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wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:28 am Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| I do not accept arguments that Africans sold Africans into slavery. The Africans who captured them didn't despise them because of their skin color and their children didn't simply remain slaves, so washing our hands of the past in the style of Mac Beth is shameful, I think. I don't believe in reparations, but I think people need to own up to their past. |
I don't think anyone's trying to deny culpability here but to sell someone into slavery for profit is no better than actually shipping them to another continent and forcing them to work. It's a lot more complicated than "the bad white men captured these noble Africans and forced them to work in another land and in horrible conditions for no pay."
| Adventurer wrote: |
| The Civil War was fought by Union soldiers under the orders of Abraham Lincoln. The war was not fought as a favour for African Americans. |
As a favor? No, but the biggest contributing factor to the war starting was the abolitionist din in the North and the wish of the South to protect their way of life as terrible as it seems to us today. Make no mistake, the war was about slavery. Not exclusively, but predominantly.
| Adventurer wrote: |
| The South wanted to make other states accept slavery. The North did not. |
True, but only half the story. How about saying it this way: The North wanted other states to deny slavery and any benefit they might make from it. The South did not.
| Adventurer wrote: |
| The corporations who benefited from slavery upheld slavery. |
Again, too simplistic. It was about a way of life. Southerners did not flock to their "cause" for corporations. Most in the South knew that if slavery were abolished it would mean the end of their life as they knew it. Their whole economic system, including the corporations, was based on the slave labor concept. Most southerners just resented Washington telling them what to do about anything, let alone slavery.
| Adventurer wrote: |
| If there were people alive who actually went through slavery, then I would agree to reparations for those individuals. If there was someone who was 170 years old and was a slave, I would agree to reparations for that fellow. |
About this we agree. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:09 am Post subject: |
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It's an exercise in white guilt. It's not productive for anyone, least of all African Americans.
How can we explain all of the immigrants and refugees who arrived in North America from Lebanon, East Africa and Southeast Asia in our lifetimes, many of them with no English skills, little money or formal education, and within a generation are now leaders in their communities?
In my city, much of the prime real estate is now owned by Lebanese families who arrived in the 70s fleeing the war. They went from corner store and pizza shop owners to real estate magnates in less than a lifetime. There's no shortage of stories like this. Statistically, immigrants do very well for themselves, at least in Canada. And not just the ones who bring big sacks of money with them.
All the while, the local black community - which in my city nurses a massive and self-defeating victim mentality - continues to do nothing to help itself but uses every opportunity to moan about old stories. Of course this is their right, but I don't see it getting them anywhere.
In saying these things, I run the real risk of being painted a racist. Everyone sees these things, but if you speak of them you get accused of being in the KKK. I'd honestly love to see the local black community be as successful, confident and forward-looking as any other group. But that isn't going to happen while the community relies on its superstructure of victimhood and denial of accountability for its current failures. |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:25 am Post subject: |
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| The Lemon wrote: |
| I'd honestly love to see the local black community be as successful, confident and forward-looking as any other group. But that isn't going to happen while the community relies on its superstructure of victimhood and denial of accountability for its current failures. |
You're Canadian, right?
Since there was AFAIK no slavery in Canada, what have they found to bitch about? |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:44 am Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| The Lemon wrote: |
| I'd honestly love to see the local black community be as successful, confident and forward-looking as any other group. But that isn't going to happen while the community relies on its superstructure of victimhood and denial of accountability for its current failures. |
You're Canadian, right?
Since there was AFAIK no slavery in Canada, what have they found to *beep* about? |
The cause celebre for the local community is the relocation of a slum in the mid 60s. To hear of it now from the often-told stories, it was a miniature Harlem with jazz and mama's cooking and zoot suits. But others who were alive then say it was a cesspool of crime, and most of the residents leaped at the offer to relocate to new housing schemes, though the standard story leaves this historical fact out.
It's true that the city denied the community basic services like sewage, undoubtably for racist reasons, but this doesn't negate the fact that it was literally a ghetto.
The city was building a new bridge over the harbour in the mid-60s, which landed at the very spot where that community was, and it was expropriated. Though most left willingly, a few did not. Images of bulldozers destroying the homes of those who did not voluntarily leave remain the predominant memory passed on to people like me, born after the event.
