What's rarely noted (but also proves your point) is how much corruption is going on in the mostly blue cities that have been run by non-whites for decades. How is that explained if whites haven't even been in charge?
Agree. Corruption seems to be rampant in large cities, regardless of whether the people running them are white or non-white. But that's another blog post! ;-)
I agree with everything here which you express so well - apart from just one point you make at the end, to the effect that exploitative behaviour is hard-wired into our DNA. I don't think that's true - there are lots of indigenous societies which don't behave in this way. People are conditioned by their societies, and trauma skews the psychology of whole nations. The native American tribes had a word, 'wetiko' for the selfishness and acquistiveness that the European colonisers brought with them.
As for native Americans, ask the many slaves they acquired -whites, europeans and competing tribes- what they thought about being acquired. What more technicolour definition of exploitation is there than being made a slave?
Well there were lots of different cultures and tribes existing in America before Europeans came on the scene. And they also were put through traumas by the settlers, so I guess ths behaviour was also informed by that. It doesn't mean that all human societies inevitably behave so.
Well, no. Slavery existed in those cultures across north and south america well before europeans arrived. So did cannibalism if you wish to dig deeper learn about anisazi /fremont history. Please dont be offended by this blunt statement, but do not share opinions until you learn the subject matter. (Edited for typo).
I still say that peaceful, compassionate societies exist and have always existed: pointing to societies that are not does not contradict my statement. For example, the Hopi indians in the SW. The Inuit societies and many others, all over the world. Their existence is threatened by mining conglomerates and Big Ag but they have survived for thousands of years. Of course I am not saying that all indigenous societies are peaceful and compassionate and you can point to any number thank you so much for educating me on this.
I agree, but my point isn’t that peaceful societies of indigenous peoples/people of color *don’t* exist (by the same token, there have also been peaceful white societies — the Scots, for example, are not known for being oppressive colonizers, but rather gentle folk who minded their own business).
My point is that white societies aren’t the *only* ones that are capable of oppression. The danger, IMO, arises when we assign stereotypes to a group of people — in this case, the assumption that “whiteness is evil.” No race or society has a monopoly on evil.
Going to have to disagree with you on this one. Our cultures do bring out exploitative behavior in different ways, but it's in every human to a greater or lesser degree.
I believe that everything from the most angelic to the most devilish is in every single one of us. So I suppose that supports the statement I am arguing against. But then, what does it mean that something is 'hard-wired'? I suppose it really comes down to what societies tolerate, and what gives one an advantage within a particular society, as well as individual and collective trauma.
Agreed - human behavior, attitudes, aptitudes, skills and personality exist in a spectrum. Every culture there are good people and bad people and sometimes we just don’t know why they are that way. Of course our culture colours us and perhaps moulds us in different directions but I think in general, there are more similarities across cultures and people than there are differences.
I appreciate that you take a wide lens and do not go for the easy blame. I am trying to remember where I saw a very brief clip of you - was it at Freedom Fest? I would like to watch the interview if you have a link. A couple of things - the Fall of Minneapolis is worth watching.Those slaves that went to Arabia - Douglas Murray pointed out that there is no remaining populations there as they were castrated. Just heard that Mohammed Ali after going to Africa had this to say, I sure am glad my grand daddy got on that boat. He had a point. In one way or another many of us benefited from our ancestors’ suffering. The more history I read the more I feel for the immigrants and their children working so hard at miserable work for the entire day. Race did not grant privilege to most of those who came here expecting a chance and finding factories, mills, and misery.
Excellent post with excellent points. You have pointed out so much that most people are not aware of for instance, that "the word "slave" derives from “slav,” the white people of Eastern Europe taken by Arab traders in the 9th century." ALL people are capable of oppressing others and one's skin color is not a determining factor in their potential for cruelty or kindness. Great post Monica! sabrinalabow.substack.com
Thanks for pointing that out Brian. However, I don’t think that I implied that Arabs were the exclusive traders of Slavic people. I wrote:
“We forget that the word “slave” derives from “slav,” the white people of Eastern Europe taken by Arab traders in the 9th century.”
I appreciate that Slavs were traded by other cultures, but this misses the larger point I’m making: slavery is not a sin committed solely by white people. There is historical precedent for non-white people “owning” white people.
Oh Jesus "We forget that Egyptians enslaved Jews for 430 years." This is not historical. There is no historical evidence that Jews were ever slaves in Egypt. This sort of thing hurts your otherwise good articles. The archaeological and other evidence doesn't support much in the Bible until way later and actively contradicts it. The Moses story is a foundational myth, not history.
I understand and acknowledge that this is now subject of some debate, but I think it’s not the case that all scholars agree:
“Some scholars, of course, still maintain that the Exodus story is basically factual.
