9th July 2020, 8:24 AM
My fellow gorons--hear me!
First of all, what is a wypipo? I think I understand from context but I have never heard this before. Please define. Is that a slur of “why people?”
Quoth the Weltall, “There is a lot of nuance to this discussion, but your post kind of skips over all of it in favor of making simple, reductionist points.” Also quoth the Weltall, “I mean, minorities didn't use whiteface to dehumanize white people; white Americans have been in control of everything forever, and that control was really bad for everyone else.”
General! Are you not also eliminating nuance from your arguments by making clean-cut, absolutist, black and white (no pun intended) arguments and findings of morality? You make it seem as if all white people are inherently racist, and all non-white people are victims. Not that it really matters, but do you know for a fact that no minority has ever dressed as a white person to be offensive/mean-spirited, in human history? Pray tell, whence your gift of clairvoyance? Furthermore, are you saying that everyone who ever donned black face makeup was consciously out on a mission to “dehumanize” anybody? Or was it just not that big of a deal back then? If a black man said “I hate all white people” and put on faux white face paint, and mocked you and your family, would you laugh and high five him, or would you denounce him? I suspect that some of you folks far, far to the left of Goron City would congratulate him and paint murals of him on the nearest building you come across.
“White Americans have been in control of everything forever, and control was really bad for everyone else.”
That right? What do you suggest replace this? Nothing in the system as far as I know really prohibits or discourages anybody from serving in government, writing a book, making a movie, painting a painting... where is all this control? What "white control" here, today, in 2020, prevents a black/chinese/goron from doing whatever he wants to do in life? What prevents a black teenager from going to college and getting a good career? Is it "whitey" keeping him down? I just don't see it. I worked my way through college, working fulltime so that I paid it as I went and graduated with no debt. I didn't get a free ride. How is it diffeent from anybody else? Perhaps in some deeply southern places, Alabama or Mississippi or wherever---I live in Massachusetts... ::ahem::, I mean I live in Goron City... perhaps in those racist states, I could entertain the belief where it might be harder for a black person to get ahead---but not in the majority of the country.
No good at all came out of America between 1918-2016 Weltall? Leading the Allies through two World Wars, landing on the moon, all the art and literature that has been produced, ushering in the internet, etc.? The left selectively finds the worst in America, to help flush out your narrative that we are evil and need you to redesign the future for us… and to be sure the right does the same, skipping the bad and only finding the good… I am trying to stand in the middle and direct the traffic as these opposite forces clash. I say that NEITHER SIDE IS 100% right and America is NOT an evil country! I choose to side with whoever sees the good in my country. That always tends to be the conservatives. You never hear a liberal say anything good or positive about the United States E-V-E-R. I am wearing my conservative hat today because of that. Tomorrow I will wear my liberal hat when we rail about some other topic.
“Also, no history ought to be forgotten, but Confederate history is shameful and the political ideology which emerged from its ruins has no redeeming qualities.”
I agree with some of this, but your discussion kind of skips over all nuance in favor of making simple, reductionist points. I agree 100% that there should be no statues that explicitly extoll slavery. But, am I wrong, in opining that perhaps, friends, not all Confederates were slave-holders, and not all of them enlisted to fight for the evil banner of slavery? Certainly, I agree, that there should be no statues to promote slavery. But not everyone who donned a gray uniform did so to rush off to die fighting in order to enslave people--just as not everybody who fought on the side of Germany in 1945 was doing so because they wanted to help Hitler kill Jews--and not every Union soldier who wore blue was on a righteous crusade to help liberate his fellow man. If someone is bombing my house, and killing my friends and family, then I don’t need any ethereal moral arguments to grab a gun and shoot the attacker dead. You burn my city, I don't care what color/race/creed you are--you're my enemy. The South was desperate and defeated after several years of war. Can you not fathom that some young Southerners, perhaps men not too different from you and me, took up arms to try to prevent Sherman’s march? If ::YOU:: had been born in 1845, and raised in the antebellum south, without the benefits of a 21st century liberal arts education, do you really think you would have the same opinions/beliefs that you hold today? Or would you probably have just gone with the flow? Or remained silent? Maybe room for some nuance here?
You must admit that at least some of those confederate veterans were only defending their homeland, without any/much consideration towards obsolete, racist ideals. Some might have signed up to avenge a fallen relative who died. And yes, I think that at least SOME signed up to fight legitimately for state’s rights. Were the majority of Confederates racists? Probably, I think… certainly even? Should their collective memory entirely be shit on? Certainly not.
I propose an alternative: rather than destroying statues other people put up before you were born, statues which mean a lot to some people for their own reasons which are none of your business and need not be approved by you to be deemed legitimate, why not go BUILD your OWN new statues? It's like kids in a sandbox, fighting over whose Ninja Turtle toys they are going to use, so they keep throwing sand at each other. Go build a statue of George Floyd if you want, and leave Teddy Roosevelt alone on the steps of the history museum... self-righeous iconoclastic bastards... try BUILDING and not DESTROYING... oh, but it's just so much FUN to let loose, and burn and destroy though! Way more fun, and easier!
First of all, what is a wypipo? I think I understand from context but I have never heard this before. Please define. Is that a slur of “why people?”
