A Concise History of Black-White Relations In The USA

including African Americans alive today? All African Americans who feel they benefitted from slavery, please raise your hands?

Our entire economy was based on our vast and varied natural resources, then later on industrialism. That doesn't hide the fact that there were quite a few plantation owners that got rich on the backs of slave labor, and it sure as hell doesn't excuse slavery, but to say that the US might not even exist at this point because of slavery (which almost sounds a bit apologetic of you there Major) is a stretch of the wildest imagination.

What facts? You haven't presented any--only opinions like if my white grandparents ate, they benefitted from a heinious institution that was technically banned forty years prior to their arrival in this country yet still existed in a form in which they themselves were subject to.

 

There are very few historians who would disagree that without slavery, the US economy would never have become what it did. The reason the US is the beacon of freedom, the world's economic powerhouse, etc, is because it got off to a solid start. That solid start came on the backs of free slave labor. It's a pretty simple line. Take out slavery from US history, and the US position in the world is nothing like it is today, and it is questionable at best if we would have won the various wars we did without the resources that were gained from use of slave labor, so yes, the US might not exist today had it not been for the existence of slave labor for the first 100 years.

 

I don't always agree with you, but I think your comments here are well reasoned and unoffensive to the very people who need to hear your message. This is the type of message that can soften my stance and open me eyes to discussions about how we can level the playing field without making me feel I've been attacked for my skin color.

I can only imagine that there must be a painful irony to hear a white man talk about how he doesn't want to be attacked because of his skin color, but all I can say is that skin color attacks can be painful to anyone.

And thank you for correctly spelling ridiculous.

 

Any white person who came to this country post-slavery had a built in advantage compared to blacks, based solely on their skin color. That doesn't mean this situation was their fault, it's just reality.

Any black person who came to this country post-slavery had a built in disadvantage compared to whites, based solely on their skin color.

This doesn't mean that most white people don't have to work hard to succeed or that black people can't succeed if they work hard. But one group,historically and today, has a built in advantage. Pointing out the economic and social consequences that flow from slavery and segregation is not an attack on you, your family, or white people in general. (I'm white.)

 

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2004/nov/wk5/art01.htm

Half the asian population probably came here after the civil rights movement. I don't believe we had special policies to help them, but they somehow managed to do pretty well financially. Penniless boat people who speak no English is doing better than the majority. Americans weren't exactly thrilled to have Vietnamese refugees come into their community. Two generations later, I'm not buying that policies from my great grand daddy's time is still holding back blacks from progressing.

Is there systematic policies that are keeping blacks from becoming doctors or tech nerds?

 

For the most part, the Asian populace in this country is a self-selecting group - they elected to come here. That means they were likely the most motivated and risk-taking people of the particular culture. If you look at the most motivated White Americans or Black Americans or any other subgroup, you will find their average wages to be higher as well.

No one has said black americans have no opportunity to succeed; only that they are, as a whole, at a disadvantage.

 

that's the point I was trying to make.

 

i guess you can also say american blacks benefitted from slavery with this argument, right?

 

Absolutely. The difference is, many black Americans also suffered because of it - while no other race did.

 

So what is it that keeps blacks from being motivated to improve their situation? I would think blacks would be motivated at the minimum to get back at the Man. China sucked balls economically until they liberalized 25 years ago. Now it's gangbusters. 1 billion people were motivated to improve their lot in life. Same with India. Asian Tigers 40 years before. Do you think the Mexican waiting for work at HomeDepot is in a better position to improve than an average black person in America? Who has the edge here? The motivated no hablo englais Mexican or the english speaking afro american? How about the hillbilly from the Appalachians? Perhaps Vu Nguyen making Pho in the restaurant kitchen trumps them? The opportunity is there for everyone.

 

do you really believe that 1 billion people changed their attitudes? maybe their economy improved. there are a lot of issues you are also not addressing. first of, race is an issue in this country, it isn't in China. as far as india is concerned, that is still a very poor country who have had a few companies move in for the cheap labor. another totally different situation. both countries are improving because they are sources of cheap labor.

 

Well, for starters, there is still limited discrimination out there. We see that minorities (and women) make less for the same job as a white male. Second, the school system that the average minority student has access to is subpar when compared to that of the average non-minority student (this is a direct result of the historical wealth differential that goes back to the times of slavery and legal discrimination), so minorities often start out with one hand tied behind their back. Again, no one has argued opportunities aren't there - but minorities, and black minorities specifically, have a long-time history of being behind other groups for very legitimate reasons relating to how they were treated. To act like it never happened and say they should perform the same as everyone today is ridiculous (and the point of the cartoon).

As to the rest of your post, why are you comparing entire countries to subpopulations of the US? You don't think China and India have subgroups that haven't benefitted as much and others that have gained more in the economic growth?

