With the attack on Paris on Friday the 13th of November 2015 making huge headlines, here are the top mass murders so far for 2015.
Counted: I count massacres, wars, insurgencies, police killings, armed conflicts, and terrorist attacks, those that killed at least 100 people so far in 2015. I do not count suicides or homicides by individuals, unless coordinated (a la Jonestown).
Note that if an attack is part of a larger conflict, the name of that conflict is given in parentheses.
As of November 14th:
- deaths – nation(s) – name
- 46,191 – Syria – Syrian Civil War
- 33,165 – Afghanistan – War in Afghanistan
- 13,509 – Iraq – Iraq War
- 10,882 – Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad – Boko Haram insurgency
- 6,028 – Mexico – Mexican Drug War
- 5,720 – Yemen, Saudi Arabia – Yemeni Civil War
- 3,724 – Somalia – War in Somalia
- 3,376 – Pakistan – War in North-West Pakistan
- 3,112 – Ukraine – War in Donbass
- 2,624 – South Sudan – South Sudanese Civil War
- 2,465 – Libya – Libyan Civil War
- 2,436 – Egypt – Sinai insurgency
- 1,139 – Sudan – War in Darfur
- 1,131+ – Turkey, Iraq – Turkey-PKK conflict
- 1,080 – Sudan – South Kordofan conflict
- 993 – US – police killings
- 839 – Nigeria – communal conflicts
- 837 – Burma – Internal conflict in Myanmar
- 713 – Sudan – Sudanese nomadic conflicts
- 540 – D.R. Congo, Burundi – Kivu conflict
- 334 – Colombia – Colombian conflict
- 355 – CAR – Central African Republic conflict
- 320 – Mali – Northern Mali conflict
- 300 – D.R. Congo – ADF insurgency
- 300+ – Brazil – police killings (yearly average)
- 264+ – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia – US Drone War (yearly average)
- 262 – Egypt – Post-coup unrest in Egypt
- 246 – Pakistan – Sectarianism in Pakistan
- 236 – India – Insurgency in Northeast India
- 232 – Algeria, Tunisia – Insurgency in the Maghreb
- 224 – Egypt – Metrojet Flight 9268, most likely downed by the Islamic State (Sinai insurgency)
- 204+ – Burundi – Burundian conflict
- 204 – India – Naxalite-Maoist insurgency
- 167+ – Ethiopia – Ogaden insurgency
- 155 – Pakistan, Iran – Balochistan conflict
- 150+ – Nigeria – 2015 Baga Massacre (Boko Haram insurgency)
- 150+ – France – Islamic terrorism crisis in France
- 147 – India, Pakistan – Kashmir conflict
- 147 – Russia – Insurgency in the North Caucasus
- 147 – Kenya – 2015 Garissa University College attack by al-Shabaab (War in Somalia)
- 146 – Syria – Kobani massacre by the Islamic State (Syrian Civil War)
- 145 – Nigeria – Kukawa shooting by Boko Haram (Boko Haram insurgency)
- 137 – Yemen – 2015 Sana’a mosque bombings by Islamic State (Yemeni Civil War)
- 128+ – France – 2015 Paris attacks (Islamic terrorism crisis in France)
- 126 – China – Xinjiang conflict
- 123 – Israel, Palestine – Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 117 – Nigeria – September 2015 Maiduguri suicide bombing by Boko Haram (Boko Haram insurgency)
- 102 – Turkey – 2015 Ankara bombing
- 100+ – Iraq – Khan Bani Saad car bombing (Iraq War)
Here is the map (click to enlarge):
Dark red countries have over 10,000 deaths, red ones have over 1,000, and pink ones over 100.
By the end of the year, the US will probably be red, and possibly Burma too. Till last night, France was grey. Now it is pink. All it takes is one bad terrorist attack. Burundi could turn red or dark red: the US fears a genocide. Yemen could also turn dark red.
Police killings in 2011: Here is what I could find:
- 404 US (what the police voluntarily reported to the FBI)
- 300+ Brazil (yearly average for just Rio)
- 6 Canada
- 6 Australia
- 6 Germany
- 2 England
- 0 Japan
KilledByPolice.net says that in 2011 probably over 1,000 were killed by US police.
The rate per million per year:
- 3.57 US (so far this year)
- 1.47+ Brazil
- 0.28 Australia
- 0.18 Canada
- 0.07 Germany
- 0.04 England
- 0.00 Japan
Guns are just as common in Canada as in the US, yet you are 20 times more likely to be killed by police in the US.
– Abagond, 2015.
Update (November 16th): The US has just turned red: the number of people killed by police has just reached 1,000. More.
Sources: Mic, BBC, The Guardian, Infoplease, Global Research, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and, from the Wikipedia:
- List of ongoing armed conflicts
- List of battles and other violent events by death toll
- List of terrorist incidents, 2015
See also:
- List of posts by body count
- White empathy
- democide
- genocide
- Taliban
- Inna Modja: Tombouctou – about the Northern Mali conflict
- Notes on the American Empire
- Islamophobia
- Bowling for Columbine – gun violence in the US
610
^This guy
@Lord of Mirkwood
My guess is, conflicts occur everywhere (and to a larger degree than in Europe), but when it happens to whites, the media and western political leaders make a big fuss about it.
@Abagond
Not that I’m very familiar with the Burundi situation, but why a fear of genocide? Isn’t this a political conflict with only 204 deaths targeted at opposition leaders?
LikeLiked by 2 people
I was shocked and saddened by what happened in Paris yesterday.
But yeah, we all know the Western world cares only when it’s white/western people dying. Nobody cares about Syrians, for example. I can tell they are already being demonized in western media (the refugees) but those are the people escaping the same horror.. I don’t know. I just wish if West could stop meddling into other people’s conflicts under the pretense of “helping”.
Off topic, but how come it’s November 15? Do you adjust your posts to GMT time zone.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you Abagond
for acknowledging that black and brown people are dying around the world also
I pray for all the souls (on every Continent) of all the innocent men, women, and children caught up in out-of-control conflicts, other people’s power struggles and National “Agendas”
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ Lord of Mirkwood
Don’t feign obtuseness, son. It’s unbecoming.
@ Mira
We’re dealing with a people incapable of having empathy for anyone other than their own.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Abagond,
Sorry, but the French aren’t white. They’re Latinos through and through.
LikeLike
Can we double check the figure for police killings in Brazil?
The number above looks more in line only for Rio de Janeiro or for Sao Paulo alone.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/11/brazil-police_n_6140752.html)
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
Okay. Then it is clear you can not be taken seriously.
LikeLike
Doesn’t the Philippines figure somewhere on here? I am looking for numbers.
Also, why are police killings across a country aggregated, but the figure for China only counted the conflicts in Xinjiang? Would the ones in Tibet be counted separately, or say, killings of Uyghurs outside of Xinjiang?
I know this is not scientific, just trying to make sense out of what these numbers mean.
LikeLike
If you are a native speaker of English and didn’t understand the post you are a moron.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Sharina
Here is a comment I posted a few months back on the “Basically Good” thread
Read and see. The French are NOT white/Caucasians, and they never have been, and never will be. They are Latinos, and are all very proud of that. They range from light-skin Cuban looking to dark-skinned Dominican looking, and they’re all native Europeans!
LikeLike
The French people are not white!, @Sharina @Kiwi.
Speaking of the French, back in HS, I knew three sisters of mixed French and white American ethnicity. Two of them could just about pass for any run of the mill, standard issue, white person. However, the other one was considerably swarthy, and looked very Latin. On top of that, they have a very strange surname that you wouldn’t expect to be found among white Americans.
But anyway, as a general rule, they are not white! They’re Latin, and Quebec (like France) is as Latin as Cuba or the DR.
LikeLike
@Abagond, @All
Also, how can one consider them white? The victims in Paris were not white, they were Latin French. They are not. They speak a Latin Language, not an Anglo-Celtic (Caucasian) one. Their culture is Latin, the food is Latin, everything about the French is Latin. They aren’t blonde!
LikeLike
I am more touched by the Paris bombings because I have been there, I have fond memories of it. I guess it’s like if your cousin dies at the same time that one thousand people down the street die. You might be appalled by the 1000 deaths, but you’re devastated by the one death. Familiarity is what makes one thing more important than another. Not on an objective level, certainly no human life is more important than any other, but surely you’d concede that your childrens’ lives or your spouse’s are worth more than millions of strangers in a far off land to you.
LikeLike
@ Jefe
You are right about Brazil: that number is for Rio alone. I added a + to the 300.
I post the numbers I have. I give all my sources at the end. If you or others have more or better numbers, I am all ears. But please note, this is just for 2015 and the threshold is at least 100 deaths as the lower end of the range of estimates.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
No no you missed my point. I was addressing what I think the cynical motive behind this post is – to point out that the Paris terrorist attacks are not worse and are in fact much less significant than all these other horrors – I was explaining why I think it’s different and why it will be focused on by western media much much more. Because they are more familiar, we know these people, we’ve been there, we may have friends there. Who of us has been to Syria or Yemen or Iraq? It’s not at all to say that those humans in those countries are less important, not at all, but to explain why there’s nothing wrong in focusing more on Paris, of feeling more angst about it. I feel more angst when something happens to a friend of mine than I do about people I don’t know. That doesn’t mean I’m not sad for others, but I am more sad for my friends, it pains me and gives me pause. But just because I care more about my friends than strangers doesn’t mean I don’t care about the suffering of the strangers, they are not mutually exclusive sentiments. And you’re exactly the same and you know it. Ever been to visit friend or family in the hospital, and walk by dozens of people who have it much worse than the person who visited, yet continued to visit your friend and experienced much more grief than for the cancer patient in the next room? You callous monster! That’s racist!!
I’ve never in my life been told I sound white before, heh. Let’s see what’s the appropriate response to that. “How dare you!” nah. “Thank you” nah. “I don’t give a sh*t” yes that.
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
I am saying that the US press and the US president are either being profoundly hypocritical or profoundly racist (or both) in their shock and concern for the Paris attack. They do not pretend such shock and concern for far worse events in the world (see the list above).
I did not say that directly in the post, but the cartoon at top along with the long list of much worse things than the Paris attack would make that point to anyone who has been following the news and what the president has been saying. You were among the first to bring up the Paris attack on this blog, so you are certainly following the news closely enough.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The picture at the top (for the record, since pictures do sometimes get lost or changed), shows a White man reading a newspaper headline that says “2 White people died.” His face shows shock and surprise – yet behind him is a pile of dozens of brown bodies.
(https://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/proxy.jpg?w=400&h=400)
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Lord of Mirkwood
Irish singer Sinead O’Connor made much the same point about Margaret Thatcher in her song “Black Boys on Mopeds”:
LikeLike
@Abagond
Agreed. And I bet #AllLivesMatter will NOT be protesting this lack of suitable “shock and concern”. If #AllLivesMatter were truly sincere to their moniker, they would be raising hell against every media outlet’s skewed coverage. #AllLivesMatter is a joke.
LikeLike
@ resw77
I do not know US government’s reasoning. It does have to do with elections there. The US State Department has studied genocides and how they unfold:
LikeLike
@ Phil
You sound very White. You are becoming the Whitesplainer in Chief on this blog. Lord of Mirkwood better watch out!
LikeLike
@ Phil
In general, this is how I think the US press implicitly looks at it:
1. Real People = White people
2. Almost Real People = well-to-do non-White people, unless they are:
3. Despised Others = Muslims, Black Americans, Native Americans
4. Fellow Human Beings = everyone else.
If you are being bombed or killed by the US, you are probably a Despised Other. Almost by definition. Your death is a GOOD thing. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” It makes the world – or your city – safer, even if it becomes more violent!
If you are a Fellow Human Being, your death is neutral. In the West, only do-gooders and bleeding hearts will care. But even they do not see you as a Real Person. Democracy Now, for example, will have no trouble showing your dead body lying in the street – something they would never do to a Real Person.
If you are an Almost Real Person, then your death will be embarrassing. It will make White people feel uncomfortable, but they will probably not do much about it.
If you are a Real Person, then your death in a mass kiliing is terrible. It is a Threat to Civilization, to Our Values, to Humanity. The US president might even shed at tear! Or look shook up. Or speak in suitably stern tones. He cares! Or pretends to.
You could probably quantify all this by looking at New York Times articles. My guess is it would go something like this:
The #AllLivesMatter Human Worth Scale:
Real People = 100
Almost Real People = 10
Fellow Human Beings = 1
Despised Others = -1
And that is being generous.
More:
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Phil,
Assuming that you do not personally know the victims of Paris terrorist attack, are you more devastated by those deaths than you are by the deaths of unarmed victims of the police just miles away from your house?
One of my good friends died in the WTC on 9/11 – he was having breakfast at the Windows of the World restaurant that morning – the best man at my college roommate’s wedding and someone I used to hang out with every other week in NYC, been to each other’s houses, etc. He introduced me for a job at his company. I go visit his name at the WTC every time I go to NYC. I know what it is like to lose a personal friend that I knew for 20 years in a terror attack.
Yet, I am still, nevertheless devastated by the unarmed victims of the police who lived within miles of where I lived. And as a former resident of Anacostia, DC and PG County, MD, there are hundreds, if not thousands of those victims — several times more than the entire carnage of this Paris incident.
LikeLike
@ Phil
The key word there is “we”. You are clearly not talking about Americans, because US police brutality and the Mexican Drug War claim more lives that are MORE “familiar” and closer to home. Your reasoning only holds up if you assume a well-to-do White “we”, much like the one the US press uses: White people who can afford to buy new cars.
LikeLike
Abagond,
So where would the Balkans rate on the “Real People – Almost Real People –
Despised Others – Fellow Human Beings” scale? Because following your description, it would be “despised others” but these are white people we’re talking about.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
You are mixing up culture and race. I love pizza. Does that make me Latino? Latinos, like Americans or Arabs, are made up of different races.
France has a Latin culture, I agree. But in addition to their accordion music, they practised Black slavery. In Haiti and New Orleans they had a race-based caste system. They had a racist colonial empire. It is well-documented. Just ask Frantz Fanon.
As far as this post goes, I think it is safe to assume that the US press and the president regard the French as mainly White.
LikeLike
@ Mira
I would say they are Real People: In the 1990s, the US and the EU were way more worked up about the Balkans than, say, Palestine or Rwanda. Something Had To Be Done. So whereas the US made excuses about Palestine (Despised Other) and Rwanda (Fellow Human Beings), it took action on the Balkans, more than the mere hand-wringing they sometimes do for Almost Real People.
I would not count them as Despised Others. NATO did bomb Serbia, even civilians, but, apart from the leadership, I do not remember Serbians being demonized in the press. Certainly not like how “Muslims” are now. By my system, their white skin mattered more.
LikeLike
Source:
http://scripting.com/liveblog/users/davewiner/2015/11/14/0293.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
You skin is what determines your value in a pigmentocracy (not merit).
LikeLiked by 3 people
@Kiwi
Strikingly similar to police killing unarmed AAs and then victims are blamed for their own deaths.
LikeLiked by 2 people
-Why is France listed twice?
-Latinos can be white, black, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, native Indian, and more, or any mixture of the aforementioned. Celia Cruz is Latina…so is Pitbull. While studying abroad in Spain I had a great conversation about history with a guard at a cathedral & he referred to ME as Latina, though I’m black American. When I looked surprised he explained he meant my culture. To him, anyone speaking a Latin-derived language whose culture comes from Greco-Roman culture is Latin; color/nationality have almost nothing to do with it. An interesting point, given the scope of Greco-Roman culture.
-That this would happen here (by foreign attackers, not American white kids) occurred to me starkly when Mumbai was attacked, then the mall in Kenya, then the university there. To me it seemed it was only a matter of time, though I thought it would be here before Europe strictly because of the relative ease of obtaining assault weapons here versus there (my biggest concern about this happening here is the very real risk of someone with a weapon, no tactical training & no idea of police response time making the carnage much worse trying to play hero). The press tellingly gave those attacks less attention & analysis; security here wasn’t even noticeably increased. The similarities are striking, but hardly any mention of those other attacks thus far…like it was totally forgotten. But Paris won’t be given that treatment…empathy will kick in & we’ll notice our own security is also at risk.
LikeLike
I hope I’m not taken as a cynic or seeming disrespectful to Paris BTW. I spent this summer there at a family friend’s house not far from a restaurant that was attacked, that could have been us sitting at one of those restaurants. But it’s precisely because this hit so close to home that I find not taking Mumbai & Nairobi more seriously so appalling.
LikeLike
@ Mira
This blog’s timezone is GMT.
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
The stuff you thinks proves something really makes you look crazy. Those youtube links etc show they share a cultural link, but it does not prove they are latino. It really boils down to your lack of understanding of what is considered white vs other. If you did better research then you would have an understanding of why they have a cultural link. Based on your flawed line of reasoning I am Asian, because I share a cultural bond with Asians.
Now if you are special Ed then I apologize ahead of time for being so harsh, but if you are just someone who has not studied at all to know any better then I suggest you do.
LikeLike
I_Usually_Lurk
The “Islamic terrorism crisis in France” includes the Charlie Hebdo attack as well as the one on Friday the 13th.
LikeLike
This post is really tacky..
LikeLike
This post reminds me of when white people tried to turn the racist shooting on the black SC church into a debate about gun control.
Using a tragedy for your own political gain is not only tacky, but disgusting as well. I’m disappointed
LikeLike
I just returned from an extended stint in Africa, based in the West but I had a chance to visit North, South & East as well. I’m DEEPLY concerned about Burundi right now. People in power are saying the exact same things that were said just before the world sat & watched nearly a million people be hacked to death. After all the lip service paid Rwanda when the atrocities happened there the world should be more proactive…but Hillary, first lady at the time & now seeking the presidency herself, hasn’t so much as mentioned it. Almost none of the western press has.
Politics all over Africa right now is CRAZY, & that affects us here too. But you’d think the only thing going on in the world is how Europe feels about refugees.
LikeLike
lol
http://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/astronomy-and-time/astronomy-facts/history/the-prime-meridian-at-greenwich
and the point of palestine as opposed to ‘middle east’ is just substituting an imperial designation from roman empire to american vis a vis ‘palestinian jew’ i guess it is contemporaneous, idk i found some significance there, anyway
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Raimanet.
LikeLike
The violence in Paris was unexpected, not an on going conflict. A bomb in Nigeria, a police shooting in michigan, a mass shooting in Colorado these things happen like clockwork.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I refuse the job of whitesplainer in chief. In fact I hereby tender my resignation as a commenter because I’m not just going to say “Wow you’re right! I was so ignorant!!!” I’m here because I do experience some enlightenment, I do see things from your perspective in a way that hadn’t occurred to me before, but sometimes I think you go a little bit too far, are a but unfair and lack nuance. But I guess pointing that out comes across as full-on denial of your points, as being an apologist for the dominant oppressive white culture. Anyway, you don’t mind if I stick around to read do you? Is that paternalistic and racist or anything? Signing off, peace.
LikeLike
I think we had the exactly same debate after the Charlie Hebdo attack. I still can’t see anything wrong with caring more about things that happen in one’s won society or one relativly similar than about something elsewhere. an attack like that could have happened in every Europen city, the deaths in Ukraine or Syria could not, so of course I will care more about France.
LikeLike
““They hate us because we’re free.” <– Lie.
They hate us because we're at war with them."
And we are at war with them because of the violence you listed above that we supposedly don't care about.
LikeLike
@Abagond
What does the history of white supremacy have to do with Mideast policies?
LikeLike
I am just glad Zionists did not decide to pick Uganda as their ”promised land”. They would have slaughtered the people there and nobody would have cared. It would have been worse than South Africa.
LikeLike
@Lord of Mirwood
Are you partially sighted or blind ? I said I am glad they never went to Uganda because if they did they would have slaughtered their way through Kenya, Ethiopia and part of Tanzania. I never stated anything about not caring about Palestinians. In fact, I feel their pain and they are the reason I criticize Israel. LOM is a moron.
LikeLike
@ Phil
I called you a Whitesplainer because you keep trying to explain away cases of White racism in a way that assumes White innocence. Given their history, that seems an unwise assumption. Not to say that Whites are always in the wrong – but neither are they always in the right.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
Why are you asking that?
LikeLike
The western media covers that which it can sell carnage in Paris they can sell but, Beirut or Kenya not so much. The media drives the narrative i am appalled and upset by the attacks in Beirut and Kenya,our beef should be with the biased media. Being part of the west France seems much closer to the U.S. both culturally and ideologically.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Abagond,
NATO did bomb Serbia, even civilians, but, apart from the leadership, I do not remember Serbians being demonized in the press.
Oh boy…No. The demonization was real. It lasts to this day in some ways. Though tbh I can’t differentiate between Western European and US media.
But you had the whole deal: dead bodies shown on news without problem, demonizing rhetoric, definitely not “one of us” situation. Like, def not “Real People” treatment, I can guarantee you.
LikeLike
@Mira
You are from eastern Europe?
LikeLike
@Abagond
What a frightening look at the world and what’s going on. Makes me glad there’s so much blowback showing up on social media about how differently the MSM handled the terrorist attack in Kenya vs. the attack in Paris.
@Kiwi
“French concertgoers receive outpourings of support and sympathy from around the world but Syrian refugees fleeing war are demonized as terrorists invading Europe. The privileged Whites are seen as human but the unprivileged darker-skinned people are seen as a dangerous threat to the former.”
I once watched a broadcast about White Russian Muslims and something I found interesting is that other White Russians who were non-Muslims didn’t seem too thrilled about having them around, which, of course, I’d boil down to religious difference, as they were discussing the chances of the older individuals’ son having left to join a radical group. So my question about your above quote is if, in light of what I said, if you think the two groups you’re comparing could be treated different for another reason? Just curious.
I agree that race relations are usually the underlying cause of different treatment otherwise, but in this case, since many of the refugees are pretty fair-complexioned (many I saw looked just like the white interviewers speaking to them), I wonder if the brunt of the demonizing stems from religion. What stood out to me was that numerous places specified that they’d be happy to take Christian refugees but wanted to refuse Muslim refugees on the basis, iirc, that they believe the Quran really is pretty pro-invasion.
LikeLike
An incomplete list of who is fighting where in 2015 (BEFORE the Paris attack):
France: Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Mali.
US: Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
ISIS: Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya.
Russia: Syria.
ISIS has already hit France and Russia (that Metrojet flight that went down over the Sinai), so it seems the US can expect something too.
LikeLike
Maybe I am imagining it, but the Wikipedia used to have much better information on current French military operations and the US drone war.
LikeLike
@ Mira
That is Despised Other territory for sure.
LikeLike
Sooo, the West, the worst terrorists the world has ever seen, wants me to pray for 128+ dead french people, when the Syrian body count runs into thousands, and not just at the hands of ISIS.
I believe what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Their unprovoked attacks in the Middle East begets the violence we see on their streets. The human tide that is flowing into Europe must show these Westerners that there are people, human beings in these countries they are bombing. I for one welcome all these refugees into Europe. They are not my enemies.
Already there are reports that a Syrian passport and Egyptian passport have been found on the bodies on the suicide bombers. How convenient, kinda coincides with how Le Pen’s right wing rhetoric about shutting French borders is whipping up Islamophobia in France and the rest of Europe. How do we know they weren’t planted there?
I didn’t participate in the minute silence in London for the French sorry. I don’t care about the side eyes from my colleagues. I can’t stand Western hypocrisy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Kiwi
:As far as I understand it it works like this: People who don’t look like an average Northern European but are still somewhere on the Northern European phenotypical spectrum are marked as “other” if they violate too many cultural traits that are believed to be normal for Northern Europeans. Like accent. name and appearance (hair style, cloth etc). One alone doesn’t necessarily makes the difference (except it is an obvious one, like a head scarf), but somewhere you reach a tipping point and you’re out.
