African migration to U.S., now more than slavery...

[billc]

I was listening to Adam Corolla's free podcast today, he interviewed his good friend Dennis Prager, and an interesting fact came up. Both guys mentioned the fact that more Africans have migrated to the United States than were brought here as slaves of the early European settlers ( having been sold to the Europeans by other Africans ). I thought that was an interesting thing to know. I think it goes a long way to dismiss the whole America is a racist country myth. Is there racism in America? Sure. Is America a racist country? No. If you doubt me, point me to the European country that has had a minority prime minister. We've been around as a country less than the other European countries and have already elected the first minority President. Not bad.

I have found that Adam Corolla is a really smart, wise, man and has a great deal of sense that is not common anymore. If you have a chance, look up his podcast on I tunes. It is the most listened to podcast on the internet, or so he claims, and he isn't shy about his opinions.

 

[Golden Crane]

Trust me, this one fact - provided it is accurate - doesn't do much to dismiss the idea that America is still a racist country. One needs only point to the treatment of Native Americans (both back in the days of the wild, wild west and today), Japanese Americans and the lovely interment camps they were forced into during WWII and the current immigration "spot check" laws in Arizona for helpful illustration.

Remember, Africans were brought to the US not as indentured servants or low-wage workers, but as SLAVES - as in property with no ability to decide their own fates and no rights who were not even considered fully human (remember Dred Scott, the Missouri Compromise and the turmoil of the 60s Civil Rights era?). Your corner of America may not be racist (nor is mine in an overt way), but trust and believe racism alive and well in this the good ol' US of A.

BTW - the term 'minority" is a bit of a misnomer. Although it is supposed to be used to mean NUMERICAL minority (as in there are fewer brown folks than non-brown ones), the "numerical" part almost always gets left out, which makes it sounds like the people being referenced are somehow "less than". Besides, now that more brown babies were born in the US than non-brown, maybe that term will go the way of the dinosaur like "colored" and "black" have. Here's hoping! :ultracool

 

[frank raud]

Trust me, this one fact - provided it is accurate - doesn't do much to dismiss the idea that America is still a racist country. One needs only point to the treatment of Native Americans (both back in the days of the wild, wild west and today), Japanese Americans and the lovely interment camps they were forced into during WWII and the current immigration "spot check" laws in Arizona for helpful illustration.

Remember, Africans were brought to the US not as indentured servants or low-wage workers, but as SLAVES - as in property with no ability to decide their own fates and no rights who were not even considered fully human (remember Dred Scott, the Missouri Compromise and the turmoil of the 60s Civil Rights era?). Your corner of America may not be racist (nor is mine in an overt way), but trust and believe racism alive and well in this the good ol' US of A.

As long as we are remembering, remember that at the time slavery was completely legal, and widely practiced throughout the world. It is despicable to our standards now, but most labour practices which helped builded North America(slavery, indentured servants, child labour) were the norm at the time, not only in North America, but in the European countries where most of our immigrants and settlers came from. If you think horrible working conditions were limited to those of African descent, take a look at the plight of the Irish or Scottish. Many a country was built on the backs of slaves and serfs, none of whom had the "right" to decide their own fate.

 

[frank raud]

Again, referencing internment camps for the Japanese in WWII fails to take into account the changes to international law since then. The USA was not the only country with internment camps, Canada had them for people of Japanese, German or Italian descent, Australia had them as did many other countries. Again, what was acceptable then has changed. Internment camps are covered under the 4th Geneva Convention, signed in 1949, after WWII.

 

[billc]

I always think it is odd that as slavery is condemned it is often glossed over and completely ignored that actual Africans had to go out and capture, transport and then actually sell their fellow Africans into slavery. That Slavery still exists on the African continent and is also overlooked, is still a mystery to me.

 

[billc]

On the info. on numbers...

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_slaves_were_brought_to_the_Americas

Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States. The largest number were shipped to Brazil.

http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=719

The number of African immigrants in the United States grew 40-fold between 1960 and 2007, from 35,355 to 1.4 million. Most of this growth has taken place since 1990.

Compared to other immigrants, the African born tend to be highly educated and speak English well. However, they are also more likely not to be naturalized US citizens than other immigrants.

 

[K-man]

I think it goes a long way to dismiss the whole America is a racist country myth. Is there racism in America? Sure. Is America a racist country? No. If you doubt me, point me to the European country that has had a minority prime minister. We've been around as a country less than the other European countries and have already elected the first minority President. Not bad.

Mmm. I'm stretching this a bit, but the inference here is that the US is a sexist country. You still haven't elected a female President. There have been a fair few female leaders in Europe, and even one in Australia.

