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Comment by asimpletune | Hacker News Reader

Very important words from the article:

> How did British, even American, reliance on Kroomen fit within the general belief in white racial superiority? For one thing, speaking broadly, the Kroomen established their reputation before so-called ‘scientific racism’ made African inferiority a general, predetermined, almost genetic condition. Before pseudo-science proclaimed that Africans were lower on some kind of universal ladder of evolution, Europeans and Americans could more easily accept that a particular African ‘nation’, such as the Kroomen, were a particularly estimable ‘race’.

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meh, seems like an opinion not backed up by any content in the article.

I don't think a "general belief in white racial superiority" would ever be an impediment to employing natives who were good at a job. (You can find examples of this in, for example, the armies of the British Empire.)

I think that's true to this day, regardless of the specific races of the employer or employee. If you need a job done, you find the best person for the job.

It's when that person wants to marry your daughter that you truly find out what you are made of.

Well I thought there were actually a few places that it was supported in the article, like for example how they permitted an alternative chain of command for the Kroomen, which was considered sacrosanct by the royal navy. You could of course say that they just did that to achieve the best results, but that would be precisely my point. They employed the Kroomen based on what worked best, by the merits of the circumstances and not some arbitrary racism.

Later on, the use of the Kroomen was abandoned, for mostly non-sensical reasons, to which the author surmises was most likely due to the rise of pseudo-scientific race superiority theories. In other words, they no longer employed people in their navy, despite their usefulness, because the merits weren't enough to overcome their bias.

But I do agree with you about the daughter thing.

White supremacists don't necessarily believe that whiteness is inherently superior to blackness (the existence of black scholars and white numbskulls proves this). They also believe that their culture is superior to black culture.

* Editing the comment for clarity

That's culturalist, then, not racist.

Thank you, terminology updated.

Not true. All historical white supremacy movements have been built on the narrative of genetic superiority. Skull shapes, race theory etc.

Although cultural superiority is entwined in this its only recently this became centre stage as a means to still advance the same old tired bigotry but with a mainstream friendly face.

Why call it white culture if it isn't related to genes (and built on lots of non white cultures)?

A lot of things are blamed on the most visibly present race that shouldn't be.

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