Quoth the Weltall, “There is a lot of nuance to this discussion, but your post kind of skips over all of it in favor of making simple, reductionist points.” Also quoth the Weltall, “I mean, minorities didn't use whiteface to dehumanize white people; white Americans have been in control of everything forever, and that control was really bad for everyone else.”
General! Are you not also eliminating nuance from your arguments by making clean-cut, absolutist, black and white (no pun intended) arguments and findings of morality? You make it seem as if all white people are inherently racist, and all non-white people are victims. Not that it really matters, but do you know for a fact that no minority has ever dressed as a white person to be offensive/mean-spirited, in human history? Pray tell, whence your gift of clairvoyance? Furthermore, are you saying that everyone who ever donned black face makeup was consciously out on a mission to “dehumanize” anybody? Or was it just not that big of a deal back then? If a black man said “I hate all white people” and put on faux white face paint, and mocked you and your family, would you laugh and high five him, or would you denounce him? I suspect that some of you folks far, far to the left of Goron City would congratulate him and paint murals of him on the nearest building you come across.
“White Americans have been in control of everything forever, and control was really bad for everyone else.”
That right? What do you suggest replace this? Nothing in the system as far as I know really prohibits or discourages anybody from serving in government, writing a book, making a movie, painting a painting... where is all this control? What "white control" here, today, in 2020, prevents a black/chinese/goron from doing whatever he wants to do in life? What prevents a black teenager from going to college and getting a good career? Is it "whitey" keeping him down? I just don't see it. I worked my way through college, working fulltime so that I paid it as I went and graduated with no debt. I didn't get a free ride. How is it diffeent from anybody else? Perhaps in some deeply southern places, Alabama or Mississippi or wherever---I live in Massachusetts... ::ahem::, I mean I live in Goron City... perhaps in those racist states, I could entertain the belief where it might be harder for a black person to get ahead---but not in the majority of the country.
No good at all came out of America between 1918-2016 Weltall? Leading the Allies through two World Wars, landing on the moon, all the art and literature that has been produced, ushering in the internet, etc.? The left selectively finds the worst in America, to help flush out your narrative that we are evil and need you to redesign the future for us… and to be sure the right does the same, skipping the bad and only finding the good… I am trying to stand in the middle and direct the traffic as these opposite forces clash. I say that NEITHER SIDE IS 100% right and America is NOT an evil country! I choose to side with whoever sees the good in my country. That always tends to be the conservatives. You never hear a liberal say anything good or positive about the United States E-V-E-R. I am wearing my conservative hat today because of that. Tomorrow I will wear my liberal hat when we rail about some other topic.
“Also, no history ought to be forgotten, but Confederate history is shameful and the political ideology which emerged from its ruins has no redeeming qualities.”
I agree with some of this, but your discussion kind of skips over all nuance in favor of making simple, reductionist points. I agree 100% that there should be no statues that explicitly extoll slavery. But, am I wrong, in opining that perhaps, friends, not all Confederates were slave-holders, and not all of them enlisted to fight for the evil banner of slavery? Certainly, I agree, that there should be no statues to promote slavery. But not everyone who donned a gray uniform did so to rush off to die fighting in order to enslave people--just as not everybody who fought on the side of Germany in 1945 was doing so because they wanted to help Hitler kill Jews--and not every Union soldier who wore blue was on a righteous crusade to help liberate his fellow man. If someone is bombing my house, and killing my friends and family, then I don’t need any ethereal moral arguments to grab a gun and shoot the attacker dead. You burn my city, I don't care what color/race/creed you are--you're my enemy. The South was desperate and defeated after several years of war. Can you not fathom that some young Southerners, perhaps men not too different from you and me, took up arms to try to prevent Sherman’s march? If ::YOU:: had been born in 1845, and raised in the antebellum south, without the benefits of a 21st century liberal arts education, do you really think you would have the same opinions/beliefs that you hold today? Or would you probably have just gone with the flow? Or remained silent? Maybe room for some nuance here?
You must admit that at least some of those confederate veterans were only defending their homeland, without any/much consideration towards obsolete, racist ideals. Some might have signed up to avenge a fallen relative who died. And yes, I think that at least SOME signed up to fight legitimately for state’s rights. Were the majority of Confederates racists? Probably, I think… certainly even? Should their collective memory entirely be shit on? Certainly not.
I propose an alternative: rather than destroying statues other people put up before you were born, statues which mean a lot to some people for their own reasons which are none of your business and need not be approved by you to be deemed legitimate, why not go BUILD your OWN new statues? It's like kids in a sandbox, fighting over whose Ninja Turtle toys they are going to use, so they keep throwing sand at each other. Go build a statue of George Floyd if you want, and leave Teddy Roosevelt alone on the steps of the history museum... self-righeous iconoclastic bastards... try BUILDING and not DESTROYING... oh, but it's just so much FUN to let loose, and burn and destroy though! Way more fun, and easier!
H.R.M. DARVNIVS MAXIMVS EX TENEBRIS EXIT REX DEVSQVE GORONORVMQVE TENDORVM ROMANORVM ET GRÆCORVM OMNIS SEMPER EST