“Lies My Teacher Told Me” (1995, 2007) by James W. Loewen looks at 12 high school American history books in common use and tells you what they lie about and what important facts they leave out. Loewen looks at how and why history books get written that way. He is the same Loewen who wrote about sundown towns.
If you like this blog you would probably like this book too. I have even done posts based on some of its chapters:
- The truth about the First Thanksgiving (from chapter 3)
- The lies you were taught about Native Americans (from chapter 4)
- American history books and racism (from chapter 5)
- What they do not teach you about anti-racism at American high school (chapter 6)
- Why American high school history teachers say little about the past 30 years (from chapter 9)
- Why American history gets whitewashed (from chapter 11)
Those posts are not pure Loewen, though, since the chapters were processed through my brain and then written about for the purposes of this blog.
Whenever I write about American history I always check what Loewen has to say. Not that Loewen does not have his own set of blinders, but at least he gets beyond the Standard Lies. He seems to be one of those honest white souls who does not suffer from Fragile White Ego Syndrome. Like Howard Zinn, he taught history at a black college in the American South during the height of the civil rights movement.
Loewen knows of what he speaks: he helped to write “Mississippi: Conflict and Change” (1974), a history book for Mississippi high schools that put race at the centre of the story. Crazy, I know. The Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board would not touch it because – it talked too much about race. The publishers would not touch it because those who liked the book, black teachers, are a limited market.
At university if you take a history course they tell you what is in fact known about a particular piece of history, the good, the bad and the ugly. You will also find out what is in dispute or in doubt.
At high school, however, they will flat-out lie to you and leave out all kinds of stuff. Because there the aim is not to help you to understand the country’s past, like you might expect, but to make you proud of your country and respect authority. It is a patriotic fairy tale.
Unfortunately for eight out of ten Americans, the history they learned at high school is as far as they ever get.
Therefore most Americans should read this book to help make up for their miseducation. One of the great things about it is that the chapters can be read independently in any order you like.
He does not have all that much on black history, yet almost every single person who has told me I should read the book was black! Probably because Loewen makes it plain as day how high school history is a set of self-serving lies and half truths that rich and middle-class whites want to believe.
See also:
- sundown towns
- Howard Zinn
- White History Month
- reading while white: history and news – my own, non-Loewenian take on how White Americans misread history
I’ll cosign…anyone not wanting a whitewashed version of American history should have this book in their collection.
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Abagond:
The education platform in this country is not rooted in reality. Education, or so-called education has killed more black people on this planet than anybody or anything. The reason why our race is still suffering from the inhumanity of slavery and racism, is because, we’re not as educated and informed as we should be. We waste a lot of time and energy worrying about whether or not white folks and others like us…Nonsense! Are we educated and informed enuf to not allow others to control and exploit our race, this is what we should be focused on as black people. As i’ve said before many times, uneducated, uninformed black people are slaves and useful idiots in relation to others…Unacceptable!!!
Tyrone
Black Eros
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Intriguing. I will definitely add to my library.
It is sad that America’s education system is so degraded and whitewashed in which most young adults go through life as faux patriotic zombies. It is often said that “Those who cannot remember that past are condemned to repeat it.”
This is so true of the various foreign and domestic issues affecting this country today.
Maybe that is why most people continue to elect intellectually dishonest politicians. I fear that the democratic republic as it was originally envisioned no longer exists. But then again, that may not be such a bad thing.
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The same was true in my AP and other history classes in high school. We learned about lynching, Jim Crow, water cannon used on peaceful protestors in the South, Bull Conner, etc. We learned about private residential segregation in the north. We also learned about while liberal efforts to help end Jim Crow, with the white and black freedom riders from the north, the abolitionists, John Brown, etc. We learned about Indian wars too, and massacres on both sides. I’ll agree my middle school history was pretty whitewashing about the age of exploration, the discovery of America and it’s early settlement by whites and so on.
As far as so called “sundown towns” most of them did not have rules about no blacks allowed after sundown and certainly not signs saying that. Levittown had no such rule for example. Most of them simply had private housing segregation. It also was organized in only a relatively few towns. More common was simply real estate agents steering black clients to mixed or mostly black suburbs. It was not government legislated or enforced in the north, except that private restrictive covenants (e.g. cannot sell to a negro) put into housing deeds by e.g. the real estate developer would be enforced as a matter of real estate law.
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Aba,
This is why America lags behind so many other countries.
White Americans are so fragile…if the truth was ever spoken about their proud history, they wouldn’t know how to handle it.
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I’m leaning toward Tyrone’s assessment.
I see the so-called “educational” system in America as an apparatus designed to dumb-down/produce useful idiots/slaves/wage earners/dependency. It certainly isn’t designed to teach how to attain financial wealth or independence.
What was taught in the 8th grade 100 years ago is today’s PHD material. A dumb, unaware, non-thinking, non-analytical population is much easier to control and manipulate than a thinking/intelligent people.
Black people don’t have an education problem.
Black people have a KNOWLEDGE problem.
Education = what THEY want you to know.
KNOWLEDGE = knowing self, and knowing how to be self-sufficient.
————————
@ anyone
Are grade school kids still required to recite “The Pledge of Allegiance?”
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“At university if you take a history course they tell you what is in fact known about a particular piece of history, the good, the bad and the ugly. You will also find out what is in dispute or in doubt.
At high school, however, they will flat-out lie to you and leave out all kinds of stuff. Because there the aim is not to help you to understand the country’s past, like you might expect, but to make you proud of your country and respect authority. It is a patriotic fairy tale.
Unfortunately for eight out of ten Americans, the history they learned at high school is as far as they ever get.”
I never thought about it this way but now I understand why so many seemed to be so misinformed. Add to that Fox News and now you have a constant reinforcement of fairy tales. A pundit on Fox news listed the top 4 reasons why poverty exists in this country today and racism or race bias didn’t even make the cut. How could that be? Not even the top 4? How could there be such a lack of understanding of basic history from supposedly educated pundits? Talk about denial!
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“Add to that Fox News and now you have a constant reinforcement of fairy tales.”
—
Someone did a study not too long ago on news network viewers and found that those who tuned in to “Faux” News were the least informed. No surprise there. All the more reason to self-educate and not depend on school systems, public or private, or on the media that picks and chooses what they want us to see, hear and ultimately believe.
I agree that high school American history appears to have the goal of fostering patriotism and respect for authority. Many whites I know who have not attended college always appear to know “American history” like the backs of their hands, almost to the exclusion of anything else they may have been taught in high school.
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Individual states’ histories, like those in the south are even more incomplete and whitewashed.
