If humans are a product of evolution...

[Crezth]

He thinks black people have it better here... Is he wrong? I think he's posing the wrong question: did W Africans sold into slavery have it better than the W Africans selling them into slavery?

They're both dead you absolute tosh.

Moderator Action: ... two...
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Crezth]

There's absolutely nothing more disgustingly unamerican than thinking humans are not created equal. Civver is an enemy of America and the USA and the Constitution and the principle of liberty. As I live and breathe I will always fight against him and his fascist ethics. People are great because of their choices, not their station of birth.

Moderator Action: ... three strikes and you're out. Regardless of how you feel about someone, trolling and flaming them is against the rules. Enjoy the holiday. --LM
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Berzerker]

They're both dead you absolute tosh.

I dont know what an absolute tosh is but they're both dead doesn't answer my question

 

[Ryika]

He thinks black people have it better here... Is he wrong?

It's a bit like asking if a cow is better off sitting in a box than being out in nature where it might get eaten by... uhh.... I don't know, werewolves.

I think he's posing the wrong question: did W Africans sold into slavery have it better than the W Africans selling them into slavery?

I think both questions are meaningless. The people who bought slaves were not interested in the well-being of the Africans, and they did not treat them well, so there is no need to be "thankful", even if we were to come to the conclusion that the average life in slavery was still better than the average life in Africa.

I guess one could say: "You random black person over there should be thankful that we brought your people here as slaves, because otherwise you would now be sitting in Africa.", and if he's indeed a descendant from a slave, then there's some warped logic in that, but of course that did not actually improve the lives of their ancestors.

 

[Crezth]

I dont know what an absolute tosh is but they're both dead doesn't answer my question

Slaves and slave-sellers both are no longer alive. It's the 21st century. Pay some basic attention.

 

[NinjaCow64]

I find your question to be disingenuous.

Well I wouldn't have asked it if I didn't think that there was a high chance that you might actually believe that. Please try and convince me otherwise, or at least present an argument to why you might think that.

 

[Berzerker]

Slaves and slave-sellers both are no longer alive. It's the 21st century. Pay some basic attention.

I had two questions

He thinks black people have it better here... Is he wrong? I think he's posing the wrong question: did W Africans sold into slavery have it better than the W Africans selling them into slavery?

The first was for you, the second for him. Telling me they're dead answered neither.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Moderator Action: This thread started off with some good, intelligent discussion, but the personal attacks will end now.

 

[uppi]

But the Earth (and race) exists, how we characterize it doesn't really matter. There are steps between me being Irish and my ultimate African ancestry, maybe 200-300 kya. I dont have a problem if 'race' is a word used to describe one or more of those steps. Some day we'll be able to trace our bloodlines all the way back to Africa, somewhere along that line we'll find larger groups from which our clans and tribes and ethnicities separated. I might not view Neanderthals as a race, they'd be more like a sub-species. But my ancestors who interbred with them a bit might be a race, one to which I belong.

I guess my problem is equating racism with acknowledging race. Somehow the belief that one is superior to an entire group of people based on race has become no different than believing people evolved into different groups and race is a way of acknowledging them. The latter has nothing to do with feeling superior. Yes, 'race' is poorly defined... I thought the reason for that is because race was meant to cover the step(s) separating tribe and ethnicity from all of humanity and there's more ambiguity involved.

Again, you are confusing race - the social concept - with biological differences. The latter has a biological basis, the former is just plain racist. If you believed that there was a black race, a white race, an Asian race and so on, you would be a racist, because you would be making distinctions based on prejudices that are not supported by biology.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

So anything not supported by physical science is based on prejudice? You cant discuss any social construct without being labeled a bigot? Lets just burn all Shakespeare and Kant along side of Goethe for their poetic expressions and intellectual concepts are not purely based in biology. Good Lord even plain believe can get you in trouble before the sight of the modern and refined inquisition!

 

[Ryika]

Not sure how one would automatically follow from the other. A person can falsely believe that "black people" are a race, and that "white people" are a race without believing that one is superior to the other.

 

[Borachio]

I believe you. A person could indeed believe those things.

But would they?

My experience is that, outside of some marginal medical interest in demographical differences between populations as concerns the prevalence of some diseases, persons who believe that "black" people and "white" people constitute races are almost overwhelmingly concerned with peddling the notion that one is superior to the other.

Of course, though, my experience is only my experience. And means absolutely nothing on the cosmological scale.

 

[Ryika]

To be honest, I'm pretty sure most people where I live believe that skin color equals race, I know some do. It's just the default assumption of people who have had little to no advanced education in the low-income area here. I don't think that means that people have jumped to the conclusion that therefor, whites are superior to blacks.

Only prevalent racism here is against Arabs.

 

[Borachio]

But isn't it strange (if it's true - I wouldn't know, not being American) that "black" Americans don't on the whole do as well, economically, as "white" Americans?

And doesn't being economically superior mean that a person is a better person in almost every way?

Because if it doesn't, why do we have rich people?

 

[Ryika]

Not entirely sure what you're getting at now.

Neither is the thinking of "black people" and "white people" as races required to see that "black" Americans are doing worse than "white" Americans and then following that observation with a simplistic conclusion, nor does thinking that they're races automatically lead to these thoughts.

There's certainly some overlap in that people who lack the education to realize that "skincolor = race" makes little sense are also likely to not have the knowledge required to understand that a lot of the reasons why black people aren't doing as well stem from history and systemic issues (ugh), but one does still not automatically follow from the other.

