Now that the Rev. Wright thing has provided an even better excuse for racists to start saying in public what they usually keep in private, I knew it was just a matter of time before the “blacks should be grateful” argument came out. Being a white person from an especially racist part of the country means you can index some of these nonsense arguments, since you hear white people speak them behind closed doors so often. Not that I’ve actualized any value from being able to predict all the favorite nonsensical tropes that racists trot out, but if I can wrestle one benefit away, it’s this: I can safely say that it’s a lot like the anti-choice nonsense. The assholes making the arguments are irredeemable and should be written off. But it’s still somewhat of a benefit to engage their nonsense and show why it’s nonsense for the benefit of people listening who may be naive and can be rescued before they turn into irredeemable assholes.
I mention this, because I read the most audacious version of “they should be grateful” at Lawyers, Guns and Money, where they link this guy who says:
Far as I am concerned, many Blacks in the US ought to be thankful that no matter how their ancestors got here they are better off in the US than in some shiitehole in Africa, eating scarps of bread, swatting flies and living in mud huts using arrows and clubs to hunt their food.
Now, it’s easy to dismiss this, and in a saner world, such a blatant racist should be dismissed. It’s easy to say, “The fuck?” and “You know, Africa is an extremely diverse and complex continent that can’t be characterized so simply.” But if you look beyond the surface of this ignorant fuckwittery, you realize this is another version of “The poor aren’t poor because they have color TVs.”
Grass huts and other racist tropes aside, it’s undeniable that large parts of Africa are desperately poor and war-torn. What I think is useful to remind people, though, is that the poverty and warfare in Africa is not inevitable, because the continent is rich in natural resources that should, in a fair world, leave many nations in Africa quite wealthy with a high standard of living for everyone. That this is not true for a lot of people has everything to do with, you guessed it, the history of Western colonization of the continent. Hell, that’s not even a distant memory—South African apartheid ended within most our memories, and in a sense, it didn’t really end, because the whites that controlled the economy managed to sneak out with their economic interests intact instead of doing what was right and letting the wealth of South Africa be for South Africans. The last scene in There Will Be Blood—you know, with the milkshake?—really tells you the whole story of the West’s attitude towards Africa, an attitude that has been held back some, but not enough. The U.S.’s willingness to instigate warfare and subvert elections when the people elect leaders who will take measures to reclaim the nation’s wealth for the people (socialists!) doesn’t limit itself to Central and South America, you know. We’ve propped up our share of murderous, graft-happy African dictators in the past, with the paper thin justifications of “oh noes, communism!”
Clearly, it’s nonsense to suggest that black individual Americans are sort of faced with this existential choice—here or Africa?—which makes little real world sense, like suggesting that I would somehow individually exist if various ancestors hadn’t migrated from various European countries to mingle their genetic material in the Western Hemisphere. But I bring up the point that the same colonizing forces that brought slavery to the U.S. brought economic destruction to Africa to make the larger point that the word “gratitude” should get nowhere near this discussion.
97 Responses to “The word is definitely not “grateful””
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I had a co worker make this argument and I told him he was insane. Thank you for helping articulate why.
No disagreements with anything you said, EXCEPT:
Let’s be entirely right with our criticism, and say that statist African leaders have also done their fair share toward botching their continent’s resource holdings. Colonialism is a gruesome spectacle, indeed, but Robert Mugabe is his own man…and his people suffer just the same, if not worse.
Additionally, the problems of northeast Africa stem from colonialism of a different sort (that is to say, from the former Caliphate, which we don’t exactly consider “West”).
Africa has thus far lost much of its economic potential in the flood of political marginalization. The West is a major ingredient in the suck souffle, but not the only one.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
The last scene in There Will Be Blood—you know, with the milkshake?—really tells you the whole story of the West’s attitude towards Africa, an attitude that has been held back some, but not enough.
Could you explain? I saw the movie, but apparently don’t remember that scene. All i remember is Daniel Day Lewis’s character beating the other guy to death with a bowling pin.
And for whatever it’s worth, had the Ming Chinese not decided to board up their own fleet after the Yongle Emperor’s explorations, Africa’s east would have been snatched away centuries earlier.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Eli has a milkshake. Eli has a straw. Plainview also has a straw, but his goes alllllll the way across the room and slurps up Eli’s milkshake before he can get to it. He drinks Eli’s milkshake. HE DRINKS IT UP!!!!!!!
See also: slant drilling in the Who Shot Mr. Burns? Simpsons episode.
Oh, but to the post: yes, crazy people are crazy.
DN, you are missing the part where the current political boundaries and strife in Africa, the situation which brought Mugabe and his ilk to power, are the direct result of the manner in which colonial Africa was conquered, administered, and abandoned.
Not exactly “native origin” there but “legacy of exploitation”.
Dictators like Mugabue are copying their old masters in a way. Becoming what you hate, and all that.
The boundries thing explains why former colonial countries in Asia have done better. They’re actual, real, historical nation states not boundries drawn by imperialists in London.
uhh uh…this is good one and very apropos.
“I drink your milkshake”, really was related to scandal, corruption, oil drilling, congressional hearing! (which then becomes a movie lines, since it so funny and not making any sense)
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-02-03-blood-milkshake_N.htm
Anderson concedes that he’s puzzled by the phenomenon — particularly because the lines came straight from a transcript he found of the 1924 congressional hearings over the Teapot Dome scandal, in which Sen. Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for oil-drilling rights to public lands in Wyoming and California.
In explaining oil drainage, Fall’s “way of describing it was to say ‘Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake,’ ” Anderson says. “I just took this insane concept and used it.”