I remember as a HS freshman taking AL history whereby the massacres of Native Americans were portrayed as random incidents that stood in the way of the rugged individualism by white settlers. I also remember a glossing over of the tragic events that culminated in Birmingham and Selma during the Civil Rights era to a paragraph or more. Along with the lack of complete facts, the class itself was taught by an ex-basketball coach, who concerned himself more with whatever the varsity team was doing at any given time.
Why is it that in Dr.’s offices, auto repair shops etc. that they feel the need to have Fox news playing in their waiting rooms? I feel that I lose IQ points whenever one of their programs are on and I am forced to watch.
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The education platform in this country is not rooted in reality. Education, or so-called education has killed more black people on this planet than anybody or anything. The reason why our race is still suffering from the inhumanity of slavery and racism, is because, we’re not as educated and informed as we should be. We waste a lot of time and energy worrying about whether or not white folks and others like us…Nonsense! Are we educated and informed enuf to not allow others to control and exploit our race, this is what we should be focused on as black people. As i’ve said before many times, uneducated, uninformed black people are slaves and useful idiots in relation to others…Unacceptable!!!
I honestly believe that there is a plan – not some accident or some form of an unconscious habit – to keep black people dumb and self-loathing. I always talked about hot the media is heavily biased towards their portrayal of the black community and it’s financial interest to either sensationalize or decimate it. However, the miseducation system of this nation is also to blame for it as well.
To piggyback on what Tyrone said it’s been done so long that many blacks have accepted it as the norm without realizing it. As such they are manipulated into thinking that White American history is unabridged and objective. But that same manipulation may or will cause them to reject black and African history as they don’t think it’s important that they learn where they truly came from. Instead, if all they were taught about their ancestors is that they were slaves and had extremely little contributions to America, that will help them lower their self-esteem.
It’s all part of this movement to make black people hate and think less of themselves, and disregard their true African roots.
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brothaman–
That is ridiculous black paranoia with no grounding in reality. It’s again as in most things black, blaming whitey for nearly all black problems.
The amount of black achievement in this country in doing anything other than advancing black rights and political interests (almost entirely due to white altruism from the sixties on), is simply limited.
If anything the opposite is true. The media and university elites in this country, who educated the school teachers, try to do the opposite almost everywhere.
Now the degree of this lefty bias and semi lying varies between red and blue states.
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@ brothawolf
I thought I was the only one who believed in ” the plan.”
I first took notice of the plan when I learned about Tuskegee and their ” studies.”
I first took notice of the plan with the alarming number of us in poverty despite having an education.
I first took notice of the plan when street drugs ” appearing” in our neighborhoods, much too expensive to distribute and manufacture ourselves.
I first took notice of the plan with gang violence.
I first took notice of the plan when AIDS popped up in Africa…how ’bout that?
A disease in the US popped up in another continent and now has wiped out an entire population. Hmmmm…
I first took notice of the plan when black cops started their own league, 100 blacks in law enforcement, due to cries of racism and unfairness within their own system!
I first took notice of the plan when black boys began to disappear by the white man’s bullet.
And finally, I first took notice of the plan when JonBenet Ramsey and countless others were plastered all over the news 24/7 when OUR daughters went missing and America said, ” who? ”
Yes, there is a plan.
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@ tyrone
” The education platform in this country is not rooted in reality. Education, or so-called education has killed more black people on this planet than anybody or anything. The reason why our race is still suffering from the inhumanity of slavery and racism, is because, we’re not as educated and informed as we should be.”
Wow.
Great points.
Perhaps that’s why it is taught that way, no?
Can you imagine the discomfort of a white teacher in high school talking about slavery to young black youths?
Why teach us to hate them?
They are the 9th wonder of the world, remember?
I stopped listening to tv, except for a few shows.
America has insulted itself. We are a joke to the rest of the world. And we are so far gone with the lies that it would be nearly impossible to stop now.
Please no offense to those lost in 9/11, but I would would thought that THAT would’ve been our wake up call.
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Having read “Lies my Teacher Told Me” myself, I find myself in disagreement with the central premise that history as it is taught in high school is both uninteresting and white washed. I found the book mostly a rehash of roads; I had already been down. I received an excellent and unvarnished history lesson that inspired me to be life long learner.
Maybe, my experience is the exception but it was a lot of fun
The main lesson, I learned to borrow a line is: one worlds hero is another worlds butcher and perhaps I am neither
Bonus points for anyone who can identify the source of the quote
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Longer comment in moderation way above.
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It always amuses me when, during a discussion on this topic or a related one, a random American points out that Japan hides its less than favourable history. Yet why is America so different if it also selectively recounts and lies about its own history?
The US is not the only one guilty of sweeping certain parts under the rug. During history in the UK’s high school equivalent, I recall studying the Versaille Treaty, the history of medicine and even the history of another country, but never the history of race in the UK. Not one peep about race riots or the like. That’s probably why so many who have not chosen to study history beyond that level believe there are no racial issues. Unless a White person has a close relative or friend who is a person of colour, they are entirely ignorant as to what POC experience in their country.
From my experience, the average American is typically one of the most patriotic people in the world. My guess is it would be difficult to breed such patriotism if everyone knew everything about American history. Then again, I’ve also met some Americans who are completely chauvinistic and I wouldn’t put it past them to have more pride in their nationality after hearing the cruel and violent parts of history…
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Longer comment in moderation way above.
Hopefully it will stay there.
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@ doug
Kind of funny how you talk about “Black paranoia” when you constantly speak upon Leftist conspiracies. I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned anything about Zionists.
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brothawolf said:
Who exactly do you suppose would gain from perpetuating one group of people as a permanently unproductive underclass, with all the social pathologies which accompany chronic poverty?
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I wonder when the Zebra Killings, The Wichita Massacre and The Knoxville Atrocity will become part of “Black History Month?”
They should really teach that contemporary history in grade school to give the white kids a full accounting of the “black man.”
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@ randy
If you have to ask that question…well, you figure that one out.
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@ brothawolf
Also, the plan can be seen in The Willie Lynch Letter.
Why was that omitted from our history books?
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Didn’t the Willie Lynch Letter turn out to be fake?
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@ thordaddy
We are talking about American History, not contemporary crime. Stop creating strawmen, or should I mention Dahmer, Columbine and Oklahoma.
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@randy:
“Who exactly do you suppose would gain from perpetuating one group of people as a permanently unproductive underclass, with all the social pathologies which accompany chronic poverty?”