 

[granfire]

Mmm. I'm stretching this a bit, but the inference here is that the US is a sexist country. You still haven't elected a female President. There have been a fair few female leaders in Europe, and even one in Australia.

hah, you forget the female leaders of notorious sexist countries like India and Pakistan....

 

[frank raud]

hah, you forget the female leaders of notorious sexist countries like India and Pakistan....

And Canada.

 

[K-man]

And Canada.

But, I don't think that Kim Campbell was actually elected as leader by the electorate. She succeeded Mulroney but never actually sat as PM in parliament. She held the position for just over four months, then the voters chucked her out of office and right out of parliament, at the general election.

 

[K-man]

hah, you forget the female leaders of notorious sexist countries like India and Pakistan....

I really didn't want to go there .... but. Did you really want me to draw comparisons, especially with Pakistan? Benazir Bhutto had a lot of power but she was under a Presidential system and was eventually dismissed for corruption. In her term of office, Pakistan recognised the Taliban and cosied up to Libya.

Indira Gandhi was a lot better than Benazir Bhutto but unfortunately they both suffered the same fate. As I said, did you really want to compare US politics with India and Pakistan?

Then there was ..

Sirimavo Bandaranaike, three times Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, who was the first woman in the world to hold the office of prime minister. Her daughter later became President then Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.

Interesting stuff!

​

​

 

[granfire]

Indira Gandhi was a lot better than Benazir Bhutto but unfortunately they both suffered the same fate. As I said, did you really want to compare US politics with India and Pakistan?

​

​

Hey, we are so enlightened and progressive, we can't even get a female on the ticket.
And those countries managed. Yes, and Sri Lanka...you are actually making my point, thank you.
So they sucked. Happens to a lot of leaders.

 

[elder999]

I was listening to Adam Corolla's free podcast today, he interviewed his good friend Dennis Prager, and an interesting fact came up.

That you clearly get what you pay for in this instance? :lfao:

Both guys mentioned the fact that more Africans have migrated to the United States than were brought here as slaves of the early European settlers

Except it's not a fact. We don't really know just how many Africans were kidnapped and imported to North America prior to the abolition of the slave trade in 1815-some estimates put it as low as 500,000, and some as high as 3.5 million. In any case, are they comparing whichever number they were using against all voluntary African emigration throughout U.S. history, or simply against the current 840,000 African immigrants in the U.S. listed by the 2010 census?

( having been sold to the Europeans by other Africans ).

And we again have this chestnut of ignorance: those "other Africans" were of no relation to the peoples they preyed upon-it's, at best, like calling the English putting Scottish into slavery, "slavery of Europeans by other Europeans"-however factual, it is diingenuous, and glosses over the fact that one people treated another as chattel;it in no way excuses it.

I thought that was an interesting thing to know.

Well, of course you did-you can put it right up there next to the whole "Nazis were socialists" collection of history books on your apparently less than plumb bookshelves.

I think it goes a long way to dismiss the whole America is a racist country myth.

Except that it doesn't.

Is there racism in America? Sure.

Finally, a fact in your post.

Is America a racist country? No.

And if you are the object of racism noted in the previous sentence, in what way is the second one not true? Just askin', mind you-I don't think America is any more racist than anywhere else I've been, and it's a lot less racist than Japan-though Japanese racism is more akin to plain old ignorance and a product of their homogeneity.

If you doubt me, point me to the European country that has had a minority prime minister. We've been around as a country less than the other European countries and have already elected the first minority President. Not bad.

Interestingly, Stephen Dershowitz used GOOGLE and the election of Obama to demonstrate just how racist America is in this paper, and this op-ed in the New York Times.

I have found that Adam Corolla is a really smart, wise, man and has a great deal of sense that is not common anymore.

I've enjoyed some of his viewpoints from time to time-seems like a nice guy, someone I wouldn't mind sharing a beer with, while drooling over his car collection, hopefully.

Clearly,though, he's at his smartest when noting just how not smart he is:

The God's honest truth is that I'm probably funnier, but he's smarter. Here's the thing about Stern -- he's really a smart guy. He's nutty. He's outrageous. He's all those things, but he's also a very smart guy.”

:lfao:

If you have a chance, look up his podcast on I tunes. It is the most listened to podcast on the internet, or so he claims, and he isn't shy about his opinions.

It's in the Guiness Book of World Records.

 

[elder999]

As long as we are remembering, remember that at the time slavery was completely legal, and widely practiced throughout the world. It is despicable to our standards now, but most labour practices which helped builded North America(slavery, indentured servants, child labour) were the norm at the time, not only in North America, but in the European countries where most of our immigrants and settlers came from. If you think horrible working conditions were limited to those of African descent, take a look at the plight of the Irish or Scottish. Many a country was built on the backs of slaves and serfs, none of whom had the "right" to decide their own fate.

