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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 10/02/2009 : 12:28:49
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I just have to share this video that's going around facebook some:
Tim Wise: On White Privilege
This is just one area that some of the working class has been tricked into voting against themselves. Turns out, it's very easy to do, which may explain why there are any working class Republicans at all.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 12:51:24 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
I just have to share this video that's going around facebook some:
Tim Wise: On White Privilege
This is just one area that some of the working class has been tricked into voting against themselves. Turns out, it's very easy to do, which may explain why there are any working class Republicans at all.
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The illusion of white privilege is the oldest game in the book in the USA. The longer poor whites (and to a lesser extent, poor blacks) buy into this, the longer both will be held down. It simply splits their natural interest group right down the middle, especially in the South, but also elsewhere.
Historically, the industrial unions in the north, such as the Auto Workers, recognized at once that they had to combat racism in their ranks to make their unions work.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 10/02/2009 12:52:36 |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 18:29:29 [Permalink]
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I don't know who this guy is, but how accurate are his statements? That is, at the beginning he suggests that in the 1600's there was no talk of a "white race" (his aside that highland Scots would fight lowland Scots is irrelevant and doesn't prove anything one way or the other). Is this so? And he says at the 1:27 mark that "more than out history books taught us" black and white indentured servants would "get together" to foment rebellion in the name of economic justice, etc. Is this true? In fact, this is the crux of his argument. At the 3:00 mark he begins to suggest that the elites cleverly divided whites and blacks for the purpose of stopping these rebellions, and that this plan worked.
As I continue, it all sounds good, but I'm sort of skeptical of some of his claims. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 19:15:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
I don't know who this guy is, but how accurate are his statements? That is, at the beginning he suggests that in the 1600's there was no talk of a "white race" (his aside that highland Scots would fight lowland Scots is irrelevant and doesn't prove anything one way or the other). Is this so? And he says at the 1:27 mark that "more than out history books taught us" black and white indentured servants would "get together" to foment rebellion in the name of economic justice, etc. Is this true? In fact, this is the crux of his argument. At the 3:00 mark he begins to suggest that the elites cleverly divided whites and blacks for the purpose of stopping these rebellions, and that this plan worked.
As I continue, it all sounds good, but I'm sort of skeptical of some of his claims.
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Good points. Problem for me is I wouldn't know how to verify his claims. Perhaps if he has made the same claims in a book and sourced those claims it might be possible. I dunno...
Tim Wise
I also googled his name and there is no shortage of Tim Wise on the internet. Still, I wouldn't know how to substantiate his claims without talking to a historian. I suspect that he isn't full of shit. Or perhaps only a little full of shit. But that could be my bias talking. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/02/2009 : 20:04:33 [Permalink]
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Okay, here is something.
Bacon's Rebellion:
| In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon, an English aristocrat who had immigrated to Virginia, led an armed rebellion against the unresponsive government in Virginia, achieving heroic status. Bacon led an army of 500 men from the ranks of backcountry planters, farmers, formerly indentured servants, and even freed blacks to attack Indians who had raided their plantations and farms. The government at Jamestown considered the army a rabble mob and declared Bacon a traitor. Bacon then marched on the colonial seat of government in Jamestown, burning it to the ground and forcing the Governor to flee across the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Shore. Before a British naval squadron arrived, Bacon came down with a serious attack of dysentery and died. British soldiers restored order in the colony and the rebellion ended with little change in the prevailing political system. Bacon's appeal to enslaved blacks to join his cause struck fear into the hearts of tidewater planters. His actions looked to them as a biracial alliance of the lower classes against the propertied elite. To continue to use white indentured servants who could obtain guns as free men and women appeared to threaten a social order that privileged the upper-class elite. Over the next 25 years, planters switched almost completely to enslaved Africans in hopes of uniting all whites into a race-based alliance between the wealthy planters and poorer whites. Historians view Bacon's Rebellion as a major turning point in the history of slavery in that white southerners thereafter defined freedom and equality in terms of race rather than class. To be free and white was the promise of American equality, and all whites thereafter shared a common bond in their whiteness that superseded any class differences. |
Underline and bolding are mine. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 03:18:35 [Permalink]
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You could try asking him for some more information as well. I mean, he's busy, but he's trying to sell books, too, so he might write back.
Tim Wise's website.
Email.
I haven't read his books, but I've read a lot of his articles. He was on MSNBC's Donahue once or twice. Not that any of that makes him right. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 10/03/2009 03:20:02 |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 11:19:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Okay, here is something.
