Persecutions Of African Americans

How do foreigners feel about White Americans persecuting African Americans?

I lived in China and from the students who I talked to about this issue it seems to be divided and the thinking is not always the most politically correct. One side is not surprised, given that white people also persecuted the chinese themselves not to mention invading their country, enslaving chinese workers, establishing laws to explicitly bar ethnic minorities and countless other social problems chinese americans generally face in the US. So all of this translates into white people don't like other kind of people.Another side is exactly what you'd expect from some conservatives in the states, and that is black people have problems themselves and it is so bad that corrective actions must be taken to control them. Parallel is then drawn about extremists in China, and government control is actually for the greater good of the rest of the society. Of course this thinking is largely drawn from white people controlled US media like FOX News, which occasionally seeps into online chinese media like Sina. This is coupled with a general positive attitude towards the US itself, how can something be so good, be so strong in science, technology, military, be so rich in terms of its big houses and bright cities to have something so ugly? It must be the black people themselves causing trouble.But then these are students who have more free time to look into these things, I suspect most chinese don't care about this at all and would even be surprised that black people face problems in America, since they are so often represented in the media via basketball, Hollywood, and not to mention the President is black. But then that is exactly what the US media tries to portray, an egalitarian, well represented society that is actually full of inequalities - these things become more and more clear the moment you step out of the states.

Between Jews & African-Americans, who has suffered more historically?

Aside from the fact that there are some people who are both Black and Jewish, this question is in very poor taste. Both the African American and Jewish communities have been persecuted and mistreated as minority groups. Both groups have a common cause of fighting for greater civil liberties, inclusion, tolerance, etc. The persecution of the different groups has been different in different time periods and places, but both groups can agree that it is not acceptable for governments to discriminate against minority groups and that society at large should be more tolerant and inclusive of those who are different than the majority; both can agree that white supremacists, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other hate groups (which often hate both Blacks and Jews) are scum. Questions like this pit both groups against each other to no sensible purpose (except, perhaps, to weaken the shared cause of fighting for greater tolerance).

Why didn't the persecution of black people stop after the American Civil War?

Think about it. The South depended on slavery for their livelihood, and without it would be the collapse of their entire economy. Especially for the planters. A good majority of people in the south did not have slaves- either they could not afford them, or deep down didn’t believe in the institution. So the laws existed to keep the blacks illiterate and therefor dependent on the white man.When the South were defeated and slaves were freed, what was going to happen to all those freed slaves? Uneducated, no where to go, no one to hire you, no idea how to live. Many of them stayed on the land still dependent on their former masters to work the land. Give a job to a black man? What about the poor southern white man? How can you do that. Who would buy from a black man.What would you do? How do you think a beaten Confederate soldier would treat you?OK, the slaves could head north. Many of the northerners were not that much better in treating the ex-slaves as the south. There was nothing in place to handle hundreds of thousands of freed slaves. Many camped in areas in Washington DC, hoping the White House had the answer. Many northerners had never had dealings with a black person before.Then there was Reconstruction. Total joke. President Johnson, a southern, was by and large believed in the Union, but he was no match for the power of the Southern Democrats. Early ideas of slowly integrating into society was stopped. It took over 100 years before Civil Rights was born.That’s why there are problems today.

Why do some white Americans act like they are a persecuted minority?

Because this is far easier than acknowledging the truth—-that white supremacist violence and domination played an integral part in building the modern world, and this makes most white people participants in racist processes and institutions.Racism, contrary to popular belief, is not just about attitudes. It is about actions, and how deliberate choices made by white people over time have accumulated through history to build a global network of violent institutions.So although this does not make all white people “bad” or “inherently” racist, but it makes most white people complicit.It is much easier for white people to play victim than to take responsibility for their privilege and complicity as beneficiaries of racism.This, ironically, is why you’ll find so many white people sneering at non-whites who make legitimate complaints about racism. They will reduce even the most well-substantiated arguments about racism with the accusation that people of color are just “playing the victim”.But, really, this tendency is a classic example of psychological projection.This psychological defense mechanism notwithstanding, white supremacist racism is not primarily about ideas and attitudes. It is about actions. Racism has historically been a conscious choice. It was a conscious choice, for instance, for the white men who established the constitution to codify the enslavement of African people, to disenfranchize women and non-whites and most people without property. And, it was a conscious choice of the white people after the framers to uphold racist policies, practices and institutions. And, it is the conscious choice of white people today to aid or stand in the way of efforts to dismantle white supremacy.Racism is the not faulty thinking of a few bad apples. It is upheld by our choices. Some people to choose to be visible champions of white supremacy. Some people choose to be passive beneficiaries of white supremacy. Many white people use victimhood so they never have to be introspective about how they participate in the problem—-and might yet participate in the solution.