FAR inferior to it’s White counterpart
3) Books, movies, and television portrayed Blacks as unintellectual
4) Blacks who did succeed academically could not do nearly as well as Whites
5) Entertainment and Sports were stressed as “the way out” for decades
Despite all of that, we cannot draw the obvious line from cause to effect? No… it must be the genes —even though no actual geneticist or evolutionary anthropologist agrees. And of course, it’s because the entire world of science is “politically correct,” so we don’t have to listen to their conclusions any more. Instead we should believe people who are not genetics specialists themselves; who do not publish their work for peer review; but who do write blogs.
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Kiwi
The amazing thing about the whole debate over genetics is that even if all of it were true, the fact remains that whites are still benefitting off of the enslavement of blacks.
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No, the really amazing thing is the amount of energy a bunch of nonwhite people will put into trying to convince a racist that nonwhite people have value.
you guys almost make the point for them.
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@ thwak
I disagree. I discuss these issues with minds that oppose my view for two reasons
1) I will never assume that my position is 100% right and can’t stand correction
2) Iron sharpeneth iron. By debating the facts about human genetic inferiority, I keep my own tools sharper than if I had locked them away in the shed.
3) Newer and younger people come to public forums (like this) and are often exposed for the first time to many points that they may not have considered before. The vast majority of those are not going to dig through the voluminous archives to find out what was said when all of this was settled back in 2006.
That doesn’t “make the case” for anybody.
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haha THREE reasons!
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I think you guys are getting played. (either that or you guys like the sound of your own voices…)
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You mean, you don’t think that biff believes what he is saying?
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The willfully obtuse are like Abagond’s pet lizard that you bring to show and tell class. The audience is not the pet lizard.
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Hahaha! Nicely said, jefe! My sentiments exactly.
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King
You mean, you don’t think that biff believes what he is saying?
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If Biff is a racist, it means he will say anything to practice racism so the question of whether he believes what he says is irrelevant.
Look at it this way; when you are trying to get a girl to sleep with you does it matter if YOU believe what YOU say to her?
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@thwack
“No, the really amazing thing is the amount of energy a bunch of nonwhite people will put into trying to convince a racist that nonwhite people have value.”
And I am curious on how it helps to tell white racist blacks are worthless?
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@ Thwak
What you’re saying is illogical. people who are racists can be racists to many differing degrees. to assume that every racist wil say anything, in order to practice racism is false. Some will, some have their own limits, and to some their racism is so subtle that they can’t even see it.
Well, it would matter to me… and I’m pretty sure it would matter to her, so I guess the answer to your question is, Yes.
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@ Biff
“I have a family to support. If I were independently wealthy, perhaps I could publicly and vocally views…”
I do understand where you’re coming from, Biff. To each, its own.
I have a wife and four children – our first and only daughter (13 months) became a family member in January of 2014. My three sons are teenagers, who, as growing boys, have appetites out of this world. However, it doesn’t stop my wife and I from doing our part in helping African and non-African people.
My wife and I (and sometimes our boys) visit two to three African countries per year. Just last spring, my wife and I, who are descendants of the Igbo (of Nigeria) and Mande (of Gambia) people, respectively, were given Ghanaian citizenship by the Ghanaian government. About a decade ago Ghana had admitted its participation in the slave trade. As a form of reparation, the government of Ghana has granted citizenship to any descendant of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic blue. That’s so admirable of the Ghanaian government.
Biff, I’m not a person that judge others – although I do look view things with a conscious mind. Who’s to say that someday that you’ll jump on the luxury bandwagon of helping disadvantaged people in other countries, like the ones in Africa and Eastern Europe.
Peace out!!
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@ To my fellow commenters
Helping others start at home or in your backyard. My wife and I are doing our part in helping urban areas that have been affected by public policies.
I have a classroom of students to teach in about an hour. Again, peace out!!
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King
Look at it this way; when you are trying to get a girl to sleep with you does it matter if you believe what you say to her?
Well, it would matter to me… and I’m pretty sure it would matter to her, so I guess the answer to your question is, Yes.
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and that is why women call you Thursday.
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“…and that is why women call you Thursday.”
hmm… I don’t think I’ve heard that one… Are you eager to tell it?
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I’m just not the kind of guy who has to tell women lies to try and get them to sleep with him. I’m not sure why you would assume that all guys can relate to this?
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@ Michael Cooper: “Today symbols of the Congolese amputated hands (from colonialism) are seen throughout Belgium.”
That is a lie and i guess you know it. The picture you’re providing is the statue of Brabo, a Flemish mythical figure. Brabo – a Roman legionnair- suppossedly killed the giant Antigoon. Antigoon severed the hands of people who refused to pay him. Brabo rebelled, killed the giant and -ironically- severed his hand and threw in the river Scheldt. It is widely believed in Flanders that the origin of the nam Antwerp lies here. “Ant” (meaning hand)”Werpen” (meaning throwing). This all happened more than a millenium before colonial Congo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvius_Brabo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druon_Antigoon
This does not excuse the atrocities the “Belgians” did in Congo/Zaïre. But it is painful to see a figure of Flemish folklore being abused in this way. The Flemish have always been – and still are – second class citizens in Belgium. The Francophones still consider Flanders as their colony and the Flemish know wat it means to be despised…
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Getting busted taking a racial shortcut is one of the dangers of not doing your own research.
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King
I’m just not the kind of guy who has to tell women lies to try and get them to sleep with him.
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Its not a lie when people want to believe it.
“thats one small step for man… one giant leap for mankind”
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Getting “a leg over eh?”
Where is Herneith when you need her?
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Busy doing the horizontal mambo!
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Hahaha! You see what I mean? 🙂
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Hari Kondabolu tweeted:
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@ In Vino Veritas
Any conscious-minded person, especially if he or she is Belgian or Congolese, know that the statue of Brabo, which is located in Antwerp, symbolizes, as Kiwi puts it, the “real-life atrocities of which Belgium committed in the Congo.”
Symbolically, the statue of the giant severed hand is no different than the statue of the long castrated penis that stands in Washington D.C and cemeteries. In the colonial days, the hands of Congolese people were cut off by racist Belgian officials. In the Jim Crow days, the penis of lynched African-American men were cut off by white lynch mobs. The myths of Antigoon’s victims and Seth’s victim, Ausar (Osiris), symbolizes victimized Black people.
Good or bad, mythology has always been infused into the real-life affairs of human beings.
