51 thoughts on “Are the Chinese racist?”

1. Slavery is not and was not always the same. Let’s not confuse the genocide commonly known as the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade with bondage in Africa. Both were slavery, but only on homogenized and culturally deprived a group of people.
   It is true that while most Asian parents would prefer their child to marry another Asian person of the same culture, is they must marry out of their race; they prefer it to be with a person genetically of European decent. Look around and become fluent in any Asian language and you will find the truth. Don’t just take it from me.

   Meka posted- This (that non-Europeans also dislike different people) is hardly a new phenomenon in the history of mankind, and I do not feel this is somehow “primarily” targeting African descendants in particular.

   I guess that other groups of people were forcefully brought from their homelands to North, Central, South America and the Caribbean to work for free, raped, whipped, tarred and feathered, stripped of their native tongue and culture, segregated against and deprived equal rights of the same magnitude in the most powerful nations in the world. Yep that’s not just an African thing, it happened to everyone else. African has been plundered to the extent that there will be no more gold, diamonds, and other precious minerals by the time our children become elderly.

   The history that I made reference to spanned from 2200 B.C. to present day. Most would think that that is not a narrow view of his-story. In 2200 B.C., I’m sure that there wasn’t a strong European influence on the Middle East. The inhabitants of that area and south were more than likely lacking any resemblance of White Jesus.
   My statement about European nations sharing power and wealth as they seesaw was focusing on modern history after the crusades. Perhaps I should be more specific. From at least 1485 European nations have seesawed in power. Over 500 years seems like a long tome for people and empires.
   Xenophobia- is the fear of other people and their culture. Africans and Africans of the Diaspora have a right to be xenophobic. I didn’t say anything about hate. Just because you fear something doesn’t mean that you hate it. I soiled children in diapers on a plane, but I don’t hate them. Why shouldn’t Africans and Africans of the Diaspora be xenophobic? Look at Haiti. Then again, some people might believe that Haitian pain is self inflicted. Judging by what has happened to Africans and Africans of the Diaspora over the past 500 years because of the greed of others, why should we not be xenophobic?
   Spanish domination started and ended when? What about English?
   Some people continue to judge Africans and Africans of the Diaspora on this issue without being informed on the complexities of Africans and Africans of the Diaspora. Most of us will neither assimilate to your norms nor will we strive to be anything other than what we are and that is for us to decide! We don’t have to be nor should we be expected to be like any other group in order to be suitable for continuing our existence as human beings on this planet.
   The same villains that want us to believe that HIV and Aids started in Africa because some African had sex with both monkeys and Humans are the same villains who arrest us for entering our own homes. They are the same villains that levy heavier penalties for the same crimes committed by others. In every nation where we exist outside of those with us as the majority population, we are disproportionately prosecuted and incarcerated. Now those villains would like us to believe that we are just bad people as a whole and that’s why we fail. I am not subscribing to that. One these days…….

2. Ruel Daniels wrote on the fact that how unique the case of slavery that Europeans brought to West Africans was in its nature when compared to any other previous or later examples.

   I am aware of how touchy both racially and politically this topic is still, and how much had been written and talked about this most recent and best known example of mankind’s horrid crime in the field of dehumanizing others in the name of profit & greed. This greed and callous racism caused (by some estimates) as many as 12-15 million people directly to suffer & die, with many more millions left behind to grieve a loss of a loved one for good. It also robbed generations of people identity, self-image as humans and cultural belonging, until the people themselves gave rise to a totally new culture.

   It seems to insult many to the point of near rage that I suggest here that the case of trans-Atlantic slavery is not unique in the history of slavery. This may not be a very popular belief, especially not when people tend to bring much personal emotions into a topic which is close to their heart. I do think we simply do not FEEL nearly as strongly about the other / earlier cases of slavery as we do about this one for various reasons. The voices of the people who’s families or ancestors the earlier slavery cases touched directly are not here to talk and the memory of mankind is short at best.

   There is a certain amount of tendency among people today to greatly emphasize the past wrongs of the trans-Atlantic slavery – at the expense of expressing little if any sympathy or interest towards other cases of systematic wrong-doing against any other group / any case. It is like “yeah ok they suffered but HEY, it is NOTHING – NOTHING NOTHING when compared to “400 years of slavery”…”. While understandable, this often results in these totally futile discussions where someone brings up a current or ancient case of wrong-doing (be it slavery, racism, whatever), and it is met with the same kind of “I doh care, it is NOTHING compared to…” etc. That is not very progressive.

   One thing to be said about the trans-Atlantic slavery: Technological advances – due to a more organized society and technological advances (mainly weapons and naval affairs), the Europeans were able to bring in a new and terrible efficiency and, to a certain extent, scale to slavery.

   In some of the comments there is a tone and implication of how the slavery touched and affected nearly all African people. Some speak of complete genocide of the Black race. I feel actually this is not quite realistic or accurate, even if the numbers are very large indeed and I do not want to downplay the amounts of people who suffered. Slave-capture concentrated on certain areas and affected some tribes heavily, while others did not feel this at all. Africa is a HUGE place, keep in mind..

   In any case, some seem to have taken deep offense and seem to strongly feel that I am belittling the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slavery and the suffering it brought. ??? Please read the messages I have written, do not just read a few words and jump in with anger!! This is absolutely not – I repeat, NOT – the case I am making here.

   I do feel though that many others, simply out of not having much interest or knowledge of the topic, do actually tend to casually and blatantly belittle other cases of slavery and the suffering it caused without giving it a second thought. Why?

   Maybe because we are taught less of these cases which happened so long ago, and it is often emphasized time and time again to us how it was the “400 years” case that defines slavery and its suffering. It is maybe natural – we live this day, this time, the trends of today, and emphasizing trans-Atlantic slavery & the suffering it caused above all else (at the cost of all else even) is very much a sign of times, or so it sometimes seems. Certainly it is only just for us to remember always and regret this hideous wrong-doing of fellow man in the relatively recent past, but lets not allow this to fill us up 100%, to make us so callous, biased and incapable of recognizing other cases that have indeed been just as incredibly disgusting – or even the fact that some people still today live the nightmare. I repeat – No group, no nationality, no race has exclusive rights to slavery, racism or human suffering. To claim otherwise is, to me at least, racist.

