Guest post: The whole of Anglo-Saxondom was pervaded by racism
Originally a comment by Tim Harris on Slavery gets all but erased.
The Nazis did learn a great deal from the USA. But, really, the whole of Anglo-Saxondom was pervaded by racism. Thatcher & Reagan were supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa not so long ago, the treatment of native people in Australia continues to be abysmal, and it does not seem to be all that much better in North America, particularly when an oil pipeline is at stake. This is not to mention the Belgians in the Congo and the Germans in Namibia, and earlier the Spaniards and the Poruguese. The Rio Tinto mining corporation, with the connivance of the Australian government, blew up a few months ago a cave on an Aboriginal sacred site that had been occupied on and off for 40,000 years to the fury naturally of native people, and also of archaeologists, and offered wholly cynical apologies for the ‘distress’ they might have caused after the justified outcry. Great swathes of documents (those that were not illegally destroyed) concerning the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya and the British response have fairly recently been discovered, hidden away illegally for years and years. And the British government has recently refused to abide by a virtually unanimous UN decision against its occupation of the Chagos archipelago, a part of Mauritius, from which it deported all the inhabitants to Britain. There is a good article in the Guardian (Google: Philippe Sands, Guardian – ‘At last, the Chagossians have a real chance of going back home’) by Philippe Sands, the author of two truly remarkable and harrowing books concerning the Holocaust, ‘East West Street: on the Origins of Genocide & Crimes against Humanity’ and ‘The Ratline: Love, Lies & Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive’. Sands is Jewish (and many of his family perished in the Holocaust), and is professor of law at University College London and a barrister at Matrix Chambers. He is counsel for Mauritius on Chagos, and has been involved in many human important rights cases, including that of Pinochet and his torture regime.
On a more personal note, I was asked some years ago to play two small parts (one being Mark Twain) in a good community theatre production of the musical ‘Big River’, which is a version of ‘Huckleberry Finn’. During one of the rehearsals in which a group of recaptured slaves were being marched across the rear of the stage, singing a genuine song from the times of slavery about the desire for freedom, a Jamaican actor had a complete breakdown and ran from the stage shivering and crying. I was in tears, and afterwards, speaking to the very good African-American actor and singer who took the part of Jim, I remarked on how painful the musical was, and he said gravely, ‘Yes, it takes you to places you don’t want to go.’ The production was a good one, because it genuinely brought out the horrors of slavery, as the Broadway or other professional productions you may find on YouTube definitely do not: they play down the horrors and the importance of Jim, making it all about Huck, and sentimentalise things, and so do not do justice at all to what is there in the libretto and music. Our director did a remarkable job, as did all the actors.
Finally, I note that such as Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne are now questioning whether the figures for the deaths of American black people at the hands of the police are really as bad as they are claimed to be – the only implication of which, so far as I can see, is that they suppose that if the figures aren’t quite right, the Black Lives Matter movement is unjustified.
I can think of at least two other possible interpretations, not having read/listened to either man on the topic. Neither of which is prima facie incoherent. They may be factually wrong, but it would an empirical question.
Nullius,
Of course! Of course there are other motivations!
Just like there are lots of reasons why someone might decide to “ask questions” about the number of Jews killed with the Holocaust. It’s just a mere coincidence that everyone who does just happens to be an anti-Semite.
Screechy,
I know you’re extremely intelligent and versed in proper argumentation. So I also know that you know what’s wrong with that.
Are you saying that the Belgians, Spanish, and Portuguese are Anglo-Saxon?
How many murders of black peoiple are hidden in police reports, unknown because there were no videos, no witnesses? How many murders are swept under the “resistng arrest” rug? And it’s not the numbers alone; it’s the IMPUNITY. How many of the police officers in the cases which are known were been left unpunished until video resulted in public outcry? What about the officers who witnessed these murders and remained silent, or worse, corroborated the perjured statements of the perpetrators?
Even without the killings, there’s still plenty of racism to deal with from initial police contact, arrest and charging procedures, incarceration, trial, sentencing, and imprisonment to keep reform minded people busy for a long time. Stopping the murders is just an obvious first step, not the end game.
