abell said:
Racism is still terrible. The socio-economic gap between white people and virtually every other race in the world is obscene. Black people are still treated terribly, by employers, by the police, by the government and by the general public. The few victories black people have achieved over years of determined struggle seem to have only moved the bigotry and abuse away from themselves and on to other groups.
We like to pretend racism is isolated. Racism is what defines western society. Wall Street was built thanks to investment in slave trade. America became a global superpower by embracing slavery to the bitter end. The Declaration of Independence was signed only because the British Empire demanded the commonwealth to abolish slavery and the americans refused.
Nowadays, we export racism and slavery. We send work to third world countries and work people of other races to death and somehow this is a step up from slavery. Every day, Taiwanese workers of Apple products can't take the brutal working conditions anymore and commit suicide. Even so, Iphones still dominate the market.
It is absurd to sugest that anything can be seperate from racism when everything we have ever known is racism.
So, point by point.
Black people are treated terribly. Are they torn apart by dogs? Are they forced to labor against their will? Are they legally prevented from voting? From holding political office? From eating in the same restaurants, going to the same schools, and hospitals? No, to all of that? So, we can agree that race relations in America are better than they were in pre-Civil War America? Pre Civil Rights America? Good?
Racism is what defines Western Society. Wow. Just wow. Western Society, the past 500 years of European and American (North and South) history is all about racism? It's not about the religious wars that swept through Europe for several hundreds of those years, and directly led to Enlightenment Philosophy as well as the exodus of Europeans to the New World? Also, racism doesn't exist in non western societies? Japan and Korea haven't had a thousand year blood feud, despite the fact that they're genetically impossible to separate? Absolute statements tend to be difficult to defend, because they're very fragile.
The Declaration of Independence was signed because the British required the abolition of slavery. You have delved deep into the historical revisionism well. The Brits didn't outlaw the slave trade until 1807 and didn't abolish slavery until 1833. Seriously, wikipedia exists.
Wall Street was built on slavery? No. Just no. Slavery was not a good economic system, in the same way that feudalism was not a good economic system. Because, they're pretty much the same system. Do you remember how the North economically dominated the South, which led to the South being incredible protective of their way of life. Then, during the Civil War, the North produced way more guns, had better rail lines, logistics, etc? Like, basic 8th grade education? The reason for that is because industrialization makes you way richer than agriculture based slavery. Indeed, do you remember how right after the end of slavery, it was basically reintroduced as share cropping, which actually saved the plantation owners a whole bunch of money? Wall Street was built on the backs of Stanford, Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Morgan, and Vanderbilt. Look them up, they didn't get rich being plantation owners. Again, Wikipedia exists.
We export racism and slavery to the third world. Already covered the racism section of that. Taiwanese workers are not slaves anymore than you or I are, unless you believe capitalism itself is slavery, but, that's a bigger conversation. It's much easier to bridge the industrial gap with the money provided by industrial countries that want to import cheap goods, than to try to do it alone. That nasty industrial phase lasts less than a lifetime in developing countries, compared to the century and a half that it took Britain, and the US. E.g., Singapore in the past 40 years.
Here's a nice visual representation of what Western Industrialization has done for the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
Finally, "...everything we have ever known is racism." This is exactly the problem that I was referring to earlier. Race is not everything. Race is not the foundation of everything. Race is a single component in human lives, that includes art, reason, faith, work, love, etc. Can race interfere with those? Sure. But, they're not determined by race, now less so than any other time in history. And if you insist on viewing "everything" in terms of race, you're the one with a problem.
