african americans

let me just say im a hick in a hick town so im not even sure if african american is the right term. ( the term 'black' is used here). well i was just wondering why african americans ALWAYS bring race into everyhting. i saw 3 african comics on tv and i knew that in the first 20 seconds, theyd mention -white people- or That gross n word. why does their brain revolve around color? Caucasions hardly ever bring it up.

i don't know, mayb because of the abuse they have suffered because of it, they think reminding us of it will prevent it reoccuring.which it won't, its now we get pissed off with them, cos they're too het up about it.

I have a theory about why the whole racial tension thing occured, and why it still exists to an extent. but it its a bit radical, and definitely not pc. id like to see what people think of it, but i dont want to insult anyone. if u want to hear it, tell me and ill put it down, if not then ill keep it to myself.

by all means share with us Cynic. if people have a problem with it im sure they can deal

okies here i go, feel free to correct if you thinking im talking crap.

I think a lot of the racial tension, and belief (on the part of the white people) that they were better than the black people, stems from the way our respective soceities were at the time. at the time, we were a more advanced society than they were (technologically). our ships could make the voyage from england to africa, but they had no such capabilities, plus we had steel weapons and other such things they did not. and from what i can remember of history i think they had some of the same influences, for example i believe the romans went to africa. so at the time, they appeared to be less inteligent than we did, and not to have advanced as far. also a number of the black slaves in britain ended up there, due to being sold into it by their one of the clan chieftans. and that feeling took a long long time to (mostly) dispel. the reason that it still hasnt been dispelled to this day, is partly due to them. the majority of countries that are predominantly black, are also predominantly up shit creek without a paddle due to the corruption and dictators featuring so largely in the governments. looked at one way, it appears that they have a tendancy to grab for themselves without actually thinking about each other, take mugabe for instance, he has kicked the white farmers of their land (which produced enough corn for the country) and given it to his cronies who keep him in power. now the land produces no crops, and the whole country relies on aid, while he lives in a nice house eating expenisve food.
There is also if you watch a group of black youths (male and female) towards aggression. im not saying all of them, but it is quite a widespread trait, which seems to be what leads them into the gun culture that around.

with all that is it unsurprising that people tend to think that they're a lesser race?

i'm not racist, i think that colour or race has no affect on someone intelligence, there are some hugely intelligent black people and white people. but the tendancy towards aggressiveness is enough to put anyones back up towards them. but i can guarantee it to you that i would be called racist if i suggested this to any balck person.

does anyone agree with me? i know its a bit rough around the edges, so dont pay too much attention to the fines details of it, but i think its close to the truth in essence

Cynic-Al I agree with the first part of your statement about colonization--"whites" as advanced and superior race--I beleive that is how it was first viewed.


As for the Thread-- I think the reason African-American people comment on their race is because they speak within a re-claimed agency of being "black". The "N' word in particular--the empowerment of owning a word that is derogatory--to re-use it as your own renders it unharmful. I think this is half the reason some woman wearT.shirts with BITCH written on them.

I think the reason colour is mentioned is because "white" or caucastion is the dominant race--it's bit like heterosexuality--people are not expected to come out of the closet as hetero.
Being caucasion is central to culture--along with being male and hetero.
If you are anything but any of those--it's a constant struggle to be heard and to find agency (a place to speak from)--
Most of us have heard of feminism--but there is no Manism....
and why would there be...male is the dominant gender.
The same goes for being "white".....culturally it is dominant...that is why it doesn't need to be mentioned, and it is probably the very reason African-American people feel the need to re-state their position and re-claim their autonomy as a group.

Hyphenated people are confused. They can't decide one way or the other what they are so they become hyphenated. African-American is one example. I also hate women who marry and hyphenate their maiden name with their husband's name. So Ms. Mary Swallows gets married to her husband Mr. Johnson and her married name becomes Mrs. Mary Swallows-Johnson. I hate it.

If a persons color or country of origin matters to you. You are a racist.

Such a vile term "racist" is.

Sort of like "sexist".
It invokes a Pavlovian response.

Race, a word that can be replaced by 'genetic type", breed, kind...population.

One usually in reference to a population which has experienced a periodic of genetic isolation in its not so long ago past.
A preliminary step towards species evolution, or branching out, which did not go that extra step.

Species, of course, is a term designating a reproductive unity; a group of organism that has evolved, in time, the codependencies to share genetic material and to pass it on to an offspring.
Species...a product of need.

From this we get specialized roles, such as male/female and due to migratory processes resulting in genetic isolation we get inbreeding which results in races, or types, or breeds, each with its own particular traits; both physical and mental.

But don't tell the average man or the liberal....he might accuse you of hate.

Sigh, I will go furhter into this from home. These comments about how blacks were abused. Slavery was imported from africa. The Irish, welsh, mexicans, and chinese all got screwed over too.

