I posted a stereotypical British view in an earlier post on the south, it seems it does have some credibility based on what you've put above.

yet, strangely Lynyrd Skynyrd are not racist

the Confederate flag is some sort of symbol to most Southern rock bands and outlaw country acts, that's it usually an emblem of the South, rather than a "hang a Negro on a tree" gesture

I doubt Lynyrd Skynyrd and other southern rock bands are racist at all, but unfortunately they are a musical focal point and symbol for racists.

Not quite; The first Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a terrorist organization[9] by veterans of the Confederate Army.[14] They named it after the Greek word kuklos, which means circle. The name means "Circle of Brothers."[15] LINK

Not appreciated, jackass.

So, if there is a problem with flying a confederate flag, is there a problem with flying a flag with a black fist representing black power on it?

Is the black power movement for racial oppression of non-blacks?

The traditional leftist answer is along the lines of:

LINK

...you can actually see this argument being used to such as extremes that the Rwandan genocide is blamed on imperialism by Europeans, even though Rwanda had been independent for 32 years at that point.

Let's take them at face value and pretend the "moderates" (e.g, Bobby Seale in his Panther days) have a monopoly on the term and are the majority of people who use it, Tore; if a white guy were to claim he wants racial homogeneity in his community, wanted his race to be in control of his community's government, economy, and media.... would he be considered racist? That's what these "Black Power" folks advocate.

If someone flies a white power flag, it's certainly racist. If someone flies a black power flag, it damn sure is racist as well. Only white people can truly be racist? That's a load crap. If I get jumped by a bunch of black guys, it's not a hate crime? But if a black guy gets jumped by a bunch of whites, it is? There are black people who are every bit as racist as white people.


Of course he would

Come on man, the Black Panthers were formed during a time when African-Americans had practically no free media,inadequate education, nor power in government.

Sure it sounds racist from an objective standpoint 50 years later, but if you have any sort of cultural awareness you'd know the two are not comparable.

It is if it's a hate crime
It is if it's a hate crime. There were never any group of African-Americans dedicated to the lynching and murder of innocent Caucasians. History does play a part in racism, believe it or not.

When a group is racially oppressed by a more numerous group, it normally forms nationalism in the group that were the victims of this opression. Great examples over the last couple of centuries have included whites and blacks in the USA, Jews in Europe and most recently Serbs and Muslims in old Yugoslavia.

Point here being in this thread, is the KKK are downright racist, wereas the BPM are based on black pride which manifests itself in the form of nationalism. Without groups like the KKK, there would be no need for a group like the BPM to actually exist.

The actual need for any racist and nationalist groups to actually exist in the current world is a sorry state indeed, we live in a multi-cultural society where people have just become too intermingled to ever reverse the cycle, its a shame that there are some sorry bastards that continue to pursue racial disharmony, it would be so much easier if they just lived peacefully with their neighbours.

Indeed. I think of it like a pendulum. It swung too far in the direction of a lack of rights for black people, now it's swinging back, and of course the pendulum goes too far in the other direction (equal and opposite reaction and all that). Not that it's going too far in the sense of black people having too many rights or anything, just when black people started getting and fighting for their rights after so much oppression, it was natural for there to be some extremism.

A pendulum is a good analogy here, its a pity that it just doesn't hang somwhere in the middle. I think much more relevant today though in the USA are the Hispanics. This is the fastest growing population there and cities such as LA and Miami to name just two are predominantly Spanish speaking. What sort of rights do they have, considering many are treated as cheap labour.

Which hispanics? The wealthy second and third generation Cubans in Miami? The poor legal and illegal Mexican and Central American immigrants in the southwest? The landowners in California whose families have been there since it was a part of Mexico? Puerto Ricans? South Americans? The term covers so many different groups of people who are only connected by a vague linguistic history that it doesn't really have a whole lot of meaning when you're talking about something like civil rights.

I'm talking about poor legal and illegal newbies.

The slavery element of the civil war was inflated by the north to gloss over the more legitimate details of contention for the history books. As much as I'm an advocate of equal rights and against slavery, I also think its useful to consider how common place slavery is in human history, and how easy it would be to accept if you'd grown up in a society with it. And it's especially the case with American history that has such strong ties between slavery and racism contemporarily - but these should be looked at as separate issues as well. A lot of this discussion ends up being too heavily influenced by the narrow historical context that we've all been presented growing up.

Slavery may be common place in human history, but slavery based on race is unique to the United States.

Also, the slavery element definitely was not inflated by the North. I suggest you look up some of the speeches from Secession Commissioners of the South for a little insight as to their main reasons for war.

