The white man is evil?

[SoundMaster]

As always, I become engaged in odd conversation during lunch breaks with my co-workers. Yesterday's was particularly interesting.

A co-worker (who is Afghani by birth, living in the U.S. for almost 20 years now) half joked that the "white man" is the most evil of all creatures. I say half joked because she said it with a laugh in the context of a humerous conversation. But I think she believes it.

I questioned her on it and she then proceeded to point out all of the 'white mans' foibles.....from early American enslavement of Africans, to early America's near-genocide of indiginous Americans peoples, to our use of the A-bomb on women & children in Japan twice, to Hiter, to Stalin, etc., etc.

Although all of these attrocities did, of course, occur, as I see it, the white man is no more intriniscially "evil" than any other group, obviously. Run a check list of other races and you'll easily see many similar 'evils' over the centuries.

The simple fact of that matter is this: in recent modern times, Europe's VASTLY superior navy and technological advances (particularly the British and Spanish) allowed it to colonize much of the rest of the world which provided the opportunity to exert its "will to power". Had any African nations developed kick-ass naval technology which would have allowed them to conquer Europe, they would have.
Is that not obvious?

My co-worker really thought my point was insane, that other peoples wouldn't necessarily engage in the same activities. I disagreed, saying that human nature is what it is.

What are your thoughts?

 

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

well, if you go to Africa, there are some spots where they still refer to caucasians using a term that literally translates as "pale evilness" which is a reference to the paleness of the brown-eyed Europeans that purchased people durring "the slave trade" and there are other parts of northern Africa where the people still believe that blue-eyed people are evil, supposedly having blue colored eyes is somehow the result of evilness "bleeching" your eye color. This belief among the African people was documented in a book that was published in the same year that Adolf Hitler was born. According to this book, the slave trade happened because the Africans were already afraid of Europeans. The concept of blue-eyed people being evil actually dates back to before the slave trade (almost all of those europeans involved in the slave trade had brown eyes btw) it goes back to ransacking blue-eyed Vikings (or at least some scary stories about their visciousness) going as far south as the equator

but as for me personnally i think that all people, regardless of race, have the potential of being evil, it's just a matter of different races having different "buttons" that need to be "pushed" in order to bring out that evillness

 

[Lord SteveO]

It's a very biased view on her behalf to be honest.
Yes "white people" may have done some bad things, those that she listed for example.
However she has failed to admit to all the "bad" or "evil" things that other races have done as well.
Japan's treatment of POW's, genocide in Ruwanda and other african countries, mistreatment of women in muslim/arabic countries.

All races or people's of the world are guilty of some evil as she put it. To simply list a few cases and argue we are the worst is ignoring other evidence.

 

[derek]

People are people, I see no particular reason to believe one skin colour is intrinsically evil.

 

[Neith]

that blue-eyed people are evil, supposedly having blue colored eyes is somehow the result of evilness "bleeching" your eye color.

Aren't all babies born with blue eyes? I've been struggling to remember what I learned on my Biology course but I seem to remember something about this. If this is so then all people are born with the potentional to be evil, according to those beliefs. I agree with this anyway, regardless of African superstitions.

I do think though that white people often have more potential to be cruel, and to cause problems by interefering with issues which aren't of their concern, such as in the Middle East and in Africa. When they do cause problems, they seem to be on a grander scale than those that non-whites have committed, as far as I am aware. The Rwandan genocide was a result of colonisation by the Belgians who went to Rwanda, favoured the Hutu's over the Tutsis and gave them more power. They instilled tribal hatred as a result. When the Belgians left, there was a struggle for power, resulting in the genocide which killed over 80,000 in 100 days.

