On Being Black in China(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
On Being Black in China
http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/07/on-being-black-in-china/277878/
10 comments
The passage you quote seems fairly neutral to me, and you appear to bring more baggage to the conversation than the author himself.
There was in fact a qualitative change in popular Chinese outlook from Mao to Deng, never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. White people were associated with rich and powerful western nations, so their prestige increased. Black people were associated with poor African nations, so their prestige decreased. This was independent of any preferences for light and delicate features.
And I think this was one of the author's points, that shifts in popular outlook have affected Chinese perceptions of black people. What might once have been an asset (perception of shared suffering under capitalist/imperialist oppression) is now a liability ("we're poor but not as poor as you!").
There was in fact a qualitative change in popular Chinese outlook from Mao to Deng, never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China became more materialistic, less ideological, less idealistic. White people were associated with rich and powerful western nations, so their prestige increased. Black people were associated with poor African nations, so their prestige decreased. This was independent of any preferences for light and delicate features.
And I think this was one of the author's points, that shifts in popular outlook have affected Chinese perceptions of black people. What might once have been an asset (perception of shared suffering under capitalist/imperialist oppression) is now a liability ("we're poor but not as poor as you!").
never mind the damage Mao inflicted on the country. China
became more materialistic, less ideological, less
idealistic.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/m...
Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'
Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China,
qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history,
an expert who had unprecedented access to official
Communist Party archives said yesterday.
Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival,
Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found
that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap
Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy
of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing
"one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known".
Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history
from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine,
compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and
killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its
magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved
or beaten to death in China over these four years; the
worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55
million.
Mr Dikötter is the only author to have delved into the
Chinese archives since they were reopened four years ago.
He argued that this devastating period of history – which
has until now remained hidden – has international
resonance. "It ranks alongside the gulags and the Holocaust
as one of the three greatest events of the 20th century....
It was like [the Cambodian communist dictator] Pol Pot's
genocide multiplied 20 times over," he said.
temphn, I wouldn't have weighed in if I didn't already know the history. Yes, you can see those ~65M deaths in world population statistics, that's how bad it was. China had gone through 200 years of instability, strife and suffering by the time Deng took over. Since then, things have gotten better along many dimensions.
However, pollution has also gotten worse. Can I mention that without mentioning the sins of Mao? In a village I know, the central government is now paying for a landfill. This is great, since now the villagers won't throw their non-recyclable household waste into the river. Can I mention that without mentioning the sins of Mao?
This article was about black people in China, not Mao, not the Great Leap Forward, not the Cultural Revolution, and you are changing the subject.
However, pollution has also gotten worse. Can I mention that without mentioning the sins of Mao? In a village I know, the central government is now paying for a landfill. This is great, since now the villagers won't throw their non-recyclable household waste into the river. Can I mention that without mentioning the sins of Mao?
This article was about black people in China, not Mao, not the Great Leap Forward, not the Cultural Revolution, and you are changing the subject.
I think we need to mention the sins of Mao quite a bit more before we're in danger of Godwining.
You know some history. Most people who are reading that Atlantic article don't have this context at all. This is because people get their history from movies, and Hollywood chooses to make movies like the Karate Kid remake (about anti-black racism in China) or this Red Dawn farce rather than movies about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, about the consequences of being "idealistic" and "ideological".
"Ideological" is bad. It's not good. It led to a lot of people dying. And the support for "oppressed peoples" that the OP thinks so much of is intimately tied to the rhetoric of communism, which is invariably and horrifically belied by the reality. To repeat said rhetoric uncritically is to bury those people again. Their deaths were denied in speeches at the time and they are glossed over in writing today. This is wrong. We need to remember them.
So yeah, unfortunately I don't think you can hold up the Maoist era as comparatively positive in any substantive regard without acknowledging that said act is morally equivalent to "Mussolini/Hitler made the trains run on time."
And the thing is - Mao didn't even make the trains run on time. He destroyed China to such an extent that people were forced to eat each other's children to survive.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/books/horror-of-a-hidden-c...
