John Trudell of the Santee Sioux talks about one of the founding truths of America, on why white people have a hard time seeing others as human beings (the bolding, italics and division into paragraphs are mine):
When Columbus got off the boat, he asked us who we were. We said we’re the Human Beings, we’re the People.
Conceptually the Europeans didn’t understand that, it was beyond their conceptual reality. They didn’t see us. They couldn’t see who we were.
Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. It’s five hundred years later and they still can’t see us. We are still invisible.
They don’t see us as human beings, but we’ve been saying to them all along that’s what we are.
We are invisible to them because we are still the Human Beings, we’re still the People, but they will never call us that. They taught us to call ourselves Indians, now they’re teaching us to call ourselves Native Americans. It’s not who we are. We’re the People.
They can’t see us as human beings. But they can’t see themselves as human beings. The invisibility is at every level, it’s not just that we’re tucked away out of sight. We’re the evidence of the crime. They can’t deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with the reality of what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren’t.
So they have to fear us, not recognize us, not like us.
The very fact of calling us Indians creates a new identity for us, an identity that began with their arrival. Changing identity, creating a new perceptual reality, is another form of genocide. It’s like severing a spiritual umbilical cord that reaches into the ancestral past.
The history of the Indians begins with the arrival of the Europeans. The history of the People begins with the beginning of the history of the People.
The history of the People is one of cooperation, collectivity, and living in balance. The history of the Indians is one of being attacked and genocide, rather than a history of peace and balance. The history of the People under attack, the Indians, in an evolutionary context, is not very long, it’s only five hundred years.
The objective of civilizing us is to make Indian history become our permanent reality.
The necessary objective of Native people is to outlast this attack, however long it takes, to keep our identity alive.
White people are not racist because they do not know any better or because of some kind of natural us-and-them “tribalism”. It goes far deeper than that. To see people of colour as the human beings they truly are would mean whites would have to see themselves as they truly are – and deep down they know it is not pretty.
– Abagond, 2011.
See also:
it’s interesting that he is able to look at the situation from an evolutionary perspective, yet only so far as it serves his identity and world view.
Personally I think it would have been awesome if smallpox and influenza hadn’t wiped out so many of “The People” If it weren’t for that, they probably could have retained a very significant chunk of the Americas if not repelled European invasion altogether. Sadly, that’s not what happened. What happened is that a bunch of people came from one land mass to another and their germs killed the people who were already there. Germs and evolution could give a f*ck about culture, personality or ethnic pride/purity. Germs have been able to figure out something that alludes us for some reason, namely, the reality that we are all just people. Even if the Europeans of 500 years ago had been super awesome and saw the Natives as equals, the vast, vast, vast majority of Native people would have been totally wiped out anyway by European germs.
It seems to me going forward the best thing to do in terms of keeping your culture alive is to take all that stuff that native Americans understood about the world and “cooperation, collectivity, and living in balance.” and find ways to integrate that knowledge into the culture of the people living in America today because it’s really important valuable knowledge that is lacking in current day American culture.
“White people are not racist because they do not know any better or because of some kind of natural us-and-them “tribalism”. It goes far deeper than that. ”
No it doesn’t. all this guy did was describe “us-and-them tribalism” what is this something deeper? Seeing the other as not fully human is exactly what “us-and-them tribalism” is.
If you think white people are uniquely screwed up than that would make us not fully human in your eyes now wouldn’t it? pot-kettle-black.
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Excellent post!
The thing is that white americans KNOW they are just recent arrivals deep down inside. That is why when ever they come face to face with original american, they freak out one way or another. Either they get scared or over excited. And that is because somewhere inside a small voice is saying: this is that guys home land.
But, when I was in US back in 1980’s I noticed that many black americans reacted the same way with original people, the true natives. Once in Minnesota a good looking tall guy walked in to a store with braids and feather and the whole super market just froze. I mean everybody else just froze up and followed what this guy was going to do. Well, he bought a pack of cigarettes and walked out, and the rest were kind of relieved that he did not whoop, swing his tomahawk or take any scalps.
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“Seeing the other as not fully human is exactly what “us-and-them tribalism” is.”
Your logic is flawed because the historical evidence overwhelming illustrates how many different indigenous Americans initially WELCOMED and ASSISTED the European newcomers. If the indigenous people had an “us versus them” attitude, it was nowhere near the viciousness and guile possessed by the white settlers.
Whites are, generally speaking, screwed up. They possess the unique ability to NOT see and admit facts that are plain as day to most others. They have amazing powers of DENIAL… or cognitive dissonance. A serious mental/psychological disorder.
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I’ve never lived among many Native Americans, but from what I’ve gathered from people who have, they seem to be ill treated by both Whites AND Blacks. This from guys I knew who joined the army and ended up being posted in Missouri and Oklahoma.
On the other hand, historically there were many Blacks who married into indian tribes and had good relations with them particularly n the south.
I also agree with jas0nburns that White people are not uniquely screwed up. The problem is a human problem, currently being led primarily by White majority in the US. But we’re kidding ourselves, if we think that Blacks are equally capable of it.
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“Your logic is flawed because the historical evidence overwhelming illustrates how many different indigenous Americans initially WELCOMED and ASSISTED the European newcomers. ”
I’m aware of that, what does that have to do with what I said?
I’ve defined us vs. them tribalism as an inability to see the other as fully human. I did not state nor do I believe that all people will resort to tribalism at all times. So there is no conflict between your statement above and mine.
But I oppose the idea that us vs. them tribalism is unique to whites. The only thing that separates whites from everyone else is power. Peoples of European decent (through blind luck more than everything else) have historically possessed the technological power to enforce their prejudices upon others in a disproportionate way. That doesn’t make them more prejudiced or more personally flawed.
Do you think that if Ghengis Kahn had landed in North America (along with small pox) things would have gone down differently? The only difference is you’d be talking about how “screwed up” asians are. That is, unless you happened to be Asian of course 😉 Than you would know better right?
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“Whites are, generally speaking, screwed up.”
agreed, and so is everyone else generally speaking.
“They possess the unique ability to NOT see and admit facts that are plain as day to most others.”
What a person can or can’t see has more to do with perspective than flawed eyesight.
Although whites do generally seem to avoid dealing with or facing certain specific truths, rest assured we have no corner on the obtuseness market. all people are capable of being obtuse and tribalistic.
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But this Trudell guy is on point. For a much more complete idea of how
this guy thinks.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6571339670615446379
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@ Matari
Native Americans were not a monolith. There were some that were more peaceful and welcoming. There were also some who were attacking and enslaving one another and seeing other aboriginal tribes an “less than human.” (see Indian tribal wars)
If you go further south the Native Americans were conducting human sacrifices, building empires by war and subjugation, and oppressing smaller tribes, who had henceforth been living their own quiet lives.
No. The same tendencies that can be seen in White conquerors were also quite evident in Aboriginal conquerors before any Whites ever showed up. The “special case” for White people is a myth.
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Co-sign most of what jason is saying.
This type of talk essentially says “no WE’RE the real human beings, not those white folks.” It seeks to flip the (perceived) status of the two groups (in this case, indigenous peoples and white people), at least on some type of moral level. That’s no good because all that could ever accomplish is maintaining a moral racial hierarchy, merely flipped.
White people are people too. They’ve just been dominating the world for the last 600 years (which is really the blink of an eye, even for the super-short existence of our species.) They’re not uniquely degenrate, and what they’ve done would probably have been done by any number of other races or cultures who’d developed the technology they did, when they did, how they did.
I think it’s really important to remember that white world domination started with specific groups of white people coming to dominate other groups of white people *within* Europe, over the course of about 2 – 3000 years. During those times, people from one tribe viewed other tribes as being just as foreign. The word race originally just meant culture. If you read through the Greeks and Romans, they’re often describing the Gauls or the Germans or the Britons as another race.
To me, this is the problem with correlating moral superiority with historic oppression. People do this way too much because it leads to these logical missteps.
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“I think it’s really important to remember that white world domination started with specific groups of white people coming to dominate other groups of white people *within* Europe, over the course of about 2 – 3000 years.”
Excellent point.
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@ Matari
re “cognitive dissonance.”
“I do not think it means what you think it means”
-Inigo Mantoya
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So-called “Native American” peoples were engaging in atrocities and genocidal warfare for millennia prior to the arrival of European traders and settlers. The only difference I can see is that Europeans had the technology and immune resistance to conquer much greater territory. Morally, it’s a wash.
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@ Randy
Not exactly. It’s just that using race as the meridian line of moral division is incorrect. There were certainly immoral people groups who wronged more moral groups but the morality was not universally color coded.
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I wouldn’t say “it’s a wash” either. Remember that power corrupts.
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I think WP def have done some messed up sh*t. I don’t think it’s a good thing to try to distance ourselves completely from the ways in which we as WP represent that historic oppression, because most of us benefit from it today. Circumstances matter. The scale of destruction matters. Legacy matters. Unfair advantages matter.
On the other hand it’s also not a good thing to go too far to the other side and start pointing the finger at WP and saying that we are uniquely immoral or corrupt. That’s not realistic either. Like King said you just can’t draw a color line between moral and immoral. If you find yourself doing that you are guilty of that which you condemning in the first place no matter how great of an excuse you think you have.
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The native guys I met and hang around with back in the 80’s did not act holier than holy nor they pretented that all nations and all individuals were nice guys and nature loving hippie freaks. Not then nor hundreds of years earlier. But thing was, which I saw myself, that almost everyone else was somehow very uncormfortable with these guys.
And it was their land, weather they acted nice or not, and it was taken away from them. And they were almost wiped out purposely, actively by the US goverment. White newcomers tried to wipe out their religions, languages, cultures etc. Even in the 1960’s they had an native sterilisation programme going on. So I guess these guys have somekind of a right to moarn and bitch a little about they have been treated by newcomers.
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Excellent post. I can easily see where Mr. Trudell is coming from…
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I find the “it was their land” argument rather ironic considering that native tribes encountered by the Europeans in N. America had themselves enslaved and/or exterminated the previous tribe, who themselves had enslaved and/or exterminated the previous tribe, etc etc.
One could potentially argue that the Europeans were the most humane of all N. American residents, being the first not to hack, burn, or flay alive the previous occupants to the last man.
Mesoamerican tribes practiced human sacrifice on an industrial scale, including that of children, where inflicting maximum suffering prior to death was considered beneficial.
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Hitler was kinda right, just didn’t kill enough white people
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a) Most Native American tribes did not follow that policy.
b) Some European campaigns against the indians did just that.
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Hello jas0nburns
—————————–
re “cognitive dissonance.”
“I do not think it means what you think it means”
—————————–
LOL – Imagine my shock – that your patronizing, condescending, smug, white-like privileged commentary is – well, silly – or meaningless. You need not confuse yourself with what I think it means. The two words stand well all by themselves. However, if you’re confounded regarding my statement, I invite you to pick up a dictionary, or simply Google “cognitive dissonance” as it pertains to whites as a group. You should know that I don’t require a white (or any other) person’s validation regarding the accuracy of my observations. We’re all entitled to state or share our opinions here, regardless how ludicrous some of them may be – or seem. That said, I will add that I share approximately 98.5% of the opinions the owner of this blog writes on the subject of race. And for what it’s worth, I believe (sadly) he’s dead on the money with this post. : ))
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Matari, I may be white and I may be condescending and even smug, but that has nothing to do with the fact that you didn’t use the term cognitive dissonance properly, or at least you mistyped your sentence because…
“They have amazing powers of DENIAL… or cognitive dissonance. A serious mental/psychological disorder.”…
doesn’t make any sense if cognitive dissonance is defined as “A discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. ”
It’s neither a power nor a disorder because it’s something everyone experiences quite often, or should. Denial could be something someone engages in to relieve cognitive dissonance, or they could choose to re-evaluate their beliefs, but the dissonance itself is not a form of denial.
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@randy: “One could potentially argue that the Europeans were the most humane of all N. American residents, being the first not to hack, burn, or flay alive the previous occupants to the last man.”
Well, actually the most humane europeans did try to do precisely that in most places they went. Starting from the east coast. There are numerous examples.
Ever heard Sand Creek? Yeah, those most humane europeans killed a whole village of indians there and mind you, these were all so-called peaceful indians who had made a treaty with the whites. They were in a place pointed to them, living like they were told to, and they were killed.
Well, actually they were not just killed. The most humane europeans cut off childrens heads, legs and arms, mens and womens genitalia, and carried them as trophys to the next white town where all the most humane europeans celebrated this magnificent achievement of the european humanity. Genitalia were pinned on hats and chests and heads and limbs were carried in pikes and bayonets. What a most humane thing, right?
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@prudchocolategirl: Yes. One native said to me once that there would be totally different kind of reception if there would be a team in NFL calling itself Alabama Black N*****s.
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jas0nburns, you seem to imply that there was in fact no genocide of indigenous people, and that they all died of foreign diseases. Many of them did die of disease, but please do not deny that an intentional effort was made by the colonial government and then the US government to essentially make American Indians non-existant. They were killed in ambushes, forced off their lands continuously, and eventually pushed onto resource-less reservations to become wards of the government. There were many, many massacres. Those that did not die from outright murder were often killed through starvation and deprivation. Children were often forcibly removed from their families and placed in boarding schools where they were severely abused all for the sake of “assimilation”. If this were happening anywhere in the world now we would cry out “injustice” if not outright genocide.
I don’t see anything in the exerpt above stating that white people are singularly evil or solely capable of wrong doing. I think it recognizes the history of whites and the indigenous in this country, which has long involved consciously attempting to rid the country of a strong indigenous presence. Now, many people don’t even realize that significant populations of Indians exist, which I guess was the plan all along.
I am kind of disappointed in your comments here as a long time reader of the blog. You tend to understand the deeper context behind posts on race and not just react with the typical derailing tactics i.e.”They did it too! We’re not all bad! You’re just causing more division!” I think you completely missed the meaning of the Trudell’s words.
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Randy:
You are assuming that most people in most times and places were just as violently racist as White Americans. That is just not so. White Americans are among the most genocidal people in history. Their us-and-them “tribalism” is far more dehumanizing and far more violent than that of most people.
When the Normans took over England, they did not wipe out the English. They ruled them. The same when the Romans took over the Gauls. Or when the Spanish took over Mexico. And so on.
Even the Aztecs. As bloody as their religion was, it does not begin to match the level of human sacrifice and destruction caused by the White American faith of racism. The Aztecs created an empire, but they did not wipe out their neighbours to do it.
Wiping out the natives of North America was not the natural outcome of military advantage and human nature. If it were that simple then Alexander the Great would have wiped out the Persians and Egyptians. The Mongols would have wiped out the Chinese. The British would have wiped out the Zulus and Maori.
