"And in your country they hang negroes!"

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Any of you who are familar with the Soviet Union and its history have probably heard the above phrase. It was a common retort that Soviet statesmen and citizens would give to any Westerner (specifically Americans) who would speak criticisms of the Soviet system in a conversation.

Usually it went something like this....

American: "Where is your country's freedom of speech? Those who criticize the state are arrested!"

Soviet person: "Well, where is YOUR country's 'freedom of speech'? In your country, they're hanging negroes!"



The reason I bring it up is because I think it speaks of a common problem that we Americans have...one we apparently haven't gotten over just yet.

That problem is the simple fact that your average American has what I like to call "Insular Vision". To Americans, civilization and the world itself seem to end at our borders. Outside of that, the world is a strange fairyland that is alien and frightening. The idea that other people have other ideas about the world and customs other than American ones is hard to process.

In modern discourse, it's called "American Exceptionalism". In truth, it should be called "American FUCK-YOU!-ism"

This is the reason that something like Universal Healthcare seems to be such a hard sell to us, and how the false cries of 'SOCIALISM!' seem to be so effective. Universal heatlhcare is just so.....European!

Really, I'm not joking. I've heard that criticism before...that Obama is turning America into a 'European-style' country.

But this 'Insular Vision" goes both ways. The world may end at our borders, but those borders seem to be made of one-way mirrors. The rest of the world isn't blind to us, but we seem to be blind to it, only seeing ourselves instead. The reason the Soviets knew about the then ongoing civil rights struggles here in the U.S. was because they saw the photographs, watched the news footage, even actually spoke to some of those civil rights activists involved. That stuff didn't just stay in America. It went out all over the world. People in England were watching in horror as American police beat African American activists with sticks, soaked them with fire hoses and sicced dogs on them. Catholic activists in Northern Ireland took inspiration from MLK for their own civil rights protests.

This same problem has come up with the modern healthcare debate. The rest of the world looks at America and simply can't understand why our government won't institute some kind of Universal healthcare, and instead seem to doggedly enchain ourselves to the increasingly dysfunctional and destructive system we currently have. But your average American (or at least what the media thinks is the average American) seems to be convinced that Single Payer Healthcare is 'socialism' run amuck that will create death panels and kill old people.

This insular vision has made us not only arrogant, but also phenomenally ignorant. That's a very bad combination. Not only does it make the average American citizen seem like a goddamned moron to the rest of the world, it negatively effects the way America's self-styled leaders govern at home and interact abroad. This 'insular vision' has morphed our foreign policy into the worst kind of national chauvinism.


So what's my whole point to this post?

Honestly, I'm not sure if there is one. It's just a trait of modern America that I'm getting increasingly more irritated at.

[Devrim]

Let's all talk about America...again. There is some pretty interesting stuff going on at the moment. We could try to understand what is going on in Ukraine, or alternately we could talk about America and how 'insular' it is. It's beyond parody really.

Devrim

[tachosomoza]

The fact that American workers hate single payer healthcare and other concessions in that vein is in part because we see ourselves as bourgeois waiting in the wings instead of oppressed proletarians. America has some of the most class collaborationist workers in the world. American workers are not bourgeois, will never be bourgeois, but will fight to the death for the property rights of...the bourgeois.


Let's all talk about America...again. There is some pretty interesting stuff going on at the moment. We could try to understand what is going on in Ukraine, or alternately we could talk about America and how 'insular' it is. It's beyond parody really.

Devrim

Wow, people who live in America are talking about things that impact...America! In the non - political forum! Woe! Sorrow! Shame!

Are you done whinging yet?

[Taters]

ugh

[Os Cangaceiros]

Let's all talk about America...again. There is some pretty interesting stuff going on at the moment. We could try to understand what is going on in Ukraine, or alternately we could talk about America and how 'insular' it is. It's beyond parody really.

Devrim

What's wrong with talking about the USA? A lot of people around this forum live in the USA, therefore the experience of living here plays an important part of their lives

[Devrim]

What's wrong with talking about the USA? A lot of people around this forum live in the USA, therefore the experience of living here plays an important part of their lives

You don't see any irony about Americans going on about America and how insular it is. You don't think it is a little self centred. I do.

Devrim

[Os Cangaceiros]

I just don't get why you're annoyed. If you want to talk about, say, the situation in the Ukraine, there's a thread with about 250 posts about it in the Ongoing Struggles subforum.

This is an internet message board, there's always a certain element of self-obsession involved...I don't think that someone venting their frustrations about their country of residence in the Non-Political forum is something to get all annoyed about, but whatev.