Follow the money. They did in Finland too. Despite the great success of finnish students in PISA studies, the sociological studies courses in high scholl level have been dumbed up. So much so, that we have 20+ year olds who do not know what is the difference between the political left and right, nor they know what party has been driving what agenda in the history. This was done after the organisation representing the big finnish businesses made it one of their official targets by the parties they sipported economically. So now we have people who are politically dumbed down and it shows.
It is the elite. It serves their interests which are not the same as those of your nation. During the financial crisis of 2008 Wall Street Journal stated that its editorial staff does not believe in democracy becaise it is bad for business. One of the biggest investment banks send a letter to its biggest customers in which they said that they were sorry that there was still a democracy in USA ad everyone was allowed to vote but in the next 10 to 15 years there will be a transfer to plutocracy and things will be better. Democracy is bad because the interests of the big companies are against the people and vice versa, so it is important that the people will be shut out from the descion making prosses, the letter said.
Dumbing down the people, not just the black under class but also the whites, is important. It makes it possible to take over the nation. Those dumbed down whites will support the policies of the elite which hurt them most simply because they do not understand it and believe that they belong to that elite too. Middle class white american identifies more with mr Gates or Forbes rather than his black neighbour even though they have more in common. White americans believe that Mitt Romney or Newt Ginrich are pushing their interests only because they are dumbed down. They really believe that it is essential for USA to fight a war somewhere on the other side of the planet “for our freedom”. That can be possible only if the folks are dumb enough.
So how it is done then? The big business supports only those candidates who will advance their policies. Once elected, those politicians will drive the policy trough. Once it is done, the state apparatus implements it. Then those policies come the practise. It is so simple.
Very important aspect of this is controlling the voting. This is achieved trough the enourmous propaganda at all leves and in all medias. BUT also by keeping the voting as its minimum. The less people vote, more easy it is to control the outcome of elections. That is why the whole election process in USA has been made as difficult as possible. You have no automatic right to vote. You have to register to vote. And even after that the process is difficult if you have had a limited education. That is why the voting papers are like a puzzle. Instead of putting the candidates number on single piece of paper, you have to vote on multiple issues and elections at once, putting dots and markings here and there.
That is why it is so important to have an education which does not breed independent minds and critcial thinkers en masse. The people must be held down in order to let the System work. And the easiest way to do it is to make them as dumb as possible so they do not even understand what is going on.
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“or should I mention Dahmer, Columbine and Oklahoma.”
And which of those deliberately targeted Whites? Learn what “strawman” means before tossing it out.
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Doug: As far as so called “sundown towns” most of them did not have rules about no blacks allowed after sundown and certainly not signs saying that.
Please provide some evidence to validate this claim let alone a rationale as to why you feel this notion of yours is important. I mean, unless you have contemporaneous sign and/or news archives from most/all designated sundown towns, you really can’t credibly make this inane argument which, as implied above, has no valid reasoning to begin with.
Why would established (and I assume written) rules matter?
Why would most sundown towns have to have clearly marked signs for said towns to effectively be sundown towns?
Frankly, none of that would have been necessary.
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Someguy (how’s that for autonomous),
Not only are the Zebra Killings, The Wichita Massacre and The Knoxville Atrocity “American History,” these events are “Black American History.” And not only are these events “Black American History,” these are events where “blacks” savagely destroyed innocent white people in ways unimaginable and white and black liberationist alike wish to “blackwash” such “history” from being taught. Why? Is this not potentially LIFE-SAVING education? Shouldn’t white people know that IN 2012 there are “blacks” with very evil and sinister aims? There are “blacks” that have been raised like pitbulls: deprived, beaten, neglected… And then satiated and fed visions of evil white masters?
As for those you mentioned, why would I care if you mentioned them? Theirs aren’t hidden stories with a secret cabals of
supporters. In fact, Dahmer was the very epitome of the radical sexual autonomist, cannibalistically so. The Columbine killers were of a long and primitive line of radical autonomist i.e., the atheists. And McVeigh… Oh my… Was he some “white Christian supremacist” out to destroy the government? You don’t really still believe this, do you?
Those are YOUR KIND of people. Not mine.
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@ Abagond
excerpt:
National studies conducted by the Spellings Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and others have found that today’s college graduates have serious deficiencies in reading and writing skills. They have less knowledge than they need about things like history, geography, civics, mathematics and economics. Employers can no longer be assured that the college graduates they hire are competent in basic skills.
Taking these trends even further, they can be seen as a national security issue. In the 21st century, Americans are being called upon to compete with countries like China and India, where colleges still see their mission as education rather than just retention. How will our future entrepreneurs and researchers be able to compete if they didn’t learn the kinds of critical thinking skills that colleges used to require
http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Dumbed-down-diplomas-972369.php
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MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY:
http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/watch/
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sam said:
I can’t disagree with your premise, and you’ve laid out the paradigm nicely, but your conclusion doesn’t answer my question. Achieving and maintaining an ignorant and pliant electorate does not require black poverty. Middle class folks perform that role just fine, and they produce more wealth than the chronic poor.
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This book is a must read for everybody.
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SomeGuy–
I can’t recall using the word “conspiracy” a single time. There’s a leftist mindset, and set of taboos, anything that’s not PC basically, enforced by claims that the person is racist, sexist, misogynist (if opposed to any feminist agenda in any way) and so on, but most leftist organizing is done out in the open.
I’m not anti-Semitic. That doesn’t mean I never criticize Jews for tending to collectively do some things I think not good for the country here and there some. Such as their very strong tendency (with exceptions here and there) to be rabidly opposed and to try to shame by yelling “racist” any effective clamping down on illegal immigration and it’s tsunami of unskilled and low IQ peasant labor into the US from Mexico and Central America, who may be good for employers but are bad for taxpayers, since they’re net tax eaters, and also bad for blacks and others who inhabit the lower levels of the labor pool. But no, I’m not generally anti-Semitic.
As I’ve said I’m not a white nationalist nor supremacist, but rather a race realist.
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As a parent, I found Loewen’s books to be invaluable for helping my own kids see through the lies-by-omission they were told in their elementary school.
Perfect example: when he was in 5th grade, my son’s teacher read a “history” of Christopher Columbus to the class (it was Columbus Day, natch). Then the kids were given a writing assignment to “retell” the story.
At that point in time, my son had a habit of simply ignoring assignments he was bored by… and this was one of ’em. And my response was to see that he do them – even if they ended up being late and receiving F grades as a result. So, when his teacher informed me of the missing assignment, I informed him that he would have to spend part of his Saturday making it up.
