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Something about America that keeps coming up when I read about history:
If you're willing to adopt our ways as a member of Western Civilization, you will succeed.
Everyone is welcome, regardless of national origin, skin color, religion or native language.
The list of peoples who have passed through the melting pot is long.
The people who refused to join were subjected to horrendous discrimination and bigotry.
The Irish, arguably, had it worse than a black slave prior to the Civil War. A slave was, at least, valuable property. An Irishman? Worthless, and there's ten more where that potato eater came from...
Signage that said, "No Dogs or Irish. CENSORED and Chinese OK." were a real thing.
The Irish, eventually, shed their stigma by joining American society. Not once, but twice.
"But they're white!" is the objection to black people choosing this option.
Asians aren't white. Asians are undeniably successful in America.
You'd hardly be able to tell that a non-Dawes Indian wasn't white by their success.
The problem really is that a group of politicians who hate black people set things up to actively prevent them from joining American civilization.
They were not from the party of Lincoln.
An ounce of prevention stops a ton of cure.
Now it's a point of pride to be part of a culture apart from America. To insult and abuse any crab trying to get out of the boil.
"Don't be like Whitey" is an admonition to reject joining the, proven, successful American civilization and remain a savage and BE The Other.
While we're being brutally honest here, if it weren't for a stubborn Christian compassion streak in America, those who refused to join our society as members would have long ago starved to death.
We don't even make them go hungry.
I feel pretty safe in making these observations because I am friends with several people who escaped the boil and are successful. Not despite their dark-brown skin, but because they are Americans first and foremost rather than accepting they can't be successful because of that skin color.
Every word you've said is nothing but the truth. Hell, even as far back as the middle 19th century, Irish who were able to comport themselves to conform with the majority culture had few problems (those mostly relating to anti-Catholic prejudice, not to them being Irish.) Hell, there was at least one Irish-born general in the Confederate Army! And the Protestant Irish---i.e., the Scots-Irish---were mainstream enough that one of them (Andrew Jackson) was a very popular two-term President.
ReplyDeleteBlacks in 1865 did have some disadvantages. But they started out with advantages the waves of immigrants that came later would have cheerfully sold their souls for. Like being able to communicate in English. And being established here already and knowing the country. Even long before the Civil Rights movement, there was a thriving black middle class. There were black doctors, black lawyers, black businessmen and some of them did very well. There were segregated, all-black schools that were rigorous enough that they sent alumni to West Point and other colleges.
And everyone on the left bitches about cultural appropriation like it's a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteOkay, POC. You no longer use anything invented by evil white people. That's cars, cast iron, planes, anything whit transistors or microchips or anything electric, modern cloth and clothing, most foods, music (because evil white people invented or improved most of the instruments, created the rules for modern music, created the recording equipment, the distribution networks, the laws, the contracts, etc.,) housing, air conditioning and modern heating systems, modern shoes (and shoes in general, that's really a white people thing,) motor boats and so forth and so on.
Bitch at us evil white people? Then look in a mirror and see the mighty hypocrite.
I've got family who are part African American. And part Native American on top of that. Despite that, they have somehow managed to succeed. They worked hard and earned it, rather than copping out.
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