When talking about slavery... just keep in mind that slavery was the default status in the world for a long time.

You were somehow stripped of rights (or given very little rights) and somebody was allowed to have ownership over you.

There are a few notable exceptions in the world, but I will focus on the Western world and its heritage. The greatest influence against slavery was from the ancient greeks. All important city states in ancient greece (there were more than just athens and sparta, you know... there were even the ones in asia minor until they were conquered by the persians) disproved of slavery but only Athens raised the bar and disproved of tyranny too. Tyranny, as expressed by an undemocratic, one man rules all conception, was thriving in most of the world and should be considered the default status of the world... and over time there were a few notable exceptions.

In europe you also had the nordic tribes and the celts which didn't allow slavery, but they did allow tyranny since they were ruled by one chieftain. The Dacians also did not allow slavery and had one of the most democratic tyranical regimes up to that time, where there was a system of equality put in place. The sword is equal to the hammer and the plow. This means that both the military and the civilians were put on the same rank... one did not have power over the other.

In Asia minor, slavery were thriving under the Persian empire. In Africa, tribes would often take slaves from other conquer tribes. They would then sell slaves to slave dealers, whom at that time were mostly arabs or jews(a tradition that held until the XVIIIth century), especially in northern africa and eastern africa and asia minor. In asia, slavery was a common practice with a few notable exceptions all around the world...but to my knowledge, Athens is world leader at that time in matter of rights and liberties.

Moving on, slavery was only permitted in the Roman Republic (later the Empire) after it started expanding outside of the peninsula, and maybe the most notable expansions into iberia and north africa with the conquest and sacking of Carthage. There was a form of slavery before that... but it would better be categorized as second class citizenship rather than slavery. Slavery is not having less rights... but having no rights. Not even the right to your life. Which is ofc absurd but that's how the idea goes.

Moving on to the topic at hand, slavery in the USA. An important note is that all european colonial powers abolished slavery at least two decades before the USA did and by the abolishment of slavery by Lincoln, slavery was abolished all over the western civilized world. For the first time in world history, slavery stopped being the default stance of things in most of the world (ironically, thanks to the fact that there were European colonial powers). Furthermore, Lincoln tried to free blacks and give them their own country. So he liberated the colonial province of Liberia and sharted deporting blacks to Liberia so that they could rule themselves over there, thus, remove the cause of racism in the USA. He was shot before the process could be finished however... but anyway. The greatest misconception is about how were slaves brought to the USA. Out of nearly 4mil africans, bought by slavers from african chieftains, only about 300k-400k were brought to north america, and the rest to south america. Many africans died on the crossing due to diseases, drowning or just plain killing themselves or being killed by the slavers. The "white man" didn't wait behind the bush to grab the black man and bring him to america. The slaver went, gave some goods or gold to the african chieftain who then sold him the slaves he had taken from raiding other tribes and villages. The slavers were not just whites. There were arabs, blacks, jews and asians too. Everybody was part of it because it was a lucrative deal.

Places outside of the European power who had practices slavery continued, to the same degree or to a lesser degree. Even today there are places in asia and africa where slavery exists. In China, there is slavery in the form of mandatory labor the government forces... though that would fall more in the category of tyranny rather than slavery. The 2 notions can go hand in hand ,but they can be completely divorced too.

This doesn't mean that slavery doesn't try to make a come-back. The newest type of slavery is economic slavery (pushed by the big banks) which may very well end up in places like Greece, which is heavily indebted, if the human rights council becomes more of a joke than it is now.

EDIT: When discussing slavery in the USA, the factors you need to take into consideration is the relativity of everything.

The majority of whites didn't want to own slaves in the south. While it is true that only blacks (and to a very small degree, native americans) were permitted to be slaves, a lot of blacks owned slaves themselves. There were free black people in the south who either owned slaves or didn't own slaves. It is said that 24-27% of all freed blacks in the south owned slaves at the start of the XIXth century while only about 3-5% of whites in the south owned slaves.

You may think this is bizarre but let me tell you why this was. Slave owners made a lot of profit from their ownership of slaves. They had no interest to allow others to wreck their profitable venture. This is why the economy was less developed in the south. White entrepreneurs who wanted to start a business and hire white people or black people to work there, had a hard time competing with the slave owners. The slave owners themselves (granted, the largest slave owners were 95% whites in the south) had no interest in letting other people become large slave owners or have great businesses with industries that would compete with their slave labor.

So to put in perspective.

Yes, there were blacks owning blacks.
There were blacks who didn't own blacks.
there were whites who opposed slavery.
and there were whites who had slaves... and there were whites who had a LOT of slaves.

the large slave owners did harm to the economy because their slave labor didn't permit the entrepreneurs to advance and grow because they couldn't make enough profit to do... because they hired people, not owned them. This backfired in the civil war... with the north being more developed.

So. Slavery is bad. Very bad, from all points of view except if you are the big slave owner.