Bryant Wood, director of the Associates for Biblical Research in Maryland, argued that the evidence falls into place if the story is dated back to 1450 BC. He said that indications of destruction around that time at Hazor, Jericho and a site he is excavating that he believes is the biblical city of Ai support accounts of Joshua’s conquests.
He also cited the documented presence of “Asiatic” slaves in Egypt who could have been Israelites, and said they would not have left evidence of their wanderings because they were nomads with no material culture. But Wood said he can’t get his research published in serious archeological journals.”
“A Christian Apologetics Ministry Dedicated to Demonstrating the Historical Reliability of the Bible through Archaeological and Biblical Research.”
This doesn’t sound like research but prooftexting - very much like woke scholarship where you already know what has to be true, then sort and discard evidence to try to prove what you already know without evidence.
Not terribly different from letting say Kendi tell you about racism because the interaction of belief with evidence is in the wrong order. Religious piety = wokeness. The ABR source you cited did this Biship Usher style calculation of generations using the Bible - the same Bible that commonly says people lived hundreds of years. There is really agreement that Exodus is a myth and you don’t start getting to quasi historical stuff in the Bible until much later. Only scholars who were already pious before they interacted with the evidence say otherwise. Monotheism was a late development in Judaism, not an early one. The destruction of Jericho can have happened with out it being the result of a mass Exodus out of Egypt and being miraculously sustained in a barren desert for a lengthy period. Scholarly consensus is the Hebrews were always one of many Canaanite tribal groupings that gradually became dominant and even more gradually adopted monotheism. There are multiple lines of evidence for this. If one is skeptical of woke scholarship, one must be a hundredfold more skeptical of religious apologetics prooftexting unevidenced beliefs held for other reasons prior to any interaction with evidence as the epistomological phenomena are identical. It is always special pleading for one’s own mythology. And the empirical claims are believed, and counter-evidence minimized, because something other than empirical claims are the reason for the belief - just like critical social justice. Perhaps a scholar like Bart Ehrman is a better source than an organization that has known the Bible is true since they were toddlers probably and evidence had nothing to do with it and really need for it to be and will do whatever it takes to get from A to B - that should sound familiar to someone dedicated to combatting bad thinking by progressives. My larger point is giving religious nonsense the kind of pass on evidence similar to that adduced by critical theory sort of undercuts the strength of the argument unless anti-wokeness isn't a principled defense of evidentiary rigor and instead just wokeness for other ideologies or empirical beliefs that are stand-ins for moral commitments. https://ehrmanblog.org/is-the-exodus-a-myth/
As I said above, I'm not "religious" but I'm also not "secular" so I can see all sides of the issue.
- Once you separate yourself from "either/or" thinking you find an amazing world in between.
Look at a coin. One face is "religious" the other face is "secular". Now look at the edge of the coin.
- That is where reality exists.
Go inside the coin and look outward. You will see that you are in a multifaceted ball with the two "faces" almost lost among that multitude.
- Now step out of that ball and make it a coin again, otherwise you can get lost in the multitudes.
Live in the "Real World" but always be prepared to take the "coin" handed to you and briefly step within to see the multitudes that are actually there.
It isn't a black thing either (in case one might think with the addition of R. Kelly and supposedly Oprah that it leans that way ). You are correct. Power corrupts, period. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Entertainment and really big, wealthy stars get used to 'yes' no matter their race. And, then they do, things nobody would consider normal are done without remorse.
" But CRT also serves as the foundation for the more radical proposition that institutional power makes white people uniquely “bad” and that there is something inherently exploitative in their very nature. This has led a growing contingent of social justice advocates to declare that “whiteness is evil” and white people are “more dangerous than animals.” "
The 'Woke' philosophy sometimes parallels a perfectly good set of ideas. If anyone could ever really get at that alternative world of ideas, it would se superficially somewhat similar to what some of the gender ideology or fake-left persons are saying. The ideas would be the same but in the hands of responsible people instead of these weird nutcases.
I have OFTEN wondered w.t.f. is wrong with white people, actually!!!!# (full discl. I am called 'white' but who knows what that means, my ancestors are "Semitic," or Jewish people. I call us the tribe.) please refer to my Jew name.
Spot on!
What's rarely noted (but also proves your point) is how much corruption is going on in the mostly blue cities that have been run by non-whites for decades. How is that explained if whites haven't even been in charge?
Agree. Corruption seems to be rampant in large cities, regardless of whether the people running them are white or non-white. But that's another blog post! ;-)
I agree with everything here which you express so well - apart from just one point you make at the end, to the effect that exploitative behaviour is hard-wired into our DNA. I don't think that's true - there are lots of indigenous societies which don't behave in this way. People are conditioned by their societies, and trauma skews the psychology of whole nations. The native American tribes had a word, 'wetiko' for the selfishness and acquistiveness that the European colonisers brought with them.