You know some history. Most people who are reading that Atlantic article don't have this context at all. This is because people get their history from movies, and Hollywood chooses to make movies like the Karate Kid remake (about anti-black racism in China) or this Red Dawn farce rather than movies about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, about the consequences of being "idealistic" and "ideological".
"Ideological" is bad. It's not good. It led to a lot of people dying. And the support for "oppressed peoples" that the OP thinks so much of is intimately tied to the rhetoric of communism, which is invariably and horrifically belied by the reality. To repeat said rhetoric uncritically is to bury those people again. Their deaths were denied in speeches at the time and they are glossed over in writing today. This is wrong. We need to remember them.
So yeah, unfortunately I don't think you can hold up the Maoist era as comparatively positive in any substantive regard without acknowledging that said act is morally equivalent to "Mussolini/Hitler made the trains run on time."
And the thing is - Mao didn't even make the trains run on time. He destroyed China to such an extent that people were forced to eat each other's children to survive.
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/books/horror-of-a-hidden-c...
For the party newspaper to tell people that it was good
for them to eat less at a time when it was also spinning
fantasies about the bounty being engendered by the Great
Leap was a relatively small, if telling, irony. At the
larger, horrific center of Mr. Becker's account is the
widespread resort among the Chinese people to that most
sickening form of desperation: cannibalism, the selling of
human flesh on the market, the swapping of children so
people could use them for food without committing the
additional sin of eating their own.
It has of course been known for many years that the Great
Leap produced a terrible calamity in China lasting from
roughly 1959 to 1962. But Mr. Becker, who is the Beijing
bureau chief of The South China Morning Post, has written
the most compelling and complete account of that calamity,
describing it systematically as it affected the
countryside, the cities and the immense network of camps
for ''rightists'' and other political prisoners that China
maintained at the time.
Does that meet the definition of genocide?
I'm no expert but, first of all, the peasants who died weren't a different ethnic group or a social class antagonistic to Mao, they were the ones who swept him to power.
Second, AFAIK Mao didn't intentionally set out to kill people, the famine was the result of cockamamie policies of indigenous industrialization to be made possible by massive planned increases in farm productivity freeing up labor.
And the leadership was blinded by ideology and convinced themselves it was working, and the political climate was such that no one dared contradict Mao, everyone reported massive production, so even as people were starving they exported food to get industrial products. They didn't set out to kill people, it just happened due to incompetence, a bad system with bad incentives, and ideological hubris.
Mao was a nutty tyrant, and yet he gave the peasants literacy, medical care, and paved the way for modern China. He was preferred by those peasants to Chiang, who conscripted/enslaved peasants, sent them to fight the Japanese, but 40% died of disease and starvation before they saw action. Even with American support (admittedly tepid since they knew him well) Chiang couldn't beat Mao. (Google 'Chiang February 28' for more about what a great guy he was).
Estimates of excess deaths in Iraq, are done doing a similar methodology, range from 400,000 to a couple of million. If those were due to bad policies and ideological hubris, do those constitute genocide?
Anyway, history is quite complicated, we don't judge the Brits just by the famines in Bengal either, although the 'g' word sometimes comes up.
It's a good article about a black American's perspective on China, so of course it's from a very specific point of view, and in order to get a perspective on Mao and blacks, it doesn't need to say he was also responsible for the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
I'm no expert but, first of all, the peasants who died weren't a different ethnic group or a social class antagonistic to Mao, they were the ones who swept him to power.
Second, AFAIK Mao didn't intentionally set out to kill people, the famine was the result of cockamamie policies of indigenous industrialization to be made possible by massive planned increases in farm productivity freeing up labor.
And the leadership was blinded by ideology and convinced themselves it was working, and the political climate was such that no one dared contradict Mao, everyone reported massive production, so even as people were starving they exported food to get industrial products. They didn't set out to kill people, it just happened due to incompetence, a bad system with bad incentives, and ideological hubris.
Mao was a nutty tyrant, and yet he gave the peasants literacy, medical care, and paved the way for modern China. He was preferred by those peasants to Chiang, who conscripted/enslaved peasants, sent them to fight the Japanese, but 40% died of disease and starvation before they saw action. Even with American support (admittedly tepid since they knew him well) Chiang couldn't beat Mao. (Google 'Chiang February 28' for more about what a great guy he was).