Nor was it simply a matter of disease, as Jason says, since plenty of Latin America is still heavily native, Mexico being a prime example.
No, there is something else going on.
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@ Jason:
The us-and-them thing is, I believe, pretty natural and, as far as I know, universal. But White Americans take it further and see the them as not fully human. Dehumanization of the other is not natural or universal at all. Just because most White Americans do something it does not mean that it is necessarily right or natural or “normal” as far as mankind goes. See my comment just above to Randy for examples.
Part of what makes this quote interesting to me is that Trudell answers the question of why blacks are so feared and hated and dehumanized by white people, even though it is whites who have done most of the wrong. But then that it is just it: blacks are the evidence of the crime, as Trudell puts it. They remind whites of the evil they have done to get to where they are, they remind them of their dirty, ugly past and, as I think most of them deep down know, their dirty, ugly present.
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@ Jason:
I agree with Jennifer. I was surprised at how you fell right in with all the racist tropes – adding “uniquely” when no one brought it up, the “you are the racist one!” tactic, missing the point of the post (which you almost never do), excusing the evils of white history when no one in his right mind would waste his breath on such stuff, etc.
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@ Jason:
I disagree with that. SOME people would have done the same thing, but MOST people would not, as I pointed out to Randy. Even the Spanish did not do it next door in Mexico, despite having the same advantage in guns and germs as White Americans. There was nothing “natural” or “inevitable” about it at all.
This “everyone would do it if they were in our shoes” is not just wrong on the history, even worse, it is nakedly self-serving and utterly morally broken.
Besides, if you have to use Genghis Khan to excuse something, that should be a wake-up call.
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Matari said:
Co-sign. The Mehserle trial that I wrote about in the last post is a perfect example.
In America we are told “white is right” in a thousand ways. Well, white is not always right. Sometimes white is profoundly screwed up.
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Normally I wouldn’t chime in with the” it’s not just WP, POC do that stuff too” thing because you don’t usually come out and say ” only WP are capable of X”
you’ve done that here, and I oppose it.
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“This “everyone would do it if they were in our shoes” is not just wrong on the history, even worse, it is nakedly self-serving and utterly morally broken.
Agreed, I never said “everyone would do it…”
“Besides, if you have to use Genghis Khan to excuse something, that should be a wake-up call.”
I have no interest in making excuses for the historic misdeeds of white Europeans, my point was it’s not unique to WP, and I wouldn’t have to make that point at all if you weren’t trying to say whites are uniquely capable of dehumanizing others. THAT is just wrong on the history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
This could be a productive topic if you weren’t so intent on equating dehumanization with WP.
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“adding “uniquely” when no one brought it up, ”
you said….. “White people are not racist because they do not know any better or because of some kind of natural us-and-them “tribalism”. It goes far deeper than that. ”
by saying it goes far deeper than tribalism with white people, you implied that whites are uniquely flawed.
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Well at least there is one thing Jas0n has said here that I can agree with:
Abagand – “…you don’t usually come out and say only WP are capable of X…”
Which, by its implications, seems flawed in the logic of we are all “human beings” if you truly believe this and what I understand John Trudell to be saying. If, as you co-sign with Matari, whites have this unique ability then this would not make them as fully human as the rest of us.
But I too am curious what is this: “…there is something else going on…” or “…it goes far deeper than that…” which you keep alluding to but never actual state?
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@ Jason:
No where have I ever said ONLY whites are genocidal or that they are UNIQUELY that way. I am fully aware of genocides done by others, like those in Darfur and South Sudan, so much so that I have written about them.
What I am saying is that MOST people are not like that, that White Americans are at an extreme end on this one. They are arguably not the worst, but they are among the worst.
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Abagond:
I’m not discussing “race” in particular, but rather the near universal propensity for humans the world over to engage in barbarity. Native American tribes visited upon each other what to our modern sensibilities would be considered vast atrocities.
I think your efforts to delineate a complex world along particular, and allegedly arbitrary, racial lines suffers from a reductionist fallacy.
The Europeans settlers comprised numerous competing interests as did the natives. The Iroquois in particular exploited intra-European rivalries in order to fuel their imperialist and expansionist ambitions.
The Iroquois generally slaughtered, often slowly, all males in a conquered village or tribe. I doubt that the Algonquins, whose name for the Mohawks translates to “man-eater”, took solace that their gleeful tormenters were of the same “race”.
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@randy:
“Native American tribes visited upon each other what to our modern sensibilities would be considered vast atrocities.”
Well, yes and no. If you are talking about torture it was usually connected to religious purposes and/or in some cases a chance for a prisoner of war to prove his courage. A bit like jesuits and christians were thinkin when they burned people at stake: more they suffered on the bonfire less pain in ever after. Roasting some one slowly at the stake was an act of mercy for spanish inquisition, one of the most powerful christian charity organisations of its times, and yes, religious police order too. And on that note, assumin you are a christian, you drink the blood of your god and eat his flesh every sunday at church for religious purposes, in a cannibalistic act. So…
I just assume that you have not seen too many victims of violence, living or dead. Nor I have I. But I have seen them. And let me tell you, it is not pretty even today. Movies and such makes you believe that todays violence is very neat compared to the violence of the tomahawk vielding injuns but it is a matter of opinion: true, when you shoot a man in the head from far enough you won’t get blood spatters on your shirt, but the head will still split open, brains will ooze out, skull fractures, bit and pieces fly all over the place. Little bit like when you hit with an tomahawk.
And if you are talking about massacres, them injuns were real amateurs compared to US military. 350 000 killed civilians in Irak and then some in Afganistan. One bomb wipes out a mud hut village in the mountains pretty well, women, children and all. At least them injuns saved the women and the kids for their own tribe and usually adopted them. Gratned, in some cases made them slaves.
As for the iroquis, they started their wars against neighbouring tribes when these did not accept their peace treaty. Just like US does today in rest of the world. The real historical Hiawatha unified warring tribes and brought peace and the nations wanted the others to join in. Others did not want to. So off to the war they went, a bit like US when it wants to “Free” the world, no matter what the world wants.
you can twist ans shout all you want, but the fact is this: white men wiped out almost all the nations living at the present day US territory and they did it on purpose. They tortured, killed, murdered, skinned, sliced, shoot, bombed, burned alive natives all over the continent. Little over a hundred years ago, in the life time of my great granparents, US goverment paid for scalps of apaches. Kids scalps were the cheapest, but still brought the money in, so they were enough for the effort. This is what the white men did.
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@ Randy:
My examples did not rest on any idea of race. You are adding that in.
I am making the point that wiping out men, women and children is the exception rather than the rule. Most people in history, when they get a military advantage, defeat their enemies or neighbours and possibly rule over them. Wiping them out, as the whites did to natives in America, is rare. That requires a level of dehumanization of others that is not common, though racist White Americans want to think “everyone is like that’. Some are, sure, but most are not. Not even your Aztecs and Iroquois were that bad.
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@ Kwamla:
I never actually state it because I do not know what it is. I just know it is not as a simple as having a military advantage. If that were so genocide would be way more common. People like Randy want it to be that simple because otherwise they would have to face up to the fact that there is something wrong with white people in America, something sick and not normal.
My nearest guess as to what is wrong is what Thandeka said about becoming white:
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At any rate, I think that we really, REALLY need to reexamine the Native American way of life and integrate some of that especially in terms of stewardship of the land and community. If we could find a way to bring some of that culture back and make it part of modern American culture I think we would all be better off.
Of course as WP and Native Americans are all under the false belief that we are essentially different from one another in some fundamental way……that is unlikely to happen.
Continuing to harp on the idea that WP are super extra evil makes it less likely still.
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Interesting comments.
When William the Conqueror took over England he was faced with resistance by Anglo-Saxons (especially in the North), even after the Battle of Hastings. He undertook a program of wholescale massacre-humans and livestock, destroyed entire villages and salted the land so that it did not recover for decades. Supposedly over 100,000 people died via murder or starvation and some areas were still wastelands 2-3 decades afterwards. Some survivors even resorted to cannibalism.
European history is full of such tales. The only difference between the actions in the Old World and New was that the people in the New World lacked the disease resistance, technology and most importanly ideas about war that were common in Europe. The racism started up to justify the behavior but I’m not sure pre-existing racism alone explains the behavior of Europeans in the New World. They were just as ruthless in the Old World with each other. When faced with people that hadn’t yet discovered how to build wheels or forge steel, it was like a wolf let loose in a hen house.
But I’m not sure we can say there’s something biologically different about white people, which I think is the source of some commenter’s disagreement. I think it comes down to environment -as argued in “Guns, Germs and Steel”.
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As far back as I can remember from my elementary school years to present, I have studied state, American, and world history at some points. It seemed that there were always blood to be shed in building old and new world empires, occupying territories, capturing and enslaving people the world over, conquering armies, setting up governments, tearing down governments, and the like. Even today battles are still raging and people are still disagreeing, fighting, hating, threatening, and the list goes on. People by nature are barbarians whether they claim it or not. People do not know how to live in peace unless others allow them to be dictators, still someone is not happy. There is fighting in homes, communities, on the job, in the streets, everywhere. All of it is about having the most power, the greatest technology, the most of anything! It will take a greater power than that of lowly man to straighten all of this crap our, and when He comes, running to the mountains and trying to apologize won’t do any good. So, just say goodbye to your donkeys. I wil be preening my wings, but I will miss you all! Just teasing, but on a serious note. I hope you can read between the lines. Much love!
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How to deny a genocide #6: Blame history – say this kind of stuff goes on all the time. Overlooking the fact that genocide is rare, despite what racists like to believe.
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@Shady Grady: Yes, the normans did that kind of thing, but they were not trying to wipe out entire population. They wanted to rule them, take advatage of them, knowing that they were a minority and anglo saxons were majority. It would have been stupid to kill them all because there would have no taxes, no agriculture etc.
Even the Huns, whom were pretty well know for their brutality and who really did not shy from good killing, did not wipe put populations and nations. They absorbed them into their empire.
The white “americans” believed that it was a God given fact that the natives must be wiped out, unless they totally assimilate into the conquering race and culture, which of course was the same thing. The ethos of the whites was such. They genuinely believed that it was a historical unavoidable fact that the Red man will disappear from the face of the earth. It was decided by God and the white man was an instrument in this process. It was an evolutional law of nature that this land will be for the white men and the weaker red men will be lost in the mists of history.
You can read thousands upon thousands of documents particulary from the 1800’s were the white men, even those who were trying to “save” the natives, believe unswervingly that this is the course of history: the native nations will disappear from the face of the earth in USA. That thinking was behind the so called Indian wars were the much feared injuns killed perhaps few thousand whites in a century, few hundred at most in one go (Little Big Horn), but where the white conquerors killed perhaps hunderds of thousands.
The whites also used biological warfare, so called “grey blankets”, where they shipped unwashed goverment issued blankets from one disease crippled reservation to another and so on in late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Thousands perished in that too.
And still, in the 1960’s, the goverment sterilized native women, weather they wanted it or not. The official reason was that the natives were breeding too fast and thus caused the reservation system to be overcrowded. Or perhaps they did not want any more Injuns?
The brittish did not even try to do this in Indian nor in Africa in their colonies, how ever brutal their regime was. Not even the belgians in Belgian Kongo, where the colonial masters killed perhaps one million natives, they did try to wipe out all the native nations, cultures and languages. The white americans did it. It is a historical fact.
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Who said it wasn’t rare Abagond? You are using that as a crutch to prop up your BS. Nobody here said that genocide was common. We have a pretty good record of how many times it’s happened throughout recorded history. Even if we don’t have a record of each and every genocidal event we can look at the record we do have and say “why gosh o golly gee people of all colors have committed genocide, so the only person who would try to equate genocide with white people specifically would be a person with an anti-white agenda.”
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@ Sam
“The white americans did it. It is a historical fact.”
Dude, we know. Nobody has said otherwise.
it’s basically like making a list of all the murders that have been committed in the last 10 years by WP and saying “look, WP are murderers, they must have something wrong with them that makes them want to murder people, the proof is this long list of murders by WP I made.” While ignoring all the murders that have been committed by anyone who isn’t white. And ignoring the reasons why people actually commit murder just so you can blame it on race.
Why? What’s the point?
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And then when a WP points out the fact that people of other races murder people too you shout “so you deny that WP have murdered people!!!, i HAVE THE PROOF RIGHT HERE!”
hello? wtf people.
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@ Sam, as many of the original white settlers in America were largely of British or other Northern/Western European descent, one would have to ask why their kith and ken did not behave the exact same way in Egypt or in India or in other non-white nations which they conquered. If it were all because of some biological Caucasian genocidal impulse, one would expect to see the same story played out as what happened in North America. But we don’t -except in Australia-which suggests there’s other factors to consider.
IMO these are environmental and technological reasons. India and much of Africa was not conducive to widespread European settlement; South Asians and Africans had better resistance to European diseases; the difference in war making technology, while massive, did not reach the levels found in North America or Australia.
No one (or at least I’m not) is denying the evil of what happened to the indigenous people in the Americas. It’s another step to imply that white people are somehow uniquely suited to such actions.
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@abagond
I read the post you did on Thandeka which, although quite interesting, in providing a belief framework for assessing what this is, really only supports your belief that there is something either: inherently wrong with white people OR that they are innately different – specifically upper-middle-class White Americans.
Its true you’re not yet stating this but its an all too easily derived implication from your comments. So its not surprising people like Randy or Jas0n might object or disagree with you on this.
My point is if you agree with the analysis put forward by John Trudell in your post about us all recognising our collective human identity the argument that somehow upper-middle-class White Americans are unable to do this points to their identity lying somewhere outside of the rest of humanity. or that they are just plain evil – Which is effectively saying the same thing!
I’ve said it before. I believe this analysis is too simplistic and may even stem from a deeply held religious belief system.
Which is where I believe the “peculiar behaviour” of some white people stems from: a deeply held uncontested white superiority belief system. Those white people who are willing to acknowledge their shared “humanness” like for one example, Tim Wise, don’t seem to have a problem with letting go of this “superiority of difference belief system”
When all the real evidence has finally been laid bear about the true greatness of Africans,as well as other indigenous peoples, and their contributions to human civilisations. It will be just plain nonsense to maintain this irrational belief of superior than other indigenous peoples..
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I liked your comment kwamla, for what it’s worth. I personally would like to gain a better understanding of why POC believe whites in general don’t see them as people. I mean I understand the historic factors like the subject of this post, but in regard to modern day to day life I think most whites lack understanding of the factors that contribute to this feeling of being seen as less than human. I think that you are correct in the view that the more we come to learn and understand about indigenous cultures and their great value ( there is more to life than guns and swords after all) the closer we will be to becoming more complete as a society.