LikeLike
@ vanishingpoint
I am deleting your comment because it links to a page showing dead bodies.
LikeLike
villagewriter
You are from eastern Europe?
Yup, from the Balkans (Serbia).
LikeLike
@ Kati
I am glad too.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
I always thought the best place for Osama bin Laden to hide was on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey as a toll colletor.
Some of those who took part in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center lived not too far from me in New York. I remember the police guarding their neighbourhood from “dangerous” Black people.
LikeLike
@ merrimay
Hi merrimay!
I am suspicious too: why would ISIS use Egyptians or Syrians when it supposedly has hundreds of French nationals?
LikeLike
@Mira
Don’t the big rich countries in Europe bully you guys in the East. I have watched some documentaries about the Roma.
LikeLike
@Sharina @All
Of course the French are Latinos! What makes you think that they are not? Latino doesn’t always mean Spanish!
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
“Of course the French are Latinos!”—That may be your claim, but you have yet to support such a claim. You originally claimed they were not white. I see quite a few comments that refuted that. Are you going to later claim they are the chosen Latino people too? You have a habit of making erroneous claims you can’t support. You are not less than a troll. *shrugs*
LikeLike
French concertgoers receive outpourings of support and sympathy from around the world but Syrian refugees fleeing war are demonized as terrorists invading Europe. The privileged Whites are seen as human but the unprivileged darker-skinned people are seen as a dangerous threat to the former.”
@Kiwi
Sorry, but the French are a Latin people, not a Caucasian people. It’s important to understand that just because one is indigenous to Europe, that does not automatically make that person white. The French natives range in appearance from Dominican-looking dark skinned, to Cuban-looking light skinned. To call them white is insane.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
I honestly don’t think that Everett knows the difference between race and culture.
In the mean time let’s ignore these white French people.
http://izismile.com/2011/06/25/30_of_the_most_beautiful_and_famous_french_30_pics.html
LikeLike
@Kiwi
You are correct in that I haven’t been to France, but I do know ethnic French people. I’d like you to know that they are Latino, naturally as Brown identified as the other Latins. They speak a language that was once a dialect of Latin (based on the Latin spoken in Paris), and that 9€.9 percent of them are proud Latin Americans. Did you know that the French Canadians were, for many years, second class citizens in Canada? Most white Canadians are of American descent, which is why Toronto and other Canadian towns look just like carbon copies of New York City and other American towns. The province of Québec was once one of the most horribly treated of ALL provinces. Did you know that in the mid 1830s, Canada’s French, under Louis-Joseph Paipineau, had an armed revolt against many racist British policies? It’s true. They went through segregation, and were treated EVEN WORSE than American blacks!!! Some of the American Loyalists who arrived in Canada at the time of the American Revolution were Southerners who absolutely, positivly HATED the people of Québec, simply because they were Latinos, and it wasn’t until 1968 that discrimination against them came to an end, with the election of Canada’s firzt non-white Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, in 1968. Consider yourselves educated.
LikeLike
@Mirkwood
Correct!
LikeLike
@Sharina @Kiwi @All
Please read my comment above Mirkwood’s. It explains what I’ve been trying to tell you and Sharina all along, Kiwi.
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
No, it does not explain what you have been trying to tell me or anyone else. That is part of YOUR ongoing problem. You shift from one goal post to the next and claim that you were saying this or that.
Truth of the matter if you flood the comment section with long comments not even relevant to what you are claiming. Stick to what you are claiming, without comic strips, without youtube pastors, and I will take you seriously. Otherwise you are howling at the moon.
You claimed they were not white, but Latino. You have not proven that, so then you shift to they are Latino because of how they look. Great then my mother is also Latino.
LikeLike
@Abagond
So even though we both agree that the French are Latinos, why does America see them as white qnd not, for example, Cubans, Colombians or Mexicans? We both agree they aren’t white, so why does the US see them as white?
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
“We both agree they aren’t white, so why does the US see them as white?”—That is not what Abagond said. This is what Abagond said ” Latinos, like Americans or Arabs, are made up of different races.”
Latino is not a race. Cuban, Colombian, and Mexican is not a race. White, black, and Asian are races.
LikeLike
@sharinlr @All
I know that Colombian is not a race. I’m just saying that the French people, as a whole, are as Latino as can be, and are more Latin, in fact, that even the Latin Americans. Latin America stretches from Quebec in the north, all the way down to Argentina in the south. But again, most Argentines are technically Germans who’ve adopted Latin ways, so they don’t really count as Latino in the normal sense.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
Those who think the French are mainly White:
President Obama
MSNBC
Fox News
CNN
Tumblr
YouTube
MTV
Facebook
How do I know? Because they are all making a big deal of the Paris attack when they did not make a big deal of comparable terrorist attacks in Kenya or Lebanon. All of them are so Whitewashed that they value White life far more than anyone else’s. If they thought the French were not mostly White, they WOULD NOT CARE.
LikeLike
@ Sharina
Thank you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ The Pragmatist
What I find disgusting is how the press is making such a huge deal about it when they did not make such a huge deal of much worse cases. It is only because White people died. That is what I find disgusting.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Update: The US has just turned red: the number of people killed by police has just reached 1,000.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
LikeLiked by 1 person
I also find it disgusting that the media is saying how France is bombing Syria in response to the terrorist attack, while leaving out that France has been bombing Syria since September.
LikeLiked by 3 people
@Everett F. Pomare
Unfortunately that is not and was not what you were saying. That is the new argument once your back is against the wall, but you want to keep going as if your point will magically become relevant. Latino or not does not make them less white. Also depending on where they are located in France will greatly impact to what level of white they look. In the link I provided above they look more white than the people you are trying to describe as French. Not all French or even Hispanic people look the standard dark skinned dark hair Latino. False assumption.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Sharina @ Latino is not a race. Cuban, Colombian, and Mexican is not a race. White, black, and Asian are races.”
Linda says
Sharina, I vowed to myself to stay out of disagreements when it’s obvious that the person who is speaking is a “dim bulb”
I see you are doing your best to root out the ignorance but even you must know, you are in a losing battle
that being said, I just wanted to say… if you are going to list
“white, black, and Asian” as races, then you might as well call “Latino” a race too.
because the reality of it is — there is no such thing as a “white” or “black” race
Asian is not a race — it’s a Continent, just like Africa, which is not a race
Before the Europeans created the “Concept of Race”, people defined themselves by their Ethnic groups –
that’s why in Europe, they still fight amongst themselves divided by Ethnic lines because to them, ethnicity is more relevant. (That’s why the Balkans are looked down upon)
That’s why in “Latin America”, people could purchase “whiteness” –it’s a label that is very fluid and easily handed out by society.
in “USA/North America”- whiteness is rigid and whiteness has to be given/ bestowed by the dominant European group through social acceptance or the legal system.
LikeLiked by 1 person
there is no consistency to “race” except the one designed by the legal system or by the dominant society
Legally in the USA, this woman is considered “white” (thus proving that the concept of a “white race” is bullsh’t)
That’s Egyptian-American TV host, Hoda Kotb
who based on features alone and the one-drop rules of “blackness”, should be considered “black” in America
if Hoda gets to be white, then so should Vanessa Williams
LikeLiked by 2 people
beautiful woman, here is a more recent picture of Vanessa
LikeLike
as I said, If Hoda gets to be white, then so is Vanessa
the funny part is, Hoda is 100% African
and Vanessa is mixed race: African and European
as I said, the concept of race is bullsh’t
___________________________________________
all that being said, I do know very well that — it is, what it is
We all use these fake terms because that is what was TAUGHT to us by the dominant group, who call themselves “white”
Their Games and Their Rules
They have been the deciding factor in how “we” so-called black/brown skinned, western Eurocentric educated and cultured people, see ourselves
All of us have fallen into the trap that has been laid since we were born —
because as much as I rebuke the terms, I HAVE to use them — because I have nothing else to replace these terms with
the dominant European culture remains in control of the narrative
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Abagond, I apologize for the link and thank you for deleting it.
LikeLike
Hi,
I am a Parisian woman and I read in one of the comments that French people are ‘not white, they are latino’.
Maybe there is some confusion because the people leaving comments are mainly American but Europeans don’t really define themselves according to race as much as Americans do. Americans appear to have a much stronger black/white dichotomy.
If you really want to ‘define’ French people, on the whole we consider ourselves to be French first and foremost but accept that we are part of the same ‘racial’ makeup as other Europeans.
But again, this is subjective. I would consider myself ‘white’ but I don’t like to view myself according to a race, we are all humans. I think Europeans define themselves according to country first.
As for the fact that we are not white, but latino, I think whoever wrote that is projecting American standards onto Europeans.
In Europe, we do not have a ‘latino’ racial group. Hispanic is also not a racial group. Whether you are English or French or Spanish, we are all European and therefore ‘white’ in the traditional sense.
Either way, this racial categorisation really has to end. Europe sits at the extremity of the Asian continent right, above Africa.
There has been a lot of mixing over the centuries and it is still going on.
Europeans never try to determine their ancestry in the same way that Americans do, we kind of already know that we are all mixed. People born in Portugal might go live in Spain.
People born in France might go live in London. Most of us speak 2 or 3 languages.
There is no ‘latino’ racial group. Latino (whatever that is) comes from the word Latin which denotes the Roman cvilization (Latin being the language of the Romans). This Latin language used to be the predominant language of Europeans. Over the years it split into various languages such as Spanish, French, Italian and Romanian. So you might say that France, Spain, Portugal, Italy etc. share the same Latin culture but France also has very strong cultural ties to Germany (since we are neighbouring countries) and to the United Kingdom (we once fought a 100 year long war against them).
I think that, overall, Europe is a very ‘old’ continent, with civilizations spanning back thousands of years. All European countries share deep cultural ties. The USA, on the other hand, is still relatively new. In America, race seems to be a lot more important. In Europe, we don’t really care. For instance, Americans have a ‘Hispanic’ race and then a ‘white’ race. In Europe, we do not consider Spanish and German to be a different race. Germans may have more blond hair/blue eye people and Spanish may have more brown eyes/brown hair but so what?
LikeLike
@Linda
I get all that, but at the end of the day they are still labeled as white. Whether Everett likes it or not. Throwing in Latino will not make them less so.
LikeLike
@Linda @Jade @All
Hoda is Arab, not African. The modern Egyptians living in the land today aren’t even really Egyptian to begin with, save the Copts. The French ARE a Latin people, since, like Hispanics, they speak a Romance language. Did you know that our word for the month of June comes a from a rather obscure French surname? I wonder if Jade is familiar with it, since it’s not that common of a surname. But getting back, the French are not white Germans. They’re a Latino people with Latino pride, and you can’t change it.
LikeLike
Losing battle indeed. smh
LikeLike
I am French and if you must insist, I am white.
Everett, with all due respect, you do not what you are talking about.
Latin refers to the Roman Empire and the languages/culture derived from it. It does not refer to a race.
If anything, the Spanish are more ‘Latin’ than the French. The fact that you then denote the Spanish as being Hispanics highlights the holes in your critical reasoning.
The French are descendants of the Gauls, who were conquered by the Latins (the Romans). The only ‘true’ Latin people are the Italians. But even Italians consider themselves ‘white’.
LikeLike
sharinalr @Linda
I get all that, but at the end of the day they are still labeled as white. Whether Everett likes it or not. Throwing in Latino will not make them less so.
Linda says,
Chica, you have time to sit and argue with fools… it’s almost counter productive because the more this id’iot Everett talks
the more obvious that this person is either Really stoopid or a troll
I can feel my brain cells wilting for even reading this person’s comments.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Linda
Counter productive yes. Entertaining when you are bored.
LikeLike
@Linda
But I will admit. At this point it is very much a lost cause.
LikeLike
Honestly, I should not be spending so much time on this.
This is all American propaganda. All Europeans are white. End of story.
The Spanish consider themselves white, so do the Italians, so do the Portuguese, so do the French. Everyone.
I won’t lecture Americans on their own internal issues and I find it a bit frustrating to have Americans telling Europeans what they are.
You will never find a French person describe himself as anything other than white. Anyone who says otherwise is clearly misinformed.
It is like saying that white people in Texas are a different race to the white people in California.
France and Germany are right next to eachother, we are descendants of the same peoples, how can we be a different race? Our kings and queens married each other for centuries.
Alsace used to be a German territory, now it is a French one. So you would call the people living theory Latin or white?
Have you ever heard of Asterix and Obelix?
I have blond hair and blue eyes. I am white but most importantly, I am French. I am not ‘latino’.
LikeLike
@Jade @Kiwi @All
Let me share with you all what I worote a few months earlier
LikeLike
Jade, don’t get worked up over 1 i’diot commenter
who apparently doesn’t know sh’t about Europe or world history
I suspect Everett is troll because even he/she has to know his comments are dum as h’ll
LikeLike
@All
How are the Italians white? They are Latin. As a matter of fact, they are as Latin as the Porto Ricans and South Americans are. In addition, did you know that the French and French-Canadians are Latinos as well? Bet you didn’t know that. How can the French be white? The truth is , that they are not white. The people of Québec and France are Latinos. Let me give you a personal example: Back in high school, I knew three sisters of mixed ethnicity (French and English). Two of them (the oldest and the youngest) looked just like any run of the mill white folks. However, the middle one was a different case. You see, she looked like Latin person from Latin America. If I did not know her, I could have sworn that she was completely Latin. However, she was not. They speak English as a first language, and identify as white, and I respect that. They are some of the nicest people you could ever meet, by the way. Even so, the truth of the matter is that the French are NOT WHITE. They are Latinos. Here is a quick history lesson: After the French and Indian War, the British took over control of most of Canada. For the first few years, the British left them alone, and they kept on acting like if France was still there. However, all that changed when Americans still loyal to the U.K. came to Canada, and began to build places like Ontario and Toronto. Quickly, they became the majority in the country, and ultimately made the French a minority. That is wgy you only see them in Quebec now. They had many rebellions against British rule, and it wasn’t until the late ’60s early ’70s, that they began ti have equality with whites. The only real whites, fyi, are the English, Irish, Welsh, Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians, and kindred peoples (Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Germanic, and kindred people). That is who the REAL Caucasians are. Did you know that the French use the accordion in their music, and that it is very similar to Spanish music? Québec is Latin American!
French accordion music
(http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zMFYpECiCAs)
Spanish accordion music
(http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EgY4197SV1w)
Cajun French accordion music
(http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AR37qNFcnU8)
This PROVES beyond a shadow of a doubt that the French are 100% Latino, and ought to be proud of that fact! They are not white! The accordion is a Latin instrument. Did you know that chicken parmesan is Latino food (from Italy), as is pasta and Canadian poutine (Quebec)? Latin doesn’t always mean Spanish, and not all European-descended people are Caucasian. And, by the way, Pizza is Latino food also, as are Croissants and snails (escargot). Canoli is Latin too, in addition to mozzarella. New York has had lots of Latino mayors already, such as Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio, among others. The first Latinos in NY were the Italians and Sicillians. That is all for now. Just my three cents! 😏
LikeLike
Linda, you are right. Sorry, I was reading up about the Paris attacks and I am not sure how I ended up here. I think I am still emotional over what happened.
Also, I agree that all lives are worth the same and that Western media is biased. I also do not support Hollande’s policies in Syria. I am angry with my president because I think his policies caused these attacks.
Unfortunately I think the media likes ‘unexpected’ events. For example, in America, high school shootings happen so often, no one really pays attention anymore. I think people are so used to conflict in the Middle East, they are not suprised anymore.
But because this is the first time Paris has had suicide bombers, it is everywhere in the news. If Paris had suicide bombers every month, no one would really care.
For example, thousands of people die every month from car accidents but no one talks about it.
The majority of Europeans are nice friendly people and we just want everyone to live happily together. I do not know why European governments start so many wars.
Goodnight everyone.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Jade
The Germans are white, but the French are not. Be a proud Latin person, and EMBRACE YOUR HERITAGE! Nothing wrong in that. You are LATINA more than 100%
LikeLike
@Sharina
Jade is in denial of her heritage. She is a LATINA, AND NEEDS TO BE proud! End of story!
LikeLike
@Jade
Not all Europeans are white. For you tu say that is beyond insane. Learn history!
LikeLike
Jade, I hope your friends and family are safe and I wish Paris the best
I lived in Europe for a few years and I’m Caribbean — product of the British empire,
so I very much get the concepts of how Europeans view themselves and others differently than USA/north Americans.
Americans are sheltered– that’s the way their government, schools, and media were designed — they work extra hard to keep the American people dumbed-down and easily led sheep
and unfortunately, there are people online who spend their time making sure that the sheep stays asleep
while the wolves run around the world eating up other people’s countries in the name of Profit and national security
but that’s another issue for another day.
Paris and Beirut did not deserve this; Nigeria and Kenya did not deserve it
innocent people suffer because the wolves never realize that they are full and have had enough to eat.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@Linda
I know a lot about Europe to to know that just because a person is native to Europe, it does not make them white. White means the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Celtic, Scandinavian, and kindred peoples. Are the French? Of course not!
LikeLike
@Sharina
Read the comment above, and see what I mean.
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
I think you like to believe you know a lot about a lot and you actually know nothing about nothing. There is absolutely nothing you will post that would make me believe otherwise.
LikeLike
@Abagond, @Linda @Jade
You should ALL KNOW GOOD AND WELL that not all indigenous native Europeans are Caucasians. For everyone on this blog is both ignorant and insane. EVERYBODY KNOWS that the French are Latino, and are POC also. Just ask the Quebeckers of Canada.
LikeLike
@Jade
With you being French, whatever you tell me you are then I will believe you.
LikeLike
@Sharina
I know MORE about France than she does! She’s denying her heritage. Be prod Jade! Stop denying yourself.
LikeLike
@Kwi
Here is proof
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7MSJpLQMdk)
So you see, the FRENCH ARE NOT WHITE! They are still being discriminated in Canada as we speak, so Jade doesn’t know about her own people at ALL!!! She DOES NOT KNOW WHAT SHE IS TALKING ABOUT!
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
“I know MORE about France than she does!”—You know nothing about nothing. smh
LikeLike
welp. Off to watch Adventure time with the kiddies.
LikeLike
@Sharina @Kiwi
Even Pastor Denlinger knows more about France than Jade, becuase he is an EXPERT on the French. Stop calling the Frenchies what they are not
LikeLike
@Sharina
Even Adventure Time knows more about France. They are LATINO! End of story! Good grief!
LikeLike
@All
What Jade said about the French having blonde hair is a load of baloney! REAL French do not have blonde hair!
LikeLike
@Kiwi
You know the French are Latinos>! Why do you want Jade to deny herself?
LikeLike
Everett F. Pomare
You must be an expert on crazy.
LikeLike
@sharinalr
No. Why are you using an ad hominem? The French are PURE BLOODED, BROWN-SKINNED LATINOS!! Even Jade knows that, and SHE’S FRENCH!
LikeLike
@Kwi
No, I do not. I have never done so, and am not racist towards anybody. I just want everyone to know that the French ARE indeed EUROPEAN, and were ordained by God to inhabited that place (Acts 17:26) and they have the right to be there. King Louis was not white, and neither is the British Royal Family. They are Latinos as well.
LikeLike
@Mirkwood
Latino does not always mean Spanish or Portuguese. Educate yourself. It (Latin America) extends (like I said earlier) from Quebec in the north, down to Argentina in the south.
LikeLike
@Jade @Mirkwood @Kiwi
Every single French person on the planet (including Jade) is Latrino/a. If you are French, be proud!
LikeLike
@Everett F. Pomare
“Why are you using an ad hominem?”—Same reason I told you that I take nothing you say seriously, yet you, like a crazy person, continue on. Also you were already proven wrong. So what is your point at this point?
LikeLike
Yes, Kiwi is right. I think Latino is an American thing. From what I understand you mean Cuban people by it?
Either way, I dont think it is too important.
I only came back to share a link with everyone. Maybe I am naive but I really believe that, as long as people are kind in heart, that we can all get along, no matter the race or colour.
This is a story I just read that made me cry. A beautiful group of friends, of different races, all having fun together. This is what France represents to me. They didn’t deserve to die. Yes, maybe I am white but if someone says to me that they are French then I consider them French. I don’t care what colour they are or where they were born:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3320630/Eleven-staff-friends-wiped-Caf-Angels-Paris-massacre.html
LikeLiked by 2 people
EVERYBODY KNOWS that the French are Latino, and are POC also. Just ask the Quebeckers of Canada.
Now I know the elevator doesn’t go to the top with you. Quebecers are some of the most racist folks in Canada, sure I’ll ask them!
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Jade
A Latino is a Latin American, especially one who lives in the US. It is used interchangeably with Hispanic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
OFF TOPIC: Whether the French are white.
This has now been argued to death. It is clear that Everett F. Pomare is beyond the reach of fact or reason and at this point is just repeating himself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Abagond
Latino does not always mean “Latin American”. Get with the program.
LikeLike
The French are non-Hispanic Latinos, Abagond. Stop fooling around! Stop taking Sharina’s and Jade’s sides on everything!
LikeLike
Of course the French are Latinos proud Latinos, FOREVER LATINOS!! You can’t change it @Sharina, @Jade @Abagond. Sheesh. I thought Abagond was the voice of reason, but it appears he’s been drinking Sharina’s and Kiwi’s and Jade’s pseudo-French Kool-Aid!
LikeLike
@Abagond
The French have always been Latinos, and you can’t change that. It seems that Kiwi has a bit of a crush on Jade, since he’s always defending her bogus positions on her own country. She is a Latina, plain straight, and simple!
LikeLike
@Abagond
What do you mean by “only white lives matter”? Everyone’s life matters, including yours. Stop listening to stuff.
LikeLike
Mr.Everet is a spamming troll. Be gone.
LikeLike
Abagond,
Humble suggestion: make whether or not the French are Latino off-topic as well?
this thread got trolled to death.
LikeLike
@Jefe
I am NOT TROLLING@! Jade was the one who started, acting stupid and all. She hates being French, which is what it comes down to! You guys (including Jade) are beyond comprehension in regards to being such buffoonish penguins that don’t know anything (like Jade does)!
LikeLike
Thank You Jade for the link. It was heart breaking yet reminded me that not all of humanity is lost. To lay your life down for another is to love life enough to loose it.
The older I get the more pessimistic and cynical I become. I identify with anger more easily then empathy. I’ve been slippen I guess.
LikeLike
I didn’t suggest who or what might be trolling, but it looked like someone decided to take ownership of that label.
But it is not hard to see who has been SPAMming this post thread.
To tell the truth, I more or less agree with the premise of this post, but I am not fully in sync with the data used to support it. I think some of it may be apples and oranges – and what it leaves out is about as meaningful as what it includes. But it does not change the premise of the thread, about how western media labels certain action as “terror” and bloodshed and others as something else that does not deserve attention.
LikeLike
@Jefe
You are the real spammer! I HAVE NEVER SPAMMED ON THIS BLOG!
LikeLike
@Sharina @All
You and Jade can go play with Barbies. I’m right, you guys are wrong.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
I deleted 17 of your comments as off-topic, including the ones that were moderated.
LikeLike
OFF TOPIC: Whether the French are Latin or Latino.
LikeLike
For the record, Jade is commenting from France (according to her IP address).
