“but it’s still hard to parse your statement as not sounding pretty damned white supremacist.”
That is the emotional reaction. I intentionally avoided words like “superior” to avoid emotion. I understand your reaction. I’m white, but not a supremacist. However, if you take evolution as fact, then you accept “survival of the fittest”.
If Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization, then it’s reasonable to assume that whites were not part of the earliest civilizations. Given that most, if not all, early civilizations were conquest minded, how did whites ascend, (in a Eurocentric way)?
Now, here is my own opinion: I think white people happen to be the optimal mix of intelligence, creativity, and aggression. I think other races/civilizations are and have been brighter, etc. But haven’t had the mix that is found in whites.
Now, if that makes you uneasy, you’re not alone. But, to ignore the elephant in the room doesn’t make the elephant disappear. If you’d like to disabuse me of my simplistic notions, I’m all eyes.
[If Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization]
Indeed; I personally believe it was. In and around .... what we now know as Iraq (roughly). Where Ancient Babylon was.