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 #17 (permalink) Mon Jun 09, 2008 21:40 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
In the 1500s, the Europeans instituted a slave trade from African to America. In the US, this lasted until the 1860s, when a bloody war was fought to stop it. Nonetheless, many Europeans still blame Americans for having had a slave trade, even though the Europeans started it and the Americans abolished it. (Notice also that people from other slave nations, such as Brazil, don't get the same resentment.)
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I think Americans lived their notorious reputation down. I don't hear anyone say anything about this slave trading business.
But the situation with Germans is not as gladdening - here and there people are still blaming them for what their predecessors did to the world in days of yore.
And answering your question, I don't think it is such a good idea to stigmatize the whole nation for the trouble their whacked out predecessors stirred up. What boots it to give them a guilt trip for the sins they never commited? It does not make sense to me. |
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Lost_Soul
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Location: South Park, Colorado, USA
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| #18 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 3:54 am Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Do you think people are guilty of their ancestors' sins? What about their imagined sins? What about the sins of people who are not their ancestors but are the same color or speak the same language they do? |
I think people don't need to feel guilty of their ancestors' sins. Each and every one of the people has to be responsible for their own deeds. They might feel guilty of theirs...but it wasn't their sins! It's all unfair and non-sense to try to hold innocent people accountable for something somebody else had done! Sins or some other bad historical events in the past should not be taken into consideration only by people who speak the same language or have the same skin color but also the whole human kind. The reality speaks differently, though. You are ashamed of your brother's sins, still...but of course, we all should be ashamed of sins...but responsibility has to be stressed!!!
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Rosalisa
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| #19 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:20 am Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Quote: |
| I think people don't need to feel guilty of their ancestors' sins. Each and every one of the people has to be responsible for their own deeds. |
Do you think some people need to be aware of the benefits they've received from their ancestors misdeeds? Shouldn't those people feel a little guilty about reaping the rewards of their ancestors sins? |
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Molly
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| #20 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 12:58 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I think people don't need to feel guilty of their ancestors' sins. Each and every one of the people has to be responsible for their own deeds. |
Do you think some people need to be aware of the benefits they've received from their ancestors misdeeds? Shouldn't those people feel a little guilty about reaping the rewards of their ancestors sins? |
And should the descendants of the victims feel guilty that they also benefitted from those sins? Many of today's African-Americans believe that they have benefitted lavishly from the fact that their ancestors were taken into slavery. They enjoy full civil rights under a relatively fair justice system, they have protected property rights, seemingly limitless educational possibilities without bribing an official or buying counterfeit credentials on the street (as many people do in Africa), and their economic opportunity can be limited only by themselves. Many of them feel quite fortunate.
Or, in the immortal words of the boxer Muhammed Ali upon returning from a trip to Africa, "Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!"
And what if a person is descended from both the criminal and the victim? Who does he blame? Many African-Americans are descended from both the slaves and the slave-holders. Should they take partial blame and feel partially guilty? What about the grandchild of an East German woman and a Soviet soldier who raped her right after the war? Should he feel guilty for the Nazi Holocaust, or should he feel proud of having defeated the Nazis?
You see the whole issue of collective guilt for other people's sins and crimes starts to get ridiculous. |
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Jamie (K)
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Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| #21 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 13:09 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Quote: |
| And should the descendants of the victims feel guilty that they also benefitted from those sins? |
Should they?
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| Many of today's African-Americans believe that they have benefitted lavishly from the fact that their ancestors were taken into slavery. |
Really? can you point us in the direction of such findings?
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| Many of them feel quite fortunate. |
And the ones who don't?
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| "Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!" |
"Got on"?
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| And what if a person is descended from both the criminal and the victim? Who does he blame? |
The criminal. Why should he blame the victim?
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| Should they take partial blame and feel partially guilty? |
Nope. I hope your question isn't serious.
