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Originally Posted by CorpMediaSux
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Oh, I see you won't be happy until all evil white men are removed from any kind of power. This attitude, this mental segregation, only encourages the identity politics that continues to divide America. I am a member of the human race. Until more people regardless of race accept this as their true identity we will have problems with race relationships in America.
Incorrect. I was merely demonstrating the limits to your “cyclical” argument regarding class and privelige within American history. You are correct that major shifts in the economy saw the fall of one elite class (say the cotton kings) for the rise of another (say the robber barons) to the rise of another (the internet giants) etc. etc. But within those cycles there is a constant. An overwhelming majority of white men.
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And the overwhelming majority of the population was and is ... ? This will change as the demographics change. Before you hum and haw read the rest of the post. I am going to do a little clarifying also. As I said, "I am a member of the human race. Until more people regardless of race accept this as their true identity we will have problems with race relationships in America."
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You had made the claim that only those who belonged to the "right family," went to the "right schools," joined the golf club with the "right people" became successful and made it into the "power elite." I was giving a list of people who did not come from or go to or belong to the "right" family/school/club and yet still achieved success in their chosen field.
Let me clarify then before this conversation descends into silliness. I'm not trying to prove that nothing in America is determined on merit. That is silly. I'm also uninterested in talking about these issues in absolutes. Both of us can find “exceptional” examples to any black-white claim (no pun intended) that we make. And if your only goal is to prove that merit counts for something, then we don't have a debate. But the word “meritocracy,” to me, has a specific meaning. It suggests that merit is the first and most important factor for determining access to education, employment, political influence and quality of life generally. Indeed the word is meant to contrast with “aristocracy”, where birth right was the single most important determining factor in access to the aforementioned “rights” or “priveliges” depending on how you feel about those issues.
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Then I need to clarify myself as well, though I thought I had. I am not suggesting that America has been a meritocracy for all classes, ethnicity, races, or genders from the beginning of time for all. I do not deny that at one time only male white land owners (most of whom descendants of ex-Brits or in the south ex-Scots, with some Dutch for seasoning) had the vote and were able to own land, enter into business or politics, but for those within that narrow group it was very much a meritocracy. America was unique in this at that time, it was a great step up compared to Britain which was structured on class, birth, and the rights of the noble. Britain is still very class conscious. And at that time, where on planet Earth was there any social system close to that ideal? As our culture developed more and more have been included, brought into the fold of that meritocracy. While we today would consider the Irish (or Italians or Spanish or fill-in-the-blank) white, the power elite of the 1700s and 1800s considered the Irish less favorably and did not included them in their meritocracy. The same happened with every ethnic group in America. During the 1800s there would have never been a Kennedy elected president, because they were descendants of Irish and worse Roman Catholic. It has been bloody at times, as the pendulum swings away for the ideal and then back toward the ideal, but there has been a constant progression of more inclusion of those who in the past who were not accepted by the elites of the past.
A short digression: America was unique for many reasons, but one was the fact that it came into being when for the first time people started to question the rights of the individual above or in relation to the state. The Enlightenment of the West brought forth the ideals of liberty, equality, and freedom for the first time. This was an evolutionary leap in consciousness. Along with this, right on its heels and because of it to a degree, arose the Industrial Revolution.
Slavery had been a human institution that dated back beyond written history. Prior to the Enlightenment of the West and the Industrial Revolution all peoples and all societal types (foraging, herding, horticultural, maritime, and agrarian) engaged in the practice of slavery. Remember the word "slavery" comes from "Slav," as in the Slavic peoples. Most would consider the Slavic people white by today's standards. Only with the emergence of the Enlightenment mentality with its demand for liberty, equality, and freedom
for all and the Industrial Age is slavery eradicated. It just so happens that America was coming into being when this was all happening. Roughly between 1770-1870 is slavery ended as an institution in the industrialized West. In a short one hundred years the Enlightened industrialized West ended a human institution that had been practiced since the beginning of time.
The fight over slavery was worse in America, because while the industrialized North (and most of Europe) was coming to find slavery abhorrent, the South was becoming more dependent on its slave culture. When George Washington left office there were almost 700,000 black slaves in America. Over the next half century there was a great extension of slavery due to the increase cotton consumption world wide. There was a doubling of the American cotton crop in the 1820s and then a doubling again in the 1830s. By 1860 cotton exports were two-thirds of the total value of all American exports. This, of course, meant a huge increase in plantations and need for more labor. By 1820 there were a million and a half Negro slaves, by 1860 about four million. And slavery had become the economic foundation for the Southern way of life. The stage was set for the biggest most bloodiest fight over the ideals of the Enlightenment (liberty, equality, and freedom for all) and the ideals of agrarian culture that needed the human labor to sustain itself. 600,000 Americans died.
