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Do you know the majority of whites? Granted, I don't either. I may indeed be incorrect and you may indeed be incorrect because none of us have met the majority of white people and even if we did neither of us can read minds.
What I do know is that I have had debates with hundreds, if not thousands of white people. I have read the opinions of thousands of white people on the topic of race. The majority of those opinions were predicated upon an unstated premise of white superiority. The majority of white opinion on race in this forum is no different.
My point is that you base your perspective on an assertion that cannot be proven and is, in every sense of the word, a leap of faith on your part. And then, from that perspective, you have surmised that the opinions of thousands of white people stem from a belief in white superiority, a belief you cannot prove they hold.
It is then your bias that interprets their motivations as being racist that is founded on a belief system that may be faulty. But your answer when they challenge that bias is that they are a product of generations of racists. You are using their ancestry as a way to discredit their challenge. I don't think that's valid. I don't think you can use someone's ancestry to discredit their arguments. Their arguments and yours must stand on the soundness of the argument itself. If your argument is based on an assertion that cannot be proven, how sound can that argument be?
Because a lot of people just can't look at history objectively--or with any real interest--and not read something emotional into it.
I am white and I don't feel one bit guilty about slavery. I had nothing to do with it. I can only be responsible for my personal actions in the here and now.
I am, however, interested in American black history, interested in the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, and interested in observing how different cultures still experience ripple effects from events that happened in the past. I just find it all very fascinating.
Nothing is simple. Human beings are very complex and cannot be pigeonholed by association into groups that define everything they are in a few sentences.
IMO, that is what Indentured Servant keeps running up against. He's trying to have these types of conversations with people who aren't interested in what he's trying to say.
and i absolutely understand that. i don't expect any white person to feel guilty about slavery. i'm just tired of people acting like blacks are the ONLY ONES TO BLAME for all the problems within our community
And the descendents of the slaves would be wealthy and well off if their ancestors had never come to the USA but had stayed in Africa?
The thing is - you can't go back 300 years ago and undo anything. The solutions for today's problems are today - and having constant pity-parties doesn't help people. No one is a slave today, only a very rare individual living today had slave parents. At some point it's time to move on and stop believing one is a slave.
the black community doesn't need pity. they don't need to be left alone
the fact of the matter is, many of the issues amongst the african american community today were STARTED by the conditions of slavery. many of today's poor blacks come from a long line of poverty that stretches all the way back to the post civil-war era
hell, blacks have only been free for 145 years. we've been slaves in this country A LOT longer than we've been free, so it only makes sense that many of us would still be living with the aftermath of our bondage
My point is that you base your perspective on an assertion that cannot be proven and is, in every sense of the word, a leap of faith on your part. And then, from that perspective, you have surmised that the opinions of thousands of white people stem from a belief in white superiority, a belief you cannot prove they hold.
It is then your bias that interprets their motivations as being racist that is founded on a belief system that may be faulty. But your answer when they challenge that bias is that they are a product of generations of racists. You are using their ancestry as a way to discredit their challenge. I don't think that's valid. I don't think you can use someone's ancestry to discredit their arguments. Their arguments and yours must stand on the soundness of the argument itself. If your argument is based on an assertion that cannot be proven, how sound can that argument be?
If you believe that most whites do not believe in white superiority, and you do, they you too have based your belief on a foundation that cannot be proven. At least my assertion is a hypothesis based upon the patterns and teachings of a culture, over the last several centuries, that propagated the belief, and SCIENCE, of a system of racial hierarchy. Moreover, when I listen to the rationalizations of most white debaters on the issue of race today, the implicit foundation of their dissent is the premise of black inferiority. If I asked the “typical” white person why the homicide rate is so much higher for blacks, why out of wedlock births are so much higher, why poverty is so much higher…unemployment etc……the majority will dismiss all external factors. If one dismisses the external that only leaves the internal. It’s a binary option. Thus, the explanation of why black are in an inferior condition to whites is implicitly, but unstated (for fear of being seen as racist), that the internal nature of blacks is inferior to the internal nature of white and hence this discrepancy manifest the in the inferior condition of blacks relative to whites behaviorally and economically.
If you believe that most whites do not believe in white superiority, and you do, they you too have based your belief on a foundation that cannot be proven. At least my assertion is a hypothesis based upon the patterns and teachings of a culture, over the last several centuries, that propagated the belief, and SCIENCE, of a system of racial hierarchy. Moreover, when I listen to the rationalizations of most white debaters on the issue of race today, the implicit foundation of their dissent is the premise of black inferiority. If I asked the “typical” white person why the homicide rate is so much higher for blacks, why out of wedlock births are so much higher, why poverty is so much higher…unemployment etc……the majority will dismiss all external factors. If one dismisses the external that only leaves the internal. It’s a binary option. Thus, the explanation of why black are in an inferior condition to whites is implicitly, but unstated (for fear of being seen as racist), that the internal nature of blacks is inferior to the internal nature of white and hence this discrepancy manifest the in the inferior condition of blacks relative to whites behaviorally and economically.
The foundation of my argument is not that most whites do not believe in white superiority. The foundation of my argument is that assumptions about people based on their ancestry is prejudice. If the aspect of ancestry focused upon is race, then the prejudice is rooted in racism.
My argument is that racism, no matter who is being racist, is both a bad thing and illogical.
I certainly don't believe blacks are inferior. My ancestors did not own slaves (in fact my GG Grandfather's headstone says "He loved freedom and abhorred slavery) but they defended their homeland from the Yankees, who took everything when they won the war. I have pictures of my white relatives in rags also - it was a devastating event for all in the South.
the black community doesn't need pity. they don't need to be left alone
the fact of the matter is, many of the issues amongst the african american community today were STARTED by the conditions of slavery. many of today's poor blacks come from a long line of poverty that stretches all the way back to the post civil-war era
hell, blacks have only been free for 145 years. we've been slaves in this country A LOT longer than we've been free, so it only makes sense that many of us would still be living with the aftermath of our bondage
Precisely! That is all anyone is attempting to do with this history….use it to explain the present. However, it’s always meet with resistance. If you eliminate this history by pretending it plays no role in the current condition of inequality, then one is arguing, implicitly, that blacks are unequal because blacks are their own worse enemy. The corollary of which is that whites are not their own worst enemy to themselves as blacks are to themselves….otherwise it would be a distinction without a difference and socioeconomic statistics would show no large racial discrepancies between the two groups.
It almost like whites do not realize that they are saying “white's are better”, when they point out that “blacks are worse”. It’s the natural and logical corollary. Every time whites point “the problem with blacks”, they are implicitly saying that whites are better.
The foundation of my argument is not that most whites do not believe in white superiority. The foundation of my argument is that assumptions about people based on their ancestry is prejudice. If the aspect of ancestry focused upon is race, then the prejudice is rooted in racism.
My argument is that racism, no matter who is being racist, is both a bad thing and illogical.
I agree with everything that you said but the illogical part. My argument is that actions produce reactions. If a society and culture wants to lift itself up, by puttng others down, based upon race, they have set up a future consquence of those actions that will reverberate to transcend space and time. Like we are always told....life is not fair.
There are some camps, such a boot camps, where if someone in a group does something wrong, they will hold the whole group responsible. All of them will have to run an extra 5 miles or do an extra 100 push up because of the transgressions of a minority of the group. This way the group will exert pressue to keep its members in line. The problem for blacks is that historically good white folks had no incentive to keep bad white folks in check, when it came to abusing black folks. Maybe when the group is forced to suffer the consquence of white racism, they will be more diligent in keep white racist in check. If whites don't like being judged or prejuded as racist....you need to stamp out white racism.
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