   Dear Neal, please do learn to write my name, I’d greatly appreciate that. It is a simple four-letter name (M-I-K-A) that is not difficult to write or remember. I also hope we can agree to disagree without you feeling the need to hurl insults at me and others. What do you think you gain in these discussions by making slanderous remarks and labelling other writers as “misguided” or “naive”, and what makes you think it necessary to behave so in the first place? It makes the discussion that much less interesting.

   At least I personally never thought Obama won because all citizens of United Stated had somehow forgotten racial bigotry and become somehow better in a flash. Thank you for sharing that you have been in Africa. I have too, on several occasions – but I still do think your comments about African people are quite insulting and self-elevating, if not slightly pompous in nature. In your last statement you compare them to children and yourself to a parent in your wisdom…I hold my many African friends in much higher respect and cannot say that I would personally have any views that are so above theirs as you seem to think your views and understanding of the world is. A bite out of the humble pie would not hurt.

   Neal: “…Eurocentric CNN, Fox 5, CBC , and BBC cannot always capture .”

   Curiously none of these mentioned TV-stations are actually “Eurocentric”: CNN, Fox, CBC are heavily US-biased in their views, and BBC is UK-centric (and UK is hardly the same as “Europe” and BBC is *very* UK-centric). Reminds me when my Bro-in-Law’s American girlfriend said she don’t want him to watch these “eurocrap news from CNN that are soooo anti-American” – He was so very embarrassed when he had to inform her “Honey, CNN is actually AMERICAN TV station…”. Live and learn. 

3. I understand Hip-Hop and how global an art form is. I wonder if any of the other contestants decided to rap? I wonder why Lou Jing decided she should be a rapper.
   It’s terrible what her father did, but it’s also terrible that her mother cannot equip her with the tools that would allow her to be herself rather than subscribe to some concept of who she should be.
   I’m not trying to attack Lou Jing. I just want to point out some things that I am alarmed by. Her rap, makeup, hairstyle, outlook on life, and her self image are some things I’d like to know more about. What kind of hair products does she use? Is there any other reason that she raps other than the fact that hip-hop is popular? Why couldn’t she be a “rocker”, or “Country/ folk” singer?
   It’s not all that important I do admit. Then again, how she self identifies could tell us something about the society that she lives in.

4. Mika Jannsens numbers underestimate the number of Africans taken in the slave trade in Africans to the new world. The entire coast of West Africa from present day Mauritania to the coast of Southern Congo was denuded of people for up to 100 miles inland. That is a coastline about 1500 miles long, by 100 miles. It was at the time, the most densely populated region. If you remove by force, the population of a region for 150,000 square miles, and you estimate about three hundred people per square mile you may have a more accurate figure. In addition, some slave coffles took three months to reach the west coast, which indicated raids in central Africa. The east coast in the region of Madagascar also suffered from slavery.

   The Igbo novelist Chinua Achebe, in his novel Arrow Of God, has a young bride promise that she will not pass a particular intersection of the road, where some sacred symbols were buried by the village priest, “Not even if the slave raiders of Abam came to steal us in the middle of the night”. The area where his novel is based is the Igbo region of South Central Nigeria, hundreds of miles inland.The fact that the Congo river is quite navigable for almost a thousand miles below Kisangani indicates the possibility of slave raiders going up-river to capture people far from the de-populated “slave coast”.

   Estimates by African scholars of the trade in Humans are, that twenty million were thrown overboard in the Atlantic.It was, and remains, the most dastardly act or series of acts in the history of mankind. No amount of underestimation, no amount of others did it also, no amount of they sold their bretheren talk will excuse what happened.
   Now, a parallel. The people of Bolivia make coca-leaf tea and drink it daily. It insulates them aginst the cold of that high plateau where they live. The City of La Paz is 12000 feet above sea level.
   Others got hold of the coca-leaf, extracted cocaine from it, and created the world’s most profitable trade at the moment.Now major farms grow coca for cocaine. Do you blame the Aymara people for drinking a tea made of coca-leaf, for the international trade in cocaine from South America to North America and Europe?Blame the profiteers, and market greed.
   I hope those apologists for infamy see my point.

5. I really do not want to argue about the origins of certain news outlets, but I must say that U.S. media is majority White owned and provides stories from a white perspective from within the U.S. contrary to popular belief, White/European Americans did not just spring up out of the soil now known as the United States of America. These people are European. Their control of these major news networks makes the networks European. Basically, if it doesn’t come from a reservation, it’s probably not American technically speaking of course.

   Genocide- systematic destruction of a racial or cultural group. Racially speaking, Africans of the Diaspora are still present. However, culturally it is clear that genocide has been committed.

   Culture- the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another. Clearly this is what Africans of the Diaspora lost in the trans Atlantic slave trade. Hebrews kept their culture. There is clearly a difference and how that impacted the two enslaved groups.
   I am under the impression that Africans didn’t like being enslaved, homogenized, segregated, and treated as second class citizens by Europeans. That being a given, I will also tell you that any other racial group trying to step in as massa will bet met with an unstoppable force. The audacity of some to treat us like less when it was our leaders that fought for their right to be seen as human beings. Never again! My opinion won’t change and I’m not alone.
   Xenophobia as commonly defined was not the word that I should have used only because it is fear and hate. I believe that Africans and Africans of the Diaspora should not trust anyone and make any outside group prove itself before dealing with them because of history.

