The Unwanted Blog

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/04/27/filtering_history?page=1

If the history of slavery ought to teach us anything, it is that human beings cannot be trusted with unbridled power over other human beings– no matter what color or creed any of them are. The history of ancient despotism and modern totalitarianism practically shouts that same message from the blood-stained pages of history.

But that is not the message that is being taught in our schools and colleges, or dramatized on television and in the movies. The message that is pounded home again and again is that white people enslaved black people.

… Just as Europeans enslaved Africans, North Africans enslaved Europeans– more Europeans than there were Africans enslaved in the United States and in the 13 colonies from which it was formed.

The treatment of white galley slaves was even worse than the treatment of black slaves picking cotton. But there are no movies or television dramas about it comparable to “Roots,” and our schools and colleges don’t pound it into the heads of students.

All true, and all irrelevant. Slavery has been an evil that has existed throughout human history; the West’s efforts to stamp it out, including America’s one internal war to stamp it out from within, has been a historical anomaly. And it’s pretty much ingrained into out subconscience, as well. Try to think of *any* story, book, movie or TV show that is set after some natural or m,an-made disaster causes society to collapse. The percentage of such tales that *don’t* include slavery in The New Order are pretty damned slim.

Pointing out that Africans have forever been enslaving not only other Africans but white folk is a good way to rile up the PC crowd. I did a good job of that myself back in college with nastygrams to the editor of the local college newsrag; boy howdy did some folk not like reading that blacks enslaved blacks, willingly, joyfully, and long before Evil White People got there. It conflicts with the narrative, the same bullcrap PC narrative that leads to lame storytelling such as we got in “Avatar” that the “noble savage” is something to emulate.

You know what? People suck, always have. All races, all ethnicities. Civilization helps people suck less. The Western Enlightenment and the triumph of science over superstition, coupled with the rise of the Individual and the idea that the People owned the Government (and not the other way ’round) helped people suck a *lot* less.

Here’s a thought experiment: imagine a big-budget miniseries along the lines of “Roots” was made that told the story of the Islamic African Barbary pirates enslaving white Europeans… wiping out towns, brutalizing men on galleys, tossing the wimmins into harems, etc. Further, imagine that this miniseries stuck *strictly* to the facts, but didn’t flinch from the nastier bits. How would CAIR respond? How would Al Sharpton respond? Would they tout the miniseries’ historical accuracy? Would they use it as a good teaching tool, to show the evils of slavery? Or would they start screaming about racism?

I said before that the facts were irrelevant. Because when the facts get in the way of a good racist rant about evil whites/conservatives/Americans/whatever, the facts are to be ignored… and anyone who insists upon bringing them up will liekly be demonized as a way to sweep the facts under the rug.