Dark Universe Version 2.0

I’m supposed to write here about what to expect to find from some slave narratives. I don’t like the assignment. Besides the fact that I don’t want the world to know how ignorant I am as I declare everything I said in this post as false in the next post I am supposed to write…I don’t like the fact that it’s kind of hard to write this post in the first place. I’m writing about something I haven’t read yet. There is no way this will help me in any way except to make me feel bad about how much I don’t know, or proud for knowing everything in advance (yeah RIGHT, like that would happen). It’s a bad assignment.

Anyways, now that I’m done with my useless ranting, lets move on to the slave narratives! Let me tell you what I expect: lots of violence, lots of disturbing information, lots of bondage, lots and lots of bad words, a load of anger, enough racism to make up for all the anti-racism movements that have taken place throughout this century, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of hope.

Now that’s the vague, emotional description of what is to come, but I can’t really predict any more than that, so lets leave it at that.

I know that slavery is a sick institution based on people who thought up guns quicker than the others getting some kind of right to make the others do whatever he wants, which is such a primitive way of thinking that it’s hard to believe humans can call themselves civilized beings. It’s the best and worst of capitalism in action, where the elite manage to get workers to work for even less than hardly any pay: they make them work for no pay at all.

Now get ready for some really cold-hearted thinking, as I am going to analyze slavery with no compassion at all, from a purely economic perspective.

One could say slavery was the most efficient system for generating production, though the measures taken to keep slaves under control, and the high initial costs of the slaves themselves, might counter this way of thinking. For instance, feeding the slaves as little as possible to keep them alive and working might not be a good idea, as the slaves will not be able to produce as much as a healthy worker could. Also, measures taken to keep the slaves in bondage such as hiring guards may make the institution less efficient. The concept of forcing slaves to work, which generates a general hatred by the slaves towards the owner, will also lessen production. The willing, barely paid, semi-healthy, selectively chosen worker may be a better option.

Anyways, getting away from that gruesome way of thinking, slavery can be an efficient source of production, and many people took full advantage of it. It shows how low people can go if it means they live a better life. It also shows how terrible the system of capitalism can get in terms of using people for production.

How can we escape this terrible system of capitalism which, although run by humans, manages to treat humans like tools, or less? The Communist movement tried to solve the problem, though it failed as it was unable to move beyond Socialism. Besides, the world envisioned by them was one where “knowledge” and “technology” do not matter and are therefore ignored. Is it impossible to prize knowledge and science while also valuing human life, without collapsing within a few years?

(Now, before I continue, for those who think I am going way off topic, I’ll just say that this is a problem that must be approached at some point, and is related in some ways to slavery, so I decided to approach it right here, right now.)

There is a solution, and though it seems to be a bit impossible, it is a solution that we can reach at some point. It involves a word many people think is stupid and childish by now, thanks to stupid and childish T.V. shows and whatnot. We need robots. Yes, we need automatic machinery which will do work for us. This way, we can have production while also protecting human values. I am horribly offended by stupid directors who make stupid science fiction movies where machines rebel and take over the world and do whatever it is they do when they are not directed by humans into doing things. This is one of two solutions to the problem of human values and hierarchical society we face right now, and I think we should put all of our hope in it.

Of course, the other solution is not as dreamy, and is very uncertain, and I’m not sure about telling it here just yet. If enough people really want to know about it, I might talk about it sometime, but I warn you, it will only disturb you about what solving the problem of hierarchical society really means.

Welcome to one of the most heated topics of this century! Racism is defined by Wikipedia in the following way:

Racism is commonly defined as a belief or doctrine where inherent biological differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, with a corollary that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

In some places in America, racism has already been established as taboo, and it is only a matter of uprooting the subconscious feelings reflecting racism in certain people. However, racism does still exist, and it is still strong in American society.

For instance, if you look at the Wikipedia article on racism, you will notice on the top the following notice:

Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled.
Such users may discuss changes, request unprotection, or create an account.

Even Wikipedia realizes the danger of letting just anyone edit this topic. Racism is still not universally accepted as being something bad.

Now here’s an MSNBC article on the recent shooting that sparked a ton of anger and criticism. Now, this is a common identification of racism. We know that shooting potentially represents strong racism in the police. However, there is a lot of racism that we do not know of.

Therefore, I am now going to review the general history of racism in society. I will try to be brief with each subject, as there is quite a lot to cover.

In the Code of Hammurabi, 1760 BC, one can find evidence of an already established institution of slavery:

• If one finds a slave who has run away, and he brings the slave back to his owner, the owner will pay two shekels.
• If the one in debt sells a slave to pay his debt, and the slave is good enough, there can be no objection.
• If a slave strikes its owner, his ear will be cut off.

