RACE SHAMING: AFRICA
Let's start with the Good:
He at least does not blame the white West for Africa negro backwardness in civilization, culture and development, going back 15,000 years.
(...and a whole helluva lot farther back, he does not even get into, for which the white West is manifestly not at all to blame, especially when one considers that there are no Neanderthal genes even in Sub saharan Africans, a guarantee of lack of pre out of Africa white archaic humans wasting their time coming down there into Africa and dominating their black prehistoric asses.)
(...and a whole helluva lot farther back, he does not even get into, for which the white West is manifestly not at all to blame, especially when one considers that there are no Neanderthal genes even in Sub saharan Africans, a guarantee of lack of pre out of Africa white archaic humans wasting their time coming down there into Africa and dominating their black prehistoric asses.)
He knows better, and he knows, for example, that the issue of what he calls (not my terminology, baby) state formation goes way back, way before European domination and enslavement of negroes, and colonization of the Rest, including Africa, only in say 1450 AD forward.
Nevertheless, he throws them a faux bone, talking about African empires and kingdoms that, just then, were suddenly somehow miraculously coming to exist and to flourish against all odds according to his own criteria, when Europeans arrived and thwarted the brilliantly advancing negroes! You have to read this nonsense to believe it. p. 134, 135
Nevertheless, he throws them a faux bone, talking about African empires and kingdoms that, just then, were suddenly somehow miraculously coming to exist and to flourish against all odds according to his own criteria, when Europeans arrived and thwarted the brilliantly advancing negroes! You have to read this nonsense to believe it. p. 134, 135
Before that, for some centuries, Africa had fallen under sweet gentle Islamic control, but Muslims, ironically, are also people of some color (half negroes), and also, latterly, by the West, called part of "the Rest" not the West.
And that is The Good!
And that is The Good!
The Bad:
Where to start? Wade makes a lot of excuses for why African negroes never developed anything like ancient states, some semi prehistoric, like Persia, Egypt, Assyria, China, Mesopotamia civilizations, Eastern Mediterranean, Indus ones, etc.
Let's save something like the Etruscans for a future diatribe! Deal?
He rounds out his otherwise accurate negativo assessment (The Good) with the unfortunate faux bone, above.
But let's also take a look at his criteria for all this. The Bad.
He claims that Africa was apparently permanently and endemically underpopulated, and also not susceptible to large scale warfare (Although the bone he threw them belies even this.).
However, given the genetic evidence adduced by David Reich about large scale population movements, mixtures, replacements, and resulting longstanding genetic continent wide diversity, both of those assertions seem anything but true anyway!
I would suggest, on the contrary, and I think Reich and others' research would support this conclusion, that Africa's thoroughgoing genetic diversity is the result of very very longterm waxing and waning overpopulation pressures that were only released by frequent small and large scale wars, at various places and times, all across the continent, and for countless millenia.
Wade, on the other hand, thinks Africa was an area of "slow population growth" (He doesn't give a duration for this.), and therefore always lacked major wars and large populations necessary for state formation and development of ancient civilizations like those found elsewhere (Except right when Europeans coincidentally showed up.) for these reasons: lack of good soils, favorable climate, navigable rivers, and population pressures.
Let's just look at these.
Navigable rivers. Africa seems to be full of rivers both big and small, as continents go, and most of them quite navigable, though maybe treacherous for various reasons, fish, reptiles, etc., but certainly much better than the Middle East with its few and paltry rivers, or Central Asia, or palestine, Turkey, arrid places throughout recorded time.
Just because African rivers are teeming with hostile tribesmen (overpopulation?) on both banks for their entire length does not mean that they are nonnavigable, it means that there is population pressure all along them. They often are literally crawling with mutually hostile savages for their entire lengths!
Favorable climate. For most of us, Africa would not be favorable, but you have to recall based on Wade's own analysis, and Reich's and others', how Africans had adapted to their climate quite well over hundreds of thousands of years, even though disease took away many of them.
Good soils. For most of their prehistory and during the historical period, Africans were and remained hunter gatherers, and quality of soils for such folks was not such an important issue there as it was in connection with dedicated agriculture.
Population pressure. I think Wade understates the extent to which this was a huge and recurring factor in African population movements and genetics.
That's The Bad.
The Ugly:
Now, now that we have disposed of Wade's disingenuous, inconsistent, fawning, and appeasing rationales for otherwise inexplicable African backwardness relative to other ancient and dawn of civilization states, let's finally note the real reasons.
The real reasons are that African groups are somehow genetically and therefore culturally, structurally, and linguistically more backward in many yet undetermined ways than other contemporaneous groups in other civilizations on other continents which formed states under what I would consider similar, even less rigorous, selective circumstances.