[Devrim]

I just don't get why you're annoyed.

I am not annoyed at all. I am not the sort of person who gets angry in any way about things on the Internet. I was merely making a very brief point about the insularity, which the OP refered to.

Devrim

[Os Cangaceiros]

Someone complaining that the people around them have problems conceptualizing other points of view doesn't necessarily mean that the individual making that complaint has the same problem, though. Which I'm guessing is what you were getting at with the "beyond parody" comment.

[Sea]

Israeli: "Where is your country's freedom of speech? Those who criticize the state are arrested!"

Palestinian: "Well, where is YOUR country's 'freedom of speech'? In your country, they're hanging Black Hebrews, hanging Arabs, bombing refugees!"
I am not annoyed at all. I am not the sort of person who gets angry in any way about things on the Internet. I was merely making a very brief point about the insularity, which the OP refered to.

DevrimThat's why you're a groovy dude. :wub:

[Leftsolidarity]

ugh

... is what I think when someone posts something this useless.

Verbal warning for one-liner/one-word post

[Ocean Seal]

Let's all talk about America...again. There is some pretty interesting stuff going on at the moment. We could try to understand what is going on in Ukraine, or alternately we could talk about America and how 'insular' it is. It's beyond parody really.

Devrim
This is a discussion board and we can have historical discussions as well as current events discussions. There are lessons to be learned at every stage of history, and as always there is the option of ignoring this thread.

[tachosomoza]

they're hanging Black Hebrews

Speaking of "Black Hebrews", those guys are hilarious. They like to stand on street corners and yell at white people/make them lick their shoes.

EgcrtvomXoI

[Red Commissar]

If you love American exceptionalism OP, you'll love the next couple days as the talking heads and politicos talkg about what to do about Ukraine and how the US should be leading the charge and invade.

[Marshal of the People]

Speaking of "Black Hebrews", those guys are hilarious. They like to stand on street corners and yell at white people/make them lick their shoes.

EgcrtvomXoIWe shouldn't laugh at those poor oppressed creatures.

[Fakeblock]

We shouldn't laugh at those poor oppressed creatures.

I hope you aren't serious.

[Sea]

Speaking of "Black Hebrews", those guys are hilarious. They like to stand on street corners and yell at white people/make them lick their shoes.

EgcrtvomXoIFuck off back to chimpout and take your fucking nigger-sightings with you you racist little shit and don't fucking come back. PS, that man is right 100% too. Boo fucking hoo at the holocaust, it's silly small shit compared to what blacks go through to this day. Fetishizing the holocaust is no better than that "white genocide" conspiracy shit. It warms my heart to see that special fucking snowflake cry just like it warms my heart to see WNs cry. And notice how the title is so demonizing. Look at those evil blacks making people cry! How dare you post shit like that here?

edit: Oh, and it seems you think that Black Hebrews "aren't Jewish". After all, that video assumes a very clear line to have been drawn between Jews and blacks. I'd love you to justify that one without exposing your latent racism and antisemitism any more than you already have, you pig. You must believe that Judaism is a "negroes need not apply" proposition or you wouldn't post disgusting shit like that in the first place.

[tachosomoza]

Fuck off back to chimpout and take your fucking nigger-sightings with you you racist little shit and don't fucking come back. PS, that man is right 100% too. Boo fucking hoo at the holocaust, it's silly small shit compared to what blacks go through to this day. Fetishizing the holocaust is no better than that "white genocide" conspiracy shit. It warms my heart to see that special fucking snowflake cry just like it warms my heart to see WNs cry. And notice how the title is so demonizing. Look at those evil blacks making people cry! How dare you post shit like that here?

edit: Oh, and it seems you think that Black Hebrews "aren't Jewish". After all, that video assumes a very clear line to have been drawn between Jews and blacks. I'd love you to justify that one without exposing your latent racism and antisemitism any more than you already have, you pig. You must believe that Judaism is a "negroes need not apply" proposition or you wouldn't post disgusting shit like that in the first place.

I beg your pardon?

You think several million people being ripped from their homes and murdered is "silly small shit"?

There's plenty of black Jews, these aren't, they're a bunch of assholes who couch their hatred in the Bible.

And you dare call me an antisemite and a racist? Fuck you.

[Sea]

I beg your pardon?

You think several million people being ripped from their homes and murdered is "silly small shit"? Finish reading the sentence before you put words into my mouth. No genocide is miniscule.

