Posted on 02/26/2002 3:28:30 AM PST by Mean Daddy
What is called Black History Month might more accurately be called "the sins of white people" month. The sins of any branch of the human race are virtually inexhaustible, but the history of blacks in America includes a lot more than the sins of white people, which are put front and center each February.
Obviously, there is current political mileage to be gotten from historic grievances. At a minimum, politicians and activists get the media attention that is the lifeblood of their careers. Then there are racial quotas, money for special minority programs and hopes for reparations for slavery. If nothing else, some people get excuses for their own shortcomings -- and excuses are very important.
One of the many penetrating insights of the late Eric Hoffer was that, for many people, an excuse is better than an achievement. That is because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future. But an excuse can last for life.
Those black achievements which did not involve fighting the sins of white people get little attention during Black History Month. Indeed, many of those achievements undermine the blanket excuse that white sins are what prevent blacks from accomplishing more. How many people have heard of Paul Williams, who became a prominent black architect long before the civil rights revolution, or about successful black writers in the 19th century?
There was also an outstanding black high school in Washington, D.C., which had remarkable achievements from 1870 to 1955. For example, most of its graduates during that period went on to college, even though most white high school graduates did not make it to college during that era. As far back as 1899, this school's students scored higher on standardized tests than two of the three white academic high schools in the District of Columbia.
Given the terrible educational performances of so many ghetto schools, you might think that there would be great interest in how this particular school succeeded when so many others failed. But you would be wrong. Where there was any reaction at all from the black establishment to an article I wrote about the history of this school, that reaction was hostility.
Dunbar High School was an achievement, but it destroyed a thousand excuses. The prevailing dogma is that all the failures of black schools were due to the sins of white people, including inadequate funding and racial segregation. But Dunbar was inadequately funded -- its class sizes were 40 or more -- and it was racially segregated for more than 80 years. Its history of success was therefore not welcomed by black "leaders."
Another big problem with Black History Month is its narrowness. You cannot understand even your own history if that is the only history you know. Some explanations of what has happened in your history might sound plausible within the framework of just one people's history, but these explanations can collapse like a house of cards if you look at the same factors in the histories of other groups, other countries, and other eras.
Shelby Steele has pointed out that whites are desperate to escape guilt and blacks are desperate to escape implications of inferiority. But, viewed against the background of world history, neither group of Americans is unique. Nor are the differences between them. Both their anxieties are overblown.
Black-white differences in income, IQ, lifestyle or anything else you care to name are exceeded by differences between innumerable other groups around the world today and throughout history -- even when none of the factors that we blame for the differences in America was present.
For example, when the Romans invaded Britain, they came from an empire with magnificent art, architecture, literature, political organization and military might. But the Britons were an illiterate tribal people. There was not a building on the island, and no Briton's name had ever been recorded in the pages of history.
The Britons didn't build London. The Romans built London. And when the Romans left, four centuries later, the country fragmented into tribal domains again, the economy collapsed, and buildings and roads decayed. No one would have dreamed at that point that someday there would be a British Empire to exceed anything the Romans had ever achieved.
Maybe we need a British History Month.
It's really sad how this "celebration" drives animosity between the races. I really don't see it as positive. Every year corporate America braces for the onslaught of propaganda in February. They rub our nose it, they call out whitey for slavery and bring up the injustices of their past while parading socialist black leaders. Not much positive about that.
A better solution is American Month - celebrate the accomplishments of ALL AMERICANS, not just white or black. Let's come together and celebrate our country and our fellow countrymen!
I DOUBT there is a Human Culture free of the Sin of "SlaveHolding," or the "Shame" of Slavery to another Tribe/Culture/Race/Religious Group!
So Some of ALL of our Forefathers were STUPID/Inconsiderate/Insensitive/Unwary/Savage/incompetent/rapacious/ill-advised/Slaves/Masters!!
That was Then; This is Now!
NO Human Culture is free of the sin of Slavery--or the Humiliation of "Being a Slave!" HISTORY HAS MOVED ON------!
ANY Culture which whines about past abuses as Slaves IS NEARLY ALWAYS a Culture which has ALSO "Held & Abused Slaves" in it's past--or EVEN at present!
America FORMALLY ABOLISHED ALL FORMS of SLAVERY ~ 150 years ago!
Considering World History, "Slavery" has been a "Dead Issue" in America for OVER a Century!
ANY ATTEMPT to claim "reparations" for the alleged "abuse" of a Slave in America HAS TO relate to Century (& a half)-old complaints by individuals sold into slavery (or, sadly, Born into Slavery) from a Black Culture ACTIVELY ENGAGED IN the "Slave Trade!"
American descendants of slaves who are convinced their lives would have been better had their ancestors Not been sold as slaves to Americans OUGHT TO BE "addressing their Grievances" to the African & Arab Families who captured & sold their ancestors into Slavery!
After ALL, History shows that Slaves sold to OTHER CULTURES were treated SO MUCH BETTER than those sold in America!
History CLEARLY SHOWS that if "Slaves" in America were treated "to the STANDARDS" accorded Slaves around the World (1900's), there would BE NO "Descendants" to whine about their "treatment!"
Doc
We did give food, clothing and shelter to the native Americans... only the food was rotten, the clothes had small pox, and the shelter was... well no shelter.
Just what is it that I don't get? Then, I'll be able to better speak to what it is YOU don't get.
That said, I also wanted to make sure you saw another example of Sowell's excellent reasoning.
Sowell's reasoning is excellent most of the time but there are a few flaws in this essay:
First of all, the premise of the essay is really inaccurate- if BHM were about the sins of white people, then the white sinners would be highlighted, not the black person who overcame racism and whatever else to be worthy of mention during BHM. To me, the theme panders to what the likes of you want to hear.
Second, BHM is about achievements, not excuses. The people typically honored during BHM refused to accept one excuse or another as to why they couldn't achieve.
Third, the notion that BHM means not knowing about anyone else's history is completely and totally erroneous. What do you think kids study the rest of the year? Hate to dissapoint you, but yours truly got pretty much all "A's" in American History and World History, and I'm old enough to have studied the non-PC version of those in school.
Tell me again- what is it that I don't seem to get?
Indeed, slavery is an inseparable part of the ethnicity of Slavs. The word derives from the Greek Sclava, or slave. So named because the Mongols regularly raided the steppes and captured these people as slaves, reportedly by the hundreds of thousands. Major Owens, notwithstanding...
It seems to me that Slavs, as a group, have "gotten over it". Though slavery is the derivation of their ethnic identity, it is but a footnote in their cultural history.
The blacks would do well to study their example.
It's not exactly the same thing, but the history of serfs in Russia closely parallels that of slavery in the U.S. -- in just about every important historical and social respect.
Czar Alexander II of Russia liberated the serfs in 1861, two years before Lincoln proclaimed emancipation.
I'd be turning soil that had already been plowed on other threads, and you know it. As long as you, and the race hustlers who want to keep people as victims, have the notion that something as ridiculous as bhm is for MY benefit, solutions to the divisions in this country are impossible.
The gap between what you and I believe, on issues of race, is far too wide.
Now that is a novel idea. We applaud you.
(BTW, I didn't know about Native Americans practicing slavery... and I've got some Cherokee ancestry! Any good links?)
"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well."
Booker T. Washington 1911
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