US, not africans, responsible for slavery

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by molly bloom




Eyewash. He indulged in a little victimology. The acts of individual Western European nations (and the acts of individuals and companies) are not the actions of 'whites' against 'Africa'.

Yes he did, being active in the ongoing comepsation for negros he has a axe to grind from many qaurters.

His phraseology while unusual, will of course through up misunderstanding of his intent by its use.

While Blacks and browns and yellow also create a demand for slaves from the African continent, and had transported vast numbers he choses to concentrate on the whites.

btw The four kingdoms by Frank Welsh http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...220217-9079029 ive just finished, in my quest to understand more about the evolution of slavery/mil tenure and land tenure, and i found it very good read, especialy for the price.

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by C0ckney
perhaps because 'western' accounts look at things like evidence and reach their conclusions. whereas 'other perspectives' like oscar l. beard's draw their conclusions (it's all whiteys fault!!111), and simply ignore the mountains of evidence which contradict them.

Hearsay does not convince a jury now does it, someone telling a jury that someone else told them a thing, which they deny, is not the same as him having commited it to paper. Especially if its i am going to get my gun and kill you.

Now the USA education system does use oral records of the slave naratives as part of its history teaching program, but would not relly on it alone in the abscence of other written records. So yes it is a matter of methodology, oral acounts that enhance a subject matter are always welcome.

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I presume that means you're not a PhD. Me neither, but two of my close friends are. One heads the history department at his University. It's his assertion of oral history, not mine.

Really, at this University he teqaches that oral history is more acurate than written records, can i have link to this place of wonder, as i have a complaint to make. After all its not yopur posistion, your just parroting something a person charged with your education has told you, you see this is the problem with oral information, you have been told nonsense and believe it and pass it on, lets try and see if we can put a stop0 to that shall we.

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
One of the things they have noticed, over and over, relates to urban history. For example, recorded history will say that a executions took place at a certain square. Yet residents whose families have lived in the area for generations insist this is wrong, that it occurred in another area.

Historians dig and dig, following their wonderful written records, and find nothing. Then, a sewer excavation in the square the locals claimed as the site is halted for archeological reasons. Guess what they found?

Where there is a conflict between a pervasive oral history and written history, and archeological evidence is found to arbitrate the conflict, the oral history is more often than not accurate.

This is not really surprising, because generally, no-one is paying the writer, so the "authors" of oral history often don'ty are less likely to try to please their sponsor,

So there was no written record of this event?. Or there was as you impied in your opening para. in which case your example falls apart completly.

[Nickiow]

double post

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking

Eyewash. He indulged in a little victimology. The acts of individual Western European nations (and the acts of individuals and companies) are not the actions of 'whites' against 'Africa'.

Bull****. This is history, and what is clear to any objective observer is that these were the consistent acts of Western powers to extract resources with no regard for the consequences to the indigenous populations.

Horsecrap, right back at you.

It's propaganda.

You are the only one with a passion for history?

Don't recall saying or implying that.

What kind of passion for history do you have?

I have the kind of passion for history that eschews such emotive unconstructive caterwauling- and the anachronistic judging of people by their skin colour or nationality.

Clearly Mr. Beard believes that the melanin content or pigmentation determined what the countries of Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, various Spanish kingdoms, various Islamic states (including black African as well as Maghrebi ones) the empire of Brazil, France, privateers and corsairs and England/Great Britain/ the United Kingdom did, over a period from the 15th Century to the 18th and 19th Century, and in the cases of Mauretania and Morocco, the 20th Century.

Anyone who knows history in depth, knows that civilizations have predated on other civilizations and states and peoples, frequently with little regard for the long term consequences, and have even acted against their own interests with regard to the environment and resident populations- in Chaco Canyon, in Ancient Greece, in Victorian Britain and on Easter Island and in Viking Greenland and Nazi Germany.

As far as L'Anse aux Meadows, the 8 years of excavation FOLLOWED finding the site, which was clearly visible to the eye, and featured stone buildings (which natives never constructed.)

As I said, the abridged, MTV version....

