In which the author makes a Poll bound to offend somebody, on a topic no one wants to discuss
I first saw the miniseries Roots when it originally aired.
I next saw the miniseries Roots last week.
I have always thought the End does NOT justify the means.
( a Poll )
I next saw the miniseries Roots last week.
I have always thought the End does NOT justify the means.
( a Poll )
I think you know what I was alluding to now, cause others have made it clear in other responses, but I am wondering how much of a pariah I am for thinking that American black people (and America as a whole) aren't much better off now for having gone through American Slavery. Forget all the labor economics of the South (which would be too complex for here) or the hypothetical of the added slave "demand" presented by Eurocentric whites in the 1700s to the West African region, these are complex unanswerable questions. Many books should have been written already, but too few, cause this thought is unpolitical.
Just look at one part. There are many American black people now. The great majority of them are the descendants of American slaves. They (probably) wouldn't be here, otherwise. This group of Black people is responsible for a lot of America's success till now, and they have (eventually) benefited from it. But most importantly, without them, America would be a much less diverse country, much more "white", and perhaps, with much less of a tolerance for diversity.
The journey was horrific for everyone who lived through it, but this moment in time, is, in my opinion, better for it, on many fronts.
As always, thanks for the opportunity to respond to you. I appreciate it, a lot.
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I don't see much inherent good in 'diversity' of peoples. And it provides plenty of opportunity for bad.
Is Japan really a drastically worse place for its lack of diversity? How about a Japan which was never forced open by America gunships?
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Is Japan "drastically" worse for lack of diversity? I'd say the word "drastically" is well placed, so no. But you did pick a good "model country" for your point, and even there, lack of diversity in culture is going to cause them real problems, demographically. Too many old people and a poor male/female ratio would be alleviated if they were a more open country, with a more tolerant culture. But I am Gaijin, so what do I know?
It isn't so much the diversity that is the inherent good, it is the lack of diversity (that often creates and increases the lack of tolerance for others) that is the Bad. That Bad is really bad, imo. That lack of tolerance has created untold hundreds of millions of deaths in world history.
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Huh? If they had lived in less diverse communities, (i.e. all jewish, or all gentile) they would have seen less oppression, yes?
"I'd say the word "drastically" is well placed, so no."
'Drastically' = enough to offset slavery.
"lack of diversity in culture is going to cause them real problems, demographically. Too many old people and a poor male/female ratio"
They had few such demographic problems when they were completely isolated. I would claim that their demographic problems have more to do with modern urban society's abrupt changes in birth statistics (which seems to be prevalent in most such societies).
"it is the lack of diversity (that often creates and increases the lack of tolerance for others) that is the Bad"
I think this is a chicken/egg issue. the tolerance may come from diversity, but so does the intolerance.
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My 30year old daughter moved this weekend. I (and my wife) don't lift stuff, so our participation/help was limited to babysitting her two daughters, our granddaughters. The eldest is 8, she is half black, quarter white, quarter filipino, all jewish. The other granddaughter, now 4 years old, is similar, but hispanic instead of black, from the male progenitor. They are two of the best little girls I have ever encountered (but of course, I am biased). Among the different activities we did this weekend, one of them was saturday afternoon when we went to my eldest grandson's (different daughter) school carnival. Everyone had fun. We mixed and mingled and had a grand old time playing games with a very diverse group of people. We broke bread with a family in which all the women wore burkas. We played "cakewalk" with two little japanese boys, dressed to the nines in their japanese "royal prince" clothing. Everyone socialized with everyone, with no notice even paid of our differences (except by me, who notices plenty of things like that). All four of the grandkids had a blast. To my eye, none of them noticed anything unusual about the diverse nature of the populace of this midwestern town. They are still kids, so they'll see and feel more later, from our uglier past. But THEIR kids will see even less, and soon, we will all be equal, in any sense. You just have to be old enough to have seen some of the progression to know this is true. (Hopefully).
The next day, I took the 8year old to a play downtown, held in a museum dedicated to commemorating the Underground Railroad. Indigo (that is the 8 year old's name) didn't quite understand, so I was privileged to explain what heroes those people were, and why we remember what they did, and why they helped the slaves, and what would have happened had they been discovered, but they did it anyway. I explained what it meant to be a slave. Arriving near the museum we walked hand in hand for a few blocks to get there. No one even looked at us more than casually. No one forced us into the gutter so they could pass. No one made either of us wear ridiculous dunce caps or yellow circles or stars of David to identify us. We are citizens of the United States. We both walked with confidence, knowing no one was going to harass us, even if we ARE Jewish, even if she is a little Black girl to boot. No need to fear, here.