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“upper-middle-class White Americans are unable to do this points to their identity lying somewhere outside of the rest of humanity. or that they are just plain evil – Which is effectively saying the same thing”
I think it’s fair to say that at certain times and under certain circumstances, certain groups may find it difficult to recognize the humanity of other groups. And again, at certain times and under certain circumstances, some groups might be in a position of power which could allow them the opportunity to inflict great harm by acting on those beliefs, and under still more specific circumstances those groups may very well do just that. It’s also true that all too often, those people who take that last step, happen to be white people.
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Jas0nburns:
People everywhere are easily led to bigotry. It’s both fashionable and socially acceptable these days to be openly bigoted towards white folks, so that’s why you see so much of it around. This attitude pervades universities and the media, so you have reinforcement of this message from youth onwards.
What is especially ironic is that most of these same people will argue:
– “Race doesn’t exist”
– “Judge people as individuals, not collectively”
– “All peoples are equal”.
Except for white people of course, who indeed are a race, should be judged by actions taken long ago and far away by a minority of them, and who collectively lack common human morality and decency.
Talk about cognitive dissonance!
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Some whites “get” it.
Tim Wise, Joe Feagin, Robert Jensen are among the few that do. They don’t have the typical “white racial frame” that is common to a great many whites – and tragically even some non whites.
The article found at the link below, written by Mr. Wise, calls out this otherwise non-descript “thing” that whites seem to have in great abundance, more so than most other groups. I contend because we live in a racist-white supremacist dominated universe that it is no accident that there isn’t a definitive description, or word, to accurately define that screwed up “thing” whites seem to have in greater abundance. What’s also telling (regarding keeping this “thing” hidden or unexplored) is the sociological and scientific research and studies that have not been done to attempt to analyze “whiteness” and white pathologies. Like Abagond says, and I wholeheartedly agree, whites don’t want to see themselves as they truly are! If whites could step up and open their eyes and see … really look at it and admit their stuff, perhaps humanity might collectively move forward. But I ain’t holding my breath and waiting for that to happen.
excerpt:from Tim Wise article:
“Our unwillingness to label destructive behaviors by whites and those in the upper classes as a character flaw typical of the group as a whole, while we readily do so for people of color and the poor, speaks to our culture’s insipient racism and classism. And our lack of an adequate language to critically examine the behaviors of the society’s haves, also leads us to ignore the warning signs or potential dangers posed by such persons, to themselves and others.”
http://www.timwise.org/2003/09/overclass-blues-class-race-and-the-ironies-of-privilege/
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“Our unwillingness to label destructive behaviors by whites and those in the upper classes as a character flaw typical of the group as a whole, while we readily do so for people of color and the poor, speaks to our culture’s insipient racism and classism. ”
In other words: “We need to learn how to be racist against ourselves too.”
I mean it’s cool that Tim Wise “gets it” and everything but what you’re basically doing right now is expecting/demanding that we accept that we have an intrinsic character flaw that you can’t even name or put your finger on. But still, we should just take your word for it.
In reality the flaw is just that we’re white. We’re just too gosh darn white, there’s too many of us around, and you don’t like it. hahaha. Sorry about that.
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“But still, we should just take your word for it.”
Therein lies the problem. Whites historically as well as traditionally seldom take the word of black people for anything unless those words mirror something that white people believe or want to hear. Check out Prof Derrick Bell and his observations regarding black people and “special pleading.”
No one here is asking, suggesting,expecting or demanding that whites become racist against themselves – as if that’s possible. We are asking that you to look DEEPLY at what whiteness is and what it does to whites – and everyone else. It’s just that simple. There’s no need to defend it. Just really look at it. Props to MaconD of http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/ for daring to take that journey!
Oh, and by the way, this has nothing to do with your numbers, but everything to do with your heart and soul.
Peace.
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Randy,
You are far too intelligent to be blessing this blog with posts and traffic. It’s obvious Abagond has a thing for white people. Hell, she’s probably married to a white guy — or wishes she was. Her description of white people is eerily analogous to the language used by Nazis to describe Jews. The fact is, she is a racist, pure and simple. Her life is undoubtedly a mess and the easiest thing to do is to blame other people for her problems, despite the fact that white people in America today tend to be quite friendly and helpful toward blacks.
And, ROFL at the person suggesting her to read “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” Any analysis of race that doesn’t portray white Americans as the devil is far beyond her level of comprehension.
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@jason, randy, e: Well, I am a white guy from the most homogenious country in northern Europe. You can not be more white genetically than what I am. What I am saying that the white americans tried their best to wipe out the natives in their country. It was a political will, an ideological will, religiously based will and even scientific belief of the white americans back then.
I am not saying that no other “race” is not killing people. Just think of the tens of millions killed in communist China. I am not talking about “whites did it because they are white”. I am saying that white americans did this in 1800’s and that is was the official policy, well accepted among the white americans, supported by overwhelming majority of them etc. That is a historical fact.
The funny thing is that you guys try to change the subject here. You start to implying that this is about racial bigotry against whites. Granted, some of the more radical writers here do so, but not all. I am saying that the white americans did so with gusto. Not white swedes or estonians. If you wish to be honest then you have to admit that only few generations ago it was not only acceptable to kill natives, it was cheered on by the majority. It was the official policy of the state. It has everything to do about the history and racial culture of the USA, not “all the whites” in the world.
We can have a small analogy here. Nobody in Germany today, besides some neo nazis, is denying the nazi Germany and what it did. If you talk about those things with germans, they do not react like you guys. They do not whine that “this is bigotry against all the germans”. They know what happened. They know their great grand parents started the most destructive war in human history, supported the nazi regime and its plans to slave rest of Europe, kill all the jews, gypsies and gays, mentally handicapped and rest. It happened.
Nazis did not take over by coup, They won the elections. The overwhelming majority of germans supported them. It was not just a weirdo Hitler and a small clique. It was the most of the germans. And the germans today know it, has accepted it and learned from it, and moved on.
For some reason when ever the issue of natives of USA comes up, the white americans (and sometimes even the black) start act really funny. Just like you guys. You start to make excuses. You try to explain away the guilt of this particular genocide. “Others do it too”, “You can not blame us”, “I did not do it so whites are not guilty” etc.
Nobody is accusing YOU as an individual. But you can not pass the blame here. It is on the record of your own government. It is in the thousands and thousands of documents. It is in the hundreds and hundreds of photogarphs. The overwhelming majority of white americans did their best to wipe out the indiands for almost a century.
Were there good white americans who did not support this genocide? Of course there were. Just like there was germans who did not support the nazi regime and even tried to resist it. Some were even killed. But they were a minuscule minority at the time.
For you and me it is totally alien to even think that we would go out, kill a child, scalp that kid, bring his scalp to goverment official who would then hand over some money for us. Yet, this was accepted, goverment issued policy in USA just few generations ago. There were no mass protest against these kind policies. No archbishop condemned these practises. Why is that?
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@ Sam & Matari:
Thank you! You both seem to get what I am saying.
@ e
I deleted one of your comments. If you think someone is wrong, show us why you think so, do not just call them names:
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“No archbishop condemned these practices”
Because the attacks were done to spread Christianity. They thought ‘trading’ land and gold for Christianity was a good deal. Christianity leads to large families. And large families need land, thus the conquering urge of Christianity.
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No where have I ever said that whites are biologically more given to genocide than anyone else. After all, most of the genocides in my lifetime have taken place in Africa – Darfur, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda.
On the other hand I also know it is not as simple as guns and germs, because then it would be way more common. Mexico and particularly southern Africa and New Zealand would be far whiter than they are.
There is something more than just guns and germs. I do not know what it is and said so. At a guess I would say it is White American racism or whatever it is that drives it, PERHAPS child-rearing practices. Those are GUESSES, reasonable ones I think, but I am not going to act like I know when I do not.
I find it interesting that at the merest hint of any idea of a white pathology people say there is something wrong with me or my thinking. I am being racist, I hate white people, etc. YET in other threads when I argue against the idea of black pathologies I am told I am not facing up to the truth, not facing facts.
Just as in the Diop threads, there is a strong cultural presumption that favours whites and works against blacks. A presumption that most whites in America and even some blacks do not question.
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The moral reasoning shown by some on this thread is extremely troubling.
What White Americans did to Native Americans was far worse than anything the Iroquois or Aztecs or Normans or Mongols or most other warring peoples down through history have done.
Using them to excuse the North American genocide is like using shoplifters to excuse armed bank robbery.
It is wrong not just because the scale and nature of the two crimes are markedly different, but, more importantly, because you do not excuse one crime with another!
If that is not morally bankrupt, then nothing is.
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@ Jason:
Because whites are still racist. This blog has plenty of examples.
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@abagond: Hope so.
What I started to think here, after the comments of some here, is that why american cultural system is so racist even today is precisely because there has never been a real trough out dealing with the past. Not once has USA gone trough official and widespread recognition of its past crimes against people of other so-called races.
There has been some speeches, some studies, some handshakes, some gala dinners etc. but to make history clear to everybody? No.
The past as it was should be teatched at schools, from the first grade onwards. US history should be told as it was, not as it is wanted to be. Starting point should be: This was not our land. It was theirs. We tried to kill them all.
Even in Australia the goverment has officially apologized and recognized the deeds done in the past against aborginals. Australian goverment has said publicly that it was the land of the aborginals and it was stolen from them. Ok, there is still racism and aborginals are treated bad, but the official recignition is there. Nobody can anymore talk about empty lands or treaties.
In USA there has never been such thing. The history BEGINS with some religious fanatics landing on Plymouth Rock or something. Natives have been stucked in some kind of past with the mammoths and sabertooth cats. USA buys Louisiana from France. Not a mention of the Natives. USA takes Texas from the mexicans. Not a word about the kiowas and others. USA gets California from Mexico. Not a word about the native nations in California which were almost totally wiped out just in few decades.
Untill USA accepts its history as a racist empire and sees to pretend to be the Promised Land of mankind, nothing will change. Till then the racism will endure somewhere under the surface, in the shadows, in betweens.
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“There is something else. I do not know what it is and said so. At a guess I would say it is White American racism or whatever it is that drives it, ..”
@Abagond
That thing that for lack of a better term is “whiteness.” Whiteness tends to justify/defend itself by whatever means possible – and by seeing itself as normal and natural while deeming “others” as not. It not only has a component that not only sees “others” as “less than,” it also has little or no ability to empathize or to see “others” as FULLY & COMPLETELY HUMAN, and just as deserving for compassion, mercy and whatever good things whites “believe” they have earned. You know these things based upon your extensive study and writing on this blog.
Whites seldom see black people and other folks of color and say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Why is that? Why do so many whites relate blacks to apes and gorillas? There’s been some research on this, but little to no research as to exactly why this persists, even today. We assume it is one of the side effects of white supremacy/racism. I’m not aware of any research on what whiteness is and what it does. Ergo, this blog, and a few others that touch on this race BS.
Whiteness is the cornerstone of racism/colorism and as such requires dismantling. Whiteness and a so-called post racial world can never truly co-exist at the same time. You cannot have people who are deemed “white” and those who are “others” universally holding hands in a circle and singing kumbaya in a world that categorizes and treats humans according to their skin color! That genie (whiteness) has to go back in the bottle (or rather back to Hell where it came from) but only if “whites” are willing to put it back.That will be quite the astounding miracle! White people would first have to cease seeing themselves as “white” and stop calling themselves “white.” Like I said, I ain’t holding my breath.
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sam:
You are not saying this, others (including Abagond) appear to be implying it.
See the quotes below:
Abagond:
Abagond:
Abagond:
I’m not denying that atrocities weren’t visited upon the natives by the European settlers, but rather that this barbarity is not unique by any means to their intrinsic character. I think it’s just “people being people”.
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Abagond:
This is highly debatable.
Not only did the the Iroquois generally slaughter their adversaries, they often did it in the most excruciating and drawn out manner possible.
These events weren’t conducted by soldiers in the field or at far-flung outposts, rather they took place within the villages themselves with full participation of the tribe.
This was true for the Aztecs as well, with the additional horror of ritualized torture and killing of children.
Again, these were not events which took place on the periphery of settled territory, but with full societal acceptance and participation.
One could reasonably argue that the natives were even more barbaric than the Europeans due to the publicly celebrated nature of these practices.
However, that’s not my point. I’m simply saying that barbarity (as well as the capacity for compassion and kindness) is common to all of humanity.
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@ Abagond
“What White Americans did to Native Americans was far worse than anything the Iroquois or Aztecs or Normans or Mongols or most other warring peoples down through history have done. ”
please explain how what white Americans did to Native Americans was “far worse” than this…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Chinese_dynasties
if you can put your finger on how what white Americans did was actually worse or far worse, than I will recant everything I said in this thread.
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The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of an estimated 800,000 people. Over the course of approximately 100 days.
Jesus H Christ!
That’s a lot of killing in a really short amount of time.
White Americans killed about 40,000 Natives right?
So……..I’m just trying to understand how what whites did was worse? I know it was bad and pointing to other genocides is in no way a denial or an excuse just to be clear……again.
But Abagond, how is it “WORSE”? What’s “worse” than hacking 800,000 people up with machetes?
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Bulanik:
My comment about Simo Häyhä regarded the great heroic lengths that the Finns went to in the past in order to preserve their Finnishness, and how ironic it seems that they now invite people to their country who not only do not help them to nurture and support those same values, but may even despise them.
As for the conflicts between natives and the European settlers, I suppose one could take a quick look and simply say, “Yep, racism” and close the book, but the reality of the situation was far more complicated. Presumably one seeks truth for it’s own illuminating sake and not just to confirm existing biases.
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The reason the Jews get reparations, and you don’t, is because Jews can pass for white. Yet, at the same time, Jews can pass as People of Color. This fence-sitting is the source of their power. Therefore, learn Hebrew.
Also, by constantly saying “You whites!”, you inadvertently keep whiteness alive. Races either exist, or they don’t.
Click to access 128291eo.pdf
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” Whiteness tends to justify/defend itself by whatever means possible – and by seeing itself as normal and natural while deeming “others” as not.”
I suppose this is true, but here again, your describing something that is not unique to WP, so callIng it whiteness doesn’t make much sense. though it is something WP do.
I mean, feel free to dissect and analyze the ways of whiteness and the behavior of white people, talk about how white people have dehumanized others in the past and still do today. I don’t care I really don’t, moreover I’ll usually agree with you and take your word. But dont act like WP have some extra capacity that others don’t. Don’t try to say we are uniquely screwed up because it’s just not true. You have no historic or psychological bases to make that claim.
