erolz66 wrote:Maximus wrote:You are being dismissive Kiks,
I have answered your question and the reasons why but you are not even giving me the courtesy of providing me with an answer or understanding mine.
Even though you said you would get to them.
Max for well over 350 years it was necessary for Britain and the US to construct a narrative that Black people were lesser then white people. Less intelligent, less moral, less godly, more lazy and the like. It was necessary to construct this narrative, maintain it and embed it in to the structures and institutions of the US and British state and society to justify slavery and colonialism. This 350 year plus project can be said to have lasted up till the mid 1960's. 350 plus years building a consistent racist narrative and embedding it in to the very fabric and institutions of the nation. 55 years of 'laws' to prohibit discrimination.
So today we see evidence of people still being disadvantaged , still being treated differently and negatively because of their skin colour. Yes there has been progress. Yes there are now laws but laws are not an indication a problem has now been solved and is over. They are an indication that the problem still exists. There are laws against knife crime in the UK but knife crime still exists. There are laws that prohibit women being paid less for doing the same work as men yet women still get paid less than men for the same work. What would indicate the problem is solved is not the existence of laws but their absence because they are no longer needed. The idea that all the problems that come from the creation and maintenance of a 350 year plus constructed and embedded racist narrative all just disappeared instantly in 1965 makes no logical sense. Then you see the reality today. How you can say and believe that the issues that are still ongoing today are not connected to that 350 year constructed narrative is beyond my comprehension. Seriously look at the video in my thread here
cyprus47427.html if you can. We KNOW that if you place children in an environment of discrimination based on arbitrary physical characteristic, then within the space of just 24 hours it has a significant detriment on their education performance. 24 hours. Image what a lifetime does ? The idea that there is not a connection with the problems we see today in the US and the UK and the 350 year histories of how these nations were built on and around the need to construct a racist narrative of 'black people are lesser than white' over a period of more than 350 years is as I see it patent nonsense and pure denial. We need change. We need change in out comes. We need more change that has been achieved between 1960 and today. Saying the problem of racism and the construction and maintenance of a needed state racist narrative over 350 years ended by 1965 will not cut the mustard. It is just denial. If we do not achieve real change in outcomes the US will continue to burn periodically, as it has done consistently since the 1960s. Even increasing state oppression of disaffected masses of civilians and potential race war will remain constant threats. Unless we find a way of secure real change in outcomes. Denying the role slavery and colonialism played in getting us to where we are today and how the vast majority of wealth and power accrued in both the UK and US were directly related to slavery and colonialism will not help achieve the change we must achieve.
Erol, there was a time right after the American Civil war ended that blacks were destined to build their lives and be land owners where it promised to give them a good start to build a better future after centuries of being slaves and being owned by the white man. Abraham Lincoln had agree to give the blacks after being freed to receive 40 acres of land and a mule. That was over 150 years ago, where they would have been able to farm their own land and work for themselves to build equity into their hard work, to be able to pass property to their children alongside with their white neighbours. Just imagine former slaves and their descenders building onto what they would have received from their parents and grandparents to build a strong financial future for themselves, their children and their future. We all know that money makes money.
Unfortunately, Lincoln‘s replacement after his assassination, President Andrew Johnson annulled and reversed the proclamation on giving the blacks any land at all, not even the one donkey. Had Lincoln lived and the blacks received the promised 40 acres, I believe we would have had a different black community as well as different race relationship between the blacks and the whites. For many years only land owners were able to vote, so the blacks would have been able to vote as land owners soon after their liberation from slavery, where black people would have been able to enter politics much sooner to be able to have a voice in shaping the country’s future.
Instead, they went to work for their former slaves owners as a free man, but economically no better than when they were slaves. The little money they earned went back to their former slave masters to cover their cost for lodging and food. In essence, for the blacks economIc slavery started where they were still under the control of their former slave masters. As you pointed out, 1960‘s is when the blacks started gaining traction with political rights and some economic freedoms. The former slaves lost another 100 years of building their economic futures after gaining their freedoms from slavery while the whites had about 500 years head start on the blacks, and Max still wonders why blacks are where they are today and that past history has no bearing at all. Really Max?
