27.6.06

Gentlemen prefer blondes

Generalisation is a critical survival instinct for the human species. Let’s imagine we have a friend Bob that lived thousands of years ago. Bob is having a bad day. A big lion just ate his friend Tommy, and this morning, another lion ate his girlfriend, Nell. Coincidence? Maybe, but just yesterday yet another lion ate his friend Peter. “I don’t like lions, they eat my friends”, he thinks to himself. But Bob, how can you say that? Do you know all lions? Aren’t you being an animalist? "Hmm, you’re right", says Bob, "I will give lions the benefit of the doubt." The next day Bob gets eaten by a lion while trying to feed it milk and cookies. Bob’s exact genetic makeup is lost forever. Which is good, because he was stupid.

And so a species prone to generalisation evolved over tens of thousands of years. It is only relatively recently in human history that generalizations have started to be frowned upon. What is the worst thing a person can be labelled as? A racist. You’re more likely to get away with murder. They should change the idiom to “he’s getting away with racism”. "Did you hear about that guy who allegedly murdered his wife, he’s getting away with racism."

Racism has been an important survival tool, just like other attempts of the human brain to categorize. For a long time it was perfectly acceptable to hate your proverbial neighbour, for the simple reason that, in a resource limited area, it was either you or them.

Racism is now considered the ultimate evil. White South Africans (with a lot of help from Cecil John Rhodes and English social engineers) inflicted Apartheid on blacks. This will forever be looked upon with disdain, while early US settlers’ conquering of Native Americans is still secretly considered by most US patriots to be a glorious conquering.

White South African leaders were not evil men. They simply believed that the ever-multiplying blacks would eventually kill them all. Let’s face it: by contemporary standards, black tribes were savages. Zulus sacrificed human life for the good karma of the tribe. Witchdoctors were the closest they had to medical science, and even today we have to put up with that mumbo jumbo. They routinely murdered each other, e.g. that fat traitor Dingaan cowardly assassinated Shaka, his own half brother and the greatest Zulu leader ever. One regularly hears about wonderful cultures past and present from across the world. Surely if you allow some cultures to be considered rich and fascinating, you must allow contempt of others?


Had blacks conquered South Africa and apartheid never happened, chances are the Afrikaans culture would have been lost (or at best scattered in puny clusters around the world), and South Africa would be in complete economic disarray. And blacks would be starving. Happy, but starving.

These are the facts. Facts that cannot ever be mentioned by the media, for they are too terrible and too true. They would result in less international sympathy and therefore less leverage in “the Struggle”. Make no mistake, the Struggle continues. The struggle will never end, because in their heart of hearts, average blacks long for the glory days of Shaka Zulu and other great black leaders, when they had a virtual god to believe in and fight for. Their struggle is against consensus modern civilisation.

Is there ever a justification for racism? How predominantly fucked up must a race/culture be before it is PC for me to say “Fuck it, I don’t lik’em”. The answer, apparently, is that you can never say that. Race is the ONE instance where you simply cannot have a preference. No matter how many babies get raped, farmers get killed, African countries get fucked up, or how many dearly loved fat cat black kings enfamish their peoples, you have to respect it. Even admire it.

Political correctness is the denial of reality in favour of prevailing ideology. The fact that black tribes would have slaughtered white folk one by one had they not devised a system to control the black masses doesn’t make any difference. The fact that blacks were arguably better off under white rule doesn’t change a thing. The fact that culturally-challenged blacks fucked up just about every country in Africa must never be uttered. White Afrikaners are evil because they stood up to barbarians and defended their culture, their way of living, which they valued above anybody else’s culture. So God yes they were racist.

To help make things make sense in my head, I have to generalize. Since my mind needs to process brutal murders, rapes, corruption and senseless violence, it yearns to generalize. In doing so, I hope the individual appreciates not being patronized.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree that there is a pragmatic need to make generalizations about race in certain situations. Walking late at night in San Francisco near my apartment, I am more cautious if there is a black man behind me than a white man. I don't think this makes me a racist. The black comedian Chris Rock says that he is more fearful of blacks when walking down the street. But while it is beneficial to generalize about race in some cases, I think it is important to not overgeneralize. For example, I think an employer who discrimates based on race is racist in a way that is detrimental to himself and society (and is flat out unethical). While it might be easier to "throw out the baby with the bath water," when it comes to race, humans are much better off when looking at others as individuals whenever possible. It is a valuable exercise to examine ones own racist inclinations and distinguish between generalizations that have value versus those that are reductive.

tinus said...

I think the race situation in South Africa is so unique that anyone who hasn't lived and worked there will find it difficult to understand all the issues.