I tried hard to think of any century in the last multiple millenia where this was so possible. At the very least, we'd of been looked at askance, for sure during those many centuries where Jews had to wear things to identify and segregate them, when they were rounded up and locked into their own ghettoes at night, when they were killed en masse, for being different. But no, yesterday's experience passed without incident. I may have been thinking about it, but the little innocent one, those thoughts were as far from her as Mars. I got a big smile about that.
No one knows what results alternative realities may have engendered, but as a Jew, with a family as diverse as the USA itself, filled with those historically oppressed, the current reality looks almost as good as I could have imagined would be possible. My perspective almost forces me to see this so. A respondent elsewhere in this thread points out that, if you ask the "winners" in evolution whether the right path was chosen, they are bound to say yes. I don't know that the Blacks or the Jews are the winners, but I do know that, at least in the USA, those groups are no longer the losers. That is a big factor in my perspective.
(more below)
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(But first let me comment that I assume your listing of heinous violent acts of the first paragraph was for the benefit of the reader, cause of course I know every act there, have studied the history much more than most, and could say that almost all of those acts (and worse) were committed against Jews before there even WAS a Europe, and have almost been unremittingly occurring in some/many parts of the globe ever since. This is the first century in many millenia that a Jew can walk in his native land (if it is the USA) and not fear some malfeasance on the part of his neighbors. You talk Lincoln Ape Libel? That libel is less than two centuries old. Jews have lived with their own blood libel ten times longer than that. We have been there and been done against for much longer than any time frame you are alluding to. I know as much about oppression and oppressed people as any layman can, imo. But still, I don't mind you listing all that, cause it is all true, and your argument rests partly on it. Just know I am not some ignorant bigot with know-nothing sensibilities, no matter what I may currently think.)
But, on your first paragraph, the question you put in my mouth, I would have ended it differently. Obama is just a symbol. I am (pretty sure) you know that I have written many times that anyone who becomes President of the US is corrupt, because I don't believe it possible to win that office otherwise. But he IS a symbol of something important. If you go back just 40 years and watch the television of the era, something becomes apparent pretty quickly. Black people of that era had their place (even so short ago), and that place was NOT as doctors or scientists or business leaders or professors. It just didn't happen. There used to be a glass ceiling, strong as stone, built into social norms, that kept almost all black Americans and female Americans from rising above a certain point, in any intellectual career. That ceiling is gone now in the USA, for almost every group, and will soon be completely gone for everyone (unless there is an anti-Islamist backlash coming, but I'll fight that too.) I think you don't give our culture anywhere near enough credit for smashing that ceiling. I don't think that ceiling could have been smashed if the white people of the USA, those with the actual power in reality, didn't have the opportunity to live near all the other brethren of Earth as neighbors and see them as themselves, no different from anyone else. That is more the way I would have ended that first paragraph. I think that is an unqualified good for everyone, one that (I believe) wouldn't exist if certain heinous acts hadn't occurred over the last three centuries.
In your second paragraph, I'll point out that, especially in a less enlightened world, those with power used it, often dramatically. Europe had much power in the last millenia, for many reasons, and they got a headstart in this part of the globe to exercising it. To expect otherwise from any of the barbarians (which was everyone) who lived centuries ago is asking the impossible. I don't know that any significantly different reality could have even occurred, not unless the Enlightenment could have happened 5 centuries earlier. Colonialism etc. was bound to happen, without that enlightenment.
I can agree with everything else you wrote.
But still, thanks to my G-d given perspective, as a Jew living as free as a Jew has lived in many millenia, amongst all my diverse family, I still think my original view was correct. I see my grandchildren go to fine schools, have water and food and shelter at minimal cost, I see them walk around their worlds with confidence and skill, and ready to face an adulthood with much hope and possibility, and I can't think I am wrong.
Reality is what it is, and is much more complex than anyone realizes.
(Thinking about this is causing me much stress, but thanks for the opportunity anyway. I asked for it.)
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I NEVER said Israel in any of the context which you describe. I think my views on Israel are public record somewhere, but let me offend my family and closest friends some be re-stating them here.
The formation of Israel did 3 things for the Allied powers, all of them ugly. It allowed them to ease their own consciences for their mis-treatment of jewish concerns during the holocaust. It allowed them to get rid of their own national jewish "Problem" by encouraging Jews to leave for their "own" land. Finally, I also think that the Allied Powers thought the Arabs of the region were going to "take care of" the Jews for them after the state was formed. The formation of Israel was a bastard effort of expediency. I think Jews the world over would have been better off if Israel was formed somewhere far from the middle east, or even, not formed at all, because many of those Jews living in Israel are not living the traditions of Judaism. Judaism is pacifist, non-militaristic at its core, and that (imo) is an essential part of what it means to be Jewish. Israelis are (mainly) the Jews who came from the holocaust (and their descendants) and other bunker mentalities, put into a bigger bunker holding them all, then forced to live militaristically or die. They became militaristic to the max. Real jews don't celebrate military victory. Israelis do, however. Real jews would not have perpetrated the many violent crimes on the Palestinians that Israelis have committed, they would have rather died first (even conceding the threat of the Arab). But many Israelis do it as a matter of course, they commit crimes against the Palestinians that were committed against them, but that is not Jewish tradition, far from it. They don't seem to care. To me, Israel is a false Jewish state, and should not have happened yet, if at all. NYC is a more accurate conception of a Jewish state, in my arrogant opinion. Equating Israel with Judaism is way wrong. Israelis are not Jewish. (Which is ironic, cause most of them wouldn't consider me Jewish either.) I wouldn't live there unless I was forced to. Their society shows none of the diversity and acceptance of others that is a hallmark of Judaism, and is much more clearly seen in the USA than in Israel.
