For so many today it seems to be a new understanding. As happens so often when someone absorbs a new idea, they seem to have capacity for only a part of the idea. When mixed with their views of current politics and society, they can be almost one-dimensional in understanding. Yet certain in that understanding. Making it hard to have a discussion, let alone find points of common understanding.
For example, the arrival of Europeans in the Americas had a cataclysmic impact on peoples and cultures in the Americas. Europeans were seeking wealth (gold, silver, spices, and later furs, tobacco, among other things). When people seek wealth, they often are driven by greed. Or, at least, they become greedy. The love of money is the root of all evil…that understanding was written down long before Europeans embarked on expansion to other continents. It is a condition of man. Not all men, of course. But look at history and see.
Europeans arrived not knowing that they carried diseases that would be deadly to the people in the Americas. They inadvertently infected thousands to millions, who had little to no immunity. There were certainly times when some tried to infect people to win a battle or defeat an enemy. Europeans were on the receiving end of that practice when the Mongols lobbed heads/bodies infected with the plague over the walls into fortified cities they were besieging. Historians believe that led to the rapid spread of plague to Europe, which resulted in the death of up to half the population.
Of course, that is no excuse for engaging in it and must not be reactively seen as if it is a justification for later European practices when they occurred.
Europeans arrived to fully established empires of the Aztecs and Incas. Empires….virtually always in human history empires expanded through conquest. In all the years hearing how a few dozen/hundred Spanish defeated the huge, powerful empires, I could never understand how. But then…recently…historians are identifying the native people who allied with the Spanish against their conquerors, the Aztecs and Incas respectively. Along with the devastation caused by diseases, these native peoples rising up against their conquerors helped the Spanish in their astonishing conquests.
Empires in China…Persia…Africa…South America…Central America…India…northern Asia…all occurred without Europeans. All included conquering of other people/tribes/nations. All with violence and devastation.
Of course, that is no excuse for engaging in it and must not be reactively seen as if it is a justification for later European practices when they occurred.
Expansion of peoples/cultures…Bantu expansion in Africa hurt and even devastated people groups who were there first, i.e. Pygmy People, San, Khoi, and others. Han Chinese expansion in East Asia hurt and even devastated people in southern China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and others. When agricultural people expanded, hunter/gatherers inevitably suffered.
Seen in the context of human history, much of what current critical race theory espousers, current Marxists, and indeed many liberal/progressives spout, is at best incomplete. At worst distortions and even lies. Muslims slavers traded for Africans and held them in slavery for centuries before Europeans. Northern Europeans were often captured as slaves from antiquity into the modern world. The Native Americans captured and put on the altars as human sacrifices by other Native Americans, long before the arrival of Europeans, did not fare any better because their enslavers/conquerors were not Europeans.
Again, bad/terrible things are not justified or excused when pointing out the dimension that other people, other “races” did them. It does, however, expose the distortion when the only doers of bad/evil are white/European.
Unless we return to seeing humans as part of one race, then the woke-ites will succeed in driving an even greater return to tribalism. And…again…for black Americans…when in American history have black people prospered or experienced improvements in their conditions? When the truths and stated values of individual rights and liberties are being pushed for and pursued? Or when tribalism is emphasized?
Call out the lies of critical race theory. Call out the illusion of “people of color”, which ultimately makes white people a tribe. And…mark the day…most of those “of color” will leave blacks behind, just like they did in their historic countries. Ask Lebron what Chinese people think of black people. Ask Kamala what Indian people think of dark skin.
Individual rights, freedoms, liberties, dignity, responsibility, accountability. Human race, with some bad apples of every shade, color, ethnicity. But most good. Push for that.
Son of Liberty 2020
amliberty2020@gmail.com