 

I gave my example of Asians excelling in our system. You guys said it was b/c the Asians over here were the more motivated and adventurous ones. I gave the economic examples of China and India to show how poor countries are pulling themselves up by the bootstrap and improved the general welfare of everyone. The people there are just as motivated as the ones who immigrated here. I believe the immigrant children of Patel and Lee both went to the same crappy schools as other minorities. Somehow they have the highest % with degrees.

The labor chart showed Asian men and women making more than white men and women respectively. What kind of superpowers do they have that the rest of the US population doesn't have? What are these immigrant kids doing to dominate the demographics at UC Berkeley and UCLA? How is it the admissions into Harvard is 15% Asian? What is it that they are doing that blacks can't emulate?

 

"Is there systematic policies that are keeping blacks from becoming doctors or tech nerds?"

I just wanted to address this... go to almost any predominately Black neighborhood public school in the country, and then go to a public school in a White, suburban neighborhood. Go ahead. Get in your car, now, and go check them out, and then come back here and post if you saw any difference. See if you can still stand by the implications of your statement.

The answer, sadly, is still yes. Getting better, but there's a long way to go.

Keep D&D Civil.

 

Horsecrap... not every white in this country (or even close to it) had ancestors in America when slavery was around. The immigration boom of the late 1800s and early to mid 1900s brought millions of "white" immigrants over who were used as slaves themselves (or close to it in sweatshops). We're talking about immigrants who came here with no history in this nation and started with absolutely nothing. My family didn't come to America until about 1910, so to say that "whites" gained from slavery... stop painting all whites with the same brush, because it is ridiculous to say the least.

 

firstly if you look at china and india you'll notice (especially with india) the grave inequality. sure india has a billionaire and a national high system now but it has utter abject poverty. i dont know if you've been there recently but you can see the contrast. its not a fair example. there was a reason why the BJP was ousted even amid the staggering economic growth in the last election cycle. the vast majority of indians are still living fairly meagerly to say the least.

for one they didn't have to shave off 350 years of institutionalized racism. go read the willie lynch manifestos. the family problems we see in inner cities are direct results of slavery.

secondly the false stereotypes are around as much today as they were before. they just aren't institutionalized racist mechanisms now. american whiteness has accepted everyone but black folks. sure irish folks and german folks came here and were treated crappy. but they were integrated into american whiteness. they became american. sure indians couldn't be american given the supreme courts ruling of 'white' being not caucasian but what is understood to be white. but eventually they were granted american whiteness. but black folks are black in the united states. and its a significant difference.

most indians i know that have come to the united states had college degrees even if they worked low paying jobs in the first generation. the family history of education is pivotal in future success.

essentially. go pick up some cornell west. expand your horizons and see the challenges faced by others. this bootstraps theory is cute but not pragmatic.

and regardless if we can see severe inequality between races its the job of the society at large to fix it.

 

but your family was granted jobs and priviledges that a black family in 1910 wasn't. your family could live wherever it wanted and could send its kids to proper public schools where a similar black family could not. to deny the fact that blacks were privileged and america was an aparthaeid state isn't just ridiculous revisionist history but outright disgusting.

 

Isn't it pretty juvenile to quibble over whether or not someone's parents or grandparents did or didn't eat cheaper food because of slave labor? Look, if you're going to enact a policy that addresses a large social issue, there are always going to be people who are hurt by the system that don't deserve to be and those who are helped by the system that don't deserve to be. The real issue is whether or not the fact that a large portion of the population benefits while another portion of the population suffers due to a legacy of oppression justifies taking action to rectify that inequality.

But, the real issue is whether or not the policy helps you. By and large your opinion over affirmative action is largely influenced by whether or not the policies help or hurt you. Like most issues, it's oftenmore about self interest than 'morality.' White people don't like to be made to feel like they don't deserve the position they're in or that they could possibly lose out on their position in life because of something they themselves didn't do. Black people don't like the idea of racism continuing to affect a large part of their lives.

Oh, and for the poster who keeps bringing up Asian immigrants, it's not really analagous. While the immigrants may have come over as a disadvantaged economic class, there is no where near the level of racism attached to Asians as there are to blacks. No need to start firing off anecdotes about racism against them, I know that it does exist. But it's no where near the level that blacks have experienced and continue to experience. That persistent cultural racism, which stems from the legacy of slavery, is I think the real barrier that blacks face (couple with the economic oppression that is created by discrimination).

 

Horsecrap again... there were plenty of whites turned away from jobs for being where they were from, ie "we don't hire irish" or "we don't hire italian" or "we don't hire jews..." Stop using blacks starting from the bottom as a crutch when countless whites and asians did too when they arrived here. Free'd slaves had years, decades or even generations of a headstart over late arriving white immigrants. Did they have it easy? Hell no, but neither did the vast majority of immigrants who arrived here from 1870-1930.

 

If it was 1910 would you rather be Irish, Italian, or black in the US?

Right now, would you rather be Irish, Italian, or black?

Seriously, blacks had a head start over white and asian immigrants? Impressive.