It may even be that their overwhelming genetic diversity itself has somehow constituted a stumblingblock to social and cultural development.
Another important point that may or may not be true, the development of endemic cannibalism in Africa and elsewhere was not at all a response to chronic and endemic underpopulation, but rather a response, if anything, to overpopulation, where then warfare resulted in fewer captives who were or would be a burden, and more meat for the victors, which was at least welcomed up to a point of being full for the time being.
Mixture, rather than cannibalism, would also have played a part in tribal confrontations, during underpopulation times, but it was not the only concern at certain times and places and circumstances.
For a very different view of the whole big genetic picture, which I also posted today:
Where to start? Wade makes a lot of excuses for why African negroes never developed anything like ancient states, some semi prehistoric, like Persia, Egypt, Assyria, China, Mesopotamia civilizations, Eastern Mediterranean, Indus ones, etc.
Let's save something like the Etruscans for a future diatribe! Deal?
He rounds out his otherwise accurate negativo assessment (The Good) with the unfortunate faux bone, above.
But let's also take a look at his criteria for all this. The Bad.
He claims that Africa was apparently permanently and endemically underpopulated, and also not susceptible to large scale warfare (Although the bone he threw them belies even this.).
However, given the genetic evidence adduced by David Reich about large scale population movements, mixtures, replacements, and resulting longstanding genetic continent wide diversity, both of those assertions seem anything but true anyway!
I would suggest, on the contrary, and I think Reich and others' research would support this conclusion, that Africa's thoroughgoing genetic diversity is the result of very very longterm waxing and waning overpopulation pressures that were only released by frequent small and large scale wars, at various places and times, all across the continent, and for countless millenia.
Wade, on the other hand, thinks Africa was an area of "slow population growth" (He doesn't give a duration for this.), and therefore always lacked major wars and large populations necessary for state formation and development of ancient civilizations like those found elsewhere (Except right when Europeans coincidentally showed up.) for these reasons: lack of good soils, favorable climate, navigable rivers, and population pressures.
Let's just look at these.
Navigable rivers. Africa seems to be full of rivers both big and small, as continents go, and most of them quite navigable, though maybe treacherous for various reasons, fish, reptiles, etc., but certainly much better than the Middle East with its few and paltry rivers, or Central Asia, or palestine, Turkey, arrid places throughout recorded time.
Just because African rivers are teeming with hostile tribesmen (overpopulation?) on both banks for their entire length does not mean that they are nonnavigable, it means that there is population pressure all along them. They often are literally crawling with mutually hostile savages for their entire lengths!
Favorable climate. For most of us, Africa would not be favorable, but you have to recall based on Wade's own analysis, and Reich's and others', how Africans had adapted to their climate quite well over hundreds of thousands of years, even though disease took away many of them.
Good soils. For most of their prehistory and during the historical period, Africans were and remained hunter gatherers, and quality of soils for such folks was not such an important issue there as it was in connection with dedicated agriculture.
Population pressure. I think Wade understates the extent to which this was a huge and recurring factor in African population movements and genetics.
That's The Bad.
The Ugly:
Now, now that we have disposed of Wade's disingenuous, inconsistent, fawning, and appeasing rationales for otherwise inexplicable African backwardness relative to other ancient and dawn of civilization states, let's finally note the real reasons.
The real reasons are that African groups are somehow genetically and therefore culturally, structurally, and linguistically more backward in many yet undetermined ways than other contemporaneous groups in other civilizations on other continents which formed states under what I would consider similar, even less rigorous, selective circumstances.
It may even be that their overwhelming genetic diversity itself has somehow constituted a stumblingblock to social and cultural development.
Another important point that may or may not be true, the development of endemic cannibalism in Africa and elsewhere was not at all a response to chronic and endemic underpopulation, but rather a response, if anything, to overpopulation, where then warfare resulted in fewer captives who were or would be a burden, and more meat for the victors, which was at least welcomed up to a point of being full for the time being.
Mixture, rather than cannibalism, would also have played a part in tribal confrontations, during underpopulation times, but it was not the only concern at certain times and places and circumstances.
For a very different view of the whole big genetic picture, which I also posted today:
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
THE TELEGRAPH AFRICANS LESS HARMFULLY GENETICALLY UNDIVERSE THAN WESTERN EUROPEANS
That is the story now being told here and there.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3326376/African-DNA-has-more-genetic-diversity.html
On this account, Asians, especially Chinese are the least genetically diverse large population, and therefore are in deep genetic DOO DOO compared to African negroes!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3326376/African-DNA-has-more-genetic-diversity.html
On this account, Asians, especially Chinese are the least genetically diverse large population, and therefore are in deep genetic DOO DOO compared to African negroes!
No comments:
Post a Comment