Noam Chomsky: Slavery and white fear of revenge ‘deeply rooted in American culture’

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drones

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In light of all of the murders/lynchings of black men across the country in the last few months by racist police officers and vigilantes, I thought I'd post some thoughts from the great scholar Noam Chomsky so as to provide some possible explanation for why certain sectors of the dominant society are obsessed with the wholesale murder of blacks:
 American culture is imbued with fears that African Americans will someday repay the violence and oppression that has marred their history in this country, according to linguist and cultural critic Noam Chomsky. Speaking with philosopher George Yancy about the roots of American racism, from Native American genocide to anti-black discrimination, Chomsky emphasized the ongoing impact of black enslavement and subjugation in the U.S., saying “fears that the victims might rise up and take revenge are deeply rooted in American culture, with reverberations to the present.”

Chomsky was speaking with Yancy as part of an ongoing New York Times series of discussions around race. Early in the conversation, Yancy noted that contemporary American conversations about terrorism often omit “the fact that many black people in the United States have had a long history of being terrorized by white racism.” Chomsky cited the fact that slaves had arrived in the colonies 400 years ago, and were largely responsible for America’s early economic strength.

“We…cannot allow ourselves to forget that the hideous slave labor camps of the new “empire of liberty” were a primary source for the wealth and privilege of American society, as well as England and the continent. The industrial revolution was based on cotton, produced primarily in the slave labor camps of the United States.”

Slaves were highly efficient producers, Chomsky states, and “[p]roductivity increased even faster than in industry, thanks to the technology of the bullwhip and pistol, and the efficient practice of brutal torture.”

With the end of slavery came an immediate need to criminalize African Americans to ensure a bustling—and free—labor force. Chomsky notes “that blacks were arrested without real cause and prisoners were put to work for these business interests. The system provided a major contribution to the rapid industrial development from the late 19th century.”

More recently, Reagan helped drive this process of profiteering off the criminalizing of black bodies through the war on drugs. Chomsky says the policy “initiated a new Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander’s apt term for the revived criminalization of black life, evident in the shocking incarceration rates and the devastating impact on black society.”

Chomsky also discussed America’s long history of atrocities toward its native population, and the historical revisionism of figures such as Teddy Roosevelt, who pretended that white colonizers had been benevolent invaders. He noted that in reality, America’s native peoples had been “extirpated” or “expelled to destitution and misery.”

“That’s only a bare beginning of the shocking record of the Anglosphere and its settler-colonial version of imperialism, a form of imperialism that leads quite naturally to the ‘utter extirpation’ of the indigenous population, and to ‘intentional ignorance’ on the part of beneficiaries of the crimes.”

The refusal to acknowledge this history of oppression, violence and genocide may be the most disturbing and terrible tendency of America’s dominant culture. “Perhaps the most appalling contemporary myth is that none of this happened,” said Chomsky. He added:

“There is also a common variant of what has sometimes been called ‘intentional ignorance’ of what it is inconvenient to know: ‘Yes, bad things happened in the past, but let us put all of that behind us and march on to a glorious future, all sharing equally in the rights and opportunities of citizenry.’ The appalling statistics of today’s circumstances of African-American life can be confronted by other bitter residues of a shameful past, laments about black cultural inferiority, or worse, forgetting how our wealth and privilege was created in no small part by the centuries of torture and degradation of which we are the beneficiaries and they remain the victims.”

Chomsky and Yancy touched upon Ferguson, Gaza, and the similarities between the two, and Islamophobia in the post-9/11 age. As they closed, Yancy asked Chomsky about possible ways of putting an end to racism.

“Racism is far from eradicated, but it is not what it was not very long ago, thanks to such efforts,” Chomsky said. Cautiously hopeful, he added: “It’s a long, hard road. No magic wand, as far as I know.”
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/...e-deeply-rooted-in-american-culture/comments/  

And when the SWS brigade inevitably comes through this thread to derail it into arguing, please use the Block button on them and keep it moving...
 
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I had to look up "imbued"

"Islamophobia in the post-9/11 age." this is so apparent on open in America its a shame. I always known folks to have "not so hidden" prejudices throughout life, but there was a apprehension on their part as to try and be politically correct with the choice of words yet not realizing how F!!!d up they come across...But what is occurring with folks of Islam is, for lack of words, CRAZY.