The American's put Saddam Hussein in power, and when he stopped doing what they wanted they decided he had to be taken out of Iraq. So you could play Saddam's crimes on the American's for interfering, and for causing the problems which Iraq faces now, not to mention starting the war in the first place and using Napalm on civilians as well as soldiers. Of course Saddam did some terrible things, but hundreds of children died in Iraq every month from starvation simply because the Iraqis did not have the food to feed them. This is due to trade bans being imposed on Iraq by the UN. Now that Saddam's gone and his hold over the people has been stopped, the Sunni Muslims and the Shia's are at war with each other simply because they can.

I apologise for ranting so much but in these instances and in many others, it is often white people who have interfered. Of course, I think that non-whites are often as bad, it is perhaps because they are usually not as powerful as whites and so they do not have the opportunity to do such evil things and get away with it.

 

[Unblind]

I don't feel there is anything in 'white' people's genetics that make them more proned to being evil. When we talk about this extreme of behavior, culture is the deciding factor on a persons tendencies (Nurture not Nature). For a long time now, primarily white nations, Europian Countries and the USA, have been the most powerful nations in the world. Power will corrupt people faster than anything, and few people have the right mindstate to rule with great power. I think, like someone said earlier, if any of the African nations would have had that technology, they would have been no better than the white man (if they even are now). Some of the great empires and military nations in history came out of northern Africa.

Oh, and didn't we tell the Japanese ahead of time we were going to bomb them? Im pretty sure we dropped pamplets or something to tell the two cities to evacuate. I may be wrong.

 

[OfManAndMetal]

well i guess it depends on your backround, like a white person isnt going to say he/she hates white people. but a native american (thats what i am) might have different thoughts, or an african american, or now even someone from the middle east, because, if you ask a native american how he/she feels about the "white man", they would most likely say; "the white man took our land". if you ask an african american his or her thoughts on the "white man", they would likely respond with; "the white man made my people slaves", i guess what i'm trying to get across is that it depends on how your ancesters/sp or family have been affected by white people, or any race for that matter.

this is just such a "touchy" question. there are hundreds even thousands of different responses. in my honest opinion, it depends on your ethnic backround.

 

[infoterror]

I questioned her on it and she then proceeded to point out all of the 'white mans' foibles.....from early American enslavement of Africans, to early America's near-genocide of indiginous Americans peoples, to our use of the A-bomb on women & children in Japan twice, to Hiter, to Stalin, etc., etc.

Stalin was Eurasian, which is not "white" to many of us.

Further, only SOME white people enslaved Africans... blaming all white people for that is like blaming all black people for the disproportionately high rate of violent crime, rape, sodomy, etc. of a large portion of black people.

 

[Anvil]

People are people, I see no particular reason to believe one skin colour is intrinsically evil.

Agreed.

 

[infoterror]

I hope I'm evil. "Good" certainly is shit.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Which race is the most caring about other races? (Third world doctors come to the west for the money, and western doctors join charities and go to work helping the third world's ill people).
Which race has the most charitable attitude towards others worse off than themselves? Whites.
I wish they wouldn't bother and would just leave these ingrates alone.

Sure whites have done some bad things, but no more than other races and the other races never agonise over it afterwards.

 

[Neith]

Which race is the most caring about other races? (Third world doctors come to the west for the money, and western doctors join charities and go to work helping the third world's ill people).
Which race has the most charitable attitude towards others worse off than themselves? Whites.
I wish they wouldn't bother and would just leave these ingrates alone.

Sure whites have done some bad things, but no more than other races and the other races never agonise over it afterwards.

If the White western world was invaded by the middle east based on lies and propaganda about 'freeing the suppresed' and so on, but in reality was because they wanted our natural resources. I'm pretty sure we'd agonise about being but under a forced 'democracy' and being ruled by foreigners.

Yeah, a lot of people come from third world countries to work as doctors here. But a lot of Afrcians come here for the training and then go back to Africa to work. There are white people in the third world looking for people to come and work here as doctors, because our doctors go to other, better paid white countries.

