Filtering History (Thomas Sowell)

GOPUSA ^ | April 27, 2010 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

Many years ago, I was surprised to receive a letter from an old friend, saying that she had been told that I refused to see campus visitors from Africa.

At the time, I was so bogged down with work that I had agreed to see only one visitor to the Stanford campus-- and it so happens that he was from Africa. He just happened to come along when I had a little breathing room from the work I was doing in my office.

I pointed out to my friend that whoever said what she heard might just as well have said that I refused to go sky-diving with blacks-- which was true, because I refused to go sky-diving with anybody, whether black, white, Asian or whatever.

The kind of thinking that produced a passing misconception about me has, unfortunately, produced much bigger, much longer lasting, much more systematic and more poisonous distortions about the United States of America.

Slavery is a classic example. The history of slavery across the centuries and in many countries around the world is a painful history to read-- not only in terms of how slaves have been treated, but because of what that says about the whole human species-- because slaves and enslavers alike have been of every race, religion and nationality.

If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings-- no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history.

But that is not the message that is being taught in our schools and colleges, or dramatized on television and in the movies. The message that is pounded home again and again is that white people enslaved black people.

It is true, just as it is true that I don't go sky-diving with blacks. But it is also false in its implications for the same reason. Just as Europeans enslaved Africans, North Africans enslaved Europeans-- more Europeans than there were Africans enslaved in the United States and in the 13 colonies from which it was formed.

The treatment of white galley slaves was even worse than the treatment of black slaves picking cotton. But there are no movies or television dramas about it comparable to "Roots," and our schools and colleges don't pound it into the heads of students.

The inhumanity of human beings toward other human beings is not a new story, much less a local story. There is no need to hide it, because there are lessons we can learn from it. But there is also no need to distort it, so that sins of the whole human species around the world are presented as special defects of "our society" or the sins of a particular race.

If American society and Western civilization are different from other societies and civilization, it is that they eventually turned against slavery, and stamped it out, at a time when non-Western societies around the world were still maintaining slavery and resisting Western pressures to end slavery, including in some cases armed resistance.

Only the fact that the West had more firepower than others put an end to slavery in many non-Western societies during the age of Western imperialism. Yet today there are Americans who have gone to Africa to apologize for slavery-- on a continent where slavery has still not been completely ended, to this very moment.

It is not just the history of slavery that gets distorted beyond recognition by the selective filtering of facts. Those who go back to mine history, in order to find everything they can to undermine American society or Western civilization, have very little interest in the Bataan death march, the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire or similar atrocities in other times and places.

Those who mine history for sins are not searching for truth but for opportunities to denigrate their own society, or for grievances that can be cashed in today, at the expense of people who were not even born when the sins of the past were committed.

An ancient adage says: "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." But apparently that is not sufficient for many among our educators, the intelligentsia or the media. They are busy poisoning the present by the way they present the past.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Well ain’t that a coincidence, I don’t go sky-diving with whites!

[Bhoy]

“If American society and Western civilization are different from other societies and civilization, it is that they eventually turned against slavery, and stamped it out, at a time when non-Western societies around the world were still maintaining slavery and resisting Western pressures to end slavery, including in some cases armed resistance.

Only the fact that the West had more firepower than others put an end to slavery in many non-Western societies during the age of Western imperialism. Yet today there are Americans who have gone to Africa to apologize for slavery— on a continent where slavery has still not been completely ended, to this very moment.”

And the very people who were the only ones to call it immoral and wrong are the ones who are to be punished.

Thanks Dr Sowell once again for stating the truth.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Bravo again!

[the OlLine Rebel]

Don’t you just dream of having SOWELL for President? I know I do. That or Walt Williams.

And it’s not simply a desire for “revenge” by having a (real) black man in office.

I honestly can’t think of a white guy I’d rather have as president now.

[sonic109]

Sowell is a national treasure and should be required reading for every citizen. A voice of total clarity.After reading this piece I got depress seeing how far down the whole race thing has gotten , how scum like Sharpton and Jackson have degraded our society and how history has been used for propaganda. Half the country wouldn’t even be able to read this article never mind understand it.

[Our man in washington]

Dr. Sowell turns 80 on June 30th. If my mind at that age is half as sharp as his, I will take it and be happy!

[PhilDragoo]

Barak Hussein Obama bows to the Emperor of Japan. Obama carried tapes of Jeremiah Wright's "white man's greed runs a world in need"--

Obama's crew are slavedealers. His little trip home in 2006 on behalf of the Raila Odinga "We Barbecue Followers of the Cross"--

Did Obama question the Japanese Emperor regarding reparations for the Chinese vis-a-vis that little "Rape of Nanking" matter--

Did he broach the "Korean comfort women" issue--

My line gave blood at Little Anna River May 25, 1864; somehow I think Obama's on the wrong side--

He rather approved of Japanese genocide--having expressed distaste at "that whole deck-of-the-Missouri-thing"--

What a mad mess is the mind of a Narcissist--

Medved at this hour: Africa practiced slavery for a thousand years before contact with Europe.

It is vile--but is a fire which Gasoline-Hussein refuses to extinguish--why not intercede in Darfur--

[jazusamo]

Very well said, I’d settle for a little less than half. :)

[jazusamo]

Thanks Phil, good post!

[Oceander]

George Santayana's words ring true:

[sonic109]

Someone should send Sowell’s articles to Obama every time they come out .Just to show him what an asshole he really is and what a nobody he is next to Sowell.
Brilliant.

[Gil4]

[jazusamo]

A great idea but I doubt Obama would read even a few words. I’ve a list (56) of Dr. Sowell’s columns where he’s been moderate to highly critcal of Obama from the time he started campaigning to present, he really rips him in many. :)

[gogeo]

SMACK!!!

[sonic109]

He wouldn’t read it as it don’t fit Marxist ideology.

[lentulusgracchus]

Those who mine history for sins are not searching for truth but for opportunities to denigrate their own society, or for grievances that can be cashed in today, at the expense of people who were not even born when the sins of the past were committed.

Truer words were never spoken, and indeed Sowell has gentled his message quite a bit.

The larger lesson needs to be about how Marxists abuse all forms of learning (sc. "Lysenkoism") to promote, relentlessly and pitilessly, their power-seeking snake oil.

[lentulusgracchus]

...."that whole deck-of-the-Missouri-thing"-- ....

Oh, I don't think he approves of the Japanese and their war crimes so much .....

....as that he just can't stand the idea of a great victory by those damned white people...... he'd have preferred a Japanese, a Chinese, anybody's victory over the American Beast People.

JMHO.

What's that written across his forehead in your graphic? Can't quite make it out w/ my poorer graphics.

[PhilDragoo]

NOT ABOUT ME

[mcenedo]

I never miss reading Thomas Sowell, like Steyn, like VDH he never misses the mark.

bump

[GOP_Raider]

The inhumanity of human beings toward other human beings is not a new story, much less a local story. There is no need to hide it, because there are lessons we can learn from it. But there is also no need to distort it, so that sins of the whole human species around the world are presented as special defects of "our society" or the sins of a particular race.

Moral clarity FTW!