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● And Jews went through 2,000 years of persecution, expulsion, finally a holocaust, and didn't even have their own country again until recently when Israel was

● And Jews went through 2,000 years of persecution, expulsion, finally a holocaust, and didn't even have their own country again until recently when Israel was created. ● And Europeans went through thousands of years of inter-european wars, a plague that killed off 1/4 of the population, 2 world wars, muslim invasions, and mongolian invasions. Not to mention suppressing education and science and causing centuries of dark ages due to religious extremism. ● And Cambodians went through a genocide where Po Pots waged a communist war against all intellectuals, teachers, and high achievers that killed off 25% of the cambodian population. ● And Bulgarians went through 500 years of Turkish rule which included mass killings and slavery and left "its culture shattered and separated from Europe for 500 years". Followed by devastating communism. ● Those educated in more than just American History know that this list goes on and on and spans thousands of years. Everyone's been through hell. Suffering is not an excuse of one's own problems. Blaming problems on others does not empower a group to fix problems within it's own community. Plus, the groups with the problems we discussed (lack of family structure, culture, education, etc) have them even in countries that did not "separate them for 350 years, exterminate their cultural practices, whip them or prohibit them from receiving education". Vilifying one group and victimizing another doesn't help anyone. You just did the very thing I described in my original post "Homogenous societies [...] are more responsible for their failures and successes than diverse societies. They have no one to blame but themselves. They cannot pass off their suffering or their problems onto others. [and force themselves to improve]"

_delirium 12y ago
One interesting difference is that all the groups you mentioned succeeded in forming their own independent countries which they now control as the dominant group, after the period of oppression in question: modern Israel, Cambodia, Bulgaria. I wonder what the achievement rates look like for groups for which that isn't the case, who still live in a country controlled by another group? For example, Kurds in Turkey. If we take Israel as an example, the way post-Holocaust Jews empowered themselves to fix their own oppression was to create a new country they controlled, win a war of independence defending it, and then emigrate there en masse. A parallel philosophy has at times also been popular among Black Americans, in that case known as Black Nationalism or Afro-Nationalism (subtly different terms depending on the focus), i.e. that Black Americans should control their own destiny in their own country, which requires, as a prerequisite, declaring independence from white-controlled America. But that movement has not been successful, in part because of the lack of any agreement on where the country would be located (various locations in both North America and Africa have been proposed), and in part because the Integrationist philosophy, holding that Black Americans are Americans, not a separate nation, has eclipsed Afro-Nationalism in popularity. There have been experiments in setting up an African-American state in Africa (Liberia), and also attempts to set up Black-controlled enclaves within the United States (one of the goals of the Black Panther movement), but they have been mostly unsuccessful. Actually the viewpoints of the Black Panthers on cultural cohesion and healthy communities sound not too different from what you've been mentioning in this thread.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - henrymercer 12y ago
    It's hard to find someone to talk to calmly about these things. It is even harder to find people who will write politically incorrect opinions under their real name. Frankly, I would advise against it. The internet is written in permanent ink.

_delirium 12y ago

One interesting difference is that all the groups you mentioned succeeded in forming their own independent countries which they now control as the dominant group, after the period of oppression in question: modern Israel, Cambodia, Bulgaria. I wonder what the achievement rates look like for groups for which that isn't the case, who still live in a country controlled by another group? For example, Kurds in Turkey. If we take Israel as an example, the way post-Holocaust Jews empowered themselves to fix their own oppression was to create a new country they controlled, win a war of independence defending it, and then emigrate there en masse. A parallel philosophy has at times also been popular among Black Americans, in that case known as Black Nationalism or Afro-Nationalism (subtly different terms depending on the focus), i.e. that Black Americans should control their own destiny in their own country, which requires, as a prerequisite, declaring independence from white-controlled America. But that movement has not been successful, in part because of the lack of any agreement on where the country would be located (various locations in both North America and Africa have been proposed), and in part because the Integrationist philosophy, holding that Black Americans are Americans, not a separate nation, has eclipsed Afro-Nationalism in popularity. There have been experiments in setting up an African-American state in Africa (Liberia), and also attempts to set up Black-controlled enclaves within the United States (one of the goals of the Black Panther movement), but they have been mostly unsuccessful. Actually the viewpoints of the Black Panthers on cultural cohesion and healthy communities sound not too different from what you've been mentioning in this thread.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- henrymercer 12y ago
  It's hard to find someone to talk to calmly about these things. It is even harder to find people who will write politically incorrect opinions under their real name. Frankly, I would advise against it. The internet is written in permanent ink.