Here's part of what really happened, rather than a Newfie saying- "By the way, here is Leif Ericcsson's long house, accordng to my relatives who came here in 1607"-

It was nearly nine centuries later, in 1960, that a Norwegian explorer and writer, Helge Ingstad, came upon the site at L'Anse aux Meadows. He was making an intensive search for Norse landing places along the coast from New England northward. At L'Anse aux Meadows, a local inhabitant, George Decker, led him to a group of overgrown bumps and ridges which looked as if they might be building remains. They later proved to be all that was left of that old colony. For the next eight years, Helge and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, led an international team of archaeologists from Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and the United States in the excavation of the site.

The Ingstads found that the overgrown ridges were the lower courses of the walls of eight Norse buildings from the 11th century. The walls and roofs had been of sod, laid over a supporting frame. The buildings were of the same kind as those used in Iceland and Greenland just before and after the year 1000. Long narrow fireplaces in the middle of the floor served for heating, lighting and cooking.

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/vikings/rediscovery1.htm

Stone buildings ? The remains of the lower courses of walls, covered over with earth and grass.

And when their deeds include characterization of their superiority based on their pigmentation, they are responsible for that.

Except Beard decides to squeeze together 500 years of European and Arab and African history, with no regard to the changing circumstances and rationale for the slave trade.

It was as slavery became essential to the industrial scale cotton manufactories and sugar plantations that an ideology based on the supposed 'primitiveness' and 'darkness' of some black Africans evolved.

The 18th Century 'Enlightenment' brought the decidedly unenlightened views of David Hume for instance:

In 1753, Hume finished writing an essay, “Of National Characters,” by adding the following footnote:

I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites.

http://www.africanphilosophy.com/vol1.1/morton.html

and yet the mosques and universities of Mali had been famous across the Islamic world, and Europeans had sought African goods as prestige, luxury items, marvelling at the workmanship- from the 15th Century onwards.

With the increasing importance of an economy based on slavery, came the pressing need to justify (in religious terms and in 'scientific' terms) the revolting practice of the large scale buying and transportation and mistreatment of humans.

So following (and misusing) Linnaeus's work in natural history and using the Old Testament, some Western Europeans 'reasoned' that black Africans were 'naturally' inferior because of a variety of factors.

This conflicted with the treatment of black Africans in the centuries preceding- even going back to the Ancient Greeks, black Africans were seen as being the equals of Europeans, as a Greek kantheros made of one European head and one black African head showed.

Herodotus also placed the home of learning in Africa.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Nickiow

Really, at this University he teqaches that oral history is more acurate than written records, can i have link to this place of wonder, as i have a complaint to make. After all its not yopur posistion, your just parroting something a person charged with your education has told you, you see this is the problem with oral information, you have been told nonsense and believe it and pass it on, lets try and see if we can put a stop0 to that shall we.

So there was no written record of this event?. Or there was as you impied in your opening para. in which case your example falls apart completly.

There was a written record. It was wrong. Why do you think that writing something down makes it true?

You are selectively quoting me. I think if you read my posts, I have said that historians are increasingly recognizing that oral history is often more accurate than written history, and in cases where there are two conflicting accounts, the oral record is often correct, and the written record wrong.

This is not a typo. I'm sorry if it conflicts with your education. Written history is increasingly being challenged by scientific testing of a variety of archeological and biological records. Bias in written records is pervasive. So is lying, for that matter. The old school of blind faith in written records (that coincidentally support the ideology of the civilization teaching that "history") is falling by the wayside. And you, Nicki, with it.

Written records continue to be extremely important. But they must be examined with more scepticism than in the past, particularly for cultural bias; and be considered only part of a historical record that is viewed holistically, and takes into account other modes of inquiery such as oral history and cultural anthropology.

Or you can continue to believe myths. Its your call.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by molly bloom

Horsecrap, right back at you.

It's propaganda.

Right. Which is essentially what the vast majority of written history is. Propaganda, with no real attempt at objectivity, but rather, an overwhelming cultural bias to prop up the ideology of the culture that is important to the survival of it's people.


I may have misinterpreted, but your post at 16:21 yesterday seemed to dismiss mine, because YOU have a passion for history...

I have the kind of passion for history that eschews such emotive unconstructive caterwauling- and the anachronistic judging of people by their skin colour or nationality.

Nice language, but it conceals a glaring failure to comprehend reality.