Fortunately, the teacher had posted some of the “A” papers on the wall outside the classroom, so – in preparation for our Saturday homework-make-up session – I looked them over to gauge the teacher’s expectations. And what I saw made my jaw hit the floor!
Every Single Paper was a recitation of the “standard” Columbus story: how heroic he was, yada, yada, yada. Naturally, there were huge gaps in the chronology – not one word was written about Columbus’ tenure as “Viceroy and Governor” of Hispaniola – obviously, this had been omitted from the original story. And – of course – each paper ended with a statement of regret that such a remarkable man died in disgrace.
When Saturday arrived, I sat the kiddo down and read him Loewen’s chapter on Columbus. Even though he was only 10, he listened intently to the end, with a look of wide-eyed astonishment on his face – this wasn’t the Columbus he’d heard about! When I was finished, he asked point-blank: “How could ANYONE consider Columbus to be a hero?!” We ended up talking about Columbus and the times he lived in for at least another hour – he was so absorbed in the subject.
Finally, when it was all over, I announced: “Ok, you’ve got an assignment to do. What are you gonna write?” Then I left him to get on with it.
He split the difference: he used the basic chronology he’d been given in class, but included details of the “encomienda” system employed by the Spanish, including a discussion of the brutal means used to enforce the collection of tribute.
What stunned me was the teacher’s reaction to his essay. Since the assignment was late, he had no expectation of getting a grade for it – but I figured that she’d at least be curious about the info in his paper and ask about where he got it from. But no – he got the expected “0” and that was that. Her only official acknowledgement was a one sentence note: “Interesting extra facts.”
What he found shocking and horrifying was “interesting extra facts” to her!
FWIW: our session on Columbus left a permanent mark. Several weeks later, the kids were given another writing assignment… they were given a list of various European explorers and told to choose one to write a report about. My son showed me the list, and asked me to help him choose one “that didn’t murder anybody.” Beyond that – both he and his sister developed a habit of telling me things that they’d learned in social studies/civics/history, and then asking me, “Is it true?”
Yeah, I know this is tl;dr – but this is only ONE of the stories I could tell. All I can say is that Loewen’s books helped me help my kids develop BS detectors early in life; not to mention an appreciation for history.
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@ thordaddy
I almost forgot how nutty you truly are. I’ll remember to ignore you in the future.
@ doug
I laughed when you mentioned Political Correctness and then said you are a “Race Realist”. If that’s not a euphemism for bigot, I don’t know what is.
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SomeGuy–
Nope, I’m not a bigot. Not the same thing at all. I don’t hate all blacks, or think that every one of them is dumber than I am or than the average white person. I don’t have irrational prejudice against blacks. Some bigots may call themselves race realists but they’re not the same thing at all.
Race realists know from the science that there are non trivial differences between the races on average, distributed along overlapping bell curves for individual traits like IQ. BTW if you don’t understand overlapping bell curves you can’t understand this stuff very well. Race realists and believers in HBD are pretty much one and the same. The later is a nod to the evolutionary biological fact that it would be remarkable for long separated and non interbreeding human populations (except at certain clines where they meet such as in N. Africa) away from such clines to NOT have developed significantly different mental as well as physical traits, while all being equally human.
I just know that 100 years of IQ tests and armed forces intake tests which amount to the same thing, show that black people on average are a good lot less smart than white people, and that there is a far, far smaller percentage of black people who are real smart, e.g. at 125 and above. I also have looked into the strong evidence that at least part of the reason for that is genetics, and that much of the rest is likely cultural and individual feedback effects from the genetics, with some randomness as well in individual variations in IQ.
I also know there are big, huge really, differences in the rates at which blacks commit violent crime per capita compared to whites and Asians, about 8x the murder rate compared to whites and 4x the robbery rate, and the same with most other violent crimes.
Blacks are more aggressive than whites and a lot more aggressive than NE Asians.
All of this comes from the science and government statistics. It’s simply the facts, which PC keeps the media from letting people know about too much.
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@ doug
First, I called you a bigot not a racist. There is a difference. Bigots think they are better, racists are the ones who hate.
Second, I think you are doing what is known in psychology as “Confirmation bias” Basically, it is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs. Instead of questioning what exactly you are reading and their sources, you merely accept it because “it feels right” to you. You need to be a LOT more objective if you wish to get to the truth and you haven’t even taken the first baby steps to get there.
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SomeGuy–
That is not the definition of a bigot.
This is, from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
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@ doug
There are about 20 different definitions for the term bigot. I’ll not play a game of semantics with you again.
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@ sam
” Middle class white american identifies more with mr Gates or Forbes rather than his black neighbour even though they have more in common.”
This statement, bitterly true, is the foundation of white racist America.
To vote AGAINST your best interest just because your candidate of choice shares the same skin.
Pathetic.
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@ doug
You have brought this to an off-topic subject. If you want to read my reply, I will do so in a bit under the “Open Thread”.
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@ someguy
Save your breath for more pressing matters.
No matter what is said here, no matter how evident, some people prefer to live in their haze…leave them be.
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@ Truthbetold
Truth be told.
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Inadvertently I only copied from word part of my intended last comment. Trying again:
From what I can tell from reading reviews at Amazon, esp. those that aren’t absolutely in love with the book i.e. three star reviews (which I generally find to be the most informative reviews), Loewen has at least as much bias and ideological slant to the left, emphasizing and perhaps overemphasizing anything that puts heros in a bad light, as he accuses most high school text book authors of having to the patriotic, or conservative side.
This is typical of many of those who gave the book three stars:
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SomeGuy–
Your definition of “bigot” is completely ideosyncratic. Merriam-Webster is generally taken as the authority on American English definitions. You however seem to be incapable of ever admitting you’re wrong.
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What Germans Think of Americans
A rather illuminating example of what’s being talked about here. :))
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@ doug
World English Dictionary
bigot (ˈbɪɡət)
— n
a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race.
intolerant (ɪnˈtɒlərənt)
adjective
Lacking respect for practices and beliefs other than one’s own.
—————————–
No mention of the word HATE anywhere in the definition.
World English dictionary has been around since 1819.
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Randy,
Who exactly do you suppose would gain from perpetuating one group of people as a permanently unproductive underclass, with all the social pathologies which accompany chronic poverty?
White American males will benefit the most with white American women coming in a close second. As a matter of fact they have been getting the best of it for over five centuries with little accountability on their part let alone retribution. However, there are cracks in their once-seemingly invincible wall of white supremacy, and one day the dam will break.
I hope.
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Yeah I don’t fit by that unusual definition either.