I was almost ready to say that slavery based on race was unique to the US but then I stopped myself because while it's the greatest contemporary example of race based slavery, its not the only place that used black slaves - and throughout history any kind of differences between people has been "useful" in distinguishing which groups might be used as slaves - race normally being an obvious one. But in the US racism and slavery are especially well tied together.

And I don't mean to say that slavery was a non-issue in the war, only that this kind of good vs. evil/right vs. wrong slant that you can put on the war was a bit overplayed by the victors. A major reason slavery ended up being abolished was probably just that it became more expensive to own slaves than it was to hire workers and have them clothe, feed, and house themselves. It seems kind of silly to pretend that an epidemic change of heart could induce that kind of massive social change.

Do you have another historical example of slavery that was determined by race?

Oh I agree that the North weren't completely innocent as they still treated blacks pretty poorly in the North (though not to the extreme of the South). Still a lot of Northerners were against the institution of slavery (abolitionists) for religious reasons or whatever else and even more realized that slavery just made our country look bad and behind the times.

The Civil War was years in the making. There was no "epidemic change of heart", it had existed for a long time before the war started.

Owning slaves was definitely cheaper than hiring workers, by the way. It had nothing to do with costs, otherwise the South would've most likely been on board for the Emancipation Proclamation.

Well aside from Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe during the same general time period I don't know of any examples that were quite as clear cut - mostly because in other places, although the slavery has been racially based it's been more diverse about the different racial groups enslaved. I'm pretty sure though, that in one way or another Nazi Germany, the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, Russia, the Mongols etc have all used racially determined slavery (but not as clear cut as blacks and whites more like slavs and romans or whatever).


I think the abolitionist thing started with the Spanish and then the US got a kick in the ass when Britain jumped on board, but in the grand scheme of things, and considering the old testaments stance on slavery, it still seems to me like a pretty sudden change of heart for slavery to be abolished over a 100 year period based on religious reasons - I suspect there were some other reasons but I can only speculate without doing serious research.

On a large plantation slavery was still extremely cheap especially considering the standard of life. But in the cities and developed areas (think of Europe more so than the American South) there were enough people to work the land without slaves. Slavery tends to be profitable in farming, mining, primary labour etc. But industrialization and slavery don't mix as well - which is why we now have something even "better" than slavery - sweatshops. Considering the way the economics of slavery works, it kind of makes sense which places were for it and which were more likely to go against it. Its kind of telling that this whole shebang took place right on the cusp of the industrial era.

This is a... podcast?... about history etc thats pretty good. This video is a sample of the episode about slavery "Addicted to Bondage". It's about and hour long and the real thing in its entirety talks more about American slavery - but this snippet is still interesting even if it isn't as much about american slavery.

The US model of slavery was quite unique and really can't be compared with slavery say in the Roman Empire etc. The US model was based on race with slaves being imported from a different continent. Traditionally, slaves have usually been recognized by the clothes they wore and places they frequented. The US slave was recognized instantly by his skin colour.

Granted.

It was the most clear cut example of racial slavery. Hard to compete with a difference as obvious as black vs. white skin when you're talking about humans.

It is a podcast. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is fantastic. One of the only podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. Good call!

You are all simplifying the interplay of race and slavery in the context of the USA; some examples being -

-the first person legally recognized as property, in the colonial USA, was black
---as was his owner
-Indians also owned slaves; some after the civil war

So, let's be clear; black's owned black slaves; indian's owned black slaves; and whites owned black slaves. The issue of chattel slavery vs. traditional is of course important (and obvious); but, let's keep in mind we're speaking of this slavery occurring in the same time period, and all these groups had members who participated in brutal chattel slavery.

In this, we see such a system of slavery was not unique to the USA, but also existed in Latin America, notably in Brazil. I'm sure you're all familiar with las Casas and the role he played in substituting slavery of Indians with that of Africans.

If you're going to advocate the notion that multiculturalism & racial egalitarianism is a genuinely moral in the full meaning of the word, fine, but that notion is directly at odds with the concept that racism is acceptable at times. What you're trying to say is something to the effect of, "The ends don't justify the means, except when they do."

That is, unless I misread you and you're claiming that racism is positive some times.


You're presuming multiculturalism can work, you're ignoring that multiculturalism is a phenomenon exclusive to the west, and your fatalism is anything but convincing.

The first point you've raised is all good and well about different races in the USA having slaves, but on closer anaylysis its actually an apologetic right-wing view stating that it just wasn't whites that had slaves. We all know though, that the largest slave holders were whites.