6. Thanks Curtis , for enlightening Mika as to what Eurocentricity really entails. The next thing you know I would be forced to explain in detail what ‘dominant majority’ as opposed to ‘minority’ means as played out in big brother Norte Americana, and Continental Europe.
   Mika /Meka what exactly am I to make of you, and why this obsessions about a name? I could care less about mine as it belonged to some demonic Irish slave owning criminal perhaps , and as cousin Shakespeare once said, “what’s in a name ?”
   My reason for putting forth the example of my conversation with the simple minded illiterate Polish American was to show that I am prepared to tolerate and even humor such a misguided soul , but not one like yourself that I believed finished high school, and saw most of the foreign world including Africa.
   So you think that I am demeaning , and actually was comparing Africans to children, yes? Let me see , 800,000 Rwandans murdered by their brothers and the Belgians are responsible. Southern Nigerians have to steal gas for fuel , while the country today tries to get back 500million that Muslim General Abacha an ex President stole, and place in his Swiss account after only 5 years in office. The AU cannot agree to condemn genital mutilation for girls ,and led by non democratic Nigeria ,only cares to intervene in oil and diamond rich neighboring countries.Child soldiers are the norm through out the entire region. It is thanks to the efforts of self seeking opportunist such as Madona, Angela Jolie , Buno and George Cloney , that the majority outside of that continent get to fully appreciate the real state of social , and political realities as far as neglect of women , children ,and ethnic minorities , and the ghastly situations of poverty stricken lower classes.
   Now we do not want to insult children in making such a comparison Mika, do we?
   Don’t get it twisted Mika , one should never be an apologist for despicable behavior and uncaring leaders , but at the same time the hand of greedy Europeans and their numerous enabling fellow counterparts from Asia , and Middle East etc that stole , raped and still misuse Africa to their own ends – must be held to the fire.
   Regards.
   I hope that you are not one of these liberal Western types like the Oprahs of the world that feel visting the suburbs of Capetown , or Pretoria to drink tea , play gulf , and reminisce with a few nuvo rich Africans and millionaire whites ,translates to being in Africa. You’ve got to hide your Yankee passport ,and pull out your T&T national / Commonwealth one instead my friend ,jump on a bus so as to deal with a few over zealous border officials as you explore .

7. I am really wondering where some people are getting their facts from, because they seem a bit contradictory with many other sources. In any case it is obvious that the idea that Trans-Atlantic slavery was and is a totally & completely unique thing in mankind’s history is a concept widely shared by writers here.

   Similarly some comments by a few writers regarding the history and people of other nations and areas show a clear and strongly biased Afro-American centricity I feel. It would not hurt some to try and seek a more broad views on the world.

   Curtis: “I guess that other groups of people were forcefully brought from their homelands to North, Central, South America and the Caribbean to work for free, raped, whipped, tarred and feathered, stripped of their native tongue and culture, segregated against and deprived equal rights of the same magnitude in the most powerful nations in the world.”

   Guess what Curtis? During mankinds history similar things have happened to many “tribes” or nations. No, they were not brought to North America and the Caribbean. But yes, some were simply killed and their lands occupied, while others were forcefully moved thousands of kilometers from their origins and used as labour or other. Please study mankind’s history with an open mind which is not pre-blocked by a presumption of knowing how it is already.

   Curtis: “In 2200 B.C., I’m sure that there wasn’t a strong European influence on the Middle East. The inhabitants of that area and south were more than likely lacking any resemblance of White Jesus.”

   I already agreed with you on this matter, and keep wondering why you insist on bringing this up as it seems not very related to the topics. “White” (meaning blue-eyed, blonde-haired) Jesus is a thing of medieval times and “localization” done by European artists of the time.

   Xenophobia – The Collings dictionary defines the term as this (xenophobia (,zɛnə’fəʊbɪə) n hatred or fear of foreigners or strangers or of their politics or culture. ► ‘xeno”phobic adj). No you did not say anything about hate – I did, as it is a part of the definition.

   Curtis: “Africans and Africans of the Diaspora have a right to be xenophobic.”

   Yes – and xenophobia is a GLOBAL phenomena deeply rooted in mankind’s history of wars, occupation, slavery & violence. Again, no race has exclusive rights to xanophobia because it is a common, shared tendency amongst mankind (including Africans). YOU may feel some group of people have a better reason to be xenophobic – someone else would see it differently.

   Curtis: “Some people continue to judge Africans and Africans of the Diaspora on this issue without being informed on the complexities of Africans and Africans of the Diaspora. Most of us will neither assimilate to your norms nor will we strive to be anything other than what we are and that is for us to decide!”

   Here you start to go to the views of “it’s US against THEM” setup. I do not mean to mock but it is reminiscent of the US Fox news paranoia propaganda after 2001 – message was “America is at war – it is US against THE REST”. I just do not think this is a progressive view, but a segregational one which will not get anyone anywhere. “Your norms” – whose norms, mine? Or whose?

   “Some people” continue to judge Asians. Some judge Africans. Some judge West Indians. Some Europeans. So what? Neal told us African are like chilren, and I thought he was being offensive. Some people will continue to judge me, but I don’t really care because I go on with my life as best as I can.

   Yes, since the end of 15th century European nations slowly established a powerful domination of the world which lasted until 2nd WW – after this it was clearly the USA that took the lead, and now this lead seems coming to an end. But 500 years is but a fleeing glimpse in the history of mankind.

   Aids, penalties – I do not know anything about that or villains who promote whatever views in this matter.

   Linda Evans wrote: “Mika Jannsens numbers underestimate the number of Africans taken in the slave trade in Africans to the new world.”

   This is quite possible, I can only refer to sources available (and I doubt anyone has a definitive answer on this matter). Wikipedia states: “A database compiled in the late 1990s put the figure for the Transatlantic Slave Trade at more than 11 million people. Estimates as high as 50 million have been floated. For a long time an accepted figure was 15 million, although this has in recent years been revised down. Most historians now agree that at least 12 million slaves left the continent between the fifteenth and nineteenth century, but 10 to 20% died on board ships.” Other sources variably quote similar figures.

   Linda Evans: “The entire coast of West Africa from present day Mauritania to the coast of Southern Congo was denuded of people for up to 100 miles inland. That is a coastline about 1500 miles long, by 100 miles. ”

   African history I have read does not support this claim, as many coastal cities existed (and were not populated by whites only). Sure, these coastal cities were trade posts where trade, including slave trade, took place. But I do not think it is accurate to say that the whole coast was denuded of native inhabitants, I’d check this again. On the other hand there’s absolutely no doubt that slave capturing raiders, both African and European, made their way sometimes hundreds if not thousands of miles inland.

   Linda Evans: “Estimates by African scholars of the trade in Humans are, that twenty million were thrown overboard in the Atlantic.”

