The Shotgun Blog
« Gay rights | Main | It was Danny Williams' choice »
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
"Black Folks We'd Like To Remove From Black History"
OJ Simpson, Idi Amin, Marion Barry, John Allen Muhammad (the D.C. Sniper) and,,,,Clarence Thomas. Yeap. Thomas isn't an upstanding member of the black community because he opposes big government and supports a limited interpretation of the constitution. Instead he is fit to be mentioned in the same breath as murderers, tyrants and crooked politicos. There are also digs at GOP Chairman Michael Steele and Alan Keyes. While Steele can legitimately be criticized for his inept handling of the party, he and Keyes are really being attacked for not being Obama fawning Democrats. From Roots:
Although he's only the second man of color to serve in the Supreme Court, the Backstreet Boys have more standing in the black community than Clarence Thomas. That's because he looks to the Constitution as "colorblind," says he's a man who just happens to be black and opposes government programs intended to help minorities. I'm not sure if the late Thurgood Marshall would want to pop Clarence 'side his head with his gavel, but there are plenty of blacks who would volunteer to do it for him.
Freedom and individualism, it seems to the authors, is a white thing. Wandering off the Democratic welfare state plantation earns you a designation as an Uncle Tom. The Democrats party elite appreciates this political tribalism. The party consistently trades the interests of blacks for those of more important groups within the Democratic coalition, particularly the white dominated middle class teachers unions. But it's Clarence Thomas and Alan Keyes that are the sell outs? Collectivism at its dumbest.
Posted by Richard Anderson on February 23, 2010 | Permalink
Comments
I'd like to add George S Schuyler and the "Radical Republicans" in Congress just after the Civil War. They wanted to stop Jim Crow before it started, even though they failed.
Posted by: Floyd Looney | 2010-02-23 7:06:55 AM
It really is time the U.S. outgrew identity politics. But I doubt it will, at least until the generation that perfected them kicks off. Old political habits, like old drug habits, are tough to kick.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-23 8:13:23 AM
Wouldn't this just turn African American history into Canadian "history" - a pack of lies masquerading as heritage? In such a version, Afro-Canadians would be nothing but pliant blacks happy and content following benevolent paternalist whites, while being denied human rights, voting and jobs. Homie don't play that.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-23 3:19:34 PM
Marcus Garvey and Mrs. Mittie Maude Lena Gordon:
Mississippi's Theodore ("The Man") Bilbo arose in the Senate one day last week to display a bulky petition. It bore,said he, the names of 2,500,000 U. S. Negroes who would prefer to live in Africa. For three-and-a-half hours and 26 pages in the Congressional Record, he expanded on a way to make this possible: let the Government establish a Greater Liberia for "repatriated" blacks.Mr. Bilbo thus returned to a favorite theme and revived an idea older than the U. S. itself. By subsidizing a Negro exodus to Africa, he maintained, the U. S. would rid its whites of a depressed and depressing race, save itself from racial "amalgamation."(George S Schuyler's plan)
"By this separation," droned little Mr. Bilbo, "the blood stream of the white race shall remain uncontaminated and all the . . . blessings of the white man's civilization shall forever remain the priceless possession of the Anglo-Saxon. . . . There is an overmastering impulse, a divine afflatus among the mass of the Negroes of the U. S. for a country of their own. . . ."
In support of his bill to create Greater Liberia, Senator Bilbo quoted Thomas Jefferson, founder-hero of the Democratic Party. He declared that 20,000 mulattoes annually "cross the color line" (pass for whites). If miscegenation goes on unchecked, he predicted the U. S. will become a land of decadent mongrels, "a yellow race yet to come."
Listening in the Senate gallery was Mrs. Mittie Maude Lena Gordon, a portly mulatto from Chicago. Mrs. Gordon raises her cream-coffee arms, shouts to her audiences: "There's amalgamation for you! See what it does to us!" Most of the "signatures" on Mr. Bilbo's petition were gathered from 45 States by her Peace Movement of Ethiopia, a repatriationist cult which has its headquarters at her apartment on Chicago's South Side. Bales of letters, cards, X-ed scraps of paper are stacked in every cranny, and more still pour in. Last week some 300 of her followers, who mostly are on Relief (as is she), arrived in Washington by truck and car, so fagged that they could hardly drag themselves up the Capitol steps to hear their friend from Mississippi.