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Bulanik:
This discussion is off-topic to the current thread. My previous comment about Häyhä was neither a tasteless joke nor related in any way to Breivik. I invite you to re-read it.
Bulanik:
I tend to challenge the “it’s always racism” argument simply because it’s often a poor fit to the data, and seems indicative of a gap in critical thinking which substitutes politically-correct platitudes for objective analysis.
Should the atrocities committed between the Hutu and Tusti, Mohawk and Algonquin, Mongol and Han, Japanese and Chinese, etc etc be viewed with any less revulsion because the participants were of the same “race”? To do so I believe serves to misunderstand and devalue the fundamental nature of humanity.
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Randy (& Jason pretty much):
I am claiming that wiping out a whole people or a huge share of them – men, women and children – is WAY WORSE than merely making war on them and perhaps later ruling them, even if said war features destruction of towns and cities or torture, as terrible as those things are.
I am talking about wholesale genocide. You and others on this thread are trying to fit that under the general title of “barbarity” and saying “everyone does it”. That allows you to avoid admitting that genocide is much worse and therefore those who practise it are much worse than those who deal in piecemeal barbarity. That allows you to say that White Americans are no worse than anyone else when, in fact, they are at the extreme end of “man’s inhumanity to man”. What White Americans have done is not run-of-the-mill, garden variety stuff. In scale and intent it goes way beyond that.
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Jason said:
I hope by this you are including Randy’s claim that white people are so wonderfully humane.
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@ Jason:
No one here is saying that. You are using a derailment that racists love to use.
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@ Abagond
“I am claiming that wiping out a whole people – men, women and children – is WAY WORSE than merely making war on them and perhaps later ruling them, even if said war features destruction of towns and cities or torture, as terrible as those things are.”
I agree. I’ve never said otherwise. Maybe randy did, I don’t know, but you didn’t hear me say anything to the contrary of your above statement.
“I am talking about wholesale genocide.”
So am I, did you click my link in reference to the Dzungar genocide?
that wasn’t about conquering or ruling it was about wiping out. The Rwanda genocide was about wiping out. Don’t get it twisted, I’m not trying to downplay genocide by comparing it to run ‘o’ the mill warfare and I haven’t done so.
“You and others on this thread are trying to fit that under the general title of “barbarity” and saying “everyone does it”.
No I’m not. Show me where i’ve said “everyone does it”, or that it’s common.
What i’m telling you is that genocidal behavior is neither unique to whites nor is it something that whites do to non-whites more often than to other WP.
That is the heart of my argument, you have not been able to coherently counter my central premise, you have done nothing but try to tie my argument to other more familiar and easily countered comments made by other WP here and elsewhere.
Randy and I aren’t the same person and we aren’t making the same argument. Your not going to kill us both with one stone i’m afraid.
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sam said:
“Untill USA accepts its history as a racist empire and sees to pretend to be the Promised Land of mankind, nothing will change. Till then the racism will endure somewhere under the surface, in the shadows, in betweens.”
I think that sums up this topic perfectly…
abagond, well done – when you have a post that brings the trolls out of the woodwork, then you know you’ve struck gold! 😎
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I had a thought; I hope I don’t stray too far from the main topic by bringing it up.
Whites who came to what is now ‘America’, and also those who settled in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, did some of the most gawdawful things to the native populations as they shoved ‘those uncivilized heathens’ aside to make room for their own ‘great, white’ families. The pattern goes like this, from what I see: dehumanization/denigration, subjugation, decimation, then all-out annihilation. Gory, bloody, hateful, uncivilized acts, all in the name of so-called ‘civilization’! Just my two cents…
I had another thought regarding eugenics, but I’ll take it to the Open Thread.
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@ bulanik
When I said, “I don’t care” I mean that general criticism of whites doesn’t bother me and in fact You can find many examples of me criticizing whiteness on this blog and others. “I don’t care” about defending or excusing the behavior of whites. I do care about racism.
Whites committed a terrible genocide against Native Americans. That doesn’t mean that WP are the only ones capable of genocide. Or that we are especially prone to committing genocide. Sorry, i’m not going along with that idea.
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@ Abagond:
Don’t try to say we are uniquely screwed up because it’s just not true.
No one here is saying that. You are using a derailment that racists love to use
dude whatever, you are being so dishonest right now i can’t even believe it. You said it. other POC commentors here saw you say it. and now your being a chickensh*t about it and trying to backpedal. disgusting.
Amazing that i was stupid enough to think you cared about the truth. you care about your team and that’s it.
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@randy: I am a finn, just like Simo Häyhä was, and my mother is carelian, just like Simo Häyhä was. And my mother comes from the same region. And Simo Häyhä was fighting to save his home, small cottage and farm, his family and the right to live in this country. He wanted to save Finland, a country which decides itself what it will do. Like accept immigrants.
He was not shooting “n*****s” or immigrants because he did not like those people. He was no hating people of different race. He was fighting in a war. Like the man himself said to american gun collectors just few years before he died: “It was a job and I did as well as I could.”
He was not called White Death because he was white. It was because he, like all the finns, had winter camouflage (white sheets).
I find not only insulting but also very funny that american guy tries to use small, humble finnish farmer for his own political agenda. Häyhä was also extremely unpolitical person.
When bunch of skinhead attacked black american basketball player and some others in teh city of Joensuu back in 1990’s, another genuine war hero, general Ehrnroth, said: Racists are cowards, all of them. And this from a guy who fought against the red army twice, was wounded twice, and almost got killed by them.
Mentioning guys like these as examples of racists, or implying that they were fighting for racial reasons, is very insulting indeed. When I served my time in the army, there was not once incident, word, tale of any racist kind. The army of Finland has never been like that. On the contrary, black finns have served in the army without a hitch.
And just to show you how funny it is to try to connect finnish war heros with racism, did you know that there was a black guy fighting in the winter war? Yes there was. He joined the very nationalistic milicia, so called Protection Guard, which formed the core of the White finns army in our civil war in 1918. And here he was, a black guy, joining finnish extreme right wing nationalistic civil guard and eventually fighting in the winter war, sporting all white camouflage. Now that is a story that should be told by Hollywood!!!
@jason: 40 000? Try few hundred thousand, give and take, in direct killing. Add much more killed by the biological warfare.
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The last was for jasonburns.
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@ Jason:
I never ever said that White Americans are uniquely screwed up.
I said they are among the worst, which means there are others. I would put the Rwandans, Germans, Australians and some others on that list – anyone who has committed genocide. You are reading “uniquely” into what I said. If you disagree, then please produce the statement where I said it or something meaning the same thing.
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@ Abagond
Matari said:
“Whites are, generally speaking, *screwed up*. They possess the *unique* ability to NOT see and admit facts that are plain as day to most others. They have amazing powers of DENIAL…
you quoted this comment and co- signed it.
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@ Abagond
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@ Jason:
My apologies. I forgot I co-signed someone else’s comment where “uniquely” was used. I generally agree with Matari on this thread, but not necessarily at a word-for-word level as if I wrote it myself. Therefore I take back the co-sign and replace it with a “I pretty much agree”. My own comments contradict her “uniquely”.
I agree with her that White Americans have amazing powers of denial but I am not prepared to say they are alone in that.
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“They possess the *unique* ability to NOT see and admit facts that are plain as day to most others.”
now, because I have been arguing that this ability is not unique to whites i’m a racist troll. You guys need to check yourselves here.
If it had been said that “regarding racism, it’s common for whites to deny facts that are plain as day to most others” I wouldn’t have said a word of protest and in fact I would agree with that statement. I’ve seen it myself and dealt with it. But that’s not what was said. what was said and very plaily and directly implied in this thread is that WP are uniquely and especially capable of not only this type of blindness, but also extreme acts of genocide. uniquely capable to a degree unattained by other groups. This is false and in my view dangerous language because it singles whites out as being in some way intrinsically different than others. I wouldn’t tolerate that being said about anyone and i’m not making an exception here just because I may come off as “defending whiteness” or trolling or whatever.
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@ Abagond
Alright apology accepted. 😉 sorry I said “you care about your team and that’s it.”
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Why are there two people with the handle “jas0nburns”?
One uses a capital ‘J’ in the name, the other doesn’t…interesting.
There was a third using a capital ‘J’, but they used a letter ‘o’ and not the numeral ‘0’.
Just pointing it out, but I’m certain that others have noticed this as well…
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I have to type it everytime I comment. Sometimes from my phone. So sometimes it’s different.
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““Whites are, generally speaking, *screwed up*. They possess the *unique* ability to NOT see and admit facts that are plain as day to most others. They have amazing powers of DENIAL…”
I still stand by my statement and here’s why:
When one examines the wonderful and fabulous definitions of “white” and then looks at all the of the atrocities and horror that have been visited upon marginalized and oppressed PoC in the last 400 years, “whiteness” (and the people who claim and label themselves as such) should they not be held to a reasonable standard of truth, logic and reason?
White people are not white – they never were, and this UNIQUE sickness, this utter hypocrisy is a schizophrenic disconnect from reality that makes whiteness a “special case.” Whiteness hides behind a falsely defined and painted label that white people at large NEED TO UNPACK. And they – at large – refuse to do so. THIS is what makes whiteness uniquely screwed up and different than all of the other screwed up folks – of color.
Either white folks truly live up to this fantastic idea/religion of “white(ness)” or give up calling yourselves what you think is a wonderful color. Then perhaps the rest of us might cease to be categorized as red, yellow, brown and black – because these color labels or designations are awfully divisive and infinitely destructive.
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“Either white folks truly live up to this fantastic idea/religion of “white(ness)” or give up calling yourselves what you think is a wonderful color.”
Well, that’s an interesting idea and i’ll have to think about it a little more. As far as I’m aware, and I assume you are familiar with this: the consensus in anti-racist circles seems to be that whites should actually think of themselves as white and what that means more often instead of less. As opposed to thinking of ourselves as raceless or just “the norm” which is probably a better description of how we see ourselves generally and usually subconsciously. At least, this is the kind of reasoning you’re more likely to find championed over at MaconD’s “stuff white people do” which you seem to a fan of.
As an example, if you ask a white person to tell you about his/herself almost never will you hear them refer to themselves as white which is the exact opposite of how most POC will respond. Whites generally don’t think of race until we come face to face with someone who isn’t white, and even then we will be focused on the “otherness” of the non-white person more than on our own whiteness. If we did think of ourselves as white, we would be more in line with the way other groups see their own racial identities, instead of just seeing everyone else as different from us, with us as the norm, we should see ourselves as just another racial group.
Or something like that.
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@ Matari
I can agree that Whites are a “special case” in the sense that they are in a unique position. To a large degree, the racial mess that we find ourselves in today was the creation of White thinkers (notice that I refrain from saying the White race). That puts Whites into the position of power and culpability when it comes to the misdeeds that come with the afore-mentioned power.
However, I do not believe Whites to be ontologically different from other peoples, categorically speaking. Neither am I falling into the hole of “collective responsibility” thinking, although I do understand the collective effect of the current mindset—on Whites and others.
So, I may agree with you on some levels, but I’m not always sure of your definitions.
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Hell, she’s probably married to a white guy — or wishes she was.
I bet ‘she’ does!
Her life is undoubtedly a mess and the easiest thing to do is to blame other people for her problems, despite the fact that white people in America today tend to be quite friendly and helpful toward blacks.
Perhaps you can arrange for ‘her’ white husband, real or imagined to get a raise.
Any analysis of race that doesn’t portray white Americans as the devil is far beyond her level of comprehension.
What do you expect from a ‘woman’?
This is highly debatable.
No it isn’t. Must be nice to sit back and type the things you do. What was done to the People was one of the worst exercises in genocide. Not only were they slaughtered en masse, but, to diminish them further, take away their language and culture via the residential schools. They did this intergenerationally. The effects are still being felt today among aboriginal communities. This of course was done for their own good in order to ‘assimilate’ them. The only thing this accomplished was to wreak havoc on the Peoples collective psyches. This was prolonged over several generations. These other groups referred to as having ‘done it to’, never did anything like that. But everywhere these Europeans went, they exacted this torment on racialized peoples when they could over prolonged periods of time.
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Anybody read this?
A newer take on Pre-Colombian, American civilization. Which, according to the author was much more advanced than previously thought. White settlers encountered the remnants of great civilizations ravaged by disease. Kind of blows up the whole noble savage thing. Looks like a good read. Revelations like this might go a long way towards restoring the dignity of native people.
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@jasonburns: I don’t think anybody is portraying natives as roussoesk noble savages, with mythical in-tune with nature and hip clothes. Natives were and are just people like all of us. And nobody in their right mind would not imagine that there were no diseases or catasrophes in America’s before Columbus. It is also good to remember that the conquest of Mexico, for example, would not have been possible without the help of other natives other than the aztecs.
That being said, after the conquest the natives of all sorts got pretty ruff treatment in the hands of ths spanish. Even good ole Columbus and his party treated the natives of Hispaniola so harsh that it created irritation back in Spain, no small matter. And the impact of the conquest on the natives of Hispaniola has been well documented too. In pretty short time almost all of them were wiped out too.
I was talking earlier about what the US goverment did in 1800’s to the native people who lived in the territory conquered by whites. That has been well documented by the goverment itself, by the media of that era, by diaries, writings, statements, letters and such of many, many people.
Being a white guy myself, I think it is important to realise that explanations based on race are way too simplistic, one way or the other, but that does not mean that the so-called whites did not do what they did. In order to avoid racism it is important to realise that it may be in the system of thinking, inherited from generations of past. Not as clearly as in say South Africa of apartheid, but still there. It is very easy to slip into the old ways of thinking, seeing and hearing. I try to avoid that in my life.
Also it is important to understand that when we talk about the crimes against the humanity done by previous generations, we are not talking about what you or I have done or do. We are not those white guys who committed those crimes so we should not get irritated or annoyed about the facts. Things were done for many reasons, in many many cases because of racism. The only way forward is to recognize what has happened before and try to avoid that from ever happening again. And the best place to start is one self. That is what I am trying to do.
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” I don’t think anybody is portraying natives as roussoesk noble savages, with mythical in-tune with nature and hip clothes.”
You don’t? You mean in this thread or generally? I think that generally, that’s exactly how they are seen. By Americans at least.
And again, even though I’ve said it like 15 times by now, I’m not denying anything. I feel no special responsibility for or kinship towards any WP who came before me, save members of my own family. I guess I kind of feel like disease was a more significant factor in the loss of the people but thats because it killed far and away more people, buy that fact doesn’t make what white Americans did less bad. I think you’re preaching to the choir a bit here Sam, or assuming that I’m contradicting something that I’m not.