Who were those people? They were light-skinned Europeans. Numerically, it is miniscule compared to the number of blacks who died in the slave trade, not to mention the more recent genocides on the African continent. And what of the American natives? It seems that several hundred million people aren't worth as much to you as several million whites, provided that said people are rather brown. So yes, you are a racist in how you cherrypick genocides of history (which is twisted and morbid as it is) to highlight your "white plight".
There's plenty of black Jews, these aren't, they're a bunch of assholes who couch their hatred in the Bible.Hatred and religion are perfectly compatible. Don't be naive.


And you dare call me an antisemite and a racist? Fuck you.Sure, ignore the blatant racism of that video and your own antisemitism in insinuating that those people don't count because they're black. Easier to ignore it than to confront your own prejudice.

[tachosomoza]

I'm not white, and you really should get off your high horse before you get more splinters in your crotch.

How is the video racist or antisemetic? If you're referring to the black Hebrews, yes, they're both.

[Leftsolidarity]

Y'all need to cool your jets.

[tachosomoza]

I don't even know what he's angry about. I post a video, he flips out.

[Sea]

I'm not whiteSo? Now you want me to judge you favorably on the color of your skin because it would be so damning if I were to judge on you the content of your character!
How is the video racist or antisemetic?I already explained this to you. You can search all day for videos of blacks doing stupid things, 1 in 100000, and it's racist as hell to try to say that that's representative. Likewise, you post a video of only 3 fucking people as your shining starts of "negro stupidity" and hold it against all Black Hebrews. Do you expect me to believe that it's only by coincidence that somehow Black Hebrews are both antisemitic and racist? That's a very slim coincidence. It's much more likely that you're being prejudiced against them because they're black (that's why you're racist) and/or because they're Jewish (that's why you're antisemitic).
If you're referring to the black Hebrews, yes, they're both.I already debunked this. Now you're just sounding like a broken record. See above.
I don't even know what he's angry about. I post a video, he flips out.Don't play dumb.

[tachosomoza]

"Black Hebrew Israelites" are not Jews by any stretch.

Also, this is a stupid discussion and you're a silly person.

[Sea]

"Black Hebrew Israelites" are not Jews by any stretch.Stop recycling your tired old arguments.

Also, this is a stupid discussion and you're a silly person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_discussium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)

[Invader Zim]

Sorry to necro this thread, but this requires some discussion:


Who were those people? They were light-skinned Europeans. Numerically, it is miniscule compared to the number of blacks who died in the slave trade, not to mention the more recent genocides on the African continent. And what of the American natives? It seems that several hundred million people aren't worth as much to you as several million whites, provided that said people are rather brown. So yes, you are a racist in how you cherrypick genocides of history (which is twisted and morbid as it is) to highlight your "white plight".

Lets go through this point by point:

1. Not all the victims of Nazi genocide were white. The African German population was subject to sterilization, medical experimentation, slave labour, and in many cases murder.

2. The Holocaust, if taken to apply only to Jewish victims, was indeed dwarfed in terms of body count by the trans-Atlantic slave trade. However, if taken to include other victims of the Nazis' systematized program of murder, including Slavs, Poles, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabled, homosexuals, Soviet POWs, and many others, then in fact, the Nazi genocide claimed as many lives, according to low estimates, as victims than the slave trade - and more if larger estimates are taken as accurate.

To elaborate, historical research into the volume of the slave trade suggest that, from the 15th Century to the 19th, 20 million people were captured and transported across the Atlantic ocean. Slave mortality was by far highest, from capture, transportation to the first three years of servitude. It is estimated that this was as high as 40-45% mortality, meaning that between 8-9 million slaves perished as a direct result of the Slave Trade. Meanwhile, the Nazi genocide led, at a minimum, of between 5-6 million Jews and around 5 million assorted others. So, actually, the Nazi genocide, in the space of four years, led to more murders than the Slave Trade achieved in four centuries. Which is surprising on one level, but on another not so much - the Nazis' utilized industrial systematized methods of destruction and it was their direct intent to kill en-mass. The Slave Trade, on the other hand, while being extremely bloody, ultimately required to be profitable which meant that slaves necessarily had to arrive in the New World in sustainable numbers to retain a high margin of profit.