Btw, I do NOT lie when it comes to the victimization of my people – African Americans and continental Africans.
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Black people’s victimized body parts in stone:
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@ Abagond
Hari Kondabolu tweeted:
“Muslims made to answer for actions of Muslims anywhere. But, you bring up slavery to white Americans & it’s “I had nothing to do with that!”
Ironically, Steve Harvey (a black man) takes the place of many Whites by saying: “I really don’t care for slavery.”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DWvswScUtk)
Can anyone image Adam Sandler saying that he doesn’t care about the Holocaust or Hanukkah? I can’t. Sandler and other present-day Jews have so much respect for the Jewish Holocaust, Hanukkah and anything else that’s Jewish.
All that I can say is that someone that has a jive-morning radio talk show and television show and host a game show is going after the 2015 ‘Coon of the Year Award’.
When a person appreciates his people he sings songs on television, like this:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNisJddhIkA)
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“Muslims made to answer for actions of Muslims anywhere. But, you bring up slavery to white Americans & it’s “I had nothing to do with that!”—I have to say this was very well put and to the point.
The hypocrisy is amazing, yet still not surprising.
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@ Michael Cooper: you’re not only lying but you’re even trying to make Kiwi look like a liar. Kiwi’s comment doesn’t imply that the statue of Brabo represents “real-life atrocities of which Belgium committed in the Congo.”.
I do grant you that Belgians are mad but not mad enough erect statues for such kind of atrocities. On the contrary, they erected statues for soldiers who died in the war against slavery:
http://www.blankenberge.be/Toerisme/English/Home/To-do/Sightseeing/To-see/Lippens-De-Bruyne/page.aspx/2601
Most windowdressing but nevertheless…
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@ In Vino Veritas
Kiwi is a good person. In fact, his informative work has helped me, tremendously.
The enlightened words of Malcolm X: “History is BEST qualified to reward our research.” Happy Black History Month, In Vino Veritas.
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^ Congratulations for “proving” the bootstrap theory.
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^
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am not poor, since my grandfather eventually became a banker and accumulated a fortune for the family;
I he still alive? Is he married? I am looking for a new husband, preferably wealthy with a heart condition! He sounds very attractive!
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Herneith has been here for a very long time, even longer than me, and that’s saying something. I suppose if you are interested, you could find some of her early comments. You will find that she is extremely bright and very knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects – particular the world of antiquity.
Herneith has argued on here for years, and has long since tired of arguing (especially with fools). So she has turned to satire. She just pops in every now and then when something catches her eye and drops a satirical line or two.
But make no mistake, she is just as dangerous as she ever was.
She’ll correct me if I’m wrong on any point that she cares about…
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@lord of mirkwood supposedly my dad’s side is from county Cork.
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@kiwi
http://www.express.co.uk/scotland/391690/Secret-deal-on-whisky-may-have-bankrolled-Kennedy-s-presidency
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@Lord
I agree with king. Herneith is very funny, but she has also added some.very valuable information to many threads.
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I love Herneith! She’s my girl. She’s one smart cookie. She usually mocks racist clowns on here with her humor; not saying you’re a racist clown, LOM.
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Folks, thanks for your support! Now, back to the topic at hand. My family did own slaves. My ancestress was a ‘mulattress'(this is her description in the bill of sale document), slave who was subsequently sexually coerced, raped by her owner. The resulting progeny, my other ancestress among them, was taught to read and write by her so she could act as a ‘governess’ to presumably, her half-siblings(white). Her older brother was freed or bought his freedom and accumulated land and wealth. He was able to purchase his sister (my direct ancestress) and her two youngest children’s freedom. Her two sons escaped to Canada with their family’s help, as I presume, he could not afford to buy two prime male slaves from their owners/family(they were worth quite a lot as ‘hands’). Yes some of my ‘family’; owned slaves and I despise those who did. I am also proud of my slave ancestors for what they went through. I know my family’s history going back to the late 1700’s. I am also descended from African American veterans of the War of 1812, who were slaves. Currently, I am reading the ex-slave narratives which is available from Kobo:
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/slave-narratives-a-folk-history-of-slavery-in-the-united-states-from-interviews-with-former-slaves-all-17-volumes
The institution of slavery is what drove the American Economy in its’ early days and made it an economic powerhouse. Read about slavery and all its’ vagaries; the effects are still being felt today. This is evident in all these shootings and criminalization, objectification of black folks currently. Same fecal matter different toilet bowl. Anywho my fingers are starting to get cramped.
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Virtually all black Americans and Canadians who trace their ancestry to the Americas before the civil War have white slave owning ancestors.
Does it make any meaningful argument to say that as they are descendant from the slave owning ancestors, they are directly culpable for the institution? It makes no more sense for blacks to use this argument any more than for whites.
And when whites find out that they do have slave-owning ancestors, why do they feel any need to hide the fact? Blacks have no need to hide this fact in their family tree. 30% of black Americans trace their Y haplogroup to Europe.
“My family never owned slaves” is the one of the most bankrupt specious arguments used to absolve oneself of the effect of slavery on US history, culture, and modern day politics.
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The invocation of the concept “Sippenhaft.” is adding more specious fodder to an argument that is already exceedingly specious, esp. given (from the blog post above)
To divide perpetrators of US slavery into categories of people determined on the basis of whether or not their ancestors owned slaves would mean that over 90% of black Americans, who have white slave-owning ancestors, would be culpable today for the legacy of the crime that is slavery. One can never apply “Sippenhaft.” to point fingers at least in the case of US slavery.
Descendants of 18th and 19th century white slave-owners could be black or white today (or even Asian or Latino or Native American).
Descendants of slaves themselves could be either white or black today (or something else).
The inherited legacy of slavery is one that all Americans share.
Using the phrase “My family / ancestors never owned slaves” as an argument to absolve them of that guilty feeling for identifying as white is as specious as they come as it is completely besides the point (whether or not it is actually true). “Sippenhaft.” does not apply here. We don’t want white people to feel guilty about slavery and get a “get out of jail free” card to absolve them of their guilty feelings. We want them to admit squarely in the face what happened, get concerned or even angry about it, and admit that it is one of the major crimes the country may have to pay for until they get it right.
Americans who use the argument “My family / ancestors never owned slaves” are are giving support to a system that know was wrong.
As far as I know, I do not have slave-owning ancestors, but it is very possible that I do have some. In either case, it does not affect at all my personal feelings about the legacy of slavery in the USA. As I said, it is beside the point.
