On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Scott Stroz wrote: > > Larry seems to disagree. He insinuated Sam was channeling the Klan > because Sam brought up that black Africans were involved in selling > other black Africans in to slavery. > > I do not recall Sam trying to lessen the blame on America, rather > pointing out historically accurate facts. Kind of like how a lot of > people want you to believe the American Civil War was only about > slavery. Its rewriting history to make it more appealing. >
Not only that, Africa is home to some of the most repressive groups and governments on the planet. It has nothing to do with race. In fact, the whole notion of race is so antiquated that I'm not sure we can even responsibly refer to it as any kind of distinction between people. We should still be cognizant of human history, but this notion of race needs to go away. Some people will point out there are diseases, like sickle-cell anemia, that only affect one race (in this case people of African descent). Sickle-cell anemia, for instance, is a genetic mutation that survived among people in Africa because it conferred on them an advantage against mosquito bites and therefore malaria. We have no way of knowing whether a similar genetic mutation occurred among members of other races on the planet, and indeed it is possible that sooner or later someone from another race will exhibit this particular genetic mutation. Continuing to talk about race is just a way to keep us apart. Let's talk instead about the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Africans who sold other Africans into slavery were among the advantaged, as were the Europeans who created and perpetuated the slave trade and the system of slavery in America. Our responsibility as members of a free society should be to extend a helping hand to the disadvantaged. The policy debate, as always, then revolves around what form that helping hand should take and who it should extend to. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:302578 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