Mittie Gordon was a follower of famed Negro Marcus Garvey, who in the 1920s aroused millions of Negroes to a frenzy of enthusiasm for life in Africa.
Posted by: Jim | 2010-02-23 4:08:10 PM
Black history? Please give us a break. There is no such thing as black history, brown history, white history or female history. This stupidity is a product of identity politics.
However there is Canadian history, which has not been taught in a long time, and which includes everyone.
Zeb, give the racist card a rest. Try spending some time in China and you can learn what real racism and discrimination are. Personally I have no patience with anyone playing the race or identity card just as I have none for racists of any colour or sex.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-02-23 6:11:17 PM
Don't expect congratulations for acknowledging the role of non-whites in Canadian history yet. You may have expanded the breadth of the characters in your past, but your depth remains unexamined. You white people delude yourselves with fantasies about a tolerant paradise north of the 49th parallel. White Canada, English in particular, depended on the exploitation, marginalizing and degradation of non-whites for their prosperity. They may have signed treaties with the Indians, but considering the horrible conditions in which they live, you might as well have exterminated them. Your country had racially restrictive immigration policies for most of its history. Wilfrid Laurier himself signed an order banning blacks from emigrating. Only after 1945, well into the 1960s in fact, did your country relent in such policies. The trouble, however, had just started. Without a major non-white population in your society, whites did not have to compete with them for jobs or homes. Now you did, and look at the results: rampant bigotry. No need for the KKK when you had the Toronto School Board. RCMP and Toronto cops are eerily reminiscent of the South African Police during the Apartheid Era when it comes to dealing with non-whites. For shame.
Canadian "history" is a pack of lies. Your past is a laundry list of atrocities for which you people have yet to atone. If anti-American bigotry was included, you people would rank with the fascist states as purveyors of institutional racism. You people need major upheaval, and merely appointing a non-white as Governor General isn't enough. This places you people about 60 years behind that of the United States. When it comes to racism, Canada won't be owning any podiums.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-23 7:16:11 PM
Canada won't be owning any podiums.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-23 7:16:11 PM
So what would be your solution Zeb ??
Posted by: peterj | 2010-02-23 11:19:33 PM
Start writing, teaching and displaying a more nuanced and accurate history - abandon this "happy-go-lucky" unified people theory and start acknowledging atrocities committed by whites against others.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-24 5:12:11 AM
Do you acknowledge atrocities committed by "others" against whites, Zeb? Or, for that matter, "others" against "others"? Is it the atrocities you object to, or the fact that one group took a more organized approach to it than the others?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-24 8:34:15 AM
All of the above, but the balance sheet is quite clear: whites committed the most atrocities. Whites must acknowledge their responsibility for past actions in the form of monuments, updated curriculum and civic action. They must be softened by this experience, and their victims empowered at the same time. Social justice will emerge from this process.
However, I fully expect white Canada, and white Ontario in particular, to fail at this. They will resent any revision of their static, obsolete view of history. In so doing, they will expose themselves as racist reactionaries unwilling to change. This is a good thing - it too will empower non-whites into action. Only good things can come from this. We shall overcome.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-24 10:03:45 AM
It should be no surprise, that the Black Panthers want to forget about people who don't fit their mold. They've already convinced their offspring there were no white people in the civil rights movement. This is just another nail in the white man's coffin.
If it weren't for white people working their asses off to organize the civil rights movement, it would never have gotten off the ground. It would have degenerated into a series of riots, and the different groups would have started fighting with each other, resulting in thousands of casualties, and further segregation.
Wait, I just realized, that happened anyway.
Posted by: dp | 2010-02-24 10:44:46 AM
Zeb, try explaining how your hate and racism differs from that of the KKK. It is all the same and like any poison does more harm to the person who hates than to the one he hates.