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To use the reference of having Irish ancestors that were victims of oppression as evidence prima facie to demonstrate that one is a brother in oppression to say, people of colour or modern day oppression victims is also quite specious.
Most Irish-Americans have ancestors that were oppressed in the US, esp. in 19th century. But soon afterwards the majority of Irish-Americans, in exchange to co-opt the privilege of whiteness, willingly became the element to enforce the racial hierarchy in the USA, e.g. by
– policing blacks
– cleansing the West of Chinese, Mexicans and Native Americans — the Irish were the ones who had trouble finding work, so they took it to themselves to make sure no one else could eke out an existence if they could not.
What an ingenious idea – avoid oppression by oppressing someone else while enforcing the racial hierarchy that is US Society.
I would argue that those Asian Americans who have amnesia about Asian American history and believe that they can be honorary whites (or at least non-black) under the model minority system are doing something that is not really all that different.
The maternal grandfather of my maternal grandmother was Irish. Yet it was likely Irish-Americans who lynched my Chinese paternal great-grandfather. Yet I don’t make calls to ancestors to reinforce my identity with modern day oppression. Likewise, I don’t need to claim that my ancestors did not lynch anyone to assuage any guilt about what happened either. I don’t feel guilty about anything, but I do want to call out what happened. To sweep it under the rug is spreading the lie that has been taught to us, one that I will not buy.
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Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, did a DNA test to discover that he is
– about 50% European
– that his Y-haplogroup points to Ireland.
It is very possible that Professor Gates and L of M share ancestors that came from Ireland.
Does that mean that they share a link to oppression because of what their ancestors experienced? Does Professor Gates feel a connection to oppressed people of colour through his Irish ancestors in the USA (or even prior oppression in Ireland under the British)?
That is a very curious thought.
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Lord of Mirkwood, it’s not about feeling personal guilt.
I doubt if many people expect Whites, generations away from slavery, to feel personally guilty for things done in their familial past that they totally disagree with, and don’t support.
I think it’s more a case of minorities wanting the SOCIETY to acknowledge the benefits gained by some by the oppression of others. And for the SOCIETY to act to correct those wrongs to the extent that they can be corrected. It’s not really about whether or not “your family” personally owned slaves. That is why it’s such a ridiculous argument.
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I thought this article was very interesting.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/liam-hogan/%E2%80%98irish-slaves%E2%80%99-convenient-myth
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I read the article and that’s not what I got from it. He’s calling out white racists to stop using what happened to the Irish to mute the addressing of anti-blackness and the perpetual underclass that chattel slavery created.
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“That still doesn’t answer the question. How is a beneficiary of white privilege oppressed?”
Point to kiwi especially in light of terms like ‘paddy wagon’
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How is this all related to the “My family never owned slaves” argument?
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Maybe the discussion of oppression of Irish Americans in the USA goes better with the Irish Americans post, which discusses that history.
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/irish-americans/)
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@LofM
Where did I allege that?
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That in no way suggests or imply that you attempted to disprove the existence of racism. I never alleged that and that was not the meaning in that sentence. It is unfortunate that you interpreted it to mean that.
I know that you admit and acknowledge the existence of racism. I never alleged that and that was not the meaning in that sentence. It is unfortunate that you interpreted it to mean that.
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Sorry for repeating myself., should be
That in no way suggests or imply that you attempted to disprove the existence of racism.
I know that you admit and acknowledge the existence of racism. I never alleged that and that was not the meaning in that sentence. It is unfortunate that you interpreted it to mean that.
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@Lord of Mirkwood irrespective of your perhaps affirmationistic angle? that i see, you should make all efforts when talking to black americans to keep all that in mind and how it’s different from your experience
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the lord of the rings is struggling with this tip
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sardonic
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@LofM
Actually, my meaning was almost the exact opposite. That is why I put “proving” in quotes, to make it a rhetorical statement. I guess I have to explain.
You made an assertion that your great-great- and great-grandparents were poor and oppressed, but your grandfather did well and now your family is relatively well off.
Most Americans, esp. white ones, will claim that your ancestors pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and now have descendants that are doing well in America. Your story would satisfy the confirmation principle to justify formulating a bootstrap myth in the first place.
However, you also assert the empathy that you share with POC because of the poverty and oppression faced by your ancestors, both in Ireland and in the USA. They are, in your eyes, brothers of oppression.
However, you acknowledge that your family got ahead while others were left behind. You are suggesting that the bootstrap does not work, and it might have something to do with racism. That is why my statement was a rhetorical one.
However, and a very big HOWEVER, you do not link how your empathy of shared oppression translates into what you can do TODAY for your oppressed brothers who got left behind. Do you just sit there and look back at them? This is not only a white thing. Upper middle class blacks often leave their poorer cousins behind. Even striving middle class blacks (police are the notorious case) will beat down the backs of those below them just to make sure they don’t sink back.
This leads to the flip side of the bootstrap myth. Many whites got ahead on the backs of blacks and other POC. The bootstrap myth in general is just a myth, but for the proportion that did pull themselves up by the bootstraps, they did it at a cost of leaving the racial hierarchy of the USA perfectly intact.
So my rhetorical statement was written “Congratulations for “proving” the bootstrap theory.”, but the meaning is more close to “OK, your family pulled themselves out of poverty and oppression, what are you going to do for your “brothers of oppression” that got left behind?”
Finally, as I mentioned and Kiwi did to some extent, Irish-Americans are notorious in US history for forming that layer between the oppressors and the oppressed to keep that system in line and to curry favour with the Anglo Americans in charge. Before the Civil war, they were in the field overseeing slaves and in the slave patrols (even if they did not own slaves themselves). After the civil war, perhaps to escape being in the paddy wagon themselves, they became the force to police the others, which later focused on blacks. In the West, the Irish were more than happy to cleanse the population of Mexicans, Native Americans and Chinese as it meant more space and opportunity for them. Oppressed by the Anglos, they eagerly became their lapdog when it came to oppressing others.
I will also not hesitate to admit that, for Asian Americans who buy into the Model Minority myth, they are at risk of becoming the lapdogs of whites to oppresses other POC too.
I am not saying all Irish-Americans were like this. Some Irish-Americans are sympathetic to the oppressed and I have met some of them. But as far as the role they played in US history, if one is going to be proud of their Irish-American heritage, then they should be prepared to address the negative images they have not only as victims of Anglo oppression, but as agents to keep the racial hierarchy in place (ie, oppressing POC on behalf of white Anglos).
