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Einstein: The Negro Question (1946)
- nilved 10y agoNot knowing anything about Einstein's opinions here, I was really worried this was going to go the opposite direction.
- whatever_dude 10y agoI believe a lot of people we now see as noble were just the right person in the right place at the right time, and the more we dig in today, in hindsight, the easier to see their personal flaws. A few others, like Einstein, where just the right person, period. To see such a sound point of view coming from a person writing at a time where everything was pointing on the other direction... pretty amazing.
- torkins 10y agoAnother interpretation of finding that people we perceive as noble turn out to have flaws might be that noble people are people, and people have flaws. If anything, being flawless would actually take away from their success since they wouldn't be dealing with the same crap as the rest of us. Einstein appears to have been a big-time philanderer, for example. Doesn't detract from his contributions to our society in my view.
- allendoerfer 10y agoI think in the article he himself described why he had a different point of view. He was indeed an outsider. His mind was not shaped by past generations, because there were no slaves and thus very few black people in Germany.
- coldtea 10y ago>I believe a lot of people we now see as noble were just the right person in the right place at the right time, and the more we dig in today, in hindsight, the easier to see their personal flaws. Noble or not, people have flaws. What's important about them isn't their flaws (which millions share) but their unique insights (which millions don't share).
- TruthAndDare 10y agoWell, I can always flaunt some unique flaws.
- noobermin 10y agoRegarding his personal life, Einstein wasn't the most devoted lover to his wives/lovers etc. Not everyone (including me) counts that as a moral failing but some do.
- TruthAndDare 10y agoIsn't it usually said that Einstein betrayed his wife? That's pretty horrible to me, no matter how "right" (in your opinion and mine) he was about other things.
- jschwartzi 10y agoYou can be right about some things and wrong about others. Being in the wrong once doesn't make you a bad person. It just means you're one of us.
- putaside 10y agoEinstein was probably better at science than at debating social racial issues. Likewise, nobody should give more weight to Einstein's opinion on God, bees [1], or the Jews [2], than on anybody else's. [1] http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp [2] https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948 https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYork...
- pavlov 10y agoEinstein signed a letter that strongly criticised an emerging political party in Israel. How is that "an opinion on Jews"?
- putaside 10y agoBecause the political party (and the signers) were comprised of Jewish people? I'm perfectly fine if you read "Israelis" there (or "early Jewish politicians"), or find a different reference closer to "an opinion on Jews", as long as it not detracts from the point I was making: Einstein's dated opinion on racial issues is as relevant as Stallman's opinion on the fashion industry. Interesting? Sure. But relevant? No. It's a fallacy to think that smart people have smart opinions on everything they are not an expert in. It's a misplaced appeal to authority. It's a proxy submission to have HN discuss the recent events, and I doubt HN can make sensible points on this subject, as much as HN can make sensible points on women in technology. Yes, it could have totally gone the other way too. There are smart domain experts that are very naive, politically incorrect, racist, or intolerant of domains they have less expertise in.
- nabla9 10y agoI can't but admire his intellect in other aspects as well. His opposition against Likud and nuanced reservations against the idea of a Jewish state seem so wise in retrospect.
- fsloth 10y agoEinstein points out that the humanity of slaves has always been belittled. Maybe it's a psychological switch in the masters brain - enslaving equal creatures would be just evil and no one wants to be evil. I think pointing out the root cause of the stigmatization of a segment of a society is a very good way to start a social discussion in the modern age. Unless we as a species are to face our limitations and prejudices with open minds I fear there will be much anguish in the future history of mankind as well.
- neilk 10y agoBefore people ask why this is relevant to Hacker News: he's a great example of how academics, scientists, and even technologists can have effects outside their field of inquiry. For a mix of reasons, hackers are both securely employable and cultural heroes right now. We may not be Einstein, but there are things we can do. http://www.livescience.com/50051-albert-einstein-civil-rights.html http://www.livescience.com/50051-albert-einstein-civil-right...
- allendoerfer 10y agoAlso: Einstein.
- chris_wot 10y agoYeah, but I'd still love to see Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" on HN a bit more often: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- empath75 10y agoI think not only can we do things, but we are obligated to. Cheering on from the sidelines or even worse offering platitudes like "I support your goals but not your methods" while offering no help or alternatives isn't really helping. If you support change, the do something about it. Call your local officials or congressmen. Donate money to political action committees. If you make peaceful change impossible, then violent change becomes inevitable. We might feel safe today while we're sipping lattes in our gentrified neighborhoods and tisk tisk on Reddit and hacker news, but that safety might be illusory. The wave is coming. You can either help guide it safely to shore or get drowned by it.
- towlejunior 10y agoI will offer that platitude over and over again, Einstein's wonderful definition of insanity be damned. If I could end bigotry tomorrow, I would, but what I won't do under any circumstances is ally myself with people who cry racism at the drop of a hat. They do more harm than good. Call your congressman? Talk about a platitude.
- shawndumas 10y agoWhile we are on the topic of Einstein's opinions: "Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. [...] "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
- adamnemecek 10y agoWasn't the Catholic church in cahoot with Nazis though? Didn't they help top Nazi officials flee Europe with Vatican passports after the war?
- Retric 10y agoThe Catholic church has long offered sancutary. Cahoots implys more than that IMO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany_during_World_War_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Ger...