On the subject of "atrocities" or injustice having been committed, there have been just as much by one group as another if one takes an honest look at their past. Furthermore, white immigrants were just as often victims of injustice at the hands of other whites, so I agree that the past, in fact the past of any group or nation, was never a perfect world. Still every group and nation has things of which to be proud and to ignore that and to teach only the negative is not the truth either.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-02-24 12:15:14 PM
This is but a sample of what the civil rights movement wrought:
" The Pearcy Massacre must be added to the ever-growing list of racial atrocities committed by blacks against whites (and against blacks who love whites) made equally invisible by the national MSM:
Harlem’s “Blood Brothers” lynchings;
the Black Panthers’ and Black Liberation Army’s cop-killing campaigns;
Illinois’ “De Mau Mau Murders”;
St. Croix’ “Fountain Valley Massacre” (this version of the story, awarded a Pulitzer Prize, mixed racial censorship with racial misdirection in order to transform a story about genocidal black supremacy into one about police corruption and the need for gun control!);
Mark Essex’ New Orleans killing spree;
the Ogden, Utah “Hi-Fi Shop Murders”;
the Polytechnic Heights (the author, Scott Cummings, renamed the neighborhood, “Rosedale”) murders carried out by a Fort Worth, Texas gang;
the Kilgore (TX) Massacre;
Colin Ferguson’s Long Island Railroad Massacre;
Clifford aka Clifton McCree;
the Wichita Massacre;
the DC Sniper Murders;
the Knoxville Horror;
the Kirkwood (MO) Massacre;
the Winchester Atrocity (also here);
Oakland mass cop-killer Lovelle Mixon;
Seattle-area mass cop-killer Maurice Clemmons;
Florida’s Yahweh ben Yahweh cult murders;
Carl “Coral” Eugene Watts;
Los Angeles’ John Floyd Thomas Jr.,—if allegations against him hold up;
the Nation of Islam’s cross-country, mass murder campaign … and thousands of others."
http://www.vdare.com/stix/100209_pearcy_massacre.htm
Of course who can forget the Nation of Islam’s cross-country, mass murder campaign … and thousands of others(the Zebra murders).
"The Zebra murders were the work of one unit of the Death Angels, a group within the Nation of Islam (NOI). According to the Nation of Islam's beliefs, the white race was created by a scientist named Yakub. Furthermore, the Death Angels believed that they could earn "points" towards Paradise when they died if they killed as many whites as possible. The NOI's teachings present whites not as human beings, but variously as "blue-eyed devils," "white devils," and "grafted snakes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_murders
Posted by: bez | 2010-02-24 1:06:08 PM
I simply ask that past atrocities be brought into your history, which is too clean and neat to be credible. Acknowledging transgressions will stimulate debate on your national pasts. Hopefully social change will come of it. However, as the post above indicates, this is highly unlikely given the extremely high levels of racism in Canada.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-24 4:31:56 PM
Social change will come of it. The denial of mass atrocities of blacks against whites by the national MSM will ensure that the low grade racial war of hatred by blacks against whites will continue unabated. However, as the above post indicates this hatred of the white man, by ethnic minorities, will continue until much more white blood is spilled.
* “Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against other blacks.” Forty-five percent of the victims of violent crime by blacks are white folks, 43 percent are black, 10 percent are Hispanic.* Blacks are seven times as likely as people of other races to commit murder, eight times more likely to commit robbery and three times more likely to use a gun in a crime.
* “Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit violent crime against a white person than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.” (If decent black folks have trouble hailing a cab, and they do, these numbers may help explain it.)
* Black-on-white rape is 115 times more common than the reverse.
Even the two most famous sexual assaults by white men on black women in the last two decades – the Tawana Brawley and Duke rape cases – turned out to be hoaxes.
What do these statistics tell us? A message the Post will not report. The real repository of racism in America – manifest in violent interracial assault, rape and murder – is to be found not in the white community, but the African-American community. In almost all interracial attacks, whites are the victims, not the victimizers.
http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-the-color-of-crime-826
Posted by: bez | 2010-02-24 4:56:11 PM
So that legitimizes the rampant bigotry in Canada?
