Thoughts on racism

Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

Even English colonization of Africa could be considered part of it, as a brief section, to explain how the slave trade arose.

The slave trade did not arise with the British colonization of Africa. Slave trading has been an almost universally accepted practice since the dawn of civilization.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by kat

America was built on the backs of numerous minorities already living here, most that were killed or at best, taken advantage of and they are totally written out of history textbooks because it is an "unsavory" topic.

They were not minorities at this point, actually. This is a very good example of subtle racism that people don't notice. We think of the Natives as minorities, even at a point in time where there were a hell of a lot more of them than Europeans.

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Originally Posted by kat

They could buy their freedom and also, slavery in America was race based because whites felt superior to blacks.

I don't think you can realistically assume this. The master will always feel superior to the slave. The fact is, they found a whole shitload of people that they could take advantage of, and they did it. If Africans had white skin, it wouldn't have made the slightest difference.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Reznor

I believe that we shouldn't even teach History. Why teach someone about what happened in the past? Don't even say "So the same things don't happen again".

Instead invest the time preparing kids/adolescents for the future, the right decisions, things that PARENTS should be doing but unfortunately aren't.

The big problem in this idea is that YOU CAN'T SEE INTO THE FUTURE.

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Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

Look, my whole point was that we are putting far too much emphasis on parts of American history that just WERE NOT important enough to justify the amount of time we spend on them. Sure the native americans were cool, it's neat to learn about their customs, government, etc - but that has little bearing on the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, which didn't really exist until the Declaration of Independance, and the events leading up to that separation. There isn't any need to spend an entire month studying native americans in a class about American History. A brief summary is enough.

Same with African History. There isn't any point. African History doesn't really meld at all with US History until the slave trade, thus, there isn't any need to talk about it in an American History class.

The idea in teaching these is that they were precursors to the United States. An important part of understanding the history of any nation is knowing the things that caused that nation to come about. You certainly aren't arguing against learning about European colonial life, but I'll be damned if that wasn't pre 1776.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by kat

The justification for slavery was that whites in general were superior to blacks, that they were a "lesser" breed of people, barely man and therefore, only suitable for being controlled by whites.

No, the justification for slavery was "we need cheap labor". It's just that, since most Africans at that point didn't speak English, and they didn't have guns, you're not going to get any bitching about human rights.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by BigHairyFeet

I almost used Hitler in my argument. .

I assume the denotes the sadness we all feel that you did not use this arguement.

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Originally Posted by kat

Wrong, primary sources are from participants in the event like diaries, letters, etc., not only eyewitness accounts.

These sources, while "primary sources", will still hold the bias of the author.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by kat

Wrong, primary sources are from participants in the event like diaries, letters, etc., not only eyewitness accounts.

You corrected his semantics but ignored his main point, that primary sources are still biased. Unless you view an incident yourself, it is impossible to get an unbiased report of it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by kat

You can interpret it different way, theorize it differently but what you witnessed will always be for what it was.

This is my understanding of what the word bias means in this discussion. You just handily proved my point.

I'm assuming you and I were taking "bias" to mean different things.

How ya doing, buddy?

For god's sake, does a mod want to correct the spelling in the title? I thought it would have been done by now.

EDIT: Thank you.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

OK, why are you calling this a hate crime? A guy on one team hits a guy on the other team. That's not motivated by race. And no one would say it was a hate crime if the white kid hit the black kid, either.

Incidents like this only prompt racism because people like you tie racism into them.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?