No, Colin Day, I am not saying or suggesting that the Belgians, Spanish & Portuguese are Anglo-Saxon. Doubtless, my writing was not as clear as it should have been, and I apologise for that, but a comment is not a philosophical treatise. I intended to point out, as I think any reasonable reader would assume, that racism was not merely an Anglo-Saxon vice. Neither are the Germans, whom I also mentioned, Anglo-Saxons in the way the term is normally used.
I think I should add that what angers me most about attempts to play down the killings of African Americans by the police (and one might add vigilantes like George Zimmerman, who got off scot-free, or that pair, or trio, who shot an African American jogger recently) is their fundamental frivolousness – a frivolousness that is disguised under a falsely naive mask of logic or science or ‘objectivity’. It is scarcely surprising that people, and particularly African American people, should feel outrage at seeing a man being choked to death by a grinning policeman – or at hearing about it: I, for one, have not been able to bring myself to look at that video. Outrage is surely the natural and right response. Perhaps things aren’t quite so bad as many of us suppose, but they are extremely bad nevertheless and they should not be tolerated.
Well, perhaps Jerry Coyne and Sam Harris should pay some attention to the black people who have been killed shortly before and in the time since George Floyd was killed. It’s astonishing that neither can see — and I haven’t read where they talk about this — that that number is not negligible. But it’s not only the number; it’s the way it’s being done, without any regard for the humanity of those simply killed (Tim’s frivolousness), as though just being black is crime enough. It’s that, and not the numbers, that really counts. Black people don’t deserve the respect that white people are given. Isn’t there simply something obvious about this? Does it make sense to argue the numbers here?
I feel I have to say, pace Screechy Monkey, that Professor Coyne is in no way at all a racist (he is an admirer of Martin Luther King), but gets a little too exercised, I feel, about social and political disorder, particularly when it involves what he regards as ‘mobs’, as do, among others, Boris Johnson, Andrew Sullivan, and one who shall not be named but tweets regularly on the subject..
The question is, I suppose, whether they Coyne and Harris get exercised about social disorder in other contexts. Boris Johnson, by the way, is not obviously not racist. Also, it is perhaps worth noting that, in my experience, racism or at least skin-colourism is often a constant. In India, for example, it is quite common for more dark-skinned men in the south to favour women from north India, who are more fair-skinned, and fairer skinned people often find dark-skinned people less desirable. What is considered to be beautiful often affects one’s way of regarding other people. Do typically attractive people not benefit in who gets hired and who is left with less desirable employment? To what extent does what we find attractive define our sense of the human? Just think about popular kids at school. What is one of the characteristics that single them out for privilege? Often, it hangs on who is thought to be more attractive, whereas plain looking people are often second-listed. They often second-list themselves. Of course, from the white point of view, since white folks are used to be on top in the world as it has been, have to a large extent, got to define themselves as of special value. People like us often marks the delimitation between privilege and disfavour. And of course, one can admire Martin Luther King and still be a racist, just because he is admirable in some respect in which others of his colour are not. Just consider Gandhi, who was racist regarding black South Africans. And European Jews, during the Nazi years, were often indistinguishable from their compatriots — so not only colour. What is this category race, and how is it to be defined ? These perhaps are relatively simplistic considerations, but do they not raise questions that need answers? Ah, well, now I must off to the hospital!
I hope it goes well, Eric.
Regarding Boris Johnson, he could cheerfully write about ‘piccaninnies with watermelon smiles’, a phrase that could not but recall Enoch Powell’s description, in his infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968, of black children as ‘charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies’ who bullied an elderly white woman.
Yes, it’s odd to me why people become exercised so much about Black Lives Matter and the recent demonstrations, some of which of course did involve wanton destruction and looting, which I agree is deplorable (though quite a bit of the destruction, at least in Minneapolis and probably elsewhere as well, seems to have been perpetrated by white outsiders, often armed), and seem to pay very little attention, if any, to the the dangers posed by the extreme right, of which Timothy McVeigh and Dylan Roof were part, or to the recent spectacle of groups of armed white men turning up at state government offices and other places.
@Tim Harris
#6
OK, but in the US, Anglo is often used to mean white.
It is? Not in my experience. It’s used to mean non-Mexican, non-Puerto Rican, non-Cuban…you get the idea.
@OB
#13
I noticed it when I visited my parents near Dallas.
Not bad, Tim, thanks. Quick in and out. Man problems that tend to crop up as you grow older, I guess, but manageable, the doc says.