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OMG, Projection 😛
We have seen plenty of cases advocating that the Chinese go back to China, the blacks go back to Africa. Where did Chinese and blacks advocate that the Irish leave the USA go back to Ireland? After all, they were giving US citizenship to the Irish Americans.
There are a few cases of “reading while white” going on here, ie,
– when someone does something wrong, it is a case of a few bad apples
– “Irish Americans” do not mean ALL Irish Americans.
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/reading-while-white-this-blog/)
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/reading-while-white-history-and-news/)
If one is truly a brother in oppression, one would not feel any need to do that.
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I think the 2% figure is way low. It might represent the number of slaves owned by plantation owners but their were small farms all over the South that owned slaves and I don’t think that 2% reflects that.
Whites that say they didn’t own slaves may not know their own family history.
I’m related to William Wallace of Missouri who was the judge for the James gang. (Frank and Jesse James) He’s my great, great Uncle. It is also the same Wallace family that married Harry Truman. He wrote a book about his life and he goes into detail about being raised as a boy during the Civil war and included in that is the history of the slaves the Wallace family owned. The Wallace family came from Ireland but were protastant not catholic. Williams grand parents bought the first few slaves (3) in Kentucky and they had African names which makes me think they were newly arrived from Africa. Later his father would remarry and the women he married had her own slaves (2) that were added to the group. As Williams puts it “they never sold a slave south” so by the time of the civil war they owned about 15 slaves. Their slaves had children and they grew up to work on the family farm as slaves. Williams father was a Presbyterian minister but their main income came from raising draft horses and some live stock. When the Union army showed up they confiscated the family’s horses and live stock. The black families that the Wallaced owned were given a team of mules and a wagon, told to load their personal belongings and ordered to leave by the Union army. Williams says he never saw them again after that. After the war they moved to Liberty Mo. and started over.
Williams uses the “but we were good to our slaves” argument in his book. He goes to some length to give a “moral” argument for slavery and links it to Christianity even describing Chistinaity as “moral supremecy” his words.
When I get some time I’ll be posting up quotes from his book as I think it clearly shows white supremacy cloaked in Chistinaity.
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I do benefit from privilege, but I am not in control of ending it in my lifetime. Yet it is still almighty in social justice to see all white people (or any privileged people, but that’s a topic for another day) as lesser. It wouldn’t kill or even harm anyone involved with social justice to treat me like an equal instead of a cancer cell.
Evidence is anywhere where poc speak without fear and are not venting/ joking/ or are otherwise not saying what they mean, like some Tumblrs, and see what they say about white people and how they can overcome the criticisms.
Allies are much worse because I’m supposed to be friends with them yet they look down on me for wanting self-determinism. It is as if me controlling myself or being absoluted or having things for myself hurts anyone. Allies don’t have real problems in whatever they’re teaching, so why do they get to be uptight?
I am not to blame for other white people, even if I do what I can, why am I still treated like a paroled criminal? Besides, ONE white person acting out ruins my entire efforts and dooms me to forever being evil- both when I’m alive and long after I’ve died.
How is it white tears to want it to be an entitlement to be seen as an equal by social justice? Most who do are not involved with any social justice.
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Also, let’s say every white person paid reparations, there’d be a few problems:
1. Social justice STILL wouldn’t forgive us, despite it not being our choice either.
Saying I should pay for the sins of my cohorts because you do is like saying I shouldn’t go to the hospital when I break my arm because poc suffer much worse and the hospital could be caring about them instead.
2. Plenty of whites are poor and the wealth didn’t go squarely into one person or evenly across all white people. Why should we pay the same amount?
3a. If everyone gave the actual amount owed, then every white person would live in poverty and therefore danger. Why is the Shammai (a Jewish scholar) ideology of believing that house should be torn down for want of beam, popular?
3b. Nobody deserves to live like Bill Gates (including Bill Gates), no matter how much one has innovated, suffered, or cared. In a perfect world, everyone would be middle class not upper class.
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@ Uriel
It seems you are asking me to uphold an end of an argument I never made. Quote something I said and take issue with that or ask questions about it.
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@ Uriel
I disagree. More people would be middle class while fewer people would be extremely rich or extremely poor. Which is as it should be any way. Most people in the US have no idea how rich the country is. That has been proved by polls. Ordinary people only see the trickle down. That is why raising the minimum wage never seems to bring the apocalypse.
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@ Uriel
This is like many of your comments – making me defend stuff I never said. That is why you should quote something I said and take issue with that.
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Whilst I dislike the ‘wailing at the moon’ approach (you can ask for all the reparations you want – you’re not going to get it, and even if you got reparations, you would still be in a White Empire and all the other problems affecting the ‘other’ would still exist), I just had to quote what you wrote.
I think it is a point to emphasise.
A lot of people are not aware of the amount of wealth the White Empire possesses.
The amount of Old Money that sits idly in closed off quiet suburbs of Europe is mind boggling.
As many know, wealth generates wealth.
Such is the capitalist system.
Looking at GDP levels (a measure of economic wealth – nominal at current USD exchange rates):
USA: 17.3 Trillion USD
EU: 18.6 Trillion USD
African Americans: 1.1 Trillion (predicted) USD
African Continent: 2.39 TrillionUSD
Thus we have:
White vs Black
35.9 vs 3.49
Practically a perfect 10 to 1 ratio.
In other words,
Acquire capital.
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@Uriel
I presume you are White. The Laws of the Game are useful to all people.
Do not seek acceptance.
Remember Law 11:
11 – All Empires commit atrocities. If you want the Empire to be Black, be very careful what you wish for. The conscience of the victim is always cleaner than that of the victor.
When the Empire is Black, and the Black Empire commits atrocities against your grand children, will you still be seeking acceptance?
If you are not racist, you don’t need to prove it to anyone. Live your truth.
Treat everyone with respect. You cannot be blamed for what soldiers of the White Empire did. You are not a player but a civilian.
The Game favoured you. You are currently a resident of the victorious Empire. You get to live a life of tranquility. Cherish it, your grandchildren may not get the same opportunity.
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@I agree. I apologize for doing this and it won’t happen again. The explanation for why it happened is because I’m used to seeing similar excuses.
I’ll follow up by tomorrow.
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@Somali Prince
Does an empire, as opposed to a federation, have to exist? I agree with Abagond in that nobody or no joined group deserves ultimate power (“It would be better if we were all a minority.”).
I really doubt empires of any form are a given of society.