——–
Sean T. Collins of Attention Deficit Disorder has created a presidential milkshake list that tells you all you need to know about the candidates. Here are a few:
I drink your milkshake, even though I opposed drinking your milkshake four years ago. — Mitt Romney
I drink your milkshake, but only if the Bible says it’s allowed. — Mike Huckabee
I may drink your milkshake for another 100 years, if that’s what it takes. — John McCain
I drank a milkshake on 9/11. — Rudy Giuliani
I drink your milkshake, but I’m paying for it with gold. — Ron Paul
I will fight the corporations so that you can drink your own milkshake. — John Edwards
I have 35 years of milkshake-drinking experience. *sob* — Hillary Clinton
I peacefully drink your milkshake. — Dennis Kucinich
Sean T. Collins of Attention Deficit Disorder has created a presidential milkshake list that tells you all you need to know about the candidates. Here are a few:
I drink your milkshake, even though I opposed drinking your milkshake four years ago. — Mitt Romney
I drink your milkshake, but only if the Bible says it’s allowed. — Mike Huckabee
I may drink your milkshake for another 100 years, if that’s what it takes. — John McCain
I drank a milkshake on 9/11. — Rudy Giuliani
I drink your milkshake, but I’m paying for it with gold. — Ron Paul
I will fight the corporations so that you can drink your own milkshake. — John Edwards
I have 35 years of milkshake-drinking experience. *sob* — Hillary Clinton
I peacefully drink your milkshake. — Dennis Kucinich
It disturbs me to hear people insist the African American community in the US would be living in a desert or jungle shithole were it not for our racist forebears enslaving them. The extreme poverty in present-day African communities is in part a direct result of white intervention and colonial policies stretching back through the 1800s. If it weren’t for white colonialists taking over land historically controlled by different African tribes, they wouldn’t have had to move into filthy cities to work building the railroads meant to cart African resources north toward Europe. And because those Africans which had historically lived above the mosquito line, or far enough apart that they were able to prevent the easy spread of communicable disease were now forced into high density cities near low altitude water-sources (attracting insects) they were ravaged by disease and the political turmoil that comes from having generations of tribal land ripped out from under them + preexisting sectarian conflicts, etc.
The why-don’t-they-just-go-back-to-Africa?? “argument” seems closely related to the perception of Africa-as-a-country. I recently had to remind a friend of a friend about Monrovia and how if it didn’t work then, it’s not going to work now.
My father is Ethiopian so I am lucky to know exactly what my heritage is.. on that side of the family. But my mother’s entire side of the family is descended from slaves and obviously we have no idea what part of Africa our ancestors are from. I’m American, just as American as any white American. But to assert that I should be grateful to be viewed and treated like a second-class citizen?? The privilege, it burrrrnnnns
I think it’s also related to the whole “slavery ended a long time ago” argument, which is utter bullshit as well. There’s been a fuckload of exploitation in the years since slavery ended.
Grateful???
For what?
To whom?
Seriously, how would they like this gratitutde to manifest itself? Do they want POC to starting buttonholing random white folks on the street? Or should descendants of slaves search for descendants of slave-holders and kidnappers and, I dunno, buy them a drink?
And now my head hurts from too much stupid. Dang.
This argument reminds me of a reading comprehension question on the eighth grade TAAS. They article claimed that the expansion of the Sahara was caused by stupid native Africans who grazed their cattle too much just because it was part of their culture. The passage was definitely written for white kids - “See, white scientists have to intervene in Africa because without us those dumb dark people would just turn it into a desert!”
Nothing was said about the impact of industrialization on Africa - it was like the slave trade, diamond mining, modern city development, agriculture modernization or the escalation of modern warfare had never even happened. Not to mention white rule, the establishment of colonial borders, discrimination, oppression, et al. It was like white sociologists were studying the natives from up in a tree or something.
Oh, right!!! Of course! Now I remember that line. Thank y’all.
And yeah, anyone who says that “black people should be grateful” is dumb as a rock.
Actually, I think all U.S. residents should be grateful that we live in the privileged air we inhabit. By mere accident of birth, most of us know very little about the want, deprivation, and fear that a majority of the world population deals with constantly. That level of privilege (of course there are gradients here, but that’s a separate topic) is not limited to/by race, and it is by mere accident of fate that any of were born who we are and where we are.
The comment about people having gratitude that their ancestors came here shows an almost complete lack of understanding of world history, culture, and geography.
Are Americans dumber than the rest of the world, or are our dumb ones just more vocal?
You’re all idiots. Those people should be kissing our feet that we dragged them out of the shit hole we created.
In all seriousness, though, who the fuck are these people?
At least the blame-the-victim attitude is consistent, whether it’s about bringing people into slavery, destroying their family structures and forbidding them any kind of education, followed by a century-plus of overt and covert vicious discrimination, or about raping a continent’s resources, employing its people only as poor farmers, servants or thugs, and then setting up governments as a high-value target for corruption.
I think, by the way, that there’s probably something to be learned from the contrast between subsaharan africa, where the colonizers kept all the white-collar-and-above jobs to themselves, and India, where the colonizers governed in large part through local clerks and other intermediaries.
blondie,
This sort of thing is why I’ve always been perplexed about native-born nationalism. For people to be proud that they were born in a particular country can be nothing but asinine. The geography of our birth is something no human being has any control over whatsoever. To be “proud” that you were born somewhere implies an agency which you did not have in choosing your birthplace.
If anything, immigrants have more right to pride in their adopted nations than native-born citizens. Their residency in a different country than they were born in is something they themselves accomplished, not something their parents handed to them.
Are Americans dumber than the rest of the world, or are our dumb ones just more vocal?
Ask Bill O’Reilly.