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
Of course all lives matter. That is the premise of this post. But Tumblr and other websites have put their logos in French colours, which is fine, except that when, say, Kenya was struck by a worse terrorist attack, they did not change their logo at all. As if only White lives matter.
LikeLike
The best argument against this post is one that no one has made, which is itself telling: France and the US are NATO allies. An attack against one is an attack against the other. NATO was brought up on this thread, but only in relation to the Balkans.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Kiwi
Right. I agree.
LikeLike
Everett F. Pomare
Go play in the closet with the door closed and the lights out. You seem to be good at that.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
Comment deleted as off topic. Not all of it, but some of it definitely.
LikeLike
@ Jade
You said:
‘If you really want to ‘define’ French people, on the whole we consider ourselves to be French first and foremost but accept that we are part of the same ‘racial’ makeup as other Europeans. ‘
But of course, everyone is French until the s**t hits the fan, then suddenly those North Africans or 4 or fifth generation immigrants understand their place in France. Don’t fool Americans on this blog into believing Europeans are somehow above all this racial classification. So intrinsic is European identity and loyalty, right down to the hablogroup, I note your allegiance to your German brothers next door as a case in point, trumps their barbaric acts in France during the second world war. Europeans will always remind people of color of their perpetual foreigner status on this continent. Heck Turks still can’t shake their ‘gastarbeiter’ status in Germany even after decades.
Some of the angriest and disenfranchised people I have ever come across in Europe are people of color from France, and I meet most here in London.
I don’t believe these homegrown terrorists are some religious fanatics. On the contrary they, like the two British Nigerians who beheaded the soldier Lee Rigby in London, are part of a growing number of young men who find themselves in a society that unceasingly reneges on its multicultural inclusion dream. Now factor in an imported religious ideology, from their native countries that the West previously pillaged at the height of its Imperialism, and/or is bombing, well its a ticking time bomb, if you’ll pardon my unfortunate turn of phrase.
Dark skinned people are not really part of Europe, we just live here, most on the periphery, just look at the raids in the hometown of the bombers in Belgium dubbed Belgianstan.Those who disagree are just paying political correct lip service to a lie that is unraveling as we see in France.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I am saying that the US press and the US president are either being profoundly hypocritical or profoundly racist (or both) in their shock and concern for the Paris attack. They do not pretend such shock and concern for far worse events in the world (see the list above).
I see. The biggest slaugter in Paris since World War 2 isn’t worth much concern.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
I deleted yet another off-topic comment.
WARNING. If you persist in remaining off topic, I will ban you as a source of spam.
LikeLike
@ Jeff Elberfeld
Of course it is worth concern. I never said otherwise. It is on the list. But so is Ankara and Garissa and the US Drone War and so on, which, apparently, merited little concern.
LikeLike
The un barely tips its hat to the palestinian authority –regardless its name — IS is a stateless actor and you might as well declare war on a pile of sand which apparently has happened, it’s also diverting attention from crimea/ukraine
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
I am deleting that comment and banning you. By this point you have become spam.
LikeLike
Lol yeah it was ‘the stans’ before ‘balkanized.’
LikeLike
Oh, now it suddenly is worth concern?
I thought you just wrote that people were “either being profoundly hypocritical or profoundly racist (or both) in their shock and concern for the Paris attack.”
From the other countries on the list, only Turkey and the USA could be classified as “a nice place to go on holiday” for non-adventurous people.
Afghanistan already has been a disastrous place since Carter thought it was a good idea to give the USSR it’s own Vietnam in Afghanistan. The violence in Syria is already for bad news years, as is the Turkish-Kurdish conflict..
However, now the world’s ideal location for a romantic city-trip has been targeted, it is suddenly racist to be shocked and concerned about that.
LikeLike
@ Jeff
Their concern in and of itself is not racist or hypocritical. Of course they should be concerned. It is when it is compared to their relative lack of concern for much worse or comparable things. More civilians have been killed by US drones, but you barely hear anything about it in the US press. How is that not either hypocritical or racist? I knew about Ankara, but it barely got covered. If President Obama said anything about it (I hope he did – Turkey is an ally), it certainly was not played as much as his remarks about Paris.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
You said, in my spam filter:
I banned you because you are beating a dead horse to death, even after I told you to stop, even after I warned you I would ban you if you kept doing it. I have every right to defend my blog from spam or kick out those who cannot follow instructions.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
Following my instructions is not an optional activity. If you disagree with them, disagree with them, but do not ignore them.
LikeLike
Thanks for your explanation. However, I do not believe it is about racism. What matters more (I think) is the degree one can empathize with the victims. Countless movies have shown us how it is to be happy when being in Paris, while it takes more imagination how it is to protest in Ankara for a peaceful solution in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict.
Just compare these two Wikipedia-articles:
Small article about 58 deaths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Dover_incident
Arge article about 56 deaths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
Both occurred in Great-Britain. Yet the article on 56 deaths is much larger than the one on 58 deaths.
It could be because of racism, but I would rather think that it is because people can bring up more empathy to random people who travel to work, than to people who willingly crawl into an airtight container when the outside temperature reached 32°C (90°F). Most people never even have had plans to do such a thing, so how could they empathize with those who do?
Or these two:
Small article on 32 deaths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Bovenkarspel_legionellosis_outbreak
Large article on 23 deaths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enschede_fireworks_disaster
The main difference here is that people at the legionellosis outbreak died by watching a hot tub. It is hard to imagine how that could be possible. However, a filmed big explosion leaves no doubt on how lethal the disaster is. And that makes it easier for the media to report, and they will.
LikeLike
Bangkok receives more tourists than Paris and it was bombed just three months ago. Where was the media’s touching concern for them?
@Kiwi
No. The most popular destinations for Americans are:
1. Mexico,
2. Canada,
3. Great-Britain
4. France,
5. Italy,
6. Germany,
7. the Bahamas,
8. Jamaica,
9. China,
10. Spain and
11. Japan
See http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/travel/where-will-americans-travel-in-2015-.html
Thailand is not even in the top. So I have to say that your question is not a valid one.
LikeLike
Hello, I am back again.
Yes @merrimay, I fully agree with what you said.
I suppose I got a bit defensive at the comment that ‘French people are not white, they are latino’.
I think that, if I really did not care about race, that the comment would not have offended me so perhaps in my subconscious, race still matters to me.
But I think we should all actively make an effort to take race out of the equation. As Marting Luther King said, we should judge people based on the content of their character, not on the colour of their skin.
My point was that, overall, in the popular areas of Paris (in France, when we say popular, we mean the more working class areas) race matters a lot less than people think.
I read a study recently that the more racially homogenous an area is, the more racist people are likely to be. In other words, it is the people who live in more diverse areas that are less racist.
That is why I fully agree with what you said. I think that my government has created ‘ghettos’ for people of immigrant descent and that a lot of these people now live on the fringes of society and feel disenfranchised. They find it a lot harder to get work and to make something of their lives.
It is the same thing for the Belgian area of Molenbeek. That area is where a lot of the terrorists come from and there is something like 40% unemployment.
Personally, as a young person in Europe, I can assure that neither me or any of my friends hold any racist views. There is a lot of mixing going on in my generation. There are people of North African descent marrying people of ‘European’ descent. White people are marrying black people. French people like to drink, to go out, to have fun, we don’t really have time for racial prejudice.
That being said, we are not stupid. We know that there are some French people living in the countryside that hold extremist views. We also know our European history. At no point am I denying that any of it happened. European civilization was by far the worst civilization when it came to racial policies. The introduction of ‘scientific’ racism basically came from Europeans. Also, Europeans started the slave trade and committed a horrific genocide against the Jewish people.
I also think that there are some very rich French people who hold a lot of power that have racist views. I think Sarkozy probably held racist views.
So, for people who are non-white living in Europe and who tell me that there is a lot of discrimination, I fully agree with you. At no point would I try to minimise the difficulties you may encounter in finding work or finding a place to rent.
All I wanted to say is that for me, and a lot of other young people like, all that stuff really does not matter. I am not ‘proud’ of my European history. I think it is horrific. The Algerian war, for instance, was disgusting. Our colonial history is shameful.
I think we need to be honest about the horrible things that happened in the past. Just like Germany has accepted that the holocaust happened.
Once we have done that, then we can try to rebuild a better society according to the principles of Martin Luther King.
But I agree that I probably sound very idealistic and naive and that there is still a lot of work to be done. I think the most important next step is for France to pull out of all the wars it is currently involved in. We should stop bombing Syria immediately.
LikeLike
I see. White people can empathize with French people getting bombed but can’t empathize with Middle Easterners getting bombed. It actually makes perfect sense.
Exactly. I cannot remember of a time when there was peace in the Middle East. It is terrible, but I get used to see the terrible news from that region. It is not shocking anymore. All I can do is donating to the Red Cross, and hoping that my money will help those who need it.
LikeLike
Oh, right. Mexico is such a romantic place for Americans to go on vacation but not romantic enough for the media to cover the massacres of Mexican civilians in its drug war.
I thought that tourism in Acapulco had received a serious blow after a gang shooting left the place with 18 dead? How could that be if the shooting was not reported in the media?
LikeLike
Everett F. Pomare
And for the last time you are still wrong. Goodbye
LikeLike
That is part of why I don’t understand the solid support governments get. They put our lives at risk, not because they are defending us, but because they are actively creating conflict elsewhere. Then when those war torn countries decide to strike back we as citizens engage in world peace and prayer. Yet we are not the victims. US especially is good at acting as if they have no clue why others want to attack us.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ Kiwi
“Nobody paid attention when Ankara was bombed last month and Turkey is a NATO ally.”
I’d say the Ankara bombing got the same amount of coverage as the Russian plane. I maintain that the amount (and kind) of coverage something gets is dependent on the area’s status as center or periphery, and not if the victims are white. Indirectly it might be that something is seen as periphery because non-white people live there, but it’s certainly not the only factor.
LikeLike
@Jeff Elberfeld
Sorry, but in this case, Kiwi was right. For several years now, Bangkok has been beating Paris out in number of tourists and was actually the world’s #1 in 2013. In 2014, London beat out Bangkok, which dropped to #2.
(http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-visited-cities-in-the-world-2015-6)
You changed it into countries that Americans most visit, but that is a completely different issue than which cities receive the most international tourist visitors.
If the question were, which city receives the most cross-border visitors (or tourists), or out-of-town visitors, then the world’s #1 would be Hong Kong (instead of #10 on the list above), which even beats out Bangkok, as the majority of Hong Kong’s visitors come from Mainland China (which arguably is not an international source for travellers) and many do not stay overnight. Technically, Hong Kong would be the world’s top tourist destination.
(http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2014/01/30/hong-kong-is-worlds-top-travel-destination/)
What you did is called a “straw man” argument. You are refuting an argument that Kiwi did not make. What he said was 100% correct and factual. You should address his actual question instead of changing the argument into something else.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
periphery to what? white people?
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
It is not White people’s fault they live at the centre of the world 😉
LikeLike
@ Lord of Mirkwood
Hardly my first.
LikeLike
“New York is the seat of the UN, an INTERNATIONAL COOPERATIVE BODY.”
@ Lord of Milquetoast
Why do you regularly get so many things wrong? Lillian Smith wrote about ill people like you in her book, Killers of the Dream. You are an excellent show piece of how RACISM makes people ill… delusional.
One more time!
The UN’s capital is NYC.
The UN is hardly a cooperative body. In reality it’s a highly competitive body of corrupt entities (nations), each entity trying to out-maneuver, undermine the other economically, politically and militarily. If they were a true cooperative body, the world would be at peace by now. Instead the (rulers of the) nations of the world are mired in greed, power and self-interest.
UN – an organization of independent states formed in 1945 to [supposedly] promote international peace and security.
The UN is a form of government.
Government – the act of governing; exercising authority.
– the system by which a political unit is governed.
– the organization that is the governing authority of a political unit.
NYC is the CAPITAL of this government.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mirkwiod
Their was always colonial competition between the U.S. France, England as well as other European countries during the early era of colonialism. World War 2 consolidated European countries and NATO emerged.
England “abolished” slavery in the 1830’s but had no problem dealing in goods produced by slavery. 70% of the cotton produced through slavery in the U.S. was shipped to England. In effect they recieved stolen property. Reparations would need to include England because that country enriched itself just as much as the U.S. did. In a legal sense they would be named in a cross complaint.
It’s no different then if I stole cars and sold them to someone who knew the cars were stolen. Both parties are resonsible for theft.
What you are arguing is based soley on your biases and not in historical reality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Kiwi
Re: periphery.
If you want people to care about your plane crash, you need to crash into Paris. As close as possible. People really need to think ahead when they become the victim of a tragedy. It’s not race, it’s geography.
ISIS needs to do better too. Beirut? The Sinai? What in the world were they thinking?! They are much too far away from Europe to count as real tragedies.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
I learned the hard way not to give commenters like you a second chance.
LikeLike
@ Everett F. Pomare
Even in the spam filter you are still ranting off-topic about Latinos and the French not being white, so I doubt I made a mistake or were too quick to ban you.
LikeLike
It’s my opinion that England “abolished” slavery as a way to maintain their dominance as an Empire. They didn’t want other countries to benefit from slavery which would indirectly threaten their economic dominance. This also allowed them to board and search other countries ships to look for slaves and contraband without having to declare war on their neighbors.
If England was really serious about ending slavery they would not have traded in goods produced by slaves.
Countries imposed real economic sanctions against South Africa to end apartheid. England imposed no economic sanctions against the U.S. That’s the difference.
LikeLike
@ jefe
“periphery to what? white people?”
Periphery from the point of view of Western media outlets and their readers. I was not aware that the media has a moral obligation to report on everything in equla amount. They are buisnesses, they report about what their readers are interested in.
LikeLike
“What I was saying was that it is hardly some American Empire. I know what the UN is – an international governing body, albeit one with hardly any authority – and what it is not: an American Empire.”
.
Straw-man much?
Shift goal posts often??
I never said anything about an American Empire.
Nor did I mention *any amount* of authority.
For an accomplished truth twister, I was expecting better than that from you!
smh ..
LikeLike
@ Jade
Glad you’ve climbed down from the political and racial posturing here in Europe. We people of color know differently. Also contrary to what you said I believe that familiarity breeds contempt. Angela Merkel and David Cameron declared in the not too distant past that Multiculturalism is not working. Growing up around other races does NOT make one any less racist, the same way that marrying a person of color doesn’t diminish their racism. Some frequent commenters on this blog prove that fact.
How do you know you are not racist? Because you say so? Poor whites are forced to live around other races or immigrants because they cannot afford to move away.
In London alone, the younger crowd is as racist as the older generation. Recently some young black women took to twitter to blast a nightclub for turning them away for being too dark. It turns out this is a regular occurrence in London.
You think Sarkozy was racist? That vertically challenged loon is as racist as they come. Remember his attack on his only two non-white female ministers, a French Guyanese and Franco-Moroccan, his speech about their unrelenting quest for mediocrity in his government. Or about how the half Algerian/Moroccan ex minister Rachida Dati, his assertion that it made sense for her to talk about Criminal Justice policies. No prizes for guessing what he was implying. You mean this public bigotry of a French President towards non-whites in his government hasn’t convinced you yet?
None of you Europeans seem to know who these racists are, from the top down, you’re all dumbstruck at the disillusionment of people of color.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi merrimay,
I honestly did not know about all the things you said about Sarkozy. You obviously are more knowledgeable than I am about Sarkozy.
But overall, I think we agree, no? My position for saying he was racist was mainly due to the fact that he immediately engaged France into a lot of wars upon being elected and that he gave that horrendous speech in Africa.
Honestly, based on that speech alone, I do not know why he wasn’t immediately impeached.
Also, as I stated above, I probably do have subconscious prejudices that I have to be aware of and do my best to correct them.
But you are making a lot of generalisations, no? Arn’t we all trying to avoid generalisations?
Maybe you do not have a lot of friends (no disrespect intended), but you can find a lot of multicultural groups of friends in Paris and London. I think the tone of your message is somewhat downbeat and doesn’t leave a lot of room for hope.
I am doing my best not to paint too many people with the same brush. I think that all people have some form of innate tribalism that, when taken to an extreme, manifests itself as racism.
But on the other hand, a lot of people have tribalism based on shared interests. I have some very close friends that are not the same race as me but we identify together because we met whilst studying at the same university, when we meet up we spend a lot of time discussing politics, economics etc.
I just think it is a bit depressing when you say all younger people in London are just as racist.
I completely agree that for people who are not white, race is an issue that might be constantly on their mind if they live in a mainly white society.
But, on the whole, I think a lot of ‘white’ people don’t really spend that much time thinking about it.
It is not because we are white that we don’t have other issues affecting us. We often have a lot of things on our mind and don’t really spend that much time deliberating the merits of different races.
For example, my father, who is in his seventies, is more worried about taking his medecine and staying healthy. He has people of a different race treating him when he goes for medical checks but he doesn’t care about that in the slightest. Why should he? Life is short and he just wants to stay alive to see his grandchildren.
Outside of politics, I think you’ll find the average ‘white’ person just wants to get on with his or her life and doesn’t really care that much about the issue of race.
You seem to have a view of society based on colour/race, a view that was largely disproved during the 20th century. I think my view of society is based more on economic class.
I can honestly tell you that I do not care what someone’s race is. I have a lot more things to worry about. I just don’t care. I don’t care what someone’s religion is, what race they are, what sexual orientation they have, as long as they are not harming anyone, then people can do what they want.
The view that some races are ‘superior’ or more ‘intelligent’, all that has been disproved and is complete nonsense.
The reason ‘white men’ seem to dominate in business is because they had rich parents who gave them more opportunities. Now we are seeing that more women are graduating from university than men. Now we are seeing that non-white people are doing better at university.
Every race is equal, their success in life is largely determined by the opportunites they were given.
I swear, hand on my heart, that this is what I believe.
Do you still think I am racist?
I am not going to follow the usual ‘trope’ of saying ‘I have a black friend’. That is just silly. Surely if I express my views, then you can assess from my views whether I am racist or not?
But I am not disagreeing with the notion that all humans have some form of innate tribalism/prejudice. I have those too, for sure.
So I suppose it comes down to how we define racism.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
I mean relative interest. I don’t think that Western Europeans ever were equally interested in the non-European World, even at the hight of colonial expansion.
LikeLike
@kiwi
What goes on in the Middle East isn’t worth much concern but when Parisians get a taste of what Middle Easterners have to go through every day, that is worthy of outrage? What kind of twisted moral logic is that?
I don’t follow you. You mean that if there is a new war starting at a formerly peaceful place, it isn’t worth much concern because other wars are ongoing as well?
LikeLike
@kiwi
Good point. If such a popular tourist destination was attacked, where are all the people with Mexico’s flag over their Facebook profiles? Where is all the popular support and sympathy that France is receiving?
I admit I have no clue why nobody expressed their sympathy to the members of the drugs gang that were shot in Acapulco, back then.
LikeLike
@jefe
Sorry, but in this case, Kiwi was right. For several years now, Bangkok has been beating Paris out in number of tourists and was actually the world’s #1 in 2013. In 2014, London beat out Bangkok, which dropped to #2.
(http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-visited-cities-in-the-world-2015-6)
You changed it into countries that Americans most visit, but that is a completely different issue than which cities receive the most international tourist visitors.
Thank you for the information you shared. However, I was reacting to this statement by Abagond:
I am saying that the US press and the US president are either being profoundly hypocritical or profoundly racist (or both) in their shock and concern for the Paris attack.
Therefore, the Americans are the only relevant group in this discussion. Other groups (like Russians on holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh) will not catch much attention from the US press anyway.
So restricting to Americans was not a strawman; it was just keeping the discussion ontopic.
However, if you got any information on which cities receive the most American tourist visitors, I am very interested. 🙂
LikeLike
No. I meant that you regularly downplay the suffering of tens of thousands but now, all of a sudden, want to get indignant over the suffering of a hundred.
They’re all strangers to you, anyway, so the fact that you put the lives of a hundred above the lives of tens of thousands based on the region they’re from is exceedingly racist.
So you say I am “regularly downplaying” the suffering of tens of thousands and therefore “exceedingly racist”?
All right.
Please prove that statement with at least three quotes from different days and different discussions with link and quote.
LikeLike
@kiwi
Right. Because every Mexican who has died in Mexico’s drug war is a member of a gang. I must have missed that detail in the news.
Please remember I was talking about a specific case in Acapulco with 18 casualties. See http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-shootout8-2009jun08-story.html for what I meant:
“As if Mexican tourism needed more bad news, a weekend shootout left 18 gunmen and soldiers dead in Acapulco, the iconic if faded beach resort that has been working on a comeback in recent years.”
Too bad you jump to conclusion so easily. At least you could have asked what I menat.
For that matter, every Syrian who has died in Syria’s civil war must be a terrorist. How could I forget? *rolls eyes*
That was the reason why I thought those people needed help, and what made me donate money to the Red Cross indeed.
If anyone is also interested to support every Syrian terrorist (dixit kiwi): https://www.icrc.org/eng/donations/
LikeLike
@Abagond
If you want people to care about your plane crash, you need to crash into Paris. As close as possible. People really need to think ahead when they become the victim of a tragedy. It’s not race, it’s geography.
ISIS needs to do better too. Beirut? The Sinai? What in the world were they thinking?! They are much too far away from Europe to count as real tragedies
Exactly, That is why Al Qaeda hit the WTC,
Bombing Embassies in Africa, or bombing the USS Cole hardly made anyone give a damn.
LikeLike
@ Jade,
Your ignorance of your own former President’s barely concealed animosity towards people of color in his government, to say nothing of the general non white populace in France, is quite telling, and typical.But that’s white privilege for you, the choice to pick and choose issues that affect you, an option non whites in Europe do not have. Some of us can’t afford to be out of the loop.
Gosh Jade I have gone from being a fantasist who exaggerates and generalizes the experiences of non whites in Europe to a loner without friends LOL whatever next? I don’t take kindly to your dismissive attitude about issues that even European leaders concede are problematic. I’m not being doom and gloomy about this, its a reality for most of us. I can piss off back to Africa as I’m often told to do when whites can’t handle these truths, but you see, as a South African/Botswanan, I would face the very same issues you deny affect us. Our Arab brothers face worse no thanks to the West!
I reiterate, non whites often find themselves in a racist no man’s land around white people. Obviously the racial dynamics of a majority group are different. The example you give of your white father and average white people wanting to get on with their lives is no different from ours. Racism is not a blip on your radar. Now, factor in everyday micro-aggressions and casual racism in health care and heck everywhere lol for instance, that studies have proven can cause and/ or exacerbate health problems like stress, depression etc well you can only imagine.
You have aptly demonstrated how out of touch you are Jade. Of course humans are tribalist, we stick with what is familiar. I have seen fresh off the boat immigrant enthusiasm to integrate and kiss local ass give way to a resignation to the familiarity of their fellow blacks and Arabs in the face of a closed European society. Studies have shown that even having a foreign name gives you a 50%+ less chance of a call back to job interviews, to landlords who explicitly don’t rent to blacks, Arabs and Asians. Only place to go is the cheaper immigrant ghettos or Belgianstans. The same places the authorities don’t police and claim are no go areas.
The Metropolitan Police in London has been proven to be institutionally racist towards immigrants, France has an even larger immigrant base and I am sure worse problems. In London at least there is a dialogue on these issues. In France you all pretend there is some racial utopia.
You are flip flopping all over the place. At least you admit to a shared kinship with your German blood brothers, you hang out with fellow whites because of shared interests, but don’t you dare trivialize what that means to non whites, most of whom have enriched your countries and rub shoulders with you everyday but are relegated to the fringes. Allowed to work mostly menial jobs, go to school, contribute taxes, but not rewarded like your white counterparts you share a closer bond with. Do not deny that doesn’t exist.