Estimates of excess deaths in Iraq, are done doing a similar methodology, range from 400,000 to a couple of million. If those were due to bad policies and ideological hubris, do those constitute genocide?
Anyway, history is quite complicated, we don't judge the Brits just by the famines in Bengal either, although the 'g' word sometimes comes up.
It's a good article about a black American's perspective on China, so of course it's from a very specific point of view, and in order to get a perspective on Mao and blacks, it doesn't need to say he was also responsible for the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
>"Never mind" the damage Mao inflicted? 65 million people died during his reign.
First, the huge majority of those deaths were due to famine.
Second, it was in a country in great turmoil, civil war, and a revolution (regime change, if you prefer). In places where such things happen -- as opposed to an country with a stable political climate like the US, people die (including by execution).
Someone from a stable country cannot relate, but think of the Civil War and the tons of deaths. Or the French revolution. Those doesn't mean one leader or a handful is the only one to blame, like one does not pin civil war deaths to Lincoln or the confederate leaders. Such are the times.
Countries do not get into such messes by one "bad apple" leader. On the contrary, the leaders represent the general problems in the society in general. Even Hitler was voted by a majority of Germans, which ascribed to the same ideals long before he came to power (and for the "philosophical" parts of nazism, even decades ago, e.g Nietchze, Wagner, Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and tons of lesser intellectuals).
First, the huge majority of those deaths were due to famine.
Second, it was in a country in great turmoil, civil war, and a revolution (regime change, if you prefer). In places where such things happen -- as opposed to an country with a stable political climate like the US, people die (including by execution).
Someone from a stable country cannot relate, but think of the Civil War and the tons of deaths. Or the French revolution. Those doesn't mean one leader or a handful is the only one to blame, like one does not pin civil war deaths to Lincoln or the confederate leaders. Such are the times.
Countries do not get into such messes by one "bad apple" leader. On the contrary, the leaders represent the general problems in the society in general. Even Hitler was voted by a majority of Germans, which ascribed to the same ideals long before he came to power (and for the "philosophical" parts of nazism, even decades ago, e.g Nietchze, Wagner, Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and tons of lesser intellectuals).
> First, the huge majority of those deaths were due to famine.
Sir, that famine was in large part due to movements commandeered by Mao - such as the Great Leap Forward which completely decimated Chinese farming and agriculture.
Sir, that famine was in large part due to movements commandeered by Mao - such as the Great Leap Forward which completely decimated Chinese farming and agriculture.
Yes, but that does not make it a deliberate policy of killing people. It was what it was thought at the time as necessary to bring China in the modern age. One has to ask if without it China would be what it is today -- or perhaps some broken half-aggrarian society, more third-world than one of the world's economic powers.
Same way, as one has to ask if without Stalin's forced industrialization, USSR would be able to stand to the Nazis (and, if it could not, if Europe could). Besides the tragic human aspect, one has to see these kind of events with an impartial eye, just for their long term effects.
Same way, as one has to ask if without Stalin's forced industrialization, USSR would be able to stand to the Nazis (and, if it could not, if Europe could). Besides the tragic human aspect, one has to see these kind of events with an impartial eye, just for their long term effects.
but by the time Mao died, China was a broken way-more-than-half-agrarian society, and below a lot of third world countries. Kind of like North Korea today.
The best one can say is, China was a basket case before Mao, he established a strong system of central control and a level of human development ie literacy and medical care, and those paved the way for development after Mao.
The best one can say is, China was a basket case before Mao, he established a strong system of central control and a level of human development ie literacy and medical care, and those paved the way for development after Mao.
and for the "philosophical" parts of nazism, even decades ago, e.g Nietchze, Wagner, Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and tons of lesser intellectuals
Whoa, that's way unfair, particularly to Nietzsche, who deplored anti-semitism and mocked it (along with Germans in general, for that matter—if there's any group he picked on it was them), and who would surely have been the first person to repudiate his thuggish sister's Nazification of his work. Nietzsche's sensibility was far too refined for him to deserve lumping in with Nazi intellectuals. I'd go so far as to say that anyone who understands the first thing about him would have to agree, though I'm far from a Nietzsche scholar and shouldn't say such things.
