I agree. In my opinion, even today, essentially everybody is bigotted. It is natural to generalize and to be hostile to outsiders. It is up to the individual to work to minimize it, but I seriously doubt anyone is perfect, I sure as hell am not.
Much better. To think that some, and not most, northerners, westerners or white people in general at the time were racist is silly. White people were racist against other white people. I'm not defending slavery, but I am defending that just about everyone was a dirty racist. Even today most white people freak out if their daughter or sister or mother hooks up with a black guy. All part of the system, mang, all part of the system. And let's not even mention the Native Americans or Chinese.
I don't think that Jews and Italians would have appeared physically alien to Northern whites, so a series of individual aversions to people who look different seems pretty insufficient as an explanation of Northern racism. It certainly doesn't explain how this stuff became as institutionalised, extensive and as durable as it did.But it is less "Northern United States" then the entirety of the World (replacing "white" with the locals where applicable). It may have been less blatant is Europe, but that would simply be because there were less funny looking people. It is the same today, but to a lesser degree in many places.
Even today most white people freak out if their daughter or sister or mother hooks up with a black guy.
Are you serious?
This makes me really want to see that fantastic image that someone - PCH? - posted from an old science book, describing the Irish as being "descended from Iberians and the natives, who themselves are believed to have been of low-type, having been isolated from other races and therefore never having the benefit of the healthy struggle for life" or somesuch. It was awesome.Don't forget that the English once called the Irish as "white chimps". Show what they thought of the Irish.
Along those lines, most things claiming that Christian veneration of Saint X is really just a fresh coat of paint on pagan worship of god Y. That has happened in a few ways in a few cultures, but it's certainly not the foundation of the practice like some would have you believe.The Virgin of Guadalupe is a weird idolatrous cult.
Along those lines, most things claiming that Christian veneration of Saint X is really just a fresh coat of paint on pagan worship of god Y. That has happened in a few ways in a few cultures, but it's certainly not the foundation of the practice like some would have you believe.
Applying Hellenistic understandings of deities to those of unlettered Serbs a millennium and a half hence seems more than a little outrageous.That plus a long Mediterranean tradition of syncretism. There's a pretty solid Christian explanation that doesn't need this theory and the theory is usually used for anti-Catholic rhetoric, but I at least could see where one could get the idea.