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Re: All too familiar (Score: 1)
by Byron on Wednesday, October 23 @ 03:59:02 EDT
(User Info | Send a Message) | Alibaba:
Please reread my previous post. I didn't say that white people are the "root of all evil." Nor did I say that it was a "distinguishing badge of the race"--white people have achieved much more notable things. However, racism (not prejudice) was created in Europe by Europeans (who happen to be white). It didn't exist before Europeans created it.
In my previous post, I pointed out that there is a difference between prejudice based on race and prejudice based on other differences. Prejudice based on non-racial factors is universal; prejudice based on race started in Europe.
The "counterexamples" that you mention are based on culture, not RACE. If I were to show you a Tutsi and a Hutu, you would not be able to distinguish one from the other, because even though they are of different cultures, they are of the same race. It's ethnic, not racial. As for Indian history, you are correct in asserting that the Aryans were lighter than the Dravidians. But their conflict was also one of culture, not race. They just happened to be lighter. Throughout history there are numerous such examples of conquerors who fought and defeated people of different races, but they did so because they wanted land or property, not because they hated or felt superior based on racial reasons. Cultural reasons maybe, but not racial reasons. They didn't see behaviors or deficiencies of other cultures as inherent in different races.
The Indian caste system (which my good friend "Anonymous" mentioned) is also based on class, also not race. This is why if you see two Indian Americans talking about their caste with one another, they have to reveal their caste--they can't tell just by looking at one another. Many Indians prefer lighter skin, but there are dark Brahmins as well as light untouchables. And still, they don't view this lightness/darkness issue as a racial issue.
As for the example of Arab racism against non-Arab Muslims--I've never heard of that. I don't know any white Muslims personally, but a know a few black Muslims, and they've told me that they've received nothing but love and respect from their Arab brothers.
My point was that historically racism began when certain white people started classifying races and ascribing inherent characteristics to the different races. Examples? Gobineau, Linnaeus, Darwin, Galton, etc. Gobineau wrote a book called "The Inequality of Races" that was popular throughout Europe. In the book, he talks about how certain traits and deficiencies are linked to race. Before these guys started the process of making generalizations based on race, racism simply didn't exist. These Europeans justified slavery using science--they would measure black people's heads, determine that their heads were smaller, and then argue that blacks were therefore not smart enough to govern themselves. They then used this to justify slavery. This kind of racial science never existed before they created it.
Now I'm not saying that blacks and Asians are not racist today. As the other guy on this forum mentioned, when a black guy shoots a white guy based on racial reasons, it's racist. The point of my previous post was just to talk about the history of racism and to make the statement that we minorities still suffer from racism that was imposed on us. And yes, I also wanted to point out that we minorities did not create it.
My own view is that we need to get to the root of racism in order to destroy it. We can't just look at the present because racism is far too complex to limit ourselves to the here and now. And in order to do that, we need to learn the history of racism. |
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