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quote:Originally posted by sirius:
"middle class guilt"
Not in my case. How 'bout yourself?
Well, I was being sarky. But probably you're right and I do have a mild-to-moderate case of MCG.
Actually I've always been interested in "black" history- and I kind've don't like the generalization implied here- purely because you don't get told about it. To hear the mainstream tell it, Europeans invented or discovered everything.
I'm studying on a university campus where most of my fellow students are non-white.
3 years back, I was chatting to a collegue on my foundation year who hailed from Sierra Leone, and we were discussing engineering, invention and discovery in general when he suddenly remarked that most of the ideas we'd been discussing in class had a European name attached.
This studious, intelligent young black man actually sat there and said, quite seriously, that he had concluded that the development of technology was evidence that white people were superiour to black (his) people.
There are no words for that moment. I tried to communicate to him that he was wrong, that there was evidence that he was wrong, but at that crucial moment I failed him. I couldn't collect myself enough to make a sensible response. My first impulse was to scream "BOLLOCKS!" at the top of my lungs, which didn't seem terribly constructive.
After that I developed a more immediate fascination with the facts and figures involved. I'm not the most racially or culturally aware person in the world by a long shot, but at least if a situation like that ever arises again I'll be able to come up with reasoned and sensible information. |
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