   This makes little economic sense, and we do have to remember that slave trade WAS motivated by economics – not racial hatred. The objective was to make money with slaves, not kill them for the fun of it. So traders horribly jam-packed their ships with human cargo, but they also wanted to get as many across as possible alive to earn money.

   Linda Evans: “It was, and remains, the most dastardly act or series of acts in the history of mankind. No amount of underestimation, no amount of others did it also, no amount of they sold their bretheren talk will excuse what happened.”

   Of course it was hideous. I do not excuse this part of human history, nor do I underestimate this as seems to be suggested. But I do think there is a tendency for people to raise a certain cause or event as “THE number one most horrible thing, above all else” – and depending on the person’s background, nationality, education, ethnicity the answers to this vary. I agree, trans-Atlantic slavery is a hideous thing of the past.

   I do not see the need to emphasize that is was THE MOST hideous thing – nor any other event of human history. How do you rank horrors of human history into top-10? What purpose does that serve? I think it is all quite macabre. ALL of it is horrendous.

   Curtis said: “I really do not want to argue about the origins of certain news outlets, but I must say that U.S. media is majority White owned and provides stories from a white perspective from within the U.S. contrary to popular belief, White/European Americans did not just spring up out of the soil now known as the United States of America. These people are European. Their control of these major news networks makes the networks European.”

   Aahhh, so all white people, regardless of where they live, are European? Ok, so white = European. Does Black = African? I disagree. I think this kind of thinking not only shows race-centricity in thinking, but also simplifies things. So even if a white child would be adopted by say a tribal family in New Guinea, brought up all his / her life with no touch with Europe, you’d take one look at him / her and state that his/her views are “Eurocentric”? Are we as human beings nothing else but what the colour of our skin dictates? I disagree and as said, I think you simplify complex things. American news views differ significantly from those of Europe – and even different European nation’s newsview differ from each other significantly. Do not generalize so much.

   Curtis: “Racially speaking, Africans of the Diaspora are still present. However, culturally it is clear that genocide has been committed…Clearly this is what Africans of the Diaspora lost in the trans Atlantic slave trade.”

   The multitude of African cultures survived slavery and even the colonialization within Africa, unless you think present day Africa is void of original culture? The slaves lost all/much of their culture (and this varies within the nations where African slaves came to), but this is not the whole story since many people were left behind in Africa.

   Curtis: “I am under the impression that Africans didn’t like being enslaved, homogenized, segregated, and treated as second class citizens by Europeans.”

   C’mon, I think this is a no-brainer. Nobody has willingly given up their human rights, I think? You’ll get no disagreement from me here. But what point did you think you are bringing to the discussion with this comment?

   Curtis: “That being a given, I will also tell you that any other racial group trying to step in as massa will bet met with an unstoppable force. The audacity of some to treat us like less when it was our leaders that fought for their right to be seen as human beings. Never again!”

   As long as we (and this includes YOU) keep separating human beings by their race or nationality, there will be conflicts of such nature. Statements like “unstoppable force” seem very dramatic and war-like. Can’t we all just get along? haven’t we learned where aggression leads to? Why do we keep looking for an enemy to hate? Who has oppressed you recently in your life so that you feel the need to become so belligerent? I thought we were all defending tolerance and peace.

   Neal wrote: “Mika /Meka what exactly am I to make of you, and why this obsessions about a name?”

   Where I come from ad how I was taught at home, it is considered quite poor manners if one constantly calls someone by wrong name despite of knowing better. That shows a lack of respect and a contemtuous attitude towards a fellow human.

   Neal: “My reason for putting forth the example of my conversation with the simple minded illiterate Polish American was to show that I am prepared to tolerate and even humor such a misguided soul , but not one like yourself that I believed finished high school, and saw most of the foreign world including Africa.”

   Thank you for your gracious tolerance. Your comments carry a deep & loud underlying message of personal superiority. Perhaps you do not notice this, but the constant remarks referring to others in a demeaning way appear rather pompous and make me wonder why a grown man (?) would feel the need to boost his own ego in such a primitive way.

   Neal: “Let me see , 800,000 Rwandans murdered by their brothers and the Belgians are responsible.”

   This simply defies any logic. So those yielding weapons bear no responsibility for their actions? Interesting but perverted view of justice. Oh, maybe I forgot – these “children” cannot be held accountable for their actions, right. Amazing.

   When do people stop blaming others for the problems & behavior they, their nations, their families have or suffer from – and actually start thinking that they are in charge of their own lives? How progressive is it to take or accept no responsibility for things and always blame either some historical injustice or some elusive force for everything? This may be politics of convenience, but will it actually ever change or achieve anything?

   Africans are not children just as West Indians are not children, nor the Europeans or Asians. We are people. In the past many have blamed the Europeans / Whites for all wrong-doings in the world and why their country for example is experiencing problems. Now as the balance of power is shifting in the world, some start pointing the finger at Asians and saying how they act just like “the whites”. Whoever is in power is to be blamed, and this is all very convenient.

   African leaders, however educated, have not managed to do a fantastic job in managing their countries and we are yet to see a politically powerful African nation arise. This doesn’t make it right for an arrogant West Indian (or anyone) to dismiss the 1 billion people living on the continent as “children” who need not take responsibility for their actions because “it is the evil forces of Eurocentric world” (or now Asian) who cause all bad there. As long as this kind of thinking is widespread, I see no change towards positive. Why change? None of the bad is our fault, after all.

   Sure, economically more powerful nations try their best to exploit other nations mercilessly. And yet still we see a change in the power – amazing, isn’t it? Some countries progress and go forward, others do not. How is this possible? Some of you would no doubt answer that it is because for example Asians have it easier, or that there is an international conspiracy to keep the people of African diaspora poor. What a load of nonsense. I just spoke about this this morning with my Jamaican neighbour who is a doctor and she laughed, saying “some will always take the easy route”. believe what you will, but such beliefs will get us nowhere. Its just the same old same old.

8. Mika, even fifth graders in Houston, Texas, where I live, know that Wikipedia is an unreliable source.They outsource their data gathering and you or Curtis or Neal could put in a citation and they would treat it as true. There are more definitive sources of info. Please search for them. I have stopped directing people who pontificate, as to where to find stuff.