I don’t think you are an out and out racist Jade, but you are in denial, you have your head buried so deep in the sand that not even a bomb going off can get through to you about the marginalization of non whites.
I don’t think blaring out the French national anthem at every opportunity in defiance to so called terror is helping much. Kinda like the day after the London riots, they put the whitest woman cleaning up on the front page of every newspaper to make a point. The subliminal message rang hollow, almost as fake as her bleached blond hair. The British are an overwhelmingly dark haired race. Oi, minorities, this is Europe after all.
Nothing gets past me in Europe.
LikeLike
Yoda says…. The trolls are strong on this post. Stop they must.
LikeLike
Hi merrimay,
As a white person who knows many white people, I am telling you that the majority of white people in Europe have been told from an early age about the horrors of colonisation and ‘scientific’ racism.
Obviously, there are still a lot of stupid white people out there. I apologise to you on their behalf. I actually think that the majority of the stupid white people live in America.
I am not well informed but I saw that video of the white police officer shooting a running black guy in the back. That white guy deserves the death sentence. I think the whole police system needs to be reformed in America. There is something evil there.
I apologise for all the white people who have ever been mean to you. If I was there, I would have stood by your side.
But what else can I do?
What else am I supposed to say?
I didn’t vote for Sarkozy, I don’t like him. I said that from the off.
In France, we have many types of marginalisations. If you didn’t go to one of the top universities, then you will have a much harder time getting an executive level job or entering politics.
The UK is notoriously class-based. If you didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge, you will probably never be Prime Minister.
A black person who went to ENA in France will have a higher chance of being president than an unemployed white guy.
In the UK, there is currently a non-white guy flying to the top of the Conservative party simply because he was a successful banker.
Surely you can recognise that it is not all a question of race.
So the white people who are at the bottom of the social ladder are just there because they couldn’t be bothered to take advantage of their whiteness?
In the job I do, if you are not good at what you do, you’ll get fired, regardless of your race.
I think you are the one with your head buried in the sand.
You are telling yourself that your life is incredibly more difficult than everyone else’s because of your skin colour, that any job you don’t get is because of your skin colour, that if you were white, life would be easier.
If you are pretty and an ugly girl tells you that life is so unfair because she is ugly, how do you respond?
Maybe the fact that you are not white has given you a lot more motivation to work harder, because you know the odds are stacked against you.
Maybe if you were white, you would be lazy and complacent.
Sarkozy himself said that the fact he didn’t go to ENA made him work a lot harder.
But I don’t want to make this a debate over whether racism exists or not. Racism does exist. European governments have to keep passing legislation to avoid racism from happening. Policy brutality needs to be stamped out. Progress has been made in Europe over the last few decades, whether you choose to recognise it or not.
I am looking forward to the day where races have been mixed to such an extent that any form of racism disappears.
Let’s not forget, it is only in the last 500 years that the world became connected through maritime navigation. It has only been 100 years since people became connected through aeroplanes. Mixed marriages were frowned upon just 50 years ago. Now they are a lot more commonplace.
I myself have nephews who are half Carribbean half French. And I love them. They are very cute.
Slavery, colonisation, racism, all those things are pure evil. As a European, I apologise for all those things.
I believe I have more in common with you than I do with the white people who lived in Europe 200 years ago. They were idiots. Yes my great grandparents or whatever, were idiots. They lived in a completely different world.
Look, even now, I am writing this in Europe and you are replying from London.
Surely these are things to be proud of?
I think that friendship is the best cure for racism. It is very important to form friendships with people of many different races.
And yes, French have a close rivalry with Germans. Mainly we makes jokes about eachother, but that’s only because we are neighbours. There are many racists in Germany, I wouldn’t call them ‘brothers’.
But when you say ‘Arab brothers’, you know that there is also racism in Arab countries? Black people find it very difficult living in Arab countries.
And Arabs conquered the Spaniards for 800 years. They traded slaves before whites did. Islam was spread through warfare.
But this is too political. Most people I know don’t even want to talk about this stuff and would rather just get on with their lives.
I don’t even know why I am writing so much about this. I think I am just trying to convince people that I am a nice person 🙂
But I can’t speak for all white people. Many of them are idiots and I don’t like them either 🙂
LikeLike
@ merrimay
Yes, Merrmay, please do not be so downbeat. If you stop thinking about racism, it will go away. It works for White people! And, please, when addressing a White person, do remember to smile and not to challenge their delusions. You will have more friends that way 😉
/sarcasm off
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Anne
They are here because deep down they know I am right.
LikeLike
@ Jeff
I was being sarcastic. I was making fun of the “periphery” explanation. I was ddressing Kiwi, who I assumed would get the sarcasm.
LikeLike
@ Kartoffel
This is just a roundabout way of saying White people just do not care.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
Be that as it may. I think my “periphery”-explanation better explains the imbalance in media reporting thn your “only white victims matter”.
LikeLike
But Abagond, do you think the world would have acted the same if, instead of the WTC-towers, Islamist terrorists would have decided to blow up the Woodmen Tower in (78.4% White) Omaha, Nebraska?
Let me just say I have serious doubts on that.
LikeLike
@kiwi
No, dim bulb. You said it, not me.
I see we’ve abandoned politeness now.
Those are words that only a racist would say, especially when he expresses greater outrage over a smaller incident like the one in Paris.
Again, I was arguing that a new war, starting at a formerly peaceful, well-known place, it is getting much more concern (and media attention) than other wars that are ongoing for years. That is racist nor wrong.
Please remember that this thread is about the selective outrage shown over the Paris attacks relative to larger conflicts around the world, including Mexico’s.
We were discussing cities that suffered a backlash in tourism because of US-media exposure of the violence in those cities.
Acapulco, being a city that was visited well by American tourists, suffered from violence and a backlash in tourism afterwards, was a good example for this discussion.
Good for you! I’m sure you and thousands of others added Syrian flags over your Facebook profiles in a show of support and solidarity for the Syrian people, just like what was done for France.
Clearly you did not even bother to view my Facebook-page; but aside from that, I still got some questions:
1) Which Syrian flag should I add? Of the virtually non-existent FSA? Of the civilians-killing Assad-regime? Of ISIS?
2) And why do you consider Facebook-profiles of more importance than actually giving aid?
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
I assume that you mean that because most of the readers of this blog are exposed mostly to western media (with “centers” in London, Paris, New York/Washington), that explains why we hear about the terrorist attack in Paris and about certain other events, but NOT about other things.
If that is the case, shouldn’t we be praying even more for those victims of police killings, esp. the ones that are geographically so close to New York and Washington? OR are they suddenly periphery again? What explains the imbalance in reporting there?
Your theory might help explain why we (ie, readers of media based in London, Paris or NY/DC) hear more about the USA police killings than Brazil ones (even though the latter are likely higher), but not why we fail to hear so much about the ones in the USA in the first place, or about the ones that USA / NATO is actually killing elsewhere. “Center” and “periphery” explanations fall flat. It must be related to WHO the victims are, not just their geographic proximity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bringing up aid was your deflection from the fact that people, like you, ignore conflicts going on in parts of the world that aren’t heavily White while hypocritically becoming indignant about a much smaller attack that affected Whites.
Right. Donating to the Red Cross for aid in Syria, CAF, Afghanistan and Mali is just a deflection from the fact that I am ignoring “conflicts going on in parts of the world that aren’t heavily White.”
Well Kiwi, if that is what you prefer to believe, please do.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
I conceded in my frist post on this thread that skin colour might very well have something to do with what the Western media sees as center and what as periphery. But once that is estblished the colour of the individual victim doesn’t matter anymore.
@ Jefe
I just wanted to bring up the reporting on police murders of Black Americans. The German media has covered that quite extensively, way more for example than anything that happens in Russia (except foreign policy). Would Germans have heard even more about it if the victims were white? That’s impossible to answer but I don’t think so as the American mass shootings (with unspecified victims) have gotten about the same coverage.
LikeLike
Kartoffel,
American media views Israeli lives as more valuable then Palastinian lives. Does European media have the same bias ?
LikeLike
@ michealjonbarker
Hard to say. The Jews I know perceive the German media as very anti-Isreal (even so they are no right-wingers), the Muslims as very anti-Palestinian. But generally everything going on in Israel and the Occupied Territories gets a lot of attention, so the difference would be in the kind of coverage, not the amount.
@ Kiwi
Clarification: The colour of the victim doesn’t matter for the amount of coverage. How the case is represented is a different story.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
So does the German media lead their audiences to empathize with the victims, & join forces with their survivors to fight the US police terrorists? Are US police potrayed as evil pigs & their victims as innocent bystanders?
Or conversely, are the victims of the Paris terrorist attack viewed as “no angel” & had it coming because they failed to cooperate?
LikeLike
Hm, good point. I haven’t thought about that. But does it also apply to high-profile attacks? For example the Charleston massacre got a ton of coverage in Europe, more so than shootings from America regularly do.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
Following Kiwi’s question, what determines a high profile attack?
Can’t we just agree that what makes news and the stances that the media make may be a function of geography (whether they are “central” or “periphery” to the media perspective), but also how ‘human’ they are, ie,
– like “us”
– almost like “us”
– not like “us”
– despised other
– alien creature
and the things that determines that includes factors such as race (also religion).
Or maybe it could follow these lines:
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/the-four-kinds-of-humans/)
Your systematic denial of the race factor makes you look like those colour-blind white liberal Americans who will find any way to explain differences in treatment from the government, media, law enforcement, etc. as anything but race.
I agree that it is not strictly about skin colour, but how “similar” they are perceived to be to the media reporting on it. That triumphs over geography (although geographic proximity is also a factor which determines how much they are like or unlike us).
LikeLike
@Kiwi
I suppose I should trust you..
Very good. I knew that you’d get my point in the end! 🙂
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
I think the discrepancy in reaction from Western Europeans to the two events can be very well explained with the “center-periphery”-argument. If you wanted to argue that this shows how much the UEFA is dominated by Western Europeans, I’m right there with you.
@ Jefe
It’s always a narrow path between “explaining race away” and searching for other possible explanations that might fit better. In this case the simple “only white lives matter” doesn’t concide with my expereince. That of course doesn’t mean that race doesn’t factor in on what is seen as center and what as periphery.
And I think it is important to get to the bottom of that, as the result carries moral judgement. If “only white lives matter” is true, nobody other than an open racist could accept it. But I think it is acceptable for -for example – Germans to care more about what happens in France than what happens in Turkey. Not because the pople are more similiar, but society in total is. Much of what happens in France could also happen in Germany, more so than Turkey or societies more different.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@jefe
@jefe
And I agree with what you say.
There are some other factors I can think of what makes the news. I wonder if you agree:
1. Does a famous person campaign for more attention? (Like George Clooney for Darfur, or Michelle Obama for #Bringbackourgirls);
2. Could it be dangerous for us? (Like the Paris attacks, the Ebola hysteria, or malfunctioning breaks in Toyotas);
3. Can the media make a good story out of it? (Just see the Libyan civil war. It was very interesting when Khadaffi could be presented as the bad guy. Or when Americans were killed in Benghazi. But nobody is covering anything of what happens in Libya at this moment)
4. And hasn’t the public not been bored by it? (Libya again)
Factor 2 and 3 may include lots of racism. Fear of the other sells, and stories are easier to stomach when they include patterns that are known to the public.
But that is just what I think.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
I think the discrepancy in reaction from Western Europeans to the two events can be very well explained with the “center-periphery”-argument. If you wanted to argue that this shows how much the UEFA is dominated by Western Europeans, I’m right there with you.
No. At the Paris attacks, the football stadium was one of the main targets, while a match was played that was sanctioned by the UEFA. In the Ankara bombing, football was not involved in any way.
So only football-matches matter here.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
That only White lives matter? Yeah, I got it.
So that is what you got from me saying: “Donating to the Red Cross for aid in Syria, CAF, Afghanistan and Mali is just a deflection from the fact that I am ignoring “conflicts going on in parts of the world that aren’t heavily White.”“?
I am afraid that you missed some irony.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
You seem to be addicted to lying, lately. The UEFA held a minute of silence for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack, which had nothing to do with football. Strike two.
Please, if you want to correct me, do it good. Only the French Football League held a minute of silence for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack; not the UEFA. See http://www.goal.com/en/news/90/french-football/2015/01/07/7756742/french-league-to-hold-minutes-silence-after-paris-shootings
Moreover, you conveniently leave out the explanation following the “Exactly.” That showed that my main point was, that unrest in the Middle East is going on for so long, without any possible solution in sight, that it loses its impact on getting empathy.
Leaving this argument out of the quote is just a vile thing to do. Just like lying while not having the facts straight yourself.
LikeLike
I mean, “Just like accusing someone of lying while not having the facts straight yourself.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
Thanks! My sentiments exactly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When the IS strikes in a country that isn’t engaged in Syria, what will you post then?
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
So you’re predicting ISIS will strike in a country not “engaged in Syria”? Which country, and why do you think ISIS would strike a country whose government has not bombed Syria?
For me, this is not about ISIS. This is about innocent people murdered in Syria by France (and the West’s) bombings. Did you ever think this might be the reason ISIS ALLEGEDLY coordinated the attacks?
As Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov put it:
“The analysis of those [by the West] airstrikes during over a year lead to conclusion that they were hitting selectively, I would say, sparingly and on most occasions didn’t touch those IS units, which were capable of seriously challenging the Syrian army.”
LikeLike
I’m not a friend of the french foreign policy and they certainly have no buisness making bombing runs in Syria. And IS probably selected France for this attack because of their engagement. But I’m also absolutly convinced that if they hadn’t been able to strike in France, they would have somewhere else. Maybe in Belgium, maybe in Germany.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
Since last year, Belgium has bombed Syria and the region and Germany has provided weapons and equipment to supposed ISIS rivals.
So they’re both involved.
LikeLike
Ah ok, I didn’t know about Belgium, But I’m pretty sure that German hasn’t provided weapons to any Syrian faction since the beginning of the civil war. A quick research didn’t come up with anthing.
LikeLike
Besides, that wasn’t really my point. Perhaps not the IS specifically, but terrorist attacks by islamists threaten everybody and could (and will at some point) strike in any country. Obviously the internationally better kown like France draw more attention. But that doesn’t mean Switzerland or Sweden won’t be hit tomorrow.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
“But I’m pretty sure that German hasn’t provided weapons to any Syrian faction since the beginning of the civil war”
Well you didn’t research well. I know you’re German-biased, but it’s a fact that Germany provided weapons to ISIS rivals starting at the latest in September 2014. At least the American media covered it: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/post-war-shift-germany-sending-weapons-anti-isis-fighters-n193211
Is Merkel censoring the media over there?
“Perhaps not the IS specifically, but terrorist attacks by islamists threaten everybody and could (and will at some point) strike in any country”
Now you’re just switching goal posts, as American say. You did make this about IS specifically, and you made false claims about Belgium and Germany’s involvement. I’ve never heard claims or even Western government propaganda about ISIS or Islamic terrorists attacking countries whose governments were not involved in Islamic governance affairs. Perhaps you can enlighten me.
LikeLike
Let’s not kid ourselves. The American-European hegemony (or NATO) is as strong as ever. If anything, in terms of the ‘Game of Empires’, the last few decades have been extremely successful for the West.
ISIS is nothing but a bedraggled bunch of mercenaries who do not pose any real threat to the West.
They are a sympton of the fact that the West has succesfully pulverised quite a few states in the region in a relatively short space of time.
If anything, the rise of ISIS has been overhyped for sensationalists purpose and to give the West an enemy.
I am not going into ‘Conspiracy Theory’ territory. I am just saying that, subconsciously, we all need to feel like we are fighting something. A common enemy reinforces unity.
We all know that if the West would just stop intervening in the Middle East, these types of attacks wouldn’t happen.
But, empires being empires, they just can’t seem to be able to stop themselves.
It is all just a bunch of old men trying to carve their name into the history books.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Guys, conspiracy theories don’t exist, I belive in the ‘theory of chaos and perpetual-f*ck-ups’.
Putin was telling everyone back in 2011 that Assad was facing a bunch of crazed extremists (the children of the Iraq War, presumably) and that we shouldn’t try to displace him.
What did the West do? They funded the ‘rebels’. Doesn’t really matter which countries did it, but the Syrian ‘rebels’ received funds, equipment and training from the West.
These rebels extended out into the no-man’s land that is now much of Iraq and formed alliances with other extremists.
Next thing you know, Assad is no longer the bad guy, those same ‘rebels’ are the bad guys.
Switch focus, grab the headlines, introducing the new vilain, enter stage right:
ISIS
plus ça change.
LikeLike
Lockheed Martin needs the U.S. govrnment to identify as many terrorists as possible because it helps their stock value. It’s hard to sell peace when you can make money at war.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/13364914/1/3-drone-companies-worth-investing-in.htm
What the Islamic State has done is to erase the arbitrary lines colonizers drew. Why should we complain about that ?
The best prospect for peace is for the West to do nothing. Stop the bombing and the droning. Open the boarders for those religious sects that will be attacked by Islamic fundamentalism.
Negotiate a deal with whoever controls the oil.
If you really want world peace socialize oil.
Take away the profit incentive and the War factor wouldn’t exist anymore.
Maybe someday Islam will have a reformation and like some sects of Christianity, become more humanistic.
LikeLike
Your source says Germany delivered weapons to the Kurdish regional governement in Iraq (that is well known and nobody denies that). Not to Syrian factions.
LikeLike
@ Somali Prince
“We all know that if the West would just stop intervening in the Middle East, these types of attacks wouldn’t happen.”
And all the homegrown terrorists would play nice?
LikeLike
@ Jade,
The fact is you can’t vouch for every white person, not even your friends. The conversation about racism we have around whites is different, after all y’all are narcissists with delicate egos who are more concerned with being called racist than societal racism itself. Only an ignorant arrogant twat would deny it.
I, like many African immigrants in the UK studied STEM subjects, and like Asians outperform white indigenous groups, that includes the spoon fed private schooled types who benefit from the good ol boys network. Its not unusual in London for your nurse, pharmacist, doctor or IT guy to be Indian or African. We have a skill set this country needs, we owe our success to hard work, not some white benevolence. We still face racism, our success is resented for undermining the lies European Scientific racism has spouted for centuries that whites are smarter. Whites at the bottom do have themselves to blame, immigrants fill in jobs they feel they are above doing, a lot would rather the government subsidize their lives, but that’s another topic.
You seem to equate technology with proof that we are making gains eradicating racism. Pathetic and naive. I am in London, you’re in Paris. So what? I would be more worried about the Snoopers’ Charter and this intrusive surveillance regime the West in currently undertaking on its citizenry. The UK government for instance has signed secret orders on data collection. Won’t be long before they start implicating and framing innocent Muslims who are already racially profiled to further their own propaganda and whip up resentment and more marginalization. Which will inflame tensions in already vulnerable young Muslims to join groups that radicalize them to join them in the Middle East. Remember, Jihadi John and many other front line ISIS fighters are Western born. Its a case of out of the frying pan in the West and into the fire in the Middle East.
Look at the hackers’ group Anonymous and their resolve after the Paris attacks to track down and disable every ‘terrorist’ groups accounts online. Such selective antics wouldn’t you say? If some geek can sit in a warm room in Washington and fly drones over Syria or remote detonate bombs on families in the middle East in the name of ‘freedom’, then so called terrorists have every right to huddle in secret and plan retaliation attacks for the horrors in the middle East we in the West are not privy to.
Anonymous would better off hacking into the French government files and exposing the truth for ‘nice’ simpletons like Jade who are so ‘ashamed’ (how cute) of their history. Not the sanitized version but the barbarism and corruption of France that cannot be undone by pathetic apologies of clueless out of touch Europeans. Everything from the billions France collects in colonial taxes from impoverished African countries, to France’s Algerian wars to the complete disembowelment of Haiti.
Let them play it every day, right after the news, in black and white, documentaries of slavery, colonization, economic and military terrorism of Africa and the Arab world. If the French or every outraged self aggrandizing Westerner draped their twitter and social media accounts in various flags of West and North Africa in commemoration of civilians that died for French greed the penny might drop. Right before they tuck into their f***ng baguettes! Next time ‘nice’ people like Jade are fooled into thinking their foreign aid or little pitiful charities make them ‘nice’, perhaps they would get a clue just what thieves and thugs and bloodsucking leeches the French truly are.
France is reaping what it sows abroad, and about time it did. From manufacturing of arms and weapons it then trades with Saudi Arabia who fund dissidents that undermine democracy in the middle East that gave rise to ISIS, al-Qaeda, al Nusra. These so called terrorists are merely practicing a typical Western form of tyranny, they are merely lobbing your toys back at you 🙂
128 dead in France is, to use an American term, collateral damage, *Insert Gallic shrug here*
I understand this Article 5 of NATO treaty means European nations must help France but what the hell is Russia doing? I guess Putin is glad to be brought in from the cold, so to speak, but I suspect this renewed alliance with the West will be short lived, after all Western countries need a boogeyman always, and Putin is a handy one.
Someone must police countries like France. Personally I don’t blame these groups for fighting back. Remember Nelson Mandela was once called a terrorist. These arrogant pillocks at the top are endangering billions of lives so ignorant Europeans can live in safe countries and call themselves civilized yet turn a blind eye to atrocities committed in their names. When victims of their war mongering washes up on their shores or marches into Europe, they must make space for them. Its the least they can do.
Let them come, by the boatload or planeload, I don’t care, lets see just how ‘nice’ Europeans like Jade really are.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ kartoffel
I don’t know what “homegrown terrorists” would do. I know they are motivated by a paticular idea about religion. Most wars are economic and about resources ect. Their’s an “evil” leader and definable boarders and a definate end game.
This is about an idea and how do you declare war against an idea ? It’s open ended, leaderless, without boarders. How do you win against that ?
Their are 2.3 billion Muslims but only a small number hold to this varient of Islam. And they are spread throughout the Muslim world.
The West doesnt understand blow back.
LikeLike
“How do you win against that?”
if I had an answer to that I wouldn’t be commenting on the internet. On the national level I don’t think there is anything better than good police work to prevent as many attacks as possible and prevention and deradicalization to dry up their supply of recruits. On the international level I have no idea whatsoever.
LikeLike
@merrimay
Do not be so hard on Jade, she knows little and genuinely seemed to be trying to build a bridge between you and her.
Also enough of the ‘trope’ that only white people are racist. Remember, I am a Prince, a Somalian one at that. What is one of my favourite quotes?
“The average person is pretty stupid (regardless of race).”
Nevertheless you are right, immigrants are outperforming the indigenous.
Did you just generalise and call all white people narcissists?
Perhaps you should not have studied STEM subjects and instead taken some critical reasoning modules? A literary mind is, also, a beautiful mind.
Your owe your success to hard work? I beliee you. I live in Ireland but studied in the UK, is it not true that you had to pay international fees?
Sounds like you had rich parents (I myself, outperformed the natives and paid international fees). Of course you outperformed the natives, the average white person studying in the UK is subsisting on student loans and comes from ‘general pop’, you presumably were already a very good student before you even arrived in the UK.
The question is, did you outperform every single white person?
Intelligence is not race related, if you had studied STEM subjects, you may also have taken a statistics module. Ability, intelligence (whatever you want to call it), follows a random distribution in any sample that is large enough to be normally distributed. Race is not a statistically significant factor.
Had it been a white person that had to pay a lot of money to study in an African nation, a lot more money than the natives, that white person, also, would have had more incentives to study hard.