3. On the destruction of indigenous Americans (by far the most costly, in humanitarian terms of the bloody episodes you noted), this was, in fact, rather smaller than 'several hundred million people' even if we include the Slave Trade, the Rwandan genocide, and other mass killings. While estimates of the pre-Columbus Americas vary widely, typically the population tally is placed at between 40 and 50 million. Therefore, it is difficult to sustain a charge that White Europeans inflicted genocides accounting to hundreds of millions based on the examples you utilized. Meanwhile, the inclusion of indigenous Americans is problematic on another level, because the vast majority of mortality as a result of contact with Europeans was as a result of multiple epidemics which each caused mass mortality, vastly reduced birth rates, and economic destabilization subsequent resultant agricultural collapse and ultimately famine. Of course, European wars of destruction certainly exacerbated the population collapse, but it is deeply unlikely that, even if they had not waged these genocidal campaigns, that mass mortality would not have occurred.

4. Your attempts to 'relativise' the Holocaust, in the first place, are rather disturbing.

Sources:

Evans, Richard J., The Third Reich at War (London, 2008), p. 318.

Elliott, J. H., Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (Yale, 2006), pp. 64-66.

Lovejoy, Paul E., 'The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis', The Journal of African History, Vol. 23, No. 4 (1982), pp. 473-501.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 'The Treatment of Soviet POWs: Starvation, Disease, and Shootings, June 1941 – January 1942', Holocaust Encyclopedia, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007183.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 'Polish Victims', Holocaust Encyclopedia, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005473

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How does denying the uniqueness of the Holocaust constitute "relativisation"? The assumption seems to be that victims don't matter unless the genocide in question is some sort of unprecedented evil - which is fucked up to say the least.

This entire insistence on the uniqueness of the Holocaust is, as far as I can tell, due to certain French and German intellectuals, active after the war, who wanted to use the Holocaust for their own rhetorical purposes - a group that includes such outstanding philosemites as Heidegger and his circle. Of course, the Nazi genocides were distinguished by their planned, industrial nature, and by their scale - but it is all sorts of problematic to suggest that e.g. the extermination of the Herero was somehow less important because it wasn't as organised, or because there weren't that many Herero to be killed.

I don't think many people in postwar Europe saw Jews as "white" in the sense of being Europeans - that their genocide isn't as ignored as the systematic destruction of Roma and Sinti, gay people etc. is probably due to the dedication of Jewish organisations rather than prejudice in favour of Jews.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I don't think many people in postwar Europe saw Jews as "white" in the sense of being Europeans - that their genocide isn't as ignored as the systematic destruction of Roma and Sinti, gay people etc. is probably due to the dedication of Jewish organisations rather than prejudice in favour of Jews.

I think there is more of a question of chronology when it comes to the perceived uniqueness of the Holocaust. It is still a relatively recent event - there are still some survivors around, and because of the time period in which the holocaust happened, and the lifespan of survivors, we still have their testimony from as recently as the past few years captured on video, for example.

The systematic nature of the final solution also means that the Holocaust is probably one of the easiest to piece together; the Nazis left behind a huge paper trail and, the position of the holocaust in the middle of the 20th century meant that when the death and labour camps were liberated, there was plenty of evidence to be collected, and plenty of new evidence to be created in the form of pictures, reports by soldiers who liberated the camps, survivors etc.

I wouldn't argue that the Holocaust has retained it's position of uniqueness outside of certain circles, for example the jewish community and jewish/zionist advocacy groups. I would expect this trend to continue over time, for the reason I stated above - chronology. Time tends to, if not reduce the historical significance of an event, then at least reduce its emotional appeal and thus this attribute of 'uniqueness'. I would argue that the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, despite not primarily involving the deaths of rich white people, has retained a uniqueness that, whilst different to that of the Holocaust, retains some similarities in the historical sphere and certainly its effects continue to be felt in the geo-politics of the region.

So i'm not sure that there actually is a 'uniqueness' that is genuinely felt outside of certain groups such as the jewish community (who you would expect to bestow a uniqueness on an event that nearly wiped out the entire jewish community!). I've certainly felt that upon fraternising outside of the jewish community, and talking to non-jews about the holocaust, that it doesn't hold a 'unique' place in history, other than its sheer historical significance as one of the major events of WW2 and the 20th century.

[Invader Zim]

How does denying the uniqueness of the Holocaust constitute "relativisation"? The assumption seems to be that victims don't matter unless the genocide in question is some sort of unprecedented evil - which is fucked up to say the least.

You misunderstand me, which is my fault. I was not suggesting that pointing out that deliberate mass killing on a terrifying scale is not unique to the Holocaust is inherently problematic. Instead what I found distasteful was his/her desire to turn genocide into a contest of morbidity.