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| You see the whole issue of collective guilt for other people's sins and crimes starts to get ridiculous. |
I asked about guilt regarding enjoying the benefits, not about guilt for the sins of their ancestors. |
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Molly
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| #22 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 13:18 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| It's very easy to find African-Americans who feel they have benefitted from their ancestors coming to the US as slaves. First you read the memoir by the Washington Post reporter Keith Richburg, called "Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa", and if you do a little looking, you'll run across plenty of similar people. I even worked right next to such people when I was taking low-paid factory jobs as a student. They know the slaves suffered, but they think that by the late 20th century the advantages to them far, far outweighed the disadvantages. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #23 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 13:58 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Nobody is to be blamed for the sins of others, even if they were their ancestors'. However, thinking the wrong deeds as above criticism or something that had to be done is a whole different story. |
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NinaZara
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| #24 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 15:06 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| I even worked right next to such people when I was taking low-paid factory jobs as a student. They know the slaves suffered, but they think that by the late 20th century the advantages to them far, far outweighed the disadvantages. |
We're back to Jamie's "I know a man/woman/friend/dog who..." ploy.
The point is not that you know a few black people who feel they have benefitted from their ancestors' enslavement. I'd like to know how you feel and what you'd say to the ones who claim they haven't benefitted.
Would you say to them "Well f*ck off back to Africa then. See how you like life over there!"? |
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Molly
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| #25 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 17:36 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Molly wrote: |
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| I even worked right next to such people when I was taking low-paid factory jobs as a student. They know the slaves suffered, but they think that by the late 20th century the advantages to them far, far outweighed the disadvantages. |
We're back to Jamie's "I know a man/woman/friend/dog who..." ploy. |
What ploy? I happen to have gotten around a lot and met a lot of different kinds of people. And they talk to me.
| Molly wrote: |
| The point is not that you know a few black people |
A LOT of black people...
| Molly wrote: |
| who feel they have benefitted from their ancestors' enslavement. |
Not from the enslavement, but from the fact that the enslavement happened here and not in, say, Nigeria.
| Molly wrote: |
| I'd like to know how you feel and what you'd say to the ones who claim they haven't benefitted. |
The ones who claim they haven't benefitted are generally in two categories:
1. People who don't take advantage of the opportunities available to them, such as the crackhead I met who was panhandling outside the supermarket the other day, or the people who drop out of high school and sit on the porch all day.
2. People at universities who have been indoctrinated into the ideology of victimhood. These people witness things changing, but continue to think things haven't changed. They sit well-fed in the university classrooms -- often on scholarships -- or later in well-paid professions, own their own house and more than one car, and claim to be disadvantaged.
| Molly wrote: |
| Would you say to them "Well f*ck off back to Africa then. See how you like life over there!"? |
No, I would never say that. However, I've seen black people say it to other black people. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #26 (permalink) Tue Jun 10, 2008 17:44 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Quote: |
| I happen to have gotten around a lot and met a lot of different kinds of people. |
Yes, we know. You've met a person for every situation in which you back yourself into a corner. :lol:
And, here we gooo!
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| such as the crackhead I met who was panhandling outside the supermarket the other day, |
You just can't stop, can you? What did you say to that crackhead?
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| No, I would never say that. However, I've seen black people say it to other black people. |
LOL! This gets funnier by the mo'. I don't suppose you've met any white people who said that to black people, have you?
End as you mean to go on:
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| I happen to have gotten around a lot and met a lot of different kinds of people. |
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Molly
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| #27 (permalink) Wed Jun 11, 2008 5:04 am Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I happen to have gotten around a lot and met a lot of different kinds of people. |
Yes, we know. You've met a person for every situation in which you back yourself into a corner. :lol: |
I have a broad range of acquaintances over many years, and I'm empirically oriented. Their examples come to mind in many various situations. The problem for you is that my own experience usually backs YOU into a corner. Since my real-life experience conflicts with your ideology, you pretend I'm making it all up.
You, on the other hand, when backed into a corner -- and even when not -- love to bring out "investigative journalism" that cannot be substantiated and "academic" papers that spin folktales.
| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| such as the crackhead I met who was panhandling outside the supermarket the other day, |
You just can't stop, can you? What did you say to that crackhead? |
I said, "I'm sorry sir, but I can't help you."
I could have given him some money, but that wouldn't have helped him. He's already fed and housed by the government or by relatives, and he wants the money for drugs or booze. I'm not a social worker or an experienced missionary evangelist who cleans up drunks and dope fiends, so I couldn't help him that way. Giving him money would have made his problem worse. So it wasn't a lie that I couldn't help him.