@Abagond
I take back what I said about it putting whites in poverty, I wasn’t completly sure of the amount by whites everywhere, so I assumed it was incredibly large like a quadrillion or more. And I didn’t know how much money is on the planet nor how much Whitelandia has.
Apologies. Won’t do it again.
@Kiwi
When I say this I don’t mean to say I’m perfect at anti-racism or can’t possibly know right from wrong. I am trying to see where I messed up.:
What did/ do I say that makes you think I want whites to be on top, let alone anyone else?
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@Uriel
For that, you would have to argue that America is currently not behaving as an Empire.
What would you say to the refugees of Afghanistan, of Iraq, of Syria?
It is a typical belief of the White Person that he/she lives in a beautifully pleasant liberal democracry and that the deaths that its Empire causes from beyond its wall are nothing more than 5 minute segment on the evening news.
Many European Nations have the belief that they are no longer imperialistic and that they are now the ‘good’ guys.
Tell me, if the behemoth that was the American military was not there to assure your protection, do you think your pristine utopian societies would not have already been bombed to smithereens?
@Kiwi
Under a White Empire, White Privilege will always exist.
In other words, racial equality will never exist.
Name me one Empire where racial equality has existed.
I source my words from historical precedents, you source your words from where? The Idealism that the Empire has taught you?
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@Somali Prince
I did not say America was that federation. I didn’t even say America was good or ever has been. I was asking if you think empires will always exist.
Also, why do you have to talk down to everyone? Do you have to talk like you’re some omniscient alien rather than a plain human like the rest of us?
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@Uriel
I will give it to you, that made me chuckle. I was about to say: “Perhaps I am an alien, would that change your assessment of my argument?”
But, I agree, that would be pushing it.
Your statement was:
And through my question – that, with reflection, was somewhat pompous – I was basically stating that empires will always exist.
In other words, I believe that all nations, given the opportunity, would eventually become Empires.
The internal setup of the Empire may differ (republican, constiutional monarchy, communist etc.).
But if a nation is strong enough, it will eventually exhibit imperialistic tendencies.
The reason why nations like Switzerland, Luxembourg etc. do no exhibit these tendencies is that they know they do not have the strength to. Instead, they choose to live in peaceful coexistence with the dominant Empire of the day.
When the Nazis were dominant, the Swiss accepted this fact. When the Americans were dominant, the Swiss accepted this fact.
I think nations like to change the appellation of what they are doing (exporting democracy, humanitarian intervention etc.) to confuse people as to what they are actually doing, but when you look beneath the surface, it is just good ol’ Empire-Building.
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@Kiwi
China did not have racial equality (it viewed its vassal states as inferiors).
Ancient Israel did not have racial equality.
Many would argue that modern Israel still does not have racial equality.
The Ottoman Empire did not have racial equality, although many would argue it did – the same people who argue that the Armenian genocide never happened.
The German Empire did not have racial equality. The British Empire did not have racial equality.
The Chinese currently do not have racial equality (the Han discriminate against the non-Han).
The Japanese Empire was one of the most racist Empires to exist.
Rome did not have racial equality.
Greece did not have racial equality.
Ancient Egypt did not have racial equality (we have all heard of the story of the Israelites right?).
But I could go on forever. Instead, I give you a quote from the Edict of the Aediles dating back approx. 2,000 years:
If that does not prove that racism was a common theme in all of recorded history, then what will?
Or, are you, as many have before you, falling into Rousseau’s trap and idealising the past?
If we (Blacks) do not want to be the dominated group, then we must become the dominant group.
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Where do you get this stuff from? When I say White, we all know that I am referring to the current dominant ethnicity in the USA and the EU: White people.
Those same people that this blog has dozens and dozens of articles about.
I simply stated that each Empire has a dominant ethnicity that self identifies as such. Why would any ethnicity rever another?
They rever themselves.
It doesn’t really matter if they are Whites who call themselves Romans, or Whites who call themselves Greek.
The Romans and Greeks could be Black for all I care.
Like I said: “Racism belongs to inferior minds”.
I am just observing historical precedents.
I am not even sure you know what you are arguing right now.
I didn’t ‘assign’ a race to any Empire. The Empires themselves are defined by their dominant race. When you think of the Chinese, you think of Han people. When you think of Japanese, you think of the dominant Japanese ethnic group. When I say British, you think of the WASP etc.
Are you not the one putting up straw men in places I never placed them?
How is my reasoning ‘circular and self-contradictory’?
Do you even know what circular reasoning means?
I made the premise that there has never been an Empire with racial equality.
You made the premise that there has been.
I listed examples to disprove this.
And now you are saying my reasoning is ‘circular and self-contradictory’?
Not only are you building up strawmen to stop yourself from sinking into the hole you dug for yourself, but you’re clutching at the very same straws you used to build them.
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@Kiwi
Are you purposely misunderstanding everything that I write? Did I write something that offended you and now you have set out to avenge your pride?
When did I ever say Rome was a White Empire? There is only one White Empire, the one we are living under. The Romans viewed themselves as exactly that, Romans. What do Westerners view themselves as? White.
I notice you finally wrote a long post, did you detect a weakness and thought it was time to go in for the kill?
Well, let me flip it back on you.
The Northern Europeans currently rever the Greeks? How do you explain the current Financial Repression Germany, the IMF and the Euro Group have been exacting on Greece?
The Roman Empire and the Greek Empire no longer exist.
Are we clear on that? I just really want to make sure you are aware that these two Empires no longer exist.
White people have used Ancient Antiquity to build up their own identity.
That is why Washington DC has so many buildings reminiscent of Antiquity.
That is the process of ethnogenesis I have been referring to.
Just like the Chinese like to say that they are descendants of the Yellow Emperor, White people like to say that they are descendants of Antiquitiy, they use that to solidify their claim to superiority.
Which basically proves my arguments (you have to give this up now Kiwi).
A lot of White people believe that they are superior because they are descendants of the ‘great’ civilized nations of antiquity.
Thus the whole ‘White Man’s Burden’ thing.
The Japanese used a similar concept when they tried to colonise large parts of Asia.
It does not mean the dominant group (let’s just call them WASPS for short) are currently prostrating themselves beneath the altar of another living ethnicity.
Does it?
The rest of it, I can’t even be bothered to deal with.
You are somehow trying to get around my basic premise that all Empires are governed by a dominant ethnicity and that racial equality has never existed in these Empires.
You are doing that by digging up holes in all sorts of places.
