Ok, so Jamaica was full of a bunch of Scottish slaves. So the British will repay the Jamaicans…
The slaves were Irish and African.
The Irish suffered atrocities at the hands of the UK in Ireland and were enslaved in the Caribbean. So, do we pay the islands of the Caribbean, the country of Ireland directly, or the descendants of the Irish slaves who have mostly migrated away?
Or, do we ignore the Irish slaves because they were eventually able to overcome Irish racism due to the extreme “black vs white” nature of 20th century Western racism? We could, since their economic plight isn’t nearly as severe at the current date. Alternatively, we could take a lesson from the Irish and find something else to make everyone hate(the British?) and thus allow the Jamaicans to express their superiority by pissing all over the newly appointed ‘inferior’ group.
I suppose it all depends. Do you think racism is just a natural human instinct? Maybe we shouldn’t hold our ancestors accountable for being human.
I think that “natural human instinct” tends to be a rather poor rationalization for doing anything. There is, I think, an overwhelming trend towards avoiding the optimisation of the human mind. If the discussion is physical illnesses which can be avoided, suddenly “natural” flies out the window. What percentage of people do you suppose would opt to die at 50 instead of 80 years old on the basis of doing so being more natural? Or, rather than death, living with a debilitating or even just limiting condition. But when the limitations are mental, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, etc - that which is intangible - suddenly the vast majority choose to identify with their crazy habits instead of being able to decide how they live.
No major retail store really has more of anything “in the back” unless they’re worried someone is going to steal it. Most have moved to a system where as little inventory goes into storage as is humanly possible. Still, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, as it’s a common misconception. What cannot be forgiven is your condescending demand that, I “just go back there and check, would you please?” Despite my assurances that the item was indeed out of stock, since I had done an inventory earlier in the day. However, I did enjoy going to the back, purchasing a cool beverage from the soda machine in the break room and wasting four minutes of your time to “look” for your item while I texted some cat pictures to my girlfriend. And I when I returned empty-handed and less thirsty, I really was upset when you declared, “I don’t think I’ll come here anymore.” I was upset because I don’t trust assholes to keep their word.
Racism is totally a thing we’re born with, just like the inclination of males to rape. It’s just another bit of obsolete hardwiring that requires effective socialisation to suppress.
I think it’s dangerous to try and wish it away; we’ll never have a society that’s managed to eliminate every trace of it, but we can have a society that doesn’t tolerate people thinking like monkeys.
I disagree, actually. Since race is a construct, racism is a construct as well. Maybe you could say that people tend to fear outsiders, but that is also something that is political tool. I’m skeptical when “X is a thing we’re born with” comes out, because that really is very much flattens human experience.
Especially since research shows that being born with a tendency doesn’t mean that environment won’t tweak things differently.
The long and short copies of a particular gene (I’ve forgotten the specific name), for example, that seems to affect coping mechanisms. Born with two short ones, but blessed with a supportive loving environment in childhood, and the kid turns out OK. Born with two long ones, but severely abused from a young age, and the gene isn’t sufficient to protect. Born with one long and one short, you can actually figure out what sort of childhood occurred based on how the kid turns out.
(edited for typo, which I seem to be doing a lot of these days)
Tribalism I can get but I am not sure how much that is actually wired into us. Sadly skin color is an easy visible us/them marker. I hope we can get past all that at least to where the worst we can argue over is silly things like emacs and vi…
Yet the sorts of concepts and ideas about evolution and inferiority is a rather new concept, historically speaking. it wasn’t until the new world slave trade that black skin was considered a bad thing in and of itself. After all, some Europeans valorized the Ethiopians, because they were also Christians (pre-new world slave trade). People were more likely to identify with religious belief than skin color.
Or we can argue over which rock bands are the best and which blow!