Cultural biases based on skin colour remain a reality. The origin of these biases can be traced back to slavery. You can eschew the anachronism all you want, but it remains.

Clearly Mr. Beard believes that the melanin content or pigmentation determined what the countries of Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, various Spanish kingdoms, various Islamic states (including black African as well as Maghrebi ones) the empire of Brazil, France, privateers and corsairs and England/Great Britain/ the United Kingdom did, over a period from the 15th Century to the 18th and 19th Century, and in the cases of Mauretania and Morocco, the 20th Century.

That is not clear to me at all.

Anyone who knows history in depth, knows that civilizations have predated on other civilizations and states and peoples, frequently with little regard for the long term consequences, and have even acted against their own interests with regard to the environment and resident populations- in Chaco Canyon, in Ancient Greece, in Victorian Britain and on Easter Island and in Viking Greenland and Nazi Germany.

I read "Collapse" too.



The locals believed the L'Anse aux Meadows was an old Indian settlement.

from the National Parks website -

"They also operated a forge on the other side of the brook, where iron was smelted in a furnace. The furnace itself was little more than a pit lined with clay and topped by a frame of large stones. "

I do not have my books with me, but I am rather certain that stone foundations were present at L'Anse, and documented in photographs. This was certainly normal for Norse longhouses.

It was as slavery became essential to the industrial scale cotton manufactories and sugar plantations that an ideology based on the supposed 'primitiveness' and 'darkness' of some black Africans evolved.

The 18th Century 'Enlightenment' brought the decidedly unenlightened views of David Hume for instance:

and yet the mosques and universities of Mali had been famous across the Islamic world, and Europeans had sought African goods as prestige, luxury items, marvelling at the workmanship- from the 15th Century onwards.

With the increasing importance of an economy based on slavery, came the pressing need to justify (in religious terms and in 'scientific' terms) the revolting practice of the large scale buying and transportation and mistreatment of humans.

I think you misread the need for justification on the increasing importance of slavery. In fact, the need forof slavery was decreasing, and the knowledge that the practice was contrary to modern societal principles was increasing. Pressures for abolition drove the need to justify. Slavery was no longer needed for survival; it was now needed for profitabilty.

This conflicted with the treatment of black Africans in the centuries preceding- even going back to the Ancient Greeks, black Africans were seen as being the equals of Europeans, as a Greek kantheros made of one European head and one black African head showed.

"Those who are too black are cowards, like for instance, the Egyptians and Ethiopians." (Aristotle, Physiognomy, 6)

Look, I agree completely that predation on cultures is as old as humanity. Happening right now in Iraq and Darfur. And clearly, it is not motivated by xenophobia, but rather, xenophobia is exploited by leaders to facilitate predation. I agree completely that the ideology is an after-the-fact rationalization of what was considered necessary; and not the cause.

What remains, however, is a legacy of that ideology, a legacy that includes suppression and negation of historical accomplishments of black cultures; that includes assertions that slavery benefited the slaves' descendents; and frankly, that blacks remain inferior.

How long ago did Al Campanis state that there were no black GMs in baseball because they didn't have the "tools"?

Is this phenomena largely a by-product? Yes.

Does this make it somehow less harmful?

Language is the process by which people attach meaning to phenomena. Can you change bias embedded in language without changing language to forms that are unfamiliar and to many, unsettling?

I do not believe you can.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking

Right. Which is essentially what the vast majority of written history is. Propaganda, with no real attempt at objectivity, but rather, an overwhelming cultural bias to prop up the ideology of the culture that is important to the survival of it's people.

Oh rubbish. It's easy to make a sweeping statement such as that, but a lot more difficult to back it up. Clearly Beard is rubbing off on you...

Nice language, but it conceals a glaring failure to comprehend reality.
Cultural biases based on skin colour remain a reality. The origin of these biases can be traced back to slavery.

Oh, that's really rich.
I've already comprehended Mr. Beard's bias- you seem to be conveniently ignoring it.

Do as I say, not do as I do ? Thus:

...examined with more scepticism than in the past, particularly for cultural bias

What you said to Nickiow, hilariously enough.

Beard's bias on pigmentation:

That is not clear to me at all.