You basically want to ask the White Man for reparations and hope that one day, the White Man will view you as equal.
Racism is one of the flaws that Players in the Game commit.
They believe they are superior and this leads to their downfall.
White South Africans thought ‘Blacks can’t possibly do what we do’, this lead to their downfall.
Racism is one of the reasons why the ‘Theory of Chaos and Perpetual-F*ck-Ups’ predicts than an Empire’s dominance will always be temporary.
The White Empire committed the same mistake by underestimating the Chinese.
Pride always comes before the fall. Rome was eventually overrun by the very Barbarians it looked down upon.
As usual, Study the Game.
With that, I’m out.
And Remember,
I’m a Prince, a Somalian one at that.
I am not new-black, I am not neo-black, I prefer the term super-black.
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@ Somali Prince
Race is based mainly on physical appearance. The very fact that the Edict of Aediles required sellers to state the natio of slaves shows that it was not apparent from one’s appearance and therefore unlikely to be racial at all.
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@ Somali Prince
Being Roman was not based on language, religion, race or ethnicity. It was based on citizenship. St. Paul was both a Jew and a Roman.
Also emperors came from all over. Soldiers had no trouble marrying local women. Etc. it was not a racialized society.
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@Abagond
I have been using a loose definition of race and ethnicity to be whatever the group self-defined itself as. I think the Romans identified as exactly that: Romans (not White). The Greeks identified as Greeks. The Egyptians as Egyptians etc.
This kind of ‘kumbaya’ approach that Europeans have adopted (‘we’re all white’) is, I think, a relatively new thing.
But that detracts from the main point.
As I stated earlier, I care little for the definition of race or ethnicity, I care more for the fact that the dominant group self identifies as something and that it inevitably applies the othering process to other groups.
It therefore inevitably believes itself to be superior to the other group which enables itself to more easily rationalise the massacre and enslavement of these other groups.
Abagond, you have spoken of this process yourself in your article about Genocide.
Surely, the quote from the Edict proves that some groups were deemed better than others.
That individuals who purchased slaves preferred slaves from certain locations over other locations.
As mentioned previously, they could all be White or they could all be Black, the point is that the quote clearly discriminated different groups.
I.e. Romans might have preferred a White Germanic Slave to a White Britannic slave (for whatever reason).
Again, I am using the term ‘White’ as an anachronism.
So perhaps I should have said: group-equality has never existed, or ethnic-equality has never existed.
Or, in other words, the dominant group has always distinguished itself from other groups.
Or, in other words, as long as we are not the dominant ethnicity of the current Empire, we will always be treated as ‘other’.
I have no idea why this point is so contentious.
We see racial, or ethnic, or group, discrimination (whatever you want to call it) infront of our eyes daily, yet refuse to accept that it occurred historically?
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Ok, so take the group definition to be one based on citizenship. It doesn’t change the fact that citizens of Rome viewed themselves as being superior to non-citizens.
If we want to get into Rome specifically, then Rome was more a society based on status discrimination.
You were treated according to your social class.
Citizens at the top, barbarians at the other end.
I think the reason this point is proving contentious is that you are assuming that I am adopting the White Supermacist argument
‘Racism always happened. Deal with it.’
While in actual fact what I am arguing is this:
The current White Empire has committed the sin of many previous Empires by ‘othering’ its minority groups and treating them as subhuman.
They have bred discontent and as a result will, eventually, suffer the consequences (as many Empires before it have).
We will eventually establish our own Empire that will overrun the current Empire.
When the Empire is Black, in order to make it a long lasting Empire, we would have to be careful not to commit the sins of previous Empires.
Either way, once the Empire is Black and it surpasses all other Empires, they will no longer be able to undermine our history again.
TL;DR Racism/Xenophobia is the cause many Empires fall. The current Empire will fall for the same reasons and we will, eventually, replace it.
Also, I am moving the Game of Empires to a new website, wordpress offers too little freedom.
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@ Somali Prince
“I have no idea why this point is so contentious.”
Because you are not using words with their right meanings. Or you are moving goal posts. That is why it is contentious. YOU are the one who used the words “racial” and “racist” and are now trying to run away from it. We are just reading what you wrote.
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@Abagond
I should have stated that I was using loose definitions. What else do you want to call it? Xenophobia, group think, tribalism? It all comes down to the same thing for me: othering
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What a disgusting article. This is one of those “white people need to be pay reparations for black people” blogs isn’t it?
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I’ll tell y’all something. Most whites did not own slaves, most of them didn’t have the means to do so. But those whites of wealth and means did and the rest of em sat back and quietly reaped the benefits pretended the issue didn’t exist. But most white people use that excuse to hid their own racism and bigotry. But one thing that is not talked about is the effect of slavery on American society today. The continued income and wealth gaps, the education gaps, and income gaps. Black people have moved light years chattel slavery on every level but there are still lingering effects of slavery on the psyche of black people in America and the Western Hemisphere. The suttle rivalry between light skinned and dark skinned blacks, the poor diet amongst many in the black community especially in the South, and much internalized self hatred due to slavery and the psychological abuse that came with it reinforced by acts of extreme violence. And also what made blacks hate themselves was the images of ourselves we have been fed since slavery and even long after and the fact that being black, your life was such hell and filled with extreme poverty, misery, abuse, and vicious discrimination and misstreatment. These things have created a sense of self hate amd low self esteem in our people. No way can a people who have systematically been literally beaten and abused and told that they were inferior feel good about themselves. Civil Rights and the social, educational, and economic gains over the next five decades have offset much of the effects of slavery and Jim Crow on our minds and our lives as black people in America but the mental and spiritual scars of those dark periods are still there. Cause whenever a group of people are enslaved and brutalized in every way imaginable for hundreds of years there are going to be lasting and permanent effects of this on the psyche as well as their social and economic standing for generations to come. But I won’t accept that as excuse for black people not doing nothing with their lives and wasting their futures away with a lifetime of bad choices. If your gonna out and break the law and get caught and go to jail, I have no sorrow for you. You get no sympathy from me. I will not support anyone in wrongdoing, not one bit. White people have to look at their past and change their present attitudes and behaviors and not repeat the cycle and we as black people must continue to progress and move forward and not allow ourselves to use the past as a crutch or an excuse to stay stagnant. You aint nobody’s victim unless you choose to be.
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“You aint nobody’s victim unless you choose to be.”
.
