Re: The Racism Thread

[El Gunner]

benefiting/capitalising on the exploits of others' labour = capitalism

What about capitalist states with broad welfare systems. Do you denounce that as well?

althougth not ideal, in our current world, this seems to be a good approach for societies. What's the best examples currently? Scandinavian countries, Germany, Canada?

As long as the jobs are fulfilling, not exploitative and the money/labour is going back into the community. Which unfortunately for the large part of the world it doesn't.

[Babun]

our state-run media are not 'neutral'

True, but on the other hand they sure as shit are a hell of a lot more critical of our government than the private media;
ARD/ZDF are way more likely to rip the Kanzleramt a new one than the likes of Pro7.

Too blind to the left side but still better than nothing:
https://www.welt.de/kultur/deus-ex-machina/article212441285/Don-Alphonso-Linksextreme-Verbindungen-ignorieren-Oeffentlichkeit-taeuschen.html

[Myesyats]

Zooming out though, I'm not sure what your point was with this post. Can you provide a summation what you're trying to say about American chattel slavery here? I do not want to make assumptions.

Truth be told I don't even know why I got into this. I don't understand America. You want to achieve equality desperately, but then you insist that it be necessary to teach kids that America's history is racialist first and everything else second? I expect this to produce the exact opposite result. Looking at this from the outside, I'm actually shocked.

It's not like Americans know a whole lot about history either, this all seems more politically or ideologically motivated rather than historically.

[McLewis]

Zooming out though, I'm not sure what your point was with this post. Can you provide a summation what you're trying to say about American chattel slavery here? I do not want to make assumptions.

Truth be told I don't even know why I got into this. I don't understand America. You want to achieve equality desperately, but then you insist that it be necessary to teach kids that America's history is racialist first and everything else second? I expect this to produce the exact opposite result. Looking at this from the outside, I'm actually shocked.

It's not like Americans know a whole lot about history either, this all seems more politically or ideologically motivated rather than historically.

Racism in this country is a festering wound. We cannot heal a wound without first acknowledging it's there as well as what caused it.

The history I was taught about this country was white-washed. The victors (or oppressors in our case) often write history in their image.This must be and is being challenged. Period.

I didn't realize this until after I graduated. Our history classes were a joke, glorifying concepts like "manifest destiny" while the horrors of slavery barely got 2 paragraphs.

To come to a true reckoning of racial equality, the ugly truths need the same attention as the glorified ones. There is no other way.

[Myesyats]

Well, I don't know to what extent is slavery covered in American schools but from what you hear on the street your education system is flawed all around, not only in that one particular matter.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Like everything in the US, the education depends on your income. This is because education funding is typically done at the town level, so towns with more expensive properties are able to muster more funds to educate with (towns main source of income is typically property taxes). If you have enough money to attend a rich town's school the education is quite decent, if you don't the education is generally lacking. I have friends that attended some of these rich towns' HS and they told me that slavery was covered extensively every year pretty much since 7th grade. Some were even bitter that slavery got so much attention that some other important subjects were basically ignored.

[CBarca]

I found slavery to be prevalent within my K-12 education, but not to the extent that it probably should have been.

Civil Rights is also pretty ignored, relative to other subjects.

In general, I recall only being required to have one year of US history once you entered into middle school/high school. Which is not nearly enough. You only got more US history if you took AP US History (which I did, but not many people did).

[Blue]

The US history I was taught from K-12 felt more like a propaganda indoctrination than history.

It is really not history if you are white washing the unpleasant aspect to it and highlighting their good only.

Most historical figures are complicated, both their good and bad should be covered.

[Myesyats]

how nice of them to make room

[McLewis]

@cbarca I also took AP US History. Also took AP World History as well.

The common theme I noticed from both classes was the glorification of democracy while downplaying subjects like slavery, colonization and imperialism. Neither teacher was interested in going beyond the paltry information provided in the textbooks.

[CBarca]

@cbarca I also took AP US History. Also took AP World History as well.

The common theme I noticed from both classes was the glorification of democracy while downplaying subjects like slavery, colonization and imperialism. Neither teacher was interested in going beyond the paltry information provided in the textbooks.

Yeah I agree with you, APUSH is inadequate as a guide to understanding America. It's equivalent to a survey course. You get all the info at some point, but you don't dive deep and because its teaching often relies on heavy textbook reading, you're subject to what the textbooks have to say (and textbooks are historically whitewashed, by and large).

I wasn't really speaking well of APUSH, as much as I was commenting on how little of US History K-12 students get in general...much less history that tackles the darker sides of US history.

My experience with speaking to individuals from outside the states (both on here and elsewhere) is that they are routinely more aware of the US's bad deeds than US citizens are. Maybe you can say that about every country, but the US is incredibly self proud and we don't confront our history head on as much as we should.

In any case, I think every student should have a full two years of US history at the middle-high school level, to allow for the time to weigh both the times we've been on the "wrong" side of history as well as the "right"

[El Gunner]

@cbarca I also took AP US History. Also took AP World History as well.

The common theme I noticed from both classes was the glorification of democracy while downplaying subjects like slavery, colonization and imperialism. Neither teacher was interested in going beyond the paltry information provided in the textbooks.

not really surprised, sounds like my standard high school syllabus as well with the American History we touched on.

We did European History in a little more detail (colonisation, the World Wars, most major events in 20th century), and obviously Namibian and SADC history in much much more detail.