@Kartofell
“And all the homegrown terrorists would play nice?”
Nothing justifies what the terrorists did in Paris, homegrown or not. Their actions were abhorrent.
But, riddle me this, when was the last time suicide bombers attacked Paris? In actual fact, was the Paris attack not the largest such attack in France since the Second World War?
Is that not statistically significant? It could be an outlier, but I somehow have the feeling that the terrorists chose France and not Norway for a very clear reason.
It is part of the Game of Empires, there are many muslim communities doted around Europe, it just so happens that many of these communities have strong ties with Middle Eastern nations and that many of those same nations have now been turned into rubble.
French people attack Syria in ‘retaliation’, would ISIS not also attack France ‘in retaliation’?
An eye for an eye and we all go blind right?
Except in this case, ISIS’ power is minimal, it is throwing stones at the Empire but is underestimating the sheer power of NATO.
To anyone trying to fight the Empire, if there are any ISIS sympathisers out there, remember: you cannot win. I repeat, you cannot win.
The Empire will do what it needs to do to advance its cause, regardless of loss of life. And if ever attacked, such as was the case in Paris, they will turn the media machine against you and drop a boatload of bombs indiscriminately.
Even Russia is on board with NATO at the moment. ISIS fighters, go back home. It’s over, you had a good run for a couple of years but that was only because the West needed an enemy. You played right into the hands of the Empire.
Now, I presume, the majority of you will die and the West will choose to once again focus on Assad as enemy numero uno.
LikeLike
@merrimay
You seem to be bemoaning the fact that you are stuck in the confines of the Empire. I am a Prince, a Somalian one at that.
If the Empire were China, I would be living in Shanghai. If we went 2,000 years into the past, I would be living in Rome.
I am a nomad. Never swear undying loyalty to any country or leader – they would send you to your death on a whim if it came to it.
I lived in Somalia, I’m not going back. No thank you.
But life within the Empire comes with its downsides. In this day and age, the Empire is white. I am black. Such is life.
The Empire cares not for the Paris attacks. The Paris attacks will just advance the Empire’s cause further.
The Empire cares not for the disenfranchised ‘Jihadi John’ types, they will either choose to toe the party line or go fight in Syria. In Syria, they will eventually die.
To my fellow non-whites living within the Empire, you cannot win. I repeat, you cannot win.
Otherwise, merrimay, you appear to have followed the correct trajectory so far. Study hard, acquire knowledge, make your skills valuable to the Empire, and pass on that knowledge to your children.
After all, in 200 years, the Empire might yet be black. But if we are to get there, we must pass on knowledge.
Remember, I am not new-black, I am not neo-black, I am just a humble nomad.
LikeLike
@ Somalian Prince.
Their were the Algerian riots in Paris in 1961. More people may have died their then in this recent attack. The French government denies the number of people killed. Maybe what the media means is that this is the most white people killed in France since WW 2.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961
LikeLike
Somali Prince
She never said all anything. Reread what she said.
LikeLike
Not to be funny, but your site starting to attract crazy people.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
You are more informed than I and are, therefore, correct.
Let it be clear. I like living in the West. My family is safe. My wife and children are happy.
I do not want Somalian extremists, Syrian extremists, whatever type of extremists to blow up what is an otherwise stable society.
Also, remember, I do not believe in conspiracy theories, I believe in the theory of ‘chaos and perpertual-f*ck-ups’.
Truth be told, there are probably extremists around the world constantly plotting to attack the West.
I know not if fellow White Westerners are reading this, I seek not animosity, but it must be pointed out that the West is hated with particular venom in certain parts.
You cannot blame the Empire for its actions in the Middle East, Empires do what Empires: Empire-building.
Furthermore, if the Empire really is in its latter stages, then, as Empires before it, it will find itself in a state of perpetual warfare.
All Empires engender hatred, and, in the same way that you cannot blame the Empire for doing what Empires do, you cannot blame Guerrilla fighters for doing what Guerrilla fighters do: fight Empires.
All Guerrilla fighters have a unifying ideology. Communism, Islamic extremism etc. I care little for the ideology.
ISIS are the new Guerrilla fighters. France has chosen to take part in the Empire Building. Swizterland, for instance, hasn’t. France must now learn to live with its fair share of Guerrilla fighters.
But really, ISIS are not that powerful. I left Somalia, rather that than be a Guerrilla fighter.
Because once you become a Guerrilla fighter, the Empire uses you as a puppet to justify the continuation of its Empire building.
In 2013, I think it was, in the UK, everyone was opposed to the idea of attacking Syria, Cameron, I remember, was humiliated in the House of Commons. Now? Few people oppose the idea.
You cannot win. I repeat, you cannot win.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
“Your source says Germany delivered weapons to the Kurdish regional governement in Iraq (that is well known and nobody denies that). Not to Syrian factions”
There you go switching goal posts again. Note I said “Germany has provided weapons and equipment to supposed ISIS RIVALS” and that’s exactly what Germany did.
LikeLike
@ Somali Prince
With all due respect, do you know who you remind me of? Those jumped up, glad to be here type immigrants who are living the life of Riley in the UK and want to pull the drawbridge in after themselves.
Such immigrants get so comfortable they start defending ignorant whites like Jade. She is willfully ignorant. Whites must be protected from the harsh realities of the world that don’t even affect them, at all costs. Shameful!!
Of course whites are not the only racists, I know how Ethiopian and Indian maids are abused by their Saudi and Israeli employers for instance, so yes Arabs can be brutal. But so can South African whites and Indians abuse of their African staff. Abuse of different groups is universal, but I lament white abuse as it relates to the topic at hand no?. My geopolitical gripes about the West are perfectly justified, I come from the so called Commonwealth after all. You know, our resources and labor built the West, such as it is. I’m sure North Africans and West Africans share the same sentiments about France.
I had a bursary from the diamond rich Botswana government. Did you know that 50% of the diamond revenue of Bots goes to De Beers? Next door in South Africa 70% of our land is still in the hands of our former white oppressors who have saddled the millions of innocent Africans with debt they will never repay. The former civil servants of Apartheid are still subsidized to an eye watering amount as condition of relinquishing power, not to mention austere measures enforced by the IMF that wouldn’t be tolerated in the West.
Sorry I digress…
You sound very defeatist, which is a damn shame. But you come from Somalia, a failed state. Somalians are also not a visible force in the workplace, mostly largely subsisting on welfare with larger than average kids. To tell non whites that they can’t win is ridiculous. So be it. But people of color have gained foot in the West and are slowing making gains. With aging populations of whites and declining birth rates, well its only a matter of time before whites are outnumbered in high immigrant countries in Europe.
Did you know that the amount in remittances that immigrants send back to their countries are higher than what individual African countries receive in foreign aid from the West? As opposed to the pathetic trickle down effect foreign aid has on the average African i mean. French West Africa in Paris is most loyal to their brethren in Africa.
People are starting to wake up and standing up to the West. You saw the recent grand pageantry that went into the Chinese head of State’s visit to the UK. Did David Cameron suck up or what?The Asians are stealthy economically taking over. Good for them. Who are we to judge jihadists for using violence and religious ideology to take over?
Whites are a global minority, yet have fought with every corner of the globe and accumulated enemies along the way. Some of us have long memories. Look, I get it, you’re feathering your nest in the West and mild reactions like my not letting the Jades of the world off the hook, to extreme jihadists blowing up Westerners, I guess that upsets your apple cart. I feel you bro.
Sorry for going off topic Abagond, will keep it on topic next time 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Abagond, did my last comment go through?
LikeLike
Neat semantics. You said France brought the attack on itself because they started to mess around in Syria. I then said that I’m expecting ISIS to attack countries who aren’t involved in Syria as well.
LikeLike
@ merrimay
It got stuck in the spam filter.
LikeLike
@ merrimay
Uh huh. In the US it is bringing all the racists out of the woodwork.
LikeLike
If Westerners could see Muslims as Real People, that would go a long, long, LONG way to bringing peace in places like Syria and ending attacks like those on Paris, which are just neocolonial blowback.
LikeLike
@ Somali Prince
I agree with this. They will cynically exploit it to sell yet more weapons. The leaders of both ISIS and the West positively LOVE it. The media too. Obama’s soul is so crocodilean that he is incapable of being actually outraged by the Paris attack.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, dear merrimay (as a fellow commonwealth-er, I hope you will not begrudge me adopting formalities suited to our adoptive nations), I may indeed be said to be ‘feathering my nest’.
I am, after all, fresh off the boat (although it has been a few years).
I am a Prince, a Somalian one at that.
But that counts for little. I have seen warfare (although I would not claim superiority for it, if I could wipe it from my mind, I would) and whilst I am sure, the white man had his part to play in the conflict I witnessed, so did my own ‘leaders’.
So did my own neighbours. Black is as black is, and I have met few people with skin as dark as mine, but I have witnessed treachery of many different shades.
Betrayal only comes after the initial attachment.
Never swear undying loyalty to any country or its leaders – they would send you to your death on a whim if it came to it.
So, I do not grow attached. A deposed prince must learn humility, and the nomadic lifestyle suits me well.
You see, I have a wife and children that depend on me. Were I younger, perhaps I would believe the fight still worth it.
But I was younger, and I did believe the fight still worth it, but as the young eventually learn, I was but unaware yet of my stupidity.
You may call me names: neo-black, new-black, etc. (I prefer the term ‘super black’) but what may it advance?
You may fight the Empire, trust your fellow man, but treachery from the Empire does not hurt as much as treachery from your fellow man, the Empire’s treachery, after all, was expected.
For a time, I lived in China. I learned a valuable lesson: ‘Do not be afraid of the darkness, revel in it. For, whilst you are out of sight, you will have the opportunity to build your strength’.
And so I am strengthening. But bitterness is unbecoming. I do not seek to be strong so that I can defeat the white man, I seek to be strong so that I can provide a future for my children.
In Somalia, for a time, I feared for my life. In Ireland, few have even smelled death. Have you ever smelled death? Have you ever had to explain to your child why a corpse was rotting?
Many, many, have told me that the white man is to blame. Perhaps, but again, it was expected. It was when I saw evil surge in the eyes of fellow black men that my faith in humanity was questioned.
Greed is the only human desire that can never be satiated. I have witnessed, for too long, the negative aspects of mankind, do not begrudge someone such as Jade a bit of naivety, it is a trait born out of innocence.
And innocence is a fledging state in one’s life that, once extinguished, can never be retrieved.
I see a lot of innocence here in Ireland. I live a tranquil life. I do not drink or smoke, I rise early and rest early. I pay my taxes. Life within the Empire is far more tranquil than outside of it.
Many of the ‘white’ people I encounter daily do not even know that the Empire exists. Why would I seek animosity where there is none? Why would I try to create conflict where there is peace?
But more importantly, why would I try to empty out the sea with a spoon? The Empire is white, the Empire dictates events far and wide, the Empire will still be here after my death.
The only thing I can do is acquire knowledge and pass it on to my children.
And so I study.
When we were young, in Somalia, we had a proverb (you may have heard of it), it goes like this:
“When you are young, you shout at the moon and demand to know why it follows the orbit it follows.
The moon never replies, yet re-appears, day after day. Eventually, you grow tired of shouting.
And as the moon keeps re-appearing, day after day, you silently acknowledge that some things cannot be changed.
When you are old, you realise that the moon still appears but that you will soon be gone.
The moon did not need to shout back at you, because the moon knew you would eventually die.”
LikeLike
@ Somali Prince,
Prince or nomad, which is it? Whichever it is, you seem resigned to your self imposed ball and chains in the West. Keep placating your molly coddled European women, the same women who don’t give a rat’s ass for the welfare of women in other parts of the world who die at the hands of their murderous sons and fathers. They have taught you well in the West. You’re a typical ‘I’m alright Jack, screw others’ immigrant.
You see Somali Prince, ‘peace’ and prosperity in the West, from France, UK, USA has come at a HUGE expense to the rest of the world. You still don’t get it. Western people get on their planes, fighter jets, submarines and go to foreign lands specifically to create conflict,, then they scurry back to the West like rats to preach freedom, liberty, and wonder ‘why do they hate us?’
Did you see how your people came across in the movie Black Hawk Down? Bunch of barbaric savages who must be crushed at all costs in their own country. The visceral image of those poor white American soldier’s bodies dragged all over the streets of Mogadishu, remember that? It stays in the Western consciousness, but just what Americans were doing there in the first place never crosses their minds. Western propaganda at its finest.
This recent bombing in Mali, a French colony see how those black bodies were not pixelated, like Paris victims? No dignity even in death, and the front line authorities were white guys? Where did they come from? I already know the nationalities of the Westerners killed? Africans are just a back drop in their own countries, whites are centre stage, as victims and cops in Africa. The world tolerates that.
Poor people work in these resorts frequented by Westerners who spend more on lunch or rooms than they earn in a month. Their economies have tanked thanks to IMF, World bank etc, these bloated foreigners’ opulence is an affront to their poverty, its no wonder resentment manifests itself in attacks.
We’re are starting to see assaults on expat hotels abroad, just a few weeks ago 38 Brits were killed in Tunisia by loners with Kalashnikovs. Forget the notion that there is some Arab in a cave in Afghanistan pulling strings and planning the demise of the West.
No, these are unrelated, unplanned, random copy cats and sympathizers of ISIS or people with a grievance and nothing to lose. More to come. The Tunisian killers’ gripe was economic, rather than religious. These attacks also embolden others to attack Westerners from Thailand to Mexico to South Africa and the Caribbean. The violence meted out to Westerners in the latter countries is over the top, overkill, I mean machetes and mutilations. Its extreme hatred.
Somali pirates off the coast of East Africa are notorious for kidnapping Westerners and demanding ransoms. People are taking matters into their own hands. They may not have the power to destroy the European Empire as you call it, but members of said empire are sitting ducks wherever they go.
Were you betrayed by your fellow Somalis? How did you come to the West? as a refugee or Student? You see I came here of my own volition. My country Botswana is the most peaceful, democratic and transparent in Africa, specifically because the British left us alone. That has shaped my perception. Now contrast that with next door Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia all previously run by white supremacists. Look where they are now, debt, Austerity, conflict, violence, millions are displaced and migrating in droves, because of Western people.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ merrimay
This is just the sort of thing I am talking about in this post and the one on the New York Times. Whites are centre-staged, everyone else is in the “periphery”.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
Germany supported the legitimate government of Kurdistan with weapons to defend against an attack. Is that smart policy? I don’t know. But it’s morally und legally justified. It’s definitly far removed from dropping bombs on some factions of a civil war.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
Tuning down the racism against muslims certainly has to be part of the solution. But to reduce Islamism to “anti-colonial blowback” underestimates the inner rational of that ideology. It doen’t explain why so many non-muslilms who experience racism don’t turn to an anti-liberal ideology and it doesn’t explain why Islamism appeals to so many people who never experienced racism.
LikeLike
@ Kartoffel
Who are these people that Islamism appeals to who have not experienced racism or any sort of colonialism?
LikeLike
Woke up this morning and learned about the crisis in Mali all of this causes my panic and anxiety to escalate. It won’t be long before the United States is struck again. Then watching MSNBC they also mentioned Brussels Belgium and how they were on watch for an attack. We are living in dangerous times.
LikeLike
At least in Germany a significant portion of Islamists are ethnic German converts. Generally they went from non-Muslim directly to Islamist.
LikeLike
@merrimay
You suffer from cognitive dissonance. Not everything is the ‘white man’s’ fault.
It is also a form of Stockholm’s syndrome. You ascribe more power to your supposed persecutor than he/she actually has.
Remember, I do not believe in conspiracy theories, in the Illuminati, or a Zionist-agenda. I believe in the theory of ‘chaos and perpetual-f*ck-ups’.
The Empire is White. But only because Constantinople fell to the Muslims, White voyagers were forced to look West and, perchance, stumbled upon the riches of the New World.
The Empire is White, by chance. Not due to intelligence, not due to a superior ‘evil’ that exists in the hearts of white men.
And do not get it confused. I am not white. I do not seek to be viewed as Irish. I know I am not native to this land and am not trying to claim it for myself.
My wife is Somalian, my children are Somalian. I fight for their wellbeing, not for yours or anyone else’s.
‘Never swear undying loyalty to any nation or its leaders – they would send you to your death at a whim if it came to it.’
The only thing that matters in this life, or the next, is your family. Do not entangle yourself in conflicts that do not concern you.
‘Greed is the only human desire that can never be satiated.’
Leaders, politicians, whatever you may call them, are primarily driven by ambition, not by a desire to protect your wellbeing, or anyone else’s.
If you went to the West out of your own volition, then why do you spend so much time criticising it?
Perhaps, you feel the West owes you something? That for its crimes, you ‘deserve’ a life of your choosing in the West?
Do you have a feeling of entitlement?
The university you studied at, was it not primarily funded by the tax money of white individuals? After all, many of those universities existed long before international students were accepted.
The roads you frequent, the amenities you make use of, the buildings you shelter yourself in, the laws that guard your safety, the infrastructure that maintains fluidity in a complex society, were they not all created, designed or established by individuals of white origin?
Or perhaps you are of the opinion that it is immigrants that do everything?
Perhaps the centres of knowledge that are Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Economics, owe their establishment to the people of Botswana?
Are you of Botswana origin or pan-African? Do you appropriate the accomplishments of every black person, or only the accomplishments of the people of Botswana?
Do you also appropriate the mathematical advancements that Muslim scholars made?
In that case, are you also not committing the same error that the white man has committed? If you were in the white man’s place, would you not behave, also, as he behaves?
Do you seek to displace the White Man so that you can emulate him? Would the people of Botswana be better rulers that Northern Europeans?
But can you really appropriate the accomplishment of anyone? Black or white, you are after all but a person.
The question is, is your simplified version of history as one where the White Man is to blame for everything and the Black Man has been forever persecuted, correct?
I think not.
Is my version of history, one where history is a perpetual ‘Game of Empires’ fought by men and women of any colour or creed, governed by one immutable theory – the theory of ‘chaos and perpetual-f*ck-ups’ – superior to yours?
Yes.
If you seek victory, then you must learn the Game. And leave your bitterness at the door.
For, were you to win, you would be quick to realise, that the new leaders (black or white), would behave in much the same manner as the previous leaders (who happen to be white).
Race, religion, colour, creed etc. matter little. Only the Game matters.
So far, the white man is winning, the theory of ‘chaos and perpetual-f*ck-ups’, favoured northern Europeans.
Do not be a sore loser.
But remember, I do not play the Game. I lost. Now, I am a nomad.
You may try to play, but based on your undying hatred of the White man (symbolised by your unjustified attack on Jade) and your undying faith in the Black man, I predict that you will lose.
Just as I did.
LikeLike
Stop reasoning to this Somaliprince, he is a major troll..
LikeLiked by 1 person
I meant to say ”stop responding to Somaliprince”. He is a white man..
LikeLike
If I were white, would that modify your assessment of my argument?
Do you therefore reason with someone only based on the colour his/her skin?
Is that not cognitive dissonance?
I like to live my truth. Perhaps, my posts are too long. Regardless, I have started my own blog, for I have a lot to write.
I will spend less time commenting here.
But remember:
‘Never swear undying loyalty to any nation or its leaders, they would send you to your death at a whim if it came to it’
‘The average person is pretty stupid (regardless of race)’
‘I do not believe in Conspiracy Theories, the Illuminati or a Zionist Agenda, I believe in the Theory of Chaos-and-Perpetual-F*ck-Ups’.
‘Black is as black is, and I have seen few with skin as dark as mine, but I have seen evil of many different shades.’
But most importantly,
‘I am a Prince, a Somalian one at that’
LikeLike
@ Kenza
Somali Prince does fit the profile of a Black sock puppet: conspicuously Black yet with a Whitewashed point of view. Yet, as he points out, his arguments should stand or fall regardless of his race.
LikeLike
abagond – please excuse the lack of capitalisation, I see that you prefer it stylised that way – , as I have said before, I respect your hustle.
You put a lot of work into your blog and all of your readers appreciate this.
but, most importantly, it will forever be the case that no two people will agree in every single respect.
I agree with the majority of your observations.
I only disagree with the currents to which you ascribe these observations.
Experience has taught me to believe that it is the hearts of men that push into motion the Game of Empires.
Not that person’s colour, creed, race or religion.
In the Game of Empires, every leader/politician is seeking to carve his name into the history books.
But his success is largely determined by the Theory of Chaos-and-Perpetual-F*ck-Ups.
I seek only intellectual sparring, for it sharpens the critical reasoning skills, I will not resort to name calling.
After all, this is your site, not mine.
It is only on my site that I will seek out like minded people.
For, if we are to win the Game, then the inner workings of the Game must be taught.
I will abstain now, for a short while, as I have work to do.
But, please, do not forget: I am a Prince, a Somalian one at that.
LikeLike
You can see Somali Prince’s avatar picture here:
http://www.hiiraan.com/op4/2012/jun/24499/somalia_welcome_back.aspx
LikeLike
@Kartoffel
“Neat semantics”
It was a direct quote, since you have trouble remembering what was said.
” You said France brought the attack on itself because they started to mess around in Syria”
No, that’s what you said I said. ]
“I then said that I’m expecting ISIS to attack countries who aren’t involved in Syria as well.”
No, that’s what you’re saying now. Switching goal as usual. Here’s how you responded since you forgot: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/top-mass-murders-of-2015/#comment-300714
LikeLike
@Kiwi
So if you lose the Game of Empires, you migrate to the heartland of the Empire and wantonly criticise the Empire’s inhabitants whilst enjoying the very fuits of that Empire’s success?
Analogies are not always successful debating tools.
I fought the Game of Empires from within my homeland, did she? I lost the Game. So I migrated. I will not now spit on the hand that was extended to me, simply because I lost.
Many people are not aware of the Game, it is those who are not aware of it that suffer.
The average person in any country is not aware of the Game.
I treat all people that I encounter with respect, no matter their race, colour or creed.
The verocity of merrimay’s language presupposed that we should act disrespectfully to people of a certain ethnicity, even those who are not aware of the Game.
If you aware of the Game, and you are a civilian, and your country is on the losing side, then you know it is time to migrate.
Because, in the Game, the civilians of the losing side inevitably suffer.
But civilians do not play the Game. They cannot be blamed.
It is only when you sign up to join the Army or set out to become a politician that you enter the Game.
Otherwise, all civilians, of any race, colour or creed, should be treated with respect.
They have never participated in the Game, did not sign up for it and probably do not know it exists.
LikeLike
@Kiwi,
So when Rome defeated the Gauls, a surviving Gaul migrated to Rome and spent his or her days castigating the Romans, whilst studying at a Roman university, enjoying the fruits of Roman civilization and benefiting from a life of peacefulness and tranquility?
Whilst saying ‘We Gauls built Rome’.
If the Gauls were advanced enough to beat Rome, why were they conquered?
Because the Gauls lost the game.
But eventually, the Gauls became the French and in World War II defeated the Italians.
The Game can be won, but not if one spends his or her entire day bemoaning the past.
You cannot see the future, if you’re living in the past.
LikeLike
@ Samali Prince.
You are making two contradictory claims. One that the Game is lost for all Blacks and two that if some come to your blog people will learn how to “win” at the Game.
You are entitled to your opinion but so are other posters. Just because you chose to conform to the empire doesn’t mean everybody else should. American Blacks have their own history and can engage racism and the State anyway they see fit. But to tell Blacks to “stop complaining” is an insult and is very much what racists tell non whites all the time. Not just citizens but government officials and some in the Western media.