@ Coombs
I’ll be sure to pass on your ‘sage’ last words to 12 years old Tamir Rice, if I should run into him after I pass over …
I’m certain Tamir and I (among others) will both see that everything comes down to a personal choice – like that WHITE man who once told me a long time ago: “Africans chose to get on those slave ships. They could have done otherwise. There’s no such thing as a victim.”
smh
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The article states, “On top of that millions of whites came to America long after the slaves were freed, like most Italians and Jews.”..European, Dutch and Spanish Ashkenazi and Sepharic Jews were major owners of slave trading companies and charter slave boat companies and their wealth afforded them the opportunity to own slaves and plantations in the south. Charleston, S.C. Jewish slave owners built a major slave era Synagogue for the Jewish aristocracy in Charleston , held high positions and were very active in the Dutch, British, Spanish, Carribbean and American slave trade.
http://www.rense.com/general69/invo.htm
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Dan is right. There aren’t many pages left that define history of slavery here. pridecomethbeforeafall wordpress has a page on irish slaves, and this black man has a very good page, search wethoughttheywerewhite weebly. The truth is being erased. Ignorance has a cost. An easier way to inform others about history without having to explain it all is put links on notes to hand out.
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http://south-carolina-plantations.com/beaufort/honey-horn.html
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On second thought pridecomethbefore site pushes religion, censors comments etc. Best is – wethoughttheywerewhite.weebly.com – on jews behind black slavery, on white slavery see educate-yourself.org history white slavery jewish traders. May want to copy pages to disk, many true history pages seem to be disappearing.
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[…] From Abagond post published 2/24/2014: […]
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Next October the largest country in Latin America (and South America), Brazil, goes to Presidential elections. With the leftist and former President Lula da Silva in prison, the candidate with more chances to win is Jair Bolsonaro.
In a recent interview by TV Cultura Bolsonaro argues that the execrable commerce of slaves from Africa to the Americas, was to blame mainly to the negroes, because they are the ones who sold the slaves to the European. He continued saying that to the Portuguese can not be ascertained any blame because “The Portuguese did not even touch Africa, it was the negroes who delivered the slaves”
Wow!!! What a pearl of knowledge of mankind’s history!
And the illustrious candidate ended answering the question if modern society owes or not a historical debt to the descendants of the slaves: “Historical debt? I never slaveed anyone in my life.”
Needles to say that he opposes “the quota system” devised years ago by the Brazilian left to help some segments of the Black and/or poor population to have access to tertiary education.
Black clouds looming on the horizon for Black Brazil!
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@ munubantu
“…the Portuguese can not be ascertained any blame because “The Portuguese did not even touch Africa, it was the negroes who delivered the slaves”
Hmm, that would be news to the people of Angola and Mozambique. The heroic Queen Nzinga of the Mbundu people would likely respond with a grim smile. The Mbundu, of modern day Angola fought a 30 year war with the rapacious Portuguese to keep them from enslaving their people.
Jessica Snethen of the BlackPast.org site notes the highlights of Queen Nzinga’s struggle with the Portuguese:
http://www.blackpast.org/gah/queen-nzinga-1583-1663
Abagond’s 2016 post on Queen Nzinga speaks to the Portuguese fever for African slaves from her territories:
The Portuguese were definitely in Africa and got their hands (and everything else) very dirty in their quest for slaves.
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“”What debt of slavery? I never enslaved anyone in my life,” the former Army captain said in an interview on TV Cultura late on Monday. “Look, if you really look at history, the Portuguese didn’t even step foot in Africa. The blacks themselves turned over the slaves.” – Jair Balsonaro, 7.31.2018
This guy, Balsonaro, is such a buffoon and a historical revisionist of record proportion. Following his line of thinking, it would be the same thing if the defensive and offensive units the losing team of a Super Bowl game began blaming each other as who contributed the most in terms of not winning the game. It really doesn’t matter, both offensive and defensive units played as a team and loss as a team.
The same thing applies to the centuries old idea of denying culpability regarding slavery. It’s not only who “turned over the slaves”, but including what group of people that willingly accepted them in order to financially benefit as well.
Slavery was a team effort, such as it is with football, therefore, those who “handed” them over is just as guilty, if not more so in terms of today’s economic plight of the direct descendants of those enslaved, because those who accepted did not have to do so; nor were they coerced.
Slavery was quite a lucrative industry. So much so, even today in 2018, quite a large swath of corporate Amerika’s wealth is connected to the free, but laborious task of chattel slavery.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-31/brazil-candidate-bolsonaro-minimizes-slavery-praises-trump
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To the abusers of this argument: this one is absurd. It is like saying, “My great-grandfather was not a slave owner, so he did not rape any slaves (ie.. do anything bad)”. However, what the overarching argument assumes is that like the modern “Who is racist?” game is what is deemed irreprehensible by modern morality metrics. Surely, being apart of the lynch mob was deplorable, but sitting on your porch as it happened was not any better. Did White women who watch Black female slaves get raped knowingly become the epitome of sanctity? No, they may have even been vengeful and scornful about it. Did Germans who watched docilely not receive condemnation for their acceptance of the murdering of Jews? No, they were just concerned about not being the ones to get into the chambers. In fact, there is a story based on the Holocaust that makes a bold claim about the morality of Germans who allowed it to happen: https://www.amazon.com/Terrible-Things-Holocaust-Eve-Bunting/dp/0827605072. Although Whites did not end up being slaughtered as were Black people and FN people and Asian people, it says a lot about their lack of morals. Just because there is a stigma associated with going against the status quo, does not mean that someone is cleared of his malignancy. Still, I would think that if you did not own slaves, you could actually still rape them, which was done. You could still beat Black men. You could whip Black children. You could lynch Black people. You could commit any atrocity against Black bodies, as was done through Jim Crow, without the bat of an eye on account of the law. Even women during Jim Crow were raped by men who did not own slaves, such as Recy Taylor and Gertrude Perkins. But more importantly, no one ever said that you owned them, so why even use this argument?
@Dan: please read above. You clearly do not get that not owning slaves did not make the deplorability any better. There were a plethora of Jewish slave owners, but does that mean that all of them were Jews? When freed even at the time of slavery’s reign of terror on Black people, they could be denied service, shot, raped, etc. because Black bodies were not good enough to be protected. Were all of those “wonderful” people who did those things Jews? No, and this was embodied in Jim Crow regardless of class– for example, Ruby McCollum and Sam Cooke.
