General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIn a phone call from a racist, defending Trump, an inarguable point was made:
I asked, "Who should go back to their "own country" and then added, "white people invaded and desecrated holy land of Native Americans." His meager response was to point out that some tribes - particularly the Apache and Comanche - were at war with other tribes.
I replied that "other large tribes fought each other, just like European nations did." For example:
From 1716 to 1718, Blackbeard and his 40-gun flagship, Queen Annes Revenge, prowled the West Indies and the Atlantic coast of North America, preying on ships heading back to Spain laden with gold, silver and other treasures, looted from natives in Mexico and South America. French "privateers" also raided the gold-laden, Spanish galleons.
By Zoe Greenberg Globe Staff,July 15, 2019, 8:22 p.m
Although his comments may be some of the most hurtful and inflammatory ones made by an American president in recent memory, historians and scholars point out that they are also part of a long history of actions by Americans and their government to draw the boundaries of citizenship so that they exclude people of color.
These comments are part of a much bigger picture. The first naturalization law of the republic in 1790 defined the privilege of citizenship as the provenance of free white people.
Instead of granting citizenship, many white leaders came up with another solution: a return to Africa, an idea popularized by the American Colonization Society.
The 14th Amendment solved the issue of freed slaves, enacting a kind of retroactive acknowledgment that anyone born in the United States was a citizen, according to Jones. But even that did not settle the question of whether all nonwhite people could become citizens. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for example, prevented Chinese people from becoming American citizens or immigrating here.
The rallying cry against the Chinese and against Mexicans in the late 1800s was a blunt one: This is a white mans country!
The 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, for example, formally made Native Americans citizens, though they had lived on US land much longer than its original citizens.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/07/15/the-long-sordid-history-behind-trump-back-your-country-comments/GCYy2gQp5juFl1BbbDReiN/story.html?et_rid=827336609&s_campaign=todayinpolitics:newsletter
After, I made the inarguable point that white people (and Hispanics) invaded America and destroyed Native populations, with little or no provocation, the racist said "don't ever call me;" but I didn't call him in the first place.
Bayard
(24,145 posts)This is a white mans country! Still in full use today.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)What does this Preamble mean?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Bayard
(24,145 posts)BlueMississippi
(776 posts)and are now demanding power by using multilateral bodies and institutions they created.
hedda_foil
(16,510 posts)Spaniards, who are white people from Spain, conquered and oppressed them.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)And, geneticist can prove these (supposedly) geographically isolated human groups (ie invaders from Spain and Natives, who migrated into South America, prior to invasion) are more closely related than original tribes - still existing in Africa are - although Homos Sapiens in Africa live only a few hundred kilometers away from each other. Some extremely old, relocated families - originally from Spain - still own lots of land, here in New Mexico.