Slavery legacy 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

From yesterday's video:

"White people didn't invent slavery. In fact, they were the first to end it [the story]." But students don't hear that in their history classes, so we have millions of citizens who were mis-led and ready to fight about it.

"Slavery is an ancient human evil, practiced by everyone [on] everyone . . . For over a thousand years, brown Arab slavers sold millions of black Africans across the Sahara. Then came the Barbary slave trade in North Africa. Arab and African raiders captured over a million white, Christian Europeans."

"So: which major power stopped slavery first? The British. In large part because of pro-human Christian values . . the same values America was founded on, the same values that drove white Americans to fight other white Americans to free black Americans in the Civil War."

What's the point he's trying to make? "In our capacity for good and evil, we are all equal."

Slavery legacy 2

Follow up to this post

One-sided arguments mislead people. Among the politically-left leaning folks in this country,  a one-sided story about race has dominated academia: that the white race is uniquely to blame for slavery. 

But it's just not true, as Coleman Hughes teaches at UATX. Most American students have been taught this one-sided narrative with twisted results like hopeless discouragement and contempt for their neighbors.

Kaizen Asiedu is a rising "influencer" online who has something to say about it.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Slavery legacy?

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves," and he did that in 1863, 160+ years ago. But issues remained, and still remain today. 

According to our left-wing, America's unique slavery guilt is everlasting and unforgivable, deserving of contempt and punishment. 

This black author (photo) sees it differently. He teaches a course called "Legacy of Slavery" at University of Austin where he informs students--to their surprise--that slavery was never a "white person thing," that it was global and nearly unopposed until a couple centuries ago. It's news to them, and maybe it's news to you.

The experience of slavery throughout the world was never limited to the black race, and was never uniquely perpetrated by the white race. If you have any interest in understanding it, read his article.

To take this position in our current cultural moment shows courage.

from The Free Press

Lots of slaves

It might surprise a lot of people to know that slavery has been practiced all over the world for thousands of years. Race was not the determining factor, as slaves were regularly made of all colors of captured humans.

Roman armies brought conquered peoples, including whites from northern Europe, to parade through Rome's streets and be sold for private use or the military (think Ben Hur). Plato, the ancient Greek, was at one time a slave.

Slave trading was an economic force in the Middle East, with big markets in Istanbul, Cairo, Baghdad. Barbary pirates of North Africa captured thousands, including American citizens. Indians of both North and South America kept slaves, as did the Chinese. 

Black tribes of Africa made slaves of their conquests. Some on the interior made raids in order to sell their captives to traders on the coast. Others went to the Middle East markets.

from The History of Slavery You Probably Weren't Taught in School

(cont'd tomorrow)

Dangerous idea 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

Most nations were created by war or one impressive individual, for people united in bloodline. But America was created on the basis of an idea stated in the Declaration: all people were created and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and governments exercise rightful power only by the consent of those people.

This is the principle which Rev. Martin Luther King reminded the American people about, and the moral basis for his campaign of equal rights for black people. It's also the basis for the whole human rights movement of the last century in America.

The Declaration, though written by sadly imperfect people, codified the principle into American law. This is the reason and basis for America, not promotion of slavery as claimed by the 1619 Project. It's the principle we go back to all through our history, that people should be free and that they can rightfully oppose government that doesn't help them.

It made America different. Monarchs around the world knew that America could be a dangerous game-changer . . and she was.

Election laugh

Things are so serious in America with the presidential election coming in just five days. One of the issues is whether identification should be required to cast a vote, as is required to travel on an airplane, to drive a car, etc.

Wait . . only citizens are supposed to vote in the U.S.A. How can it be questioned whether you must show your identity? But it is an issue. California just made it illegal to require ID to vote. 

Some say that requiring voter ID is racist, that it is beyond the ability of black Americans to comply. Wait . . who's the racist?

Babylon Bee always finds a way to laugh in the face of heavy issues.

Human zoo 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Is Darwinian evolution theory naturally racist? The answer coming from the interview below is, yes. 

It's not that some racist scientists happened to hold to evolution, but that Darwin's theory easily resulted in the racism that placed certain people in zoos. Evolutionary theory "provided the scientific justification that pushed racism."

If there is no Creator God who made us in His image, and human beings just evolved on a continuum from the lower animals, then it's no stretch to imagine that some human races are lower on that continuum.

Ota Benga from Africa was exhibited in the monkey cage at the Bronx Zoo. To many scientists, it just made sense that some humans were not as evolved as others.

 from Evolution News

Human zoo 1

This may be hard to believe, but it happened. Human beings were exhibited in zoos in America as well as in European cities like Antwerp, London, Paris. 

 "After the emergence of Darwin’s theory of evolution, freak shows would often feature people purported to be 'missing links' between modern humans and their ape-like ancestors."

