Sorry if I haven’t given you my undivided attention hope I didn’t hurt your feeling but some people actually work on the weekend.
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
Why didnt then their societies evolve out of the stone age while the rest of the world was doing so? [/quote]
Are you even able to partially grasp that every culture does not view us as “superior”? We have state of the art security systems, serial killers, the internet, internet stalkers, cars, car accidents, televisions, obesity at an alarming rate, thermostatically controlled environments, and kids who pass out in the sun like never before. Please explain why a tribal culture is “in the stone age”. Because they don’t fall into the trap of relying on technology for their every action? Do you even see the faults in your own way of life?
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
Let me see, living in poverty and disease, internal continual conflict, over population, cutting down the rain forests, .[/quote]
I’m sorry, are you talking about us or them? Everything you just typed could be used to describe New York.
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
You showed how one idividual made a contribution to his society via agriculture. You don’t call that prooof do you?[/quote]
One individual? Two words for you: READING COMPREHENSION. Learn it, love it.
If you deem our society as so terrible then don’t let the door hit you in the ass as you are leaving it for Africa.
Are you willing to give up all of your comforts and luxury? Give up your TV and car and all the rest then get on your soap box and preach.
You still didn’t make your point. Maybe it was the politically correct liberal text books you read.
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
Let me see, living in poverty and disease, internal continual conflict, over population, cutting down the rain forests, depending on our aid to make their miserable lives better, yeah I say they are backward. Until their dictatorial third world governments stop raping their own land and peoples maybe just maybe they might advance.[/quote]
Yes, Africa has a lot of problems. Disease, famine, corruption, etc… Some of this has been partially CAUSED by the slave trade and exploitation and a huge globalized economy. A huge rush to modernize in Africa and emulate industrialized country, largely encouraged by these countries, was ill-advised. But you are right when you say that Africa cannot be absolved from responsibilty for its problems. The same can NOT be said for Native Americans. The evidence we have shows that their society and culture functioned extremely well. Your statement is ignorant and extremely ethnocentric. Lack of technology does not mean a society is backwards. Whois to say that Native Americans were not healthier and happier than United States today.
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
Maybe they haven’t learned to stop fighting and working together as a people. Same as they were doing before the white man got there and the Arabs before us. [/quote]
Another logical fallacy. No one is saying that life in Africa today is preferable to life in America. It still doesn’t change the fact that the orignal post cannot be answered. The Transatlantic slave trade was a monumental event that affected the world at large in known as well as indeterminable ways. No one knows what the trajectory of Africa, the United States, and other countries would have been like if it had never existed.
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
Are you willing to give up all of your comforts and luxury? Give up your TV and car and all the rest then get on your soap box and preach.[/quote]
Was this directed at me? I have been to other countries and helped their poor. I get that privilege in the US military. There were no tv’s where we went. My soap box is primed and ready. How’s yours doing?
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
You still didn’t make your point. Maybe it was the politically correct liberal text books you read.[/quote]
I gave you the facts to back up what I said. Instead of doing the same when asked, you call us liberals and like the hypocrite you are, purposely twist peoples words and accuse them of not loving America because they point out the deficiencies of our own culture. You are truly a wise and open-minded individual…
The only observation I have ever been able to take from the enslaving of Africans as being “good” is this: By Americans enslaving Africans we essentially created or “bred” a physically superior race, African Americans. Let me explain, though my reasoning should be obvious. Which African males were removed from Africa and brought here? The largest, strongest and hopefully most fertile men. Americans wanted men that could work and were expected to produce offspring that could work. In the fairer sex, what type of woman was stolen from Africa and brought to America? The ones with that largest hips that could potentially produce the most children. This is not merely an assumption these are the facts of the slave trade. Eventually the lineage of these African Americans was passed down throughout all genereations. Subsequently we are left with a race, African Americans, who are generally superior to all other world races physically. More athletes are African Americans. The vast majority of sprinters, jumpers and professional bodybuilders considered elite are African American. The reason I put “good” in quotes is because this is a side effect and still does not mean that anything truly good came out of the slave trade. Please don’t take offense, just an observation.
[quote]Panther1015 wrote:
And let me clarify that he’s validating that slavery was OK because of the net result it yielded to blacks in this country compared to their African counterparts. I apologize for coming off as though some of you were pro-slavery. That wasn’t my intention.[/quote]
If you are referring to me - I have never said that slavery wound up being a net positive. I simply thought it was a good topic for debate. That is all.
I don’t recall saying that their culture did not run efficiently, it did within their on tribe or confederacies such as the Seneca Nations, but they were still primitives.
Logical fallacy is an oxymoronic phrase. Though I do agree with you that we do not know what it would have been like had the slave trade not flourished, but it did before Europeans got there, after and through all lands and cultures it exits or has existed.