The Italians aren’t the Romans btw. The Romans became absorbed by the people they conquered and no longer exist as a race.
Their is no difference between citizens, the military and politicians within the United States and the same is true in Europe. Citizens are willing participants in racism, State violence and in some cases, genocide.
I agree that their is an anthroprocentric reflection of the ruling tribe within Empire. But that in no way deflects responsibility away from its citizens.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t see a lot of difference between dropping bombs and making bombs for export. It’s one thing to be a gun manufacturer who’s making rifles for sport, hunting and self defense. It’s quite another thing to manufacture weapons designed to kill great numbers of people.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker,
I am not trying to win over people to my blog. I know little of wordpress and still do not understand what I am doing. I have written little.
The Game is not lost for all Blacks. According to the Game, African-Americans have a right to revolution. America was a slave economy largely built by African Americans.
Europe is a different case that I shall no dwell on here (I tend to make my posts too long).
African-Americans are part and parcel of the American Empire. Granted, they were brought there against their volition but they nevertheless helped build it.
The fact that they have now been marginalised is cause for Revolt.
According to my projections (which are not as well informed as I would like them), China will soon begin to win the Game.
This will only be short lived. Advances in technology and the population growth of Africa will make the people of my continent a force to be reckoned with.
The Theory of Chaos and Perpetual-F*ck-Ups is random enough for every group to eventually get their turn.
In a 100-150 years, the Empire will be the African continent.
When I say, ‘you cannot win’, it is because this will happen after my lifetime (in other words, don’t blow yourself up just yet).
The only thing we can do now is pass on knowledge whilst we observe the machinations.
What I disagree with is the obsession with the White Man. I also abhor impolite behaviour (after all, I am a prince).
The fact that the Empire is White is largely by chance.
When the Empire will be Black we will commit our own atrocities. No Empire has avoided it.
But what we must do now is accumulate wealth and build up our communities.
The current Empire stretches across White populations (Europe, USA, New Zealand, Australia etc. – I think they call it ‘Five Eyes’).
White people were slaves once. There is no shame in it.
Black populations, also, stretch across the world. We, also, were slaves once.
But in order for the Empire to be Black, it is a positive attitude we need.
Most importantly, we need education and accumulation of capital. And we must abandon all bitterness.
But remember, this is only for those who want the Empire to be Black.
Being an Empire comes with its own costs, such as the subsequent guilty conscience that currently plagues many White people.
But remember, I am not new-black, I am not neo-black, I prefer the term ‘super-black’.
Abandon all bitterness at the door, accept the machinations of the Game, return to the Chess table, and plot the next move.
My next move is clear, keep a low profile, accumulate capital and pass on knowledge to my children. I harbour no hatred for the current Empire, I look forward only to the distant future when the Empire will be Black.
But that will be after my lifetime, until then I am a Nomad. Because remember, during the age of Empire, only a native of the Empire is ever at home anywhere in the world, anyone else is characterised only as ‘other’.
That is why I say that, for now, you cannot win.
Whilst the Empire is White, you will never be anything but ‘other’. The nomadic lifestyle is the lifestyle most suited to the ‘other’.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
As a non-American watching on from outside, I am surprised that African-Americans have not yet revolted.
The Game predicts that, when rulers break the terms of the social contract, revolution ensues.
Of course, a revolutionary leader is needed. Personally, Tupac Amaru Shakur would have been the bet for African Americans.
The Game also predicts that rulers will attempt to silence potential revolutionary leaders.
Whether Tupac Amaru Shakur was killed by government forces or not, I do not know.
Remember, I do not believe in Conspiracy Theories, the Illuminati or a Zionist Agenda, I believe in the Theory of Chaos and Perpetual-F*ck-ups.
LikeLike
*wink*
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jade @ As a white person who knows many white people, I am telling you that the majority of white people in Europe have been told from an early age about the horrors of colonisation and ‘scientific’ racism.
Linda says,
Jade, I think you meant to say that
because most of the ones I knew, went to school with and worked with were clueless about the Caribbean and African history–
they had encyclopedic knowledge (population size, location, etc) and were knowledgeable about certain current events or popular culture (Reggae/Bob Marley)
but they didn’t know sh’t about black people in general and had a lot of stereotypes. (example: Black people’s teeth were white because they ate coconuts)
They were also clueless as to why black people or Arabs would sometimes get upset and resent them — and the discrimination against the Turks in Germany was Totally dismissed by the majority of Europeans I met.
In my first week of hitting German soil, I was warned to not go near Turkish neighborhoods or clubs because they were low-lives and criminals.
I went to school in Germany, and once the locals knew I was a student, I was treated better than my African and Arab friends who were refugees
and mind you, this was back in the 80s… so I can only imagine how it is now.
and don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed living in Europe — I always felt they were more genuine, even in their ignorance, than white Americans and to me, the racism in Europe had a different feel than it does in the USA.
but stabbing someone gently with a knife, hurts and bleeds just as much, as a violent knife attack
I moved to the USA because I felt that I could make money faster and get ahead further financially/career as a foreigner, than I could in Europe, even though the racial climate was more “tolerable”
but Europe’s micro-aggressive racism is just as marginalizing as America’s blatant, in-your-face racism.
For black/brown people, it’s just a case of learning how to swim with different breeds of sharks in order to get ahead.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Linda
“but Europe’s micro-aggressive racism is just as marginalizing as America’s blatant, in-your-face racism. ”
I always thought it was the other way around. That Europeans are more openly racist.
LikeLike
Kartoffel,
the western Europeans I met were more openly ignorant– they would repeat racist stereotypes:
wanting to touch a black persons skin and hair because they’ve never met a black person before
thinking black women in hotels are prostitutes
thinking black people have “hot blood” since they are from Africa
I think western Europeans are more “xenophobic” — they do not automatically break things down into “black or white” (Americans do), they break it down by Ethnicity/ Nationality first.
Travelling to London, I’ve seen black Americans receive a smile and a hardy welcome by British customs agents;
once I pull out my Jamaican passport, smile disappears, I get a nasty look, and I’m drilled to the 10th degree, even though I have an American visa and bank statements.
LikeLiked by 1 person
once communism fell, I found the central/eastern Europeans to be more openly racist with no shame and xenophobic (Russians, Ukrainians, east Germans, for example)
and this seemed to trickle over to the west to the National front types who have gotten bolder.
That’s why in the last 10 years, we’ve seen racists throwing bananas and making monkey noises at a football game
but Europeans did not need laws to compel them to treat black people like individuals nor does Europe have institutionalized racism like US.
white Americans needed laws:
to stop the general population from randomly killing black people and to treat them like human beings.
– allow black people through the front door of a public space and not the back
– hire black people
– serve black people in a restaurant
– allow black people to marry whites or Asians
I once had a manager say to me, that they hired me because I was a “2-fer”:
as in 2 for 1: a minority and a woman
by hiring me, he therefore fulfilled the government “equal opportunity” requirement and he did not have to hire any more women, black or Hispanic people. (and he had no shame in telling me that)
Americans are binary — “good vs evil” “black vs white”
This is my opinion, I find white Americans to be 2-faced hypocrites who will smile in a black persons face and then turn around and call them the Nword when the black person leaves the room.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Linda
When were black people ever prohibited from marrying Asians in the USA? I am very curious because I have never heard about that.
LikeLike
Jefe,
didn’t you do a post on the Chinese in the south?
I think you referenced that at 1 point they could not marry Asians.
LikeLike
OK, I re-read what you wrote… your post stated Asians could not marry white or Mexican women.
LikeLike
Kiwi,
Wow… I wonder why it was so specific to Filipinos?
Were the white American soldiers coming back to Maryland with Filipino brides?
LikeLike
OK, I have found some information here:
Maryland did indeed ban marriage between blacks and Filipinos in 1935.
Oklahoma banned marriage between blacks and non-blacks in 1908.
Those are the only 2 states I could find so far that had any law banning marriage between Asians and blacks.
(https://prezi.com/bxbkffjzrttn/anti-miscegenation-in-america/)
Even Virginia’s racial integrity act of 1924 only banned marriage between whites and non-whites.
Maryland repealed all its anti-miscegenation laws in 1967, weeks before the Loving v. Virginia decision.
Nevertheless, we can be rest assured that whites did not approve of those marriages, and if they discovered any, they would force the family to be re-identified as colored.
LikeLike
1935 was the peak of anti-Filipino sentiment in the USA, when Filipino-Americans got stripped of their US nationality. That explains the time reference.
I could only “guess” that Filipinos might seek to retain their US citizenship by marrying blacks – something that Maryland would not allow.
Chinese and Japanese born outside the USA were “Aliens ineligible for citizenship”, so it was not necessary to strip them of a nationality they never had.
Sorry to steer off topic, but I am glad I learned about this.
LikeLike
@ Somali Prince
I agree, merrimay should learn to be grateful to White people and stop criticizing them: they have given so much to Black people and taken so little! She is such an Ungrateful Darky!
/sarcasm off
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ somali prince.
The two assumptions that you have, that Black people should stop complaining and the Black people should be grateful for the fruits of white supremecy, are the red flags that you are a troll and why nobody here will take you too seriously. Attacking Black posters and defending white posters is part of that as well.
Propoganda is made up of around 80% truth and 20% untruth. Thats how you write in mixing truth with untruth. It’s your untruth that’s vile and damaging that needs to be rejected.
I use to think China and the Pacific rim as being the Empire that fills the vacuum as the West declines. The only impediment to this senerio is the one child rule China implemented in the 80’s and just recently did away with. The societal problem that policy created may interfer with that. Jefe or Kiwi would have a clearer picture of the fallout from their one child policy.
I believe mankind needs to evolve away from this idea that we need states or empires becuse of the historicale violence associated with giving a small group a monopoly on power and capital.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
So Jade is a thief? Stockholm syndrome: you are obsessed with your supposed persecutor.
Review Law 2 of the ’11 Immutable Laws of the Game of Empires’.
@michaeljonbarker
I care not for someone’s ethnicity. You seem to be a lot more concerned with my race than I with yours, you could be white for all I care (please do not tell me what race you are, I would not want my perception of you to cloud my reasoning).
Review Law 8 of the ’11 Immutable Laws of the Game of Empires’.
@michaeljonbarker
“I believe mankind needs to evolve away from this idea that we need states or empires”
You have violated Law 1. There will always be a dominant Empire. Empires have and will always exist. You cannot change this fact.
Also review Law 6:
6 – Accept the machinations of the Game. Empires will do what Empires do: Empire-building. Do not bemoan it. Bitterness is unbecoming. A victorious Empire dwells little on its past sins. A defeated Empire must also, therefore, dwell little on its past defeats.
LikeLike
@abagond
When did I say merrimay should be grateful?
I simply said she should not seek animosity where there is none. From what I read, I do not recall Jade saying anything offensive.
Review Law 2:
2 – Civilians are not part of the Game. If their Empire wins, they may live a life of tranquility. If their Empire loses, they may face rape, slaughter and pillaging. As such, you must never blame a civilian for its Empire’s actions. They are but pawns.
Also, review Law 9:
9 – Never underestimate your enemy. Always be respectful and courteous to your rival. Accept that you may one day be in his position and that he may one day be in yours. If your enemy is stronger, respect his strength and learn from him as much as you can. If you are to defeat him, you must learn the secrets of his ways.
LikeLike
And, of course, never forget, I am not new-black, I am not neo-black, I prefer the term super-black.
LikeLike
@ somali prince
What I mean is that humanity needs to evolve away from the ideas of Statism as being the solution for mankind’s problems. When I say evolve I’m talking maybe about 10,000 years. The current course of the world it is unsustainable and more likely will lead to mankind’s extinction.
The construct you have created seems to leave race out as insignificant and you say race is not important to you. Yet you also say every race has a chance at the empire of thrones and will sit on it someday which makes it about race.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
The Current Empire is White. Whilst an Empire may describe itself as multicultural and multiethnic, a dominant ethnicity always emerges that, eventually, ends up calling all the shots.
But according to Law 8:
8 – Racism belongs to inferior minds. Intelligence and ability are equally distributed amongst all groups. Racism equates to underestimating your enemy.
and Law 9:
9 – Never underestimate your enemy. Always be respectful and courteous to your rival. Accept that you may one day be in his position and that he may one day be in yours. If your enemy is stronger, respect his strength and learn from him as much as you can. If you are to defeat him, you must learn the secrets of his ways.
Ethnicities compete for dominance. Their success is largely determined by the Theory of Chaos and Perpetual-F*ck-Ups.
According to the Theory of Chaos And Perpetual-F*ck-Ups, the rise of an Empire is mainly attributable to chance.
Leadership and good management may extend the life of an Empire but, in the long run, no Empire can forever reverse the Theory of Chaos and Perpetual-F*ck-Ups.
An example of this would be the fact that before the Current Empire (White), the Empire was Chinese.
The Chinese f*ck-uped (remember, f*ck-ups are perpetual), by retreating their navy from the pacific and becoming isolationist.
This left a vacuum that the Europeans eventually occupied.
Thus, the rise of Europeans was by chance, and the fall of the Previous Empire was due to a f*ck-up.
Europeans subsequently appropriated the inventions of the Chinese. This was in line with Law 9: ‘If you are to defeat him, you must learn the secrets of his ways.’
The Laws are Immutable and stand the test of time (I did not write them).
LikeLike
@ somaliprince
Stockholm syndrome is where you take the side of your persecutor. That describes YOU. Stop projecting.
The Wikipedia:
LikeLike
@abagond
I have no persecutor.
You can only have Stockholm syndrome if you believe yourself to be persecuted. By believing that the White Man is all-dominant, all-evil, all-controlling and all-responsible, you are ascribing more power to him than he actually possesses.
The Empire is White, by chance. Nothing else.
Remember, I am a prince. A Somalian one at that.
A prince has no persecutor.
LikeLike
The Wikipedia:
“Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.”
You may perhaps not have feelings of empathy towards your captor, but you do appear to have an obsession with your ‘captor’.
Remember, a Prince has no captor.
LikeLike
I am not new-black, I am not neo-black, I prefer the term super-black.
LikeLike
The reason the American Empire managed to stretch influence all over the world is because of the British. The British made the excursions all over the unknown world first, laying the ground for the opportunistic American elite. Had the Germans not gained as much ground as they did in world war 2 and had the British sought to assimilate rather than segregate the people it colonized then they would have been a crushing force to the Germans. But the idiots impoverished their own people (white people) and plundered their colonies for the benefit of Queen Victoria and all her privileged relatives. Pride really does come before a fall.
Empires are going to have a hard time developing in the centuries to come (unless a country develops some form of super weapon that can vaporize entire populations and shield against nuclear weapons). What is more likely to happen is that their will be a number of world powers that will keep the world from getting into war and there will more focus on mining in space. There is a probability that we will move away from oil and focus more on energy sources that are clean, sustainable and reliable. For now black people all over the world must unite and wash away the years of Brainwashing they have undergone and develop self-pride. Once we do that it will not matter what white people think because we won’t be watching them on TVs or in our movies.
LikeLiked by 3 people
@villagewriter
“For now black people all over the world must unite and wash away the years of Brainwashing they have undergone and develop self-pride.”
Absolutely correct. When you understand the Game of Empires, you become super-black.
But never forget Law 1: There will always be a dominant Empire
The current dominant Empire is White. NATO, Five Eyes, whatever you want to call it, it is overwhelmingly White.
An Empire is not defined by the resources it uses. Common warfare will become Cyber warfare, Cyber warfare may become something else.
China is currently plotting to destabilise the White Empire. Many would argue that Cyber warfare between the New Empire and the Old Empire has already begun.
Never underestimate the ambitions of anyone. Greed, after all, is the only human desire that can never be satiated.
The middle kingdom will, once again, become the dominant kingdom.
The Theory of Chaos and Perpetual-F*ck-Ups predicts this.
What was the West’s F*ck-Up? It underestimated the Middle Kingdom and exploited the Middle Kingdom as nothing more than a source for cheap labour for too long.
LikeLike
@everyone
In other words, the bone I had to pick with merrimay was due to the fact that she broke Law 2:
2 – Civilians are not part of the Game. If their Empire wins, they may live a life of tranquility. If their Empire loses, they may face rape, slaughter and pillaging. As such, you must never blame a civilian for its Empire’s actions. They are but pawns.
And Laws 8 & 9:
8 – Racism belongs to inferior minds. Intelligence and ability are equally distributed amongst all groups. Racism equates to underestimating your enemy.
9 – Never underestimate your enemy. Always be respectful and courteous to your rival. Accept that you may one day be in his position and that he may one day be in yours. If your enemy is stronger, respect his strength and learn from him as much as you can. If you are to defeat him, you must learn the secrets of his ways.
LikeLike
@ somaliprince
You seemed to want merrimay to be grateful to Whites when you said:
Spoken like a true a White paternalist. Whites used to say the same sort of thing about slaves.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@ Somalia Prince.
Your not answering criticism by pointing to your “laws”. Thats not a debate skil that’s a deflection.
LikeLike
@abagond
Yes abagond, but I purposely phrased those statements as questions. It is only by confronting those harsh truths that one will come to accept that humanity is governed by the Game of Empires.
We must all deal with the fact that we are the ‘other’. The Empire is White. As long as the empire is White, we will forever be ‘other’. No matter where we live, we will forever be nomads.
The White Empire mades its own technological advancements but also appropriated the advancements of others (and re-labeled them as being their own).
The difference between merrimay and I is that instead of bemoaning the White Empire, I marvel at how well functioning the White Empire is in many places and hope that a Black Empire may someday surpass it.
Us third-worlders know that life in the Empire is superior.
You first-worlders appear to have forgotten it.
Life in the Empire is better than life outside of it, would anyone disagree with this?
Instead of saying ‘But, But, But, they cheated!’, we should say: ‘Damn, let’s surpass them’.
Should we not?
To achieve that, we must work hard. We must acquire capital and pass on knowledge to our children.
Without money, we have no power, without knowledge we have no money.
Remember, I am not neo-black, I am not new-black, I prefer the term super-black.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
Unfortunately, the laws are immutable. We ignore them at our peril.
The laws are born out of historical constants. They are ever true and cannot be changed.
If we are to become rich and successful and prepare ourselves adequately for when the Theory favours Africa, we must establish a common framework.
People of many different faiths and ethnicites have followed these laws, perhaps unknowingly.
LikeLike
Your “immutable laws” are a personal construct you have created to frame the world in. You are no different then a theist who pushes their version of god.
The idea that the world runs so well because of the Western empire is hillarious. How many millions of people have died because of Western Empire building ? What their would be no roads if it wasn’t for white people ? lmao
The last I checked Ecuador had been voted best place to live and that’s in spite of colonialism and Western intervention.
The question you should be asking would be what would the African continent look like today if their had no colonization, no empire building. If that had been the case it would have been the wealthiest and safest place on the planet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did not say ‘because of the Western empire’.
I said only that the safest place is always within the Empire.
It does not matter what type of Empire it is, Western or not.
The world does not run well ‘because’ of the West.
Outside of the Empire, the world runs badly, because of the West. Inside the Empire, the world runs well.
If the Empire were China, I would live in Shanghai.
If we went back 2,000 years, I would live in Rome.
Africa was colonised, Africa was conquered. You can not change this fact.
What are we going to do about it?
Build up our own Empire or constantly complain because White-propaganda depicts us as the ‘other’?
20 years ago, people complained about the way Whites depict the ‘other’.
Today, abagond complains about the way Whites depict the ‘other’.
In 20 years time, still people will complain.
And then the Empire will be Chinese, will we still be sat here complaining about how they depict the ‘other’?
It will not end until the Empire is Black.
All Empires use propaganda. It is part of the Game. Why can we not just accept this fact and focus on our enrichment?
Complaining belongs to the infant. Acceptance and strategy belong to the adult.
LikeLike
As in said Ecuador was named by business insider as the best place live based on health care, tax codes, quality of life ect. Ecuador does not of an extradition treaty with the U.S. I don’t see Ecuador as part of the West. So that example blows up your claim that the best places to live are within the Western Empire.
Their is plenty of violence that happens within the boarders of the empire which this post shows.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
Your comment proves exactly that you are a first-worlder.
If you do not think that life within the Empire is immeasurably better than outside of it then I do not know what I can say.
Historically, peace has only been guaranteed within the dominant Empire. War is the natural state of the world, unless you live within the Empire.
I am an admirer of Ecuador myself but you cannot compare it to the established developed economies of the Empire.
Remember I care not that the Empire is West or White.
Throughout the ages, the Empire has always been the place with the best universities, the best jobs, the most tranquility etc.
Ecuador is still a developing economy highly dependent on commodities (there has been a commodities superboom as of late, when that will end, Ecuador will suffer).
It is still a medium income country.
All the refugees of the world cannot just migrate to Ecuador. Its population is only 16 million.
I am not talking to you as a revolutionary, I am talking to you from the point of view of a father, with a family and children.
The question still stands, why are so many people looking to migrate to the Empire?
You would know if you had grown up as a third-worlder.
It is within the confines of the castle that you are safest. Just a few years ago, the people of Syria were living peacefully, then all of a sudden, the Empire began its machinations and the whole country has been devastated.
Middle aged fathers with families of their own witnessed young revolutionary thugs entering their homes at random and shooting the place up.
The same happened to Somalia (where I was born).
What is the worst to happen to Ireland in recent years (where I now live)? An economic crisis. Unemployment is the worst thing that can befall its citizens.
No foreign army is just going to invade a country that is part of the dominant Empire.
If Ecuador did something America didn’t like, America would find an excuse to attack it. Americans would probably support it.
The safest countries in the world are those that are aligned with the Empire (you may find exceptions, but the general rule holds): Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc.
LikeLike
If a country is not aligned with the Empire, the Empire will find a reason to destabilise it, either militarily or economically.
I think you fundamentally agree with me but I said some things you found uncomfortable and now we are at loggerheads.
Surely we are both aware of the number of wars the Empire has embarked on in recent decades?
If you are living in a country that the Empire is not targeting, then count yourself lucky. But that may yet change.
Kadafi was an ally of the West, until the West changed its mind. So was Mubarak, so was Saddam, so was Assad, so was Mugabe etc.
The list goes on and on.
The statement still stands: The safest place in the world is always within the dominant Empire.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
No need to resort to name calling.
I already said that I agreed the Empire destroys countries outside of its bounds.
Whether refugees are migrating to retrieve stolen wallets (???) or migrating so that they can live peaceful lives, the fact still remains that the safest place in the world, traditionally, has been within the Empire.
So, in other words, you are confirming that I am correct?
Why would refugees leave an unsafe country just to go to a country that is even more unsafe?
Empires do as Empires do: Empire-building.
You seem to be shouting at the moon ‘Why must these Empires Empire-build?’
‘They took my money, they took my money’.
Well, what are you going to do about it? grow stronger, acquire capital, or continuously complain about the White Man’s racism?
Are you a victim?
Or are you a prince?
Are you ‘other’, or are you super-black?
Were you too weak to hold onto your wallet, or are you going to get it back ten-fold?
Are you capable of building your own Empire, or will you forever ask the White Man to give you something that he will never give you?
If you want to know how to Empire-build, then study the Game.
LikeLike
And remember,
I am a Prince, a Somalian one at that.
I am not new-black, I am not neo-black, I prefer the term super-black.
LikeLike
Somali Prince,
You do realize that if you come to the U.S. the chances of you being shot by the police increases five fold. But you go ahead and pretend to be safer in Leviathan.
You may be the son of a once prominent Somali Clan but in the U.S you are just another Black man who might have a gun.
And the way the U.S is going you might have to register in a national data base just in case internment camps become an option.