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@king
What do you think of the concept of white privilege as it relates to collective responsibility? Can a WP accept that they have white privilege without also buying into collective responsibility?
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@ Jas0nburns
Hmmm… words can be so imprecise at times.
I’d say that with White collective privilege does come White “collective responsibility” but NOT collective culpability. Or to be more clear, White individuals have a responsibility to recognize and react to White privilege to the extent that they personally benefit from it. However, individual Whites cannot be held personally culpable for the “sins of the White race” any more than individual Muslims can be collectively blamed for 9/11.
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@Abagond
I would like to address a few interesting and/or vague statements you’ve made:
It’s not a “natural us-and-them tribalism”. So, what is it and where did it come from?
Why did you use the word “natural”? What does it mean to you? I think it’s relative and ultimately meaningless in this context
Dehumanization is an inevitable consequence of us-and-them. “They” (who are the “them” in “us-and-them”) are seen as a group and not as individuals thus they are deprived of their individuality thus they are dehumanized. Obviously this dehumanization isn’t always severe. Sometimes it just makes people believe stuff like: “these people are good at math” or “these people are fast runners”.
How can you say dehumanization isn’t universal when you claim us-and-them is universal?
Why? How do we measure this? I’m assuming the method is more intricate than counting the victims.
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Eco wrote:
I would like to address a few interesting and/or vague statements you’ve made:
“White people are not racist because they do not know any better or because of some kind of natural us-and-them “tribalism”. It goes far deeper than that. To see people of colour as the human beings they truly are would mean whites would have to see themselves as they truly are – and deep down they know it is not pretty.”
It’s not a “natural us-and-them tribalism”. So, what is it and where did it come from?
************************
Although this question wasn’t posed to me, I’m going to answer it nonetheless. What is it (it IS whiteness) and where it it come from? it comes from what I refer to as the “religion” of WHITENESS.
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2008/05/saturday-book-rec-killers-of-dream.html
Lillian Smith’s (Killers of the Dream) book review examines and aptly illustrates this “unique” – and UNNATURAL PATHOLOGY that is EXCLUSIVE to white people.
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@ Matari
I think your observation of an: “… UNNATURAL PATHOLOGY that is EXCLUSIVE to white people which you define as WHITENESS. Is something I believe from lengthy reviews of Abagond’s posts and comments he probably does share.
Its by no means an isolated observation or conclusion amongst many Black people, myself included, which is soldemly looked at or addressed seriously by those who it affects the most – those unconsciously defining themselves as white.
However, and this is where, I believe, consistency and honesty is needed in this conversation it does not answer Eco (and even some of Jas0n’s) questions.
So for example Eco says:
Even the link you provided does a good job of identifying what it is and how it was propagated through various stages of child and adulthood in the deep American South. But the central question still remains: Where did it originally come from?
Its important to pose and ask this question if you believe, as I do, in relation to Abagond’s comment about: “natural us-and-them tribalism”
And just to be clear on Eco’s response: Dehumanization is NOT an inevitable consequence of us-and-them. The obsession some people have for their animals and their pets clearly shows this not to be the case. Further, we all know that killing people is an inevitable consequence of war but that does not make killing a “natural” thing to do. Soldiers have to undergo training or indoctrination to suppress their “natural” urges NOT to kill.
So unless you believe otherwise where did this: UNNATURAL PATHOLOGY that is EXCLUSIVE to white people – called whiteness come from ?
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“…where did this: UNNATURAL PATHOLOGY that is EXCLUSIVE to white people – called whiteness come from ?”
@ Kwamla Hesse
Whiteness – an invention developed in the American colonies by the ruling class to legally justify the mistreatment of the exploited and marginalized. A universal divide and conquer mechanism that divides people on the basis of so-called color.
Whiteness – a religion/doctrine that was born in the pit of Hell.
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Again…Matari. This is dodging the question!!! Are you equating an American white ruling class elite with the Evil? The Devil? Born in Hell?
These are religious connotations and while “feeling” good to say do not really explain much.
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Abagond:
The history of European – Native American relations includes hundreds of years of trade, cooperation, conflict, and barbarity from both sides. The Europeans had superior technology and eventually prevailed, but the evidence hardly suggests that it was for lack of will or equal savage intentions on the part of the natives.
Many native tribes practiced a policy of torture and extermination as part of their warring practices, the goal being that their adversaries suffer the greatest possible amount of excruciation before expiring. In the case of the Aztecs, this apparently extended to children as well.
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@ Randy
The Aztecs were hardly angels, they practised a violent religion, they were widely hated and rightfully so, but for all that they were not genocidal. Unlike White Americans, they did not wipe out their neighbours wholesale – men, women and children – and then take their land. Certainly not as a general practice. Like most empire builders, they defeated their neighbours in war and then ruled them.
It is possible that some Native Americans were genocidal. I do not know of any. If you do and can back it up, then please let me know. But on the whole they were not.
You are hiding behind the small-time barbarity of others to avoid facing up to how truly sick and terrible White Americans were and, given just the comments from them on this thread, probably still are.
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@ Eco:
By “natural” I mean that it is probably genetic, a wired part of human nature. I believe that the us-and-them thing is natural, but not the dehumanization.
The Russians, for example, were a far bigger threatening Them to White America than Black Americans ever were. In my lifetime Russians were in a position to wipe out the big American cities. In 1962 it came very close to that. Yet despite that they were never dehumanized to the degree that Black Americans were and still are. This post helps you to understand why that is.
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American policy towards natives peoples cannot be classified simply with the one word, “genocidal,” because the Indian policy was an ever-changing and evolving policy, and also because different Americans in different places (and times) reacted to native peoples in different ways. There were decades of trade between some tribes and settlers, although, there was always a degree of mistrust (on both sides) in such circumstances. There were certainly instances of live-and-let-live policy at times, and instances of truce and peace at others, and this went on over 200 years.
The “Final Solution” to the Indian problem was more often seen by the American people as one of Reservation Relocation, not wholesale slaughter. There were MANY opportunities to simply line up conquered native peoples in front of a ditch and shoot them, if that was the primary goal. This sometimes happened, but not MOST of the time. Most of the time, native people’s were herded into crappy land parcels, contained, and forgotten. They remained poor, their culture broken, and victims to White aggression, but they where not annihilated, although they clearly could have been.
THAT IS NOT TO SAY that genocide was never attempted by certain U.S. military leaders, provisional governors, and even by certain U.S. administrations. Obviously the scalping campaigns that were examples of this, as well as other barbaric policies but these were never universal.
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Genocide is more than just the killing. It is a process with different steps. The killing is just one of the steps. An early step is what Trudell is talking about – dehumanization. Another one is pushing the pariahs out of sight – into reservations, ghettos or prison camps. The last step is just what is going on here – denial. One of the main ways to deny a genocide is to act like everyone does it when in fact few do.
More here:
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“The last step is just what is going on here – denial.”
not one person has denied it took place. Your trying to stretch the definition of denial to fit what is going on here. All anyone has denied is the idea that whites are worse than other races. No one has denied that this holocaust occurred or that it was committed by whites.
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@ Jason:
That sentence was followed by another. Here is the fuller context:
If you want still fuller context, I wrote a post on genocide denial:
Of related interest:
and the comments on this post, where Thad denies the Native American Holocaust (except in the cultural sense):
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Abagond,
I believe what Jason, King, and myself are saying is not that genocide didn’t occur, but rather that the European settlers exhibited no additional (and inherent) proclivity or predisposition to genocide than many native tribes (or nearly any other ethnic group around the world for that matter).
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@ Randy:
Right, and that is one of the main ways to deny a genocide:
It is one of the racist lies that America fills your head with. You need to wake up.
More here:
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So Abagond are you saying that the statement.
“Other groups in history have done this besides white americans”
is the same as saying
“this kind of stuff goes on all the time.”
Those sound like two different statements to me but you seem to think they are one in the same.
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@ Jason:
I myself have said other people have done it, like the Germans and Rwandans. But when commenters say that White Americans are no worse than the Iroquois, Aztecs or Mongols they do not understand (or do not want to understand) that White Americans are far worse than that. They are trivializing genocide and making White Americans seem way better than they are.
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My son is 3.5 months old now, should I buy him a onesie that says “sorry I slaughtered all those indians” or maybe i’ll just ground him when he’s old enough.
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Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way.
Perhaps each genocide is simply different and therefore not really subject to comparison in terms of who suffered the most, or what was the worst kind of senseless aggression.
It seems to me that once one group of people start marginalizing, rounding up, and killing another group of people, based on their race or culture, there really isn’t any way to say that THESE people were so much worse than these others when they did it. It all amounts to the same basic horror.
I fear that once you begin saying, “My genocide was worse than your genocide” that we establish a basis for “bad genocide” and “nicer” kinds of genocide. I also fear that when we begin to think that the Nazi’s were a special case, that it becomes far too easy to believe that we are somehow incapable of those kinds of atrocities—not us, we’re too moral to do that!
But from what I’ve seen of human nature, I don’t believe that any people are incapable of atrocities. We are ALL capable of ALL of it—given the proper mindset and motivation.
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“The history of the Indians begins with the arrival of the Europeans. The history of the People begins with the beginning of the history of the People.”
I like this quote. I always here about people talking about how historical Europe and parts of Asia are and it is true. Some beautiful, ancient cities in Europe, and Asia intrigues me even more. However, there seems to be this view in the Eurocentric world that American Indians history was so recent, that it didn’t even matter until now. Same can be said for Africa to a different extent. I love learning about ancient history, and Europe and Asia, but especially the unknown like Central Asia, South Asia, Africa, the Americas.
Very interesting post.
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@ King
Very sensible and well stated as usual.
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@ King
I never talked about greater or lesser genocides. That is a straw man that Jason used. I am talking about genocide, a destruction of a people, as compared to the mere conquest of the same, as bad as that is.
All of us “given the proper mindset and motivation” could be axe murderers, but there is a world of difference between that, a potential, and someone who is swinging an axe killing people, the actual.
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Do you not believe that the genocide exercised on the North American continent by White Americans is worse than the genocide exercised against say… the Armenians by the Young Turks?
Yes, I agree. I don’t think that the fact that we are all capable of doing terrible things excuses, in any way, those who actually do them. I just wanted to make the point that it’s not a question of having a special human defect, but rather, of giving in to a dark and dangerous corner of human nature that we all possess and can potentially be possessed by.
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King,
I think your comments in this thread have been particularly insightful.
However, I do think that it’s probably a useful and even necessary analytical tool to consider genocides in terms of nature and degree, as is done for all other types of crime.
In the case of the native Americans, the ultimate cause of their marginalization was economics and politics, and not some purposeful desire by Europeans to destroy them. A counter-example to the “racism” claim is the efforts of the Jesuits who risked life and limb to spread Catholicism.
Here’s a thought experiment:
Had the Iroquois been the ones with the guns, horses, and superior manufacturing base, does anyone think that today we’d have Dutch, French, and English reservations scattered around the country, or rather would there simply be slightly higher piles of bones here and there?
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@ Randy
Then define genocide.
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The dictionary definition I am using is: The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
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Had the Iroquois been the ones with the guns, horses, and superior manufacturing base, does anyone think that today we’d have Dutch, French, and English reservations scattered around the country, or rather would there simply be slightly higher piles of bones here and there?
No, the Iroquois would have put them back on the leaky boats they arrived on and sent them back to Europe. They would have provided them with hygienic products as the Europeans were known to have been allergic to bathing. The Iroquois smelt them before they sighted their ships! The BO stunned the Iroquois and put them off guard, hence, they were not able to react until it was too late. They thought the boats were floating midden heaps. They didn’t realize that actual sentient beings could stomach or survive in such a foul miasma! That is how the Europeans overcame the Iroquois. It was lack of hygienic products. They say that cleanliness is next to godliness, the ‘Puritans’, missed that script! Seriously Randy, you are a trip!
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@ Kwamla Hesse
“These are religious connotations and while “feeling” good to say do not really explain much.”
Oh, dear! My apologies. 🙂
I usually attempt to say as little as possible so that my main point is not lost in a barrage of unnecessary verbiage.
Those that can understand, will. And those that won’t, can’t.
It was not my intention to “explain much,” but to simply answer your inquiry.
If I’m missing YOUR POINT by not providing the particular answer YOU’RE seeking, why don’t you answer/make YOUR POINT yourself?
Peace.
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@Kwamla Hesse (@Kwamla3)
you wrote:
“And just to be clear on Eco’s response: Dehumanization is NOT an inevitable consequence of us-and-them. The obsession some people have for their animals and their pets clearly shows this not to be the case.”
There are precisely 0 sane, intelligent people who think their pet is their equal. People may be very attached to their pets, but they do not want to give them civil rights. So, even beloved pets are seen as less than people.
you wrote:
“Further, we all know that killing people is an inevitable consequence of war but that does not make killing a “natural” thing to do. Soldiers have to undergo training or indoctrination to suppress their “natural” urges NOT to kill.”
This is why I try to avoid the word “natural”. It’s relative and ultimately meaningless. It’s “unnatural” to kill people. That’s true. But! Isn’t it “natural” for people to feel the need to do whatever is necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones? Isn’t this “natural” need often the thing that makes them overcome their fear of killing people? Depending on a person’s perspective going to war and killing is either “unnatural” and “natural”. In my opinion, since everything in the known universe can be seen as a consequence of something “natural” nothing is truly, fundamentally “unnatural”. That’s why I avoid using this terminology.
My point stands – dehumanization is an inevitable consequence of us-and-them.
@Abagond
you wrote:
“By “natural” I mean that it is probably genetic, a wired part of human nature. I believe that the us-and-them thing is natural, but not the dehumanization.”
OK. So, how can we determine that something is undeniably “unnatural”? Where do “unnatural” things come from? How do they become a part of human personalities?
I think you can’t explain what precisely is this “unnatural” aspect of dehumanization and where it came from. Doesn’t that make your belief in its existence irrational?
you wrote:
“The Russians, for example, were a far bigger threatening Them to White America than Black Americans ever were. In my lifetime Russians were in a position to wipe out the big American cities. In 1962 it came very close to that. Yet despite that they were never dehumanized to the degree that Black Americans were and still are.”
This reminds me of a “joke” Sarah Silverman used to tell:
“If there had been black people in Germany in WW2, the holocaust wouldn’t have happened… Well… at least not to us.”