Whilst we're remembering all of that, it should also be noted that , slaves in North America during the colonial period had the right to own property, families were kept together, and, while it wasn't often able to be exercised, had they had the ability, as my ancestors did, to buy their freedom. The abolition of the slave trade in 1815 created a somewhat uniquely cruel institution in the southern part of the U.S.-at a time when various states and colonies were abolishing slavery altogether, the south was built on maintaining slavery, and the status of the slaves-at a time when there were black freemen in other states, it had long been illegal for such a thing to exist in some southern states, and various other laws made certain that blacks were "less free" than their white counterparts in instances where they were freed from slavery-for example, a white landowner in Kentucky could go to a free black family and take away a child for "apprenticeship," for "the child's own good."

I always think it is odd that as slavery is condemned it is often glossed over and completely ignored that actual Africans had to go out and capture, transport and then actually sell their fellow Africans into slavery.

Largely because of ignorance, I'd imagine. I mean, you do realize that Africa is a continent, of many nations and tribes, don't you? To speak of one tribe or country of the time thinking of another as "their fellow Africans" is, as I posted earlier, much like expecting the British to cut their "fellow Europeans" the French some slack, when, in fact, both nations spent a great deal of time in enmity-just as African and Arab nations and tribes did.

"Fellow Africans." :lfao:

 

[billc]

Hmmm...

and glosses over the fact that one people treated another as chattel;it in no way excuses it.

Yes elder, that is exactly what I did, I excused it by reinforcing the point in another post that slavery was a world wide trade and not just a problem in the European colonies, and that it is still being practised on the african continent while it has been abolished in the United States.

And yes elder, the nazis were socialists. No matter how you try to deny it you are still wrong on that count.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Hmmm...



Yes elder, that is exactly what I did, I excused it by reinforcing the point in another post that slavery was a world wide trade and not just a problem in the European colonies, and that it is still being practised on the african continent while it has been abolished in the United States.

And yes elder, the nazis were socialists. No matter how you try to deny it you are still wrong on that count.

They were, White National Socialists. That means something a little different than your run of the mill socialism. I'm just saying.
Sean

 

[elder999]

Hmmm...



Yes elder, that is exactly what I did, I excused it by reinforcing the point in another post that slavery was a world wide trade and not just a problem in the European colonies, and that it is still being practised on the african continent while it has been abolished in the United States.

Well, it's good that you can see that. One would have to wonder, otherwise, why you (over)stated the historically obvious, if not in some attempt to obviate the inherent wrongness of America's legacy of slavery.

I think it goes a long way to dismiss the whole America is a racist country myth.

In any case, the entire premise of your original post is flawed: to equate African immigration to the U.S. today with a lack of racism in the U.S. is nothing but a string of sloppy thinking: several erroneous assumptions and leaps in logic strung together, in that the number of African immigrants to the U.S. only speaks of those immigrants seeking opportunities here, whether political, educational, socio-economic, religious or otherwise (pro athletes could fall into socio-economic, for example, but that's not a common opportunity).

It also completely discounts that most of sub-Saharan Africa's countries are, in one way or another, roiling s***holes.Of course Africans come here.

What it really discounts, though, is what sort of reception those immigrants receive here-whether or not they are the object of prejudice and racism on American shores-not to say that they do or don't, but it totally doesn't take the most basic measure of what it implies into account, which is whether or not said immigrants are the objects of racism, and instead assumes that they are welcomed here with open arms.

Stupid, really. Just stupid.

In fact, you might be surprised to know that black African immigrants meet no small degree of prejudice and racism from African Americans.

And I'm not the only one to tell you-you've heard it before-but so's this:

And yes elder, the nazis were socialists. No matter how you try to deny it you are still wrong on that count.

For the last time: Germany socialized medicine under the Kaiser, long before Hitler was born. The Nazis killed all "left-leaning" members on The Night of Long Knives. The Nazis abolished trade-unions in 1933. They received their principle financing and support from corporations, like Seimens, Krupp and Daimler-Benz.All of which are hardly indicative of any degree of "socialism" whatsoever.

The Nazis were capitalists. The Nazis were capitalists.The Nazis were fascist, right-leaning, capitalists.

 

[Blade96]

Billi btw hi Little Right Wing One. little pet how are ya?

and just cause people immigrate into your country doesnt mean its not racist. You'd have to provide more evidence than that.

 

[Blade96]

But, I don't think that Kim Campbell was actually elected as leader by the electorate. She succeeded Mulroney but never actually sat as PM in parliament. She held the position for just over four months, then the voters chucked her out of office and right out of parliament, at the general election.

she wasnt elected. You're right

 

[granfire]

she wasnt elected. You're right

She still made it to the top of the political ladder t be considered a replacement....a couple of steps up from a bad joke....