From: stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski)
Subject: Re: Racist/Sexist Role Models
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 00:55:51 GMT

Hubert J Montas writes:

>...
>Can you consider how difficult it is for a white person to
>ackowledge the fact that his/her people have been barbarians for the best part
>of history? That they are responsible for the worst massacres: colonialism,
>slavery, holocaust, the atomic bomb, etc... That they have systematically era-
>sed and bent the history of civilization....

Hubert,

I am a white person, and I completely reject the idea that I am
responsible for the holocaust and The Bomb. What does it matter what I
think? - you say.  Only this: that hundreds of millions of people feel
the same way I do, and will probably never be persuaded otherwise. Not
because they refuse to acknowledge the great crimes, lies, butcheries 
and disasters of the past (in fact, these are standard fare in any 
history class), but because
              WHITE PEOPLE HAVE NO RACIAL PRIDE!!!
It is simply incorrect to ascribe to the typical white person the
sense of racial identity that is present among so many African
Americans, and is an absolutely dominant sentiment on this newsgroup.
I have never heard anyone say anything like: "Gee, Newton was a white
guy, so I could probably be a great scientist". That mode of reasoning
just doesn't exist. [Please note, I'm not claiming that people never
say: "That guy is black, he must be worthless". They do say it and,
unfortunately, mean it.] I have never met a white person who was proud
of being white. Yes, they exist somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana,
but they are very few, they are universally despised, and they have 
no impact on my life. 

Thus, I cannot feel any guilt about the misdeeds of Hitler or
Oppenheimer.  The fact that they were white means nothing to me or to
most white people. Slavery and nazism were great evils, but they were
in no sense "white", any more than the slaughter of the original
inhabitants of southern Africa (long before the European settlers
arrived) is a debit to "blackness".  Please note that I also don't
take personal CREDIT for Dirac, Churchill, Wagner, Corot, Bramante,
Trollope or any of the glorious heros of western civilization. I
rejoice in the fact that they lived and created, but the fact that
they were white does nothing for me. This is an important point: if
you condemn "white civilization" for devising colonialism, what are
you going to do about the Uncertainty Principle, the First Amendment and
the Moonlight Music from "Capriccio"? How can anything be so 
damnable and so exalted at the same time? Perhaps, just perhaps, it 
doesn't exist as a racial concept...

Our government should do everything possible to bring disadvantaged
people into positions of health, wealth and achievement.  But the
calculus of pigmentation just doesn't compute. Any teacher who puts
down a black student for being black should be instantly fired.  But
it is a grave error to instill in children a false sense of racial
pride. There are already too many people (many of them post on
s.c.a.a.) who can't express an opinion on any subject without peeking
inside their shirts to check (for the thousandth time!) the color of
their skin. Today's children will never succeed by saying "a black
person discovered the North Pole, so I should get this job"
or, for that matter, "my great-great-great-great grandmother ran the
most wretched whorehouse in ancient Thebes, so add 10 points to my
exam score"...

Regards,

Stefan
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