The irony of this was that when Western scientists intervened to stop the “grazing destruction” of the cattle they ended up making the situation WORSE. Turns out, those “backward” Africans were doing the ecologically sound thing by letting the cattle graze. But they might have discovered this if they had actually talked and listened to Africans, instead of giving each other self-congratulatory pats on the back for “saving” Africa with their oh-so-smart Western ideas and technology.
It just goes to show that Westerners are so mired in their own illusion of the “savagery” of Africans that they cannot see how THEY have created and exacerbated the worst problems of the continent. Mugabe would never have come to power if not for colonialism– he is a direct product of an apartheid system and he learned the lessons well. Every time someone brings up Mugabe, raise them Mobutu Sese Seko– he was a well-funded U.S. puppet and the word “kleptocracy” was coined to describe his government. The Congo is still in shambles from U.S. involvement there, pretty much engaged in continuous civil war since 1960.
Next time somebody mentions how grateful black Americans should be that they are here instead of Africa, we should ask how grateful our descendants should be if all the strongest, brightest, and most productive white Americans were forcibly removed to China for labor purposes, leaving the U.S. with a shattered economy & culture.
The Congo is a mess because it was the worst run European colony in history. Its was a glorified slave personal slave plantation for the Belgian King.
The worst bullshit generally has that tiniest bit of, if not actual truth, then reasonableness at its core.
The problem with the argument is that it assumes that you have to take all or nothing. Of course these are the “if you don’t support every single atrocity and mismanagement regarding the war, they you supported Saddam Hussein” people, too.
Yes, the way the world is today, the average (surviving) descendant of the people who got brutally dragged off to the New World is probably better off than their oh-so-many times removed cousins. So?
Would anyone say to Candice Lightner (founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving) that she should be grateful her daughter got run over because of all the people who’ve been helped since?
The deeply ironic (and annoying) thing is that most of the same people bleating “they should be grateful” - meaning that not accepting every single thing about things as they are means you wish you weren’t an American - are the people who shout the loudest about how other people (liberals, gays, pagans, mammals, etc) are ruining the country and need to be stopped aren’t doing much of anything different. Things aren’t the way they want them, and they are complaining.
Even if the complaints we equal, rather than whining that their privilege should trump someone else’s actual rights, they’d have no leg to stand on.
They should be grateful - GREATFUL, I say - that their ancestors set up a system with pesky things like freedom of religion and equal protection.
Well, I know I am.
Ben - yes, I read “King Leopold’s Ghost” and shuddered. Colonialism throughout Africa created an unholy mess of poverty and corruption.
There is also the slave trade. Millions of Africans were kidnapped (estimates range from 4-10 million). How could that not have had some lingering, deleterious effect on those left behind as well?
If anyone here is interested in reading about modern day economic imperialism in Africa, I suggest you read some books by Patrick Bond. This would probably be a good place to start.
Bascially, most aid to Africa has strings attached to it that demand recipient countries implement free market reforms. We all know what those do: enrich local elites and foreign investors.
Also, about Mugabe. Bond has written extensively about him too. Basically, Mugabe implemented disastrous neoliberal policies for at least a decade and started to use statist economic policies when his electoral prospects in 2000 were threatened by the rural population. The problem is that these “land reform” efforts were incredibly corrupt and were used to enrich his cronies. So “socialism” gets the blame for Mugabe’s kleptocratic tendencies while the crimes he committed in the name of the “free market” were largely ignored.
I’m grateful to the Russian People whose pogroms and massacres forced my ancestors to flee to America. And I’m sure the ones who died before they could get out? They feel it was all worth while and are cheering me on from beyond the grave. And while I’m at it, I’m grateful for Hitler because now there are fewer but better Jews so the competition to get in to top schools is less.
For g’d’s sake do these “be grateful you aren’t in africa” people have even a tinge of humanity? And as a commenter observed somewhere else its an interesting failure of connectivity that the same people who argue
Racism is in the past and has nothing to do with me.
Move seamlessly into:
And for the racist raping and pillaging of America’s slave owning class *please thank me*.
aimai
To turn your attention from poor, poor, Africa, for a little bit, let me say this:
African slavery helped save Western Europe from a Malthusian trap through food and agricultural knowledge exportation in the last part of the 18th and early part of the 19th century.
Native American mining slaves helped generate European supremacy in the first place.
Moreover, during the era of the late Antebellum South, African American urban slaves were a huge fraction of the South’s productive capacity–not least because lower class white people percieved (as many Saudis do now) all laboring to be indicative as social status.
Anyways, the snappiest comeback is…dude, we *built* this country (much higher per capita than our population fraction would indicate). They just didn’t want to tell you in school because that would have violated certain social norms.
Or was that too long already?
Don’t think of Modern America and Backwards Africa. Think of how Modern America came to be, and think how much of it was simply not paid to black people (NOT in just slavery!).
Given that the importation of slaves to the United States was banned in 1808, it’s pretty ballsy to insist that African-Americans should be grateful that their ancestors were brought over as slaves … and then the descendants of those slaves were kept in slavery for another 60 years. Because nothing spawns gratitude like being born in a country that insists that you are a piece of property and not a person.
Amanda, you’re a pathetic apologist for Obama’s racist bigot of a minister. Have you no universal standards or do they take form only to fit your self-interest, in this case getting Obama elected?
Wright is a racist and a bigot who is using a Christian pulpit to infect multiple generations with his hate. Obama is an enabler of that hate either because he agrees with it or it fits his self-interest not to condemn it without first excusing it.