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@ doug
So, let me ask you this, just out of pure curiosity. I’m not going to get on your case for what you say. I’m really just curious about your view of Black history. What aspects of Black history do you find fascinating or interesting?
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@Doug1:
Personally, I disagree with the review you quoted above. Sure, I think it’s fair to say that Loewen has a liberal bias (or “left wing,” if you prefer), but…
1. “Doomsayer socialist slant?” You’ve got to be kidding me.
2. Having a liberal bias not change the factual events he describes. As the saying goes, “reality has a liberal bias.”
3. Loewen’s willingness to express his opinions is part of what makes his books very much worth reading. History doesn’t consist of just bare bones facts; it’s filled with the feelings, recollections and impressions of real people. Primary accounts are loaded with them, and leaving this out of secondary accounts and school textbooks contributes to making K-12 history so freaking dull.
In the Columbus chapter I read to my son, Loewen describes a number of atrocities committed against the Arawak people in Hispaniola. These have been described by other scholars also – they happened. And Loewen is dead right about how they got swept under the rug in my son’s classroom. Thus his chapter was highly appropriate to use in the situation I described. It certainly achieved the desired result: both of my kids quickly learned to question and challenge many of the things they learned, vs. blindly accepting them as true because an authority figure said so.
As a postscript, the Columbus story is one in which I think any rational person would WANT a historical author to have a “personal viewpoint” about! Screw Spock-like faux “objectivity.” Think about it: peaceful human beings were enslaved, raped, brutalized and murdered under Columbus’ leadership. I should bloody well hope someone writing about it would be horrified by that; as well as horrified that the man responsible for them should be presented as a blemish-free caricature to children on a day devoted to his memory. Outrage is the only appropriate response, IMHO.
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As for Columbus, was he in fact ordering these atrocities other than the enslavement of Amerindians? What I learned in school was that he was absent when this stuff went down, returning to Spain and leading new expeditons and so on. That is that his delegates did it, which I think included a brother or two.
Now enslaving the Indians was something he wanted to make the colonies profitable, they’re not having yet found gold and mostly silver in Mexico, and slavery of notably more primitive and non Christian non European peoples being thought ok at the time, by most. It’s true that Ferdinand and Isabella, “Los Reyes Catholicas” (no friends to the Jews) turned out subsequently to be against enslaving the Amerindians, but that was probably a rather unusual opinion of the time. I’m not sure why exactly they were against. Haven’t researched to that degree. I don’t think it’s right to assume this was pure morality. It might have been but might not have been. Most people then didn’t consider the races (or religions) equal at all.
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Catholic monarchs weren’t against enslaving Africans, or anyway buying already enslaved Africans, on the west African coast not long after.
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That is Ferdinand and Isabella may have thought 1) it’s not smart to go about trying to enslave people, even with far more primitive weapons and levels of organization, who form the great majority in the lands of the Americas we are seeking to colonize; and 2) since we want to spread Christianity, and they’re not impossibly dumb, that’s incompatible with seeking to enslave them.
Another problem with enslaving Amerindians is that they all died off from Eurasian diseases, when in such close contact all the time with Euros. Well one hell of a lot did. Same thing was true in what became America.
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Education vs. Knowledge: Love that point!
A classic work by Dr. Carter G. Woodson: The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)
A must read =)
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brothawolf said:
By what mechanism does this advantage manifest? Chronic poverty creates economic and social costs which are borne by everyone. I don’t see any upside for white people to keep black people poor.
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@Doug1: two points.
1. This isn’t a thread about Christopher Columbus, per se. As such, I’m afraid I must decline your kind offer to help you derail the thread. I may have raised the subject of CC, but within the context of Abagond’s post: James Loewen’s book. If you wish to critique Loewen’s account, go read the book.
2. And while I’m on that particular subject… Personally, I would be quite hesitant to jump in and comment (extensively) in a thread about a book that I obviously haven’t read. Likewise, I’d be pretty damned embarrassed to attempt a critique based on an Amazon review cherry-picked to fit my preconceived notions about “left-wing bias” and “political correctness.” Sure, that’s me, and not you, but it’s something for you to think about, perhaps?
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Randy,
Let me ask you these questions and I hope you will answer with short and succinct answers, hopefully ‘yes’ or ‘no’:
Have you ever felt a certain feeling of uneasyness when you see a patrol car drive by?
Have you ever felt shame when you hear about a white person somewhere who has committed a terrible crime?
On that same note, have you ever seen whites as just serial killers, school shooters, white-collar criminals, humorous rednecks, and suicidal?
Have you ever read a history book during your elementary and high school days that didn’t include white inventors, accomplishments, and so-called heroes, and how often were they mentioned?
How often do you hear a history special about the same white inventors, heroes, etc?
Have you ever believed that one day you would end up in prison or shot by a member of your own race?
Have you seen reports of black women gone missing as opposed to white women?
Do you know which country or particular section of Europe did your family come from?
Do you know how far back you can trace your family history?
Have you ever questioned where your surname came from? (With most Black Americans, we already know from the start)
Have you ever felt less than a person because you were born with a certain shade of flesh?
All of those questions (and more that I haven’t asked) are linked to the past whether we want to believe it or not.
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Thordaddy,
Also, the plan can be seen in The Willie Lynch Letter.
Why was that omitted from our history books?
If the letter was authentic, why indeed? Why deprive the next generation of why things the way they are so they can be aware and hopefully prosper?
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Also Randy,
My questions were related to why keep black people mentally, intellectually, and emotionally down.
Which brings to mind one spiritual question: What color of Jesus was taught to you and is being reinforced over and over again?
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Matari,
I just watched that documentary online, and a lot of what happened back then during the mid to late 1800’s to the early 1900’s (as presented in the film), parallels with what happen in the late 1900’s to the 21st century.
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[…] “James W. Loewen: Lies My Teacher Told Me” by Abagond […]
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@doug:
“What I learned in school was that he was absent when this stuff went down, returning to Spain and leading new expeditons and so on.”
Perfect example how you were duped at school. You DO know now what happened to Columbus and why his post as a governer of the said island was rewoked by authorities, do you? Yeap. He was not just a nice anthropologist doing nice academic research, or like you believe, “leading new expeditions and so on.”
Actually what happened in Hispaniola was the begining of the america slave trade. The spanish noticed how easily natives died on the conditions they subjected them, how easily they died of hard labour in the mines etc. so they decided to bring in new slaves from Africa to replace those who were dying off, that is the original people of the land. And that, my friend, was the beginning of the Great American Genocide and Slavery.
Another historical fact that obviously you were not teached nor wish to know.
