Anyone offended by history needs to reflect on their priorities and identity.
I’m not offended that white people claimed this land at the point of a sword, and even worse, in the embrace of a smallpox blanket. Horrified, yes, but not offended. I’m not offended that the backbone of the economy for a hundred years was built on the backs of stolen people on stolen land.
I’m not offended by history.
What I am offended by is the present. I’m offended that people who have been oppressed and started out life with less than nothing have been told by the privileged elite to “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps like the rest of us did”. That’s fucking vile. I’m offended that we keep trying to whitewash confederate slave owning generals, instead of teaching who they really were, and what they really killed for, and ordered other people to die for. Be offended about what we are doing now, and use history as the reason why we should change it.
It’s incredibly jarring to have the burden of knowledge while others revel in their own ignorance. As a minority and a former Marine, I am deeply ashamed and disappointed in my fellow Americans.
It’s hard to really blame them, public education in the U.S. has been a nightmare for decades now. How can people be expected to learn from history if they’re not even being taught to read?
I do not think the problem is education, but a fundamental trait about human nature. Education, as an institution, can only lay the groundwork; it cannot instill the intrinsic desire to learn and grow. That fire must be kindled from within, yet so many treat learning as a phase of life rather than a lifelong pursuit.
There is a deep and persistent resistance to intellectual evolution in society. A cultural thread that regards curiosity with suspicion and introspection with discomfort. Too often, people conflate questioning with opposition, and the invitation to examine one’s beliefs is perceived as an attack rather than an opportunity. This isn’t a failure of education; it’s a failure of cultural conditioning, perhaps even a failure of human instinct.
Nietzsche wrote: “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Yet, instead of seeking out and embracing fluidity, many anchor themselves to certainty, mistaking stagnation for stability. They prefer to defend what they are rather than work toward what they could be. This anti-intellectual obstinacy isn’t uniquely American or modern; it’s something that’s been with us from the start. I do not think we cannot educate our way out of the problems we keep making for ourselves; it’s going to have to be either revolution, or evolution.
Its still frustrating though. Doubly so when you consider what American history actually is. Yes, we were started by colonizers and slavers. We also fought a war to throw off the British crown, fought a war to defeat those slavers and eventually brought abolition. And when they weaseled their way out of Reconstruction, we took to the streets. We marched to give women the right to vote and work, and to give queers the right to marry and bodily autonomy. And now, as a fascist traitor tries to undo all of that, we are called upon to uphold the tradition of our forefathers. To sweat, bleed, cry and die, until we live up to that pledge of liberty and justice for all.
Right? Reading about European history, and that shit goes back to year 0 or further. Read American history, and it starts in the late 1400s… And that ought to tell you something real important right there.
I get the point your making, but American history goes back much further once you count the Natives; which admittedly my last comment also fucks up with
The thing that offends me about history is how we humans never learn a damn thing from it.
If you treat minorities (or really, people in general) with respect, then you should have no qualms about learning about how they’ve been poorly treated in the past.
Sadly, conservatives never treat minorities with respect, and so they don’t want to learn about how history judges bigots like them.
Regardless of what’s being defended, this is a “poisoning the well” fallacy, and should be avoided as a rhetorical tactic. This particular example serves no purpose than the stroke the ego and sense of moral superiority of those on one side, and alienate those on the other, and create a divisive binary where there isn’t one, and shouldn’t be one.
Suppose someone argues that the solution is making sure no historical figures are diminished due to their race, not just during a certain month, but always, and therefore doesn’t believe that focusing on a single race for an arbitrary amount of time is productive. Well, OP would dump them squarely into the ‘enslavers and segregationists’ camp, where they obviously do not belong.
I’m reminded of my gay friends who hate many modern pride events because they feel they do the opposite of normalizing homosexuality in focusing on garish oversexualized public displays. They’d be called homophobes by the equivalent of the OP–isn’t that a bit ridiculous?
I don’t believe it, common sense in Lemmy? Wild.
I went to school in the UK. We had to learn a whole lot shittiness that we did in the past. It’s sort of funny because I’m ethnically Chinese and I moved to Canada later on. Whenever something bad that the British did came up, I would always be made fun of.
