Alright, so I’ve been avoiding the issue for a bit now since I find it dead boring but I know that I have to talk about it, black history. I’m well prepared for the flame fest that will come because of the previous sentence.
To begin, black history- along with the entire world’s history began in Africa. Those of you who are fans of Charles Darwin and his work, you will know that I’m going by what he said. Otherwise, for those of you who are creationists….’pop’ the world began and that is all.
Now history has told us that Africa was home to some of the greatest empires history would ever see. Look no further than Egypt for an example. This is constantly overlooked because we usually get caught up in the European expansion and the beginning of slavery in the 1600’s. Just so you all know, stuff was happening in Africa before that. I’ll take the liberty of giving you a brief look at the highlights from before the 1600’s….ok that would take too long so I’m going to give you a link to the useful information instead. Here, you can find an overview of all the African empires from CE to the 1500’s.
Now, I’ll skip ahead to the parts that I’m sure that even if we know nothing about, pop culture has taught us enough about it to have a basic idea. In the 1600’s the Europeans came to Africa on some ships, saw the black people, and thought “Hey, these guys are savages. They neither speak our language nor worship our god. Let us oppress!” and with that began a few centuries of hell. Here’s a nifty time line I found that would highlight the key points in this era. Aside from the struggles of black people we cannot forget the struggles of the Indians, the Asians and everyone else who was not of European descent- we all got hit at some time. Oh and don’t forget that the Jewish people got hit pretty hard too.
On the issue of slavery, I would like to point out something crucial that comes to mind whenever some close minded people are near and say something to emphasize the blame on Caucasian people for slavery all over the world. EVERY race has been guilty of slavery at some time or the other. Great empires aren’t built on just hard work and perseverance but by the bone and blood of the conquered that have to be removed in order for it to happen. Slavery is and always will be wrong and people have the right to be free but the Europeans happened to come in and take the shit to a whole new and obscene level. Alas, shit has to get stupid before people realize “oh shit, this is fucked up”.
Anyways, after all the oppression and whatnot that went on we (I mean everybody when I say we) are now in a substantially better place. We live in an age where in most modernized places we’re all treated as equals. It’s a great boring age with leaders who may very well change the face of the world; the people have nothing to really fight about. ..not in North America at least. Still, we have to remember that there are people and places where everyone isn’t treated as an equal. Hopefully, one day we’ll be able to end the problems of inequality and oppression then find something new to rage about.
Correct me if I’m wrong about anything and entertain me with your thoughts.