You’ll be a person of interest for Homeland Security because your Somali but you go right ahead and tell them how wonderful their empire is. You can thank them for roads, education, innovation and for spreading Democracy around the world.
Remember never to complain, be obedient and always show repect to white people. You owe your freedom to them.
Welcome to the belly of the beast, but no worries, things will change after your dead, because your “immutable laws” say so.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
You are an idealist. Utopia would be more suited to you.
Do you think the Empire will compensate Iraqi’s refugees for the homes the Empire destroyed?
In a perfect world, that would be nice. You are not a refugee.
I once was. I had to accept the rules of the Game.
I had no choice.
You have not yet accepted them and are expecting compensation for past ills.
The Game cares little for you, or your entitlement.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
That is my point exactly. Do I have to remind you that you are Black and the Empire is white?
In China, you will be Black. In Thailand, you will be Black. In England, you will be Black. In Alaska, alas, you will still be Black.
We are ‘other’. We are not equal.
So long as the Empire is White, we will never be equal.
So long as we do not have our own Empire, we will never be equal.
The Game respects only strength.
I am asking you to be strong, and you are talking about what has occurred already.
Do you the White Man still dwells on his past? He is too busy acquiring yet more money.
The Empire needs to be Black so we no longer have to be ‘other’.
As long as the Empire is not Black, we are all nomads.
In Saudia Arabia, you will be Black. Any place you go, the native of the Empire (the white man) will ALWAYS be treated better than us.
ALWAYS.
Until then, we are nomads. We must live in Leviathan, accept the downsides, study the beast, accumulate capital, develop our strength and prepare for the inevitable day where we will have our Empire.
Now do you understand why I say:
Í am not new-black, I am not neo-black, I am SUPER black.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
You will expose them and then what? You will die like Malcom X, Tupac, MLK?
They will shut you up and keep Empire building.
And when the Empire is Chinese and we are, once again, second class citizens, then what?
We all know that the supposed ‘ideals’ of the American constitution apply only to the White Man. The Empire is White.
When the constitution was written, the Black Man was enslaved, what else did you expect?
LikeLike
@ somaliprince
This idea of yours that most refugees come to the West is yet another one of your White paternalistic fantasies.
LikeLike
Was Troy not defeated by a Trojan Horse?
Yet you believe that by telling Troy what a bad city it has been, it will eventually relent, open its doors and shower you with compensation.
Instead, why can’t you, yourself, be a Trojan Horse? Study the beast, befriend the beast, acquire capital, accumulate knowledge and prepare.
Remember Law 9 and Law 10:
9 – Never underestimate your enemy. Always be respectful and courteous to your rival. Accept that you may one day be in his position and that he may one day be in yours. If your enemy is stronger, respect his strength and learn from him as much as you can. If you are to defeat him, you must learn the secrets of his ways.
10 – The Empire will one day be Black. Bide your time. Do not do anything rash. If you do not expect the Empire to be Black within your lifetime, then work on strengthening your community. Acquire capital and pass on knowledge to your children. Ensure that your children acquire the knowledge of the dominant Empire.
LikeLike
@everyone
You are not reading what I write.
You have spent your lifetimes bemoaning the White Man, whilst he has gotten ever richer.
You have never moved one stop above that. Your obsession with the White Man has kept you in a stage of infancy.
You must study the Game.
I have work to do. I will be back later.
LikeLike
@ somaliprince
For someone from Somalia with a family to protect you seem oddly complacent about rising Western Islamophobia.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Kiwi
Jim Crow had good roads. Do learn to be grateful!
LikeLike
@abagond
We are ‘other’, abagond. How many times do I need to repeat it?
What will I say to the Empire, ‘Please Empire, please, treat me as you would a white person, please I beg of you’.
‘All this Islamophobia is so horrible, put an end to it.’
The Empire is White and non-muslim, what else would I expect? Do you think Islamophobia started yesterday? Do you think it will end?
As long as the Empire is not Black, it will never end. For how long has the Empire been waging crusades?
Do you expect me to do as you do? Live within a White Empire and forever expect to be treated equally?
How long have you waited, Dear African-Americans, and yet you are STILL being shot in the street?
Keep complaining to the White Man and see if he ever relents.
Now, I apologise, I really must go. I have work to do.
LikeLike
One last thing,
Did the Jewish have a civil rights movement? Did the Chinese have a civil rights movement? Did the Japanese have a civil rights movement?
And yet all these groups have now surpassed us.
The Empire handed you a nice little olive branch whilst still emprisoning and killing you, yet because you received an olive branch, you all rejoiced: ‘civil rights movement, civil rights movement’.
Are you not still downtrodden, are you not sitll being emprisoned?
Yet you are asking for more olive branches.
The Empire is handing you olive branches and you are dancing in the streets.
Whilst every other group is accumulating capital, getting richer, going their own way and African-Americans are still down trodden.
You may mock me. But I will acquire capital. Because capital is strength, and the Empire respects only strength.
I will be back.
In the meantime, study the game.
Remember, I am a Prince, a Somalian one at that.
I am not neo-black, I am not new-black, I prefer the term super-black.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
Allow me to educate you Kiwi. Although I hope you will not mind me adopting this tone, it is never my intention to be disrespectful.
“Because none of them were enslaved the way Blacks were.”
No, they have surpassed us because we are still poor.
Because Blacks own next to nothing. Our music, the White Man owns. Our culture, the White Man appropriates it.
The Empire does not respect the Black man, because the Black man owns nothing.
The Empire respects only money. The Empire respects only wealth.
So what must we do?
Study the Game, acquire capital and pass on knowledge to our children.
And if you are super-black, then you will eventually want the Empire to be Black.
For that to happen, you must study the Empire so that we can eventually surpass it.
And not stay trapped in the past.
African-Americans are owed reparations, will the Empire ever pay them out?
What do you think?
LikeLike
Who cares about the Civil Rights movement, we are still poor!
Where is MLK? Where is Malcom X? Where is Tupac?
The Empire is treating the Black man just as it treated the Native Americans, throw bones at them to shut them up until they eventually die out.
How many Native Americans are left? 0.2%
0.2%!
They handed Native Americans all sorts of fancy olive branches to keep them happy, keep them satiated, because the Empire knew the Native American would eventually completely disappear.
They are now doing the same with African-Americans, and you are all dancing in the streets.
I am telling you that I am super-black and that the Game must be studied.
I am telling you to forget the White Man and concentrate on your enrichment and still, you are not listening.
LikeLike
Did you see how David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the UK, sucked up to the Chinese on his state visit?
Why? Because the Empire respects only strength, respects only money.
Are the Chinese asking for reparations?
Now because the Chinese have surpassed the British to such an extent, they are not even thinking about them anymore.
Yet here you all still are: the white man this, the white man that.
Study the Game.
LikeLike
The game is Samali Prince and I’m done playing for awhile. Villagewriter called it.
LikeLike
Not reparations per se, but definitely they are demanding deference and kowtowing. Given China’s self-perceived century plus period of humiliation under the British, they have no qualms to denying any consideration. Even if that means breaking the 1984 joint Sin-British declaration.
So, they are definitely thinking about the British. They want to punish them by controlling them. I see that as a form of reparation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am back. I intend to develop a website. The Game must be taught. I will try to get contributions from people of different races.
@jefe
Thank you for reading my post. I wrote so much, I was worried it was getting lost in the ether. I am quite good with words and always enjoy a good debate. As ever, I will remain polite and never resort to name calling.
This, after all, is not my site. I am in Abagond territory.
When you said:
“So, they are definitely thinking about the British. They want to punish them by controlling them. I see that as a form of reparation.”
You hit the nail on the head.
I lived in China for a while, it is a country I have a deep admiration for.
The Chinese are ‘super’. They are full of pride. They know their history. They know they used to be the Empire.
They are not going to bend the knee and ask the British for assistance, aid or compensation.
They are instead going to build up their Empire as strong as it ever was, if not stronger.
By doing that, they will prove their superiority.
Not by bemoaning their fate, as merrimay and Kiwi are prone to do (I call them victim-black).
The Chinese wrote the Art of War (from which ‘The 11 Immutable Laws of the Game of Empires’ take inspiration) and no one plays the Game of Empires better than the Chinese.
The Chinese will also prove to @michaeljonbarker that the Game of Empires will never end.
When the Chinese are as strong as they ever will be and when the British are as weak as they ever will be,
when the Chinese have the British at their mercy,
do you think they will not strike a final blow to avenge their century of humiliation?
Of course they will.
This, fellow readers, is super-black. Not whining about Hollywood’s perception of black people.
There is a Game of Empires to be played, why are you even watching Hollywood films?
LikeLike
@Somali Prince
What exactly are you saying? Are you proposing guerrilla warfare with the empire-won’t that mean that we will have to see all white people as our enemies? The Empire reached its peak in the 50s (Noam Chomsky) and has been declining ever since. I am not sure whether China will be the next Empire; I dread the idea of India becoming the next empire.
LikeLike
I don’t think China’s recent rise back in power will last that long. I think they will fall flat on their face in 15-20 years, once the Cultural Revolution baby boom generation (currently in their 40s) retires. Their prospect looks a lot worse than Japan’s. They will have to expend every effort to keep their society from falling apart.
They might feel forced to let tens of millions of elderly just “die” in the 2030s-2040s, a fate as gruesome as what happened in the great leap forward.
They certainly know their history well enough to whitewash it.
LikeLike
“I dread the idea of India becoming the next empire.”
@ villagewriter
Interesting comment. Can you expand on this?
(FWIW, I’m a Black male born and based in the States.)
LikeLike
@villagewriter
Thank you for dialoguing with me again. We are moving into interesting territory and I enjoy reading your posts. You make some good points.
You stated the following:
“What exactly are you saying? Are you proposing guerrilla warfare with the empire-won’t that mean that we will have to see all white people as our enemies?
The Empire reached its peak in the 50s (Noam Chomsky) and has been declining ever since. I am not sure whether China will be the next Empire; I dread the idea of India becoming the next empire.”
Remember, Law 8 of the Game of Empires: ‘Racism belongs to inferior minds’.
Also remember, that as long as the Empire is White, we are simply ‘other’. Where ever we may live, we will never be anything more than ‘other’.
As such, people of other ethnicities may be said to be our rivals, they may be said to be your ‘enemy’. But, and this is important, in the Game of Empires, you cannot let emotions cloud your judgement.
Emotions belong to the civilian, it has not place in the Game. You must view your rival as someone who is to be respected and, eventually, beaten. There is no room for hatred.
Treat him with respect, be courteous to him. View him as a worthy rival so that you can learn from him. Bitterness is unbecoming (in other words, don’t do as merrimay did and attack naive people like Jade at random because you feel ‘entitled’).
Entitlement leads to arrogance. Arrogance leads to pride. And pride always comes before the fall.
If you try to debase a fellow ethnicity and develop racist feelings towards it, you run the risk of underestimating that ethnicity in question.
And remember Law 9: ‘Never underestimate your enemy’.
As for guerilla warfare, at the moment, my position is this: you cannot win.
The Empire is too strong. The Empire is indeed in decline but that does not stop the fact that there has never been an entity as powerful as the current Empire in ALL of history.
The American hegemony that manifests itself through an alliance with Western Europe (NATO), Oceania (Five Eyes) and Israel is too strong.
Furthermore, the Empire has been making some important gains. Lybia is gone. Iraq is gone. Syria will soon be gone. Many, once strong, nations in the resource rich area that is the Middle East have fallen.
Iran, I presume, will be next.
This why I say that ISIS cannot win.
The Chinese, who are great players, know this.
That is why they are biding their time. Remember, the most important lesson I learned whilst in China (from the mouth of a Chinese person) was this:
‘Do not be afraid of the darkness, revel in it. For, whilst you are out of sight, you will have the opportunity to build your strength.’
We are still in the darkness. The Northern European Man is our rival. The Chinese man is our rival.
Instead of letting hatred blind us, we must instead study our rivals. We must study their strengths whilst ensuring we do not commit their mistakes.
That is how we can prepare.
The time has not come yet for guerrilla warfare.
We will know when the time has come, why? Because China will strike first.
When China strikes, then we will know that the Empire has weakened.
It is only then that we can consider guerrilla warfare.
LikeLike
But remember, you do not have to play the Game.
You can contribute in other ways, such as accumulating capital and passing knowledge onto your children.
I was young and naive and jumped into the Game without knowing what I was doing.
I played, and lost. Now I intend to acquire knowledge and capital and pass it on to my children.
LikeLike
@jefe
I expect China to become the next Empire.
You are right nevertheless about China’s demographics.
That is why I believe that after China, the Empire will be Black.
That is one of the reasons we must stop obsessing over the White Man.
Soon, our main rival will be the Chinese.
And if the Empire is to be Black, we will have to defeat them.
As for India, things do not look as good as they once did.
I will expand on all these things soon. I have a lot of financial data and information that I use in my everyday work that I will soon publish.
After all, the Game must be taught.
LikeLike
@Fan
India is a complicated mosaic of cultures, languages, traditions; so I am not going to say I know everything about the country. But I look at their caste system, environmental degradation, slavery, religions and I know they can be very cruel overlords. Indians are ethnocentric to the extreme and have embraced white supremacy to the point of sacrificing their cultures and even white washing their deities (krishna). They also love segregation of people of different classes, religions, sects. color and so on. China has its problems but it looks like a fairy land compared to India.
LikeLike
I really doubt China is going to make it. China’s demographics bode ill for it, unless it implements a mass extermination program at age 65 around 2040.
Who knows? They had a one child policy for 35 years. Maybe they will go from forced abortions to penalties for not electing suicide.
Anyhow, all the more reason to keep them smoking. A larger percentage of the population will manage to work for several decades and die by retirement, while adding to government coffers. That statistical edge might help delay the crisis for a few years.
LikeLike
I don’t know. It looks like China is making a long-term play on Europe with the AIIB and the land and sea New Silk Road.
LikeLike
“Indians are ethnocentric to the extreme and have embraced white supremacy to the point of sacrificing their cultures and even white washing their deities (krishna). They also love segregation of people of different classes, religions, sects. color and so on.”
@ villagewriter
I haven’t personally known a great many East Indians where I’m situated.
The relative few I’ve encountered in recent years seemed to have the same ideas in common with one another. They were prejudiced… filled with negative assumptions about Black males in the US (at least in) regarding our knowledge, experiences and abilities.
Perhaps I was caught off guard because I didn’t expect this type of thinking from dark skinned people who were as dark or darker than myself.
Now I know.
LikeLike
@somaliprince have you read the 48 laws of power, it kind of reminds me of that, what you are saying with your ‘rules of the game.’
LikeLike
@Jefe
”I really doubt China is going to make it. China’s demographics bode ill for it, unless it implements a mass extermination program at age 65 around 2040.”
You could be right about their demographics but you have to realize that unlike Japan China is not tied down with traditions that call for homogeneity and frown on multiculturalism. They president of China is not also tied down by a congress or parliament that may resist his decisions-like the USA. That means that they can solve their demographic problem faster than Europe can. You should be more concerned about Greece, Italy, Japan, and Germany. If China does not become a superpower then they will create a superpower somewhere else. America is running out of cards to play in the power game and they are inching closer to a full blown war that may dismantle their hold onto power.
LikeLike
@Fan
The darker skinned people of India are mistreated more than any other in the world. Its crazy because genetically they are brothers and sisters.
LikeLike
@villagewriter,
China frowns on multiculturalism at least as much as Japan. They are keen to obliterate their minorities and even the use of regional dialects. Their reluctance to reform the Hukou system have left them with over 100million in splintered families with left behind children, limited access to education and health care and no pension for retirement.
What tools, pray tell, do you think China has at its disposal to avert its demographic disaster? Besides this, how do you envisage they could formulate a sustainable economic model. Before they could rely on young people migrating from the countryside to the urban areas. That era will end soon.
I am concerned about Greece, Italy, Japan and Germany, but China has 1.4 billion people. Each of those countries would fit neatly into a single province of China. I think USA is in a better position to sustain for a longer period, unless it gets bogged down by islamophobia or race relations, either of which can pull it into a war.
China could rise again, as it always does, but only after some kind of tragic collapse first. I can’t see how one could retire in China after 2030.
LikeLike
@Jefe
I beg to differ. They do not frown on it as much as Japan and there is evidence to support that. The Japanese are very strict with their immigration policy to the point where they actually drag out kicking and screaming illegal immigrants and ship them back home. Not so with China. China allows people from various places around the world to live in China as long as they do not bark at the government. China can change policies faster that USA to avert disasters because they do not have to consult with an opposition party. They act more than they talk; they get things done. Remember that tragedy in China means tragedy in USA. The two countries are tied together so tightly if China sneezes America coughs. China will still be a major player in the world in 2030. Things are changing rapidly and not even America can stop them from changing. War will only weaken America like it weakened Rome, Great Britain, Persia and the rest.
LikeLike
If you want to know where the world is going study the sneaky British elite. They were busy appeasing India a few days ago and China just the other day. The British unlike the American elite tend to use their brains more than military power. They joined the BRICS bank despite Americas protestations and wine and dine Russia at night and condemn them in the morning. The scheming British know that America has reached its expiry date and they are building paths to sustain the influence they already have.
LikeLike
America will have to destroy China while at the same time keep the economies of Eurasia intact. It will need a surgeons precision to do this, which it doesn’t have seeing the mess they made in South America. Then they will have to create a whole new population that corporations will use to make cheap products and make big profits. Russia will have to be sleeping while all this is going on.
LikeLike
@villagewriter,
Do you spend much time in China?
I agree that China can be more nimble because they can avoid much of the red tape of traditional democracies, but really, how do you envision their ability to avert its myriad demographic crises? It will strike like a brick wall. Japan’s decline has been more gradual. I think that some of the future policy decisions in China could be quite tragic.
But what else is new. We have seen tragic policy decisions over the past 65 years and they are still here.
LikeLike
@Jefe
I have never spent even a second in China but I follow commentaries, news, debates and blogs that talk about China. Does that make me naive about their future? Maybe or Maybe not. But I respect the guys and know they are not stupid. They are in the game to win and they know they are in a pit full of singing snakes with poisonous fangs. I think you underestimate them a little too much. Do you live in China?
LikeLike
Here is a very recent article that explains what I am trying to say about China. I think the author has been to China.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pepe-escobar/will-chess-not-battleship_b_8628056.html
LikeLike
@ villagewriter
The article doesn’t address demographics at all. And to your point that an authoritatian government can implement solutions more easily. That might be, but you still have to come up with a solution first. And a problem like declining population has by nature very few solutions, so to say “they’ll figure something out” isn’t enough.
LikeLike
@Kartfortel
China can easily allow thousands upon thousands of Filipinos into their country to take care of their old and work in their factories. The Philippines is experiencing the effects of climate change and their economy is not that strong compared to China. That’s the point I am trying to make here not that they will figure “something out somehow” (an idea that popped out of your own head). That’s why I kept mentioning that the Chinese government does not have to consult a congress or even the Chinese people. They have the resources to do that. They have been doing exactly that all over the world building roads and investing billions on a continent (Africa) in a very short period of time. I don’t think demographics is that hard an issue for them to solve.
The Chinese do not have a race based system like the USA and letting in migrants is not going to be a problem. America has sustained itself to this day partly because of the illegal migrants that republicans love to spit on. If America can do it, so can China. Is that such a hard concept to understand? I do not know why you guys are obsessed about its eventual decline. China is not America and it is not Japan.
LikeLike
I go to Mainland china about once per month, to inspect factories or attend conferences, visit friends or relatives, and sometimes for other reasons.
I have hundreds of friends who go more often than I do, as well as know many that live there.
My first visit to Mainland China was to Shenzhen in 1980. My last visit was last month. I am going again in 2 weeks.
I read printed material, watch both western and Chinese news broadcasts (HK, PRC and Taiwan) in both English and Chinese and discuss with people on a daily basis. One of my very close friends works for the Shenzhen cable TV news station and talk to him every other day about this and that.
Sometimes I will follow Aljazeera, or media from France, Japan, Singapore, etc.
One of my favourite things (when I have time, that is) is compare how western media and Chinese media report the same event.
I think maybe you overestimate them too much. I always get the impression that China leadership is rather weak and unsure of itself. Why do they constantly insist that foreigners are interfering in their internal affairs? I do think that posturing is more for domestic consumption as China has inculcated that the West and other foreigners is bent on tearing China down and apart. It is what holds them together enough to be “proud” of being Chinese, more so than any “glorious cultural heritage”.
They also have an army of millions who must constantly police the flow of news and information. If the truth got out, a rapid collapse of confidence in leadership could result.
Nearly all of my friends who watch and observe China on a daily basis (including my reporter friend for the Shenzhen cable news) agree that China leadership is rather weak (despite their stronghold action), as they do not really have the mandate of the people. The only ones who might beg to differ are the ones who grew up in Mainland China and were thus indoctrinated in that thinking.
However, they do benefit from being decisive in a way that is almost impossible in western democracies. That is an advantage of sorts (with its own costs) and I agree. One advantage that they do have is the rapid expansion in infrastructure, esp. transportation, energy logistics. The West has fallen behind (eg, US has NO high speed rail and very poor urban transportation — I remember when Beijing was the only city with a subway system of only 2 lines and their rail system was slow and antiquated — no more, for sure).
They are in a rush to do it now, because I frankly believe that that may not be able to do it in 10-15 years, given its demographic demise.
I also previously worked on a consulting project to analyse the social insurance system of one of the provinces in China and still follow its development also in the course of the work I do now. I can guarantee you that there will be hundreds of millions of retirees with little or no pension and no children to support them and maybe even no place to live. If that is not a looming crisis, I don’t know what is.
LikeLike
Thounds upon thousends wouldn’t even make a dent in the problem. I have no exact numbers, but I’m pretty sure Chine would need immigrants in the double digit millions per year to keep its population. I doubt that there are enough migrants in the world willing to go to China.
LikeLike
@villagewriter (regarding your reply to Kartoffel)
Au contraire, mon frere, this will be a major problem for them. Do you have any inkling about the race based issues in China? Do you understand how race based nationalism works in China. There is no way in h311 they will let in tens of millions of Filipinos in to work in their factories. That would not be enough anyhow. They would need 200-300 million replacements.
China’s labour force is now DECREASING. It will start to collapse rapidly in about 15 years.
Think again.
BTW, have you spent much time in the Philippines?
LikeLike
@Jefe
I get what you are saying but remember America owes China trillions and they are nowhere close to paying back all that money. China’s economy is also growing at almost triple that of America. So, as far as money is concerned they are sorted. They have a lot of problems though just as you have clearly described but so does America and Germany and Italy and Spain and Greece and Portugal-financially China is at a better place compared to that group. The country I am really concerned about right now is America. Europe is trying to solve its demographic problem by letting in immigrants from North Africa and the middle-east but racism resides there like a fat tick and European nationalism is growing like crazy (Greece everyone). By the time Europe gets its act together on the demographic issue China would have already solved it and moved on to other pressing issues.
LikeLike
@Kartoffel,
Agree with your last statement.
Anyhow, tens of millions of Chinese are now trying to LEAVE, esp. those with money and move both their families and their resources OUT.
There are other demographic problems besides the decreasing work force and aging population (with no pension and no or few children), including
– the severe gender imbalance caused by the one child policy and the preference for boys
– the hukou system effect on the migrant population.
-ethnic unrest
The USA’s demographic issues are minor in comparison.
LikeLike
China also holds 20% of U.S. debt (1.26 trillion) more then any other country. If China collapses that’s going to effect the U.S. dollar. It also makes it less likely the U.S. would go to war against China as that would likely destroy the U.S. dollar.