I know there are many adjectives that can be used to describe her and that “subtle” and “sensitive” are not amongst them, but don’t you think that, in this particular case, she is right? I do. Why? In my opinion, this ultimately does boil down to tribalisms and us-and-them and the fact that when certain people are unlike you on superficial levels it makes it easier to consider them inferior and dehumanize them more severely.
When white Americans looked at Russians they saw certain negative stereotypes, but also noticed Americans look a lot like Russians, that they have similar cultures, art, technology, weapons, clothes, religion, social structures, a history that was part of European history etc.
On the other hand, African Americans were seen as civilized Africans. Something fundamentally “other”, foreign, savage, inferior, etc.
Since white Americans saw a lot of obvious, superficial similarities between themselves and Russians they couldn’t dehumanize them as severely as they were dehumanizing African Americans.
By the way, when you are claiming that something is special/extraordinary/unique and other people point out that it’s common and plain, they are not derailing. They are using logic to prove that you are wrong.
When they claim that the things that are common and plain are automatically acceptable/moral, that IS derailing.
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King,
I’m not quibbling over the definition of the term “genocide”, rather I’m challenging Abagond’s assertion that the European settlers were much more predisposed to such a result than the natives (i.e. “There’s Something About Whitey” )
Not only is such a claim by definition racist, it’s dangerous in terms of impeding the objective understanding of the geopolitical conditions which underpin these situations.
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Randy said:
Right, so White Americans wiped out the Iroquois but now you are using a might-have-been to paint the Iroquois as the true savages.
This is like if you raped my daughter and then have the nerve to tell me in so many words that I would have raped YOUR daughter if I had the chance. Just because YOU are a degenerate scumbag who has no morals, does not mean everyone is.
This technological determinist argument that people use to excuse genocide says, in so many words, that White Americans have no morals. If they can kill, then they will kill if it suits them. They are utterly ruthless. This is far worse than anything I have said about them – and yet this argument is coming from White American commenters themselves!!! It makes me wonder if maybe white people are more far gone than I suspected.
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@ King:
I am not going to compare genocides. That is a derailment in a thread where people are not getting the difference between war and conquest on the one hand and genocide on the other.
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^ They often go hand in hand.
But that was my point—a reasonable person cannot compare genocides. One cannot say that the genocide carried out by White Americans is somehow “worse” than other genocide carried out in Sudan, Tibet, Cambodia, Rwanda, North Korea, Kurdistan, Turkey, Soviet Union, Croatia, or Nanking.
Once genocide truly begins, it is it’s own horror, and not truly comparable to any other genocide, in terms of “better” or “worse.” That is why I do not classify what occurred in North America to be somehow worse that what happened anywhere else in the world.
Each genocide is horrible because ALL genocide is horrible, not because when we compare it to other genocide, it is worse than they were.
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Abagond:
Your analogy is flawed because the Iroquois did in fact wipe out their competitors to the limit of their resources. In the mid-1600s, they funded an expansionist military campaign with revenue from the fur trade and greatly expand their territory.
I contend that this is just “people being people.”
Re-engineering your analogy, it’s like saying that a guy who robbed 20 banks on foot is morally equivalent to a guy who had a car and robbed 60.
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@ Randy
Actually, what you are arguing is that the Iroquois were more predisposed, by social norms and by cultural temperament, to carry out an even “worse” genocide than the Whites did, given an alternate reality—A history in which the Iroquois had the advantage of technology and germs on their side.
I’m not sure that is worth arguing, any more than what would have happened at Waterloo if Wellington’s cavalry divisions had discovered barrels of rum in their encampment the night before. It’s really a moot point.
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“This technological determinist argument that people use to excuse genocide says, in so many words, that White Americans have no morals. If they can kill, then they will kill if it suits them.”
So ridiculous. How can someone who CLEARLY does not believe in the concept of collective responsibility argue so fervently in favor of it when applied to WP.
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Randy said:
If the Iroquois committed genocide, then I agree with you that they are at the same low moral level as White Americans, that only their means (wealth, technology) pretty much separated them. But if they did not commit genocide, then you are no longer comparing successful and less successful bank robbers but shoplifters and armed bank robbers.
Genocide is much worse than war, just as murder is worse than making a man a slave.
But I think your main point is not about the Iroquois themselves but that anyone in the position of White Americans would have done pretty much the same thing. I disagree. Mexico and New Zealand are counter examples. Genocide is not a matter of technology – the Rwandan genocide was largely carried out with machetes – but of a debased way of looking at people, like what Trudell said.
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@ Jason:
Right, that was badly worded. I am saying that to make the technological determinist argument (which I certainly am not), you would have to assume that most people have the same low morals which White Americans have shown in their history. Or: that everyone is a violent racist deep down, they just need the right set of circumstances for it to come out.
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@Matari,
I hear what you’re saying Matari. I simply posed the question here because everyone (including Abagond) appears to be skating around it. As illustrated in this continuing debate about the nature of genocide and now by Abagond’s last comment:
Its clear Abagond is making indirect statements about the true nature of white Americans. So why not just be honest and say so? Instead of I don’t know if this is true? In my view given the historical observations over the last 2000 years this would a reasonable, even, logical conclusion to reach. But it does entail placing white American behaviour outside the norm of what we consider “natural” human behaviour.
@Eco
Which brings me onto Eco’s points about this.
You entirely missed my point here. Which is “humanisation” as opposed to “de-humanisation” . This is what some pet owners do to an excessive degree. This should tell you that “humanisation” comes more “naturally” to them than de-humanisation when they are dealing with perspectives of “us” and “them”when its their pets! So why would they be any different for human beings?
Again on the issue of what is “natural”
This is what I would term as a “dis-connected” perspective. To “FEEL” is natural. Its not relative or meaningless because we can all do this. We may not all experience “feeling” the same thing in the same way. But we do experience the physical or emotional process. Further, we tend to associate anyone who does not feel anything as not being fully human or natural. Again, no relativist discussion needy here. Feelings are not meaningless and you would probably be considered foolish and untrustworthy if you attempted to argue they were.
But while we all feel or have the experience of feeling we may not all interpret what we are feeling in the same way. Which is probably what you really meant by you’re unconsidered statement above. When we dis-connect from our natural feeling centre then all manner of things or atrocities become possible. This is why if you consider the example of killing its necessary to instil questionable beliefs into people which allows them the “mental” rather than “emotional” reason to carry out this action without “feeling” anything. Otherwise, wouldn’t we observe babies routinely destroying anything they were afraid of instead of running away!
So I think the real question should be why have historically white Americans (more so than others) allowed themselves to dis-connect from their “natural” feelings to commit the numerous atrocities against other human beings in the past and present?
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abagond:
Part of what makes this quote interesting to me is that Trudell answers the question of why blacks are so feared and hated and dehumanized by white people, even though it is whites who have done most of the wrong. But then that it is just it: blacks are the evidence of the crime, as Trudell puts it.
It’s always interesting to me how ‘minorities’ are accused of specializing in the very things white people have inflicted on them in a systematic way. Rapes of “Native American” women wherever they were (Caribbean, NA, etc) as well as African slaves was a well documented predilection of the white male arrivals. And should we even speak of the bloodshed? Today’s majority populations of whites in places where they are not native should be evidence enough that the original populations posed no effective threat to them. Yet, there is the persistent myth of that looming ‘coloured’ danger despite the fact that nobody has killed whites more than other whites.
IMO, most of them really believe things that other people see as not credible at all. It’s their devotion to, and their willingness to act in accordance with their own fabrications that makes them so dangerous. For example, when Katrina’s rising waters forced black people to higher ground in a white community the residents didn’t render neighbourly assistance but entered full siege mode. Convinced that their lives and property were in danger, they shot black people on sight. During the same disaster, news reports captioned pictures of white people carrying food in waist deep water quite differently from black people in the same circumstance: the former were ‘finding food’, the latter were ‘looting’. It is this same mindset that makes black people more likely to be shot by police.
I don’t think white racism has a “solution”.
It is just another thing in life to negotiate.
The only thing non-white people can do is try to make it less relevant.
And they can only do that through the acquisition of more and more agency.
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Abagond:
I’m hesitant to refer the war making practices of the Iroquois as comprising a “low moral level”, even though they tended to be more barbaric than the settlers’ (e.g. flaying captured warriors alive, wiping out conquered tribes completely).
Why? Because such brutality helped to confer a survival advantage, communicating strength to neighboring tribes. One might argue that the (nominally) peaceful religion of the Europeans allowed them to show mercy (when they did) without suggesting weakness. The Iroquois shared no such common religion with competing tribes.
Regarding the application of the term “genocide”, perhaps it’s useful to consider that concept as being logically divided into two forms:
– Acts which are by nature genocidal, such as when Group A expressly desires to exterminate all members of Group B.
– Acts which are seen as genocidal due to scale, such as expansion of one group into the territory of another.
In this context, both the Iroquois and the European settlers would likely be labeled “genocidal” using the latter definition.
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@ Randy
I probably wouldn’t try and make the argument toward Iroquois barbarism as opposed to that of White Americans to demonstrate a marked difference in behavior, philosophy, or technique.
And, of course, there is plenty more where that came from. Whites were no less savage than the Iroquois. Thousands of them (including small children) could watch men having their limbs cut off, being burned with irons, and turned into human torches. Here’s another for good measure:
I don’t think you can make any argument for superior civilization or a lack of barbarism, do you?
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@Kwamla Hesse
you wrote:
Doesn’t this reasoning only work when we assume that humanization and dehumanization are mutually exclusive? I think humanity has a dualistic nature – both good and evil. From this perspective, it’s possible and “natural” to feel empathy for a pet, but lack empathy when dealing with a human. So, if humanization is “natural” that doesn’t automatically make dehumanization “unnatural”. People are “naturally” capable of both.
Isn’t it possible to use your reasoning to claim that people who dehumanize others are evidence that humanizing pets is “unnatural”?
you wrote:
People who do not feel anything are “natural”. Can’t they “naturally” be born from “natural” people who can feel? Calling them “unnatural” is like saying that children with birth defects are “unnatural”. Sure they are!
You seem to be using a reasoning that makes you believe that the opposite of something “natural” is automatically “unnatural”. Think of light and darkness – which one is “natural”? What about life and death?
Using “natural” doesn’t make sense, because everything is “natural”, not just the “good” things – that’s what I meant when I called it “meaningless”.
you wrote:
As I mentioned before I believe in dualism. From my perspective, “good” is not the default state.
We would observe babies destroying things they fear, if they believed it’s not hazardous.
you wrote:
You should try to answer the questions Abagond is dodging:
How can we determine that something is undeniably “unnatural”? Where do “unnatural” things come from? How do “unnatural” urges enter a person’s mind?
When you do that, I’ll agree that “unnatural” things exist and then we can try to figure out what were the “unnatural” aspects of white Americans’ behavior.
Since I think nothing is “unnatural” I sincerely doubt that will happen.
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I think the problem here is the way how some want to tie this one on the biological race. The real point is the culture. The white settlers came to America convinced that it is their right to take the land, to kill the natives and wipe them out. This belief system was in place untill 1900’s in USA.
Very highly educated academics and civilized thinkers were absolutely certain that it is the law of the nature, or what ever, that the indians will be gone sooner or later. They were certain that natives end up in the museums along side with neanderthals etc. And because of this, the white population was convinced that anything done towards this God given Fate of the red man, was ok. Including goverment orchestrated mass killings, biological warfare etc. It was ok to kill off native religions, languages, cultures and life. That is the point here.
As for Randy’s favorite savages, the iroquis, like I said before their war against everybody else began when they wanted to bring the peace by way of war, as their leader Hiawatha and a profet (whose name I forgot) said. But their main aim was force others to their peace and because of that they grew up as a federation of tribes, the Five Nations, till Six Nations etc. They assimilated many tribes into their federation.
After the whites came, along came the economical incentive. Now the war was not just about the peace but also about the money (fur trade). And that was what the white men wanted, injuns fighting to the death over some money. That kind of war the whites knew. And inspired by the french, the hurons tried to wipe out the iroquois, who then almost wiped out the hurons cheered on by the brittish.
Later on, the iroquois split, some siding with the brittish some with americans, in the white mans wars. So from 1600’s on wards the white new comers were the dynamo which kept the iroquois on the war path.
Now here is a little play for Randy so he can understand what the white settlers did to the native people:
Imagine Randy, that the chinese would come in massive waves to USA and decide that the official flag of USA would be the flag of China. Imagine that the chinese would kill white americans anywhere at anytime and they would say that it is their right.
If white americans would try to resist, the chinese army would come and kill everything in sight, including domestic and wild animals around. And then they would say that this is the law.
They would burn down Pittsburg and kill its all inhabitants, they would wipe out St.Louis, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Washington, and kill everyone living on those places en masse.
Then they would say that only chinese can own land and homes and white americans must live on landfills and dumpsites and other places which the chinese consider of no value.
Imagine that the chinese would then say that there will be only one religion, buddism, and all the others are illegal. After that they would shoot all the priests, burn the churches and arrest and punish any one who has a crucifix or image of Jesus in their possession.
Imagine that the chinese would also degree that from now on nobody is allowed to talk or write in english. All the children would be taken away and put into schools were they will learn only chinese language, religion and history. The history of USA is forbidden.
They would be dressed as chinese and their hair style would also be chinese.The use of fork and knife would be outlawed and the children would be forced to eat only with chop sticks.
They would also told that only chinese food is good and all others unhealthy and savage, like steaks, potatoes and gravy. Fries, hod dogs and hamburgers would be outlawed.
They would see only chinese movies, read only chinese books and listen only chinese music. Everything else would be outlawed.
Imagine that this would go on for four hundred years.
Get it?
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I think the debate in the comments boils down to two questions:
1) Is the capacity to do evil a “natural” part of humanity?
2) If we are naturally capable of evil, does that absolve evildoers from personal responsibility for their actions?
My answers are: Yes to 1 and No to 2.
Abagond’s seem to be No and Yes. I think he believes exceptional evil is “unnatural”, and that calling something “natural” is a bit like calling it “acceptable”.
Abagond, would you agree?
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@ Eco:
What I said was that the us-and-them feeling is natural, meaning that it is probably genetic and wired in, a part of human nature. Genocide and the degree of dehumanization that it requires, on the other hand, is rare enough that I think its causes are cultural (probably racism or whatever causes racism). I doubt it is a part of human nature, as Randy seems to be saying, or bad white genes, as some people seem to think I am saying.
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@ Eco:
My answers are also 1) Yes and 2) No.