And I don’t want to hear the sob story of Wright’s lifelong discrimination as the reason to tolerate his vile ideology that he routinely infected his parishioners with. He came from an upper middle class, mixed neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, not the deep south. Based on his merits, he was accepted into a high school that was academically advanced. He had no need for affirmative action even if it existed back then. He served in two separate branches of the military. He obtained a Ph. D. He has been the pastor of a very successful church in a major American city. He’s met with presidents. Why all the hate? Is it simply good for the business Wright choose as his life’s work or does he really believe it?
Personally I would feel uncomfortable, if not a bit threatened, walking by the Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago on a Sunday afternoon as the doors were opening up and the parishioners started streaming out, now that I know what may have just been discussed.
The standard for everyone should be to not excuse the inexcusable if we truly want racial peace. If the mainstream of one group is allowed to hate unfettered, the mainstreams of other groups will eventually follow suit. Read some history.
Though it’s already been mentioned briefly, the whole “be grateful thing” is bullshit because it wasn’t like once slavery ended everything was A-Okay, but I supposed we should be grateful because segregation, discrimination, lynchings and having to fight for the right to even be considered human just gave us black people better character, ‘eh?
And lets not forget the WONDERFUL gem recently from the Rev. Pat Buchanan who also tossed out that we should be grateful because through slavery black people were introduced to Christ! We may have still been savages but at least we weren’t heathens! If anything that should make it all worth it! happy happy happy, joy joy joy. /snark
oh my god! jim b would feel “threatened” by all those well dressed black christians streaming out of the church? Well I feel pretty damned uncomfortable as a liberal passing the various white churches in my neighborhood who routinely put up signs damning me to hell, urging me to repent, accusing gays and women of bringing about catastrophe, and etc…etc…etc… As a right wing commentator observed today (parodied over at The Poor Man) “Every single thing Wright says would be perfectly acceptable said in a white church as long as he substituted the words “liberals” for “white people.” Not only would his accusations and his anger be acceptable in a white right wing church–it would be mandatory. Right down to accusations that aids is some kind of plot (but this time by liberal gays) and that everyone is out to get the churchgoers (as long as its liberals/feminists/gays who are understood to be “everyone.”
Hatred of other people isn’t unamerican. Its as american as apple pie. Accusations that “the man” is out to get you are rife, just the definition of “the man” that changes. But here’s the kicker–which person is more likely to be correct? The black person who can point to centuries of slavery and outright legal oppression when saying that the current power structure is prejudiced against him? Or the white guys who have until recently been given all their civil rights on a platter who think that just because its no longer legal to kill uppity black people or gays or women that they are living under the jackboot of feminazism? Because that’s Rush’s whole shtick, btw, and its heard *outside* of white churches in white homes every day.
aimai
JimB is afraid of middle-aged African-American church ladies. That’s just pathetic.
Personally, I’m afraid of the people who come out of McCain supporter Rev. Hagee’s anti-Catholic services — you never know what those angry white Protestants are going to do after an hour of being told that Catholics worship the devil.
Oh, and in case JimB is convinced that white Protestants have never been a problem for Catholics in the United States, he may want peruse the antics of the Know-Nothing movement and compare their rhetoric to the current anti-(Roman Catholic)Mexican immigrant BS that’s being spouted right now.
I think we can safely say that JimB doesn’t know much about history — or about anything, really.
Yes Ben, I am aware of that since I happen to have taught a course on Empire and we used King Leopold’s Ghost as our main text for the Africa section.
My point was that every time someone points to Mugabe as a “self-made” African tyrant– in order to pretend that Africans have created their own mess– I point to Mobutu as a sterling example of how the legacy of colonialism has more to do with the rise of “big men” in Africa than that there is something wrong with Africans. The U.S. & West has been more than happy to support, arm, and fund these tyrannies when it served our political/ideological/economic interests, keeping civil wars going for their own reasons. While African nations need to hold each other more accountable for postcolonial problems, the West cannot ignore our continued exploitation of and political interference in Africa.
“Personally I would feel uncomfortable, if not a bit threatened, walking by the Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago on a Sunday afternoon as the doors were opening up and the parishioners started streaming out, now that I know what may have just been discussed.”
Well, JimB, we all know exactly what you mean. With all those excited negroes bursting out, just looking for some white women to rape or some white men to rob - that’s just insane…
“Wright is a racist and a bigot who is using a Christian pulpit to infect multiple generations with his hate.”
JimB, without even getting into whether or not Wright is a racist, look around you and accept the truth:
If we used your standard of evaluating people based on whether or not they are “under the influence” of somebody who uses a “Christian pulpit to infect multiple generations with hate”, there wouldn’t have been a significant Republican politician for the last 40-years.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of the Reichwing have destroyed a good portion of the heart of this nation - and yet you are completely, and irrationally, obsessed with Barack Obama’s minister?
What the hell is wrong with you? Does the fucking wingnut Koolaid taste THAT good?…
It’s all Whitey’s fault.
The whole hypothetical “you’d be worse off if you stayed in Africa” hypothesis has a major, major flaw: modern descendants of slaves never were in Africa. They are 100% American–and technically more “American” than families like mine who came here in the early 1900s.
That whole “go back to Africa” mindset reveals the underlying assumption that somebow black people aren’t normal, taxpaying American citizens (hence the whole “welfare cheats and felons” trope). Black people “don’t belong here”, basically. And that’s the whole problem right there, isn’t it?
(You know, that whole comparison seems like a variant on the “I was sad because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet” BS we got in Catholic school. The problem is that this kind of “count your blessings” pick me up only works if it’s self-reflective.
It’s just not the same for me to say, “Hey, Jack, stop crying because you have no shoes! See–Jill has no feet! You’re so much better off than her, so there’s no reason to improve your situation (or hers).” Especially if I have both shoes AND feet!)
