[QUOTE=AlexConnor;47846893]He's so far off I barely know where to start...
The British Empire was never about spreading civilization. You think people would build an empire that covered a quarter of the land on earth and most of its seas in order to spread civilization?!
The British Empire was a trading empire. No one gave a shit about the civilizations of the countries involved so long as they were willing to trade. I mean, sure, there were probably a few misguided self-righteous assholes who justified it as spreading civilization, but misguided self-righteous assholes will be misguided self-righteous assholes. The SJWs of another era, if you like.
The people who actually built the British Empire didn't give a fuck, they were just after trade. Where leaders could be found who were willing to trade with us we'd trade with them, support them in staying in power (because their replacement might not be willing to trade) and otherwise leave them to run their countries as they saw fit, a mutually beneficial arrangement. If they didn't want to trade we'd find a way to get them to trade, or find someone willing to trade and back them taking over power (didn't as a rule make the rookie mistake of outright knocking over a country and setting up a puppet ruler, since this tends to leave at least half the country hating you and a weak puppet will quickly get disposed without long-term support to prop them up).
So yeah, not really defending how Britain treated other countries building its empire, but it was always about trade and never about spreading civilization or some duty to the world BS.
He's also way off saying that British rates of minorities being incarcerated or dying in police custody is anything like the situation in America. What little difference we have in rates of incarceration is easily explained by most immigrants being 1st or 2nd generation in the UK (unlikely to be more than 3rd), as such slightly poorer on average and also more likely to have moved to major cities where the crime rate is higher, meaning they are a bit more likely to get involved with crime than the average for the overall population. That's all, there is no racism involved.[/QUOTE]
For sure it was about trade, but it wasn't "just" about trade. See all the colonies established by the British. The deals the British were securing with minorities were substantially different than the deals the British were securing with, say, the United States. And if you wanna say that racism was created and justified because the British wanted excuses and justifications to economically exploit people I don't think that would be too far off, but at a certain point the racism starts to become a justification in-of-itself.
As for the point about 1st or 2nd generation immigrants - run those numbers and control for race when you crunch the data. You'll find if you are an immigrant from a Western nation you're odds to do well as 1st or 2nd gen, and the likleyhood you'll be incarcerated or die in police custody will depend seriously on if you are white or not.
[QUOTE=AlexConnor;47846893]He's so far off I barely know where to start...
The British Empire was never about spreading civilization. You think people would build an empire that covered a quarter of the land on earth and most of its seas in order to spread civilization?!
[/QUOTE]
I don't know about the British Empire, but in the United States the farce of "spreading civilization" was used during the westward expansion and annexation of the various Central American/Caribbean and Pacific territories.
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/School_Begins_%28Puck_Magazine_1-25-1899%29.jpg/1920px-School_Begins_%28Puck_Magazine_1-25-1899%29.jpg[/t]
Making dosh and getting more power was the ultimate goal, but popular support for "civilizing" the natives played its part as well.
[QUOTE=patq911;47845998][video=youtube;RovF1zsDoeM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM[/video][/QUOTE]
of course white people would make a puppet show about racism
[QUOTE=Flameon;47848000]For sure it was about trade, but it wasn't "just" about trade. See all the colonies established by the British. The deals the British were securing with minorities were substantially different than the deals the British were securing with, say, the United States. And if you wanna say that racism was created and justified because the British wanted excuses and justifications to economically exploit people I don't think that would be too far off, but at a certain point the racism starts to become a justification in-of-itself.[/QUOTE]
No, it never became about racism, wasn't even exploitation for the most part. See, we understood that turning the local population against you makes life [I]much[/I] harder, so generally speaking a fair-ish price was paid for everything. The rewards of establishing a long-lasting trade relationship far exceed pulling off a smash-and-grab that leaves you fighting against rebellions for the next 50 years.
Why do you think we've still got people like the Gurhkas willing to fight in the British armed forces, and good relations with most of our former colonies?
[QUOTE=Flameon;47848000]As for the point about 1st or 2nd generation immigrants - run those numbers and control for race when you crunch the data. You'll find if you are an immigrant from a Western nation you're odds to do well as 1st or 2nd gen, and the likleyhood you'll be incarcerated or die in police custody will depend seriously on if you are white or not.[/QUOTE]
Overall rates of convictions between different races in the UK are very close, not more than 15-30% difference in any category. Like I said, easily explained by minority races being more likely to be recent immigrants and to live in major cities which have higher crime rates, and a long way from the US where rates of incarceration for minorities races can be almost an order of magnitude higher than for whites.