Wagner you can have.
Heidegger is a complex case. As far as I know the jury is still out about the relation between his philosophy and Nazism. It's certainly not obvious. (And his personal behaviour is a different question.)
Schmitt, sure, except he was born in 1888 and hardly predates Hitler.
The majority of German artists and intellectuals weren't aligned with the Nazis, so I don't think your argument is very strong here, though of course it's not true that Hitler was a lone bad apple or whatever.
Whoa, that's way unfair, particularly to Nietzsche, who deplored anti-semitism and mocked it (along with Germans in general, for that matter—if there's any group he picked on it was them), and who would surely have been the first person to repudiate his thuggish sister's Nazification of his work. Nietzsche's sensibility was far too refined for him to deserve lumping in with Nazi intellectuals. I'd go so far as to say that anyone who understands the first thing about him would have to agree, though I'm far from a Nietzsche scholar and shouldn't say such things.
Wagner you can have.
Heidegger is a complex case. As far as I know the jury is still out about the relation between his philosophy and Nazism. It's certainly not obvious. (And his personal behaviour is a different question.)
Schmitt, sure, except he was born in 1888 and hardly predates Hitler.
The majority of German artists and intellectuals weren't aligned with the Nazis, so I don't think your argument is very strong here, though of course it's not true that Hitler was a lone bad apple or whatever.
>Whoa, that's way unfair, particularly to Nietzsche, who deplored anti-semitism and mocked it (along with Germans in general, for that matter—if there's any group he picked on it was them), and who would surely have been the first person to repudiate his thuggish sister's Nazification of his work. Nietzsche's sensibility was far too refined for him to deserve lumping in with Nazi intellectuals.
He had contradictory points on those issues (even besides his supposdely falsification by his sister). But the core structure of his philosophy is compatible with the idea of nazism (if not for the masses, then as it was conceived by the elites, and for themselves).
He had contradictory points on those issues (even besides his supposdely falsification by his sister). But the core structure of his philosophy is compatible with the idea of nazism (if not for the masses, then as it was conceived by the elites, and for themselves).
The real civil war, revolution, and turmoil pre-date most of those deaths. Mao killed people during his rule by creating unnecessary turmoil and revolution.
One does not pin civil war deaths on Lincoln. But if Lincoln had led the country into ruin and mass death after the war was over, he would be blamed for those deaths, and rightly so. Thus with Mao. The People's Republic was established in 1949. The civil war at that point was over, no serious external enemies threatened, and the government's control was solid. What followed is not justifiable.
As for Hitler, he was not voted by a majority of Germans. The Nazis peaked at about 1/3rd of the vote. Hitler became chancellor through political maneuvering, not majority support. He did kind of obtain power legitimately, but don't confuse that with being voted in by a majority.
One does not pin civil war deaths on Lincoln. But if Lincoln had led the country into ruin and mass death after the war was over, he would be blamed for those deaths, and rightly so. Thus with Mao. The People's Republic was established in 1949. The civil war at that point was over, no serious external enemies threatened, and the government's control was solid. What followed is not justifiable.
As for Hitler, he was not voted by a majority of Germans. The Nazis peaked at about 1/3rd of the vote. Hitler became chancellor through political maneuvering, not majority support. He did kind of obtain power legitimately, but don't confuse that with being voted in by a majority.
>The real civil war, revolution, and turmoil pre-date most of those deaths. Mao killed people during his rule by creating unnecessary turmoil and revolution.
These things don't suddenly disappear with the official end of the war. It's a country of a billion people, a regime change, trouble with neighbors, fight for the leadership etc. So, "X is in power all turmoil can stop now", is not really how it works.
>As for Hitler, he was not voted by a majority of Germans. The Nazis peaked at about 1/3rd of the vote.
44% actually. And by majority it means they got the most votes of any other party at the time, not that they got 51%. (Heck, the rulling parties for the last two elections in my country didn't even have anywhere near 40%).