   It is true that much African history was “written” by Europeans with their own biases. Please look up two maps. Mercator’s projection of the world, and Peter’s projection. Now Peter’s is the accurate one, yet forty years after Peters map was put out, Mercator’s still dominates European based books. Why? Mercators makes it look like there is more land in Europe and North MAerica, that Africa and India. Check the area of them and do some addition, you will be surprised.

9. Mika said ,”Aahhh, so all white people, regardless of where they live, are European? Ok, so white = European. Does Black = African?”
   I knew that there was hope for you, and that finally come around to reality as you did in this ah ha moment Mika.
   Again, ” A cat born in an oven is not a bread.” The ultra racist white Apartheid descendent still in control of South Africa , the Germans and Russians that control the spoils of the Middle East via the state of Israel , white North Americans that colonize , and stole the land from the red indians ,along with their ancestors that pretend to hate the monarchy and the EU , no matter how long they reside any part of the globe , are still Europeans. Africans that were brought as slaves to build the Americas, and and whose blood in the Caribbean help make Europe into a power house , are Africans – even if their own misguided and often lost African born brothers might not fully accept them as such, or some like you,Tiger Woods, your brother in law, or the yuppy Yardee doctor neighbor think otherwise.
   To think however that after all I’ve written at great length, Mika still choose to conclude that I hate Africans, and that I implied by my Rwanda genocide and other examples that they should not own up to their responsibilities.
   Perhaps Mika has been abroad and hanging out too long with Eurocentric Jamaican doctors,listened to too much Fox USA news , or most likely, fell for the crap her Brother-in -law Yankee phony girlfriend fed her about hating CNN anti Americanism. I have no idea which CNN she is watching. If any of these complicit media hound executives and editors were doing their jobs Mika the Texan/ Yaley fratboy would not have lured them into these two un-winnable wars. Now you or your Brother in law develop should try and develop some guts so as to make such a suggestion to his girlfriend and see how long she’ll stick around.
   Even a Las Lomas, or South Bronx high school drop out would be able to decipher what a few progressive are trying to do with basic English 101. I am beginning to have my doubts about you now Mika , and is tempted to throw in the towel and join Ms. L in saying that I too am revolted by folks who enjoy pontificating.
   My comments carries a tinge of underlying superiority ? Which planet did Mika really came from, to think that I a red blooded Trini, can ever conjure up the courage to attempt to feel superior to a real Africans? Now I know that the only Africans you are acquainted with are the Kenyans you observe on sports channel running and winning marathons across the globe.
   Ah this feels good .
   Thanks Mika you just saved me a future therapist visit. A little writing is surely good for the soul. Catharsis indeed! It does not hurt to be a Trini as well, for who not only invented steel pan , but ‘pekong’ as well?

10. Linda wrote about the differences in map projections. Mercator has not been widely used for decades now (??) and the current best compromise as per many cartographer’s opinion is the Winkel tripel projection, not the Gall-Peters one which is also just another distorted compromise. No other map has been more used politically than Gall-Peters, and the advocated specifically choose mercator’s 500 years old navigational purpose map specifically for the purpose of their arguments. Yes, Africa is ahuge place – I remember when my boss asked me to pop over to Casablanca,Morocco when I was visiting Cairo. He failed to understand that it was a 8 hrs flight, almost 4,000 Km distance!

    African history was largely written by europeans, but luckily there are fascinating discoveries made in reasearch done for example in the library of university of Timbuktu (Timbuktu is an amazing place!!!). The old transcripts reveal fantastic facts, and the work continues.

    Wikipedia has its weaknesses, but to write here all the sources of encyclopedias, research papers, web-based info would be tedious. And yes wiki people do try and verify the entries as best as they can, so it is by far not the worst source of information. In any case despite of how many scholars calculate and estimate how many people were taken into trans-Atilantic slavery, I doubt any of us will ever find out the truth. Suffice to say when talking of more than 10 million people’s sufferings, it is safe to refer to a vast amount.

    Neal, your scribblings appear often quite confusing and come from a viewpoint deeply locked in what I’d call racially segregative thinking, suspicion and self-righteousness. I do not condone such thinking, nor the extremely broad generalizations and presumptions you continuously make. I think I will pass, and instead go inspect my cooking, family is hungry. It’s shark n’ bake, bake n’ shark time here 🙂

    Greetings to Houston Linda! It’s been a long time since I visited Texas (or United States for that matter).

11. This is getting too much. Bake and shark Mika , who are you trying to impress and or fool again ? Where did you learn to cook that ,from one of Naipaul’s best selling cookbooks, or the Wikipedia dictionary of global cuisines?
    A word of caution is in order good lady. Better than you have tried to do cyber jousting via this forum and tried to test the historical knowledge of Ms L , and have been found wanting, as she ate them up like a hungry Bocas Barracuda ,or better yet Pirañas from your homeland Berbice Guyana.
    We have an old expression in my country that says ” monkey knows which tree to climb,”or as that equally phony Jamaican doctor neighbor of your might recall , Duppy know ah who fhe frighten. ” Be warned. Ask her when was the last time she risked her life to go home on a vacation and stay in Tivalle , Trenchtown or similar Kingston ghettos that produced Ben Johnsonlike ‘great runners,’ and classless, self serving musicians.
    By the way, whether you or any other agree with my thinking is totally irrelevant as I do not need any validation, or love by any in or out of my country , to feel like I too am a human being.
    You saw what self loathing , an ingrain inferiority complex , and unwarranted overriding respect for ‘the other,’ did to millionaire self haters such as the King of Pop and numerous unmentionable others.
    Make sure it’s shark you are getting from the Korean fish market ,and not disgusting Southern Catfish.
    Talk about gullibility as manifested by the naive. Who it is that said ” A mind is a terrible thing to waste?” Thanks to Wiki , Miki and I can still be informed.