@randy:
“Chronic poverty creates economic and social costs which are borne by everyone. I don’t see any upside for white people to keep black people poor.”
That is the whole point Randy. Who benefits from it? Those same guys who stole your money in 2008 crisis. You, on the other hand, have to pay to uphold their security and their order, their debts, their tax reductions etc. They are no paying for it, you are. In USA the wast majority of the wealth is consentrated in so few hands that it makes USA litterally similar as i Brazil or any other developing nation.
Those who benefit from this kind of society are the rich and the super rich. Those who bear the burden are those who are tricked to believe in the System, black or white. Middle class will keep on paying untill it falls down and can no longer pay any more, but those guys on the top do not care. They believe they are above all accountability. And why not, they seem to be. People keep on voting their politicians, keep on believing their lies, their propaganda etc.
Prime example is universal healthcare. From the national point of view, from the point of view of the people, even from the economical point of view it would be best for all if the costs of healthcare would be driven down, that the population would be as healthy as possible because they would be more productive etc. Notice, universal healthcare does not mean you have to use public services or that anybody can order you to use certain doctors, kill the elderly, that there is no more private healthcare available etc. But how that goes down in USA? Right. People believe that it would mean they can no longer choose their doctor, that the elderly would be disregarded (like the thousands who already are) etc. Why is this? Who tells these lies? Healthcare is very good and very very big business. Somebody is making tons of money with it and customers have no choice. Follow the money.
Racism is in the very heart of this System because it creates the distraction, the Fear. It creates the bases for the propaganda. There is always somebody doing worse than you. Somebody out there is not like you and hates you. There is always somebody who does not belong, who is dangerous, who wants you personal stuff, who is looking to put you down, rob and steal from you, a criminal, a person who looks alien to you, black, or worse, those howling savages outside the palisade and the fort in the darkness with their tomahawks…
With racism inbedded into the System those in control can play people against each other. There is always a new breed of outsiders trying come in and steal your life. Barbarians are at the gates! In 1980’s it was those yellow bastards from Japan. “They were buying USA! Help us to defeat them. Fight against them! Against someone! Other than us…”
Big Bill Tweed, one of the most corrupted political bosses in US history said famously once: “You can always hire the other half of the poor to kill the other half.” They still believe in that. And they operate still like that. That is why it is so important to keep the people ignorant. That is why it is important to “un-educate” people. That is why it is important that the poor are there. They are the enemy, you are told. They steal your money. They mis use the social security, lie and cheat, are lazy, stupid etc. The Elite can laugh at those who actually believe in this and in USA there are many.
Who is getting the money? Somebody opposes all efforts to reduce the poverty. Who is that? Who opposes progressive taxation? Who wants tax cuts most? Who benefits the most from the tax cuts? Not you. Not the middle class. Not the black underclass. Just follow the money.
Sorry about the lenght and preaching.
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@ Brothawolf
” I just watched that documentary online, and a lot of what happened back then during the mid to late 1800′s to the early 1900′s (as presented in the film), parallels with what happen in the late 1900′s to the 21st century.”
********************************************
That documentary is a very powerful presentation.
I can’t begin to express the importance of why black/African people should know their history! The present is only understood relative to the past.
Props, to Doug Blackmon (ironic name for a white man who spent 7 years pulling these facts together about the “Black Codes” era) for being a “truth teller” role model for – future truth tellers.
More books, movies, documentaries, scholastic text books, etc of this sort are needed to drive home to whites why America OWES REPARATIONS to the descendants of slaves.- and why THEY should pay it. Otherwise this festering wound will remain open and unhealed.
The America – THEY – KNOW & LOVE today could not have come into existence without the oppressive and cruel mistreatment of black people FORCEFULLY used as a continual source of wealth producing FREE labor.
This fact needs to be pounded into their collectively deluded/resistant heads – until this debt is somehow paid.
Then America might move forward …
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@ Randy
Did you ask that to see what we would say or because you honestly did not know?
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brothawolf said:
Randy,
Let me ask you these questions and I hope you will answer with short and succinct answers, hopefully ‘yes’ or ‘no’:
Have you ever felt a certain feeling of uneasyness when you see a patrol car drive by? Yes
Have you ever felt shame when you hear about a white person somewhere who has committed a terrible crime?No
On that same note, have you ever seen whites as just serial killers, school shooters, white-collar criminals, humorous rednecks, and suicidal? No
Have you ever read a history book during your elementary and high school days that didn’t include white inventors, accomplishments, and so-called heroes, and how often were they mentioned? No
How often do you hear a history special about the same white inventors, heroes, etc? Often
Have you ever believed that one day you would end up in prison or shot by a member of your own race? No
Have you seen reports of black women gone missing as opposed to white women? Less frequently
Do you know which country or particular section of Europe did your family come from? Yes
Do you know how far back you can trace your family history? A few generations
Have you ever questioned where your surname came from? (With most Black Americans, we already know from the start) No
Have you ever felt less than a person because you were born with a certain shade of flesh? No
All of those questions (and more that I haven’t asked) are linked to the past whether we want to believe it or not.
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abagond said:
I genuinely don’t know.
brothawolf’s original assertion was: “I honestly believe that there is a plan – not some accident or some form of an unconscious habit – to keep black people dumb and self-loathing.”
If he’d used the word “was”, referencing situations from the past, then I would understand. But the term “is” suggests an ongoing process. I can’t see how the average person, white or otherwise, would gain from such a plan.
While I recognize that the plural of “anecdote” isn’t “data”, on innumerable occasions I’ve heard a white person say, in a moment of candor, “I wouldn’t have a problem with black people if more of them were like [name of average middle-class black friend or acquaintance].”
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@ randy
Do you believe that slavery is over?
Do you believe that America is free and fair.
Do you believe that we, as a nation, have moved forward since, say 1962?
And why?
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Truthbetold said:
@ randy
1. Do you believe that slavery is over?
Except for instances of human-trafficking, yes.
2. Do you believe that America is free and fair.
I doubt that many people can agree completely on how those terms are defined. Setting this issue aside for a moment, let’s consider that the concept of “free and fair” exists along a continuum.
By historical and global standards, I’d guess that modern America is on the high side of free and fairness.
This assessment more reflects the dearth of free and fairness experienced by most of humanity rather than the US living up to its stated ideals, or how we compare to the freest and fairest nations. Certainly, glaring exceptions to the concept of “free and fair” exist and are likely to persist.
3. Do you believe that we, as a nation, have moved forward since, say 1962?
In terms of greater racial equality, absolutely. The reasons for that opinion should be obvious and too numerous to quickly list.