And besides that, after Hitler was established in power, he had an almost total following from the German people, and very little (if at all) internal resistance.
These things don't suddenly disappear with the official end of the war. It's a country of a billion people, a regime change, trouble with neighbors, fight for the leadership etc. So, "X is in power all turmoil can stop now", is not really how it works.
>As for Hitler, he was not voted by a majority of Germans. The Nazis peaked at about 1/3rd of the vote.
44% actually. And by majority it means they got the most votes of any other party at the time, not that they got 51%. (Heck, the rulling parties for the last two elections in my country didn't even have anywhere near 40%).
And besides that, after Hitler was established in power, he had an almost total following from the German people, and very little (if at all) internal resistance.
"Majority" means over half. The word you're looking for is "plurality".
Mao's government was strong enough, within just a few years, to fight the US military to a standstill in a foreign war. What's the excuse for the millions who died after that?
Mao's government was strong enough, within just a few years, to fight the US military to a standstill in a foreign war. What's the excuse for the millions who died after that?
>Majority" means over half. The word you're looking for is "plurality".
That will do, yes.
Although:"relative majority (Brit) - the excess of votes or seats won by the winner of an election over the runner-up when no candidate or party has more than 50 per cent.
>What's the excuse for the millions who died after that?
Political and social struggles in a huge empire state that had made a huge change in the way it has been run for millenia?
That will do, yes.
Although:"relative majority (Brit) - the excess of votes or seats won by the winner of an election over the runner-up when no candidate or party has more than 50 per cent.
>What's the excuse for the millions who died after that?
Political and social struggles in a huge empire state that had made a huge change in the way it has been run for millenia?
And who exactly was responsible for making that huge change?
History.
A lot of people seem to ascribe to the "cult of personality", but with or without Mao, it would have been done.
That's why it was done almost in parallel in other countries too.
Lots of people have the crazy theory that some guys, maybe because they had too much swag or because people were of lower IQ back then or something, managed to rise from nowhere and get hundrends of millions to follow them, changed their countries etc.
The real story is that the historical currents had formed to move those countries out of their aggrarian past. They had to do something or perish in the modern age, and due to mix of circumstances and need, those kind of figures emerged to deliver that change.
It was a time of huge changes all around -- the colonial struggles, WWI, WWII, communism rising, right wing dictatorships -- those things did not happen all in parallel because some guys managed to dupe billions into following them.
A lot of people seem to ascribe to the "cult of personality", but with or without Mao, it would have been done.
That's why it was done almost in parallel in other countries too.
Lots of people have the crazy theory that some guys, maybe because they had too much swag or because people were of lower IQ back then or something, managed to rise from nowhere and get hundrends of millions to follow them, changed their countries etc.
The real story is that the historical currents had formed to move those countries out of their aggrarian past. They had to do something or perish in the modern age, and due to mix of circumstances and need, those kind of figures emerged to deliver that change.
It was a time of huge changes all around -- the colonial struggles, WWI, WWII, communism rising, right wing dictatorships -- those things did not happen all in parallel because some guys managed to dupe billions into following them.
Didn't a lot of countries manage to make this transition without starving millions of people to death in the process?
Can't think of many examples of countries in the SAME situation. Because just "being a country" and "agrarian" is not enough classify a country in the same boat as those.
Russia has a long history of serfdom, an authoritarian regime, young people passionate about change, a huge territory and large population etc. China, about the same, only much larger.
In fact, if anything it's the opposite: most countries failed to ever make the transition (most of the third world for example, Africa, Asia, Latin America).
As for the Western countries that made the same transition:
a) some made it peacefully (those that were in better position to do so, namely: small and manageable, with an established social order from before, no dangerous neighbours and plenty of money rolling in).
b) others had no "starving of millions of people to death" mainly because they got a good deal out of starving millions of OTHER people to death. E.g France, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, financing their industrial age with looting and enslaving their colonies in Africa, Asia, etc.
