To wonder why it's so controversial to talk about white behaviour throughout history?

[BeachParty]

It's an interesting discussion to have, and makes you think.
Why do so many immediately go into "how dare you!" mode or "why are you being racist towards white people?!"
Instead of actually listening to what people are saying? History is whitewashed in this country, we usually learn it from a "hero" viewpoint.

“White behaviour” what do you want to debate?! Your rascist beliefs? I hope this thread gets reported too

One thing that I think would make an interesting study is the innate defensiveness of victim groups of their "special" victim status.

I encountered it time and again when doing comparative studies. If I was meeting academics or groups related to victims, as soon as they learned I was comparing and evaluating different events, they went to great pains to tell me that the other events weren't the same, weren't as bad, or even that they didn't happen at all.

So there is a huge amount of othering between victim communities.

Well thanks goodness you're here to inform us all. Do tell us all about it.

Amazing. Another curious naive pseudo racial history enquiry. Go and PM the earlier racist if you want this discussion OP

That's a really interesting article, just had a read so thanks for posting.
Can see why the presenter didn't want to put a money price on the object (kind of feels like it's even more profiting from the slave trade)
Much more valuable (in my opinion) to learn from the history of it instead.

Yes do please OP 🍿

OP you are right to say that there is a problem with children in the English education system being able to drop History (and a number of other humanities) at the end of year 9. It means that the level of communally known history in this country is quite limited. Basically a lot of English people are only really aware of the following atrocities
The slave system in the Roman Empire (and a lot of people spend most of their time talking about how amazing the legions were)
Hitler and the Jewish people
The transatlantic slave trade

they just might know about the Russian pogroms if they are familiar with Fiddler on the Roof, Stalinist and Maoist moral cleansing policies, various conquests of the Jewish people if they have studied the Old Testament. They might also have some very basic knowlege of Vlad the Impaler and Ghengis Khan

Pol Pot, Idi Amin, the Quialong Emperor, Timur the Lame, rarely feature.

But it's not just "white behaviour" is it. Many atrocities have been committed over the centuries by many races .
Funny isn't it that some people are not so vocal about what's happening today, like beheading gay people, stoning women to death for being raped or not wearing a headscarf.
It's not white people doing that is it?

some people have a vested interest in focusing only on atrocities carried out by people of certain backgrounds. So if you're white or if you're Jewish, it's game on basically.

People get defensive. They think you are blaming them personally. Sadly if we don't listen we don't learn. We would not know which things have deeper meaning for other cultures.

Yeah, history was very "white" at school.

Black history month should not be a thing...should be properly integrated.

I guess the article shared is a good example of how behaviour is challenging to categorise as belonging to a specific race.

I always understood the whole point of racism is it being around prejudice + power. I guess this is similar in the sense that all races, religions etc can behave oppressively given the right circumstances but the sphere of who they can oppress might be very different. In the period of transatlantic slavery the prejudice of white Europeans allowed them to see black people as less than human and the military and industrial power they had meant they were able to scale up and globalise a horrible practice already happening in Africa. Without the element of prejudice they might instead have looked to encourage reform along the lines of what was slowly starting to happen in Europe at that time to help give average people more rights/freedoms. Without their power then there would still have been a slave trade but it wouldn’t have been moving vast quantities of people across continents. I don’t think though it has anything to do with “white behaviour”

Well I object to your blatant exclusion of my Country in your above statement. As the syllabus in all of the UK is largely similar in Scotland, Wales, N Ireland. You should really of said the British education system.
See what I did there, we can allege discrimination, racism etc into many things where there was never an intention to offend.

The reality with teaching history is there is a shed load of it. More being created every day. There are only so many teaching hours in a year, throw in all the other subjects, and of course history teachers can only teach a tiny fraction of what is out there.

But white people are not uniform. There is a huge variety of ethnicities with complex national histories. Irish people were victimised during the famine. Poor English people also had bad treatment at many points. I'm afraid it's not as simple as all white people always being some kind of colonising aggressor. The history of the European world is complex.

Yet the nature of colonisation meant that many people were oppressed and dehumanised irrespective of skin colour, for example the Irish

I agree as in black history should be taught all the time too, it shouldn't be separate.
Although I am kind of fence sitting a bit as having a black history month does raise awareness.
I sometimes follow the hashtag on Twitter during Black History month for example and have learnt things I never would have known about without it.
Eg about Juneteenth.
Yes to it being taught more in schools generally as well though.

It’s interesting that you want to talk about past “white behaviour” and not the current “(insert race) behaviour” leading to millions living in slavery today. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

Not seen the other thread
I don't think it's controversial to talk about.
What's controversial is any sense of blaming white people alive now for our ancestors behaviour.
And also not recognising the "different times" and context is a real factor.
It's one thing to look at more recent events like nazi Germany where lots of the world were horrified but they continued. Compared to colonisation where everyone (in the western world) was doing the same thing. People weren't evil. They just lived in a very different context.

Mostly people that can't acknowledge it are just racist though.

Aye but it only counts when Whites are doing it doesn't it
Everything else is conveniently not mernrioned

So OP why are you not as vested in the Oriental parts of the British Empire and all that happened there or do they not provide the platform you are pushing for? They are neither black nor white, perhaps they should have a voice also.

Would you like to discuss the white behaviour of children like this, many lived very miserable existences and were maimed and killed with little regard. 🤔

I phrased it the way I did as I am aware that there is a different system in Scotland that I am not that familiar with.

And I am Welsh so actually think that Edward I was a monster..............

Sorry, why is it not comparable? Or do you only want to consider very recent history?
Even if you do, how can dismiss modern slavery in say UEA or China?
The universal truth seems to be that people in power do crap things to people not in power.

If you look at the sweep of recorded history, it is only 'white' history from about the early modern period and even then if things had gone a bit differently the world might have been dominated by some Indian nation, or an Arab dynasty or the Mongols.

Anyone who thinks white people have some especial cruelty, urge to conquer, enslave, pillage the earth etc just doesn't know anything about history or humanity and doesn't want to.

Similarly if you think history teaching is white then you probably haven't experienced any in the last 30 years.

Pick up a bog standard history of that most white of modern history subjects, WW2 and there'll be chapters on China, Africa, colonialism, racism etc etc.

I don't think anyone, apart from fuckwits like farage is whitewashing anything and to be honest goady reverse racism is pretty tedious too.

I know you meant no offence. What I was highlighting is how easy it is to 'offend' some people where a degree of rationality would show it was a non offensive comment.

It isn't?

It's not behaviour, it's class. You don't think black or Asians oppress their own people and trade/sell people- or is that allowed. Look at who abolished slavery and where it is still going on.

I often think of white privilege when I see children working in the mills or stuck inside a chimney and left to die.