PLEASE WATCH the following clips (30 mins total) from the BBC documentary Racism: A History
NEW FEATURE: Indicate your reaction to the post at the bottom near the comment button.
1) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 1/6
2) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 2/6
3) Racism a History - The Colour of Money Part 3/6
PS: Remember this from early in the class. Puts religion and other concepts we studied in perspective as if now a retrospective of what you've now learned:
BONUS: "What we are" Dance Monkeys Dance by Ernest Cline - www.ernestcline.com
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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12 comments:
I had a "agree to be offended" moment with the last video "'What we are' Dance Monkeys Dance by Ernest Cline". I understood what the clip was saying, like at parts where it Cline said "alot of the monkeys hate each other..they hate monkeys that are different, monkeys from different places,monkeys that are different colors. The monkeys feel alone, all 6 billion of them" When he said that I thought wow that is true so many things that are not important cause some to hate others, when we are indeed one in the same. However I completely disagree when he says "you say tomato i say tomato, they're monkeys" and also "some monkeys make up gods and then they worship them". I, being a Christian, do not believe in the Big bang theory, evolution, etc. I do not believe I came from any kind of monkey. I do not believe I am a "messed up monkey" as stated in the video because I believe the earth was created for my benefit. I do not believe gods were created because people know they are going to die. I believe in one God who has been here since the beginning of time. Although this video rubbed me the wrong way, I must agree to be offended because I know everyone is not going to have the same beliefs that I do.
the one size fits all theory of the biblical justification of slavery stuck to me. The idea that the justification is/was flexible enough to accommodate any group of people the Spaniards/Portuguese decided to subjugate is intriguing to me. I see it as a parallel to the European theory of the "white man's burden."
Racism beginning with slavery was an easily acceptable notion for me. Whites chained and brutalized blacks for economic profit. For centuries, slaves suffered indignities. And Mohammad's post which mentions the "White man's burden," reminds me of the end of slavery. Whites felt they had to educate blacks, and change their customs because they didn't meet white standards. Racism exists in every culture because of these standards that people establish in their society. I think that it's important to take what this class tries to teach to heart, you can't compare cultures to one another. It just doesn't work. It creates a hierarchy.
I don't think racism exists because of "social standards", rather it is perpetuated by them. But originally, I think it's more of an knee-jerk reaction. The great part is that we can see how the reaction eventually subsides in culture, especially in ours: through explanations in science and sheer statistics.
Racism stems from the idea that the people in one race/nation/state/ culture are superior to others. What's the epistemology behind this, though? There must be some reason besides ethnocentricity. After all, there must have been a dissenting view regarding "White Man's Burden" or Race Superiority based on Darwin or just what was called "logic."
One answer is military superiority. The Roman Empire enslaved hundreds of nations of people because they had catapults. Genghis Khan colonized and enslaved three times the size of the Roman Empire because he had the longbow. What's fair or what's culturally relative is one question, but whether or not one nation, race or culture can be inferior at least militarily is not.
Avi Azizian
After watching the Rastafarian man speaking about him not being an Englishman but speaking English enabled me to understand the imposed will by the slave owners of nearly 150 years ago. The Rastafarian man stated he was obliged to adjust to speaking English or else the repercussions would be torture. Slaves were deprived of their own ethnic classifications such as language in order to avoid punishment. There was clearly a superiority factor in which mentally the African slaves were being forced mentally to become inferior to the white slave owners.
I think the "What we are Dance Monkeys Dance" is a hylarious video. I did not find it offensive at all because I do not think that everything in that video is supposed to be taken literally. I agree with Ernest Cline, we are all "monkeys" we are all human beings with the exact same abilities as everyone else, but we make up many things in order to differentiate ourselves from other human beings, which creates hate and in turn creates war. Cline's point is that many of our beliefs are completely socially created. In Philosophy there is a man names Thomas Hobbs who states that morals are completely constructed by human beings. We create the biases, the theories, the Gods. Maybe because we have that power we should use it more carefully.
The first three videos regarding 'Racism a History - The Colour of Money' shows much humans would go for money. The slave trade was made and encouraged because of the money that was involved. People sold and bought other people like they were objects. No other animals would do this and in the last video about "Dance Monkeys Dance" reiterated this point. We are all like monkeys. However, we're more like advanced monkeys but monkeys nonetheless. Yet, we sell each other and destroy our own planet for our own benefits. There are many types of monkeys and they do not all look the same, but we don't see them selling each other in order to make a profit.
I have to agree with Judy's comment about the "Colour of Money" video. The slave trade was made for profit, because humans wanted money. Like the video 'Dance Monkeys Dance' said, we're all animals. I loved that video by Ernest Cline. I understood the message that Cline was trying to send to its viewers, and I agree with him 100%. We create excuses to state that we're all different because we are a different skin color or a different "race" but as stated, race is just a social construct. We are all monkeys, no matter what religion we believe in or what color we are. I think that in order to fully enjoy the video you really have to "agree not to be offended" and not take it literally.
'What we are' Dance Monkeys Dance by Ernest Cline was hilarious, monkeys make up gods then they agrue which god is better then they go to war. Though it is funny there is the way the author of the video breaks use down into uncivilized animals that hate a fight. I believe for humans to really "evolve" we would have to learn to tolerate and understand our differences.
I agree that the video "What we are" Dance Monkeys Dance was meant not to offend anyone, but to show how alike we all are, regardless of how we look. Appearances are only skin deep, and while we all may believe that we think and act differently, in the end we are all human beings (in this case monkeys) and we are all part of the same species. We have more things in common than what we might think.
Watching the Dance Monkeys Dance video and thinking of slavery, made the justifications given for slavery such as "White Man's Burden" seem even more ethnocentric. The video brings across the point that we are all essentially the same and cable of doing the same things. "We pay another monkey to listen to our problems". That line made me see the social constructed part of society that creates the groups of those that are "better", "smarter", "wiser". Through acculturation perhaps we learns to assume for example that doctors are very smart, which is true, but it does not mean they are better then us because given the same dedication and opportunities others could study to gain the same knowledge. In the end, no one is "really better", it is simply yet another social construct produced by society.
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