is black evil?

[mzalendo]

sumthing has to come out right that the black man remains an object of hate,ridicule n associated in all kinda evil.....everything bad or wrong comes with a black sum'n....blackmail,blacktuesday,blackmagic and all the rest shit...from time immemorial till right this moment the blackfolk have n continue to face discrimination of the worst sort.why i must ask..maybe somebody has an answer out there?

[encephalon]

As far as I can tell, the whole "black/darkness is bad and ignorant" and "white/light is good and wise" comes from the greeks, which was passed down to western society mostly through plato and aristotle. The night was also the least safe time for early humans (and the best time for predators). But it really has nothing to do with skin color. That came much later.

[TC]

yah...while i do think that poor urban black people are culturally depecited as being dangerious in the media, and probably certain contemporary phrases like 'ghetto' 'hood' 'gansta' 'rap' 'hip hop' 'gangs of black youth' ect do have negative associations in many uses that reflect racism against blacks...you can't retroactively go back and declare phrases and cultural memes like that color black has negative associations becuase its ahistorical and ignores the reality of both how its used and how it orginated. The phrases you mentioned all predate the use of the word 'black' to describe people with african ancestry.


The same issue is true though of the woman/womyn thing, as the word 'woman' has nothing etiologically to do with the word 'man' since at the time the word 'woman' originated, the equivolent to 'man' was genderless and 'male men' were called something else.

[Jadan ja]

The concept that "black/darkness is bad and ignorant" and "white/light is good and wise" most probably comes form the fact that human is an animal that hunts during the day and sleeps during the night and therefore senses have develped to be more useful during the day than during the night (also a reasons why ghosts and supernatral are associated with night). Except already mentioned ancient Greeks, I think that ancient Persian religion also used that symbols (before Greeks) and in Chinese Yin Yang concept Yin is dark and evil, while Yang is white and good. What would be interesting to see is wether all or most cultures around the world really symbolize good with white or light and evil with black and dark. Do African religions also associate "light is good" and "dark is bad"?

The same issue is true though of the woman/womyn thing, as the word 'woman' has nothing etiologically to do with the word 'man' since at the time the word 'woman' originated, the equivolent to 'man' was genderless and 'male men' were called something else.

I am not sure, but I think that (the origin of the word) is the reason some prefer word "womyn".

[Dyst]

Off topic, but:

Long ago, Man was the common name for humans regardless of gender or age. In Old English the words wer and wyf (also wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to "a man" and "a woman" respectively. Later, in Middle English, "man" displaced wer as the term for male humans, whilst wyfman, which eventually evolved into woman, was retained for female humans.

From Wikipedia.

[Reuben]

this is a fucking stupid post for reasons that have alreadybeen explained. There are reasons for associating darkness with badness which are entirely seperate from the social phenomenon that is racism

[C_Rasmussen]

Well black people aren't bad people except for when the "kill whitey" gang mentality is brought up. When one or both of those are brought up by the black person in question (or really any other race for that matter but for the sake of staying on topic) then it doesn't make them a good person.

[Atlas Swallowed]

Prejudice of color of skin is taught and not natural. Watch a group of toddlers of different races play together, skin color is not an issue or even talked about. This is the way it is meant to be and will be

[Revolution 9]

Originally posted by Reuben@Mar 9 2006, 12:00 AM
this is a fucking stupid post for reasons that have alreadybeen explained. There are reasons for associating darkness with badness which are entirely seperate from the social phenomenon that is racism

Agreed.

[Rissen]

Originally posted by Jadan ja@Mar 8 2006, 01:31 PM
Chinese Yin Yang concept Yin is dark and evil, while Yang is white and good.

Not entirely true, there is no good and bad in the Yin/Yang concept, they are both equally important. Interestingly enough though, Yin also represents femininity and Yang masculinity. However, this is not black and white because Yin and Yang contain each other. As heat(yang) can be divided into hot(yang) and warm(yin), elements of yin and yang contain traces of the other. As another example, I am a male, but I identify more personality-wise with Yin. This is pretty much a healthy balance, especially if I find a parter who is female but identifies with Yang more.

[321zero]

Day is light and light is white, night is dark and fearful.

This is true for all humans.

[Bannockburn]

Well we are the children of history, so I want to clear something up. You learn this in the first day of philosophy class, but thanks to things like wikipedia I can easily show its origins.

As far as I can tell, the whole "black/darkness is bad and ignorant" and "white/light is good and wise" comes from the greeks, which was passed down to western society mostly through plato and aristotle.

Some what true, but mostly wrong. The beginning of this contrast has its earlest origins with Zoroaster around 1700 BCE. Egyptian myth didn't have such a contrast. Generally Zoroaster, contrasted the two great "cosmic struggles' or truth and lie, and was metaphorically seen as good vs evil, light vs night. The former was the true, while the later was the lie. This is the philosophical origins. Later, around the Greek era which are of course children of history too, incorporated cultural, historical and mythological themes. Plato for example, took this and compared it with his cave. Cave is dark and full of ignorance and the outside is knowledge with light. Later on, the Christian children will adopt and incorporate Greek teaching and contrast it with Good vs Evil. They are Christian concepts. This later then has long historical progression in philosophy until Nietzsche with his Zarathustra (this is no accident) and his morality of beyond good and evil, ie, beyond Christian ethics.

We can see this historical prejudice with the above statement. 99% of people don't even know their habitual thinking and why they think the way they do.

Racism is a method of control. During our modern era (1800's) and European imperalism, biology was a form of knowledge, and where there is knowledge their is power relations, and where there is power relations there is a field of knowledge. The science of biology was used as a mechanism of control, and used to create "race". Race actually doesn't exist, it has its origins in prejudical biological experiments. Just read up on your history guys.

[encephalon]

Some what true, but mostly wrong. The beginning of this contrast has its earlest origins with Zoroaster around 1700 BCE. Egyptian myth didn't have such a contrast. Generally Zoroaster, contrasted the two great "cosmic struggles' or truth and lie, and was metaphorically seen as good vs evil, light vs night. The former was the true, while the later was the lie. This is the philosophical origins. Later, around the Greek era which are of course children of history too, incorporated cultural, historical and mythological themes. Plato for example, took this and compared it with his cave. Cave is dark and full of ignorance and the outside is knowledge with light. Later on, the Christian children will adopt and incorporate Greek teaching and contrast it with Good vs Evil. They are Christian concepts. This later then has long historical progression in philosophy until Nietzsche with his Zarathustra (this is no accident) and his morality of beyond good and evil, ie, beyond Christian ethics.

I was attempting to say that western society inherited the phenomena mainly because of Plato's usage of it, not that he invented it. Later, it was incorporated into old and new testaments. Had the greeks not picked up on it, it wouldn't likely be as all-pervasive today as it is. I'm well aware of Zoroaster's influence, especially on theology and christianity in particular. I meant merely that the greeks are the ones that embedded this in future generations of western thought.