(And we should not forget the bloody continental European wars and revolutions that got a lot of countries out of agrarian feudalism and aristocracy and into the modern type industrial republic. Millions died in the French Revolution, the Napoleonian wars and the subsequent turmoil than made France into a modern republic, and then there was WWI. The difference is that China, more slow moving, went through a similar situation well in the 20th Century).
Russia has a long history of serfdom, an authoritarian regime, young people passionate about change, a huge territory and large population etc. China, about the same, only much larger.
In fact, if anything it's the opposite: most countries failed to ever make the transition (most of the third world for example, Africa, Asia, Latin America).
As for the Western countries that made the same transition:
a) some made it peacefully (those that were in better position to do so, namely: small and manageable, with an established social order from before, no dangerous neighbours and plenty of money rolling in).
b) others had no "starving of millions of people to death" mainly because they got a good deal out of starving millions of OTHER people to death. E.g France, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, financing their industrial age with looting and enslaving their colonies in Africa, Asia, etc.
(And we should not forget the bloody continental European wars and revolutions that got a lot of countries out of agrarian feudalism and aristocracy and into the modern type industrial republic. Millions died in the French Revolution, the Napoleonian wars and the subsequent turmoil than made France into a modern republic, and then there was WWI. The difference is that China, more slow moving, went through a similar situation well in the 20th Century).
>> White people were associated with rich and powerful western nations, so their prestige increased. Black people were associated with poor African nations, so their prestige decreased.
I thought the article might make that point, which would have explained the teaching anecdote, but instead, the author sees the opposite trend:
"Unlike their parents and grandparents, China's youth have grown up with access to information, entertainment, and art from all over the world. Many have consequently come to reconsider stereotypes of black people, and they are in turn influencing the opinions of their older, more "traditional" relatives."
I was hoping he would come back around and try to explain the apparent contradiction.
I thought the article might make that point, which would have explained the teaching anecdote, but instead, the author sees the opposite trend:
"Unlike their parents and grandparents, China's youth have grown up with access to information, entertainment, and art from all over the world. Many have consequently come to reconsider stereotypes of black people, and they are in turn influencing the opinions of their older, more "traditional" relatives."
I was hoping he would come back around and try to explain the apparent contradiction.
Of course, you fail to mention the land reforms (which brought life expectancies up from 35, to more like 45). He saved as many lives with the land reforms as he killed in the Great Leap (which was only about 3 years - how long should he have tried it, if he genuinely though it would save hundreds of millions of lives?)
1960 to 1970 was when China actually came out of darkness (life expectancies rising from 45 to over 60). You could argue that this was because Deng (and other reformers, when Deng was purged) had managed to seize enough control that Mao couldn't do too much damage. The Cultural Revolution (which is the time period we are talking about) was bad for the people who were targeted, but China just didn't have that many educated people that trying to kill them all would make an appreciable dent in life expectancies. China would probably have developed a lot faster if it hadn't destroyed its education system, but it still grew pretty quick (even during the Cultural Revolution).
So basically, over Mao's life China went for a life expectancy of 35 to a life expectancy 60. Much of this was probably Deng fixing up the things that Mao broke.
Maoism is a terrible system of government, but it turns out it's streets ahead of feudalism. Really, the heads of the Qing dynasty should really go down as the worst leaders ever (imagine a century of people dying at the same rate as the Great Leap), with Mao as a runner up.
1960 to 1970 was when China actually came out of darkness (life expectancies rising from 45 to over 60). You could argue that this was because Deng (and other reformers, when Deng was purged) had managed to seize enough control that Mao couldn't do too much damage. The Cultural Revolution (which is the time period we are talking about) was bad for the people who were targeted, but China just didn't have that many educated people that trying to kill them all would make an appreciable dent in life expectancies. China would probably have developed a lot faster if it hadn't destroyed its education system, but it still grew pretty quick (even during the Cultural Revolution).
So basically, over Mao's life China went for a life expectancy of 35 to a life expectancy 60. Much of this was probably Deng fixing up the things that Mao broke.
Maoism is a terrible system of government, but it turns out it's streets ahead of feudalism. Really, the heads of the Qing dynasty should really go down as the worst leaders ever (imagine a century of people dying at the same rate as the Great Leap), with Mao as a runner up.