12. In Mercator’s and other projections that follow that pattern, Greenland is portrayed as the same size as Africa.In fact Africa is 11.6 million square miles, Greenland is 0.8 million square miles. The Homolosine projection created in 1923, includes parts of Antartica, but follows Mercator in exaggerating the size of Europe, and South America seems almost as large as Africa, The Hobo-Dyer proection, which shows the world upside down, there being no real reason why the so-called Northern hemisphere should be at the top is closer to Peter’s projection and has the equator truly in the middle of the map. Steve Waterman’s equal area butterfly map 2006, shows a more accurate size projection of land masses with the South American land mass being about equal to North America, minus Greenland.”the azimuthal map by Guelke -2005- centers the world in Chicago, and portrays it all as one flat side of a globe. This has interest only to the people in Chicago” Peter. The Winkel Tripel, invented in 1921, is the one used by the National Geographic Society, but sizes are not given, so an amateur cartographer, still sees Mercator’s as the “real” world map, and Peter’s as an abberation. In fact Peter’s is carefully researched.was funded partially by the UN and shows the errors of the other projections quite clearly. The racist assumptions of Europeans who created the Mercator map still has to be challenged constantly. People are comfortable with their biases, as my friend Dr. S. Gift of UWI realizes. People know Einstien was wrong, but it would mean rewriting a lot of books. My Peter’s map is a 45″by 36 ” with all the other projections with comments at the bottom of his map. Go figure.I would strongly suggest that those who would argue with me on this issue, go buy a Peters map and study it first.Arno Peters is a German cartographer, whose work, acording to a UN rep commenting on the value of the projection, says it ” provides a helpful correctoion to the distortions of previous maps.”

13. Mika posted: Guess what Curtis? During mankinds history similar things have happened to many “tribes” or nations. No, they were not brought to North America and the Caribbean. But yes, some were simply killed and their lands occupied, while others were forcefully moved thousands of kilometers from their origins and used as labour or other. Please study mankind’s history with an open mind which is not pre-blocked by a presumption of knowing how it is already.

    You are leaving an important aspect and that would be race based oppression. That is what separates the other events in history. We all know that Anglos fought Saxons and the two of them may have picked on the Celts. Sure the Vikings and the Romans didn’t get along and so on and so on. That is something completely different than race based oppression. Please stop trying to generalize history to fit your world view. None of us are buying what your selling.

    Look again at history before you place judgment on who started the “Us against them” mentality. Besides Africans, it is clear according to history that Native Americans, and everyone else would have been better served to have had an “Us against them” mentality when dealing with Europeans. Would you not agree to that Mika? I didn’t start “us against them no more than “Toby” I mean Kunta Kintay, Shaka Zulu, or even more recently Rodney King for that matter.

    Mika stated -Yes, since the end of 15th century European nations slowly established a powerful domination of the world which lasted until 2nd WW – after this it was clearly the USA that took the lead, and now this lead seems coming to an end. But 500 years is but a fleeing glimpse in the history of mankind.

    Someone is still confused on the identity of the United States. It is a country started by Europeans with Eurocentric philosophies, laws, etc… The main religion practiced there is from a Eurocentric view. The most common language spoken is European. The currency has always been European even before the U.S. Dollar. There is no way of getting around it, The United States, and Canada may not be physically in Europe, but they are definitely Eurocentric, and European inspired. There is more to being a country other than geography. Do you really believe that the U.S. would have sought to fight against the Nazi’s had there been no threat to England? Most U.S. citizens at the time had family members that were citizens of England.

    Wikipedia may be popular with students, but has absolutely no credibility with scholars. I have often times made the same mistake in my haste to prove a point. Anyone can submit any information to Wikipedia regardless of how reliable it is.

    Mika said: Aahhh, so all white people, regardless of where they live, are European? Ok, so white = European. Does Black = African? I disagree. I think this kind of thinking not only shows race-centricity in thinking, but also simplifies things. So even if a white child would be adopted by say a tribal family in New Guinea, brought up all his / her life with no touch with Europe, you’d take one look at him / her and state that his/her views are “Eurocentric”? Are we as human beings nothing else but what the colour of our skin dictates? I disagree and as said, I think you simplify complex things. American news views differ significantly from those of Europe – and even different European nation’s newsview differ from each other significantly. Do not generalize so much.
    Just because people migrate to other nations doesn’t mean that they become a different race of people. They become a different nationality, but not race. The terms White and Black when used to describe people are generalizations to classify members of racial groups. That is why I use the term European, African, Asian, and Native American. I do not wish to generalize people like the beneficiaries of colonization. I understand the English language and the negative/ positive connotations that are applied to the words Black and White and how they were/ are used to either elevate or depreciate a person’s status in society. Would you like me to call Native Americans Redskins, or Indians? Should an East Asian be referred to as a color because someone is too lazy or ignorant o acknowledge that persons culture?

    In the United States there are Italian neighborhoods and Irish neighborhoods where the last immigrant from either of the two countries was decades ago. I dare you to tell member of either neighborhood that they are not Irish or Italian because they have never lived there. Do you think you could convince a Indian here in TNT that they are not Indian because they have never been to India?

    Mika stated- The multitude of African cultures survived slavery and even the colonialization within Africa, unless you think present day Africa is void of original culture? The slaves lost all/much of their culture (and this varies within the nations where African slaves came to), but this is not the whole story since many people were left behind in Africa

    Note that I posted Africans of the Diaspora speaking of those in every region of the world outside of Africa. There are remnants, bits, pieces, and coincidences that are present, but the actual cultures are not intact because of the type of slavery that happened. Families were divided. Individuals from different cultural groups were split and divided and in many cases forced to create offspring that were not allowed to be taught the culture of either parent. They had to accept their place in the dominant culture. You’re not making sense or do not fully comprehend what has been stated. Allow me to simplify for you. The majority if of the people brought to the “New World” from Africa as slaves lost their culture. If you need proof, visit West Africa observe the traditions of the various groups of West Africa and compare them to the Africans of the Diaspora in your community.

    As I neither stated before, I nor did any other African Invade England, Spain, France, Belgium, Portugal, etc… and oppress the natives of those people’s countries. I didn’t create the “Us against them” mentality. We can all get along after Africa is restored to its pre-colonial social makeup. People want to move forward as long as there is no threat of retribution. The fact that you would call me belligerent is a testament to your sense of elitism. Just because there isn’t any bloodshed in masses and some of us are allowed to make a decent living singing, dancing, and entertaining massa doesn’t mean that the fight is over and that anything has been forgotten. The bully wants to stop picking on the other students when they unite to take him down.