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-24 5:41:41 PM
The problem is that there is a destructive socialist mindset in America's black community. Outside the box thinkers are often attacked as Uncle Tom's or OREO's. Here is a troubling stat. Obama started his presidency with a 91% approval rating among blacks. In the latest gallup polling, Obama still has a 91% approval among blacks although his numbers have dropped significantly among all other groups. In 2008, Obama got 96% of the black vote. Yet, in 1960, Kennedy got only 78% of the Catholic vote when running to be the first Catholic president. In Detroit, and other heavily black metro areas, the black population continues a 50 year tradition of voting for black Democrat candidates who continue to push leftist policies that have been destroyingthe social fabric of black neighborhoods. Until the black population rises enmass against its leftist leadership, non-liberal blacks will be mocked and ridiculed.
Posted by: Bob | 2010-02-24 6:01:31 PM
The best thing any state could do would be to terminate every form of identity politics, so that we could get on with seeing people as human beings and judge them by their behaviour rather than the colour of their skin or their sex.
The comments by bez reflect the problem. Racism is racism no matter who perpetuates it. Those who commit crimes should face the same treatment regardless of their identity. Thanks to the promotion of identity politics people are not treated equal due to fear of being accused of being racist. Does O.J. Simpson ring a bell? The Left and its policies are mostly responsible for the breakdown of the black American family which has resulted in a major increase in crime. It is not genetic.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-02-24 6:22:16 PM
I have no idea why comments are now appearing in bold.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-02-24 6:52:53 PM
Looking into that one Alain. Thanks for your thoughtful comments, the extremists looked like they were taking over there...
Posted by: Publius | 2010-02-24 7:37:10 PM
Comments are most likely appearing in bold because of an unclosed HTML tag, most likely in Bez's post. This server is rather unforgiving of those. It's happened to me a few times, too.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-24 8:17:08 PM
So it was Shane.
Posted by: Publius | 2010-02-24 9:01:01 PM
Whites did NOT commit the most atrocities against "others," Zeb. They merely documented them better. Since until recently whites interacted primarily with each other, they primarily slew each other. Many of the most comprehensive slaughters in history have been the slaughter of whites by other whites.
Also, whites tend to re-evaluate their behaviour after a reasonable lapse of time and the emotions of the day have faded, and often express remorse, going so far as to consider reparations. Hence the "liberal self-hater" and "white man's guilt" phenomena of recent times. Something else that seems largely unique to whites.
Identity politics only works because whites have an overdeveloped conscience. They're no better or worse than anyone else in terms of actual conduct, but they're more likely to regret it later—something their political opponents are quick to capitalize upon.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-24 9:11:33 PM
Don't be an idiot, Publius. The bolding began in Bez's post and I was courteous enough to include a double closing tag in my own post following so at least future posts would not be affected—a thoughtful gesture for which, I mind me, I've heard no word of thanks, only a sandbox potshot. Furthermore, you know me well enough to know that I use italics, not bold. I hadn't even posted here recently. So you knew it wasn't I who did it. Therefore you lied.
I already knew you were an ideologue and a tad immature, Publius. But it's with no little regret that I must add "liar" to the list of your character traits. And there are not many that are less admirable.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-24 9:18:23 PM
Of course disproportionately high rates of criminality, poverty and morbidity are genetically based. The evidence reported by Herrnstein and Murray in the Bell Curve in which they argued, among other things, that racial differences in crime rates resulted from racial differences in intelligence, is substantial. Murray and co-author Herrnstein implicitly argue that these differences are hereditary and imply that they are genetic.
Do you really believe Israel should terminate it's identity politics? The only rampant bigotry in Canada, (a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices) is that from ethnic groups who forever cry victim. Are we really suppose to believe that the Chinese, despite the head tax, were not better off in a White Canada, than in Mao's China where millions were slaughtered. Are US blacks really worse off in the US than their cousins in Zimbabwe who survive on trapping and eating mice? It's a joke.
Posted by: Gene | 2010-02-24 9:21:26 PM
That said, Zeb, I find Bez's numbers highly suspect. Seriously...Pat Buchanan's website? Why not just link us right to the KKK? Sorry, but I don't trust "evidence" hand-delivered to me from any emotionally invested party, be it Left or Right, Black or White, Dark or Light.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-24 9:22:30 PM
What's the matter Shane? Ashamed of your fellow Irish Catholic for telling the truth? A display of ethnomasochism at its finest.
Posted by: Gene | 2010-02-24 9:28:00 PM
Of course Irish Catholics have long held a racial animus toward the founding Americans represented by the Klan. Let me in your country you f***king racists. Gee, where have we heard that before!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Notre-Dame-Vs-Klan-Fighting/dp/0829417710
Posted by: Gene | 2010-02-24 9:37:10 PM
Start writing, teaching and displaying a more nuanced and accurate history
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-24 5:12:11 AM
This would never happen Zeb, for several reasons.
1 By revising history it would mean past authors lied
2 All children that have gone through the school system have been lied to.
3 Since school books are endorsed by provincial governments it would mean government lied....and we all know governments never lie.
4 The winners in any conflict set the rules and write the history books.
5 Maps all over the planet have changed since the beginning of recorded history and the vanquished have always had to adapt to the victors if they wanted to live in peace.
6 You can never go back
7 Natives want every amenity the white man has to offer but still want to live in the past. This does not compute and actually there is nothing there to stop them from doing so.
8 There is nothing to stop africans from going back to Africa if they don't like living amongst whites.They are free. Same with other groups that feel incompatible.
9 Since none of the past had anything to do with me, i am really tired of government apologizing on my behalf.
10 I personally like or dislike people on a individual basis and dont care what colour or race they are. To keep regurgitating the past serves no purpose except to diminish the future.
Our forefathers were what they were. We can not change that. That was then...this is now. you can adapt, or leave to go back to whatever your idea of nirvana is. We can not go back to rewrite history.
Posted by: peterj | 2010-02-24 11:19:30 PM
Shane,
"I already knew you were an ideologue and a tad immature, Publius. But it's with no little regret that I must add "liar" to the list of your character traits. And there are not many that are less admirable."
Speaking of immature. Wow. I was thanking you. Did you want flowers? Maybe a cookie. All I said was "So it was Shane." In other words, it has been fixed. But no Shane you have to jumped to the conclusion that I was insulting you. A bit of projection there Shane? How on earth do you derive an insult from my comment? You are paranoid.
Posted by: Publius | 2010-02-25 6:54:24 AM
I would like to remind the commenters that while The Shotgun encourages frank debate, we oppose any form of racism or racial discrimination. Individuals are judged by their character, not the accidents of birth.
Should this thread degenerate into racial and ethnic slurs, comments will be deleted and the post closed.
Posted by: Publius | 2010-02-25 7:04:03 AM
Who's re-writing history? That implies malicious intent. By correcting it, we're removing errors and improving the teaching of history for future generations.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-25 10:47:05 AM
Zeb, I think your comments about history are valid, if some what idealistic as Peter pointed out. In a better world Canadian history would include the ugly with the good. The problem with the ugly is that it is removed from its historical context and judged by present day values. I am not excusing the ugly totally but its historical context should be explained when addressing it.
In my opinion most of the ugly happened due to greed, and sometimes fear, rather than true racism, meaning jealousy of the new comers and fear of losing out to them economically.
Posted by: Alain | 2010-02-25 12:15:25 PM
I think it is a good thing that the past be judged by the present - it keeps history fresh, potent and able to be used in changing things. Demonstrating what white Ontario did to its native population - putting them on reservations and excluding them from the rest of society - is something that present people would (or at least they should) reel in horror. Mentioning how a handful fought for the same country that oppressed them tells the wrong story.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-25 12:23:06 PM
The problem with history like this is its written by the victors. By that I mean its biased. Most kids have no idea of the massacres that went on during the colonization of North and South America. They all get the sanitized version. As far as slavery goes, blacks to this day enslave their own. As they did in the past. Its all behavioral. If your parents, or those in your environment, do it, chances are, so will you. It has nothing to do with skin color. Judging people by skin color is as stupid as it gets. Which explains why racists are usually brain dead idiots. Clarence Thomas is just getting railroaded for having a different thought than the status quo.