It's startlingly obvious to me:

The first act against Africa by Whites

Oh, so they weren't individuals, with names and histories, citizens of countries with nationalities, just amorphous blobs of colour ?

How intriguing.

I read "Collapse" too.

Oh well done. Pity about it being a written record, with all of its inherent lies and propaganda, but you take what you can, I suppose....

The locals believed the L'Anse aux Meadows was an old Indian settlement.

And it was at one point. So ?

I think you misread the need for justification on the increasing importance of slavery. In fact, the need forof slavery was decreasing,

Err, no it wasn't, at least in the southern United States and Brazil and sugar producing islands. Improvements in the machinery used in cotton production spurred demand for slaves, as did the popularity of tea and coffee and chocolate and rum, from the end of the 17th Century onwards.

Although there was some hope immediately after the Revolution that the ideals of independence and equality would extend to the black American population, this hope died with the invention of the cotton gin in 1793. With the gin (short for engine), raw cotton could be quickly cleaned; suddenly cotton became a profitable crop, transforming the southern economy and changing the dynamics of slavery. The first federal census of 1790 counted 697,897 slaves; by 1810, there were 1.2 million slaves, a 70 percent increase.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3narr6.html

Antiquity and Africa:

"Those who are too black are cowards, like for instance, the Egyptians and Ethiopians." (Aristotle, Physiognomy, 6)

And ? You sure you didn't miss a bit out of that quote ?
Like:

"But those who are excessively white are also cowards as we can see from the example of women, the complexion of courage is between the two. "

Quotes in context, please.

Herodotus himself admits that most of the names of the Greek gods came from Africa. Famous Greeks have always visited Africa to acquire knowledge: Lycurgus, Solon, Thales, Phythogoras, and even Plato all at one time or another went to pharaonic Egypt to learn about science, culture and literature.

http://www.nature.com/wcs/m09d.html

Herodotus also attributes some of the origins of the Colchians and Egyptians to a black African ancestry, without intending a pejorative meaning.

Herodotus 3. 20-21.

"The Ethiopians are said to be the tallest and most handsome of all men. They are also said to have customs which set them apart from other peoples, especially the following concerning the royalty: the man among the citizens whom they find to be the tallest and to have strength in proportion to his height they find fit to be king."

The kantheros and Herodotus; and 3rd Century B.C. Etruscan vases and Egyptian paintings and pottery figures- all showing Africans as equals, and not inferior because of skin colour or hair or facial appearance or culture.

Can you change bias embedded in language without changing language to forms that are unfamiliar and to many, unsettling?

Well it would seem Mr. Beard certainly can't:

WHITEwashed religions,

and

deep down in the BLACK gut, somewhere beneath all the barbecue ribs, gin

Do you think he means Kofi Annan or Sidney Poitier ?

The first act against Africa by WHITES

and so on:

over land passage of African trade had been cut off at the Nile Delta by the WHITE Arabs in about...

Rather than Mr. Beard's unhelpful diatribe and victimology, I'd recommend the 'General History of Africa' volume V, edited by B. A. Ogot, published through Unesco. Preface by Amadou-Mahtar M'bow. Some whites may have contributed and it's a written record, but hey, you can't have everything.

Also: Basil Davidson's 'African Civilization Revisited'. A good serious work with excerpts from documents written(!) by black Africans.

Of course Mr. Davidson was born to white British parents, but I'm sure he's coping.

[Dinner]

L'Anse aux Meadows has iron spear points and steel swords which have been found there. Hard to be an indian village since no native group ever learned how to work iron much less steal. The Incas had advanced to bronze working but they were a LOOOOOG way from Newfoundland.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Oerdin
L'Anse aux Meadows has iron spear points and steel swords which have been found there. Hard to be an indian village since no native group ever learned how to work iron much less steal. The Incas had advanced to bronze working but they were a LOOOOOG way from Newfoundland.

I'm not disputing the evidence of the Norse settlement- I just pointed out to Mad Viking that others had been there too:

We also know now that no less than four native groups, both Indian and Eskimo, preceeded the Norse on the site, and that it was occupied by an Indian group long after the departure of the Norse. There were however, no native people on the site when the Norse were there.