[Babun]

We've got too much WW2 history in our schools but the rest is alright. While the pupils get a brief idea about the rest of the world, the nucleus of the history course is how the modern society came to be.
About the US, we learn that literally everything was built on blood. Same in Australia and South Africa.

[Myesyats]

Well, our countries had 1000+ years of history, it's packed and takes time to cover it all. From what I remember the US was mentioned only briefly in our history classes (don't remember learning about the Civil War at all), because there is just no time with all that has happened in our backyard since year 900. Colonization wasn't really painted as a bad and bloody affair though, that's for sure. It's mostly taught as "discovering new lands and great voyages."

[VivaStPauli]

We've got too much WW2 history in our schools but the rest is alright. While the pupils get a brief idea about the rest of the world, the nucleus of the history course is how the modern society came to be.
About the US, we learn that literally everything was built on blood. Same in Australia and South Africa.

Yeah, while it is very important to understand WW2 and the surrounding events to understand how our modern society came to be, I found it shocking how quickly German schooling glosses over the colonial era, Weimar, WW1, and frankly the feuding kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire.
All that talk about the Third Reich and yet no school children get taught about the first two. Not with any detail, at least.

[Pedram]

We've got too much WW2 history in our schools but the rest is alright. While the pupils get a brief idea about the rest of the world, the nucleus of the history course is how the modern society came to be.
About the US, we learn that literally everything was built on blood. Same in Australia and South Africa.

Yeah, while it is very important to understand WW2 and the surrounding events to understand how our modern society came to be, I found it shocking how quickly German schooling glosses over the colonial era, Weimar, WW1, and frankly the feuding kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire.
All that talk about the Third Reich and yet no school children get taught about the first two. Not with any detail, at least.

You learn more history from Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis IV than all history classes combined.

[Babun]

We've got too much WW2 history in our schools but the rest is alright. While the pupils get a brief idea about the rest of the world, the nucleus of the history course is how the modern society came to be.
About the US, we learn that literally everything was built on blood. Same in Australia and South Africa.

Yeah, while it is very important to understand WW2 and the surrounding events to understand how our modern society came to be, I found it shocking how quickly German schooling glosses over the colonial era, Weimar, WW1, and frankly the feuding kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire.
All that talk about the Third Reich and yet no school children get taught about the first two. Not with any detail, at least.

One notices the history was written by the victors: little mention of Germany during ww1 not being the main culprit and the Versailles treaty crippling the economy which helped the rise of the extremists to power and hatred of the neighbours in the first place. To this day, most Germans don't know democracy wasn't understood and introduced by the people themselves in Germany, it was in UK and France though. The ruling system was imposed by the victors so people understand the difference between the executive, legislative or judicative but don't have the drive of the French or the Brits to go onto the streets and to protest for their rights. The majourity still has got the sheep like mentality from the Kaiser era from the parents and grandparents, very obedient and revolt only when shit hits the fan and there's nothing to save anymore.

[M99]

Its very telling that when people saw the Tulsa Race Massacre on HBO's Watchmen, almost everyone thought it was a fictional event. US history in schools glosses over a lot. Most of my friends have similar sentiments to Mclewis regarding this, that a lot of important subjects are downplayed.

[McLewis]

I saw a movie named Rosewood when I was a kid. It was rated R, but my folks let me watch it anyway. It was the first movie I'd ever seen that depicted a race riot. It was haunting. I didn't watch it again until I around 22 or so. At that point  I looked it up and was shocked to find out it was an actual event. I had thought my whole life up to that point, that it was fictional. It occurred just a couple years after Tulsa.

Rinse and repeat for quite a few other racially charged, violent events in our history. Like a lot of others, I learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre after watching Watchmen. I'm honestly ashamed to admit that, but it is what it is.

[Hapless_Hans]

John Oliver dealt with history education in US this week



also

[McLewis]

Aurora, Colorado, police apologized for an incident that saw officers handcuff and draw guns on a Black family after their car was mistaken for a stolen vehicle. pic.twitter.com/2mZsV8OytC

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) August 5, 2020

The actual stolen car has a different state's plates and......is a goddamn motorcycle.

I can't find any videos of this happening to white families. Because it fucking doesn't.

The apology is laughable. Training won't fix this. Defunding the department and rebuilding it from the ground up will.

[Myesyats]

Why would the police draw their guns if the alleged "offenders" didnt pose any threat? Did they think teenage girls would assault them? This is so dumb whichever way you look at it. US police seem to be trained to get the gun out first and think second. Life is not a Rambo movie ffs.

[McLewis]

We can thank Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr as well as Biden for the militarization of our police forces. Nixon's (and later Reagan's) War on Drugs campaign was the opening shot the 1994 Crime Bill, which Biden wrote and Clinton signed enhanced the militarization of these departments. The 9/11 era under Bush made it even worse and now we have Trump weaponizing agencies like ICE, ATF, US Marshals, and Border Patrol to operate like military units to police the populace. And that's not even mentioning the SWAT units of many police departments that have bigger budgets than the armies of some countries.

It's a structurally cultural problem. Only a reboot and rebuild fixes that.

[LeVersacci]

How I imagine every keyboard warrior.

It’s the silencing a racist with one bang for me. pic.twitter.com/RDfquCxG41

— PK The Terrible (@pktheterrible) August 16, 2020

Mans got knocked tf out. You love to see it

[LeVersacci]

This is what the racist was saying btw pic.twitter.com/dDHy1duCkJ

— PK The Terrible (@pktheterrible) August 16, 2020

[Myesyats]

He seems mentally challenged tbh

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