Black History Month 2014

[Jacob]

That was quite the rant, Viking. It may describe what you think multiculturalism is, but it doesn't make it true. Malthus summarized it well. It's about acknowledging, and celebrating, that our society consists of people with roots in many different cultures.

Your theory that Western cultures are inherently better at producing material better outcomes is entirely orthogonal to that.

Finally, your insistence the everyone should be like you, that your particular cultural proclivities should be emulated by all in your state, creates stronger us-vs-them dynamics in society than the letting everyone be themselves within a multicultural framework. Ironically, you insistence on unity creates division, while embracing diversity encourages unity.

[Neil]

Finally, your insistence the everyone should be like you, that your particular cultural proclivities should be emulated by all in your state, creates stronger us-vs-them dynamics in society than the letting everyone be themselves within a multicultural framework. Ironically, you insistence on unity creates division, while embracing diversity encourages unity.

I don't think it's anywhere near as cut and dried as you seem to think, but that's the experiment we're engaged in now.  We know that Viking's approach works in the long term, but we have no idea as to the long-term effects of multiculturalism.  It could be that it is just as effective, but I would be extremely surprised if it was more effective.  Looking at Canada, it was certainly a mistake not to stamp out the French.

[Viking]

That was quite the rant, Viking. It may describe what you think multiculturalism is, but it doesn't make it true. Malthus summarized it well. It's about acknowledging, and celebrating, that our society consists of people with roots in many different cultures.

The same applies the other way round. Malthus may describe what he thinks multiculturalism is, but it doesn't make it true. This is a bad piece of logic here. I'm not talking about what the intention is or what the goal is but rather one of the consequences. From just within the danish context I'd like to point out that Nørrebro happens. In denmark Nasser Khader and Yahia Hassan have both made, in effect, the same or part of my case.

It's not just about acknowledging and celebrating that our societies consist of people with roots in many cultures. It is also about treating people not as individuals but as members of groups.

Your theory that Western cultures are inherently better at producing material better outcomes is entirely orthogonal to that.

Western societies and societies which emulate western habits and institutions do materially produce better outcomes. Whether you list them by City or Country. Western success here is highly cromulent because the assertion that cultures are equal is the central motivating idea behind multi culturalism. I'm saying they are not equal.

Groups which self-identify out of the mainsteam fail. Groups which integrate cease to be separate groups and become part of the mainstream. 

Finally, your insistence the everyone should be like you, that your particular cultural proclivities should be emulated by all in your state, creates stronger us-vs-them dynamics in society than the letting everyone be themselves within a multicultural framework. Ironically, you insistence on unity creates division, while embracing diversity encourages unity.

Unfortunately all of the paragraph above is in your head. Both in your representation of what I think people should be like and in what the consequences of multiple group identities in societies. Papering over the cracks and obstinately sticking one's head in the sand pretending there aren't problem does lead to conflict.

Telling the rest of society that "we are not like you" while asserting that all modes of living are equal means the only reasonable explanation for a group failing is racism, rather than what they have in common.

A full month devoted to self-mastubatory assertions that we are great and fabulous while the converse is clearly shown in every kind of qualitative and quantitative measure is, well...



Rather than getting Cornell West and the various Black Studies departments to come in and tell african-americans that it's not their own fault, they should get Bill Cosby to come in and tell african americans that their success is up to themselves.

Whatever historical wrong were done to your ancestors and whatever hardships they suffered and whatever racist bigots say about you, it is still up to yourself to make your own future.

[Viking]

Location doesn't matter?  That's a dubious assertion.

North Korea - South Korea
Communist China - Republican China
India - Pakistan
Israel - Palestine
East Germany - West Germany
San Diego -Tijuana
El Paso - Ciudad Juarez
Havana - Miami
Cadiz - Tangiers
Palermo - Tunis
Vienna - Bratislava
Helsinki - Tallin
Singapore - Jakarta
Darwin - Makassar

I can keep going...

[garbon]

Viking makes me laugh.

[merithyn]

Personally, I think Black History Month is fun because I get to learn all kinds of things that I wouldn't otherwise get to see. Like paintings of black women from Western Europe during the 1500s.

[garbon]

Personally, I think Black History Month is fun because I get to learn all kinds of things that I wouldn't otherwise get to see.

That's why I like it as well. It isn't because I have some buy-in into racial groups or superiority of groups or what have you. Really just a time to learn about some various figures in history I would otherwise not learn about.

[garbon]

Of course, Viking seems tone deaf about race in America (despite having lived here), so not surprising that he takes the stance that he does.

[Viking]

Of course, Viking seems tone deaf about race in America (despite having lived here), so not surprising that he takes the stance that he does.

If the worst thing you can say is I'm being rude or strident or insensitive then screw you. If you're not telling me who I'm wrong or how you are right then you aren't being very relevant are you?

I don't feel any form of post-colonial guilt or even responsibility for slavery, oppression, racism, exploitation etc.etc. carried out by people who were not me.

I also don't feel any respect for the idea that because your ancestors were treated poorly that that is a reason to explain your failure or that is something you needed to be compensated for. The various black peoples of the world were being enslaved and colonized my lilly white ancestors were also being enslaved and colonized.

I'm not tone deaf about race (or religion for that matter) I just don't accept the validity of the claim that "you are rude" is an argument. Three generations ago my ancestors were eeking out a living on a resource free shithole of a windswept rock in the middle of but fuck nowhere suffering from zero development and almost 700 years of exploitative colonial rule from denmark and norway.

[garbon]

I never said you were rude or asked you to feel any of those things that you don't feel.

[CountDeMoney]

Three generations ago my ancestors were eeking out a living on a resource free shithole of a windswept rock in the middle of but fuck nowhere suffering from zero development and almost 700 years of exploitative colonial rule from denmark and norway.

We'll give them the month of November.

[Valmy]

Personally, I think Black History Month is fun because I get to learn all kinds of things that I wouldn't otherwise get to see.

That's why I like it as well. It isn't because I have some buy-in into racial groups or superiority of groups or what have you. Really just a time to learn about some various figures in history I would otherwise not learn about.

Yeah that is what I thought the whole deal was.  You just, you know, talk about black history during black history month. 

[Malthus]

When I was growing up, I learned a very interesting bit of Black history - from a site that is only a couple of miles from my family's cottage (a/k/a cabin  ).

As it turns out, the first non-aboriginal settlers in Oro county were Black. The settlement was founded by Black freemen granted land for services during the War of 1812 (and later opened to any Blacks). The idea was essentially defensive: it was naturally assumed by the government that free Blacks would provide loyal soldiers to defend the area in the case of an American attack, given that the Americans were a slave society. So land grants were made to Blacks on an equal basis with Whites, an unusually progressive attitude at the time (if a self-interested one).

Later, the very end of the "Underground Railway" for freed slaves was in Oro ("Oro" from  "gold" in Spanish - as in the land of gold, gold at the end of the rainbow, etc.). This is where the slaves who were really worried about cross-border slave-hunters fled.

The Black community built a church there that is still standing - the "African Episcopal Church". It is the oldest log-built African church in north america.

http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=12100&pid=0

Thing is, Oro is relatively shitty as farmland and naturally very very brutal in winter. After the Civil War, the settlement there gradually died out as most of the Black settlers moved to more clement climes: the last one died in the 1940s. The community (now mostly White) rallied to preserve the Church, though.

[derspiess]

embracing diversity encourages unity.

[garbon]

embracing diversity encourages unity.