It’s all Whitey’s fault.
Well, he did contribute to the dominance of the Yankees through the 1950s, but I don’t know that it’s fair to say it’s all Whitey’s fault.
JimB is afraid of middle-aged African-American church ladies. That’s just pathetic.
Hah! Although, to be fair, I’m also afraid of some church-goers, specifically the ones who are working to either take away civil rights from women or prevent them from being extended to gay and lesbian people. Those people are fucking crazy.
squashed, you left off one:
“I tried a milkshake, but I didn’t ingest.”
Bill Clinton
And up here in New England, I thought you meant Whitey Bulger.
Maybe it’s all the fault of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, what with the jazz music and all. Or Whitey Tool & Die Company. Or Whitey’s Ice Cream, for causing intestinal distress for those of us who are lactose intolerant — I know it makes me cranky, and I’m white myself.
Erika, can you please specify which Whitey’s fault it is? We seem to have quite a few candidates.
LOL, Mnemosyne.
JimB, if you’re wondering what they’re discussing, why don’t you put on your Sunday best and go attend one of the services? I’m sure they’ll be glad to have you. (Unlike in Jim Crow times, where a black person who attended a service at a white church would be none too gently removed, and threatened about going back.)
Funny thing; a lot of white indentured servants were kidnapped off the London streets and forced to come to America in the early days of the Jamestown colony. Conditions in Jamestown were a heck of a lot worse than any African village, yet nobody says those ISs and their descendents should be grateful for being kidnapped and enslaved.
LOL, Mnemosyne.
I have a bunch more in moderation. I really think the culprit is Whitey’s Ice Cream, myself.
Shaw8, I instantly thought of this vid.
oh here is the link
http://www.zappinternet.com/video/pipBwoMgiV/Thank-you-slaves
“JimB, if you’re wondering what they’re discussing, why don’t you put on your Sunday best and go attend one of the services?”
Won’t work. JimB is afraid the black will get on him and won’t wash off. Fucking bigot…
Mnemosyne, I posted this over on the Blend this morning (cut down from brevity):
“I can safely say that it’s a lot like the anti-choice nonsense. The assholes making the arguments are irredeemable and should be written off. ”
The rank-and-file antichoicers, or just the ones who are heavily involved in antichoice advocacy? If it is the former, we are fucked.
Blue jean, I’ve got a few ancestors who indentured themselves as a means of getting to America and one family story of a boy who was kidnapped off of a London street exactly as you describe.
Funny how the posts list the whites as the problem…but never consider the Africans as equally evil. Is that not racism? The ‘noble savage’? You mention South Africa. Although the whites did their share of nasty, the current crop of Afican leaders are as bad or worse.
I can’t see citizens as being grateful for being citizens. Maybe the speaker thinks that they are Consumer, Destroyer of Economies and all should bow to their massive $2.00 purchase. Part of the reason that restaurants and maids are paid less is that these were AfAm by tradition.
One writer once said that they had lots of texts on the greatness of African history. They never did. But spent long diatribes on how wonderful their SO (African) is. If any posters know of an ‘Idiot’s Guide to African History’ would you please post. I would like to increase my knowledge about this part of the world.
What is it with white guys and their demands that everybody be fucking grateful that they didn’t abuse people as bad as they could? MRAs like to tell women that women didn’t invent shit and that we owe men gratitude for all the shit they’ve done—you know, science, art, shit like that, all the stuff that women were kept ignorant of. Same shit, different day. It’s an article of faith among sexists that women don’t do shit.
There are a couple of important themes in the “grateful” business:
1) blacks are incapable of governing themselves
2) blacks are too stupid to create a decent standard of living for themselves without intervention
3) “who do you think you are - you should be grateful I don’t throw you out because you are NOTHING! Here me? NOTHING! You would starve on the streets …”
I’m sure that these people say the same things to their wives and anyone else who they deem inferior and in need of governance and control.
Ginmar - jinx!
hey, I’m grateful every day for the horrible British mis-rule of Ireland. If not for all that starvation and oppression, my ancestors would never have immigrated and I wouldn’t exist. Millions of people evicted from their homes and left to starve among plentiful harvests? Totally worth it.
And JimB, just because Philly is north of the Mason-Dixon doesn’t mean it wasn’t (or isn’t) racist.
Ms Kate…
I think the whole grateful business is mostly just people reminding themselves and others that they got theirs, fair and square! Which is why I didn’t like the focus on Africa all that much…It’s mostly a technique to drive the conversation from what really matters…
To modify your statement abit, I think there is a large undercurrent of “Out, out you stain!” whenever conversations go this way. People *know* they owe wealth to their own worst impulses and do not want to recognize it–avoid the label of “bad person” or “racist”, keep the goods. That sort of thing.
Don’t feed Jimbob, please. Or whatever his silly reasons for existing…
Some of my Protestant German ancestors, it turns, out, were ethnically cleansed by their Catholic neighbors who took their farms, and ended up being shunted into DP camps in England, and then were sold as indentured servants in the Colonies.
This has all been forgotten, after 300 years, until a genealogical relative dug it up recently, we thought we were voluntary immigrants on that side, so unlike as with the Potato Famine/Troubles history on various sides of the family, the question of gratitude/ingratitude never existed for them.
However, the fact that they mostly stayed poor dirt farmers and/or blue-collar workers in Maryland - and the massive self-esteem issues resulting from low social class - was undoubtedly a consequence of it. And it’s not 100% clear to me that my family are any better off than we would have been if our ancestors hadn’t got the Nisei treatment in the Rheinland 300+ years ago…t
“Don’t feed Jimbob, please.”