As for native Americans, ask the many slaves they acquired -whites, europeans and competing tribes- what they thought about being acquired. What more technicolour definition of exploitation is there than being made a slave?
Well there were lots of different cultures and tribes existing in America before Europeans came on the scene. And they also were put through traumas by the settlers, so I guess ths behaviour was also informed by that. It doesn't mean that all human societies inevitably behave so.
Well, no. Slavery existed in those cultures across north and south america well before europeans arrived. So did cannibalism if you wish to dig deeper learn about anisazi /fremont history. Please dont be offended by this blunt statement, but do not share opinions until you learn the subject matter. (Edited for typo).
I still say that peaceful, compassionate societies exist and have always existed: pointing to societies that are not does not contradict my statement. For example, the Hopi indians in the SW. The Inuit societies and many others, all over the world. Their existence is threatened by mining conglomerates and Big Ag but they have survived for thousands of years. Of course I am not saying that all indigenous societies are peaceful and compassionate and you can point to any number thank you so much for educating me on this.
I agree, but my point isn’t that peaceful societies of indigenous peoples/people of color *don’t* exist (by the same token, there have also been peaceful white societies — the Scots, for example, are not known for being oppressive colonizers, but rather gentle folk who minded their own business).
My point is that white societies aren’t the *only* ones that are capable of oppression. The danger, IMO, arises when we assign stereotypes to a group of people — in this case, the assumption that “whiteness is evil.” No race or society has a monopoly on evil.
Absolutely; personally I find it strange that anyone in this day and age would think this needed saying! But that's critical social justice for you.
Going to have to disagree with you on this one. Our cultures do bring out exploitative behavior in different ways, but it's in every human to a greater or lesser degree.
I believe that everything from the most angelic to the most devilish is in every single one of us. So I suppose that supports the statement I am arguing against. But then, what does it mean that something is 'hard-wired'? I suppose it really comes down to what societies tolerate, and what gives one an advantage within a particular society, as well as individual and collective trauma.
Agreed - human behavior, attitudes, aptitudes, skills and personality exist in a spectrum. Every culture there are good people and bad people and sometimes we just don’t know why they are that way. Of course our culture colours us and perhaps moulds us in different directions but I think in general, there are more similarities across cultures and people than there are differences.
Love this article. It's too that bad what you see isn't obvious to everyone.
I appreciate that you take a wide lens and do not go for the easy blame. I am trying to remember where I saw a very brief clip of you - was it at Freedom Fest? I would like to watch the interview if you have a link. A couple of things - the Fall of Minneapolis is worth watching.Those slaves that went to Arabia - Douglas Murray pointed out that there is no remaining populations there as they were castrated. Just heard that Mohammed Ali after going to Africa had this to say, I sure am glad my grand daddy got on that boat. He had a point. In one way or another many of us benefited from our ancestors’ suffering. The more history I read the more I feel for the immigrants and their children working so hard at miserable work for the entire day. Race did not grant privilege to most of those who came here expecting a chance and finding factories, mills, and misery.
Excellent post with excellent points. You have pointed out so much that most people are not aware of for instance, that "the word "slave" derives from “slav,” the white people of Eastern Europe taken by Arab traders in the 9th century." ALL people are capable of oppressing others and one's skin color is not a determining factor in their potential for cruelty or kindness. Great post Monica! sabrinalabow.substack.com
But we knew this, thanks for saying it.
Harris is good but sort of repeats these sorts of simplistic gotcha talking points (the purpose being "what about non-whites who had slaves?":
"We forget that the word “slave” derives from “slav,” the white people of Eastern Europe taken by Arab traders in the 9th century."
Uh, the Slavic trade was not at all just Arab traders, but Frankish traders, Norse traders, etc. Several European cities got their start in the Slavic slave trade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe
Thanks for pointing that out Brian. However, I don’t think that I implied that Arabs were the exclusive traders of Slavic people. I wrote:
“We forget that the word “slave” derives from “slav,” the white people of Eastern Europe taken by Arab traders in the 9th century.”
I appreciate that Slavs were traded by other cultures, but this misses the larger point I’m making: slavery is not a sin committed solely by white people. There is historical precedent for non-white people “owning” white people.
Oh Jesus "We forget that Egyptians enslaved Jews for 430 years." This is not historical. There is no historical evidence that Jews were ever slaves in Egypt. This sort of thing hurts your otherwise good articles. The archaeological and other evidence doesn't support much in the Bible until way later and actively contradicts it. The Moses story is a foundational myth, not history.
I understand and acknowledge that this is now subject of some debate, but I think it’s not the case that all scholars agree:
“Some scholars, of course, still maintain that the Exodus story is basically factual.
Bryant Wood, director of the Associates for Biblical Research in Maryland, argued that the evidence falls into place if the story is dated back to 1450 BC. He said that indications of destruction around that time at Hazor, Jericho and a site he is excavating that he believes is the biblical city of Ai support accounts of Joshua’s conquests.
