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Certainly the onus to prove their claims lies with the authors of the article but the claim that they are engaging in "race baiting" is also very serious and as

Certainly the onus to prove their claims lies with the authors of the article but the claim that they are engaging in "race baiting" is also very serious and as yet unsubstantiated. Many words that were in print in the 18th Century have since been used in different contexts and taken on new associations.

theultdev 3y ago
I cannot provide a criticism against their theory of origin as they did not provide any evidence. Judging from the theme and tones of their articles and their lack of evidence in their claims it is of my opinion they are race-baiting. That is a subjective view so feel free to interpret their motives as you wish, I will interpret them how I view them based on my evaluations.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  That's totally fine if you believe that. I only took issue when I saw you in 3 different parts of the thread saying the authors should be ignored because the publication engages in "race baiting."
  - theultdev 3y ago
    I am not ignoring it nor did I say to ignore it. I simply dispute what they said. If anything I want people to read it and see how trash it is. Just don't be caught off guard if you use a "fact" of theirs and get embarrassed for being wrong.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
philwelch 3y ago
“Race baiting” is a fairly incendiary way of putting it. The way I would put it would be to say that there’s a contemporary fixation on race that gets naively projected into other times and places in ways that are anachronistic and miss a lot of nuances. There’s also a tendency to overcorrect for past instances of this. The thing is, you can motivate almost any oversimplified narrative with mutually exclusive rationales. Maybe you claim that all cowboys were white because you’re racist and you don’t think black people had the heroic qualities necessary for herding cattle. Or you could claim that all cowboys were white because the evil white man didn’t allow blacks to settle the frontier. I actually think this story is more on the side of nuance: it turns out some West Texas cowboys were black, some were white, and people on the frontier didn’t have the same obsession with maintaining racial systems of social hierarchy the way people did in the Deep South. Some of them would still be racist but a black man could handle those differences the same way men in that culture handled many of their differences, with his fists. And when this particular black cowboy did that, it worked out fine. The odd claim about the etymology of the word “cowboy” does sort of hint and edge towards a completely different totalizing mythology of “actually, all cowboys were black”, but this also smells like bullshit to me. There were almost certainly more black cowboys than you’d assume based on watching old westerns, but they weren’t all black and none of the people in that place and time comfortably fit into any side of any contemporary culture war anyway. They were different people with ideas and motivations of their own, not just symbols in your contemporary culture war.

theultdev 3y ago

I cannot provide a criticism against their theory of origin as they did not provide any evidence. Judging from the theme and tones of their articles and their lack of evidence in their claims it is of my opinion they are race-baiting. That is a subjective view so feel free to interpret their motives as you wish, I will interpret them how I view them based on my evaluations.

AlecSchueler 3y ago
That's totally fine if you believe that. I only took issue when I saw you in 3 different parts of the thread saying the authors should be ignored because the publication engages in "race baiting."
- theultdev 3y ago
  I am not ignoring it nor did I say to ignore it. I simply dispute what they said. If anything I want people to read it and see how trash it is. Just don't be caught off guard if you use a "fact" of theirs and get embarrassed for being wrong.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

philwelch 3y ago

“Race baiting” is a fairly incendiary way of putting it. The way I would put it would be to say that there’s a contemporary fixation on race that gets naively projected into other times and places in ways that are anachronistic and miss a lot of nuances. There’s also a tendency to overcorrect for past instances of this. The thing is, you can motivate almost any oversimplified narrative with mutually exclusive rationales. Maybe you claim that all cowboys were white because you’re racist and you don’t think black people had the heroic qualities necessary for herding cattle. Or you could claim that all cowboys were white because the evil white man didn’t allow blacks to settle the frontier. I actually think this story is more on the side of nuance: it turns out some West Texas cowboys were black, some were white, and people on the frontier didn’t have the same obsession with maintaining racial systems of social hierarchy the way people did in the Deep South. Some of them would still be racist but a black man could handle those differences the same way men in that culture handled many of their differences, with his fists. And when this particular black cowboy did that, it worked out fine. The odd claim about the etymology of the word “cowboy” does sort of hint and edge towards a completely different totalizing mythology of “actually, all cowboys were black”, but this also smells like bullshit to me. There were almost certainly more black cowboys than you’d assume based on watching old westerns, but they weren’t all black and none of the people in that place and time comfortably fit into any side of any contemporary culture war anyway. They were different people with ideas and motivations of their own, not just symbols in your contemporary culture war.