Sorry, shah8, but that idiot REALLY pisses me off.
I can’t think of a single thing he’s “contributed” to any discussion on Pandagon that has offset the truckload of shit he brings in and dumps on us.
There are a few other infuriating trolls that hang here, but in general, many of our trolls will at least say something interesting once in a while.
JimB? Not so much…
“Funny how the posts list the whites as the problem…but never consider the Africans as equally evil. Is that not racism? The ‘noble savage’? You mention South Africa. Although the whites did their share of nasty, the current crop of Afican leaders are as bad or worse.”
They are saying that colonialism is the problem, not white people. People pretty much all capable of great evil when thrust into a shitty situation, and shitty political situations often funnel the most brutal and corrupt people into leadership positions.
“One writer once said that they had lots of texts on the greatness of African history. They never did.”
If you define greatness by large, highly complex and stratified culture with advanced agriculture and a large merchant class, then yes, Africa had several such nations in the 1500’s and earlier. At the time when the Norman Invasion conquered the British Isles with troops numbering in the low tens of thousands, the kingdom of Ghana could field an army of 200,000 men. There have been of course many minor African states with intricate and sophisticated cultures, not to mention complex social networks among various loose alliances of hunter-gatherers etc.
Haven’t read through the comments yet, but just wanted to point to another example of this “grateful” crap, this one from Don Surber (also in response to Obama’s speech):
Shorter racist: Get over that slavery thing already, would ya? We all drink out of the same water fountains now!
And he also hits on the “you aren’t poor if you have color TV” thing (Racist Bingo, anyone?).
Shorter privileged white asshole: I got mine thirty years ago, so what’s your fucking problem?
Be sure to check out the commenter who wistfully imagines the violent consequences an uppity negro like Obama might suffer for making that speech in some other country.
Personally, after watching entire chunks instead of mere snippets, I would like to ask before services if I could come in. And this from a certified atheist. I found many of Rev. Wright’s words and arguments valid and thought-provoking.
I feel bad for you, JimB, that you would feel threatened.
Harq al-Ada March 27, 2008 at 2:27 pm
They are saying that colonialism is the problem, not white people. People pretty much all capable of great evil when thrust into a shitty situation, and shitty political situations often funnel the most brutal and corrupt people into leadership positions.”
The basic idea of UN was last greatest effort to stem this problem. Nationalism wave gone wild that leads to nation attacking another nation, WWII. racism/colonialism is direct child of nationalism.
One UN tenet is non interference and solution through peaceful negotiation.
Thanks to Bush and his neocon crew tho’. UN definitely needs a major overhaul and review. Cause obviously it can’t prevent war between nations.
—–
read UN declaration. basically it tries to eradicate racism, nationalism run amok, colonialism… bla bla
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
C’mon MikeEss, you know March shitstorms bring April showers, and April showers bring Pilgrims!
(christ, I’m channeling Gilda Radner’s Rosanna Rosannadanna…”never mind!”)
April showers bring MAY FLOWERS- then the Mayflower brings pilgrims…
Man, I hate it when I botch a punchline.
All I knew was that March brings madness…
JimB:
Others have already ridiculed you for your rather obvious fear of well-dressed, churchgoing black people, but I just can’t get over the heady irony of this particular statement.
The “I’ll give you something to cry about” argument is ridiculous on its face, whether or not it’s said by racists aimed at minorities, by MRAs aimed at women, or by religious fundamentalists aimed at anyone who isn’t exactly like them. This nation’s economy was built on the backs of African slaves and indentured servants of all races. We should be grateful to them, not the other way around.
Okay, just making sure your funnybone is still working! (I’m much more a football/baseball gal myself…)
Yes, which is why we’re in the situation we are today: because white people were allowed to hate black people absolutely unfettered until about 50 years ago. Now we’re facing the consequences of allowing that hate to go on for almost 300 years.
Is there anyone alive less self-aware or more ignorant of recent history than JimB?
Clearly, it’s nonsense to suggest that black individual Americans are sort of faced with this existential choice—here or Africa?—which makes little real world sense, like suggesting that I would somehow individually exist if various ancestors hadn’t migrated from various European countries to mingle their genetic material in the Western Hemisphere.
There are a lot of us, myself included, who wouldn’t know where to go back to — we’re “mutts” of too many different extractions to know where the “homeland” is. Given what I do know, that could be Barbados, Ireland, or….hmmm…right here in the U.S. of A., since the heritage of folks on my family tree predates the arrival of the white man.
Of course, this is not a recent phenomenom, nor is the recognition of it a recent thing:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dWpxXmQKEKQ
Well, lessee…My iPod and XBox, both gifts, would probably net about $200 bucks at a pawn shop. I don’t own a cell phone.
Cheap health insurance runs at least $200 a month, so I guess the whole enterprise would get me insurance for one whole month.
Wheee! Wingnut math.
I hate wingnuts.
JimB’s definition of racist is “anyone who doesn’t think black people are inferior”. In any case, he’s not using agreed-upon terms, and can be safely ignored, I’d say. He might as well by writing, “Blah blah blah blah blah” for all that he makes sense. He’s not using the same language or definitions of normal English speakers.
The rank-and-file antichoicers, or just the ones who are heavily involved in antichoice advocacy? If it is the former, we are fucked.
The leaders. That’s my point. There are people who just aren’t thinking things through that are sucked in by the lies about babies, and can be brought to reason if they are exposed to some rational retorts. I think a lot of dumb racists are the same way—catch ‘em early, show them that arguments like this are really, really stupid, and many will wake up.