I moved back to the UK from Canada again at a later date and we were watching a video about more bad stuff the British did as apart of our curriculum and I immediately felt flush with embarrassment. Then I remembered that everyone around me was British too.
I sometimes wonder if the Americans that chastise the Chinese for wiping out history like Tiananmen Square are those that advocate for wiping out Black History Month and wanting to wipe contribution from minorities on their websites right now.
To be clear, I think that Black History Month should just be apart of American history. Like integrated into the curriculum and books and stuff. However, you can’t trust Republicans to just wipe it out entirely. They “say” they will and just never get around to doing it properly because Heaven forbid you feel a bit uncomfortable while learning things.
The reverse isn’t much better. I’m Dutch, and if you go to Indonesia, outside the cities there will often be people pointing out what awesome things the Dutch built “for them”. It’s super weird when the people your country exploited and abused start thanking you.
Indonesian person: "Oh, the town well, yeah the Dutch built that for us, but we can’t maintain it, so now we walk down to the other well to get water. The Dutch were so nice to us. "
My brain: “Yeah, I can see how that totally makes up for a century and a half of murderously harsh exploitation and killing 200.000 indonesians when you tried to be independant”
My mouth: “Oh, that’s… nice?”
Now, I get that everything the Dutch did kinda gets snowed under compared to what the Japanese and the Americans did in the span of a few decades, but I grew up when our history books moved from a half-page “And then there were some police actions in the East Indies, and suddenly there was Indonesia” and towards a somewhat more realistic picture.
People get nostalgic for order and predictability that came at the point of a gun. “At least we had food and everything wasn’t falling apart!” Plenty of Russians I’ve been around remember the “good old days” under authoritarian “communism” and were unhappy with the turmoil and unpredictability when the USSR collapsed, and they’re the same ones that are happy with Putin’s and trump’s authoritarian methodology and threat of violence to enforce compliance.
So people absolutely can have a fondness for their abusers, especially if freedom from them leads to unpredictability and poverty.
A lot of former Soviets liked the old system because in spite of the oppression and corruption most people had their needs met. After the fall of theUSSR many no longer could make their ends meet.
Folks do it with Rome so its nothing new, the carcus of empires are far more noticeable than the corpses of the folks used in the foundations.
*carcass
The one time auto correct would be useful, leaving it though. Prime example of phonetic spelling.
I really want either a miniseries or a bunch of movies telling the story of the Haitian Revolution. Sadly, that seems to never be able to get funded. It’s almost as if Americans or the French, who would be most likely to tell the story, don’t want people to know this story.
Well there’s always the play Toussaint Louverture, written in 1934. Paul Robeson played the title role in 1936 in London. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_Louverture:_The_Story_of_the_Only_Successful_Slave_Revolt_in_History
The playwright, CLR James, later wrote a book about the revolt, and revised his play, which went on the stage as The Black Jacobins.
From the Wiki: “In 2018, it was announced that the book was going to be made into a television programme thanks to Bryncoed Productions, with the assistance of Kwame Kwei-Armah.”
Bryncoed was founded by Foz Allan. I did a bit of poking around but found nothing linking either of them or Kwei-Armah with The Black Jacobins. I would love to see a TV series on the revolt, I hope something comes to pass. CLR James was an interesting fellow too, his achievements deserve more recognition.
How about a board game?
There is a lot of good history boardgames can teach. And fun alternate history they can create :)
They mentioned it in the new Castlevania series. That is probably the most I learned about it from media.
I saw that too. It was a nice way to indroduce Voudon to it.
I don’t have strong feelings one way or another, with one exception: why in the hell did anyone think it was okay to own a person and why the fuck did it continue for as long as it did?
That’s seriously fucked up.
I’m not a person of color, so I don’t think my opinion matters much in the discussion. Black history is just a part of the history of humanity. It should not be erased, it should be viewed as a lesson, like most of the rest of history.
why in the hell did anyone think it was okay to own a person and why the fuck did it continue for as long as it did?
Because it made them a lot of money. You can go back to any point in history and find people saying slavery is immoral, and not just the enslaved people.
So what you’re saying is… Capitalism is the problem.
DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM!
nothing triggers fragile white nationalist bumpkins like 1/12th of the year being set aside to recognize black people
https://youtu.be/MpnpIhqSLto
i like morgan freeman’s take on black history month
“B-b-b-b-but where’s WHITE history month??? uncontrollable sobbing”
Every month is white history month! Yes, February as well.