We have so few people die in police custody (avg 15 or so per year) that you can't take meaningful statistics from the numbers involved.
wasn't it statistically proven that China is the most racist country in the world at some point?
[QUOTE=murple;47848465]wasn't it statistically proven that China is the most racist country in the world at some point?[/QUOTE]
people like to think racism as a skin-color thing
asians tend to be pretty racist towards other asians in general, not people with different skin colors
its lightened up a bit in recent times though
its the same all around the world though. sunni and shia groups tend to fucking HATE each other, even though they have similar skin color anyways
hitler killed a lot of white jews
etc
[QUOTE=Saber15;47848251]I don't know about the British Empire, but in the United States the farce of "spreading civilization" was used during the westward expansion and annexation of the various Central American/Caribbean and Pacific territories.
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/School_Begins_%28Puck_Magazine_1-25-1899%29.jpg/1920px-School_Begins_%28Puck_Magazine_1-25-1899%29.jpg[/t]
Making dosh and getting more power was the ultimate goal, but popular support for "civilizing" the natives played its part as well.[/QUOTE]
Well, that's a difference between the British Empire and American attempts at colonisation (so don't pin that on us).
For the most part British colonisation was at the behest of the likes of the massively powerful East India Company, as such it was strictly profit driven and had very little reliance on public opinion. Meaning no need to come up with BS to justify it.
[QUOTE=Jackald;47846596]He's just regurgitating a lot of neocolonial arguments. Why should I feel guilty for the sins of my father? Inherited sin is one of the reasons why racism exists in the first place; e.g. "The Germans bombed us in 1944 therefore I hate Germans, even Germans that weren't even born at the time."[/QUOTE]
Because everyone benefits from their sins. England didn't become one of the most economically-powerful post-colonial nations out of nothing.
If the entire system is supposed to be systematically racist and totally against black people then why are they even allowed into the country in the first place?
[QUOTE=AlexConnor;47848463]No, it never became about racism, wasn't even exploitation for the most part. See, we understood that turning the local population against you makes life [I]much[/I] harder, so generally speaking a fair-ish price was paid for everything. The rewards of establishing a long-lasting trade relationship far exceed pulling off a smash-and-grab that leaves you fighting against rebellions for the next 50 years.
Why do you think we've still got people like the Gurhkas willing to fight in the British armed forces, and good relations with most of our former colonies?
[/quote]
I don't think the presence of a colonized people necessarily means that the offending nation was kind to those. A huge fraction on Blacks and Native Americans join the US army despite centuries (and on-going) violence against them. It also depends on what you mean by good relations - for the most part Western nations make it so you can't "really" have bad relations with them insofar as the economic and political costs are too heavy to bear.
Lets not pretend that people were Hunkey-doory about being under British rule. It wasn't like the British left most colonies on good terms - it basically ever case that I know of they were forced out by rebellion and armed conflict that left hundreds dead (most of them from the British killing them). For example: Egypt, Iraq, India, Cyprus, Bahrain, just to name a few.
[quote]
Overall rates of convictions between different races in the UK are very close, not more than 15-30% difference in any category. Like I said, easily explained by minority races being more likely to be recent immigrants and to live in major cities which have higher crime rates, and a long way from the US where rates of incarceration for minorities races can be almost an order of magnitude higher than for whites.
We have so few people die in police custody (avg 15 or so per year) that you can't take meaningful statistics from the numbers involved.[/QUOTE]
I agree that a per year statistic is lacking sample size, but you could do an aggregate over a period of tme and determine the effect race played. That being said, the numbers are pretty damn low which is something yall should be applauded for.
On the point about overall conviction rates - I dunno man. There is some theoretical support for your hypothesis but I'd be interesting in seeing data which puts it into context. Given the following it seems to me that we should assume (and be right) that it is less a question of being an immigrant and being arrest than being a black immigrant.
[IMG]http://i.gyazo.com/b3df13a328e3b45aa3eda80ea9e288d9.png[/IMG]
In perspective
[IMG]http://i.gyazo.com/ec1a74277b3e0e8c6c42cde3442e20b7.png[/IMG]
[URL="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/219967/stats-race-cjs-2010.pdf"]Data obtained from here
[/URL]
[QUOTE=thisispain;47848972]Because everyone benefits from their sins. England didn't become one of the most economically-powerful post-colonial nations out of nothing.[/QUOTE]
This whole logic is stupid as hell.