If their is a weak link in American imperialism then it’s in the American dollar.
All banks excluding N. Korea, Vensuvalia and Iran are systemically linked through the exchange of Sovreign bonds and securities. World deficit spending is around 57 trillion dollars and that’s part of the global banking system the West relies on to hold together it’s monetary hegemony. So what happens in Greece does matter because a collapse their triggers collapses in other countries where their unable to pay even the interest on that debt.
I suspect one of the reasons the West want to bring Iran to the table is because they need Iranian Sovreign bonds to shore up the Euro. Iran is running deficits but as the world’s fourth largest oil producer they have something behind their currency.
I think the chink in the armor of the West is its monetary system which if it collapses puts the world into entire new territory.
LikeLike
@villagewriter
How?
I really think you grossly underestimate China’s demographic problems.
LikeLike
@v8driver
“@somaliprince have you read the 48 laws of power, it kind of reminds me of that, what you are saying with your ‘rules of the game.’”
Indeed, many different sectors have their own laws/rules. Because, once you understand that a game is being played, then you can start developing strategies to win it.
The 48 laws of power apply to the world of business. 50 Cent, for example, is said to be a student of those laws. 50 Cent is someone that I would call ‘super-black’.
He came from nothing. He does not complain or whine about ‘past ills’ like merrimay and Kiwi do, instead he accepts the realities of the Game and plots to win.
In International Politics, the Game is governed by the 11 Immutable Laws of the Game of Empires.
Beyond those Laws, there is nothing else. If you lose the Game, you cannot run to the police and ask for your ‘wallet’ back.
Morality is a concept that exists only within a State. It does not exist within International Politics.
Do not fool yourself into believing the Empire. The Empire will tell you that it is ‘ethical’. It never is.
After all, a human being’s ‘morality’ is often influenced by the state in which he is raised. So the morality Kiwi is appealing to is not a universal morality, it is a morality his ‘adopted’ Empire taught him.
There is only one rule in International Politics: Surivival of the fittest.
The Empire will do whatever it takes to advance its cause.
And remember Law 3:
3 – If an Empire’s civilians do not believe a war justified, the Empire will ‘find’ the necessary evidence to convince the civilians that it is.
LikeLike
@Villagewriter,
Also, have you spent much time in Japan?
I really don’t get how you got your notions about race and ethnic identity in China and Japan as it does not match my experience, observation and study for the past 35 years.
LikeLike
@Jefe
Are you going to debunk what I have said without asking me whether I have been to this and that place or not? Because I find that laughable. I am not American but I comment several times about America and Abagond doesn’t go “have you been to America?” (try that trick on somebody else).
@Karfortell
America has been doing it, why not China? Britain did it in the 70s and 80s by letting in Pakistanis, why not China? Its not like American demographic issues are on the healthy side of the scale either. As I have said China acts more than it speaks and it can let in as many people as it wants to survive the game between world powers. They are aware that they are playing a life or death game.
LikeLike
@jefe
I think you are underestimating China.
The declining demographic (or the aging) would only really be a problem if China did not move to a developed economy stage.
Once China has become a services based economy (rather than a manufacturing based economy), then it will do as the West does: outsource cheap labour.
If the problem ever does get as bad as the West then it may also start to import foreign labour.
But I doubt this will happen soon. As you probably know yourself, China’s population is still immeasurably vast and there are still many many areas that have not fully urbanised.
Are you a speaker of the Mandarin language? It is a beautiful language.
LikeLike
@villagewriter,
No, not at all, I am not debunking what you said based on whether or not you have been somewhere. I was just curious.
But it is more a case such as, if you said that US television presents a fair and equitable representation of its population, I would ask you if you watch much US TV (just out of curiosity, not to use that as a basis to debunk any assertion).
If someone is making assertions that simply make no sense then it might invoke such a curious question.
Would you be less offended if I asked you if you could read or understand Chinese and Japanese (so that you could follow their media)?
BTW, America’s demographic status is 1000% more healthy than China’s on MANY MYRIAD fronts, partially due to its immigration policy and its experience with it, as well as its freedom of movement. One might make a bold speculation that China will change its immigration policy, but based on what it has been doing, it is nearly inconceivable. Over a hundred thousand Africans have settled in Guangzhou. How do you think that is going?
I think it is more likely that it will make reforms to its hukou system (it has to at some point), but that will come WAY before any major shift in immigration policy. They do not want more people in China, esp. if they are not Han Chinese.
LikeLike
@Michaeljonbarker
“China also holds 20% of U.S. debt (1.26 trillion) more then any other country. If China collapses that’s going to effect the U.S. dollar. It also makes it less likely the U.S. would go to war against China as that would likely destroy the U.S. dollar. ”
Exactly. There is not going to be a party anywhere if China collapses. It is an irony that our children will study in history books for years to come.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
“China also holds 20% of U.S. debt (1.26 trillion) more then any other country. If China collapses that’s going to effect the U.S. dollar. It also makes it less likely the U.S. would go to war against China as that would likely destroy the U.S. dollar.”
Whilst you did not do it yourself, it is a common argument within Republican circles that ‘China owns all our debt’.
This is not really the case:
‘China owns about 8 percent of publicly held U.S. debt.’
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/ss/How-Much-US-Debt-Does-China-Own.htm
And as of April 2015, Japan had surpassed China as the biggest debt holder.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/15/news/economy/japan-china-us-debt-treasury/
The reality is that China holds a lot of US bonds because China has been desperately trying to keep its currency under control and the world’s reserve currency is the US Dollar.
So whatever Republicans might say, China holding US debt doesn’t mean much.
Even if the US attacked China, what would China do? Sell all its debt? That would subsequently push ups its own currency (hot money) and give it a short run economic slowdown (just as it enters war).
Or it may buy the debt of another country but whose debt would it buy? European countries are still not out of their debt problem, they would lose a lot of money if they decided to switch to German bonds.
LikeLike
@Somali Prince,
I use Mandarin and Cantonese daily, and have done so since the 1970s (and another dialect even before that). This is the case when I am in the USA and anywhere else I go. In fact, I am reading factory reports in Chinese right now for a client request.
When I go to China, I interview factory workers from various provinces.
I can tell you that factories are already very serious labour shortages already.
I think you are grossly underestimating China’s demographic problems. The problem is not that there are large areas not “fully urbanized”. Outsourcing cheap labour will not solve their demographic problems. I actually think they will have to solve them by much more tragic methods, even more tragic than the forced abortions in the 1980s-2000s.
LikeLike
@villagewriter
If China did start to collapse, it would be desperate to acquire funds, it would do this by selling whatever debt it owns and raising capital on its own markets.
Whilst this may mean US Bond market would no longer have on of its best clients, the US dollar is still the world’s reserve currency.
There will always be clients for US Bonds.
And anyway, we’ve seen before that if demand ever does slow for US Bonds, the US Government just sets QE into motion.
LikeLike
@Jefe
You know you, you are not making any sense either because it seems like you think the Chinese are either block heads or that the problems they face have never been faced by any other country that currently calls itself a first world country. The Africans that settled in China may face some problems but so do the black people of India and the Pakistanis in Britain and AAs in America- so, what is the point you are trying to make.
And what does Han Chinese actually mean? The original Han Chinese assimilated all the people they conquered. Here is an except from theguardian.com
“The two ethnic groups that remain fundamentally different from the Han Chinese – in terms of history, culture, language, religion and physical appearance – are the Uighurs and Tibetans”
These two groups do no threaten Chinese hegemony.
“BTW, America’s demographic status is 1000% more healthy than China’s on MANY MYRIAD fronts, partially due to its immigration policy and its experience with it, as well as its freedom of movement.”
Okay, so what will they do with their perfect demographics in case China collapses- feed them soot? The 1 percent will not be able to save the economy.
LikeLike
@Somali Prince
Yes, if the US will be able to overhaul its “man-eat-man” economic system soon enough. Many countries have started avoiding the US dollar because they know there is disaster coming. They may be right they may be wrong.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
I more or less agree with what you said (except I agree that Somali prince that your figure might be exaggerated), but I don’t think that supports villagewriter’s arguments at all.
China’s collapse will not be in America’s interest and will affect its monetary system (I am not sure if it would completely collapse – its effect may not be as great as you imagine) and I agree that in some respects, the monetary systems of many western countries are in feeble shape and China might have enough foreign reserves to help them emerge a winner there.
But none of that will stave off China’s demographic problems, which I think are 100 times (no, 100,000 times) worse off than the USA. A vast population means vaster problems on the horizon.
LikeLike
@jefe
You seem more knowledgeable than me. I speak Chinese myself and work as a commodities trader, so I interact daily with Chinese clients. I studied at one of China’s universities in my younger days.
Would you not argue that the fact that labour within the mainland is becoming more expensive is simply a side effect of its modernisation?
ie, young people are no longer desperate to slave away in manufacturing jobs if they can just get a service job in one of the main cities.
In other words, China is becoming a service based economy and as such, will eventually focus more on the high-skilled sectors (the Chinese are, after all, very well educated).
China will therefore become a ‘Middle Kingdom’ once again by providing high-skilled services to neighbouring countries (consulting, investment banking, accounting etc).
These industries used to be the preserve of the West but I would argue that the Chinese are making great strides.
LikeLike
@Jefe
“But none of that will stave off China’s demographic problems, which I think are 100 times (no, 100,000 times) worse off than the USA. A vast population means vaster problems on the horizon.”
Provide links that prove your assertions because now it sound like you are throwing figures all over the place. According to you, Japan will not exist in a few decades because its population problem is worse than that in China. The Japanese are going extinct in a few years people!
LikeLike
@ Samali Prince
Just because China owns less debt now doesn’t mean the debt they currently have can’t still be used for political leverage. If China was to dump all those securities on the market tomorrow it would cause the dollar to collapse.
LikeLike
@everyone
The main problem with a Chinese collapse would be the sudden drop in demand for Western debt.
Markets could panic, rates would rise and there would be a liquidity crisis.
But the situation would not be the same as with Greece. Greece was heavily indebted whereas China is still, on the whole, a debtholder.
If international markets lost faith in China, the Chinese would have to do as the Japanese did (raise debt from their own people).
Whilst there may a financial crisis in the rest of the world (as happened when the Japanese bubble burst in the 90s), I don’t think it will be as bad as say 2008-09.
Interest rates would shoot up but, at the same time, confidence in the West could rise again and people might move all their money into US/German bonds.
The real disaster would be for the developing economies that are highly dependent on China (increasingly, African nations).
LikeLike
Somali prince,
By no means do I think America’s demographic situation is perfect, and I don’t think the Chinese are blockheads. They indeed must have have an army of bureaucrats working on their demographic issues. After all, they just decided to start a “two-child” policy a few weeks ago.
I think that they may be already prepared to accept tragic solutions. That have done so in the past.
If there is any relaxation in immigration in the near future, it might be possible in the context of men looking for wives (as was done, say, in Taiwan), but as it will more likely be poorer and rural men who cannot marry, they might not care about that too much.
China has invested in infrastructure much more than its social welfare system. The overextended social welfare system contributed to demise in Europe, but in China we have the opposite problem.
LikeLike
@Everyone
Dont forget that Europe is currently swimming with sharks; lets hope the sharks do not bite soon. China does not exist in a vacuum just lime America does not exist in a vacuum.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
But who would the Chinese sell to?
There is always demand for US bonds and the US dollar is still the reserve currency. In any case, if supply were to exceed demand excessively, the Fed could always step in.
The real problem would be that the RMB would increase and that China has been relying on a low value currency for a long time.
LikeLike
@michaeljonbarker
Also, the RMB is still currently pegged to the US dollar.
LikeLike
@villagewriter,
OK, I was perhaps exaggerating a bit by throwing out figures like that, and I will look later for some links, but I have been working with social insurance and labour issues for over a decade, and I am really concerned about the pension system. What ever, dear lord, can they do about that?
I don’t think Japan’s demographic prospects are worse than China’s. I think China is facing a bigger crisis down the road that has not arrived yet.
LikeLike
Nobody is saying that an economic collapse in China would be fun for the rest of the world. The stock crash in summer already had a noticable effect on the German economy. But it will effect the rest of the world less than China itself and in terms of relative power that is a gain.
LikeLike
@ Somali Prince
I believe you are aware that the US Federal Reserve has been printing money like there is no tomorrow. What trick do you think they are going to play to keep this game going? Not even oil or colonization is going to save us from disaster.
LikeLike
@Kartfortel
I don’t know whether this is realistic but I prefer it if China gets more power to balance things out. The reason for this is that I think America will turn Africa into the Middle-East in a few years to come. We have a huge Muslim population here and Americans can use the pretense of terrorism just as effectively. I am not a fan of China but I believe they are necessary at least in this century.
LikeLike
@SP OK to reply to you.
That is a partial explanation.
Another explanation is the rapid decrease in new entrants to the workforce and less dependable migration from the countryside.
Yes, probably, we will see a move in that direction.
definitely more than before, but it is not very even at all. At the same time, the hukou system has created a poorly educated possibly permanent underclass. We only notice more Chinese seeking and acquiring higher education because there are so many of them.
M-m-m-h, possible, but not in the short term. Hong Kong and Singapore will still be doing most of that for the near future.
They are making strides, but still not there. I think in the short term, they will make more contributions to foreign infrastructure.
LikeLike
@villagewriter
Yes, QE has been going on for a while now, and for years everyone said that inflation would occur (like it did with the Germans).
But it didn’t, and the main reason for that, as well as know, is that America is the Empire.
Anytime any other economies suffer, everyone rushes to put their money in the Empire for safety (much as immigrants do :))
the USD is the world’s reserve currency.
If China did wobble, where would everyone rush to? US bond markets.
They can keep the trick going as long as they want. If demand stays steady, they can print however much they want.
It is one of the reasons Empires are so keen to keep winning.
If the US ever does start to lose the Game, inflation will rear its ugly head and disaster will follow.
Which is why the Empire cannot stop waging wars. A victorious Empire is one with a healthy bond market.
LikeLike
@Somali Prince
But the empire already reached its peak in the 50s- they have to lie to their own people to keep the lie of success alive. They have turned their people in wage slaves and stolen from them to the point where they now need to go on a massive stealing expedition to solve that problem. The 1 percent do not want to move an inch to allow other people to climb the ladder of success and even Europe is growing wary of the US. This game, I believe, is coming to a close. Where will they drop the nuclear bomb first?
LikeLike
@jefe
Essentially, I agree with you jefe. Chinese have a time bomb on their hand. If they cannot change to a service based economy in time (and in doing so, provide a future for its citizens), the Chinese will face increasing internal strife.
I feel this is something that is not often mentioned. The Democratic-deficit will soon play a part. The Chinese accepted this democratic deficit when growth was 10%. But will they keep accepting it?
China needs to become more ‘Western’ like, but as you pointed out, the West did not have its current demographic problems until well into its development.
The Chinese already have Western demographics but have not yet reached the Western stage (i.e. 70% of GDP is consumption).
LikeLike
@villagewriter
Well, as we all know, fellow readers, economic collapse often precedes warfare.
The Empire will not go out without a bang. And you are right, inequality is rising in the West mainly because the financial system was stacked in favour of the 1%.
I do not mean to sound like an anti-capitalist (after all, I am a trader), but the bail-outs, the QE, the Too-Big-To-Fail, (whilst I think they were necessary) had the unintended consequences of drastically increasing inequality.
Growing inequality is also an indicator of incoming problems.
Remember, in the Theory of Chaos and Perpetual-F*ck-Ups, F*ck-Ups are perpetual.
LikeLike
@ somaliprince
You may call me names: neo-black, new-black, etc. (I prefer the term ‘super black’) but what may it advance?
I think I know where you got your frame of ideas: The Capitalist Nigger by Chika Onyeani.
Your super black is nothing more than his capitalist nigger!
Voilá!
P.S.: You can download a file with Chika Onyeani’s thoughts about the Black man (woman) condition worldwide and proposals for a way out by googling “the capitalist nigger”. A downloadable .pdf file appears. It’s free! And interesting reading too…
LikeLike
I believe China is going to surprise us just as it surprised the world by lifting millions of people out of poverty in a short-time. All developed nations have had problems that are almost similar to what China is facing. But they stole, raped, grabbed until they became as rich as the have become. Recently, they employed “juju-economics” and found themselves in a recession and they are trying more “juju-economics” to get out of it.
LikeLike
@villagewriter
Yes, as far as I am concerned, the Chinese are the original players of the Game. After all, they wrote the Art of War.
They are the most worthy of opponents.
But remember, do not let racism, prejudice or hatred cloud your judgement.
Respect the Game and its players.
I am currently backing the Chinese. I think they will surprise us.
I am also looking forward to seeing the fall of the current Empire. Not because of any hatred towards it but simply because it has been dominant for so long, it has grown arrogant.
And the more arrogant an Empire is, the more spectacularly it falls.
LikeLike
And remember, I am not neo-black, I am not new-black, I prefer the term super-black.
I also have a new quote, if you don’t mind the addition:
‘I have been many things and I have suffered many defeats, but even in the throes of the lowest defeat, I will never be victim-black’
LikeLike
I am not blinded by hate; we were ruled by a dictator for 24 years what kept us going was good survival tactics not victim-hood. We got him out of power and sent him home with some of the loot he stole. I come from a country of survivors. I don’t believe in hating a whole race of people (In Africa the idea of hating a whole group of people because of skin color is seen as foreign).
@Jefe
I may not be from China and may not speak Mandarin but I get my information from good sources. I am a very avid reader and I am interested in China because they have been investing in my country and some of my neighbors are Chinese. I do not get my information about America from news broadcast networks either I read and my relatives in America also tell me what is going on over there. I hope your curiosity is satisfied. My contributions about China are valid and I do not care whether you work there and speak their languages there are sources that also work there and they disagree with your assertions. If you want links, I can provide them. Maybe write a book.
LikeLike
@villagewriter
I hope you do not mind the indiscretion, but may I ask where you are from?
My guess would be Kenya and that you are therefore referring to Daniel arap Moi?
An Empire must be well run, or else the people will revolt. You (the people) were victorious and that is all that matters.
LikeLike
@Kiwi
Yes, that is a good point.
I know little about India but they don’t appear to have made the waves they were expected to make.
It would be good to get a contribution from someone who knows more about India.
Conflict between India and China is a reall possibility. They have a shared border and have already had numerous disputes over territory.
LikeLike
@ Somaliprince..
I want to apologise for calling you a troll. I visited your blog and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There another online persona called SomaliPrince, which I thought might be you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@munubantu
I only saw your post now, perhaps it was marked as ‘Spam’. The word you uttered, I do not utter it.
My ideas are not my own, they come from many years of learning.
I had a look at the Wikipedia page of the book you mentioned, and all I see are lazy racial stereotypes. I care little for those.
Remember Laws 8 and 9:
8 – Racism belongs to inferior minds. Intelligence and ability are equally distributed amongst all groups. Racism equates to underestimating your enemy.
9 – Never underestimate your enemy. Always be respectful and courteous to your rival. Accept that you may one day be in his position and that he may one day be in yours. If your enemy is stronger, respect his strength and learn from him as much as you can. If you are to defeat him, you must learn the secrets of his ways.
@Kenza
Thank you for your message.
LikeLike
That picture on this thread reminds me now of russia’s plane getting shot down by turkey, and the pilots lived, even, supposedly.
LikeLike
[…] “Top mass murders of 2015“ by Abagond […]
LikeLike
@Kiwi
Well, to be fair, I know people who have said similar things to when France was attacked. Something along the lines of “I don’t feel bad for France because of their legacy of colonialism”, or something to that effect.
LikeLike
Kiwi, the silence on the recent Côte d’Ivore beach-attacks in your article (or for that matter, in your comment) is deafening.
Why is that? Do you think that Turkish lives have more value than Ivorian ones, maybe?
On-topic and all BS aside, the problem here is that the Turks are fighting the Kurds, the Kurds are fighting ISIS, and ISIS is fighting “The West.”
Thus, the Kurds happen to be the allies of “The West” against the ISIS-terrorists. As a result of this, Turkey bombing Kurdish cities is deplorable at least. That said, Kurds retaliating by bombing Turkish cities is equally deplorable.
However, in this case it is not easy to give an unconditional, one-sided condemnation of the Ankara/Istanbul bombings, without getting entangled in even more complicated political issues.
LikeLike
@ Kiwi
The obvious difference between Germany and Turkey is that the former invested a lot in the atonement of the past. Examplified by the fact that Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany while admittance of the Armenian genocide is illegal in Trukey.
I do feel myself less sympathy with a given society the more i perceive them as self-centered and chauvinistic. Pretty far up the ladder: Russia, Pakistan, Serbia and Poland.
But of course morally it doesn’t make sense to deny pity and grief to people from these nations, as they are not individually responsible for a toxic discourse.
LikeLike
Linda says,
Lame excuses…. other countries are getting attacked by terrorists and I haven’t seen Americans or Europeans gathering at those embassies to place flowers for the victims, much less lower flags and light up the Eiffel Tower.
the point is that INNOCENT people are dying in the name of religion and politics and these innocent people are not in control of their countries National Agenda’s.
The Turkish people who died were not soldiers or politicians — they did not make the decision for their country to fight the Kurds or support ISIS
The Turkish victims are just as innocent as the Belgium, French, Indonesian, Nigerian, Burkina Fasoan, Senegalese, Libyan, Kenyan, Malian, Chadic, and Ivorian victims who all have suffered terrorist attacks this past year because of religion and politics
they only thing you have said that I agree with, is that Americans/western media don’t seem to give a sh’t about Africans being attacked by terrorists, nor has Abagond discussed it much on this blog.
Israel has African refugees living in concentration camps in the desert.. not a word has been spoken about it
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Linda
Lame excuses…. other countries are getting attacked by terrorists and I haven’t seen Americans or Europeans gathering at those embassies to place flowers for the victims, much less lower flags and light up the Eiffel Tower.
the point is that INNOCENT people are dying in the name of religion and politics and these innocent people are not in control of their countries National Agenda’s.
If you mean to say that the reactions to the Brussels attacks is somewhat hysterical as compared with attacks on other parts of the world; then we agree with that.
We could discuss some details more in-depth on why those reactions are more hysterical. And if you want it: it is OK with me. However, I am absolutely fine with the discussion as it is right now.
LikeLike
incirlik is a major nato air base be sure they will not jeopardize that in the media
LikeLike
@v8driver
Good point. That is why the US is letting Turkey run amok in the region. That is also why the US stabbed their Kurdish “allies” in the back, all for a strategic piece of gravel.
LikeLike
LikeLike
@v8driver
The American taxpayer gets to foot the bill for all of this craziness.
Meanwhile, our roads are full of potholes, bridges falling down, water poisoned and schools are closed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Jeff Elberfeld
Still, it’s just as Linda said: you are giving lame excuses. Turkey was attacked by ISIS, too, but I didn’t notice any US flags being lowered to half mast on the days that occurred. Being a NATO ally has its perks, I guess.
I thought the discussion was ended in a satisfactory way, but I see I was wrong.
All right. Last Sunday in India, fireworks at the Puttingal temple killed at least 106 people and injured more than 500. Those are more innocent victims than any of the terrorist incidents outside Syria or Iraq.
Something I cannot figure out is why I did not see ANYONE on social media mourn for the victims in Puttingal.
Not those who mourned for Brussels, nor those who criticized the first group, and claimed that every innocent victim, regardless race, nationality or religion should have an equal share of grief.
So Linda and Kiwi, what have you done sofar for the victims in India?
LikeLike