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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics,net.music
Subject: Re: White greed
Message-ID: <360@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 11:12:41 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.360
Posted: Mon Feb 18 11:12:41 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Feb-85 20:13:32 EST
References: <293@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA> <80@spar.UUCP> <311@cadre.ARPA>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 32
Xref: linus net.flame:7442 net.politics:6946 net.music:4838
Summary: 

In article <311@cadre.ARPA> geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks) writes:
> >
> >	White people are enjoying an inheritance that was STOLEN by
> >	300 years of slavery and 100 years of legal and social prejudice.
> >
> >    Until white people recognize that they are simply being asked to
> >    share their ill-gotten gains, there will be little room for intelligent
> >    debate about anything.
> >
> This is a racist argument on its face:  all people with a certain
> skin color have inherited guilt for what some people with the same
> color skin did hundreds of years ago.

Gordon, if you read carefully, you will see that you are misinterpreting
the citation.  He did not say whites inherit guilt, he said whites inherit
material benefits.

Nor does he say that every white individual has inherited these benefits.
You're putting the words of a fallacy of argument into his mouth.

However, it is extremely likely that each of us has so benefited.  I've
benefitted: I went to a good school district.  Compare the average quality
of public school educations available to blacks with that available to whites.
That is an example of persisting social injustice.  There is a large Catch-22
category of social injustice that I say becomes the fault of each succeeding
generation that refuses to work to abolish it.  Much like the slaveholder
that says "why should I take the loss incurred by freeing my slaves when it
was my father who bought them?"  It's easy to blame other and previous
generations to try to hide your own selfish interests.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh