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Comment by tao_oat | Hacker News Reader

While we can praise Churchill for many things, we should never gloss over the fact that he favored eugenics and was deeply racist [1]. For instance, he's quoted as saying "I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race... has come in and taken their place."

[1]: https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/ae55v8/winston-church...

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It's quite odd to pick this angle, Gandhi despite being on the fighting end of the Churchill had his own racial slurs against Africans.

The difference is that the things that we praise Churchill for, e.g. leading the unpopular fight against the Nazis, were almost unique to him. Yet the charge that 'he favored eugenics and was deeply racist' could be levelled at many or most of his peers.

A lot of the "liberal progressives" pre ww2 where in favour of sterilising certain elements of the population until that whole "hitler thing" happened.

In the USA it was the conservative republicans that opposed it.

Yes. I recommend "Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era". An eye opening view about the "Progressives" who are so loved and idolized by the modern left or modern progressives.

I'm not sure I'd describe the Carnegie Institution, or Rockefeller Foundation, who funded a lot of the eugenics research with the end in mind as notably liberal progressive. Nor could the Republicans Coolidge ("Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races") and Hoover, who were both heavily in favour, be described as progressive liberals. Roosevelt was in favour too, of course.

It was a movement independent of politics, and especially popular in pre-war USA on both sides of the political divide.

HG Wells and a lot of the left leaning British intellectuals did and Sweden only stopped sterilising in the 1970's

Eugenics was a strongly held belief of Margaret Sanger, founder of today's Planned Parenthood.

Sanger had other strong negatives in her past, including speaking before KKK affiliated groups.

Real history is sometimes inconvenient, depending on your political point of view.

Churchill was pretty brutal.

"In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/winst...

"Thousands were sent to British run concentration camps during the Boer wars. Churchill summed up his time in South Africa by saying “it was great fun galloping about”."

https://crimesofbritain.com/2016/09/13/the-trial-of-winston-...

In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when the Indian states set trade restrictions with Bengal. That was one of the policies that was outside the Raj, as was the resulting profiteering. They did so after the fall of Burma at a time when Bengal was suffering an unprecedented series of natural disasters.

Facts can be inconvenient sometimes.

> Indian states set trade restrictions with Bengal. That was one of the policies that was outside the Raj

You mean the British administration resorted to scorched earth denial policies fearing the Japanese advance. It was literally Raj policy.

> Bengal was suffering an unprecedented series of natural disasters.

And the British response to the natural disasters was continuing to redirect supplies to military and refusing to allow shipping of humanitarian aid. Churchill's response to news of the famine was ask why Gandhi hadn't died yet.

> Facts can be inconvenient sometimes.

Like the fact that India repeatedly suffered famines under British rule but there hasn't been a famine since Independence?

India of British rule is now three countries, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Combine the three and there have been numerous famines since independence. Course that doesn't fit your agenda.

FYI Nikola Tesla had similar views on eugenics as well.

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