Funny how the posts list the whites as the problem…
Thank god I didn’t say that, or you’d have a point. Most white people are not engaged in direct colonization. But it is true that our government’s (and that’s our government, shared by white and black, rich and poor and everyone else, though not alike, I’m afraid) wretched behavior in Africa is enabled by racist whites here who perpetuate racist tropes and vote for Republicans, even if they aren’t the direct beneficiaries.
Louise;
Thanks for telling about your kidnapped ancestor. I’ve read books about that happening, but I didn’t know how widespread it actually was. Fun to know that their descendents reading this thread!
I myself do not have any kidnapped ancestors (that I know of), unless you count Pocahontas. The rest were mostly Ellis Island immigrants, pilgrims, a couple of French Hugunots and a Norwegian stowaway. Yet no one has ever told me that I should be grateful that I’m in America rather than in prosecuted Europe. I agree with Ms. Kate’s #3; it’s basically a STFU argument.
Mnesomyne; my favorite “That’s how Whitey keeps us down!” reference is here, but I didn’t know how many Mysties there are here and how many would get it. You’ve got some good ones though.
JimB is afraid of middle-aged African-American church ladies. That’s just pathetic.
Well, I don’t know…my mother’s a middle-aged (elderly, actually) African-American church lady, and she can be pretty scary when she gets pissed off…
It’s all Whitey’s fault.
Wait–do you actually know where Whitey is?
I think it’s in Mary Chesnut’s diary (or possibly in other Civil War-era primary sources I read at the same time) where Southern slaveholders in 1865 said they were actually shocked that their slaves disappeared after emancipation.
They weren’t grateful! Not at all! But their masters had thought of them as family — they said so! — and had only been trying to take care of them! really! and yet the former slaves weren’t grateful.
Imagine that.
Seriously, my reading of the primary sources convinced me that the slaveholders had bought their own rhetoric. They really did think their “servants” were better off as slaves in America than free in Africa, and they really did feel shocked by their ingratitude — especially the ingratitude of the house slaves, who were close daily associates (and often close relatives) of the slaveowners.
Ooops! I meant here.
JimB March 27, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Personally I would feel uncomfortable, if not a bit threatened, walking by the Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago on a Sunday afternoon as the doors were opening up and the parishioners started streaming out, now that I know what may have just been discussed. ”
Really? What may have been discussed? such as…
This is interesting. Are you afraid of punk concert too? How about movie that you “may” just heard from somewhere.
This is fascinating, either you scare shit of everything you are not witnessing, you know you are doing something wrong and afraid of it, or you are full of it. I really can’t decide.
Dan said: “This nation’s economy was built on the backs of African slaves and indentured servants of all races.”
Dan, that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Slaves and indentured servants built Ford, GM, Westinghouse, GE, Boeing, Eastman-Kodak, Xerox, Polariod…? What the fuck are you injecting?
Esshole, I’m glad I get under your skin. That brightens my day.
I just read there are record numbers of Chicago students murdered by other students this year. If Wright wants to do something useful, how about he stick his bigot nose in that.
Squishy, I can handle myself really well: high school wrestling, a decade of karate and boxing. I’ve never lost a fight in my life and I don’t fear anyone. I was speaking for those who can’t.
God, is school out or something?
JimB March 27, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Squishy, I can handle myself really well: high school wrestling, a decade of karate and boxing. I’ve never lost a fight in my life and I don’t fear anyone. I was speaking for those who can’t.”
so you admit, in case of yourself, you are full of it. Saying you are afraid, when in actuality you are not. So tell me, who exactly are ‘those who can’t’ you are talking about?
try to get real for once.
Big deal; so you have brute strength. Good for you.
I’ll do you one better, JimB- not only would I not be afraid, but I would not be afraid for my small, disabled daughter to walk with me in front of Trinity. Because believe it or not, 90% of the world is good, will not attack those who cannot physically defend themselves, and have compassion for their fellow human.
Even teh evul blaks.
Blue jean, if I’m not mistaken (have over 8000 ancestors and relatives in my compiled genealogy database), he was able to escape from the captain that kidnapped him when he got to Boston, was raised by a family there and eventually married a daughter in the family. I think he was about 12 at the time.
I’ve also found where another ancestor was convicted of counterfeiting and once imprisoned for life in the Bangor “gaol”, escaped and was never captured. Really neat stuff…
JimB is apparently afraid of being given dirty looks, criticized, or laughed at.
Because if it was mob violence he feared, he would know that an individual can’t rely on strength and skill to protect himself against a mob.
“Esshole, I’m glad I get under your skin. That brightens my day.”
Hey JimB, glad I could make somebody’s day…fuck that shit!!!
JimB, you are a vile piece of shit…
…actually that’s wrong…shit is actually useful - fertilizer and all that.
You OTOH are utterly useless. You bring nothing to the world but idiotic hate. Every time I think mankind is improving, all I have to do is think of you to realize how far in the primordial ooze some people still live.
Hang with your own species and leave the rest of us alone. The human race needs to shun you and your kind.
If there was any justice in the world, you’d be walking past some lily-white christian church when it was letting out and the parishioners would recognize you for what you are. Even they would shun you and your bigoted ways.
If Jesus was here, he’s say “You know that ‘turn the other cheek’ stuff I said? It doesn’t apply to JimB…”
I hope Amanda has you in her sights for bunnification, disemvoweling, or outright banning.
Eat shit and die…
I recently watched a documentary on Prussian Blue — the nazi pop twin band, and I saw that argument pretty much verbatum from the white supremecists. It also featured prominently in CSA.
JimB March 27, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Dan, that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Slaves and indentured servants built Ford, GM, Westinghouse, GE, Boeing, Eastman-Kodak, Xerox, Polariod…? ”
In early day the nation is pure agriculture/plantation economy. (Boston tea party?)