Bacon's Rebellion:
| In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon, an English aristocrat who had immigrated to Virginia, led an armed rebellion against the unresponsive government in Virginia, achieving heroic status. Bacon led an army of 500 men from the ranks of backcountry planters, farmers, formerly indentured servants, and even freed blacks to attack Indians who had raided their plantations and farms. The government at Jamestown considered the army a rabble mob and declared Bacon a traitor. Bacon then marched on the colonial seat of government in Jamestown, burning it to the ground and forcing the Governor to flee across the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Shore. Before a British naval squadron arrived, Bacon came down with a serious attack of dysentery and died. British soldiers restored order in the colony and the rebellion ended with little change in the prevailing political system. Bacon's appeal to enslaved blacks to join his cause struck fear into the hearts of tidewater planters. His actions looked to them as a biracial alliance of the lower classes against the propertied elite. To continue to use white indentured servants who could obtain guns as free men and women appeared to threaten a social order that privileged the upper-class elite. Over the next 25 years, planters switched almost completely to enslaved Africans in hopes of uniting all whites into a race-based alliance between the wealthy planters and poorer whites. Historians view Bacon's Rebellion as a major turning point in the history of slavery in that white southerners thereafter defined freedom and equality in terms of race rather than class. To be free and white was the promise of American equality, and all whites thereafter shared a common bond in their whiteness that superseded any class differences. |
Underline and bolding are mine.
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Hmmm. It's been awhile since I had a class in American history but I do recall reading up on Bacon's Rebellion. I don't recall reading about how this changed racial attitudes in the colonies, but it has been awhile. I'll have to look more into it. But perhaps this guy's narrative is the generally accepted one. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 11:19:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
You could try asking him for some more information as well. I mean, he's busy, but he's trying to sell books, too, so he might write back.
Tim Wise's website.
Email.
I haven't read his books, but I've read a lot of his articles. He was on MSNBC's Donahue once or twice. Not that any of that makes him right.
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Dunno, Gorgo-- sometimes particularly angry people don't like to be asked about their sources... |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 13:43:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
Originally posted by Gorgo
You could try asking him for some more information as well. I mean, he's busy, but he's trying to sell books, too, so he might write back.
Tim Wise's website.
Email.
I haven't read his books, but I've read a lot of his articles. He was on MSNBC's Donahue once or twice. Not that any of that makes him right.
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Dunno, Gorgo-- sometimes particularly angry people don't like to be asked about their sources...
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That seems like a wild conclusion. Why do you think he's more angry than anyone else, and why do you think people who fight against injustice are not well sourced? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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AnthroGeek
New Member
USA
38 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2009 : 17:43:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Cuneiformist
I don't know who this guy is, but how accurate are his statements? That is, at the beginning he suggests that in the 1600's there was no talk of a "white race" (his aside that highland Scots would fight lowland Scots is irrelevant and doesn't prove anything one way or the other). Is this so? And he says at the 1:27 mark that "more than out history books taught us" black and white indentured servants would "get together" to foment rebellion in the name of economic justice, etc. Is this true? In fact, this is the crux of his argument. At the 3:00 mark he begins to suggest that the elites cleverly divided whites and blacks for the purpose of stopping these rebellions, and that this plan worked.
As I continue, it all sounds good, but I'm sort of skeptical of some of his claims.
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As while I can not answer the second half of your question, I can point you toward a few sources about the first half.
The American Anthropological Association has a neat project about race that also covers the history of the concept. Many anthropologists are pretty much on board with the concept of how people in America would divide people into races - black,white,Asian ect. - being a rather recent development in historical terms.
Here is a link to the research papers that the AAA has posted up on their RACE project page. There you will find a paper by Audrey Smedley on the history of race. Actually the whole project is pretty cool and worth checking out.
As for opposition, there is Vincent Sarich's book Race:The Reality of Human Difference in which he argues not only for a valid biological basis for race, but also for the long history of the concept of race being used. Hell, he goes all the way back to Antiquity in putting forward this argument - just not convincingly enough for me to accept all of it.
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A series of fun one-liners about various pseudoscientific claims and, even better, a concise description of the scientific method - Ken Feder on Skeptic Friends Network from "Frauds, Myths and Mysteries" |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2009 : 09:24:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by AnthroGeek
Here is a link to the research papers that the AAA has posted up on their RACE project page. There you will find a paper by Audrey Smedley on the history of race. Actually the whole project is pretty cool and worth checking out.
As for opposition, there is Vincent Sarich's book Race:The Reality of Human Difference in which he argues not only for a valid biological basis for race, but also for the long history of the concept of race being used. Hell, he goes all the way back to Antiquity in putting forward this argument - just not convincingly enough for me to accept all of it.
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Interesting stuff, thanks. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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White Privilege