He also cited the documented presence of “Asiatic” slaves in Egypt who could have been Israelites, and said they would not have left evidence of their wanderings because they were nomads with no material culture. But Wood said he can’t get his research published in serious archeological journals.”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-13-mn-50481-story.html
ABR is a Christian apologetics ministry.
“A Christian Apologetics Ministry Dedicated to Demonstrating the Historical Reliability of the Bible through Archaeological and Biblical Research.”
This doesn’t sound like research but prooftexting - very much like woke scholarship where you already know what has to be true, then sort and discard evidence to try to prove what you already know without evidence.
Not terribly different from letting say Kendi tell you about racism because the interaction of belief with evidence is in the wrong order. Religious piety = wokeness. The ABR source you cited did this Biship Usher style calculation of generations using the Bible - the same Bible that commonly says people lived hundreds of years. There is really agreement that Exodus is a myth and you don’t start getting to quasi historical stuff in the Bible until much later. Only scholars who were already pious before they interacted with the evidence say otherwise. Monotheism was a late development in Judaism, not an early one. The destruction of Jericho can have happened with out it being the result of a mass Exodus out of Egypt and being miraculously sustained in a barren desert for a lengthy period. Scholarly consensus is the Hebrews were always one of many Canaanite tribal groupings that gradually became dominant and even more gradually adopted monotheism. There are multiple lines of evidence for this. If one is skeptical of woke scholarship, one must be a hundredfold more skeptical of religious apologetics prooftexting unevidenced beliefs held for other reasons prior to any interaction with evidence as the epistomological phenomena are identical. It is always special pleading for one’s own mythology. And the empirical claims are believed, and counter-evidence minimized, because something other than empirical claims are the reason for the belief - just like critical social justice. Perhaps a scholar like Bart Ehrman is a better source than an organization that has known the Bible is true since they were toddlers probably and evidence had nothing to do with it and really need for it to be and will do whatever it takes to get from A to B - that should sound familiar to someone dedicated to combatting bad thinking by progressives. My larger point is giving religious nonsense the kind of pass on evidence similar to that adduced by critical theory sort of undercuts the strength of the argument unless anti-wokeness isn't a principled defense of evidentiary rigor and instead just wokeness for other ideologies or empirical beliefs that are stand-ins for moral commitments. https://ehrmanblog.org/is-the-exodus-a-myth/
I'm not religious, but I noticed so many people in power, who do not believe in god, end up being abusive.
- Any race, creed, sex, color, there is no one above to Judge them, so they feel free to act out.
And people in power who believe in God and mistreat people don't exist?
I know that it is hard for secular people to accept, but people who believe that there is a god above them, judging them, will not risk doing evil.
If you see someone in power that claims to believe, yet still acts out, they are lying about their belief and will be judged.
- My personal insight is that "god" has a special place in hell for those people, so I'm satisfied.
Feel free to interpret that anyway you like. HA!
No true Scotsman fallacy. Basically, only secular people can mistreat people and not religious people which is false.
Wow, that was a fast reply. I'm a slow typer. HA!
As I said above, I'm not "religious" but I'm also not "secular" so I can see all sides of the issue.
- Once you separate yourself from "either/or" thinking you find an amazing world in between.
Look at a coin. One face is "religious" the other face is "secular". Now look at the edge of the coin.
- That is where reality exists.
Go inside the coin and look outward. You will see that you are in a multifaceted ball with the two "faces" almost lost among that multitude.
- Now step out of that ball and make it a coin again, otherwise you can get lost in the multitudes.
Live in the "Real World" but always be prepared to take the "coin" handed to you and briefly step within to see the multitudes that are actually there.
It isn't a black thing either (in case one might think with the addition of R. Kelly and supposedly Oprah that it leans that way ). You are correct. Power corrupts, period. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Entertainment and really big, wealthy stars get used to 'yes' no matter their race. And, then they do, things nobody would consider normal are done without remorse.
" But CRT also serves as the foundation for the more radical proposition that institutional power makes white people uniquely “bad” and that there is something inherently exploitative in their very nature. This has led a growing contingent of social justice advocates to declare that “whiteness is evil” and white people are “more dangerous than animals.” "
The 'Woke' philosophy sometimes parallels a perfectly good set of ideas. If anyone could ever really get at that alternative world of ideas, it would se superficially somewhat similar to what some of the gender ideology or fake-left persons are saying. The ideas would be the same but in the hands of responsible people instead of these weird nutcases.
I have OFTEN wondered w.t.f. is wrong with white people, actually!!!!# (full discl. I am called 'white' but who knows what that means, my ancestors are "Semitic," or Jewish people. I call us the tribe.) please refer to my Jew name.