Cotton, sugar, tobacco, timber, railroad are all largely fueled by slave labor. The first 200 yrs up until around industrial revolution, all US products are labor intensives craft or agriculture. That that fuels US economy.
All those brand name you mention didn’t emerge until later half of 19th century. GE, Boeing, Xerox, Polaroid are all laregely result of postwar economic boom.
“JimB March 27, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Ford, GM, Westinghouse, GE, Boeing, Eastman-Kodak, Xerox, Polariod…? What the fuck are you injecting?”
btw, Polaroid, Zenit are nothing but brand owned by chinese. Westhinghouse is owned by Japanese (Toshiba)
Xerox is middling company with $13B market cap. Canon inc. market cap is about 5 times, and Sony is 3 times bigger. Samsung, the current diversified electronic giant conglomerate is at $103B, almost 10 times bigger.
The biggest car maker in the world is Toyota. Chrysler is gone (almost) The fastest growing car company in the world is Hyundai’s China’s division, a sino-korean company.
America’s brand name is Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Facebook, Affymetrix, … They have bigger influence and size than anything ever existed before. Bigger than all those outmoded basic manufacturing and service company.
Your world view is from the 60’s. You are a RELIC!
Get with it or we should pass a law banning you from voting.
Although I can’t feel scared by black churchgoers, I must admit a bit of apprehension considering the recent spate of murders by young black men.
Not to mention that the corporations that preceded Boeing, GE, etc. were, themselves, beneficiaries of slave labor. Most of the American aspects of the Industrial Revolution would never have been profitable without slave labor in the south. In fact, American bonded labor is also partially responsible for the Industrial Revolution in Europe, as the US South was a prime source of cotton worldwide, not just within the US.
Slave labor also literally built the infrastructure of most American cities which have urban centers predating the Civil War and/or the decline of slave labor in the north. Including Washington DC, by the way. Before black Civil Rights activists marched on the Mall in Washington, their predecessors BUILT said Mall.
yeah whatever…
Here is a list of all “murder” news 110,000 of them. Guess what the racial balance is? enjoy
http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&hl=en&ned=us&q=murder&btnG=Search+News
also, try not to lie ‘mkay.
JimB, thanks for once again demonstrating my point about you: you are completely and utterly ignorant of American history, and you’re proud of it. As far as you’re concerned, the United States magically appeared in 1886 when George Westinghouse founded his company.
Aren’t you even a little embarrassed at your complete lack of knowledge of the history of your own country? How far does your ignorance go? Can you name the three branches of government? Do you know how many amendments make up the Bill of Rights? Can you name two people who signed the Declaration of Independence? Do you know when the United States entered World War I? Anything?
The Western exploitation of the African peoples doesn’t start with colonialism. It doesn’t even start with the slave trade which started between the African and American continents in the sixteen-hundreds. It goes back much further. Look at the Romans, look at the Greeks, look at the Hebrews and Egyptians, all of which fed into our “Western” culture. All of them had a history of enslaving black people, of stealing away the strong and the powerful. All the discovery of the Americas did was increase the volume of an existing trade.
I sometimes wonder whether this is where the whole “pale skin is better” trope came from - the main difference slaves of African origin would have in the average Roman or Greek marketplace would be *visibility* - they were visibly different (usually taller, certainly darker, some of them a lot thinner etc) and thus noticeable. When the only dark-skinned people to be seen are ones who were enslaved (generally as prisoners of war, or through tribal or cross-cultural raiding), it’s hard to think of them any other way. There needn’t have been very many of them - maybe one slave in a thousand… but when you have one noticeably distinct person in a group of one thousand, the other nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine all sort of fade into the background.
So the image of the black slave wriggled its way into the European consciousness (first through the Greek expansion, then the post-Alexandrian Greek empires, then the Romans, and finally through the Christian expansion) and got transported all around the world. It’s only in the last hundred years or so that we’ve started to think about what this means, and where it came from. It’s only in the last two hundred years or so we’ve actually started to critique the notion of slavery per se - what does slavery mean, can it ever be moral, can it ever be ethical - that sort of thing. We probably still have a long way to go.
JimB:
Considering that none of these companies was founded until after America’s economy was already well established, your question is, as they say, not even wrong.
And citing George Westinghouse as someone who didn’t benefit from undervalued labor is surely grounds for some kind of international award for profound historical ignorance. He made his name engineering railroad technology, for fuck’s sake.
While tantalizing to imagine that racism as we know it has always existed, your theory has been pretty well disproven by scholars. Read early modern English texts and you will notice that, while zenophobia was rampant (and could look to our eyes like racism), class mitigated this prejudice (see Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko). To the Greeks, all non-Greek speaking peoples were barbarians and therefore legal to enslave. The Romans pretty much made all non-noble conquered peoples slaves of one sort or other. Slavery was ubiquitous within Africa even, with lighter-skinned Ethiopians enslaving darker-skinned Africans. Serfs are slaves of another sort. Racism is not what drives slavery, it just became a powerful ideological tool to justify slavery from the 17th century onward.
Don’t forget that the US is one of the few places that had strictly race-based slavery, though it promulgated out to some weird definitions of “race.” In ancient Greek or Rome, you would have to look at what someone was wearing and other cues to figure out if they were a slave or a freeborn person, because anyone of any skin tone could be a slave. It’s only in the US that you could decide someone was a slave just because of how they looked physically.
I came a bit late to the party to participate, but I wanted to thank all the participants in this thread who took trollish comments and used humor and knowledge to pierce their ignorance while at the same time moving the discussion forward. Amanda, great article, as always. Back to lurking now.