This might come as a surprise to you...but this country has exploited many people (immigrants, non-whites, etc.) over the course of history - if the country had to pay for all the wrongs, we'd be bankrupt.
Every country.
Every time this conversation happens, everyone acts like the US is the only country that was ever involved in the slave trade. Almost every nation, including majority-black nations, were guilty of this. Many of them are still engaging in it to this day (there are more slaves right now than there have ever been at any point in history, and relatively few of them are in the US).
What's most exceptional about the US on this subject isn't that we have exploitation and slavery in our history, but that we fought a civil war (with more casualties than any other war in American history) in part to end slavery and that today we're further ahead of virtually every major nation on the planet in terms of race and gender equality.
Yes, I know, he was a bad guy so the good guys (who the hell is that?) didn't have to be ethical toward him, by good old American cartoon-character standards. However, he wasn't selling thousands of migrants into slavery so that's something. Also, his continued existence after giving up his weapons had inspired others like DPRK to slow their nuclear roll. After we shoved a bayonet up his ass, they changed their minds...
If Qaddafi were still alive we would at best see exactly the same problem in a different country.
Even really basic research into what’s happening there reveals this stuff. People just seem to assume that things are shitty because the West invaded, and don’t bother looking any deeper.
Here’s one (of a great many potential) source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/africa/slave-market...
I suppose the operative phrase in your post here is "in the news". It's not news or generally interesting (for whatever reason), but there is tons of slavery in no way related to Libya or Qaddafi.
Thanks for giving me a more positive view of my country.
The way the end of the US Civil War went down was remarkably enlightened and created a new template for putting conflicts to rest which is likely partly responsible for the fact that WW2 has not (yet?) fostered a WW3.
Historically, people who surrendered paid war reparations to the winning side and it was generally pretty ugly. This is part of why General Lee was very reluctant to surrender. It was considered to be a fate worse than death.
But there were only three conditions of his surrender at Appomattox. One of them was that the North would come in and help them rebuild. This was an unprecedented break with human history.
It is rare for a nation to only have a single civil war. Typically, the end of one plants the bitter seeds of the next. Rinse and repeat. It is remarkable the US has only seen one.
The end of WW1 also planted the bitter seeds of WW2. When WW2 ended, the US went in to both Germany and Japan and helped them rebuild. The world also created a number of institutions aimed at preventing another global conflict.
These are mostly financial organizations, like The World Bank. It was widely recognized that the global depression was a major root cause of WW2. Some world leaders vowed "Never again" and did what they could to make that vow a commitment the world could bank on.
Edit: FWIW, I was born and raised in Georgia, though daddy was a Hoosier and mom is a German immigrant, so no one ever saw me as "Southern" until I moved to the West Coast.
I would call that not enlightened enough.
Real progress is quite hard. A lot of discussions about ideals fail to recognize that there are pragmatic limits. Any mention of pragmatic limits is attacked as an excuse for continued bad behavior.
As a current example, I am not for UBI. I don't think it really works in practical terms. It sounds like a nice ideal, but when you dig into the details, I think it simply doesn't work.
It is really, really common for new initiatives to wind up falling far short of their stated goals. It would be nice if the North had done more for the freed slaves. But I don't think that failure really suggests that it would have been better if the handling of the end of the Civil War had sowed the seeds of the next American civil war. I can't say that I really believe that Black Americans would be better off if the country were locked in a vicious cycle of civil wars.
I am finding myself deeply disturbed by the things I am learning here lately about the history of how Blacks have been treated. I am newly off the street and back in housing and I am seriously medically handicapped, so there is significant limits on what I, personally, can do about anything beyond just coping with my own survival. But perhaps my upset over these injustices will stay with me and perhaps that will lead to something constructive happening, at some point.
I have a tendency to try to light one small candle rather than the curse the darkness. Although it seems to have so far failed to establish any kind of reputation of a sort where I can use it for purposes of being a resume or making money or having serious influence, I have a track record of making a difference.
Though a tree falls and makes no sound, still, it falls.
tldr; It's not my fault. If you don't like your circumstances, work hard to change them.
--
Worse, caucasian americans are made to feel guilty about it, as if it were their fault (despite the fact that the perpetrators and the victims have long since been deceased.) Personally my family has only been in this country for 40-45 years. I'm sorry that slavery happened here, but it happened virtually everywhere, to all peoples (that doesn't make it right.)
I grew up in a poor neighborhood (though my immediate family was middle-class.) I saw many white/african-american/hispanic folks who floundered, and some that worked their asses off, determined to succeed despite their current circumstances. It is frustrating that the race/slavery/discrimination card is used by the SJWs to provide a crutch to those who don't want to work hard towards a better lot in life. By saying this I'm opening myself up to a shitstorm of criticism because somehow the above statements must mean I'm either: A) a racist or B) that I "just I don't understand what it's like to be an african-american." To those folks I say this: Go talk to 1st generation immigrant from anywhere and you'll likely meet someone who's working his/her butt off to realize the american dream. It is a privilege to live in the USA, no matter your race or ethnicity. It truly is the land of opportunity. However, no one is going to just give you that pretty house on the hill with a white picket fence - and you're certainly not going to get it handed to you because you have a sense of entitlement because someone (severely) wronged your ancestors generations ago.