14. Curtis,I salute you.
    The panel/workshop I did on Diaspora Africans recently in Houston, did not allow me to take artifacts,because the modern classrooms do not have display tables. What I would have liked to do is create a display of my own collection of African wood carvings. They are from Barbados, Surinam, Belize, Grenada, Nigeria, Cameroun, Ghana, Kenya, Angola and Malawi. No one, but perhaps the most knowledgeable of art connosieurs, could tell which carving belongs to which country. Wood carvings unite us, in ways that are distinct from other cultures.
    We are also deeply spiritual people. I recently corrected a young person with whom I have many conversations, for using the word Obeah. I suggested “Spiritualist” instead. Obeah is what the English designated the spiritual beliefs and practices, incuding herbal medicine cures of African people. Some of these cures are totally effective.
    The asking of the intervention of ancestors in a sitution, is also found throughout the diaspora, and within Africa. The pouring of libations is also a connection. Now in Trinidad, The Spiritual Baptists are very close to African worship systems, thouh they include more Christian aspects than the Shango people, who are more African.Their women were wrapping their heads long before Muslim women in TnT adopted the total black veil of Saudi Arabian women.Every Africn house I have visited, have sacred objects of wood, called ikengas, prominently displayed, but usually on what would be a side altar.

    The creation by an African American spiritual person of the ceremonies called Kwanzaa,instead of Christmas, is an attempt to re-link with our spirituality. The changing of names is more than a fashion.

    Mka should read Derek Walcotts Nobel Lecture: The Antilles,the subtitle of which is Fragments of forgotten Memory. he talk of carefully recreating the shattered bowl of our Africa consciousness. He makes a great case also for reading the Ramayana if you are a Trini of any race.
    Go well.

15. Dear Neal wrote: ” This is getting too much. Bake and shark Mika , who are you trying to impress and or fool again ?”

    Amazing how many arrogant assumption a grown man can make. It is comments like these that make me wonder about you. Shark I cook is the Atlantic kind, nice taste.

    “Be warned. Ask her when was the last time she risked her life to go home on a vacation and stay in Tivalle , Trenchtown or similar Kingston ghettos that produced Ben Johnsonlike ‘great runners,’ and classless, self serving musicians.”

    Thank you for warning me (against what – Are you planning to commit some form of an act of aggression, as this could be perceived as a threat?). To answer your question, my neighbour is not from Kingston but from Portland and regularly visits Jamaica. I suppose you yourself vacation among the badjohn in St. Barbs, Laventille?

    Dear Linda – Despite of suspicions, the Mercator’s projection wasn’t created due or in support of some racist, superiorist white / Northern conspiracy, but out of a navigational need. You can believe what you wish of course (as many do), but not all of the conspiracy theories and suspicions are true – some are invented, many are touted by authority figures and ever more are followed and believed by people.

    If in this day & age someone does not know that Africa is bigger than Greenland, they are either a citizen of the United States (where a person who knows a few of their states is considered brilliant in geography) or badly in need of a geography lesson. The answer to all this Eurocentric cartographical conspiracy – buy a globe, they are usually not fixed in any way to favour anyone.

    Dear Curtis – You do bring many good points into the discussion I feel. Race-based oppression is a very important part of the “success” (if one can speak of success in terms of a hideous crime against humanity) of the trans-Atlantic slavery case. As Africans physically appeared different, I think it was easier for the rich & greedy to sell the idea of dehumanizing them to the stupid masses (in Europe).

    You will be happy to know that in order to dehumanize people even amongst the European people, scholars of the time who were often mere tools for political and economic desires came up with similar nonsense about their fellow European, claiming for example the finnish people (a colony to Sweden for more than 600 years looked different due to their “animalistic” simple nature and had a smaller head & spoke a strange language due to being “animal-like, only good for labour” (quoted from Swedish scholars who wrote so in the 16th century). Later on Hitler went on to describe the looks of a typical jew – all this aiming to point out differences in order to convince others of their inferiority.

    Thank God we have all learned from those days and know all of us are God’s children, human and the same, despite of the colour of our skin – right?

    Ever wonder why despite of thousands of years of capturing & buying millions of slaves from Africa to Arabic lands there was no significant minority of Africans there like in the Americas? In many cases the male slaves were castrated before they were sold. This became a standard practice – pretty gruesome.

    Curtis: “None of us are buying what your selling.”

    I am not selling anything. I am simply stating my viewpoint and belief, as others. Your statement come across again as this “us against them” (me) attitude which I think is not progressive at all. Discussion of touchy topics becomes very difficult like this. What does such attitude promote? Are you so sure that your view is the only absolute truth? I’d question and try study any topic without premeditated fanaticism or learned mantra’s from others. At least we should be able to discuss all things in a civilized manner without finger-pointing, name-calling or such, yes (hint hint Neal)?

    About USA being “Eurocentric”: Personally I don’t think at all that all white people on this planet represent Europe or European views regardless of where they live. If the only logic of thinking and segregating people one follows is based on race and skin colour of a person, then this may be difficult to accept.

    Curtis: “I dare you to tell member of either neighborhood that they are not Irish or Italian because they have never lived there.”

    Trust me, I have done this. Some people like to cling on to their ancestral identity very strongly. If it overshadows all else, I think it will become an obstacle for any nation to function and a personal burden instead of strength.

    Curtis: “The majority if of the people brought to the “New World” from Africa as slaves lost their culture.”

    100% true, as you say: This same ancestral identity was truly robbed from the slaves. In some communities (like in Brazil, Haiti) some aspects of the old ways was kept alive in secrecy, but even there it mutated from its origins Fully agreed, there’s no doubt. My apologies if I misunderstood you with your reference to African diaspora.