The evidence for African-Americans being a physically superior race is very questionable. There is some small evidence that African Americans have a greater percentage of fast-twitch muscles than other ‘races’. There is a huge confound with lifestyle and practices. It is an unfortuante fact that many African Americans are poor and underprivileged and don’t have access to good education. Sports and the entertainment industry is seen as a way out of bad situations and is pursued. Kids play hours and hours of basketball after school. There are basketball courts near most poorer neighborhoods. No basketball court in my neighborhood. At least none that anybody uses. And back in the 1920s, the top basketball players were Jewish immigrants. More of a premium was placed on education as Jews became more upwardly mobile, and as a culture prowess in sports was less emphasized. A cultural comparison is also helpful. Take Australia. Many of the most talented athletes are Aboriginals. The Aborginals were severely discriminated and the victims of rampant discrimination. Race relations between white Australians and aboriginals were at least as bad as those beween blacks and whites in this country. Most doors and opportunties for a better life were closed to them until recently. But there was a place for them in sports to a degree. Many became boxers etc…The same is true in other countries with minority populations. In my own house, my parents deemphasized sports. I was captain of my track team, cross-country, and soccer teams. I remember at times being slammed with schoolwork and my parents telling me to miss this or that practice (I never did). Many other athletes at my school (in a fairly wealthy township) experienced similar attitudes by parents. The prevailing concencus amoung parents was to take atletics and competition seriously, but that your post-schoollife was not going to be governed by it, and academics must take a large precedence. I’m sure similar things happen across the country. There are undoubtably whites from middle and upper-middle class backgrounds that do very well at a high-school and collegiate level but who could perform much better if athletic excellence was stressed more.
Thank you for serving, I mean that. But the US military also participated when we were in Kosovo in the female slave trade via prostitution knowing full well that these women were taken by force from thie home countries. Read the book The Natasha’s. Yes, my comment was directed at you. I applaud your efforts to help the poor but dont run down our society because we have a higher, better, more toys standard of living even with all our problems.
[quote]drag0n252pi wrote:
I don’t recall saying that their culture did not run efficiently, it did within their on tribe or confederacies such as the Seneca Nations, but they were still primitives.[/quote]
Why is that bad? Why is how we live now necessarily beter? I wouldn’t change things now (if I could) and live like they did. But that’s because I grew up in this culture, and it’s what I know. I enjoy my life a lot. But that doesn’t mean I and others wouldn’t have been even happier living the way they did if that was what we knew from the getgo.
I agree in part with your analysis on physical fitness as a sociological issue. I agree that the challenges African Americans faced forced them to over-emphasize physical prowess, but the reason (I believe) that they were successful is genetics. Not saying you are wrong, simply saying that the reason African Americans are generally good athletes is a multi-facited formula. This formula does; however, include all the points you made about social structure and discrimination.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
The evidence for African-Americans being a physically superior race is very questionable. There is some small evidence that African Americans have a greater percentage of fast-twitch muscles than other ‘races’. There is a huge confound with lifestyle and practices. It is an unfortuante fact that many African Americans are poor and underprivileged and don’t have access to good education. Sports and the entertainment industry is seen as a way out of bad situations and is pursued. Kids play hours and hours of basketball after school. There are basketball courts near most poorer neighborhoods. No basketball court in my neighborhood. At least none that anybody uses. And back in the 1920s, the top basketball players were Jewish immigrants. More of a premium was placed on education as Jews became more upwardly mobile, and as a culture prowess in sports was less emphasized. A cultural comparison is also helpful. Take Australia. Many of the most talented athletes are Aboriginals. The Aborginals were severely discriminated and the victims of rampant discrimination. Race relations between white Australians and aboriginals were at least as bad as those beween blacks and whites in this country. Most doors and opportunties for a better life were closed to them until recently. But there was a place for them in sports to a degree. Many became boxers etc…The same is true in other countries with minority populations. In my own house, my parents deemphasized sports. I was captain of my track team, cross-country, and soccer teams. I remember at times being slammed with schoolwork and my parents telling me to miss this or that practice (I never did). Many other athletes at my school (in a fairly wealthy township) experienced similar attitudes by parents. The prevailing concencus amoung parents was to take atletics and competition seriously, but that your post-schoollife was not going to be governed by it, and academics must take a large precedence. I’m sure similar things happen across the country. There are undoubtably whites from middle and upper-middle class backgrounds that do very well at a high-school and collegiate level but who could perform much better if athletic excellence was stressed more.[/quote]
Excellent reply. There are several social research stdies conducted over the last 50+ years that support your post. This idea of selective breeding of blacks is simply an unfounded myth.