Do you genuinely believe this to be a possible outcome? The incentives for those with wealth, and very real political power, would be to rest any financial burden upon the tax payer. We have sent thousands overseas to die or be horribly maimed forever, and then burdened their children with the bill for the whole endeavor - what would be different here?
Women eventually gained the right to vote. That was a long, hard battle too.
Average education level of women in the era of Lincoln was elementary school age. Slaves were forbidden from being allowed to learn to read.
I have read that in terms of relative wealth, our first president was the richest president we have had. So it seems to me that we have made progress on that at the societal level already.
It doesn't have to happen, say, in the span of a year or two for me to think it worth espousing. I am an old woman who raised two special needs kids. I am okay with taking a longer view than the next 5 minutes, so to speak.
The ugly history of people of color outlined in one of the links in this discussion has some things in common with the outcomes women have.
But I don't really feel like arguing it. This is an overwhelmingly male forum. I increasingly feel it is pointless to try to give a female point of view here. It will be downvoted, dismissed and attacked. If The resist, I will be accused of behaving badly while the insults to me are treated like reasonable statements that I am simply overreacting to.
So, suffice it say, I don't agree with you. If you were correct, then women should have economic parity with men. They don't.
The exact details may vary a bit, but the feminization of poverty is a phrase in our lexicon for a reason. When people talk like it isn't real, I never know quite what to think of that. I have a really hard time accepting that people sincerely don't see something so obvious for which there is overwhelming evidence.
Yet I also realize it is obvious to me because I happen to be female. There are lots of details about the Black experience that I am inadequately aware of. So that gives me pause when it comes to trying to assess why men say such things. But I feel pretty worn down and hopeless of late.
Every statistic I've seen seems to indicate that modulo life choices that seem correlated with gender (ie, on average women prefer different things to men, though individuals vary greatly), there is economic parity between men and women (in most developed nations, but I'm most familiar with the US).
There are some very real issues with the direction that women are steered by society, but there are also some real issues that men face (eg, school, legal system, etc).
However, there's also a non-trivial number of women (in places like the US) who blame sexism for the consequences of choices they've had to make in life between things that they want, and seem to treat it as an affront to their gender that they're not treated as catered princesses by the world -- getting to have every want. And then hide that behind talking about "economic parity".
> The exact details may vary a bit, but the feminization of poverty is a phrase in our lexicon for a reason.
Doesn't this mostly have to do with poor women being forced to carry the economic burden of many children in developing nations?
It's also definitely not a common term to use -- which makes me think that you likely have a biased view from hanging out in a very polarized, niche crowd.
> But I feel pretty worn down and hopeless of late.
As a fellow human, are you sure you're not inventing a narrative that's worse than the truth, and then stressing yourself out battling phantoms? (This is something I do all the time, on issues small to large.)
There are real issues in the world -- quite serious ones, at that. But modern charities and other social purpose organizations deploy weaponized psychology meant to send you into an emotional state in order to boost their funding (or membership, but really power), and the consequence of everyone doing this "for the right reasons" is a completely toxic society, polarized in righteous anger over every issue to the point its emotionally burnt out and fragmented. This habit has even been exploited by foreign states to attack the nation. (True for virtually every country, and definitely all of the European and "Western" ones.)
This is quite possibly the best of times on any of those issues, so instead of worrying about how you're going to feed every woman in Africa with too many kids (hint: you won't), just try to focus on what's the next small step that you can take to fix one of the issue a little. Then do that.
That's something you can actually do right now, won't exhaust you even if you have to do it for the rest of your life, and would completely fix the problem if everyone would just stop panicking and do that.
> top 3 students of my graduating high school class ... > I failed to be a self made millionaire by age 30
Each year in the US there is around 900,000 students that will graduate in the top 3 of their high school class. Assuming that no other person in the nation would become millionaire, that is still way more than the number of new millionaires each year. Becoming a millionaire at some point in your life time after graduate in the top 3 is still a very rare event, and extremely rare if the target is to achieve it before the age of 30.
> feminization of poverty is a phrase in our lexicon for a reason. I have a really hard time accepting that people sincerely don't see something so obvious for which there is overwhelming evidence.
As evidence go, the the wast majority of the homeless are men. The bottom 1%, those that earn least and have least power and wealth in society are mostly men. Maybe those evidences are obvious to me because I happen to be male, but it would not be how I would phrase it. I don't think my gender give me any special insight to interpreting statistics or that there is a male point of view to it.
http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/2017/07/ge...
To counter some of the arguments in there. Men in general has smaller social network. Where the blog argues that friends and relatives are much more concerned about a woman being out on the street because women tend to have a much harder time on the street, the fact found from medical research and statistics is that those friends and relatives simply are not available to the same extent for men. Men at the bottom of society don't generally have a social support network where they can ask for help.