In terms of class mobility and economic fairness, the picture is mixed. Society is increasingly bifurcated between the haves and have-nots, and the practical potential opportunities for an “average” person has probably diminished.
On the other hand, the working class in 2012 generally has access to resources which the middle-class didn’t have in 1962. However, since the upper class has made significantly greater gains, the relative difference appears much greater.
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Sam–
There was no American genocide of the Amerindians as I have shown, and as you have failed to show, on the white history thread.
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Randy–
Human trafficking is vastly exaggerated by feminists opposed to prostitution. The vast majority of prostitutes are in it because it pays relatively well. The vast majority of prostitutes in America doen’t have pimps. See Maggie McNeil’s blog The Honest Courtesan. She used to be an escort and then also an escort service owner in New Orleans. She writes extensively about lies told by one variety of feminist about prostitution and human trafficking. Laura Agustin, who calls herself the “Naked Anthropologist” has made sex work including especially migrant sex work (which is usually wrongly called human trafficking) her field of study.
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Randy,
Since you answered my questions in an honest way I hope, let me explain something to you. If you were to ask me those same questions (Changing the third question to robbers, murderers, rapists, humorous clowns or buffoons, helpless in need of a white person, and athletic) Most my answers would be the opposite of yours. Why? It’s because this society makes us feel inadequate, insufficient, unintelligent, violent, hypersexual, and destined for prison or death way before our time. If we don’t see any representations of black people, then we mostly will see negative images way more often than images that contradict the majority of us. Yet, even though most of us do not engage in such foolishness, it’s still painful as hell to see those same damning images day in and day out.
Even though these images created by whites have slightly changed or remained the same over the centuries, they were still negative. And today those false representations are maintained by white CEOs and applauded by a mostly white audience. In the past there were minstrel shows. Today we have mainstream programming shown on BET, MTV and VH1 (to name a few).
And if it’s not those images, it’s how we are treated mostly by white people. When we acknowledge a problem, we are seen as ‘uppity’. When we are in our street clothes, we are seen as thugs and criminals. When we are loud, we are seen as unruly. When the youth are playful, they are seen as bad. When our women are single, they are questioned as to why. When our women are harmed or raped, they are blamed. When we prove our intelligence, we are feared and hated.
Don’t you see, Randy, history has proven that no matter how hard we work to build ourselves up, this nation will see to it to tear it down. When we are proud of who they are, whiteness shows up to bring us down. In the end most white people, especially those in positions of power, want black people to be subservient and not be his equal. The last thing they want is competition from someone whom they believed “got lucky”.
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And Randy,
If you truly do not know like you said in your response to Abagond and you’ve been on this blog for a long time, have you ever stopped to think why it’s so hard for you to comprehend what is written here or to take in to what people who disagree with you have to say? If the answer is no, it’s because you most likely didn’t have to because it wasn’t seen as important to your personal growth. That’s a privilege you have, and it prevents you from seeing things from the point of view of someone on the “outside”. To you, what you’ve been taught was taught in a way to suggest that it’s right without question, and when it is questioned, you automatically oppose it as a stimulus-like reaction.
At least that’s what it appears to me.
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@ randy
I fear that I no matter what I say, you are going to say the exact opposite out of reflex.
I truly want you to understand that you’ve been brainwashed, as have I and many others here in America.
It took me years to come to terms with that.
It lead to depression and anger, mostly at whites.
But then anger is never enough, is it?
I’ve tried to unlearn my brainwashing. It’s not easy and it’s a process that continues daily.
But you have to first admit that there is something in need of change.
With no blame, could you please read the sheltered white man post on this blog?
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Truthbetold,
I fear that I no matter what I say, you are going to say the exact opposite out of reflex.
I truly want you to understand that you’ve been brainwashed, as have I and many others here in America.
It took me years to come to terms with that.
Like I said, his privilege of being a white male in a white male supremacist society keeps him from seeing the point of view of others who had different experiences and opinions. It’s almost like a mental handicap keeping one from considering the other side to the single story.
It lead to depression and anger, mostly at whites.
But then anger is never enough, is it?
I’ve tried to unlearn my brainwashing. It’s not easy and it’s a process that continues daily.
I, too was and still am brainwashed, and it may not go away completely no matter how hard you try, but it is worth it to rid yourself of the this falsehood that surrounds your existence. I always say that I would rather live with truth and feel angry and sadness, than live in a lie and feel happy and clueless. The latter is a false sense of euphoria like the high you get from drugs.
But you have to first admit that there is something in need of change.
With no blame, could you please read the sheltered white man post on this blog?
That’s the first step to mental and psychological freedom.
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brothawolf said:
I can understand and sympathize with this point of view.
I haven’t seen how your first comment produces this conclusion. Competition generally creates better outcomes for everyone. The rich and the middle-class don’t benefit from an unproductive underclass. Further, I think the belief in this idea produces a self-defeating mentality.
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@Randy
I haven’t seen how your first comment produces this conclusion. Competition generally creates better outcomes for everyone. The rich and the middle-class don’t benefit from an unproductive underclass. Further, I think the belief in this idea produces a self-defeating mentality.
This is a true and rationale response but, do you think this translates in day to day life? Dont you think that often, more personal emotions can come to the fore and prevent people from certain sectors/groups of society from appreciating this?
If we lived in a world where personal beliefs were not ‘permitted’ to manifest in certain behaviours then I think your comment would have much credence however, self preservation prevails and somewhere in their psyche, the rich and the middle class do not want to risk being bypassed by their subordinates.
To have wealth is not enough. To feel you have achieved it because you are better, smarter, superior to people for many is the primary driving force IMO.
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@randy:
“Competition generally creates better outcomes for everyone. The rich and the middle-class don’t benefit from an unproductive underclass.”
Competition does not benefit everyone. Working together does. Competition divides and allows the winners to disregard the losers and collect the spoils. The claim of the “goodness” of the competition is one of the cornerstones of the american myth and legend. It is also one of the corner stones of the american racism because it allows the “winners” to claim things like that the blacks are just losers and therefore responsible for their own plight. “They are just not competitive enough”.
The rich very much benefit from the under class. The under class exists only because somebody is very rich. Also, uneducated underclass provides a cheap labour pool and a counter balance for educated work force. With cheap labour available the rich can push down the price of work and keep it there, because the leverage of poverty. They always tell that “there are people who will do your job cheaper” and if you do not do as been told to, you will be dropped down there too.