But then, of course, Ophelia, non-Mexican, non-Puerto Rican, non-Cuban and definitely not black, is white, isn’t it?
I don’t know about Harris but I had a brief look at Coyne’s site a couple of days ago and as far as I could tell he wasn’t questioning the figures regarding black people killed by police as much as asking whether blacks were killed at a disproportionately higher rate than whites. I only skimmed his post but the article is here: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/26/the-complications-of-assessing-racism-in-police-departments/
Again, I don’t know Harris’ views but Coyne is pretty consistent on this matter. He’s fully supportive of protests so long as they are peaceful and against those that involve violence, looting and indiscriminate destruction, no matter who is doing the protesting. His model is, of course, the protests he was involved in during the 1960s/70s.
Eric @ 16 – Heh – well, yes, but that’s why I didn’t include the “and definitely not black” part.
Colin @ 14 – Noticed what though? People actually using “Anglo” to mean “black” and not to mean brown, Spanish-speaking, from south of the border, Hispanic, Latin[x], immigrant? Because that sounds very odd to me.
@Ophelia #18, I’ve heard “Anglo” used by Hispanics to describe black, non-Hispanic men (nb: it wouldn’t be used to describe Brazilians either, but the term “Anglo,” as I’m familiar with it comes from American Hispanic – . American [principally Chicano] activism). American blacks might not be Anglo-Saxons, but they’re Anglo-Americans.
Hispanic is not a race. If a black person can be Hispanic (e.g. David Ortiz), then a black person can be Anglo. Use of the term in this way can raise eyebrows or objections, but I’ve heard it more than once. Racial politics can be complicated in America. I don’t know if my Chicano brothers and sisters just want to remind black as well as white people that Chicanos were here first, but I do know that the monolithic Anglo society Hispanics have had to fight for centuries has always had black people on the Anglo side.
Ohhh, I see. I assumed Colin was talking about white people using it. (I do know Hispanic isn’t a race. Nor is Anglo, which is why it surprised me.)
It just occurred to me. In India, Anglo-Indians referred to the colonial British in India. Products of British/Indian relationships were called Eurasian. But later Anglo-Indians referred to the product of inter-racial marriages, to start with British-Indian. The railway colony (perhaps significant terminology) where my father worked was largely Anglo-Indian, although things were changing in the 1950’s. Then descendents of Anglo-Indians were also called Anglo-Indian. In this sense, Anglo-XXX would be the result of inter-breeding.
I take it that’s not what you meant. It’s odd for Anglo to refer quite simply to black Americans or whatever, although of course many black Americans have a strong admixture of European descent, from the time of slavery. Not questioning your experience, Ophelia, just that Anglo by itself isn’t an altogether clear concept, if any “racial” or ethnic concepts are. In India, of course, it was a fairly important distinction, for the British saved some jobs for Anglo-Indians. They basically ran the railways, for instance. In terms of the Raj it was a hierarchical term, just a bit higher than the Indian, lower than the British. There are still Anglo-Indian communities in India, who cherish their British origins. But I gather that Anglo doesn’t have that kind of resonance in the US. Of course, none of these are races. Besides, isn’t there a fair measure of agreement that there are no races as such? The social position of Anglo-Indians was an important part of the theme of the movie (which amazingly was thought torrid in its day) Bhowani Junction.
Eric, I can see where the confusion might come from, from such a distance. In America, the term “Anglo,” by itself, doesn’t refer to English people, it refers to people who speak English. It’s like how the term Hispanic doesn’t refer to Spanish people, it refers to people who speak Spanish.
Most Americans don’t have any English predecessors at all; English descent comes after German, Irish, black, and Mexican in the ranking of American ancestries. Americans of German, Irish, and black descent can be Anglos just like people of English ancestry, if they’re not Hispanic. Likewise, you can have Hispanics of German or Irish descent, etc. Just look at the Zorba-famous actor Anthony Quinn (ne Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca), or Che Guevara (Lynch). It’s even possible to have Hispanics of English descent; once the sun set on that old empire, it left people washed up all over the place.
Yes I was thinking of Anglo in the “not-Mexican” [or other south of border nationality – including Brazil? I don’t know] sense. Kind of a pushback word, like “honky.”