- pfortuny 10y agoThe simple answer is "no they weren't." The nuanced answer is "it's complicated." But anyway, you are forgetting the countless Jews who were saved by the Vatican. And in Nazi Germany the Church was persecuted. Edit: s/which/who s/jew/Jew
- fredgrott 10y agoyes but was not Germany full protestant?
- transfire 10y agoGiven the numerous police shootings, typically of blacks, but not always, which are obviously excessive uses of force, why is absolutely nothing being done about it? The cops get off, people protest, and the cycle continues. Do we not have leaders? Has the system become so inept that no one has any responsibility? Does that mean the cops are literally "out-of-control"? And no, you can't sit there and argue that the cops aren't doing anything wrong. A young man is in police custody and ends up dead from a fractured neck and no one is responsible? A woman is in police custody, a camera is turned off, and ends up needing facial reconstruction? The list goes on and on. The police have to be a notch above the average person in conduct, not a notch below. So I ask again, why is nothing being done about it?
- allendoerfer 10y agoThat is one half of the problem, the other half is that the police lives in constant fear, because everybody might have a gun. And this is not being fixed because of a powerful lobby. I think police itself is hard to fix, because the system is so federated. There is nobody, who can just say: "Alright, now the standards are a, b and c."
- gkop 10y agoIf this were the reason, I would expect police unions to speak up in favor of gun control.
- jMyles 10y agoThey may yet. This is, to my way of thinking, a seriously dystopian situation.
- allendoerfer 10y agoSince some of their members would lose their jobs or at least some nice toys, I don't think so.
- jMyles 10y agoI must admit, I don't understand this view. If "everybody might have a gun," why are police, who also have guns, more likely to live in fear than anyone else? In the USA, especially in certain parts such as suburban Michigan, where my wife is from, there are a huge number of guns being carried all around at all times. But I don't feel the least bit unsafe; to the contrary, I like knowing that the people I'm meeting or hanging out with are able to defend the group without our having to call the police. I assert that, at this moment in history in the USA, with gun ownership being what it is and police militarization having gone so far, disarming police will bring greater peace than disarming non-police.
- ec109685 10y agoPrevious discussion here: http://www.onbeing.org/program/albert-einstein-the-negro-question-1946 http://www.onbeing.org/program/albert-einstein-the-negro-que...
- mercuryIntox 10y agoI believe you got the wrong link.
- sctb 10y agoHere's the HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8745540
- kapitza 10y agoThen again, Linus Pauling thought Vitamin C cured cancer. It certainly would be nice to have Einstein back again. He could weigh in on whether or not string theory is a load of mathematical hooey, remind us that he was right about the cosmological constant, and share his secret formula for turning "Negroes" into Jews.
- dang 10y agoPlease don't do this here.
- sandisk5 10y agoAmerica is a very different place now than in 1946. I googled "most popular people in America" and Google shows me pictures and out of the top ten, half are African-American including Barack Obama, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, MLK Jr, and Oprah Winfrey. I looked at one page that had top ten most popular people in America in the 1940s and there were no African-Americans on the list. > Your ancestors dragged these black people from their homes by force Many slavers were African, particularly the ones dragging people out of their homes, and in 1946 very few Americans would have had ancestors who were either slave traders or slave owners.
- chvid 10y agoIt is a very different place today. And yet this text pops up on the front page of hacker news. I assume it is because of the events in Dallas; but why discuss this text and not the actual event or a million other things related to the topic of race and racism?
- Karunamon 10y agoThere's probably not much constructive discussion to be had on the event here. These are social problems at their roots, not technical ones.
- chvid 10y agoIt is obviously a "hard and controversial" problem to discuss - I don't really understand why. I sense it has something to do with the upcoming US election and maybe there is a lot of campaigning being done online. HN in general has good discussions on economics and social issues but not on this.
- mgarfias 10y agoNot to mention that black slaves were sold to whitey by black Africans.
- tptacek 10y agoThat there were Africans involved in the slave trade has no bearing whatsoever on Einstein's argument.
- ChrisNorstrom 10y agoThat's it, I'm done.
- mwambua 10y agoTo answer a number of your points: 1. Einstein was speaking about American slave owners, who were primarily white. I believe the term 'whites' is inclusive of Jews. 2. Einstein wrote this article in 1946... so there were likely a lot less black millionaires. 3. I think he was only making an observation that the whites around him (not necessarily all the whites around the world) still discriminated and thought less African Americans. He goes on to explain that some of their feelings are reasonable and have been experienced in the past... but are nonetheless flawed. I'm not sure what your arguments above are supposed to point out... but Einstein was pointing out a problem in 1946... problems which may or may not be the same today.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- powertower 10y agoThe narrative is the same today as it was yesterday... Every fault of the black community is the result of white privilege and/or supremacy. And whites must constantly absorb those faults until everything is equalized. You have not answered a single point, you have simply pretended that those points don't exist.
- mwambua 10y agoI'll agree that the narrative you pointed out is ongoing... but I think that the idea of modern-day whites absorbing those faults is stupid... they shouldn't be responsible for the faults of their fathers. However, they do need to treat everyone around them like equal human beings and offer equal opportunities to men and women of equal skills. Modern-day blacks need to realize that they're in control of their own destinies and demonstrate that they are equally human beings. That's just my opinion. I'm an Sub-Saharan African man... so I'm well accustomed to people assuming that I'm less capable just because of the average capabilities demonstrated by people in the region. I think that that's a little unfair, but I've got to do what I can to prove that they're wrong. Otherwise, I'm just proving that I have the ability to complain.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]