|
|
Re: Is white racism nec. all bad?
Lane Singer (lsd@ix.netcom.com)
22 Apr 1995 17:39:30 GMT
In <3n3i2r$j9d@ncar.ucar.edu> strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>
>rh> Robert Hartman
>gs> Gary Strand
>
>gs> ... Jews don't blame all their problems on ~3000 years of anti-Semitism.
> Why should I take your opinions of 400 years of racism more seriously than
> theirs?
>
>rh> There is a large difference between the forms of oppression that Jews en-
> dured in Europe and the oppression that Africans endured in the Americas.
> By and large, Jews were not systematically stripped of their native cul-
> ture. They were expelled and harrassed, but their families were left in-
> tact--as were their customs.
> This is not true for Africans in America. Their native languages were
> suppressed. Their native customs were suppressed. Their children were
> taken from them. Their identities were taken from them.
>
>gs> Note the plurals above. There is no such thing as a single African culture,
> or one African custom, or a single African language. Since these Africans
> main commonality was only their continent of origin, I wouldn't expect them
> to unify round a chunk of crust. Also, Hebrew was suppressed - so Jews form-
> ed their own schools, analogously with customs.
Most African slaves were kidnapped from west Africa. There is
every reason to believe that they shared a great deal in
common, culturally, prior to having their culture, their language,
their religion and their very identities scoured away in order to
make them the better to dominate and enslave.
There is not a single group of immigrants to this country about
whom this can be said. It is their very culture, the sanctity of
their identities, that have nurtured the Jews, the Chinese, the
Vietnamese and more, in establishing themselves prior to assimilation,
a =voluntary= assimilation, in American life and culture.
--
Singer
|