Though not necessarily a race-based institution, the system of having people who have less rights or no rights at all and are bound to a master, is long established.

The Atlantic Slave Trade, 1450-1900s?, was one of the biggest institutions based on race. It was part of the Triangular trade, and an incredible number of slaves were exported to primarily the Americas during this time. It was economic necessity which started it, but America’s culture eventually formed around it and kept it in place, so that even non-slave-owners felt their superiority to blacks. A statistic of the magnitude the slave trade states the following.

The widely accepted view of the arrival of 10 million neglects to state how many left. Estimates range from 40 million to 100 million from both the Arab Slave trade and the Transatlantic trade. (see Arab slave trade). It has been estimated that the population of Africa in the mid 19th century would have been 50 million instead of 25 million had Slavery not taken place. But many more died in the villages fighting their enslavers, many more died in the dungeons and many died aboard the ships. Many Africans either committed suicide or were thrown over board to lighten the ship or to make insurance claims. It is estimated that the Portuguese trade was under estimated by 50% and the British trade by a 1/3. Then there were those who died by the indirect actions of the slavers, those left to starve, those who died of European diseases.

The Indian Removal Act, 1830, was where all Native Americans in the United States were moved to reserves in the west. This was the end to a long era of struggling and suffering by the Native Americans due to western frontiersmen backed by the government pushing them farther and farther west while taking more and more of their land.

The Jim Crow Laws, 1876-1965, were laws passed by individual states and counties which restricted the rights of African Americans.

The Scramble for Africa, 1880s-1914, was the fight between European powers to conquer as many parts of Africa as they could. Resistance by the Africans was crushed, and the whole of Africa, with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia, was soon conquered. The Africans inhabiting the colonies of Africa were treated like economic tools and property. A famous example of how bad treatment of Africans could get was the Congo.

Léopold II, who personally owned the colony starting in 1885 and exploited it for ivory and rubber, would impose such a terror regime on the colonized people that Belgium decided to annex it in 1908. Including mass killings and slave labour, the terror had made between 3 to 22 million victims. This prompted Belgium to end Leopold II’s rule, under influence from the Congo Reform Association, and to annex the Congo in 1908 as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo.

The British Raj in India, 1858-1947, where India was exploited for British profit. An example of the racism in India is the Amritsar Massacre.
The Rise of Nazism, where many different minorities were persecuted. A paragraph from the Wikipedia article states the following.

Hitler also claimed that a nation was the highest creation of a race, and great nations (literally large nations) were the creation of homogeneous populations of great races, working together. These nations developed cultures that naturally grew from races with “natural good health, and aggressive, intelligent, courageous traits”. The weakest nations, Hitler said, were those of impure or mongrel races, because they had divided, quarrelling, and therefore weak cultures. Worst of all were seen to be the parasitic Untermensch (Subhumans), mainly Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and so called anti-socials, all of whom were considered lebensunwertes Leben (”Life-unworthy life”) owing to their perceived deficiency and inferiority, as well as their wandering, nationless invasions (”the International Jew”). The persecution of homosexuals as part of the Holocaust has seen increasing scholarly attention since the 1990s.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive order 9066, 1942, where some 120,000 Japanese were moved to interment camps and kept there throughout World War II. Most people affected by the Japanese American Internment, of course, were not enemies of the United States in any way.
The Decolonization of Africa, 1951-1976, a movement that seemingly ended racism in Africa. However, the reality was that quite a few of the new free African nations were run by rich whites.
The Apartheid Era in South Africa, 1948-1994, where Africans were discriminated against. The white minority controlled the government of South America during that time.
Racial Profiling in America, which is “the inclusion of race as a primary determinant in the characterization of a persons considered likely to commit a particular type of crime”. One particular example of this is the following:

In Los Angeles in December of 2001, a man of Middle Eastern descent named Assem Bayaa cleared all the security checks in the airport. He was an American citizen and he got on a plane to New York. He had barely gotten settled in his seat when he was told that he made the crew uncomfortable by being on board the plane. Once Bayaa got off the plane, he wasn’t searched or questioned any further. The only consolation he was given was a boarding pass for the next flight to New York. The luggage he had checked wasn’t even taken off the plane he was originally on. He filed a lawsuit on the basis of discrimination against United Airlines, who filed a motion that said that because of national security, they don’t have to obey civil rights protection laws. The motion was dismissed on October 11, 2002. The district judge ruled that a pilot’s discretion “does not grant them a license to discriminate,” (The Advocate, Santa Clara University School of Law Newsletter).

And that’s as far as I will go for now.

Any comments including additional, major examples of racism will be appreciated. I will try to update this article as frequently as possible according to contributions from others. Also, additional sources will be much appreciated.

Thank you for taking your time to read this article.