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/vikings/recount1.htm

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by Nickiow


Hearsay does not convince a jury now does it, someone telling a jury that someone else told them a thing, which they deny, is not the same as him having commited it to paper. Especially if its i am going to get my gun and kill you.

Now the USA education system does use oral records of the slave naratives as part of its history teaching program, but would not relly on it alone in the abscence of other written records. So yes it is a matter of methodology, oral acounts that enhance a subject matter are always welcome.

err...what does that have to do with the price of tea in china?

[Az]

A Commentary by Oscar L. Beard, Consultant in African Studies

this read like a mount of bigotry.

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking


There was a written record. It was wrong. Why do you think that writing something down makes it true?

Except your example does not show that. Perhaps you should include one that does?. Somthing written down is fact, what it means depends on the intrpetation, facts never speak for themselves, they always require intpretation.

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
You are selectively quoting me.

Not so.

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I think if you read my posts, I have said that historians are increasingly recognizing that oral history is often more accurate than written history, and in cases where there are two conflicting accounts, the oral record is often correct, and the written record wrong.

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
I presume that means you're not a PhD. Me neither, but two of my close friends are. One heads the history department at his University. It's his assertion of oral history, not mine.

And

Originally posted by The Mad Viking oral history, molly, is increasingly recognized as more accurate than written history. After two centuries of being dismissed by Western historians.

Now i asked for who this friend of yours in a place of education who holds this view you have passed as being his to us, so as to see if indeed he does say this or its just your inability to understand what he said. You have chosen not to provide a link to the Uni he works at. Fine, i am forced to conclude that your unwillingness to do so means there may be aproblem with veracity, ie your oral memory of what he said will not support your claim.

So ill ask for any other place of learning that teaches in any discipline at all, that oral records are "oral history, molly, is increasingly recognized as more accurate than written history", any one will do, since you have made the claim then it should be easy to support this calim. Right?.

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
This is not a typo. I'm sorry if it conflicts with your education. Written history is increasingly being challenged by scientific testing of a variety of archeological and biological records. Bias in written records is pervasive. So is lying, for that matter. The old school of blind faith in written records (that coincidentally support the ideology of the civilization teaching that "history") is falling by the wayside. And you, Nicki, with it.

It conflicts with everyones education btw not just mine, i have never come across a single country that teaches oral traditions/history outwiegh the written record.

Oral history predates written history, it was repalced for a number of reasons by the use of written records, but acuracy of information was certainly one of them, do you really believe that the sientific approach of DNA and G nome is on the same standing as reverting to pre writting traditions for veracity of events, you know oral history.

Last i looked i was a person not a method of teaching, and again just who has said that orasl historys are not used to support the written record?, not me or any one else, the point is your claim not mine on its relative value.

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Written records continue to be extremely important. But they must be examined with more scepticism than in the past, particularly for cultural bias; and be considered only part of a historical record that is viewed holistically, and takes into account other modes of inquiery such as oral history and cultural anthropology.

Ok and just where does oral history come into that?, why does it repalce the written record in terms of acurracy?. Cite a specific reference where the oral history has later been validated by other means that contradict the written evidence.

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Or you can continue to believe myths. Its your call.

There is a myth you will post a link to your frind who teaches that oral history is more acurate than the written record.

There is a myth that you can provide a case study to demonstrate this concept for my perusual.

Is it a myth that your friend told you what you claim, unless you support it with something it certainly sounds mythical.

Now cite any myth i have said i beilieve to be true, anything at all that you consider myself to have posted that is a myth.

Oral historys provide myths because of inability to validate, written records provide facts that can be intpretated.

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking


Nice language, but it conceals a glaring failure to comprehend reality.

Pyschotics beieve 2+2=5.
Neurotics beilve 2+2+4 but dont like it and want it to be another number.

Reality is that uness you provide an instance of where the oral history contradicts the written records and has been show to be correct and the written record wrong, and thus supports your claim, your one or both of the above.

[Nickiow]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking

Right. Which is essentially what the vast majority of written history is. Propaganda, with no real attempt at objectivity, but rather, an overwhelming cultural bias to prop up the ideology of the culture that is important to the survival of it's people.

What a odd view of written world history. Lets replace it with oral traditions asap.