The middle class benefits slightly on prices of the products, some times but not always, but mainly they are losers too, because they up hold the System that is rigged for the benefit of the rich. That is why the middle class is currently struggling in USA.
They pay taxes but get silch for their money, which has been stolen by big business and banks, the super rich, and they have to pay even more even to get the basic health care via insurances, which again are no longer a safe thing at all since the insurance companies started to deny paymenst for their customers years ago on various reasons, such as: when you took your health insurance 20 years ago you did not inform them that who had smoked cigarettes ten years previously and were in the risk group for getting cancer, so now that you got the cancer, the insurance company refuses to pay a dime because according to them you cheated them when you took the insirance 20 years ago and smoked a cigarette 30 years ago.
Or as in one case in one documentary bit, the insurance company refused to pay anything for a victim of a car crash because, according to the company, the injured person had not been driving her car alert and carefully enough, so she caused the accident on herself by herself, although it was a truck that drove into her car from behind. But, according to the insurance company, had she been alert and more careful she would have seen the truck and thus avoided the collision. Because she did not, she drove the vehicle reclessly and therefore was not allowed for her insurance money which she had been paying for some two decades. She went bankcrupt because she had to pay her hospital bills even though she had been paying for the insurance for two decades.
So in that “competitive system” the middle class is the biggest loser no matter what. The poor are disregarded and the rich reap the benefits.
There has been several studies made in Europe which show that if people feel secure and safe, if they trust the society, they will be more innovative, more creative, more willing to try things. If, on the other hand, people feel un secure, are affraid, their main aim is to protect what they got and try to stay safe. And in the american System, it is all about the Fear.
This is why the american playfield is left for the rich while the middle class tries to stay safe and the poor just survive. The Game is rigged. It is part of the System in which myths and legends, propaganda and falsehood sustains the status quo which is good for the rich and the super rich, In which a skin color is a big deal and carries a whole plethora of myths and legends along and keeps fear alive. For one purpose: to keep the rich rich and the rest out of it.
American middle class was duped long ago in this game.
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Demerera:
For what it’s worth, the comments I’ve heard over the years expressing anti-black bias have always been in the context of criticizing social and cultural issues such as crime, public misbehavior, paternal absenteeism, etc.
The sense I get from reading this blog is that many black people believe that white people have negative perceptions of them simply because they’re black, a perspective that runs counter to my observations.
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@ Randy
LMAO. Wherever did they get that strange idea?
If a tree falls in a forest and only black people heard it, did it make a noise? Probably not since you know how they imagine stuff.
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@ Randy
Seems kind of strange white people would talk about paternal absenteeism among blacks when they do not seem to care about whether the police shoot them dead or whether they get a good education – or that they are way more likely to die as babies or be out of work.
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Abagond said:
The implication of the commenters’ narrative is that they know there is expressed bias against them AND they know why it originates.
On several occasions, I believe you’ve stated to presumably white commenters: “how do white people know what black people think?”. Following that logic, the question could be reordered to, “how do black people know what white people think?”
While I’m not in a position to understand the thought processes of every white person who holds such biases, I have been in a position to observe quite a few first-hand having grown up in a majority-white environment.
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@ Randy
You can’t be serious….
This proves one of two things about you. That over the years of you reading this blog you either have a VERY bad memory, or you deliberately choose to read bits and pieces. In America, non-whites can’t help but learn how white people think, because they are (since they are the majority) shoved in our faces almost everywhere you turn. If not in person, then in the media. With the more accessible version being the latter, it’s to a much more intimate degree than every other group. This goes back to the media stereotypes thread in regards to the one-dimensional and overwhelmingly one-sided portrayals of non-whites versus the well-rounded way whites are portrayed. Combined with white history (another thread), even if you don’t WANT to learn about whites, you can’t help it. That’s one negative aspect of being the majority in a mixed country.
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“Following that logic, the question could be reordered to, “how do black people know what white people think?”
***********************************
Our survival and progress in the United States, from slavery even until today, as individuals and as a group, depends on us KNOWING how white folks think.
In many general ways we know you better than you know yourselves.
*SMH at the incredible/blind ignorance that accompanies privilege.*
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Franklin said:
The media tends to offer caricatured images of those portrayed, regardless of race. One can see this effect, often amusingly, when talking to a foreigner whose exposure to America comes primarily from the media.
Given that black and white Americans still largely maintain separate geographic and social circles, I don’t quite see where or how a transfer of “hearts and minds” knowledge would be taking place.
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@ Randy
I’ll respond when you don’t (in Typical Randy Fashion) cherry-pick which parts of my post you want to address, and falsely present what you say as “an actual response to my argument.”
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[…] of this comes from chapter 6 of James Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me (2007). Unfortunately he mainly just talks about anti-racism by white […]
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I was a history teacher, I am not sure many of my students learned anything. Most couldn’t name ten Presidents. I call history a skim course because in no way have I seen it taught like it supposed to be. More like dictionary reading than real history and it hurts to see what kids wrote because their ignorance about historical knowledge when I was a teacher was unbelieveable. History has a heartbeat and if we taught it correctly maybe verbal discourse wouldn’t have been such a problem.
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Massacres of Native Americans were in fact, quite common. The
cavalry’s favorite tactic was to surprise an encampment at dawn
and fire into the tipis to kill the people while they were still asleep
or half asleep. Sometimes, if a few women and children survived
the initial attack, the soldiers would take them prisoner to “show
how humane they were”. But female captives were often raped.
Sand Creek and Wounded Knee were the rule, not the exception.
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@ Daniel, this is very true. Half of it is the arogance in which the officers write about it. The life for a captive was also horrible children were shipped off to supposedly white training schools or orphanges which were demoralizing at best. People keep trying to say that was long time ago, a long time ago is so undefined in meaning that it is meanless.
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Found some great you tube videos on this
Lies my Teacher Told Me (reading of the first few chapters)
(http://youtu.be/ouF-Yk9Iiq4)
Interviews with James Loewen
(http://youtu.be/PzsHvK7nUi4)
(http://youtu.be/yaotbAYulLo)
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Reblogged this on redsroad.
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Reblogged this on innerstanding isness and commented:
James W. Loewen: Lies My Teacher Told Me
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Just ordered this for my book collection.
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I just discovered that Loewen had a book, in 1989, that preceded this one that focused on Columbus:The Truth About Columbus and the second edition in 2006 was Lies My Teacher Told Me About Christopher Columbus. Those are older and seems like they may have evolved into the latest edition, but I found it interesting that the tales of Columbus seemed to be a launching pad for him re-examining what we’ve been taught.
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This is an excellent book I have it in my personal library.
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