Posted by: Steve Bottrell | 2010-02-25 12:58:30 PM
So the treatment of the native Americans constitutes a tragedy, but it's the Africans' own fault for their situation? Right, sure. That's appalling. They were brought to the Americas against their will by white people to work on their sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. Millions died on the way over or from overwork. Ending this atrocity was one of the great acts of humanitarianism thought its endurance speaks volumes about racial attitudes. Britain gradually abolished it, starting in 1807 and finally in 1834; France and the Netherlands did so by the 1860s. The United States endured a savage civil war over the issue, culminating in total abolition in 1865 thanks to President Abraham Lincoln. Yet slavery endured in Brazil, Cuba and other Latin American countries well into the 1880s. Africans did not enslave themselves, though in many cases (Brazil in particular) they freed themselves. White people put them in chains. History must reflect this understanding.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-25 1:32:36 PM
I agree Zeb, but the fact is, often it was black Africans who handed over other black Africans to the white slavers. It is appalling. And it happens today as well. Its sad that money and morality makes people think they are somehow better than others.
Posted by: Steve Bottrell | 2010-02-25 2:23:09 PM
Yes indeed, money and morality are a dangerous mix - look at white Toronto. They truly do think they're superior to all. They use their money to segregate themselves from the world, physically, culturally, socially and intellectually.
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-25 2:41:03 PM
Think about it, Publius. I never said in my first message, "I closed the unclosed tag." I merely explained what had happened, and that it had also happened to me. You followed up with, "So it was Shane." Since you did not explain what you meant, it follows logically that you were referring to my earlier remark, thus essentially saying, "So it was Shane (who was responsible for the boldface thingy)," since this was the last thing mentioned before your reply. I doubt I'm the only one who made this interpretation, and it certainly isn't an unreasonable one.
Let me illustrate with a f'rinstance. You approach your car in a parking lot and notice that the fender has been smacked up. You also find a note on the windshield saying, "I saw this person hit your car; his license plate is XXX XXX." While you're still absorbing this, someone comes up and says, "You know, I was just parking my car here and—" And without further explanation, you say to him, "So it was you." Now, do you think he's more likely to realize you were talking about the note (to which he has not yet confessed writing), or to think you are accusing him of doing the hit and run yourself? Be honest.
If I misinterpreted you, please accept my apologies (sincere). But in future, when you want to thank someone, may I suggest the following words: "Thank you." :-)
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-25 3:51:53 PM
What's the matter Shane? Ashamed of your fellow Irish Catholic for telling the truth? A display of ethnomasochism at its finest.
This post is a rebuttal of nothing. Your arguments for race-based crime rates also fail to convince. A thousand years ago, the Islamic world had a much better standard of living (and less crime) than the European world. The roots of crime are set in a given culture's attitude towards vice, the vigour with which it prosecutes offenders, and ultimately, in the relative strength of its family units. Cultures (and subcultures thereof) that emphasize strong families and community typically have lower crime rates. And this can be found amongst any race.
Granted, the black race is currently not doing so well compared with the others. However, blacks brought up in strong families in stable cultures perform just as well as others in the community, and their overall situation is improving. You also don't have to be Harvard material to have a conscience, so intelligence has nothing to do with it.
So what turns strong families into weak families? I'm glad you asked. SUBSTANCE ABUSE is a big one.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-25 3:59:32 PM
Who's re-writing history? That implies malicious intent. By correcting it, we're removing errors and improving the teaching of history for future generations.
Correction IS rewriting; think about it. And your corrections, as others have noted, are one-sided and incomplete. Only a full history is a useful and instructive history. Emphasizing one chapter too much is a detriment to the entire book.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-25 4:01:35 PM
I think it is a good thing that the past be judged by the present - it keeps history fresh, potent and able to be used in changing things.
Applying modern ethics to historical situations distorts the lessons of the past, represents a most unscholarly and bigoted approach (our way is better because it's ours, so everything must be viewed through this lens), and ultimately simply perpetuates bias, altering only the victims of that bias. Know what you see if you look at something blue through red-tinted glasses? Nothing.
Demonstrating what white Ontario did to its native population - putting them on reservations and excluding them from the rest of society - is something that present people would (or at least they should) reel in horror.
Did they want to become part of the rest of society? The British model of conquest always favoured assimilation; that was why conquered peoples' languages and cultures were suppressed. Keeping this up for decades thereafter takes more time, money, and effort than a simple one-time slaughter. It seems unlikely that, if First Nations had wanted to embrace the ways of "Whitey," go to their schools and work in their cities, the Ontarians would have said, "NO! In spite of your willingness to live among us, we consider it far better if we send you to the most remote, unprofitable, untenable lands vast distances from us, and to pay you subsidies and send you supplies at great cost to ourselves, till Time's last trump shall sound."
