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Re: Sinclair babes shipped as slaves



>The Northeast is certainly far less racist
>in hiring, treatment, etc. than the Southeast.

Really?  Do you have any statistics on that?

>But even here I hear racist comments.

When I moved to Boston in 1972 I heard statements
like the first one above very frequently.  I took
to remarking that Atlanta schools had been desegregated
years before with no violence, while in Boston desegregation
was just starting and people were throwing rocks at school busses.

>I ramble, but my point is this - Not as much
>has changed as we would like in the South.
>And a lot has changed in the North.

Really?  Isn't New York City where the police shot dead
a black man in his own home for pulling a billfold on them?

> But we are still fairly racist as only 137 years
>has passed.

As an Australian remarked to me many years ago, there's hardly
a country in the world which doesn't have dark marks in its history.

The Australians and the aborigines.
The U.S. and the Indians and the blacks.
Most any European country and any nearby weaker neighbor,
not to mention European colonialism in the rest of the world.
Japan and a long list of neighbor countries.
China and a long list of neighbor countries.
Etc.

New Zealand is somewhat of an odd case in that the Maoris
fought back well enough that they were never completely suppressed.

>But it's more the result of the environment they lived in.

Environments can be changed.

> Change comes incrementally. And slowly.

Except when it comes suddenly.

>Were the powerful in Australia wrong to do
>what they did? Not necessarily when they
>did it. I think it's very difficult to judge the
>past with views generated in the present.

That part I agree with.

I'll even agree that Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster meant well,
even though the results of his new agricultural policies were
disastrous for many of the people of Scotland.

>Steve

John S. Quarterman <jsq@quarterman.org>
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