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I got into a heated debate at high school with my composition instructor about some of these issues. We were discussing the mandatory changes being made to history books to include a much higher percentage of contributions by ethnic minorities, specifically blacks. My argument was that not only did it distort history and the facts, as well as leaving out world-changing events to make room for items of lesser importance, it implied that these minorities could not stand on their own and needed artificial bolstering. It officially indicated that they were somehow inferior. The simple fact is that within the last few hundred years (during which humans have made the greatest leaps in our history), the majority of major accomplishments in industry, society, technology and medicine originated from Caucasian population centers. Where did most of the slaves come from? They were sold to slave traders by other blacks. They were usually prisoners conquered during the never-ending wars between the hundreds (thousands?) of African tribes. I don't know, perhaps it is better to be sold into slavery than be butchered alive with machetes and the like. Regardless, in that environment of turmoil and segregation by tribe, it made them weak and took away their cohesion as a people or race. Their energies were wasted elsewhere, so no real accomplishments were being made as a society. I am not at all condoning slavery, but if the rest of the world decided to simply isolate the Africans because of the primitive state of their society, technology, etc, where would they be today? The simple fact of the matter is that at some point in history, when technology developed to the point that global travel was possible, the inevitable clash of races (and resulting injustices and hardships) separated by thousands of years of isolation would occur. This was further amplified by the disparity in technology and society between them.
BTW, I don't hear of these "tolerance speakers" preaching to their own race to send money back to their homelands to support their cousins, who are in far greater need than those whose rights are supposedly being cramped here in the US. I don't hear of African Americans tracing down their ancestral tribe, so they could turn around and hate a specific group of African Americans that came from an enemy tribe. After all, it was that enemy tribe that made a quick buck by condemning many generations of their ancestors into lives of slavery.
One last thing. Humans generalize. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about individual people, cars, brands of computers, seasons or food. We tend to tack a couple key attributes to each group, which is what first comes to mind when we think of them. Individually, this usually comes about from personal experiences. If you happened to own 3 cars in a row of the same make that were lemons, then that will influence your generalization about that make of car. So it isn’t any surprise that such generalizations are applied to races, even if those generalizations are of positive traits. In New York, the real “melting pot” of the US, such traits were tacked onto every group of foreigners you can imagine. And to a point that makes sense. You travel through New York and see China Town, Little Italy, etc, and, well, things are obviously different. Those minorities try to be different and keep their individuality as a people. In fact, if people looked at them and did not recognize that they were in some way different or unique, they would probably be insulted. Would that be considered intolerance, insensitivity or indifference?
Dan East
