I think a lot of white people do understand this, but that's not where the problem originates. Every race of people has a primal attachment to others who look the same or come from the same background. It's a surface level type of mutual understanding that bonds us together without question. That being said, if trust in another is skin deep, white people are on the extreme end of the spectrum, meaning that ANY pigment in one's skin will have that person alienated from their culture.
Societies throughout time have always been conquered and have been aware that another culture could come through to conquer them. This seems to be most easily observed in the societies which have formed closest to Sumer (Iraq and Kuwait today). The middle east is actually more diverse than we ever give credit to because of all of this expansion and cultural conquering done before the 1600s. It's very natural to conquer others, unfortunately, according to history.
China essentially invented gunpowder projectile weapons nearly a thousand years ago. This technology is older than we understand, and muskets were used in the 1400s by the Ottoman Empire, which helped to spread this technology throughout Eurasia. Can you imagine living in Eurasia at this time? A time where there was no long-distance communication possible without physically delivering a message on foot to another person who could actually read it. The problem with history is that this area of the world was largely documented while half of the planet was a myth, at best.
Technology advanced and trade routes became a hot commodity, especially in the middle east, India, and anywhere bordering China. Whoever controlled these routes our ports at the time pretty much had the most power in the world, and many wars were fought over this control of trade. Every culture at this time was at war with one another because of tribalism. Europeans come into the equation when they become reliant on these trade routes but business becomes plagued by greedy kings who ruled the ports. So, Europe begins trying to take things by force, winning some, losing others. Things in this area don't really get very problematic here until the East India Company.
The East India Company was a UK corporation that took control of Indian trade and created essentially modern day wage slavery. Originally, the company claimed to benefit the people of India, but as they acquired lands and armies, they began extracting resources from Indian labor and charging the local Indians heavy taxes to the point of impoverishing an entire culture. Before this time, India was believed to be the richest country in the world, but that wealth was extracted by the British.I've gotten ahead a bit, but going back to the 1400s, Europeans had a strangely advanced culture of policies, government, and education, but not so much advanced in production of textiles. The church was a powerful source of propaganda for the Europeans, and most were unified under one God that justified all of their colonialist traditions. They had big demands to keep their ideal society running, and had an ongoing feud with China, who would refuse to trade with Europe because they thought trade destroyed Chinese culture, especially the trading of opium which the Emperor worried was poisoning his people and extracting Chinese money through their addiction. European rulers begin sending sailors all over the planet to find new trade routes with India because they were met with resistance everywhere else.
The Americas were unique before they were colonized. This was a quiet part of the world where things had advanced in a different way. The Eastern world had advanced policies and laws. The Western world had extremely advanced architecture, art, and a natural philosophy. Tribes in this part of the world still had to go to war every now and again, which seems to be a human constant, but while the East was fixated on Capitalism, the West was fixated on making civilization a grand pinnacle of human life and death as equal forces. Polytheism was still alive and well, while in the East, it died with the Greeks (though briefly stolen by Romans).
When Hernan Cortes arrived in Tenochtitlan, Moctezuma welcomed he and his men with open arms and treated them with incredible respect. Cortes described Tenochtitlan as an otherworldly place built out of gold and jewels. The architecture was incredibly advanced, such as the walkways that would recede into the surrounding lake to control the entrances and exits from invaders. Cortes complained of the idols and began pushing Christianity upon Moctezuma and his people, AND THEY RESPECTED HIS WISHES. They stopped sacrificing women to the sun. They removed all idols from the city. The Aztecs were more than happy to accommodate Cortes' wishes.
Cortes writes to the king during this time, plotting to kill Moctezuma and steal the riches from the Aztecs, and of course, turn the temples into churches. Europe realizing the true value of South America, endlessly conquered and buried all of the cultures that had surpassed them in both wealth and richness of life. They thought of these peoples as demon worshippers and did all they could to stop it and steal everything that made the Americas great on their own.
Time never rolls back. There is never a chance to truly do things again. But going forward, I think instead of spreading the idea of white guilt, we should actually be reminding all people of the consequences caused by unbridled greed, and considering the Black and Latine voters that have supported Trump in this latest election, I don't think the message should exclusively be "white people need to learn", since the real issue at play here is the lack of class awareness. The white people in power, though, have proven to be despicable and loathsome human beings, but I think that goes for most world leaders in general. We need to be more focused on destroying the rich and finding philosophies that don't create inherent class discrimination, because this just leaves everyone vulnerable to propaganda and brainwashing.
Even if white people vanished off the face of the earth, I think some other skin-deep classification of people will take their place and commit their same genocides if they are raised to believe that money is equal to social standing. It's the defense mechanism of Capitalism. You acquire things for the sole reason of defending them from being taken by others. We can hate what white people have done in the past all we want, but really what we have to do is to connect people back to the natural world going into the future. Love is the true wealth of the natural world, and that is what I think European conquerors were most afraid of (i.e. God is Love; God fearing man). If we don't forgive and find a way to move forward with love, we will repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again. Vengeance only has value until one finally gets the revenge they seek, then they will realize it was all for nothing as it was never for love. We can't waste time equating the morality of the past when there is too little time for us to make the future abundant to all life on Earth.
ellievsbear
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