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So in order for America to claim it was or ever has been a “meritocracy”, the test is not to prove that some people achieve based on merit. The test is to demonstrate if there was/are a standard more powerful than merit that determined/s access to citizenship rights and economic mobility. The answer, in the case of America until 1965, was yes. Whiteness and maleness, traits as “inborn” as noble birth was the first standard for access to the “American dream” for centuries.
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Except if you were Irish, or German, or Italian, or French Roman Catholic, or Russian Jew or, and the list goes on and on. All of these different ethnic groups (I did not list them in any particularly order) are considered "white" by today's standards, but were not accepted back centuries ago by those of power. As I stated at the beginning of this conversation,
our founding fathers set up ideals that were beyond the reality of the times and America has slowly over time became more inclusive and come closer to living by those ideals.
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So returning to your cyclical argument. Once whiteness and maleness gained you access to land ownership, voting, industrial jobs, management, CEOness, political power etc. you could then be judged on your merit. And you very often were. But the United States has always been more than just white men. In fact, white men compared to the demographics of people who are not white men, have always represented a minority. So America was a “meritocracy” for the minority of its people until 1965.
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Except for all those who proved themselves by merit. With each generation more were brought into the fold. Those marginalized were tolerated, then accepted (with reservations by necessity or by force) and then, finally included within the meritocracy.
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You may disagree with Rush, but you cannot claim that he has not succeeded in his chosen field
I was offended that you equated Rush’s struggles to succeed with Frederick Douglass.
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I did not equate Rush's struggles to succeed with Frederick Douglass struggles.
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I guess I just think being born into slavery in an era where your race defined you as less than human is a little more of a barrier to success than being born a white guy with not a lot of money.
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I was not equating or comparing anyone on the list with anyone else on the list. I was simply giving examples of those who succeeded in spite of the fact that they did not come/went/belong to the "right" family/school/club.
Only if you insist, but I really don't think that's necessary.
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If America was, as you claim, not a meritocracy in nature and that only those with the right connections (family/school/club) could succeed, then no one who did not have those connections would ever succeed. It would not matter how gifted or talented an individual was, they would not have been given an opportunity to show off, cultivate, or express those gifts and talents. It proves that people of merit achieve success, in spite of the odds against them.
Hopefully I've clarified my statements as to avoid these kinds of absolute claims.
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And I hope I have clarified my point of view.
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I am sorry I did not make myself clear enough. I am well aware of the structure of early American society and how it was divided along class (economics), ethnicity (and to a degree race) and gender lines. We are talking about, largely, the 1600s and 1700s
Can you clarify further? “To a degree”? You mean in that one race was classified as property and another race was not?
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While slavery was an institution there was no real "color problem" in America. Race was not the barrier separating the overwhelming majority of blacks (there had always been a few free among them) from whites, it was their status as slaves which was upheld by legal sanction. With the emancipation of all slaves that legal framework was swept away and replaced with a framework of democratic equality for all. Suddenly millions of blacks (African-Americans) were free -- most of whom were uneducated and untrained, except for field work, and without any leadership of their own race. They were now in direct economic competition with poor whites who were not too pleased over the defeat of the Confederacy, in an economically ruined South.
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And we’re also talking about the 19th century and early 20th century. While slavery was abolished with the Civil War, by the 1880s the south reestablished white supremacy via Jim Crow. While there was a brief meritocracy for African Americans in the south during radical reconstruction. All of those citizenship rights were rolled back less than a decade after the election of 1876. Indeed, the post-Reconstruction era demonstrates white supremacy’s ability to reconstitute itself despite major legislation. The 14th and 15th Amendments existed before 1965, so laws, in and of themselves do not translate into a meritocracy.
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Slavery had been abolished, but that did not mean the majority of Americans had evolved enough to accept it. The racism that developed after the Civil War (what we understand as racism today) was to a great degree a response to the perceived undermining of the Southern way of life. Southern politicians understood they had a convenient scapegoat with African-Americans to rally the poor whites of the South to gain power. Before the Civil War African-Americans were protected like any property and were ensured at least a minimum security and maintenance, but after the Civil War and once the Union army left the South, African-Americans had no protector. Sadly after the nation had lost 600,000 it lost the will to fight on and do what was needed to really changing things. After Emancipation the North did not want to press the issue any further -- in the minds of the Northern citizen the heavy lifting had already been done. White supremacy did not reconstitute itself -- it was born.
White supremacy (through Jim Crow segregation) of the South did not receive its death blow until 1965, when a new level of consciousness emerged (the postmodern) which acknowledged the marginalized groups as worthy of consideration and respect. Yet before 1965, African-Americans won success through merit. Little by little over the years African-Americans showed their talent and gifts and merit and with each individual success they undermined the racist rhetoric of inferiority. Jesse Owens showed the arch-racist Adolf (I know he was not an American) and the world the complete baseless of white supremacy by winning the gold. He also undermines your assertion that America was/is a nation of white supremacy. No, self-respecting nation of white supremacists would ask an African-American to represent America in the Olympics, since it contradicts the idea of the superiority of the white race.
end part 1
tashi deleks,
M