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It’s interesting to trace back the source of all this bullshit in Nov 2020. You were one of the chief architects of both Donald Trump getting elected in the first place and 2020 in general whether you like it or not.
This is your conceit coming to fruition.
The chief fallacy you are refusing to admit is this: No individual is responsible for the behavior of another. Ever. It makes no difference if they benefited or got fucked by it, they’re still not responsible. To claim otherwise means you have a magical understanding of cause and effect. The “You benefited from it” fallacy is not only impossible to prove but again assumes that you’re just so God-Damn smart you understand the chain of cause and effect perfectly and know in a way that can’t be questioned things you could never possibly know even if you really were as smart as you pretend to be.
Another fallacy you seem completely blind to is that you can’t speak to the intentions of others. You don’t know ‘why’ they say what they say, but repeatedly claim to know why they did X with saying things like:
How do you pretend to know the intentions of others? Arrogance and narcissism is how. I can tell you think very highly of yourself and your intelligence. It’s also very noteworthy that the second part of this paragraph of this statement seems to contradict your premise entirely since you’re both saying that modern living people should be held responsible not only for the decisions of long dead people but that the sole identifier for this ‘group responsibility’ is skin color. We get skin color through our families do we not?, that is something we genuinely inherit and we have no control over that. Your suggestion that somehow this inverse is true is idiotic to say the least; it is you suggesting that history is only to be interpreted though our families. This is of course, wishful thinking, you do not understand basic cause and effect or free-will. As a physicist, I could tell you all about ‘entropy’ but I doubt you could follow it. I barely get it myself.
America is the country that went to war to end slavery. My Irish Great-great-grandfather fled starvation, came here, and then dies fighting for the north in the 22nd Illinois cavalry to free the slaves, leaving a widow and 4 daughters to fend for themselves. (Are any of you into the myth of ‘patriarchy’?) My great-grandmother got married at 14. Wow we really profited from all that systemic racism didn’t we? This isn’t a fallacy that your delusions can somehow magically convert to racism, it’s a raw human truth. It’s a provable fact, that fucking happened and no there was no benefit to my family for doing so. Do you know where ‘the shores of Tripoli’ comes from in the marines song? Our first non-revolt war was fought against Arabs who enslaved at least an order of magnitude MORE people than the sum total of Europe ever did. Yes that includes Rome. You want reparations, Saudi Arabia is your target. No other country, besides England, has spent it’s treasure and actually weakened it’s own position in the world for the sole purpose of ending an institution of oppression on idealistic and religious grounds that was undeniably ubiquitous from the beginning of history. This is because humans are flawed creatures, and I will be so bold as to call it the ‘human’ race, where you cowards will probably not.
Africa itself remains a slaver’s paradise even now. Where do you think the Arabs look for slaves? Africa and the caucuses. (There are videos on you tube that you can watch that show Arab women talking about how great it would be to have a blonde Russian slave for their husband to channel his aggression into). I can prove this if needed. It turns out that Africans are actually afraid of African-Americans returning and realizing that it is they, those who are still there, that sold their ancestors to Europeans to get rid of them. Selfishness is a human trait that has nothing to do with your racist conception of ‘whiteness’.
Are you so racist that you think some pasty Dutchman with no resistance to malaria or other diseases went crusading through Africa to round up black skinned people and sell them to Americans? Did you ever stop to ask yourself why ‘whiteness’, couldn’t advance beyond South Africa on the African continent? There’s already a book that explains this, it’s called “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond. It’s a humanist book, so you probably wouldn’t like it.
I never voted Republican in my life until this election, and I am quite frankly nauseated by Republicans. Now I see Dems are not only equally racist, and equally sexist, BUT MORE SO. You people make me sick. I have no party now. You sexist racists disgust me more than lying murdering Republicans do because you think you are good and you think you’re righting past wrongs…you’re not and you can’t because you can never fully understand what they were.
Dems are more racist than (what I used to call ‘Connies’) because you pay no attention whatsoever to free-will, no attention to cause and effect. The individual is not a part of your narrative, only group-think. You ACTIVELY denounce objectivity and empiricism. Why? This was ‘our’ (The educated liberals of twenty years ago) greatest advantage, and now it’s just ‘whiteness’? You committed suicide when you did that.
Fuck you. I couldn’t be more proud of my Irish and Quaker heritage now, in part because of your narcissistic blog. When my inner daemon tells me you’re ignorant and uneducated, I first appreciate the irony and then I think I should listen to it. I know how binary trees work, do you? You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great grandparents, and every generation increases by a factor of two. It doesn’t take very long to see where this goes, we all relate to a small number of ancestors.
The fact is, there is no ‘white people’. There is no ‘black people’. You literally constructed that socially, and the gay and trans people understand why I say that. That isn’t a natural construct, but a narrative you are creating. Yes you can contrive such a meaningless classification based on superficial half-truths, but that’s on you. There are only humans, and I can’t imagine how you might prove otherwise to someone who understands genetics and the scientific method and went to grad school to perfect this understanding.
If you’re constantly framing all information in terms of the skin color of the individuals involved in the story, if the morality of any given action is determined by this skin color, maybe it’s you who are racist.
(Follow up: Do you know what ‘an order of magnitude’ means? Do you understand mathematics? Do you understand that objective truth is real and exists? Do you understand how if you play out your own ideology to its extreme that your children will be condemned for your narcissism?
Do you?)
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There is so much wrong with your post that I will just touch one point.
You wrote:
“Whites want to benefit from their ugly past…”
Let’s be clear on one thing… Whites never owned slaves in the past. That would be like me saying that Blacks are lazy theives. That is blatantly false. Blacks are definitely not lazy theives. But wait… some are. But, It is inaccurate to characterize an entire group based upon a small minority in that group. A small minority of whites owned slaves.
Let’s be more acurate. Souther whites owned slaves. That would be more accurate but we can still do better. Southern white Democrats owned slaves. Now, I don’t know the exact breakdown in percentages but we do know that the Republican party was against slavery and the Democratic Party was for slavery. So instead of saying whites on slaves it would be better to say either Southern White Democrats owned slaves or Democrats on slaves. Since the north never allowed slavery and the Republican Party fought against slavery your hatred for any white Northerners the past or present is totally unjustified.
White Northerners, especially Republicans are more responsible than any other people group in defending blacks and their freedoms and ending slavery in United States. Do blacks owe reparations to northern white Republicans? By your logic they do.
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I have ancestors that were enslaved by the Holy Roman Empire any idea when I can expect a check from the Italian government?
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