| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
 Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:31 am Post subject: Who said this? |
 |
|
"First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of [XXXX], were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known."
Play fair. Googling not allowed. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Sleepy in Seoul
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: Going in ever decreasing circles until I eventually disappear up my own fundament - in NZ
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Who cares? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:00 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'm gonna guess that it's the opposite of who one would expect to be saying it. And since the statement is not as controversial as it might seem at first scan(blacks WERE brought to America on slave ships, and American blacks are at least as prosperous as any other black population in the world), and seems designed to flatter the egos of Americans, I'm going to guess that it's a politician.
I'm tempted to say Obama, but the reference to "Christian salvation" does not strike me as something that a liberal Democrat would say in the 21st Century. Umm, but now that we're in that neck of the woods, Jeremiah Wright? I guess he's not technically a politician. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:42 am Post subject: |
|
|
| A worthy effort, but no. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
Sounds like something Henry M. Turner might have said once-upon-a-time. But given your politics and methods, I would say someone associated with today's American right-wing said this -- I suspect Pat Robertson or some other evangelical. Or perhaps A. Coulter, just playing the provocateur again. You selected it to cultivate our outrage. And now you want to establish this "game" to instruct us on those vile conservatives...
Let's get 'em. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Michael Steele? Head of the GOP? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jaykimf
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
haha.
My guess = someone from the vdare crew. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I looked it up, and made me go huh? What's your point?
Hint: it won't surprise you. Which makes this thread that much more puzzling. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Ha ha is right, Mises. No I did not say this. But allow me to clarify...
| Quote: |
| First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks... |
I see what the author is getting at. But I would not express it this way at all. It seems crafty and disingenuous. It ignores slavery and its legacies.
| Quote: |
| It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of [XXXX]... |
Yes, this seems true enough.
| Quote: |
| ...were introduced to Christian salvation... |
Again, I see what the author is getting at. But she or he has chosen her or his verb badly -- not to mention presenting "Christian salvation" as a universally desirable thing, something I wholly disagree with and would never say. In any case, Henry M. Turner used to talk this way, and this figured in his plans for recolonizing Africa. Repatriated African-Americans, he argued, would "civilize" black Africa.
| Quote: |
| ...and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. |
Yes, this seems true. African-Americans have reached full citizenship in the United States. They count as citizens in court and in elections, they pay taxes, they serve on juries and on police forces, serve as attys and serve in courts all the way up to the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court, they serve in the armed forces all the way up to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they serve in the civilian leadership all the way up to mayors, state governors, the United States Secretary of State, and indeed the President of the United States.
Brazil experienced slavery, approximately ten times more intensely (measuring by shear numbers) than the United States. And I do not believe that Afro-Brazilians enjoy this level of citizenship.
Finally, I would much rather live as an African-American today than a black anywhere on the African continent -- South Africa a couple of decades ago, and today's Congo and the Sudan come to mind immediately. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher wrote: |
Again, I see what the author is getting at. But she or he has chosen her or his verb badly -- not to mention presenting "Christian salvation" as a universally desirable thing, something I wholly disagree with and would never say. In any case, Henry M. Turner used to talk this way, and this figured in his plans for recolonizing Africa. Repatriated African-Americans, he argued, would "civilize" black Africa.
|
So I guess that Mr. Turner:
1. Didn't realize some of the most devout Christians are in Western Africa (just look at the Anglican church's divisions)
2. Didn't look at Liberia very well.
Wonder where people get their ideas sometimes. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Bucheon Bum wrote: |
| Wonder where people get their ideas sometimes... |
You could either read his published speeches and sermons or invent a way to travel back in time to the immediate post-Civil War era and ask him why he thought that way. He was an early African-American leader and advocate of "back to Africa." Perhaps his "civilizing mission" was just what it was for others who were using it at that time (the French, for example): just a good argument and/or pretext to accomplish his larger purposes. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| When I ran across it I thought it was John C. Calhoun, but the style of writing is wrong. I looked up where it came from and it was Pat Buchanan. I find it incredible that anyone in the 21st Century would still think that way. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Pat Buchanan. |
Not surprising. I bet he was either responding to B. Obama's victory in November or E. Holder's unnecessarily provocative speech on "race" last month. His voice seems marginal at best, in any case. Why assign it so much weight? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Perhaps his "civilizing mission" was just what it was for others who were using it at that time (the French, for example): just a good argument and/or pretext to accomplish his larger purposes. |
That sounds like an Afro version of Zionism, complete with the bitter irony of the formerly oppressed willingly taking on the role of "civilizing" colonizer. Hmm, there's probably an interesting "altenative history" novel in there somewhere. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