And I entirely agree with your assessment that the Holocaust was unique (or to employ the term you do, 'distinguished'), but not because of scale of killing, but in terms of the combination of ideology, systematization, prioritization, industrialization, bureaucratization, scale of intent, nature of victimization, and array of profile of perpetrators. Other genocides certainly incorporate elements of the above, but not necessarily the full range - at least not that I have come across. But this is a qualitative set of parameters as opposed to quantitative. And you are entirely correct here:

"but it is all sorts of problematic to suggest that e.g. the extermination of the Herero was somehow less important because it wasn't as organised, or because there weren't that many Herero to be killed."

[Tim Cornelis]

Fuck off back to chimpout and take your fucking nigger-sightings with you you racist little shit and don't fucking come back. PS, that man is right 100% too. Boo fucking hoo at the holocaust,

You need to seriously go fuck yourself, is this white guilt over slavery that you feel the need to defend this lunatics by belittling the Holocaust?


it's silly small shit compared to what blacks go through to this day.

Is it now? I don't see Africans being murdered by the millions in concentration camps anywhere in the USA.


Fetishizing the holocaust is no better than that "white genocide" conspiracy shit.

Who is fethising? 99 out of a 100 times I hear about "fethisising" the Holocaust or using it, it's not anyone fethising about it, but someone criticising it (incidentally, many of whom are nazis and the like). If there's any fethising of the Holocaust I see no reason to not describe the addressing of slavery till this day as such.


It warms my heart to see that special fucking snowflake cry just like it warms my heart to see WNs cry. And notice how the title is so demonizing. Look at those evil blacks making people cry! How dare you post shit like that here?

That's so edgy. You must be a really tough guy huh.


edit: Oh, and it seems you think that Black Hebrews "aren't Jewish". After all, that video assumes a very clear line to have been drawn between Jews and blacks. I'd love you to justify that one without exposing your latent racism and antisemitism any more than you already have, you pig. You must believe that Judaism is a "negroes need not apply" proposition or you wouldn't post disgusting shit like that in the first place.

They objectively aren't Black Hebrews, sorry for pointing out this fact and how it makes me racist but black hebrews are from Ethiopia and have none of the phenotypes the men in the video have (whom are most likely descendants from West African slaves).


Finish reading the sentence before you put words into my mouth. No genocide is miniscule.

Who were those people? They were light-skinned Europeans. Numerically, it is miniscule compared to the number of blacks who died in the slave trade,

Hardly. 6 Million jews died in the Holocaust, another 6 million non-Jews died, totaling 12 million.

According to this source, the death toll of the Atlantic slave trade was 11 million (via wikipedia): Patrick Manning, "The Slave Trade: The Formal Dermographics of a Global System" in Joseph E. Inikori and Stanley L. Engerman eds., The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe (Duke U.P. 1992), pp. 117-44

Imagine me going "boo hoo slavery, we blacks are so sad; it was nothing compared to Mao's death rate".


not to mention the more recent genocides on the African continent.

Like?


And what of the American natives? It seems that several hundred million people aren't worth as much to you as several million whites, provided that said people are rather brown.

I like how you redefine Jews as white just so make your opponent out to be something of a white supremacist. Race is a social construct, but they weren't considered white, aren't considered white, any more than that Africans are considered white.

As for your claim that the amerinidian genocide claimed the lives of several hundred people, this is absolutely unsubstantiated as apparently the scholarly consensus of the entire population of Amerindians in the Americas was 50 million circa 1500. Between 70 and 90% of them died, which is a undoubtedly horrible tragedy, but not all deaths are attributable to the amerindian genocide as many deaths were unintentional. The number of genocide victims would thus be well below 50, perhaps be 5 million.


So yes, you are a racist in how you cherrypick genocides of history (which is twisted and morbid as it is) to highlight your "white plight".Hatred and religion are perfectly compatible. Don't be naive.

>killing Jews
>white plight

Again, I 'like' how you redefine Jews as white just so make your opponent out to be something of a white supremacist.

You are also cherry picking genocides. Why didn't you mention the genocide of Indians as a result of the British Empire in this particular discussion, huh? Is it because you are a black supremacist or something?


Sure, ignore the blatant racism of that video and your own antisemitism in insinuating that those people don't count because they're black. Easier to ignore it than to confront your own prejudice.

Ironic really.

[synthesis]

Wow. Sea, it's almost funny how out of line you've been in this thread.

[Leftsolidarity]

You need to seriously go fuck yourself

Verbal warning for flaming

I get that this discussion was heated a month ago and that both sides of the discussion rode the line of what is a tense debate and what constitutes flaming but y'all have had a month to cool down and see my post saying it needs to settle down here.