There is an interesting article on the website Foreign Policy about what the writer, Mark , says is the missed opportunity by the founding fathers to abolish slavery.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/03/america-founding-fathers-jefferson-washington-adams-race-civil-war/
There is an interesting article on the website Foreign Policy about what the writer, Michael Hirsch, says is the missed opportunity by the founding fathers to abolish slavery. It begins:
‘There was no greater devotee to the American cause of independence than the Marquis de Lafayette. The young and idealistic French aristocrat endured the terrible winter at Valley Forge and fought bravely in critical battles in the Revolutionary War—playing a decisive role in George Washington’s victory at Yorktown. He revered the man he called his “beloved, matchless Washington” as a surrogate father. Gen. Washington was just as enamored of the Frenchman who helped him win the war: If you visit the first president’s estate at Mount Vernon today, you will see, displayed prominently in the front parlor, the rusted key to the Bastille in Paris that Lafayette sent Washington during the French Revolution, describing it in a letter as a tribute from a “missionary of liberty to its patriarch.”
‘And yet when the war was done, Lafayette expressed disillusionment with the patriarch of liberty, who politely rebuffed or ignored the Frenchman’s repeated pleas to free America’s slaves—some of whom had fought valiantly as soldiers in the assault at Yorktown. “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery,” Lafayette later said, according to historian Henry Wiencek’s 2003 book An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. His sentiments came to be used as a rallying cry by abolitionists before the Civil War.
‘Lafayette was only one of many legendary figures associated with America’s founding 244 years ago this Saturday, July 4, who died dismayed over its inherent contradictions over race, which only grew more intractable with time. And as Americans celebrate another Independence Day, the sense of disillusionment has not disappeared, either. No doubt, a great deal has changed for the better since the Civil War, including the abolishment of slavery 155 years ago and the constitutional and legislative establishment of equal rights for all Americans. But, somehow, too little has changed in terms of the racial divide that—in a way that is all too apparent after the killing of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement—the founders and their successors not only failed to heal but often to address at all.
‘Only in recent years have scholars begun to acknowledge the extent to which the true abolitionist movement in America began in the very earliest years of the republic, at the hands of such anti-slavery Founding Fathers as Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay.
‘It did not have to be this way. As some historians now argue, America’s racial divisions might have been addressed much sooner.’
Yes, Acolyte of Sagan is absolutely right to say that Professor Coyne is concerned as to whether the killing of African Americans by the police is disproportionate in comparison with the killing of white people – my ‘figures’ was too vague. But this hardly strikes me as a greatly important question in the circumstances. And she is absolutely right to point to Professor Coyne’s support for non-violent protest. But, as the great Judith Shklar remarks in her book ‘The Faces of Injustice’, ”In a radically unequal society the rules cannot but encourage unlawful conduct among the deprived and their exploiters. The former are desperate, the latter can get away with it. Law naturally falls very differently upon them.” There has been a lack of political will over the years, both in the US and the UK in particular, to address inequality and its dangerous effects on the polity as a whole. And that is the fundamental problem.
Hey another Judith Shklar fan. High five.
Oh, she is wonderful! So intelligent, fair-minded & perceptive – one of the best and clearest writers of political philosophy I have ever come across. High fives across the Pacific!
Tim Harris, #26, while referring to my earlier comment you wrote in regard to me:
Well, just to let you know that I won’t be accusing you of murdering me or denying my existence, neither will I begin a campaign to get you fired and ostracised throughout society. I don’t even feel any pain after seeing you misgender me, yet that is supposed to be an act of very real violence. I’m beginning to suspect that some people are over-playing the alleged effects of being misgendered for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. :-))
Oh, dear! I am sorry! It weren’t intentional, guv’nor, trust me!
It’s fine, Tim, didn’t hurt a bit. Oh, wait, I’m doing this wrong. Now, how does it go? Erm…..yep, got it.
IINTENT ISN’T MAGIC, CUPCAKE!
God, I’m so woke, me.
Sam Harris has long raised suspicions of bigotry, starting with his blanket condemnation of muslims in general. So it’s not too surprising to me that his focus in these times of renewed racial tensions would be on whether the numbers of dead are “inflated”.
@OB #18, #20
I was thinking more of this:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Anglo
I shall just say that, when referring to ‘Anglo-Saxondom’, I was referring to nations whose law and political systems derive in the main from British precedent and and whose political classes remain predominantly white.