George Washington Carver, IS NOT the man that carved up George Washington…Bart. He is probably one of my most revered entities because I genuinely don’t know if he actually expected to find all of the uses he did for peanuts. His genius borders on insanity and I love it. I mean what single other person can say they found food, industrial, and cosmeceutical, uses for a single thing like the peanut? Most the other mass use products I’ve found had maybe 1 founder that found something interesting,(there is a few standouts including the creator of vaseline-he ate a spoonful a day for health go figure) but George Washington Carver turned peanuts into something that is still the cornerstone of industries(they remove the oil from peanut butter and sell it for industrial uses cuz it’s worth so much, which is also why I’m upset at Mr Carver, peanut butter with the oil is delicious, but I digress that’s a bit off topic). A quick glance at his Wikipedia indicates he actually did a ton more than peanuts, but the amount of uses he discovered personally has always astounded me. Those who are offended by history are likely trying to recreate a stupid mistake already made by others.
Too bad he went insane trying to press a peanut into a record needle. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ix03e?start=1221
If you have morality doesn’t it kind of suck to hear about century after century of slavery, violence, and exploitation?
Honestly I feel like if any type of history “slaps” then you’re probably viewing it through a very narrow lens that omits an immense amount of human suffering. History is depressing as fuck. It can definitely serve a purpose to focus on the cool events and forget about the rest at times, but it’s also misleading if that’s all you do.
I think they mean learning about history slaps. History is both interesting and extremely important even when it’s depressing.
Encouraging learning about history is something we should continue to do, even if it means using collloquialisms.
I guess it makes slightly more sense if they meant to say learning about history.
But still, I’m not sure making claims like this is going to reverse the eternal reality of young people not giving a shit about history and only starting to recognize its importance after they have made the same mistakes.
It’s like “Math is fun kids!”, “history slaps!”. While young people just roll their eyes. Just because the slang is slightly updated doesn’t actually make the message any more compelling.
I’m not sure why I’m being so negative here, I guess I just feel like the tweet is kinda dumb and virtue signalling and that’s setting the tone for my interaction with it.
I’m not sure you speak for all young people or why you’re bringing up virtue signalling.
I never claimed to speak for all young people? I have loved learning about history since I was a kid. But most people don’t know much about history and don’t have any interest in learning. They find it boring. That’s just what I’ve noticed from being alive on this planet.
I bring up virtue signaling because it seems like the entire point of the tweet is for the person to signal that they are a moral and good person. I don’t even understand the concept of being “offended by black history”. Like what does that even mean and who does it apply to?
She’s possibly talking about being offended by Black history month, which I guess is a thing? But in that case I would still disagree because you could be offended by it for the exact opposite reason, like how people are talking about Morgan Freeman not being a fan of it.
I bring up virtue signaling because it seems like the entire point of the tweet is for the person to signal that they are a moral and good person. I don’t even understand the concept of being “offended by black history”. Like what does that even mean and who does it apply to?
I disagree with that entirely. It seems more angry to me and has nothing to do with how moral she is IMO.
She’s black and probably is angry that people are offended if you mention the Tulsa race massacre because it’s uncomfortable.
The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre,[12] was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist[13][14] massacre[15] that took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials,[16] attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.[17][18] The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as “Black Wall Street.”[19]
Or that most of the original men who started the US held slaves.
You probably don’t think that way, so you don’t see it. I’m not going to pretend I know what her intent is either, I’m just guessing as well.
Not only do I not think that way, but I also can’t imagine someone getting offended about people mentioning the Tulsa Race Massacre or the fact that the founding fathers held slaves.
Actual racists aren’t going to be offended by those historical facts, they just might argue that they were justifiable in some way. Which is obviously super fucked up, but it’s not like racist people are going to deny the fact that slavery happened or that black people got massacred by white people in history. They literally get off on that shit.
Which is why the tweet seems so strange to me. Black people getting enslaved and massacred and persecuted? That slaps? I fucking hope not.
I’m obviously overthinking but it just triggered my nonsense detector.
Which is why the tweet seems so strange to me. Black people getting enslaved and massacred and persecuted? That slaps? I fucking hope not.