Wikipedia has an article about the community, but it seems to be largely informed by the modern politics and advocacy surrounding the issue rather than factual history and deviates from Wikipedia's neutral point of view with lines like "its residents were relocated into poorly-constructed public housing downtown near Uniacke Square and Mulgrave Park". |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:05 am Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| The Lemon wrote: |
| I'd honestly love to see the local black community be as successful, confident and forward-looking as any other group. But that isn't going to happen while the community relies on its superstructure of victimhood and denial of accountability for its current failures. |
You're Canadian, right?
Since there was AFAIK no slavery in Canada, what have they found to *beep* about? |
There was slavery although most of the European powers eliminated it long before America. Canada's black community isn't really the descendants of slaves. Certainly there are blacks that came in via the underground railroad but their ancestors came to Canada to be free. I'd say most blacks in Canada are immigrants from the caribbean and straight outta Africa.
I would imagine then they have the same complaints as any immigrant community. |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:50 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
| The Lemon wrote: |
| I'd honestly love to see the local black community be as successful, confident and forward-looking as any other group. But that isn't going to happen while the community relies on its superstructure of victimhood and denial of accountability for its current failures. |
You're Canadian, right?
Since there was AFAIK no slavery in Canada, what have they found to *beep* about? |
There was slavery although most of the European powers eliminated it long before America. Canada's black community isn't really the descendants of slaves. Certainly there are blacks that came in via the underground railroad but their ancestors came to Canada to be free. I'd say most blacks in Canada are immigrants from the caribbean and straight outta Africa.
I would imagine then they have the same complaints as any immigrant community. |
Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 6:04 am Post subject: |
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| I would imagine then they have the same complaints as any immigrant community. |
No, they see themselves as a special case, and are treated differently by all levels of government, and school boards. Their demands are much closer in nature to First Nations groups than an immigrant community.
In Nova Scotia, people of African descent make up less than two percent of the population (14,000 out of 900,000). Despite this small number, there is a "black history" course in most high schools, and a "black history month" (February), in which schools "celebrate the contributions and achievements of African Nova Scotian people". The purpose of these and similar initiatives are to "increase awareness and sensitivity to the issues and presence of Black students".
| dogbert wrote: |
| Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
The problem with the race card is the financial and academic successes of young African and Caribbean immigrants who have moved to the city, studied in the universities, and prospered, are there for all to see. In my personal experience, I detect none of the hostility and "chip on their shoulders" from first-generation African and Caribbean residents. The difference in attitude is striking.
I also noticed when I went to university in Providence, Rhode Island, that the black students there were far easier to get to know and less stand-offish than those back in Nova Scotia. The situation in Halifax may well be exceptional. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
A minority of blacks in Nova Scotia don't really represent the "black community" or maybe lack there of across all of Canada. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 7:15 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
A minority of blacks in Nova Scotia don't really represent the "black community" or maybe lack there of across all of Canada. |
I have to hope things are better elsewhere in Canada. They probably are.
A well known leader of the entertainment industry in Eastern Canada - who is also a friend of mine - once famously told a newspaper, "some of the biggest racists in this place happen to be in the local black community". There was predictable opposition to the comment, but it is factually correct. The white community, by and large, has learned well the lessons of equality and tolerance, and goes out of its way to demonstrate this. The black community has shown none of this introspection. It hasn't been beaten over the head with the lesson for the last 40 years like the white population has.
If I'm sounding negative about the local black community - and I think I am - it's because of experiences I had at the beginning of my teaching career. It jolted me out of any happy liberal daydreams I might have held that the city's race problems were all on the white side.
A few years ago I was teaching in a middle school that was located near a black neighbourhood. A high proportion of the students who received suspensions or expulsions were black, leading to charges that the school teachers and administration were racist, which was deeply ironic considering the contempt many black students showed any white teacher who walked into their classroom.
I remember well an assembly in the gym on Martin Luther King Jr Day. The invited guest was a reverend from the local Baptist church. At the end of his speech was this:
"I want all the white students to respect the black students...
I want all the black students to respect the white students...
I want all the teachers to respect the black students..."
.. To this day, I'm sure the missing line, "and the black students should respect the teachers", which he neglected to include, was an inadvertent oversight on his part. But the teachers sure noticed.
Every time there was a parent-teacher meeting because a black student got into trouble, the parent would come into the meeting on the warpath against the teacher and the administration. The reaction was automatic. I figure the students rode this for all they could, telling creative stories to their parents that fed into their prejudice. It's hard to blame them - if I had that kind of get-out-of-jail-free card with such power over the grown-ups when I was a 12 year old brat, I would have done the same thing. |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:10 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
A minority of blacks in Nova Scotia don't really represent the "black community" or maybe lack there of across all of Canada. |
I'm not Canadian, so I have no idea. I'm learning from what you and Lemon write.
