reply to post by cenpuppie
I got a chance to go to the MET in Manhattan several years back, and of course spent a fair amount of time in the Egyptian portion of the Museum. I
was amazed at how interracial the ancient kingdom was, and this was long before Greece or Athens. The paintings clearly depicted black, brown, and
white people as royals being carried or waited upon by black, brown, and white people who were their servants. Apparently, ancient Egypt was a very
racially mixed place. It seems to me to be a very big mystery, how did white people ever wind in ancient Egypt?
I wonder if the existence of whites in Egypt wasn't at the beginning, the typical result of conquest and slavery, where the advanced Egyptians
captured and enslaved whites. Then, eventually, whites gained acceptance, place, and power leading up to a red headed Pharaoh in Ramsees. Kind of a
reverse situation that exists today. I think it is a pretty good accomplishment that only a hundred and fifty years after the official end of slavery
in the U.S., we now have a black, er, half black, president.
History also seems to ignore Carthage, a black African civilization that dominated the Mediterranean with their naval prowess before the rise of Rome.
Yes, the Roman Republic eventually defeated Carthage, but that shouldn't diminish the accomplishments of Carthage.
When you look at the the waves of people who first arrived in the Americas, it all makes sense when you consider climate. While the Incas and the
Mayans, dealing with drought and desert developed more advanced civilizations, the people who discovered the amazon remained very primitive.
I am drifting off subject.
The Brits also pirated a lot of gold from the Spanish, who had stolen the gold from the Incas and the Aztecs. What made the Brits, the Dutch, and the
U.S. so successful were their naval capabilities. All you hear about are sugar and tobacco, but the northern colonies in the U.S. were far more
economically successful with lumber and fur, and the largest merchant fleet in the world. Of course whaling was also extremely profitable.
But yes, they kind of got sucked into the whole slave trading thing. While looking at other races as inferior in those days was acceptable, there
clearly was a dislike for slavery. Ya gotta remember, it has only been about a 150 years since we turned on the lights. Most people could not read
before then, and most things they knew came from superstition, or their local priest. Get up in the morning, go outside and get some eggs from the
chicken house, pump some water, visit the outhouse. Start feeding animals, if you were lucky enough to live on a farm that successful, as most people
did back then. Life was hard, and people didn't have much time for anything but survival.
Culturally, I see mankind as being in a vortex, primarily the result of the massive technological burst at the end of the nineteenth century, with
electricity, automobiles, refrigeration, flight. These technologies opened doors to a new existence that has altered everything about humanity. We
are swirling in this huge cultural vortex, being blended together to create whatever we will become. It is all new, and instead of obsessing about
the past, we should be concentrating on what we are becoming.
Racial diversity is being used as an excuse to discriminate against a certain group, white males, where the burden comes down primarily on working
class white males. This discrimination does exist, and I have been the victim of this discrimination, and know many others who have also been
discriminated against. Too many opportunists are more than willing to take advantage to practice their own particular brand of bigotry, whether it is
from racial, sexist, or class roots. It is happening, and it is a problem.
