Larssen wrote:
uziq wrote:
yep yep. as i said, it comes down to this:
this uneasy proximity of an often-times racist capitalism to the birth and rise of liberal democracies is the WHOLE REASON why BLM's message cuts through to so many western nations today. you are going so far out of your way to miss this basic point when you talk about the 'cultural differences' between the USA and, say, belgium. you're really going to talk about the cultural differences between belgians and americans and not, er, the fact that both countries in their modern histories had huge slave-plantation systems using african labour? hahaha oh my god.
the western model that we celebrate so much today was only possible, only attained pre-eminence, through an era of capitalist expansion and extraction. and the ideology that fuelled such a global 'grab' was outwardly racist, at times on religious grounds (converting heathens), but more often using first 'enlightenment' and then 'darwinist' scientific principles.
the economic engine of europe's and the new world's development was racist in character. the institutions and structures which persist to this day, in governance, in policing, in universities, in the law courts, in every aspect of that 'developed' civic world, was funded by capitalist exploitation, and was structurally racist. and this persists to the present-day, modern era. even ex-colonial subjects in places like french indochina/vietnam or the british west indies could never hope to be accepted in the post-imperial centre, being restricted to becoming only model citizens in model schools in the peripheries. these groups have been and still are excluded and subaltern.
i literally cannot believe a european is going to sit here today and scoff at BLM as an 'american import', acting affronted as if it's a belgian presented with french fries and ketchup. the message that 'black lives matter' has valence in many western nations, especially those, seemingly like germany and belgium, that prefer not to examine their recent history.
Europe didn't trade slaves to work the fields in Europe. They were traded between the colonies. About 98%+ of the people who live here from non European backgrounds immigrated to Europe during the era of decolonisation. That and immigration to speed up the rebuilding of post-WW2 europe is the history which is most foundational to the social interactions within our own countries today. The overwhelming majority of non european peoples who live here didn't arrive as slaves but as gastarbeiter or decolonised citizens uziq. Starting in the 1950s, in the 1960s. It is then that the policies were made and crafted that have perpetuated a certain social division to today.
you are completely illiterate.
it doesn't MATTER that people didn't work in the fields in europe. the entire economies of european empire were propped up by invisible, unpaid labour and extraction from elsewhere. why do you think every single country in europe rushed to get colonies? it was a fucking requirement to be competitive with their (often times warring) neighbours. why do you think that is? because having a huge supply of basically free materials, resources and human labour was pretty fucking advantageous to the royal/national/imperial economy. FFS. 'europe's climate couldn't support cotton growing so it cannot be racist like america'.
do you think that using non-whites as chattel property and slave labour for centuries wouldn't contribute, or be conducive to, a racist ideology? how do you think (often times christian) ruling-class whites morally justified their use of slave labour and atrocities in the colonies? there wasn't a racist dynamic at work that denied humanity or 'dignity' to non-whites? really?
i cannot believe how shit your take is. 'europe didn't have slaves working in its fields so it can't be compared to america'. because having sugar plantations in the west indies or rubber plantations in africa is so much different. 'b-b-b-but black people in europe came AFTER the colonies collapsed; it's so much different to african americans, who stuck around after they were manumitted!'
black people came to germany in the 19th century in good numbers. aka the age of colonialism. i just mentioned the schwarze deutsch above. it was a big enough problem for there to be semi-official policies about their status. semi-official racist policies, that is. the european outlook on the world through the modern era was fundamentally RACIST and considered whites to be more 'elevated', 'noble', 'evolved', etc. choose your fucking word. from daniel defoe to rousseau, the early modern period is FULL of it. you claiming that social attitudes and race relations were created by policy in the 1960s is just so, so fucking funny.
Interracial couples in the [German] colonies were subjected to strong pressure in a campaign against miscegenation, which included invalidation of marriages, declaring the mixed-race children illegitimate, and stripping them of German citizenship.[7] During extermination of the Nama people in 1907 by Germany, the German director for colonial affairs, Bernhard Dernburg, stated that "some native tribes, just like some animals, must be destroyed".[8]
the idea that germany never had to confront or deal with colonialism, 'Others' or race relations until the turks came to rebuild it after world war 2 is SO FUCKING FUNNY. you genocided blacks in africa in 1890 ffs. tell me again how germany wasn't fundamentally a racist, white supremacist state because kebab shops and car-factory workers from ankara turned up. hahahahah. oh my GOD my guy.
https://www.dw.com/en/forcibly-steriliz … a-56175531After the loss of the German colonial territories, the presence of black soldiers in the Rhineland was perceived as a humiliation. With the active participation of state and civil organizations, a racist propaganda campaign was launched under the title "Die Schwarze Schmach" (the Black Shame). Via leaflets, pamphlets and articles, these colonial soldiers were portrayed as "savage beasts" who raped and murdered the civilian population.
The campaign's supporters were not exclusively from nationalist or conservative circles. Racism and eugenics were deeply rooted throughout German society. Social-Democratic party politicians such as President Friedrich Ebert or Foreign Minister Adolf Köster decried a portion of French troops from the "lowest cultural level" and described the deployment as a "spiritual crime" against the German people.
A picture in the satirical German magazine 'Kladderadatsch' shows a 'savage black' French soldier taking off with a local white women.
It was a politically-calculated move to use racism to discredit the Versailles Treaty that blamed Germany for World War I and exacted massive reparations.
The hope was that international solidarity with Germany would be re-established based on common prejudices.
Defamatory articles about the colonial soldiers appeared worldwide, supported by propaganda material from the UK Foreign Office. For instance, British Labour MP Edmund Dene Morel falsely accused France of unleashing "savage blacks" and "primitive barbarians" on the German population, troops whose "unbridled bestiality" had resulted in numerous rapes.
Despite the racist propaganda, numerous love affairs blossomed between colonial soldiers and German women. This was an affront to nationalists who made the "desecration of the German woman" one of their fundamental themes. In the smear campaign, the female body symbolized the German national body and both had to be kept "pure."
After the First World War, relationships between black French soldiers and German women were taboo
The German propaganda machine reacted accordingly: Women who had relationships with soldiers of African heritage were denounced as dishonorable, a "white disgrace." And children from these unions were derisively called "Rhineland bastards."
Last edited by uziq (2021-06-18 23:45:07)