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-25 4:14:00 PM
Africans did not enslave themselves, though in many cases (Brazil in particular) they freed themselves. White people put them in chains. History must reflect this understanding.
Actually, they did. Enslavement begins from the moment of capture and sale, both of which were carried out by other Africans. Whites may have bought and exploited, but it was blacks who trapped and sold their fellowmen like beaver pelts. The chains by which the whites dragged them across the Atlantic were initially put there by blacks. Whites grazed and farmed and yoked, but the brand was put there by rustling blacks. Pick your metaphor; like blame, there's plenty of it to go round.
In any case, slavery is abolished, and no longer practiced in this country; no living man remembers the shackles of servitude on his feet. Their modern-day descendants are not eligible for compensation, and it has no place in modern policymaking.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-25 4:21:16 PM
"A thousand years ago, the Islamic world had a much better standard of living (and less crime) than the European world."
Any evidence for that assertion Shane or is just more empty rhetoric? No doubt you believe the Crusades were evil as well. The discussion was not about Islam, a religion, it was about black crime statistics in the US. (Canada is too cowardly to keep such statistics). They are derived from FBI numbers. Thus the theory is easily falsified for anyone who desires to seek the truth and not just fall back on empty slurs. No doubt you, like Bottrell live in a white neighborhood. It's the Clinton/Gore/Bush hypocrisy. They judge people by their skin color. They don't live with no Negroes, but simply whisper the right words that put them on the side of the angels.
This whole thread is a racial slur. Pike is allowed to blurt out racial animus, ad nauseum, with nary a word from an interlocutor, yet receives no admonishment. Why, because only white people are racist. Accident of birth is a fallacy. Are we born accidentally sharing our race's DNA? Herrnstein and Murray lay out a bounty of evidence that shows that IQ is strongly correlated with a variety of issues including crime. Again, a theory easily falsified for those who wish to make an effort and not simply rely on rhetorical slurs to make their case.
Posted by: Gene | 2010-02-25 4:26:53 PM
The shackles of servitude are now on your wallet.
Posted by: Steve Bottrell | 2010-02-25 4:48:18 PM
@Gene, we have all admonished Zeb for his views. We just get tired of going over the same ground time and time again. Nothing we say is going to change his stance. So why bother?
Posted by: Steve Bottrell | 2010-02-25 4:52:16 PM
Had it occurred to anyone that maybe your understanding of history is biased and in dire need of correction?
Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2010-02-25 5:23:40 PM
Or yours Zeb?
Posted by: Steve Bottrell | 2010-02-25 6:51:49 PM
Any evidence for that assertion Shane or is just more empty rhetoric?
Are you going to ask me for the existence of Charlemagne too? Any student of history knows this.
The discussion was not about Islam, a religion, it was about black crime statistics in the US.
You made an issue of race. I expanded on it. Deal with it.
They are derived from FBI numbers. Thus the theory is easily falsified for anyone who desires to seek the truth and not just fall back on empty slurs.
The numbers indicating that blacks commit crimes out of all proportion to their numbers are undeniable. It is your conclusions (which are NOT endorsed by the FBI) that are unsupportable.
No doubt you, like Bottrell live in a white neighborhood.
Getting personal won't rescue this train wreck of an argument, Gene.
They don't live with no Negroes, but simply whisper the right words that put them on the side of the angels.
Actually, Metro Vancouver has very few black people. But the ones I've met weren't gangsters. In fact, they were mostly Africans. My parish priest is a black man from Nigeria.
This whole thread is a racial slur.
And by slagging blacks, you intend to address this, I suppose.
Herrnstein and Murray lay out a bounty of evidence that shows that IQ is strongly correlated with a variety of issues including crime.
That's what all this horseshit is based on? ONE STUDY?
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-25 7:13:34 PM
Had it occurred to anyone that maybe your understanding of history is biased and in dire need of correction?
No. And it will take better arguments than you have fielded to change my mind.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-02-25 7:14:01 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.