 

photo

Three months after Origin of Species was published, staff at P.T. Barnum's museum said that, according to scientists, a new creature in the circus called the man-monkey was a missing link between human beings and lower animals. But in reality, the exhibit was William Henry Johnson, an African-American man.

 from Human Zoos

 (cont'd tomorrow)

Reparations? 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A London school headmistress is the first speaker to make a case against reparations, and her arguments are as follows.

First of all, the West agrees today that slavery was evil, in agreement with her opponent. But the fact that slavery was practiced in the West does not mean that they should pay reparations.

Second, "the West" was far from being alone in slave traffic. She notes that Brazil, for example, took in 5,000,000 slaves. Arabs enslaved over a million white European Christians. Africans enslaved Africans for thousands of years. Native Americans (20,000) sided with the South in America's civil war for the right to preserve slavery. About 4,000 free blacks owned slaves in America's South. Clearly, slavery was not all about race.

Third, it's difficult to define who should get the money. She, for example, is the descendant of both slaves and slave owners. And sometimes those who should get the money are defined simply as "black." What about people of mixed race?

Finally, "it's bizarre to suggest that human beings should inherit the outrage of the deeds of their parents. Should the child of a mass murderer be sent to prison for his father's crime? No. We do not inherit the sins of our fathers."

Reparations? 1

Here is a debate held in the United Kingdom on whether reparations should be paid. A professor of black studies (and descendant of slaves) explains why he thinks that the governments of the West should pay money to today's descendants of slaves. Today we're looking at his arguments; tomorrow we'll look at his opponent's arguments.

Back in the 1830's when the slave trade was abolished in the UK, he says, the government gave a large sum to slave owners to compensate them for the price they had paid for those slaves. He thinks that this justifies the whole idea of paying reparations, and it's his main argument.

He also claims that Western countries are wealthy today because of that payment to slave owners and because of the wealth those slaves helped create. Clearly his Marxist opinion is questionable as it ignores 190 years of monumental economic history since then, and I don't share it.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Disparity

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Must all racial disparity (variance or difference) in any context be understood as the result of hostile, hidden racism? It should be easy to see through such an extremely over-simplified generalization. Here's some data from the address. and it may not be comfortable to hear. (The data is not documented. If you question it, do research of your own.)

In 2019, half of all black 12th graders had not mastered basic reading, and two-thirds had not mastered arithmetic and how to read a graph." According to the ACT, a standardized college admissions test, only three percent of black high school seniors were college ready in 2023." These are serious concerns - but they don't mean that college exams are racist.

Politicians (like our current president) may say that being a black person is much more dangerous than being white. Actually, that's true. "Blacks between the ages of ten and 24 are killed in drive by shootings at nearly 25 times the rate of whites in that same age cohort. Dozens of blacks are murdered every day, more than all white and Hispanic homicide victims combined . . "

But it's because of black-on-black crime, not the implied reason that white people (especially police) are always on the attack. 

There's a skills gap between races and a behavior gap. The solution is to deal with and to close those gaps, not to vilify the whole white race.

from Hillsdale

Merit 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If shoplifters are arrested and laws are enforced for one race but not for other races, we've lost justice.  

It seems obvious that justice and medical standards and law schools should be color-blind. It was obvious to all of us until 5 minutes ago. The point of the civil rights movement in the latter half of the last century was that rights and justice should be administered without regard to the race of the individual. That would be fair and just. Now we've gone backward, less fair and less just.

Most Americans are bewildered. A scholar and writer puts it in black and white terms with no confusion in this address to a conference last month. She says, "Disparate impact thinking is destroying our civilization."

"Any racial disparity in any institution is by definition the result of racial discrimination." So bar exams, police arrests, medical degrees, law schools--anywhere that the percentage of black people differs from the 13% of the general population that is black--are all the result of racist discrimination.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many people actually believe this nonsense? If you haven't bowed to the wokeness, please speak up. But maybe not at work . . I don't want you to be fired for thinking things through.

from Hillsdale

Merit 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Some medical schools have stopped using the Medical College Achievement Test (MCAT) as a requirement for new students. The National Institutes of Health has broadened their criteria for doctors getting neurology grants to include things like whether they received childhood welfare.

California's state bar association lowered the pass score on its bar exam for attorneys because only 5% of black law school graduates passed the exam the first time, compared to 42% of the Asian law school grads and 52% of white law school grads.

In the area of law enforcement, police officers don't always arrest shoplifters and sometimes district attorneys don't prosecute shoplifting and certain other crimes anymore. Why? 

"Macy’s flagship store in New York City was sued several years ago because most of the people its employees stopped for shoplifting were black. The only allowable explanation for that fact was that Macy’s was racist. It was not permissible to argue that Macy’s arrests mirrored the shoplifting population."

from Hillsdale

(cont'd tomorrow)

Sing louder 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Why does the man have these nightmares? Because he and his family and his church actually stood by and watched a few feet away as Jews were hauled to concentration camps. His childhood conscience was shocked, and it burned into his adult conscience.

A pastor of that time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, didn't take the view of this boy's pastor. He claimed that the Christian church has a responsibility to fight evil:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless.