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King,
I don’t believe that your two cited cases of lynching particularly bolsters your argument. Imagine a similar scene being de rigueur in village after village following every battle, skirmish, or instance of captured foreigner. Also, as mentioned, I don’t argue that the Iroquois had any special monopoly on barbarity, but rather that they’re basically behaving rationally given the circumstances.
sam,
Firstly, you haven’t addressed the issue of whether or not the natives would have done similarly if given the same advantages. This concept is important if one is attempting to say that this group or that group has moral superiority.
Also, I’ve noticed that you litter your comments with epithets which the person you’re responding to hasn’t used, such as “savages” or the N-word. Why is that? It coarsens the discourse.
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@Abagond
Maybe I should rephrase my questions. I do think we differ on these two issues. I thought 1) and 2) only had yes/no answers, but it seems you are looking for a third one. Something like “yeah, but…”. 🙂
If culture may be one of the causes of this genocide, than what caused the culture? In this case – white Americans did.
You are trying to find your balance on a tightrope between two extremes:
– genocide is simply a human crime (all evil in “natural”)
– white Americans are uniquely flawed
You do not want to agree with either, so you are looking for something “unnatural” that had been done to white Americans, but when you try to name that “unnatural” factor you are pointing out things that are either “natural” or where willingly created by white Americans. I think the “unnatural” element doesn’t exist and that you are closer to the “they are uniquely flawed” stance, but you do not want to claim it, because it creates a link between negative behavior and ethnicity. You are not going to find a third choice, you are just being vague.
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That is only because you imagine that I couldn’t produce thousands of such reports, taken from newspaper reporter eyewitnesses (but i could). Also, in the Henry Smith Lynching, the crowd was over 10,000 strong. The groupings of Whites who attended lynchings were far larger, so if they fell short of the Iroquois in frequency, they made up for it in volume of exposure and participation in barbarism.
Besides, we are relying mostly on the reports of the Iroquois’ enemies as to their actions, not the Iroquois Times Newspaper. Who is to say that the frequency and universal application of such barbaric events was not overestimated, as is so often the case, when reported by an enemy? We certainly know, that only a small percentage of lynchings were ever reported in the newspapers, because such reports were an ugly reminder to Whites of their own barbarism and cruelty.
Besides, there are enough instances of Foreigners being captured by the Iroquois and surviving to cast doubt on your claims that this barbarism was always applied.
And again
And again
Does this sound like the Iroquois had a universal policy of murdering all captives by means of barbaric torture? I think that you are imagining the Iroquois to be far more universally brutal than they were and are simultaneously imagining the White settlers, colonists, and citizens, to be far less brutal than they clearly were.
It didn’t even give them nightmares, I’ll warrant.
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@randy:
“Firstly, you haven’t addressed the issue of whether or not the natives would have done similarly if given the same advantages. This concept is important if one is attempting to say that this group or that group has moral superiority.
Also, I’ve noticed that you litter your comments with epithets which the person you’re responding to hasn’t used, such as “savages” or the N-word. Why is that? It coarsens the discourse.”
Ok, I answer.
Firstly, we will never know, will we? That is just speculation. Perhaps, perhaps not, but that is not the issue here. We can speculate what would have happened if Adolf Hitler had been killed by poison gas in western front in WW1 but he was not, was he? That speculation won’t make the holocaust go away, will it?
We can also argue back and forth about moral superiority, morals in general, even what is moral actually, but none of that changes the historical fact, does it? The white settlers did what they did, period.
It is also good to remember that they were a small minority among the populations of Americas and yet, in couple centuries they almost wiped out all the others. And the technological explanation does nor explain what happened at first. The first muskets and such were actually worse than good bow and arrow. It took thirty seconds from a highly professional soldier to fire his musket again and in that time highly professional native warrior could shoot several arrows, which, by the way, were as leathal as any musket ball, and those weapons had actually more range than muskets, not to mention the better acurracy. Only after the introduction of flint locks and better powder etc, the white minority gained some advantage.
Sorry if a word like savage offends you, I thoughed you would be ok with such word since you have tried to prove how “barbaric” the iroquois were compared to the whites settlers. You also have hinted that they were more barbaric because they did not posses the same values as the europeans, mercy was your prime example.
As you propably know that at the same time the europeans were beginning their american holocaust, they burned perhaps 100 000 to 150 000 women as witches at stakes across the whole western Europe in the name of the same god you claim made them morally superior to those barbaric iroquois.
You propably know that during 1600’s and 1700’s the Spanish inquisition murdered tens of thousands of enemies of Christ, many of them young women and girls. They had an instrument which penetrated the girl trough between her legs and widened so that in the end the girl was torn in half. They also believed that burning people slowly at stake was an act of mercy since it shortened the time one had to spent in purgatory,
You might also know that in 1600’s most of Europe was torn to bits and pieces by Thirty years war which was all about the same god, which according to you gave the white settler the moral superiority over the native americans. Thirty years war was one of the worst man made catastrophes in the history of mankind and all because of religion, your god of mercy. At Marienburg the whole population was burned in the church. Even the famous finns, the hackapells, showed their hand. In 1639-41 they were stationed in Silecia and during those three years the finnish hackapells (never more than few thousand strong) wiped out roughly half of the towns and villages and major portion of the population. Christians just like themselves.
Perhaps you have heard the battle of Blenheim were the europeans killed tens of thousands of each other in 1702 in just few hours? Napoleonic wars? Hundreds of thousands killed in relatively few battles there and countless of more by by-products of war: hunger, diseases etc.
I would not be so eager to cast moral doubt on the barbaric iroquois, and the natives in general, compared to the white settlers. The iroquois were very warlike federation and did kill and trouble their neighbours, but when ever they went for war, each war chief had to go back to his village and ask permission to go to war from the women of his tribe. If the women said nix, the men stayed at home, no matter how many neighbours went. In many cases the iroquois war bands included men from various nations of the federation because of this. Not all iroquois went at war at the same time for same reasons all the time, despite their feroucious reputation.
Nobody is saying or claiming that the natives were all nice hippies. But the white settlers definately were not.
Did you read my text? About the imaginative situation with the chinese? Think about that.
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@randy: Here are some tricks of the trade those finnish hackapells used to their fellow christians: skinning, cutting in pieces, burning and one very original trick known as the swedish drink (finns were at the time part of the swedish empire): they forced the victim drink drink mixed of urine (both human and horses), feces, dorty water and some alcohol and after the victims belly was more than full, they jumpen on him. Starving enemies alive was very common method and naturally all the normal methods of warfare, shooting, stabbing, impaling etc. All this during the 1600’s when you claimed that the christianity made the white settlers morally superior to those barbaric iroquois.
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Bulanik:
My original argument is that the European settlers were no more prone to “genocide” than the native tribes, perhaps even less so. While these stories of lynchings certainly demonstrate barbarity, I hold that they were less present in the lives of most settlers than similar events were in the lives of many natives. In the case of the Iroquois, such scenes were standard operating procedure.
King:
I’m using the word “foreign” to describe non-Iroquois.
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By the way, did anyone else notice that sam makes an argument (“what if the Chinese did to Americans what Europeans did to Native Americans”) which casts King’s “adoption stories” as genocidal acts?
King retells 3 stories of Europeans being captured and adopted by the Iroquois. Surely, this must be a non-genocidal act, right?
Often after a raid, the men who weren’t killed in battle were publicly tortured to death. Children and women were sometimes adopted into the tribe, at which point they were treated as Iroquois.
They weren’t raised as bi-cultural Algonquins/Hurons/French/etc in an Iroquois village, they were forced to become full Iroquois. In other words, women and children watched their husbands/fathers get brutally tortured to death then forced to convert to Iroquois language and customs.
So when a European does something similar, it’s genocide, but when an Iroquois does it, the act is considered merciful? Does not compute.
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In each case that I sighted above were French settlers who were a) captured and b) acculturated into the Iroquois population as an equal member of the tribe. These were decidedly non-Iroquios people.
What I am saying is that most Whites believe that lynchings were carried out by relatively small groups of hooded men on horseback who went around hanging hapless negroes. Few realize that these were events where many thousands of people turned out to watch women forced to hold out their hands in front of them while their fingers were cut of one at a time. Few realize that many Blacks were mercilessly burned alive while people watched while eating refreshments and drank lemonade as the victims screamed in agony—including women, children and even clergy.
These events occurred in such diverse parts of the country, and were carried out with the morbid approval of thousands of citizens, that it makes it clear that the attitudes that precipitated these events were quite common among the American public. White society was actually quite barbaric and brutal. WHat else could you say about a society where children watched a man burned alive and then cut of his fingers and toes to keep as souvenirs?
When the Iroquois captured French settlers, in quite a few cases, they were eventually trusted and accepted as equal citizens of the Iroquois Nation. However Blacks, Chinese, and Native Americans, who lived in American culture were NEVER accepted as equal members of the American Nation – please check the U.S. laws of the time to confirm. A good argument could be made that the Iroquois were actually MORE humane than the White Americans.
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But what you are forgetting is that the Europeans were the ones who left their own land and were on the North American continent threatening the Iroquois empire. It’s not as it the Iroquois got in a big boat and began wiping out or Europeans or enforcing Iroquois cultural ideas in Europe.
It makes far more sense that the Iroquois killed on the warriors (the males) while sparing women and children, even marrying and raising them as their own. Play that against the White example of killing men, women, and children, in many cases (see the Indian Wars) and lynching Black women (and sometimes even children) along with the men. ANd as I said, they were never adopted and accepted as equal members of society.
Randy, I think that you may have to apologize to the Iroquois. You clearly have it backwards.
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King,
First of all, the “victims” of Iroquois brutality were historically other native tribes, some of whom were utterly destroyed. I think the Iroquois would have laughed heartily at the idea of creating a reservation for the defeated Attawandaron.
And they didn’t adopt the women and children out of a modern sense of “human rights”, rather it was a smart economic and political decision.
I feel no need to apologize to the Iroquois because I’ve never impugned them. I have a great deal of respect for them without having to overlay some Disney-fied revisionist moral framework on top of real history.
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Bulanik
I think it’s rather uncontroversial to suggest that the average Iroquois witnessed and participated in more acts of warfare, torture, and slaughter than the average European settler.
Remember that the point of all of these arguments was to offer a rebuttal to Abagond’s assertion that white Americans are particularly prone to genocide. My point was that the natives conducted affairs roughly similarly, though lacked the resources of the Europeans to conquer as much territory. But it wasn’t for lack of desire or so-called “morals”.
This is all just people being people.
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The reason whites didn’t assimilate vanquished groups but exterminated them was likely because of monogamy. Monogamous groups find it very hard to assimilate conquered foes, so they exterminate them. Think of the crusaders killing women and children.
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Does Randy ever question himself?
That’s the million dollar question isn’t it? Does he ever question himself? Does a bear sh*t in the woods?
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“Does a bear sh*t in the woods?”
um, yes?
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Bulkanik:
Tribes were brutally competing for resources well before the Europeans arrived.
Bulkanik:
I don’t see evidence to the contrary. The tribes with superior agricultural capacity appeared to capitalize on this advantage to the expense of less resourced tribes.
Bulkanik:
One can only speculate on such a scenario. There’s no shortage of absolutely horrific and genocidal violence in Africa today so I don’t see any evidence to suggest that they would lack a similar capacity. People do as people do. These things go on everywhere around the world.
Bulkanik:
That’s a pretty loose definition of “humane”: torturing all of the men to death, extinguishing the language and culture of the conquered tribe, and taking the women and children for their own. Women and children weren’t spared out of a sense of kindness and mercy, rather they were seen as adding additional human resources to the tribal economy.
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@ Randy:
I will grant that the Iroquois were genocidal since, from what I know, they wiped out the Hurons or a good part of them. But to take them and say that most Native Americans were like that is just as misleading as saying that because White Americans were genocidal so were most whites. Both the Iroquois and White Americans were extreme cases. It was not simply a matter of “;people being people”. If it were then genocide would be way more common than it is. Egypt, Mexico and India, for example, would be way lighter skinned than they are.
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Randy:
Except that this didn’t ALWAYS happen. I grant you that the Iroquois were bloody, but this idea that they killed captured MEN without exception (unlike Whites) is just false.
Here’s another man who was not killed or tortured,
and another
The idea that the Iroquois ALWAYS killed all of the males does not hold up to history. They were a warrior people who were certainly brutal at points in their history, but to imagine that they were somehow more brutal than the White invaders into their empire is a stretch. Whites were at LEAST equally brutal.
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@ King, Sam and Bulanik you guys have made some excellent points!
As an African, I will give my perspective on this since Rwanda and Darfur have been brought up repeatedly. IMO the difference between the genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of black people and the genocide in Rwanda and Darfur is one of COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY. This is something i think Sam and King are trying to get across and it is what i have understood.
In Rwanda as we speak there is something known as ‘gacaca’ courts where people who killed their neighbor, betrayed them or caused them harm whether directly or indirectly by their silence come before an informal court apologize to their fellow brothers and sisters and ask for forgiveness as WHOLE. Whether you participated in it or not the fact is you were silent while others were murdered makes you just as guilty. Same thing happening in Northern Uganda where the Acholi tribesmen have to go through a cleansing ceremony and publicly apologize to their fellow people for the crimes they committed against them.
This happened also in Sierra Leone, Burundi and of course in South Africa. Now anyone who has watched the TJRC proceedings in SA will see that white men, women and even the black men who participated in the apartheid government came and apologized. The TJRC was an apology by the white people to the black, indian and other colored peoples for their inhumane acts. This is one of the primary reasons why i think SA (to some extent) was able to move on and avert a civil war. No white person in SA will EVER say “well I was not part of apartheid so stop blaming me”. Come on they benefited and continue to benefit from that racist system. THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMERICAN WHITES AND WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS!
I do not think one race has monopoly over evil we certainly all have the capacity to be evil just as we have the capacity to be good. But the difference between “white culture” and other cultures is the ability to own up and accept their participation in systems that have discriminated and disadvantaged other peoples around the world. I work with a lot of white expatriates here in Kenya who claim to love Africa and Africans but when we argue about history esp. the role of Europe in the colonization and neo-colonization of Africa they get defensive real fast and its always a matter of time before they say something like “well we brought you this and we invented this and we did that…” DING DING DING…. there it is white superiority even among those who don’t think they are racist. Like doing all those things somehow excuses you for all the bad things we dealt with and continue to deal with.
In African culture we believe in restorative justice as opposed to retributive justice and you can find in almost all African cultures that if you harmed, hurt or even killed someone the first step was for you, your family, your relatives, your clansmen and even your entire tribe to be held accountable and responsible for this act. Because we operate as a whole and one action by your brother or sister reflects on you as a family and as a community.