Have I made my viewpoint on Israel clear enough?
Finally, I'll try to bullet point my argument as concisely as I can, as a summary. Then I am going to stop. You can have the last word in this subthread if you summarize the counter-argument and say nothing new that is provocative or wrong (imo), compelling me to reply.
1) Colonialistic Europe/America dragged the African Black from his homes and forced him into Slavery in the New World. (Well, new to Euros, anyway.)
2) That overt slavery lasted two centuries or so, and contained many heinous acts.
3) After the US' civil war of 1860, the black people of America continued to be subject to lesser degrees of subjugation, but still, more heinous acts.
4) As time has passed since then, that subjugation has lessened, with some fits and starts, but generally, in a trend towards freedom and equality for all.
5) 150 years after the Civil War, many chains have been broken, many people have changed mindset, and now, America is one of the most diverse large powers of the world. This trend will continue such that our children and children's children will look on any of their peers as peers, not as subjects, not as lesser (or better), but equal. That will be something almost unheard of in World History, for a group as large as 300 million, and imo, is an unqualified good.
6) Without American slavery of Blacks, without the experiences we all had of living with each other and (over time) seeing each of us as the same, this "result" would not have happened. Black slaves and their generations did an amazing good for the world by involuntarily helping (through their blood and lives) create a long term and growing climate of accepting diversity and equality. I don't know that it could have happened without them. I seriously doubt that it could.
(stupid LJ is making me split this reply also. Part 2 follows)
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More specifically though, I feel like my active time is past, and a reclusive life will work for me. That doesn't keep me from thinking and speaking that the world should treasure the diversity of which I speak.
My feelings of insecurity you allude to are more financial than any other realm. Plus, I like trees and animals. Maybe more than people.
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Thanks, C. Have at it, if you wish.
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Baruch College in NYC? I hate NYC, haven't been there in quite a while (in part because the crowds make me....uh....neurologically less capable). But, I would be happy to say these thoughts to the classroom you mention. If I am ever there I will contact you and hope I can do so. Bet they wouldn't beat me up (or worse), huh? That would be some part of the good I refer to.
I'll agree with everything you say here, except the few things I have previously stated of clear disagreement. Your view is the high road of principle, heinous crimes are wrong no matter what end can (maybe) be attributed to them. I have great difficulty arguing against that. But I also want to point out the makeup of your classroom, and this in a city that has 24 hour immediate access to transport, food, shelter, communication, etc., no passes checked in the streets, no 2nd class citizens,, etc., in short, all the enablers of freedom for those students, the future leaders. My view questions whether this confluence in NYC of brilliant young people from around the globe could have occurred without American Black Slavery paving the way, in complex directions, but mainly, by making it possible for the heinous white slavers to see (and over time, react appropriately to) their own evil wrongness. It isn't easy for those in power to rein in that power and create the atmosphere of equality for all, especially if they are the barbarians of the past, so it is no wonder these are centuries-long trends. But, to a considerable extent (still lamentably not complete), that is what has happened. There are reasons the brightest minds globally are coming to this one place to hear you. Your ease in denying the past as being (at least a part of) why this can happen befuddles me a bit.
I know we were concluding, and I have just (somewhat) changed that, I understand. Answer as you will and I will try very hard to let it go. You are reasonable, you can have the last word here.
I think your points have been made well, and there are few who will disagree. I also know that very few would agree with me, can hardly even conceive what I am saying as valid, so I'll concede all the points and slip back away to easier topics. But I can't help asking one question. Is there anywhere else in the world where that same global brilliance can be as easily (and relatively freely) collected as a place like NYC, or some other fine university town, here in the US? Sure, some other places would have some of those nationals, would welcome them, maybe some schools in Europe, some others in Asia, still others I know nothing of, but can you name one other venue that would have ALL of that diversity (and more) learning from you in one real place? Most other places would either have some as "untouchables" or wouldn't have the ease of first world living, it is hard to find many places that have what NYC has, in this regard?
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