Posted on 11/17/2001 4:49:23 PM PST by BamaCharm
Last night, Pokey78 posted this article from The Guardian (UK). It is an OPED from an Oxford professor who blasts America for slavery and racism. It included his email address and, on a whim, I emailed him attaching an article from the NY Daily News that refuted his opinion.
His OPEDWhat Next? Alabama
Article I emailed to him Facing Facts About Africa and Slavery - NY Daily News
This is the email response I received from him today.
FROM: Jonathan David Farley
11/17/2001
I haven't bothered to display most of these images. Your story obviously has a right wing bias (meaning it contains concrete falsehoods)---the blacks who have been "exposing" so-called "race hustlers" can be counted on one hand or two, are invariably deranged (clear in the case of Clarence Thomas and his Coke bottle; Glenn Lowry used to be an abusive cokehead; etc.). In fact, the Black conservatives are usually pretty obvious opportunists and race hustlers---they invariably shoot to the top of the bestsellers lists, get invited on all the shows (like Republican NAACP leader Shannon Reeves on Politically Incorrect---you've never seen a Black Panther on that show, because their ideology really IS "politically incorrect").
Now to the charges. I imagine there is slavery in Africa today. There is also war, famine, AIDS. Of course, this didn't just happen all of a sudden. Just today a report came out (I only saw the headlines) that the King of Belgium knew of the plot to kill Lumumba. Of course, it came nowhere close to American slavery.
I thought some of you would appreciate my response back to him.
Sir, I am surprised by your response.All I did was email you an article. Your retort was "Your story obviously has a right wing bias (meaning it contains concrete falsehoods)". Then, you launch into a personal assault against African-Americans with whom you disagree philosophically. I'm not attacking you but I need to ask...isn't it quite possible that you are the one with a bias?
Sir, you are an intelligent man. You are a professor. Is it NOT your calling to research, separate fact from fiction, and espouse the truth regardless of your predisposition? Since I took the time to read your recent article in The Guardian and have taken the time to write you, will you not give me the same courtesy?
The U.S. was a slave holding nation, true enough. However, America's slavery sins were not unique in the world and America accounted for less than 5% of the slaves sent to the western hemisphere. The U.S. has however, been the subject of the most criticism for slavery. Consider these facts.
Arabs were involved in the African slave trade long before Europeans
African Heritage Extends Across the Arab World and
The Role of Islam in African Slavery
Europeans began the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and were overwhelmingly responsible for perpetuating it into the western hemisphere.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and
Origins of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade
Britain, where you now reside, was the primary culprit. Remember America was a British colony up until 85 years prior to America's Emancipation Proclamation.
The overwhelming majority (95.4%) of African slaves introduced into the western hemisphere during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, were transported to South America and the Caribbean. Brazil alone accounts for 35.4% of the African slaves introduced into the western hemisphere. The number of Africans transported as slaves to the British West Indies alone is 4 times the total introduced into the United States.
Slavery was NOT practiced in all of America. Americans fought a war with slavery as the dominant issue. Nevertheless, you seem to single out America alone as the scapegoat for African slavery while allowing the rest of the world, who is far more culpable, off the hook.
I'm sure there are British students at Oxford who applaud your condemnation of America for its slavery past, totally ignorant that their country was the primary supplier of African slaves to their former colony and to a larger degree to their colonies in the Caribbean.
Sir, one more thing, slavery is alive and well. It is being practiced around the world but primarily in Africa and Asia.
Global Slavery Resource Center and
Thank you for your response and I hope that you will consider mine.
Darrell Baker, USA
Your response is slightly flawed. ;-)
Well . . . we know where his bias is from this statement, don't we--i.e., if you're a conservative, you must be a certified liar.
You did a great job with your response. And you have done a good service for the cause. Every time we call these pointy-headed leftists on the carpet, is one less time we don't let them get away with their outrageous commentary unchallenged.
Great job :)
Some years ago, a member of the editorial staff of the Inquirer ran a hit piece on Jerry Falwell. I responded to him and asked him to support his arguments. All he did was refer me to People for the American Way (!!). Later I called this person, and started talking. Somehow the subject came to churches. When I asked him what church he attended, he all of a sudden stopped the conversation and hung up!!.
The author, had he been born white, would never have become a professor (or much of anything else, I suspect). He's another Lionel Jeffries ...a person who was handed a professorship on the basis of race and nothing else, certainly not intelligence or achievement.
The author is also a loathsome POS. That comes through quite clearly in both his article and his e mail.
Before he starts citing Belgians as authorities, Farley should read Newt Gingrich's dissertation about Belgian educational policy in the Congo (geared strictly towards Belgium's interests, not to prepare the Congo for future independence). An earlier king of Belgium, Leopold II, was guilty of extreme exploitation of the natives of the Congo...former Confederate soldier Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) was among those denouncing the atrocities.
Stay with it! And keep us abreast of further developments. I will be very surprised if your last response is answered...
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