The reference to Casas in Latin America, is totally inadequate in this debate. Here we are talking about a 16th century historian that was in the service of Spain. Spain at that time was an absolute monarchy that ruled the seas, everybody was either a Catholic or a heathen and God reigned supreme and the Pope gave the King or Queen of Spain absolute power to carry out God's work, the word democracy would've had you chucked into the nearest dungeon before being sent to the gallows. The USA that we are talking about here, is in the 19th century and in a land that was built on demoocracy and equal rights for all men etc. Slavery by the 19th century in the USA had become an abomination of those beliefs.

For the record and its worth pointing out, that the reason why black slaves were brought to Latin America was just basically to replace the local indigenous slaves who had died in their millions due to common European ailments, the negro slaves were just brought from Africa to replace depeleted local slaves not because Casas or the Spanish felt sorry for the locals. Evidence of this is very common still today, in countries like Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela and much of the Caribbean which were decimated by the Spanish and Portuguese much of the local populations were wiped out, for that reason you will see very high negro populations in the places today. If you go to say Bolivia, Paraguay and Chile its doubtful you'll even see a negro, largely because these areas were relatively untouched by the Spanish and Portuguese.

Now I'm not sure what you're referring to in you final section, but NO racism is never acceptable under any circumstances and if it does exist in a society, that that said society is really not operating as a democracy should.

Guys.

Arguing about historical models of slavery and why we had slavery and blah blah blah is all well and good... but we're all ignoring the fact that slavery is happening RIGHT NOW.

So can we end the pointless discussion that is annoying everyone involved and maybe talk about an issue that is affecting living human beings at this very moment?

http://www.photobrazil.com/gallery/l...pste0420bw.jpg

Well this thread is about a historical model:p:

Brazil hardly operates as a democracy and most booming economies of the developing world operate off the back of slave labour in one way or another anyway so the article might be shocking but hardly surprising. They are strictly dog eat dog societies.

True enough. It just really, really, really bothers me that there is a severe lack of serious talk about modern slavery. Not necessarily here in this thread, just in life in general. Americans, at least, like to think that Lincoln took care of slavery everywhere forever, and that's that. I don't know about other nations, but that is just... horrible.

Surprising isn't the point here, the point is that there are people out there that are under someone else's thumb who are suffering because their "masters" decide that they should. I think that the "shrug" attitude many have for people in general today is appalling. We see murders, starvation, slavery, sex crimes, and genocide on the news and ALL WE DO IS SHRUG. "Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it, guess I'll just turn off the TV and pretend it isn't happening."

AND THAT PISSES ME OFF.

/endrant

Note: This was not particularly directed at anyone in here, I'm just... REALLY mad about this.

I agree the world just shrugs, if there's no oil to be had nobody really gives a shit about how people are treated within a country, but in the end they try and do something about it as society expects it. In most societies of the world the gap between those that have and those that don't have is actually growing (I don't have a link to back that up) but its a juicy debate.

Obviously, African-Americans aren't the only people who have had it rough. Maybe it's just because I live in America, but it seems like African-Americans have such a spotlight on their past, and everyone is supposed to sympathize with them so much. What about Jews? I don't see as much attention given to their peoples tragic past.

Dude, are you kidding me? Type "movies about" into google and the first history-related search option it suggests is "movies about the holocaust".

I don't agree with that.

What I will say though is that African Americans seem more prone to constantly bringing up their past suffering while Jews don't feel the need to remind people of it every 10 minutes. Just an observation I've made, and it kind of lessens my sympathy when they're always acting the victim, as if they've gone through anything near what their ancestors had to.

There is no Jewish History month, I will say that.

However Jews, in general, have enjoyed basic civil rights for a much longer period of time.

Apartheid ended in the 90's?

Their tragic historic plight is probably the most chronicled in the history of mankind. From biblical times, to the pogroms of Eastern Europe and finally to the Holocaust, where the ultimate aim was the annihilation of their race. So yes they've had a lot of attention.

If you want to pick a more modern race whose plight hasn't really been highlighted, races such as the Armenians and Kurds are much better examples.

Yes there is: May.

My thoughts exactly.

A holocaust that went unnoticed by the world and has only recently been much more publicized.

Armenian Genocide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

......and has for the Kurds no oil there and no really influential Kurds in the world, so nobody really cares about their plight.

I, and a lot of other people I'm willing to bet, had never even heard of that history month before.

At my high school, I remember each February our English class would read something like Uncle Tom's Cabin or another book like that and the halls would be adorned with posters of inspirational blacks and our teachers would always dedicate a good portion of our class to discussing it.

We need to stop acting like we're indebted to black people for something we're as responsible for as the other blacks of this generation. I really don't see it as solving anything.

Learning the history is the extent of it IMO.

Is it really surprising that the month dedicated to 12.6% of the population would receive more attention in this country than the month dedicated to 1.7% of the population?

man i need to steer out of this section