Unknown Soldier

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.

The Batlord

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.

__________________

Unknown Soldier

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.

Janszoon

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.

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Unknown Soldier

I'm talking about poor legal and illegal newbies.

hip hop bunny hop

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.

__________________
Have mercy on the poor.

Unknown Soldier

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.

Blarobbarg

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?

__________________

Unknown Soldier

Well this thread is about a historical model

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.

Blarobbarg

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.

__________________