 

[civver_764]

Doesn't mean white colonialism wasn't a scourge on the African continent that left deep scars and difficulties that take a long time to rectify.

Colonialism also brought a lot of good things to Africa. Technology, infrastructure, etc. Africa is one of the most resource-heavy continents on the planet. You would think there would be at least one or two prosperous countries there. The countries of Liberia and Ethopia were never colonized, yet they are just as problematic. There are clearly deeper problems at play here, and you can't just explain them away with "white colonialism".

Me? I never said Democrats are the real racists. Maybe you got that from someone debating me. I think racism aint limited to one party. I didn't say murder victims deserve to be murdered, I said we had a hand in creating the situation. I do believe most of the problems we see in black communities are the result of slavery, Jim Crow, and the drug war. Welfare programs also work to erode the family structure, but they exist mainly because so many fathers are either dead or in jail because of the drug war. The ones who aint were driven out of their homes away from their families because welfare required their disappearance. It was considered unwise to provide welfare to families with an able-bodied father who wasn't working I guess.

I agree that these things exacerbate the problem, especially welfare. I don't agree that these explain everything though. There's a reason that the dysgenic effect of welfare hurt black families harder than white families, for example.

How many people died on slave ships crossing the Atlantic? Can we count them among the victims of white people? How much you wanna bet? A grand?

Well I suppose if we're going to count those you've probably got me beat.

Well I wouldn't have asked it if I didn't think that there was a high chance that you might actually believe that. Please try and convince me otherwise, or at least present an argument to why you might think that.

You're trying to get me in some kind of "gotcha" where I take some kind of moral position on slavery. That's not what I'm doing here. I'm merely examining different perspectives. The worst part of slavery is different depending on your perspective. For the enslaved the worst part is being enslaved (obviously). For the enslaver it is bad karma. For their descendants? Well I've explained it above. I'm simply noting that most black people in America today would not rather their descendants been left in Africa, do you disagree with that?

Not sure how one would automatically follow from the other. A person can falsely believe that "black people" are a race, and that "white people" are a race without believing that one is superior to the other.

Well you can't say anyone is "superior" to anyone else without some kind of metric to compare. But I do think it's undeniable that different populations are superior in certain areas to other populations.

 

[Ryika]

But I do think it's undeniable that different populations are superior in certain areas to other populations.

Well yeah, that's obvious. Middle-Class White populations for example are very much better at not being violent thugs than populations from black, gang-riddled ghettos.

But the interesting question here is whether that's because of the situation they were born into, or whether that's something inherent to that population. Do people create the environment they live in, or does the environment create the people?

There are good arguments to be made for why most, if not all of it, is because of outside factors that created the environment, not that these populations were prone to being violent thugs to begin with.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Colonialism also brought a lot of good things to Africa. Technology, infrastructure, etc. Africa is one of the most resource-heavy continents on the planet. You would think there would be at least one or two prosperous countries there. The countries of Liberia and Ethopia were never colonized, yet they are just as problematic. There are clearly deeper problems at play here, and you can't just explain them away with "white colonialism".

Liberia was colonised by the United States. Ethiopia might have not been colonised in the “traditional” sense, but it was either at war or under military occupation for the better part of the 20th Century.

I agree that these things exacerbate the problem, especially welfare. I don't agree that these explain everything though. There's a reason that the dysgenic effect of welfare hurt black families harder than white families, for example.

What is this reason?

You're trying to get me in some kind of "gotcha" where I take some kind of moral position on slavery. That's not what I'm doing here. I'm merely examining different perspectives. The worst part of slavery is different depending on your perspective. For the enslaved the worst part is being enslaved (obviously). For the enslaver it is bad karma. For their descendants? Well I've explained it above. I'm simply noting that most black people in America today would not rather their descendants been left in Africa, do you disagree with that?

I think that is an entirely unhelpful way of looking at things.

Also you still haven’t answered my question.

Well you can't say anyone is "superior" to anyone else without some kind of metric to compare. But I do think it's undeniable that different populations are superior in certain areas to other populations.

In your opinon, what populations are superior in certain areas to other populations and how are they superior?

 

[NinjaCow64]

Oh yeah bonus question that I almost forgot about.

Civver, do you think that European colonialism in Africa was a good thing?

 

[civver_764]

But the interesting question here is whether that's because of the situation they were born into, or whether that's something inherent to that population. Do people create the environment they live in, or does the environment create the people?

There are good arguments to be made for why most, if not all of it, is because of outside factors that created the environment, not that these populations were prone to being violent thugs to begin with.

That doesn't really make sense though. The environment doesn't exist without the people in it.

Spoiler :

Liberia was colonised by the United States. Ethiopia might have not been colonised in the “traditional” sense, but it was either at war or under military occupation for the better part of the 20th Century.

When was Liberia colonized? I know it was originally established by Americans but it has been a sovereign nation since it's inception. Plenty of countries were at war or under military occupation in the 20th century, that hardly is enough to explain all the problems going on in Ethiopia.

What is this reason?

Use your imagination.

I think that is an entirely unhelpful way of looking at things.

If you're trying to make white people feel guilty, maybe.

Also you still haven’t answered my question.

I've answered it at least twice now, not sure what you're expecting.

In your opinon, what populations are superior in certain areas to other populations and how are they superior?

That's a huge subject that I'm not going to get into.

Civver, do you think that European colonialism in Africa was a good thing?

That is way too broad of a question. I think there were good parts and bad parts, like with anything.