In The Heat of The Night

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I appreciate your comments. Your own background gives you an unusual (though not unique) perspective. Racism is a scourge of humanity, (along with organized religion, though you might not agree with the latter).



This fair to say. It began with the rapid ascendancy of the West in the modern era dating from the mid-15th century. (Prior to then and for a while afterwards there was no reason to bet on the West over China or even the Ottoman Empire for world dominance.) Driven by the aggressively competitive nature of Western culture and subsequently by its technological and military precocity, the Western dominated the whole world by the mid-19th century. The dominance was accompanied by an arrogant sense of superiority and entitlement that bread and fostered racism.

This is not say the Western attitude was entirely dissimilar to that of, e.g., the Chinese who were distainful of "barbarians", (anybody else), until the early 19th century.



This is fair to say to, but here some ironies creep into the picture.

The racism of the south has two sources I would suggest.

First, the racism of the slave owners who need to find away to justify their evil, un-Christian practice by casting the blacks as inferior. Some even convincing themselves that what they did was best for "the Negro".

Secondly -- and relating to the idea of defensive mechanism -- the racism of the poor whites who need to cast blacks as inferior in order to boost their own low sense of self-worth. Most southern white racism you observe to day is of this source.

Racism exists in the USA today, (and other places), but overt racism, or let's say, functional racism is declining while poverty and wealth inequality are emerging is bigger issue. Of course black and latinos are more frequently the victims of poverty, but even for them, their poverty is nowadays the greater issue the racism per se, IMO.

Good gosh, I love this response. Thank you for you comment Bill!!!