I bet Marketus could wear a hoodie and walk home from the store in China without getting shot by a racist vigilante. Lin Biao, who wrote Long Live the Victory of Peoples War, Black Panther Maoist ideology, China support for Third World liberation like in Vietnam, Cuba support for liberation of Angola, and Third World solidarity and liberation struggle in general had more to do with forcing legal change in Western apartheid ( also separate but equal laws in U.S.) regimes then the civil rights movement.
Because "ideals" means "belief systems" rather than "list of terrible things that they did that temphn thinks should be mentioned whenever their name comes up in conversation"?
Hard as it may be to imagine, there are things that are more important than whether someone said something nice once about the US civil rights movement - such as hundreds of millions of Chinese lives. The USA is not the center of the world and the level of platitudinous veneration of American icons is not the most important criterion by which to judge a foreign leader.
You sound like a writer for Reader's Digest beating a drum of evil empires. It is a cheap shot about deaths that cannot be argued here just as Trayvon Martin would not be a HN article. HN politics have to be circuitous, indirect and arguments depending on popular assumptions but cannot be taken to task as it would be off-topic. How can people take these death estimates at face value when academics have been paid by the CIA, death estimates in books like "The Black Book of Communism" have been proven to be exponentially inflated, child births go down during upheavals but the birth decrease gets counted as deaths.
“Imagine, if you will, someone who read only Reader’s
Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same
period who read only The Nation or The New Statesman.
Which reader would have been better informed about the
realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give
us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?”
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/03/12/specials/sontag-commun...
As hard as it can be to imagine, you don't have to discuss every aspect of something while making a point about a single aspect of something.
I live in China and there is indeed still some racism towards black and even asian people. A black English teacher in China will have a much lower salary then a white person for example (though this is also true of English teachers who are asian). As crazy as it sounds, schools will often prefer to hire a white teacher who is not a native speaker to a black/asian teacher who is a native speaker.
creating a vacuum of knowledge, drawing in stereotypes and prejudice
For me living in China as a white American student in the 1980s was to wake up to minority prejudice. That is to be treated different, sometimes better, sometimes worse than native Chinese. Its something I had not felt in the US. An amusing thing was is that I could understand what people would say about me in public because they assumed most foreigners did not understand Chinese. Or to visit a tourist site and read the prices in English ten times higher than in Chinese.
Not to minimize the overall message, to be fair, those students would probably would complain about a ethnic Chinese English teacher.
Just like how non-Chinese expats in Hong Kong get higher salaries and packages including housing allowance, whereas oversea born Chinese are treated as locals despite being expats.
I grew up on the Canadian Prairie. The only black people in the entire city were part of the professional football team. At school, the few black kids were tall and very athletic. It may be a stereotype but it was real in my city.
Are you certain that you knew every black student at your school or just the popular ones? If there are few blacks it makes sense that the ones you'd notice would be tall and athletic as these are qualities that tend to engender popularity for school children. Did you conduct a formal or even semi-formal survey? I've heard similar suggestions to this before and they rarely conform to reality. This sounds more likely to be a case of conformation bias.
When you go to a school with very few black people, noticing one is already surprising enough that you won't miss many through confirmation bias.
See also: "You'll never be Chinese" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366203
i'm an american and i'm not white, or black.
at some point you have to just stop giving a shit what other people think of your race/skin color.
at some point you have to just stop giving a shit what other people think of your race/skin color.
I've been asking for this for years, but if anybody can come up with a method (website?) for me to figure out how black people are seen in different countries and regions, that would help me a lot. Seems like the only way to tell is to fly somewhere, then find out that your experience there is not going to be like your friend's was.
Racist heatmaps?
Racist heatmaps?