That has nothing to do with what we’re talking about and not what I or you are saying.
I’m assuming you’re not black, right? I think we should ask someone who is before we accuse them of virtue signalling.
I also can’t imagine someone getting offended about people mentioning the Tulsa Race Massacre or the fact that the founding fathers held slaves.
Actual racists aren’t going to be offended by those historical facts, they just might argue that they were justifiable in some way. Which is obviously super fucked up, but it’s not like racist people are going to deny the fact that slavery happened or that black people got massacred by white people in history. They literally get off on that shit.
Many racists definitely do get offended by those facts. It’s because they’re coming at it from an emotional place, and the historical facts make them feel bad. Instead of dealing with that, they lash out. Not all racists are intentional about their racism.
I link this a lot, but it’s worth a read https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
Which is why the tweet seems so strange to me. Black people getting enslaved and massacred and persecuted? That slaps? I fucking hope not.
That wasn’t the intent of the tweet and that is a bizarre misreading of it.
I honestly didn’t like history until my mid or late twenties, except for 9th year. I think it was mainly because every other teacher some about it in monotones, if at all and basically just assigned in-class silent reading and a boatload of homework that didn’t even cover important things. 9th year instructor some with inflection, asked questions that prompted deep thought and critical thinking.
That’s fair, history teachers can certainly get lazy. If you present the information in an engaging way it’s definitely not boring.
The History of Slap Fighting slaps
Nah. Robert Smalls slaps.
Robert Smalls was a really awesome dude. The historical circumstances that determined the course of his life are profoundly tragic.
If you view his life from a cinematic perspective, yeah it slaps. From a historical perspective, he lived and died and the societal conditions which he struggled against remained essentially unchanged. He’s a historical footnote.
If you use the word “slaps” you’re not talking to the population as a whole, you’re talking to specific people. And likely ones who already agree with your point.
Slammed!
BLASTS
Are you saying black people should use white vernacular when advocating for their equality?
Non-slang is not “white”, or even American. Drag should understand the difficulty caused when drag invents terminology that needs to be explained to any outgroup who can’t be expected to be familiar with words drag has only popularised recently. Doesn’t drag think that if anything it’s kind of exclusionary against second-language speakers?
Drag doesn’t believe in slang. All words used to be “slang”. It’s meaningless.
If drag recognise there’s a transition between slang and non-slang so that one “used to” be the other, then slang both exists and the term isn’t meaningless. That’s without going into actual linguistically, where even the most descriptivist layabout would acknowledge the existence and indeed value of slang.
Is this… controversial? o.O
It’s fucking insane to watch watch happening in the US from other countries.
edit to make my position clearer, Django is a fucking awesome movie not because it shows slavery, but because it shows black history making me better able to empathise with it and it has crackers getting what they deserve (and I’m white btw and used to be I thought “cracker” meant the colour of like crackers as in biscuits, but then later learned it’s because they’re cracking a whip, which makes much more sense).
Reminds me when Morgan Freeman said he didn’t want a Black History Month, I immediately went like “dude, shut the f*** up”.
Surely he was just saying ‘All history is our history. Why would you relegate it to a month and label it?’ He’s allowed to feel aggrieved as it does feel like apportioning it to something lesser, like ‘Here,have the short month then shut up about it.’
i’m sure he’ll be happy to know that all talk of black history, period, will be gone, as soon as pres elmo gets his way
Try finding the whole clip then watch it in context. He wants black history taught in American history classes. He doesn’t want it to be separated.
thats kinda of a wierd justification from him, he doesnt want a month of honoring AA people, but only taught in class, where its obviously not there anyways.
there are two people i lost some respect due to a shitty r/iama: Woody Harrelson and Morgan Freeman
Harrelson was so early the AMA process that he should be cut slack. He was there to promote a movie not answer a question about a person he might have had sex with.
Freeman is/was old and likely never gave a fuck.
To paraphrase an old saying, “Never get to know your heroes.”
With the exception of Robin Williams. He is, was, and always will be the GOAT.
What counts as ‘black’? Perhaps people from minority groups shouldn’t be excluded from regular history, so every group doesn’t need its own history month - it’s just history.
Until we reach that point, we need to dedicate time to remind society that it is being ignored.
!whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works does its thing. Denying history and access to culture is ugly.