Even though personally I did nothing wrong I'm still guilty because I benefit from a position of privilege created by other people. I'm guilty simply because of my identification with a certain group be that "white", "male", "heterosexual", etc. I'm somehow responsible for actions of strangers which I had no control over and who may have died long ago.
Very convenient way of judging every single member of an entire race, gender, culture, nationality, etc. Remind me again how do you call people who judge other people based on their skin color?
[QUOTE=thisispain;47848972]Because everyone benefits from their sins. England didn't become one of the most economically-powerful post-colonial nations out of nothing.[/QUOTE]
So... What? Should the whole country of England willfully downgrade itself to a third-world country to make up for the benefits of colonisation?
If you tell people to feel bad for their ancestors' sins, then don't deride them for claiming their ancestors' achievements as something to feel proud about, either. This road goes both ways.
[editline]1st June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Silly Sil;47851597]This whole logic is stupid as hell.
Even though personally I did nothing wrong I'm still guilty because I benefit from a position of privilege created by other people. I'm guilty simply because of my identification with a certain group be that "white", "male", "heterosexual", etc. I'm somehow responsible for actions of strangers which I had no control over and who may have died long ago.
Very convenient way of judging every single member of an entire race, gender, culture, nationality, etc. Remind me again how do you call people who judge other people based on their skin color?[/QUOTE]
Funniest thing is, it's not like white people didn't opress other white people either. And it's not like Africans did not sell other Africans into slavery. And it's not like Asians did not slaughter eachother in horrific wars all throughout history. Western civilization merely gained an edge in comitting atrocities due to its technological advantage.
I see people share extremist posts from Britain First all the time on facebook. No wonder all you hear from citizens of the UK is "yeah right i went in to the paki shop yeah and he was a right dutty mandem" and it's like :|
[QUOTE=geogzm;47852944]I see people share extremist posts from Britain First all the time on facebook. No wonder all you hear from citizens of the UK is "yeah right i went in to the paki shop yeah and he was a right dutty mandem" and it's like :|[/QUOTE]
Especially ironic if they're using words like 'dutty mandem' since they come from minority dialects of English. A lot of people seem to fail to realise that there's a reason we're White 'British', not White English; the England of today has been a mixing pot of cultures for centuries, almost millennia.
I see a lot of people complaining because net migration is quite high right now, but I really don't know if that will truly have the catastrophic effect on public services which pro-UKIP people often claim it will.
[QUOTE=Shark Cat;47848324]of course white people would make a puppet show about racism[/QUOTE]
Robert Lopez isn't white...
[QUOTE=Complifused;47847885]Trade for starters, not to mention all the 'new' places discovered.
As I said, there were some bad bits.
Empire lead to lots of gains in engineering and the likes so that's another thing to add to the list.[/QUOTE]
You really need to read up on the atrocities the British Empire commited if that's what you think. The British Empire may have been good for trade, but it was also responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people.
[QUOTE=thisispain;47856920]When did I do any of these things in my post? Non-sequiturs out the wazoo -- like I even mentioned heterosexuality or making people feel bad.
No-one's talking about guilt or "downgrading" (whatever that means); what we're talking about is understand the power relationships between each-other as people from different backgrounds and how it affects our civic society and our perspective on civic issues.
I don't care if you're guilty, what I care about is rectifying social ills which affect people who aren't considered "British" even though they've been here for generations. Neither of you are British either so I don't know why you're butting in but okay.[/QUOTE]
You aren't a Brit either, so you're butting into the conversation just as much as we did.
[QUOTE=thisispain;47859424]Actually I was born there, but thanks.[/QUOTE]
My bad. I don't quite know you, and flagdog only shows where you are right now. :v:
British racism is one of the reasons why that's so. A lot of opportunities were denied to my parents even though they were Ph.D. educated and spoke reasonably good English. It's not like I'm bitter about it, but it's extremely difficult for me to deny the existence of something which made me need to leave a country.
If England wants to (and it does) benefit from the labor and resources of immigrants and people in other parts of the world, then the least it can do is be fair-minded towards them. I don't think that's a "down-grade" or telling anyone to feel bad for their "ancestors' sins" but what do I know...
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