Hey, I'm building something that aims to answer exactly these kinds of questions. It's still early in development, right now there is actually a site-breaking bug causing a ton of pages to timeout :( , but I'm hopeful that in a year from now you'll be able to find answers to all sorts of questions like that. It's called www.istorical.com, and it's a site dedicated to sharing information about what it's like to live in any city or country. It's got user-submitted q&a about what it's like to live there, user-submitted videos showing what a city or country is like, and very soon it will have user-submitted AMA's from travelers, expats, and just people who live in a city or country. I haven't quite taken off my dev hat and put on the marketing hat yet, but look forward to your wish being granted (hopefully).
Relevant (but unanswered, unfortunately) questions on the site I'm building:
http://www.istorical.com/countries/china/questions/57724
http://www.istorical.com/countries/china/questions/57733
Relevant (but unanswered, unfortunately) questions on the site I'm building:
http://www.istorical.com/countries/china/questions/57724
http://www.istorical.com/countries/china/questions/57733
I'm interested. Make sure to see color.
"how black people are seen" - i don't think it can be answered by one number on the scale from 1 to 10. For example, Russians are pretty racist, nationalistic chauvinistic, antisemitic ... you name it, basically Equal Opportunity Haters ... and there are a lot of disrespectful jokes about black people as well. On the other side - we drank a lot with the black students we had at our University and at other places and the girls liked them as well.
>then find out that your experience there is not going to be like your friend's was.
yep, he may be a cool guy and you're a party pooper or vise verse :)
>then find out that your experience there is not going to be like your friend's was.
yep, he may be a cool guy and you're a party pooper or vise verse :)
Reminds me of this old joke:
A CIA spy is on his first day scouting Moscow. Fluent in Russian, he is confident of blending into the crowd. First, he stops at a store to get an apple. The lady there gives him a big smile, "Morning Mr American, how can I help you?" Shocked, he quietly buys an apple. Next stop, an old lady on a park bench. "Morning ma'am, can I have the time please?" "Sure, Mr American, it's 9.15." He's really worried. Is his disguise that thin? He meets a cop and asks directions. Having received the usual "Certainly Mr American, it's the third block on your left," he asks, "Excuse me, how do you know I'm from the US?" "That's easy," replies the policeman, "you're black."
A CIA spy is on his first day scouting Moscow. Fluent in Russian, he is confident of blending into the crowd. First, he stops at a store to get an apple. The lady there gives him a big smile, "Morning Mr American, how can I help you?" Shocked, he quietly buys an apple. Next stop, an old lady on a park bench. "Morning ma'am, can I have the time please?" "Sure, Mr American, it's 9.15." He's really worried. Is his disguise that thin? He meets a cop and asks directions. Having received the usual "Certainly Mr American, it's the third block on your left," he asks, "Excuse me, how do you know I'm from the US?" "That's easy," replies the policeman, "you're black."
Yep, many years ago a friend who just moved to VA near Langley was a bit surprised seeing first time a couple of black guys in suits shopping in specialized Russian food store and speaking perfect Russian :)
I'm sure a few linear-esque metrics could be teased out, but yeah, it's more complex than that.
I'm definitely a party pooper:) I'm often suprised by the amount or racism that can be directed at you in places where there aren't any black people to be angry at, though.
I'm definitely a party pooper:) I'm often suprised by the amount or racism that can be directed at you in places where there aren't any black people to be angry at, though.
>I'm often suprised by the amount or racism that can be directed at you in places where there aren't any black people to be angry at, though.
Don't mistake xenophobia where the "other" at that given moment and place just happens to be, for example, a black with racism toward blacks.
Don't mistake xenophobia where the "other" at that given moment and place just happens to be, for example, a black with racism toward blacks.
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The "past ideals" promoted by Mao included the mass murder of tens of millions of Chinese and almost thirty years of terror and poverty, from the Great Leap Forward through the Cultural Revolution. Not even a single mention or nod to this in the paragraph, which would have you believe that a mass murderer who gave lip service to the US civil rights movement is preferable to a man who brought a billion people out of darkness.
One might even call such a view - that all that matters is a person's professed attitude towards a black American - culturally imperialist. As the author notes in passing, post-Deng China is substantively doing a lot more for people of African origin via trade than Maoist China ever did. But all that matters are the "past ideals". A modern expression of the modern American religion: thou shalt not be saved through works, only through lip service towards MLK alone.