As a Chinese person, whose country was brutally oppressed by a not one, not two, but an entire coalition of white nations for decades before World War II, I feel no hatred against the white race. In fact, since many whites I talk to today are so brainwashed that they actually believe that their own heritage is one of brutality and atrocities, I guess I should tell them a bit about the achievements of their own race. Yep, the yellow man is here to tell you about the good things the white man has done!
Every time I hear someone say there is no white heritage to celebrate, I have to laugh.
Don't call me white..... The connotations are wearing my nuts thin.
Does it mean I have to take such shit for, for being fair-skinned now! I ain't part of no conspiracy, I'm just an average Joe!"
NOFX
And to think, I'm not even white. I can write for days on the things we Chinese can be proud of, and all these white kids think it's a shame to be white. Political correctness once again.
No, robwicks. Sometimes, this trend is so extreme, people are ashamed to be white. Case in point. Read white pride is hateful, black pride is not. Note how Saige and prole are saying how whites have nothing to celebrate. Thank God there were sensible souls to counter their brainless ramble, like Uberfetus, ophie, Woundweavr and even moJoe.
One of the unfortunate things about popular culture is that it does not discriminate between certain differences between similar things. For example, gangsta rap gives some people an opinion on all rap. The phrase welfare mother generally evokes a negative reaction, but I find it difficult to believe that all mothers on welfare are somehow evil. If someone calls me a hip cat, this is a somewhat antiquated complement, even if it is comparing me to an animal. If they call me a porch monkey, this is an insult, even though I am still being compared to an animal. This is how language works. Some terms, though similar in nature, differed in development and differ in common usage. In short, the American experience influences heavily how words are interpreted by Americans. I cannot speak of other English speaking countries, but that appears to be how things work here.
The tribes of New Guinea have a remarkable passion for stone-age technology wars, which are every bit as deadly and nasty as computer-age wars. If you look at the recorded history of Africa you will notice reigns and empires (Mali, Zimbabwe) that did not disappear because of the common cold, but rather because they were invaded, crushed and looted. Even the poor, oppressed, all-killed-by-Spaniards Aztecs were, as a people, dedicated to the brutal oppression (and eating) of other conquered peoples. The "peaceful" Mayans have records (read the Chilam Balam) of internecine wars. They were made peaceful through conquest and exhaustion.
There are many more examples, but what I would like to point out is that, despite all the bullshit, the "whites" never were the monopoly of "colonization, genocide, segregation, and oppression that continue to this day".
What we (they, whatever) had was technology before the others, which is why Moctezuma did not conquer Spain - not that he would not have liked to do so.
As an aside, it always seems to me laughable to have pride in being part of an ethnic group, much like pride in being of a given sex or sexual orientation. These are things that happen to us. I was born a Parmesan, and an Italian, but does that make me part in any way of the genius of Bodoni, Correggio, Dante Alighieri or Michelangelo or Julius Caesar ? No way. Or of the beauty of Florence and Venice ? Neither. I may happen to be better equipped to enjoy them than someone else, but this because of education. An education that I have not chosen, that again (much like the place, manner and date of my birth) simply happened to me. I can be proud of something I have done, or to which I have contributed. I approve of the Linux movement, and I like it, but I cannot be proud of it until the moment I release MY contribution to it, my own kernel patch or little piece of code, or until I do my bit to evangelize. As Kipling said, if I remember, "the race is run one by one". Despite all the collectivistic bullshit and feel-good talk, it is not the group, it is the individual's worth that counts.
Though I live in the US, I grew up in Central Europe. As such, I have never thought of myself as "white". I mean I have always known I was white, but it was never an issue to me. Everyone around me was white.
For that matter, I have never thought of myself as European either. My first real contact with Americans was when I lived in Rome, Italy. I became a very good friend with an American (in fact, it was this friendship that resulted in my move to America), and his parents came to visit.
His mother was observing Romans and then would say things like "Europeans do such and such things."
To that, I would react, "Whoa! Wait a minute! All you've seen is a small part of Italy. Please don't generalize!"
The truth is, in Europe, which is essentially where most "whites" come from (or their ancestors did), there are so many radically different cultures that it is hard for me to think of myself as a European (again, of course I know I am a European, but all that means to me is that I was born in a country that happens to be in Europe - a geographical identity, not a cultural one).
If I have any "identity" in cultural sense, I am a Slovak because that is where I was born, where I grew up, and that is the language I spoke for the first 29 years of my life. I also identify myself as an American, because that is where I have lived for the last 16 years, that is what I am a citizen of, and that is where I intend to spend the rest of my life (at least, I intend it now) -- and, boy, you should have seen how green with envy everyone was for me being an American when I went to visit Slovakia ten years ago (and a hundred times greener when I flashed my badge as a deputy sheriff -- they all love cowboy movies there), hehehe.
So, if I feel any ethnic pride, it may be a Slovak pride and an American pride. But I feel no particular call to a white pride. I am neither proud of being white nor ashamed. It is just the level of pigmentation in my skin as far as I'm concerned. (If anything, being a redhead is something I'm happy about <grin>).
The only time I hear anyone talking about white pride is from white supremacists--and those people I just plain don't understand.
So, what difference does it make that the computer was thought up by someone white? It was not his skin color that made him smart. There are smart people in every race. And there are not so smart people in every race. The achievements mentioned in the original writeup are not achievements of the white race, race had nothing to do with it. Perhaps the relatively mild weather of Europe helped.
On the other hand, things like slavery in America were related to the stupid idea that we are somehow superior to others. As a direct immigrant I can say quite straight that my personal ancestors had nothing to do with it (indeed, my ancestors were quite oppressed in 19th Century just for being Slovak - we were destined for ethnic extermination, but that's a different story). But I can see how some white Americans can feel ashamed. And I certainly can fully understand how many white Americans feel the need to right the wrongs of the past (and, alas, the present).
So, I suppose, the difference is cultural, at least to a point. I suspect most Europeans do not think of themselves as whites but rather as German, or French, or Swiss, or Slovak, or Hungarian, or Irish, or ... you name it (or, maybe, Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist...).
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