And yes, white countries often are more charitable than non-whites. Is this something to do with white countries generally being richer than non-white countries? Regarding Africa again, we give them so much charity for a variety of reasons. Did you know that they are in the mess that they are largely because of the continued interference of the white world? If you want me to explain this, I will post back later in the day.

But yes, you are right, we should leave them alone. Or rather, we should have left them alone in the first place instead of invading countries whose cultures and lands we didn't understand. In my, frankly biased opinion against white supremacy, it's half the white worlds fault that so many countries are a part of the third world. Now that we've fucked the majority of them up though, don't you thing we should attempt to rectify it?

And when I say all of this, I don't mean every individual white person. I mean the power crazed, governments who believe in their own supremecy. They have been like that for so long, and the people don't do anything about it. Perhaps I should just leave this country and go abroad given that I'm obviously all out of nationalistic feelings for this blatantly wonderful country and its great allies.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Isn't the best way to rectify the problems in Africa to just stop interfering with them? If it would be possible to put things back into the original state there first that would be even better, but how could that be done?
There is no political will to go into Africa and sort out the problems there, but rather a policy of letting refugees flood into the west. We would be accused of imperialism if we did go there and try to help them. Many millions of pounds given to 3rd world nations, and debt relief, has been squandered by their leaders. Africans seem to respect dictators, so they get the leaders they deserve - as the journalist Matthew Paris wrote in the Times newspaper. They don't like it if they are poor and their ruler is ridiculously rich at their expense, but at the same time they would do the same thing in that ruler's position if they could swap. That is why all African leaders are the same in this way. Sometimes they start off looking like they are going to be a good leader (Mugabe for example) and are favoured by the West. Then it all turns out to have been a charade and manipulation as they return to the stereotype.

 

[Neith]

Isn't the best way to rectify the problems in Africa to just stop interfering with them? If it would be possible to put things back into the original state there first that would be even better, but how could that be done?

I wouldn't say so no. It's hardly fair that we go there, break up the country how we wanted it, into the map that it is today, completely disregarding the Tribal areas and so on (thus causing tribal problems straightaway). We also changed the way they farmed, regarding their ways as 'primitive' because they weren't using tractors and so on, when in fact, their ways were not primitive, but more at one with nature and the climate there. We took tractors over, disregarded the climate, got rid of their irrigation (which had worked for centuries) and did things which were suited to European farming. However, when the seasons changed they realised they didn't know what they were doing in and had no knowledge about farming in such climates. So we left the Africans to it, with the land ruined, crops destroyed, tractors they couldn't use, and if they could they eventually broke anyway and couldn't be fixed. This is perhaps a reason as to why they suffer from a lack of food so much, because their farming patterns and way of life have been ruined. This is perhaps even a reason as to why they suffer so much from a lack of water (I know it isn't our fault about the draught). As a result, they depended on the whites to feed them and so on, but (as you know) we left, and they were in a mess.

They were then encouraged to borrow money from the world bank between 1970 and 2002. In this period they borrowed over $540 billion, and in that same period managed to pay back $550 billion, $10 billion more than they borrowed. Despite this, they still owed $293 billion at the end of 2002. This is because of ludicrously high interest rates and bad money policies. Now they are still in debt and will likely never pay it back, even though many countries' debts have been removed (thanks largely to Bob Geldoff endless campaigning), many have still to attempt to pay back what they were [stupidly] encouraged to borrow. Did you know that all of the money raised by last years comic relief/red nose day was paid back to Britain by the following Sunday in debt repayments. So yeah, we really help, with all that we give out. We give money out of our own pockets to help these people, and it's given back to our own government straightaway?!?! I see that as being as good as theft by the British government. And there are the tribal problems which still persist, which I have already spoken about.