I'd always assumed you had less of a problem in Canada than we do in the U.S. |
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happeningthang
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:12 am Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
A minority of blacks in Nova Scotia don't really represent the "black community" or maybe lack there of across all of Canada. |
I'm not Canadian, so I have no idea. I'm learning from what you and Lemon write.
I'd always assumed you had less of a problem in Canada than we do in the U.S. |
What is this problem of which you speak? |
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matthews_world
Joined: 15 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:13 am Post subject: |
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| How about hagwon reparations. Is someone going to pay me what it was worth for me losing my dignity for dancing around like an English monkey? |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:14 am Post subject: |
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| happeningthang wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
A minority of blacks in Nova Scotia don't really represent the "black community" or maybe lack there of across all of Canada. |
I'm not Canadian, so I have no idea. I'm learning from what you and Lemon write.
I'd always assumed you had less of a problem in Canada than we do in the U.S. |
What is this problem of which you speak? |
Where are you from? |
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happeningthang
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 5:34 am Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| happeningthang wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
Perhaps, but if you go back and read Lemon's posts, he describes them as playing the race/victim card, while other immigrants knuckled down, worked hard, and began to prosper. |
A minority of blacks in Nova Scotia don't really represent the "black community" or maybe lack there of across all of Canada. |
I'm not Canadian, so I have no idea. I'm learning from what you and Lemon write.
I'd always assumed you had less of a problem in Canada than we do in the U.S. |
What is this problem of which you speak? |
Where are you from? |
Australia |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:51 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="wannago"]
| Adventurer wrote: |
| I do not accept arguments that Africans sold Africans into slavery. The Africans who captured them didn't despise them because of their skin color and their children didn't simply remain slaves, so washing our hands of the past in the style of Mac Beth is shameful, I think. I don't believe in reparations, but I think people need to own up to their past. |
I don't think anyone's trying to deny culpability here but to sell someone into slavery for profit is no better than actually shipping them to another continent and forcing them to work. It's a lot more complicated than "the bad white men captured these noble Africans and forced them to work in another land and in horrible conditions for no pay."
| Adventurer wrote: |
ntioning that other Africans sold them into slavery is like saying, "Well, people of your colour and hue, abetted us in committing our crime in enslaving you." Slavery was not a crime against all Africans. It was a crime against those who were enslaved from Africa. If Arabs or Africans sold them into slavery, it does not change that a crime was committed. Right?
[quote="Adventurer"] The Civil War was fought by Union soldiers under the orders of Abraham Lincoln. The war was not fought as a favour for African Americans. |
As a favor? No, but the biggest contributing factor to the war starting was the abolitionist din in the North and the wish of the South to protect their way of life as terrible as it seems to us today. Make no mistake, the war was about slavery. Not exclusively, but predominantly.
| Adventurer wrote: |
brother, that the Civil War had much to do with the unemancipated Africans who were not Americans yet.
The South wanted to use Africans as part of the census for political influence, but they wanted to remain treating them like chattle. You made it sound like these Africans were somehow to blame for the deaths of your European-American ancestors who died in that ill-fated war. They didn't want to come as slaves. They were pawns in that war.
[quote="Adventurer"] The South wanted to make other states accept slavery. The North did not. |
True, but only half the story. How about saying it this way: The North wanted other states to deny slavery and any benefit they might make from it. The South did not.
| Adventurer wrote: |
s complicated. It was not black-and-white, pardon the pun. No one is saying that. I was referring by saying other states to the new states that were emerging such as Kansas.
[quote="Adventurer"] The corporations who benefited from slavery upheld slavery. |
Again, too simplistic. It was about a way of life. Southerners did not flock to their "cause" for corporations. Most in the South knew that if slavery were abolished it would mean the end of their life as they knew it. Their whole economic system, including the corporations, was based on the slave labor concept. Most southerners just resented Washington telling them what to do about anything, let alone slavery.
| Adventurer wrote: |
wing the court case, they were asking for reparations from corporations that benefited from the war rather than from all Caucasian people from the South. They probably did it because those who were part of that South are dead, and the corporations are all that remain from that time. However, the board of directors and shareholders are being sued, and they are not from that time, and these African Americans suing are not the slaves who were enslaved. That is why I object to this suit.
| Adventurer wrote: |
| If there were people alive who actually went through slavery, then I would agree to reparations for those individuals. If there was someone who was 170 years old and was a slave, I would agree to reparations for that fellow. |
About this we agree. |
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