Not to speak is to speak.

Not to act is to act.”

Eric Metaxas wrote a biography of Bonhoeffer and sees the passive American church often doing what many German churches did then: ignoring evil in our own time, in our own country. His Letter to the American Church was written to call churches to fight it, not ignore it.

"Can it really be God’s will that His children be silent at a time like this? Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as godly meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle."

Here is a trailer for the film that recently came out. Any church may screen it for free.

Sing louder 1

Recurring nightmares disturb this man. He wakes up in a panic. 

The video below is based on a true story that took place in the middle of the last century. The nightmares come from one of his childhood memories of church services.

It may bear some relevance to church goers today. Take 11 minutes to watch it, time well-spent.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Roland 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Police in the US do not use lethal force against Blacks more than they do against white people. In fact, they use that force about 23% less than they do against whites. That was the result that Roland's research team discovered. Some of his colleagues advised him against publishing it because it was "so different." But he did publish it.

A previously fired assistant then filed accusations of sexual harassment against him out of revenge (according to her friend). A Harvard investigator found no basis for it. But Harvard University punished him with 2-year suspension and the end of his research lab, essentially "career death." Claudine Gay was on the deciding committee.

Why? Apparently because his work challenged the official narrative that systemic racism causes American police to frequently kill black men, so Roland's research had to be stopped. So much for "veritas" at Harvard.

Dr. Roland Fryer still wants to find strategies that actually help black kids achieve. "Truth helps us. False narratives do not. I find it insulting that people would change the truth because they think they're trying to help us."

Roland 1

Roland started life in a lower-income black neighborhood in Daytona Beach, Florida. Raised by his grandmother, his father was in prison and he didn't meet his mother until he was in his 20's. His extended family sold drugs in Florida.

He stayed away from drugs because he saw what happened to his cousins, and not one of his childhood friends is still alive.  Always feeling like a misfit, he never bought into the idea that it was cool to be poor. 

The first person to ever tell him he was smart was his economics teacher. He fell in love with economics, worked very hard as a student at Harvard, and became a professor. They were all trying to find the truth ("veritas") in their subjects, he naively thought. 

That's what Roland was trying to do. Back in 2015-2016 he looked into the actual police statistics to find the data about policemen killing black men. He did the research and published his conclusion, and then his life changed.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Plagiarist

Maybe you are following the uproar over university presidents who can't bring themselves to say that genocide is always a bad thing. For the president of Harvard University, the spotlight on her testimony in Congress raised more issues.

photo

Dr. Claudine Gay used to be the Dean of Arts and Sciences before she was promoted to president. In that capacity, she denounced the plagiarism of 27 students who were then kicked out. Disappointingly, it turns out that she has a double standard: when they did it, that was bad; but when she did it, that was fine.

Former Vanderbilt professor Dr. Carol Swain is one scholar whose work Gay used but did not give credit to. Swain believes that standards for tenure are lower today. "I don’t believe her record warranted tenure, and I believe that I had to meet a much higher standard than she did."

In Swain's opinion, it's a case of "affirmative action." That's a privilege granted because of race rather than actual merit. As she says, "A white male would probably already be gone."

photo

from Christopher Rufo interview of Dr. Swain

Indoctrinated 3

Follow-up to this post

Students in our academic systems are being trained to look at things in perverse ways: condemning whole races and groups of people as irredeemably bad. This wave takes over America after decades of civil rights work, reversing all progress.

Now there's evidence that the perverse wave is not driven by academics only. This anti-America, anti-Israel woke wave is an opportunity for an "influence campaign" by certain foreign countries to push their own views on American students, and they can buy their way in.

Network Contagion Research Institute released a study finding, among other things, that:

"[A]t least 200 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undisclosed contributions from foreign regimes, many of which are authoritarian."

Correlation is not causation, as this author reminds us, which means that this does not prove wrongdoing. But these colleges kept large amounts of money hidden from the government.

It would be hard to believe "that these countries give nine- and ten-figure gifts to universities expecting nothing in return." Yes, it's hard to believe that. They expect something. What?

from Free Press

Indoctrinated 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A 21-year-old student at Stanford University says that she understands why about half of her peers support Hamas in the shooting, raping and beheading of families in Israel. 

Most students probably have parents who decry the attack (yesterday's post). But they've been "carefully taught" in school to condemn groups of people based on ethnicity, race, gender, religion.

"In high school, my homeroom had an exercise where we made a T-chart dividing various ethnicities, religions, and other identities into the categories of 'oppressor' and 'oppressed' Women: oppressed. Straight people: oppressor. Black people: oppressed." It condemns whole categories of people, including Jews in some cases. You're irredeemable if you're white or male. Children are learning this. 

"I had a nonacademic weekly homeroom class in which we learned that every white person is racist, and all men are evil. It took me a long time to shake off a hatred of men. It wasn’t socially acceptable to disagree, and no one really tried."

from Free Press