I think that the best way to rectify the problem is not to leave them to die in our mistakes, but to cancel their debt (they were wrongly encouraged to borrow because of our interference, and lets face it, they're never going to manage to pay it back). We should continue to give aid, but not in a monetary sense because what you say of many of their leaders squandering it I agree with. Instead, we should actually physically go to Africa and help. All locals should be educated, and then they should be given training for different things. Some should be trained to teach others, some should be trained to work in agriculture and some should be educated about medicine, and how to prevent diseases such as aids and malaria (this they did in the Philippines, and it was successful). We should help them to rebuild their country, their homes and the rest of the countries infrastructure. And when we have done this, and educated them sufficiently enough for them to be abe to rely on themselves, then we should leave them to it.

Granted, I realise that this is a theoretical and idealistic idea, but it would probably work better than to just feed money into a corrupt government under the heading of 'helping the third world'. It would be a chance for the powerful, rich white nations to do someting good for a change.

Sorry about this being a huge statement which may not technically be on topic, I am just justifying my not so national feelings.

See www.data.org for my stats on debt

 

[SoundMaster]

Which race has the most charitable attitude towards others worse off than themselves? Whites.
I

How would one offer proof of such a statement or validate it?

Even by measuring the physical amount of 'white' dollars spent for charity, you'd still be unable to measure an overall "charitable attitude" of various races for a number of reasons:

- poverty/wealth generally dictate charitable contributions more than race. Rich non-whites are certain to be just as giving as wealthy whites. Are poor whites rushing to donate what little money they have?
- are charitable contributions always done for truly altruistic purposes? (or other reasons), etc

 

[Norsemaiden]

How would one offer proof of such a statement or validate it?

Even by measuring the physical amount of 'white' dollars spent for charity, you'd still be unable to measure an overall "charitable attitude" of various races for a number of reasons:

- poverty/wealth generally dictate charitable contributions more than race. Rich non-whites are certain to be just as giving as wealthy whites. Are poor whites rushing to donate what little money they have?
- are charitable contributions always done for truly altruistic purposes? (or other reasons), etc

You have a good point. I can't prove what I said. It is only an observation that activists in charitable groups in Britain (who do things, rather than merely donate money) seem to be overwhelmingly white, considering the number of non-whites in the country. It could be a middle class thing I suppose. Also, in actual countries where people are suffering,the wealthy black segment of their population seems to do nothing to try to help and just leaves it to western aid agencies. I explain this in terms of altruism being something more common amongst whites - which is an observation - but maybe it is just cooincidence that all my observation supports this.

 

[infoterror]

I wouldn't say so no. It's hardly fair that we go there, break up the country how we wanted it, into the map that it is today, completely disregarding the Tribal areas and so on (thus causing tribal problems straightaway). We also changed the way they farmed, regarding their ways as 'primitive' because they weren't using tractors and so on, when in fact, their ways were not primitive, but more at one with nature and the climate there. We took tractors over, disregarded the climate, got rid of their irrigation (which had worked for centuries) and did things which were suited to European farming. However, when the seasons changed they realised they didn't know what they were doing in and had no knowledge about farming in such climates. So we left the Africans to it, with the land ruined, crops destroyed, tractors they couldn't use, and if they could they eventually broke anyway and couldn't be fixed. This is perhaps a reason as to why they suffer from a lack of food so much, because their farming patterns and way of life have been ruined.

Is that why the UN considers the primary cause of their lack of food to be political instability?

Whites were not the first to colonize Africa, nor made any changes that could not be undone.

I sense guilt more than logic in your reply.

 

[The Devil's Steed]

I've seen a common belief system among many people that the white race is evil. I've even had someone (seriously) tell me that it's been proven that white people are born with a "racism gene" which makes them inherently racist if they acknowledge their racism or not. He also said hatred of white people isn't a form of racism and is actually just 'being smart'.

 

[Dän]

People are people, I see no particular reason to believe one skin colour is intrinsically evil.

yeh good point, well summed up

 

[Matt]

People are people, I see no particular reason to believe one skin colour is intrinsically evil.

exactly; no culture is worse than the other.:Smug: