Topaz wrote:
> It's a Wonderful Race
>
> by James Bronson
> There once was a college freshman named George who thought he knew it
> all. One night over dinner, George got into an argument with his
> father. The argument began when the young student tried to explain to
> his father that as White people, they should be held accountable for
> all the evils that they had inflicted upon non-Whites througout
> history. George explained: "Because of European racism, we stole the
> Indians' land, we held blacks in slavery, we persecuted the Jews, and
> we plundered the environment. We've been oppressive racists for
> thousands of years so it's only fair that we pay economic reparations
> for all the harm we've done to the world. I'm pleased to see that we
> are ending our political and economic domination of the oppressed
> peoples."
>
> George's dad was shocked to hear such talk. "Who put such commie-pinko
> nonsense into your head, boy? Did one of your sandal-wearing hippie
> college professors teach you that?" the father asked.
>
>[Snip].....
In your story,
you seem to be suggesting that because 'whites'
have invented all kinds of technological wonders,
we should not feel so bad about the enslavement
of Africans, and the fact that millions of them were
trans****ted from their culture to other parts of
the globe, for example. I'm sorry about that reality,
and I don't enjoy hearing about it myself, but it is
a reality, and we can't just deny it. Slavery within
Africa itself was not so widespread, except for
within ancient Egypt (which for some reason you argue
is 'white.'--think you have to admit that Egyptians
are often brownish, anyway, and many of their
ancient statues represent people with brownish
skins.)
Furthermore, don't see how we can assume that
certain peoples aren't intellectually capable of
developing technology. I don't suppose anyone knows
for sure why technology develops, but I believe there
are some theories such as: it is driven by need,
or it requires a certain culture that stresses the
abilities of the individual without external restrictions,
and perhaps in a secular way. And, of course, the
development of agriculture, large cities, etc., occurred
over thousands of years for various reasons that I'm
sure no one has completely unraveled for certain. If
one hunts/gathers for 15-20 hours a week in a
sparsely-populated area, and does reasonably well,
how can we expect our modern technologies to
develop? The Olmecs in Mesoamerica did have
the wheel, by the way.
As far as what happened in schools during
Reconstruction in post-CivilWar US South, I
think we can understand why some people had a
difficult time accepting quick change. Many of
us today in that situation would probably feel
the same way--I myself am fairly conservative
about quick social changes. I wasn't trying to
condemn that attitude, but rather just to
emphasize that blacks haven't had the same
kinds of op****tunities as whites have had, even
though their op****tunities have been increasing.
Here is an interesting quote I found--I will research more:
"...the evidence from cases of cross-racial adoption
suggests that the average IQs of blacks reared by
and among whites is no different from that of whites"
("Genome," by Matt Ridley, p. 86)
Here is a site about Cortez and the Aztecs,
Pizarro and the Incas, and a few other
Conquistadors:
<http://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/>
The stories of Orellana and Cabeza de Vaca are
different from what we would expect, and
de Vaca actually lived with Indians for some time,
and had good things to say about them.
C.
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