    I think it is sad if an Indian person in Trinidad thinks he / she is an Indian first and foremost after their family has lived in T&T for 150 years. This clearly shows also how segregated the society is and how the these Caribbean slogans like “Out of many, one people” or “Every creed and race, have an equal place” are just empty words. There is no true feeling of national unity: Clearly things have gone wrong and the future will be a rocky road forward with every group fighting each other. So little we have learned.

    I once had an interesting discussion about this with Kenneth, my dear friend from Uganda. He felt that many black people take some kind of solace or justification from the fact that African’s were not the oppressors in the past. His comment was “hey, if we could have done it, i.e. had the upper hand in technology and warfare, let not kid ourselves – we would have done just the same to them, as surely as the sun sets in the evening”.

    He was a student of human behaviour & history and theorized that it was more or less inevitable that technological advances & development would always give rise to growth & power needs in a nation which gained the upper hand, which would in term feed the determination to harness these advances to the use of acquisitions – even through warfare if needed, conquest and interference. Interesting theory, I think. Once upon a time we studied together African history etc..

    One interesting point which we discussed often in a group with others was that if there had been no colonialism or outside influence, would today’s Africa match the expectations that so many in the West Indies for example have – meaning would it really be the peaceful and happy paradise so many idolize it being? The common answer we came to was “no”. Contrary to what many like to believe, African history is just as marred with war, domination, aggression, tribal warfare and brutalities, slavery, brutalism as any other continents. It was not an earthly peaceful paradise when white Europeans arrived there, it was a dynamic continent with equally dynamic groups of people living there in a state of constant change. Pretty much the same as other places on this planet Earth then.

    At the end of the day, all who read & write here are entitled to believe whatever they want, and surely will do so. So many people are quick to point out how some others are “racist”, and yet they themselves still seem to allow subconsciously the colour of one’s skin dictate their thinking of everyone else on this planet.

    Race should be the LEAST important thing about a person. Not every black person is a saint, and not every european or asian person is a devil. Even bringing in the trans-Atlantic slavery issue, you realize there were several “European” nations that never participated in it? Many were at the same time oppressed and used as a colony.

    People themselves are individuals, not white, black or red. Don’t matter who you cut, we all bleed red. I wish the world was colour blind, but then we’d for sure think of some other way to segregate and separate. Sometimes I wonder if mankind was truly created in the image of God – or did we creep up from the depths of Hell?

    I sign out from this conversation for good and go watch over & play with children who are all different colours but still think of each other as – children. Have to love the little ones, they haven’t been brainwashed yet. Even I am just a “big person” to them, God bless their young souls!

16. PS: I am a big fan of Mr. Walcott and his works.

17. All of the facts are recorded in the history of Western Civilization. The only thing missing is motive. The facts support my post. Put it all together along with date lines and the feeble minds of people forced to reinvent society, war, and technology in order to make their lives easier in the harshest environment on earth and you have the answers. Throw in the modification of Christianity and you’re in business.

    I don’t have time to explain everything in detail. Until I’m proven wrong, I’m right!

    Before we continue, I think that it is important to note that Empty Vessels make the most noise.

18. I am interested in what Lou Jing thinks about being half African American. What does that mean to here? Does she feel that she has to act a certain way? How does she self identify? I see she thinks that she is a rapper. I wonder if this is because her mother wasn’t equipped to tell her about her father and his culture.

19. My country just spent over 700 million to host two major global conferences over the past year, and some pathetic , insecure creature thinks it’s funny comparing the intertribal love fest we have in our neck of the woods with that of the criminal savages in one of our neighboring islands that has converted insecurity and jealousy into an art form.
    As dangerous as St. Babs and Lavantille is Mika , no where in my country can one fine tourist safe havens enclaves for not only frolicking foreigners , but returning nationals to hide while on vacations.
    Like you , I am a bit bored with this pointless discussion, and even angry with myself for wasting so much precious moments attempting to converse with the likes of the troubled Mika who was obviously influence by Kenneth her Ugandan buddy – a European puppet, and one would guess advisor to the former cattle herder and now President for life ,Yoweri Museveni .
    Who but an empty headed fool , masquerading as a progressive ,learned, psychologically sound adult ,would fervently believe that Africa devoid of European colonialism, along with the absence of barbaric slavery, would be just as bad, or perhaps worst off than it is presently- all the while, as they still pretend to possess a greater love and care for Africans than the rest of us.

20. My final post on this issue: The BBC last evening, Monday, Nov. 30. focussed on a new museum in Timbuktu, Mali, site of one of the oldest universities in the western world. The museum, curated by a South African of the Zulu people, is restoring ancient manuscripts that were saved as family heirlooms, some going back to the eleventh century. These demonstrate the high level of learning that was available to at the University of Timbuctu, which had medical exchanges with Oxford in England. Previously, this was documented by the magazine Saudi Aramco World, about seven years ago. Africans were reading and writing books long before Columbus came to the New World. While Mika’s statement that Mercator’s projection was for navigation, a claim that its originators made, it ignored the massive continent called Antartica. A great navigational issue.Social studies done among children and adults reveal that if you ask them to draw a map of the world, they will draw their own part much bigger than anyone else’s.Their impressions of their value to the world, reflects their perception of the relative sizes of continents. Mercator did the same thing.
    Now folks, I try to be an exemplar of scholarly writing, and I stick to facts and interpret them based on my own prism, coloured by a fine education at UWI, an American university, and the school of real life. I am concerned about the low leel of name calling to which this blog had descended.
    As one African poet said, I quoted him before: Others created things, we created the Human Race.When my contributions can no longer move humanity forward on an issue, I cease and desist from furter contrbutions. Bye.

21. Name calling is not as uncivilized as some may think , as it beats the shooting and bombing duels, and verbal tirades that our more sophisticated and much admired ,colonial and splendid Northern partners have passed on to us in thoughts ,words , deeds, and actions.
    Need we mention the political victims of Grenada, Iraq, Panama, and Nyerere Tanzania- who is without a doubt the last real honest statesman to emerge from the Virgin Continent.
    Can we throw in for good measure a long line of social activist , and several authentic freedom fighters that are prepared to defy status quo mantras, and do what is necessary to nudge the sleeping idealist into positive action ,even if it means batting them in the heads with sledgehammers until they are able to perceive the true light?

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