The blog claims that women tend to make less money than men when homeless. No they don't. Data on begging finds that society is the most generous when it comes to young women, and among people who beg in the street they are the highest earners. "able bodied men", refer to the abusive tactics of exploiting desperate people into dangerous low paying temporary jobs, sometimes illegal, and can be about as healthy as selling sex on the street. Its a common tactic heard from paperless which are bounced between illegal construction sites, sometimes sold like cattle.
The blogs claims that men choose to become homeless and women do not. That is victim blaming. No one choose to be at the bottom of the social ladder.
The blog briefly touch on the subject that society sometimes welcome women, even homeless and without any wealth or status to their name. As the blog points out this is mostly to do with sex, but what it miss is that comes from the cultural values in dating. Women are not primarily judged based on how much money they have, so homelessness is not as dooming factor as it is for men. Cultural values make it so that fewer women would ever consider dating a homeless man compared to the number of men who would consider dating a homeless woman.
I have no idea how you are getting that from the post at all. I also get really tired of being accused of victim blaming for trying to address complex subjects with a bit of nuance. It begins to feel to me like a cheap shot hurled by people who don't actually have a good rebuttal, so they figure mudslinging will suffice.
The point is not that men choose homelessness and women do not. The point is that choices made at the bottom of the social ladder are made within a particular context and this context varies some in part based on gender. Men and women make different choices in part because they are faced with different choices.
I happen to be the author of that piece. In addition to firsthand experience with homelessness, I had a college class on the subject many years before spending some time homeless.
I didn't give you the link to imply that a blog post somehow is more authoritative than me commenting on HN. Since I wrote it, it is exactly like if I wrote a long comment here, only it has already been previously written and that has certain advantages, like saving me time and, hopefully, having fewer typos and being perhaps a little more thoughtful because I had time to think through what I wished to say.
Your rebuttal about social networks strikes me as essentially a different way to make the same point. Poor men simply lack the option of staying with friends or family that so often keeps women from being literally on the street. Framing it as a rebuttal sounds intentionally and unnecessarily fighty.
Social support network is commonly used in medical research. The gender difference are seen in all levels of society, from rich to poor, and as such is not the same as the point you bring that friends or family are more likely to help a woman in need. Data on the size of social network (number of friends, contact with family and children, friend of a friend distance) is different for women and men. If all that was different was the rate that family and friend would offer help, then those numbers should be identical. According to some research, the difference in life expectancy between men and women are partially caused by the difference of social support during the elderly years. The cause of that in turn is generally blamed on gender roles and social expectations, where men are expected to prioritize work over building family and social ties and women expected to do the opposite.
All people make choices, even very poor people who are faced with nothing but bad options. In such a situation, the best you can do is try to choose the lesser evil. But it is really disingenuous and dehumanizing to act like homeless people make no choices whatsoever.
Talking about choices when all options are bad sounds like the wrong word. Naturally choosing the best option is good, but a bad option is still bad. Similarly talking about being empowered to pick the best option between an multitude of bad options sounds wrong. It might be correct when talking about a individual person, and from the sound of your comment it sounds like you made decisions based on your own values even when it cost you a place to stay, and that is strong.
Under the absolute worst circumstances, the right to choose is critical to one's ability to self advocate. It is a right routinely denied the poorest of the poor. It is a right I try to help preserve.
Social safety nets frequently disrespect the right of the individual to choose. They frequently dictate limitations on what you can and cannot do.
I tried to write about accessing support that does not impinge on your freedom.
I am aware it "sounds wrong" to a lot of people. That is exactly why I felt I needed to write about it.
does this exist anywhere? let’s make this happen. anyone interested? email me and we’ll figure out next steps all together.
Depends on how you measure it. Women have about 80% of the income of men, but they also have about 70% of total purchasing power (in the United States for both numbers). Women's disproportionate purchasing power comes from their tendency to make "family" purchases (in the majority of household, women do more errands than men) and to outlive men. This fact is well known in the advertising industry..
My point was not that society is fair to women, and I'm sorry if it sounded like that. My point was that gender injustices are different from racial injustices because racial injustices are inherited while gender injustices are not. Once we get to a point where society is 100% fair racially and genderally, gender inequality will die out with the old generations, while racial inequality will live on due to its inherited nature.
Racial inequality is caused by current societal problems as well as past societal problems. But gender inequality is just caused by current societal problems.
The fact that women can get pregnant but men cannot has a huge raft load of implications that influence the attitudes and choices of both men and women. Women I have known who thought they could live their life like a man did fine until they had a baby, at which point their assumptions of independence and self determination had an unpleasant wake up call.
There may be things society can do to mitigate that reality, but most discussions I see of gender equality make zero effort to mitigate it. Instead, most people seem oblivious to its existence. This does not bode well for the possibility of creating policies that genuinely help level the playing field. I believe there are inherent challenges in creating good policies in this area, so it likely won't happen by serendipity.
The current result seems to be a growing divide between the quality of life for empowered women and disempowered women. That divide seems to be strongly influenced by reproductive choices in ways that are not obvious or straight forward.