I am sorry but I don’t think white people as a WHOLE will ever “get it” some will most never will because they simply do not care and secretly believe they are superior to everyone (deep in their hearts they know this when they go to sleep at night after all they invented the WORLD we just live in it!)
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@ Malkia:
Excellent comment. Thank you.
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@ Bulanik exactly! After all for Mandela to have gotten through to the black populace they must have shared or empathized with his message. It was not from a vacuum this was the practice and has always been the practice. And of course the TJRC was nothing more than what African peoples have been practicing for centuries that is sitting before your elders and community and confessing your crime in full and seeking forgiveness.
I see it in the way the Rwandan ‘gacaca’ courts are reported, the way families forgave each other in Sierra Leone, the cleansing ceremonies in Northern Uganda, the informal meetings held in Burundi, the TJRC in SA and in my every day life experience with my fellow Africans. We are not a vengeful lot sure we believe in justice but we also believe that healing and bridging gaps is just as important as the punishment for the crime.
White reporters or white people who go to places such as Rwanda or Sierra Leone are always so “shocked and moved” (their words) by the ability of these savages who maimed and killed each other to look past their hurt and pain and find a common ground. Its called “ubuntu”…I am because you are. This describes Africans to me perfectly. I study western history and I see a culture where revenge and punishment is at a premium (Troy Davis someone) and not community healing finding a way to move past the hate and find commonality by virtue that we are human with human frailties, craziness and flaws.
Africans are not magical Negroes, noble savages or special humans but I do believe that a history and a culture of a people plays a big role in how people develop a society and how they treat others in that society.
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@bulanik: good point.
I think randy, and others trying to tie in all the people in the world to this american holocaust, forget one simple historical fact: the people who came to America, the ones who formed USA, were not your average toilers and citizens, jodys and joes. The majority of the whites, particulary in the beginning, were soldiers, fortune seekers, soldiers of fortune, criminals, religious zelots etc. What they brought over in their minds were the roots of the white american culture, the foundation of it. They were, as they still are remembered, the founding fathers.
Because USA had to build fast somekind of explanation of excistence vis a vis the old European nations, the idea of promosed land, New Jerusalem, was created. All kinds of ideological reasons and reasonings were created to justify the birth of this particular nation which had no history at all, no roots at all, no common heritage, but the fact that it was new.
Thus the saying, that the USA was founded by pirates and pilgrims. True, except that the pilgrims were in actuality religious fanatics whose laws and practises were very much like the talebans today.
So even if it states the all people are free to pursuit happiness and jadajada in the constitution, this principle was never intented to include the natives or slaves in the new country. Nor it meant even the women folk of those founding fathers. It meant these white men.
In none of the early documents, degrees, even contracts with the natives, there is a hint that they are to be treated as equals. On the contrary, every single time that the whites have wanted, they have wiped their collective asses with the negotiated settlements with the natives. Not once, or twice, but in all the cases. Either it has been decided that the natives have no judicial rights to the lands as individuals or tribes, or that the agreements do not have legal status for some reason. The key element is that the natives have no legal rights what so ever. They are out. They are not in, nor they are part of the USA. That is the key to understand what has happened and happens even today.
The inherited racism of white american culture has been alive for the very simple reason that it has never been challenged from within. There has never been a Truht comission. There has never been a revolution. Trough the history of the USA the educational system has been geared to enforce the idea, the myth of the land of the free. The history is not just objective history, it is there to propagate the idea of the Right of this country. It is in the system of thinking, it is in the core of beliefs. “We have the Right!”. “Either you are with Us, or against Us!”. “The world looks Us for guidance and help for democracy!”.
All of these spring from the same well that allowed the earlier generations to wipe out the natives, steal their lands and lives, inflict horrible violence on them for generations. “Operation Iraki Freedom”. Roughly 350 000 civilians killed, the whole infastructure of society destroyed etc. “We gave democracy to the people of Irak.” Same mind frame at work.
And just to show that the old ideas have not dissappeared, I belive it was the state laws of Wyoming where they still have this: “if there are more than 8 indians gathered in the same place, they are considered to be a war party and can be shoot at on sight”. That was the LAW of the state at least in early 2000’s. Why it has remained there for all these years?
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@malakia: excellent points!
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@Eco.
You’ve made some interesting comments that I can respond to. Lets start with this:
Fundamentally, at one level you’re right and I would agree everything could be considered “natural”. If its manifest and experienced by (us) human beings then it must be part of our creation we define as reality. And yes its true, I agree, the structure of human society we live in is dualistic in format. So yes for this very reason it is as you say:
“.. possible and “natural” to feel empathy for a pet, but lack empathy when dealing with a human…”
And indeed we do see this demonstrated all the time, particularly with some white people in Westernized countries (American included) who appear to care more for their pets than their fellow starving human beings. Its this dualistic “nature” of society which makes this possible but it doesn’t mean this is how we instinctively “Feel” things should be.
And this is where we come to differ in how we view and give meaning to the word “natural”. For you it is meaningless because either dualistic state: to humanism or De-humanism could be arbitrarily chosen and logically and intellectually argued as being a natural part of who we are and how we behave. This is typified by the ongoing debate in this forum on what does or does not constitute genocide and whether white Americans, because of the particular brutal way they have relished carrying out such acts, qualify as representatives of the rest of humanity.
Hence your reasoning as you summarised:
Incidentally, I agree with you given your response is: Yes to 1 and No to 2 when you comment on Abagond’s response to this. As this is the same vague and unclear position I initially pointed out a while back:
Now…getting back to where we differ. You’re obviously wrong when you say there is no default state between what we consider “good” and “evil” which is why it is even reflected in your 2nd question which you answered Yes to. If good or evil are arbitrary choices then why should question 2 matter?
Surely whether “evil doers” should take personal responsibility for their actions is purely a matter of choice or preference? How could you argue that they should do otherwise? Unless of course you were being guided by some other “instinctively irrational” or “illogical gut feeling”…pointing you slightly more in the direction of what you would consider to be “good” rather than “evil”
This is where we differ because I am emphasising “Feeling” or “Centredness” as a balance an overriding factor that allows us to distinguish between what is “natural” and lets say artificially created (as opposed to un-naturally created). Again, this is something we can all discern but can easily be cut off from or “disconnected” from being able to see.
Fundamentally the question is more one of connection and dis-connection. Ultimately the dualistic “nature” of society we experience is illusory if you believe we should have personal responsibility for our actions. If you believe we don’t and don’t have to take responsibility then you will continue to play this out in your actions and re-enforce it in your beliefs towards yourself and other human beings
Its separatist beliefs that cause us to dis-connect our feelings from others we would otherwise regard as similar to ourselves. And its the acute absorption of those beliefs, with no access to countering beliefs which would allow us to “feel” our natural balance, that is responsible for the genocides and atrocities we experience. Why don’t we experience these genocide carried out in nature: animals, insects and plants? Or are we separate from them?
I hope this goes some way to answering some of those questions posed in your last comment:
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Abagond:
Interesting.
What is your proposed atomic unit of genocide culpability? If you say that white Americans but not all whites are genocidal, and the Iroquois but not all native tribes were genocidal, are you referring to the predisposition towards genocide as being a cultural trait exclusively?
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I think the following document, I just happened to come across, which chronicles the extent of European (Australian) involvement (1788-2008) in Genocides may prove useful to this discussion. It would certainly help to place the action of Genocide in a more clearly defined context. Particularly from the view point of White European or American involvement.
Further it states:
http://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/australia-s-secret-genocide-history
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@ Kwamla:
Wonderful! Thank you.
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@kwamla: there it is.
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@Kwamla Hesse
I had a busy week and couldn’t get to this sooner. Sorry!
This isn’t really about the evildoer. What he thinks of himself and his actions is irrelevant. He doesn’t have to understand how/why his actions are considered evil. He doesn’t have to feel remorse. The important thing is how we judge him. What we think he should think/feel/do.
Let me rephrase question 2: if we consider a crime common, does that make the crime less severe? I don’t think so. It seems Abagond (in a way) does. When a few commenters tried to show that white American’s crimes aren’t unique Abagond saw it as an Arab trader argument. It seems he considers the crime so horrible that he believes it’s not “natural” for people to be capable of such things. I think genocides are rare, but “natural”.
How would you define “Feeling” or “Centredness”? When I try to analyze your stance and define these terms I keep constructing illogical statements. I’m either defining the term by referencing the term (like: “Feeling is something we feel is right and(…)” or my definitions suggest that the terms are subjective. Like, if a serial killer feels that all gingers have to die, is his feeling wrong? Psychopaths are unable to experience empathy. He isn’t doing anything against himself. If the fact that he doesn’t “Feel” the right way makes him wrong, then how can we tell who is wrong and who isn’t?
My stance is basically moral relativism. “Good” and “evil” are subjective. “Good” is what we consider beneficial to ourselves and/or the society. What we consider beneficial is determined by our instincts, our DNA. Morality is a set of rules, either personal or agreed upon and enforced by members of a society. Morality is not universal nor objective.
Where do separatist beliefs come from? Aren’t they a consequence of natural tribalisms?
Genocide, by definition, is something uniquely human.
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@eco
Well. At least you are honest…
If as you state your stance is basically moral relativism then what gives one group of people the right to judge another? Or insist that they must conform to their particular moral viewpoints? This is what you are arguing for when you say: “…This isn’t really about the evildoer…” and “…The important thing is how we judge him. What we think he should think/feel/do…”
Who is the “we” judging and why should their moral viewpoint be upheld?
What we instinctively “feel” and know goes beyond our basic DNA programming. Its something we collectively share not just with ourselves as human beings but with animals as well, plants and the rest of our natural extended environment. If these instinctive collective agreements did not exist we would not have a stable functioning planet to experience anything! In fact we wouldn’t even have a vessel we call a body either!
This is a basic but fundamental concept – “Connectedness” which we can choose to deny or accept but it remains our reality nevertheless.
This is why I made the following statement:
Its getting locked into beliefs which allow us to perceive our subjective reality as an unconnected whole. What we collectively and instinctively know would challenge that but if we have learned to dis-regard, deny or counter-argue this feeling based knowledge then we allow ourselves to become “off-balance”, “un-centred”, dis-connected from this whole, this Centredness.
So to use the same example again. This is why we have to be “indoctrinated” or trained with “separatist beliefs” that it is ok to kill or murder another human being for your country. Killing another human being who we would instinctively feel connected to is NOT natural.
This is why arguments which propose “them and us” as “natural states” of human behaviour are really promoting separatist beliefs. Or dis-regarding, denying or counter-arguing feeling based knowledge which emphasises connectedness. Our “natural” state of being.
“…Where do separatist beliefs come from?..”. This is a good question but one that can only be explored once the’re existence has been accepted, acknowledged and appreciated. I believe they can have multiple sources…
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Abagond…John Trudell was one of the most amazing, smartest, creative, kindest, bravest, and spiritually charged person/warrior/teacher/guide that I have ever met. He should forever be honored, remembered, and his teachings passed on.
Thank you for your article about this incredible man. Blessings to both of you…
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I lost track of you is September. I am glad I got a chance to catch up with your posting. Why argue with another man Philosophy-a set of basic principles or concepts underlying a particular sphere of knowledge.
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Randy said: Interesting. What is your proposed atomic unit of genocide culpability? If you say that white Americans but not all whites are genocidal, and the Iroquois but not all native tribes were genocidal, are you referring to the predisposition towards genocide as being a cultural trait exclusively?
actually. im glad you asked that question. my thesis is looking at genocide as a function of a certain ontological rationality (what mary douglas calls the hierarchical cultural rationality). european culture exemplifies the H-type. so yes, genocide in this context is a product of a specific ontological and epistemological perspective. that is not to say that the Iroquois were not heading toward a total paradigm shift into an H-type rationality (i think they were) it is to say that not every indigenous person or tribe was predisposed toward acts of genocide, nor was every european individual. however, it is the case that almost every european nation was in fact predisposed toward genocidal tendencies because every european nation was constructed around the H-type polarity.
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Excellent article. You’ve explained it exactly as I see it. There is absolutely no way of getting this through to white people. I live in the UK and I have tried to explain the inequalities in western culture on numerous occasions to white people but they really do seem to be blinded to everything.
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“I study western history and I see a culture where revenge and punishment is at a premium”
That is very true. It made wars between Christian Europeans particularly brutal. However, Islamic societies suffer from this vindictiveness even more. This makes the civil war in Syria unsolvable. It is not surprising that Islam sees Christianity as a brother religion. It is very hard to get one, without the other. I agree that according to the moral values the Christian pretends to uphold, the behavior of whites in America was particularly vile. Both Christianity and Islam form one moral system, that breaks down in Syria. Only when both groups give up their religions, world war and destruction can be prevented.
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“The history of the People is one of cooperation, collectivity, and living in balance” I am sympathetic to this, but the People were not all living in harmony. They too fought and killed each other in the name of separateness, selfishness and competition – an unfortunate illness of perspective that exists in ALL of humanity.
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Thank you John T. You are so insightfull. I have felt this and known it in my heart my whole life. I never knew why or even where my beliefs come from. They are just there. I remember being in school when they tried to teach me history. I laughed and though who would believe that this Columbus guy discovered a place where my kind already was????!!!??!!! Needless to say at this time in iLife they were trying to shove this down my throat. Really at this time they were saying he discovered america. Now they change it!!!! Because Peoples like you and me stand up and question this totally insane history they wanted us to believe and take for our own. I don’t listen to no white mans explanations to anything to do with our history or beliefs. This next person is exactly what I can ignore and totally block out!! This is pure ignorance! Like I once heard a white say “if we didn’t take over someone else would have” now that’s insinuating there are others out there like them. I say sell it else where we’re full of shit talkers here in this so call America’s.
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when two tribes are at war, the one who has no respect for the enemy never wins the battle.
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The difference isn’t between whites and Natives or whites and blacks but rather civilized people versus tribal people. The Aztecs and the Inca and (before they abandoned civ) the Mayans were just as big of a-holes as European whites were circa 1492 and later because they had that civilized mindset. Tribal people fight too, but they don’t have a totalitarian approach to everything the way civilized people do. In other words “civilized” is not a compliment or a virtue and it never was. It’s just human over-domestication turning most of us into complacent dogs following the mutated alpha dogs in their insane drive to kill off all wolves. And we can’t even see it. WE, not us and them… if you’re on a computer, YOU are part of the problem. White OR Native.
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Reblogged this on Decolonize Indigenous Generations and commented:
John Trudell, When Columbus got off the Boat
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[…] Abagond: […]
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Yes this is the absolute truth. Thank you.
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[…] John Trudell: When Columbus got off the boat. […]
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[…] John Trudell, Happy Columbus Day Everybody. […]
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