America was founded on freedoms of religion , and as i understand it, the first europeans who came to form a "new land" were doing so in the intent to not be forced into the Kings beliefs and ways. Here today, even if Obama was Muslim, what the hell would it have mattered? This is America.

Ignorance and stupidity seems to 'go away' as time passes, and something new occurs, I guess along with the fears of the darker skinned, comes the fear of Muslim people...who happened to be darker as well.

Sad.
 
I said similar in a recent race thread not too long ago.

The efforts taken to be intentionally ignorant and these coy attempts to erase or rewrite history to downplay the horrendous acts of the past are even more flagrantly offensive. If anything those things make the revenge of the black race that much more of a reality. Every time a young black man is murdered and the first thing out your mouth is Chicago or hip hop you're only making sure things pass the boiling point quicker.
 
Will get through it tomorrow but..

I remember gun sales soaring when Obama got elected. People try to say now that it was all because he was a very progressive candidate, but he almost never spoken about gun control.

And in the days after the election, I remember along with the outrage of America having a black president, was this undercurrent of fear from white supremacists like things are about to get real

Like claim ole Obama was going to be the white man's reckoning :lol:
 
Master Zik said:
I said similar in a recent race thread not too long ago.

The efforts taken to be intentionally ignorant and these coy attempts to erase or rewrite history to downplay the horrendous acts of the past are even more flagrantly offensive. If anything those things make the revenge of the black race that much more of a reality. Every time a young black man is murdered and the first thing out your mouth is Chicago or hip hop you're only making sure things pass the boiling point quicker.
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every drop of blood in the bucket makes it that much closer to overflowing...I don't think people are ready for the inevitable backlash that the dominant society is building up to by murdering blacks wholesale. 

and to clarify, I anticipate a lot more than just physical conflict.  more importantly than with their fists, people are going to fight RWS with their minds and their wallets.
 
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The thing that's crazy is that there's white people out there who in all honesty think there's a war against white people and that they are truly the ones being oppressed in this country.
 
Their systematic oppression against other races unites them.

Oppressed people have to find something to unite over to counteract racism.
 
big panda said:
The thing that's crazy is that there's white people out there who in all honesty think there's a war against white people and that they are truly the ones being oppressed in this country.
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Yeah, that whole "race war" thing is so stupid.  Most folks just want to live their lives in peace.
 
Whats crazy is most black people aren't trying to kill all white people in retaliation. We just want fair opportunities and to be left the hell alone.
 
big panda said:
The thing that's crazy is that there's white people out there who in all honesty think there's a war against white people and that they are truly the ones being oppressed in this country.
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I realized this when I started listening to the opie and anthony show. In particular older(40+) white males feel that they're being attacked.
 
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Mr Marcus said:
 
shut the hell up 
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How about no.
laugh.gif
 
Why are they getting uncomfortable when all we ask for is a level playing field.

Seriously, just being even is too much to bare.



And these black dudes talkin bout " we dont need their help, pull up from the bootstraps"

Get out of here.
 
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This describes 95% of whites that I have encountered.
 
The refusal to acknowledge this history of oppression, violence and genocide may be the most disturbing and terrible tendency of America’s dominant culture. “Perhaps the most appalling contemporary myth is that none of this happened,”
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What is passed off as harmless libertarian talk in most colleges, turns into widely accepted beliefs that just simply aren't true. There are plenty of people who are not racist that go around with the sentiment that racism is not their "fault"-when nobody is blaming them in the first place. They will usually say something to the effect of- "I didn't own slaves" Well the U.S. government did and supported and embedded such behavior for hundreds of years.
 
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CelticsPride34 said:
I have an honest question for the black NT'ers and anyone who is a descendent of a slave....

Slavery introduced Africans to America... If slavery never existed, the vast majority of you guys would be born and raised in Africa...

Would you go back and change it so that slavery in America never happened?... Or accept that evil deeds sometimes plant seeds of greatness?...

Just something I've wondered for a while... Same with Israelis/holocaust...
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This has literally never crossed my mind before and don't really see the point of the question. Slavery was horrible, terrible, a national shame and crime against humanity, but it happened and this where we are 400 years later. What I don't like about these questions is that they are posed during discussions like this and serve to only really divert the conversation toward a place of ambitious conjecture and really IMO just muddy the water of what this thread is about.

If you are genuine in you question post it in the black culture discussion thread if you already haven't or make another thread about. Also I truly am not even trying to come at you its just I have these question asked to me during talks like we are having in here and I just always see a pattern to it.
 
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