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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29743 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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Evidence has emerged that the office of Major of London considers a photo (PDF, page 47) depicting a group consisting of: a man, a woman, a boy and a girl, all of whom are of European ancestry, to not "represent real Londoners".

Looking at the ethnic breakdown of the capital of United Kingdom, showing Europeans (still) account for over 50% of the population, it seems premature to declare media depicting them to be unrepresentative.

But even if the natives were succesfully reduced to a minority, one would expect that they should be overrepresented. This would consistent with the mainstram present narrative around representation. That the fractions of ethnic groups in media shouldn't mirror those of the general population, but since people exhibit racial ingroup bias, minorities would be less happy if they didn't see people who look like them.

Defenders of this branding guide have claimed this has nothing to do with race of the people in the image, but I have to wonder if they would thought so, if a photo depicting what appears to be family of four Pakistanis would be caption as "Doesn't represent real Londoners." in a branding guide of a rigth-wing anti-immigration politician.

Especially in light of darwin's description of working enviroment of advertising companies. He claimed that anti-white jokes were common and that even he made them.

I am no fan of white people and even I think this is not right. There is no way this remark was targeted at any other category in that photo other than white. The photo is not "too perfect" for a stock image, it doesn't seem staged at all. The only good thing from this is that at least the racial animus isn't targeted towards minorities. Hopefully this is a good empathetic lesson for what they historically had to face in the past, and why that was bad and wrong.

  • -15

The lesson that should be learned by whites is to more thoroughly crush your enemies, to stop this kind of thing happening again. We showed, and continue to show, far too much clemency to our subjects. All of this is a result of attempts to uplift, rehabilitate and integrate the conquered, instead of just wiping them out wholesale and replacing them. Can't be accused of being racist if there are no other races in your country.

Can't be accused of being racist if there are no other races in your country.

I’m pretty sure the genocide necessary to achieve this will raise much more vocal and far longer lasting accusations of racism than anything you’re bothered by now. And that’s assuming it’s an even remotely likely possibility, which it thankfully isn’t.

I’m pretty sure the genocide necessary to achieve this will raise much more vocal and far longer lasting accusations of racism than anything you’re bothered by now.

It won't, though. Arabs engaged in quite a bit of slaving against europeans for quite a long time, with all the rape and brutality you could ask for. They also castrated the male slaves, so those male slaves had no descendents. Thanks to that innovation, their centuries of brutality is treated as a curious anecdote, not a crime that echoes down through the centuries and demands restitution.

Thanks to that innovation, their centuries of brutality is treated as a curious anecdote, not a crime that echoes down through the centuries and demands restitution.

Between the following 2 options, which one do you think is more likely to have affected this demand's non-existence?

  1. Arabs castrating their slaves.
  2. Arabs not having a culture that would tolerate people making such a demand, let alone a myriad of others that are related to this line of morality.

Call it premature, but I'm going to take the position that 2 probably matters more than 1.

I disagree. Issues in the present are raised by survivors of the past. Where there are no survivors, there is no one left to care.

The problem is that it's just not true that there are no descendants of Arab slavery in Saudi Arabia.

From Wiki:

Afro-Saudis are Saudi citizens of Black African heritage. Afro-Saudis are the largest Afro-Arab group.[1] They are spread all around the country but are mostly found in the major cities of Saudi Arabia.[2] Afro-Saudis speak Arabic and adhere to Islam.[3] Their origins date back centuries ago to African Muslim migrants settling in Saudi Arabia, and to the Arab slave trade.[4]

There is also this article from refworks. CDHR refers to the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia:

Sources indicate that many black African Saudi nationals are the descendents of slaves (CDHR 9 Jan. 2014; Professor 13 Jan. 2014). Sources note that slavery was not abolished in Saudi Arabia until 1964 (CDHR 9 Jan. 2014; IGA 10 Jan. 2014) [or 1962 (Professor 13 Jan. 2014; The New York Times 10 Apr. 2009)]. The UVM Professor expressed the opinion that racial discrimination generally stems from the history of slavery (13 Jan. 2013). Several sources indicate that the term abeed, meaning "slaves" [or abda "slave" (The Guardian 28 Sept. 2012)], is still being used to describe black Saudi citizens (IGA 10 Jan. 2014; CDHR 9 Jan. 2014a; The Guardian 28 Sept. 2012).

Their origins date back centuries ago to African Muslim migrants settling in Saudi Arabia, and to the Arab slave trade.

Be careful not to interpret a Wikipedia article as saying more than its literal words. Wikipedia editors carefully word the things they say as much as newspaper writers do.

Notice the lack of numbers, or even the lack of "the primary reason their ancestors came is..."? If it doesn't say "a lot of their descent is from slaves", don't read it to mean "a lot".

There is also this article from refworks. ... Sources indicate that many black African Saudi nationals are the descendents of slaves

The word "many", without being quantified, is a sign of someone trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If they had any evidence for "most", they would have said it, so they don't.

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