Today a guy who'd just been sprung from jail came up to my car, and when I rolled down the window he said, "Salem aleikum." He claimed to have been released from jail minutes before (which is plausible) for driving on a suspended license, and that he needed money to travel to the state capital about two hours away. He said he had no money because all his family was in Iraq, but he was very obviously not from Iraq but from Yemen. I didn't give him any money either, because about a half hour's walk away there's a big mosque where the people could do a better job of evaluating his situation and dealing with it.
| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| No, I would never say that. However, I've seen black people say it to other black people. |
LOL! This gets funnier by the mo'. I don't suppose you've met any white people who said that to black people, have you? |
I haven't personally witnessed any whites tell this to blacks, and it's relatively unlikely in the United States, because white Americans generally have a huge fear of being accused of racism, whether they are really racist or not. Generally, whites say it to each other about blacks or other whites (and even about their own kids) who think they're disadvantaged but are not. I've only witnessed blacks tell this to other blacks.
Among the more amusing situations are the ones where an African who has finished graduate school in the US, has a lucrative job, and thinks America is the greatest place the the world -- almost the Promised Land -- encounters a minimum-wage African-American store clerk who says "the white man" is preventing him from advancing in life. Some of those conversations are really something to see.
African students sometimes tell me privately about how embarrassed they are of the behavior and thinking of lower-class African-Americans and how much it upsets them when someone mistakes them for an African-American. One of them was doing African hair braiding to put herself through college, but she was at the same time appalled that so many of the clients she dealt with preferred to pay her $400 to do their hair, but wouldn't put the same money into savings or into anything to improve their minds or economic prospects. She was very livid about it. |
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Jamie (K)
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Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| #28 (permalink) Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:12 am Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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| The problem for you is that my own experience usually backs YOU into a corner. |
LOL! Your vicarious references are supposed to back one into a corner.
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| You, on the other hand, when backed into a corner -- and even when not -- love to bring out "investigative journalism" that cannot be substantiated and "academic" papers that spin folktales. |
I love to bring in many sources. Strange how your detestation of journalists - unless they are Republican/right-leaning - and academics leaves you to imagine that such people always spin folktales, but the you expect us to believe YOUR "I knew/know someone who..." folktales . Strange.
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| I said, "I'm sorry sir, but I can't help you." |
So you didn't ask him how he got that way, right? And out of that brief "meeting" you could conclude that he was a person who hadn't taken advantage of the opportunities available to him, right?
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| I haven't personally witnessed any whites tell this to blacks, |
And I thought you'd had "a broad range of acquaintances over many years".
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| "the white man" is preventing him from advancing in life. |
Not sure what you mean there. Are you saying that no US black people are being prevented, by US white people, from advancing?
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| African students sometimes tell me privately about how embarrassed they are of the behavior and thinking of lower-class African-Americans and how much it upsets them when someone mistakes them for an African-American. |
In general, African students are arrogant, come from a money background, and have not experienced the same things that many US black people have. Tell me, Jamie, your African hairdresser, and similar stories, do you think they are general? Do you really think that the majority of poor US black people can reach the highest heights that you yourself seem to live in? |
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Molly
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| #29 (permalink) Wed Jun 11, 2008 14:08 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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Jamie, you're far too kind.
I'd say "Get a job", which would be far too harsh in Molly's view... even though a job would be
1) A way for the person to get off the street
2) A way for the person to get off the drugs
3) And generally (in ways not specifically stated in one and two) a way for the person to improve his life
I don't want to be a harsh person, but sometimes the whiners need a swift kick in the pants... a little motivation can do wonders.
Now... if someone's really trying but simply is not succeeding, that's when i'm glad to help.
But a person has to decide for himself to turn his life around. Nobody else can do that for him.
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Prezbucky
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| #30 (permalink) Wed Jun 11, 2008 14:10 pm Are people guilty for the sins of their ancestors? |
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As for descendants being culpable for the sins of their forebears, I say that's hogwash. I can't control what my peops did back in the day, any more than I can control what my offspring will do when I'm gone. In the end we really only control our own actions, manipulation at present be damned.
hehe
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Prezbucky
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