Chris Rock talked about how during slavery, white people would breed the biggest strongest slaves, and kill the smart ones. does anyone know if this is true? i've tried to research this on google, but i didn't find anything
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No, it's not true. In one sense you can't get too mad because he's a comic who makes comic exaggerations to be funny. On the other, people actually believe some of the things he says are true.
No doubt this system was practiced by some during slavery. But to say it was "US Government Policy" is ridiculous, and it feeds into the new trendy cynic constant-complainer syndrome where people pick a single issue from our country's past and claim it ruins the whole thing, like a hair in a birthday cake. Yeah we had slavery. It was over 150 years ago. Everywhere had slavery when this country was founded. It was common practice.
However in America it was contested from the start, and actively fought against. And how many countries can you list in which the ruling class went to war against itself to free the slave class?
Part of Chris' bit is being black. Like Louie Anderson goes to fat jokes, Chris goes to "America hates the black man" jokes. Take it with a grain of salt.
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"Not only didn't the "whole world" have slavery in the 1700-1800's, pretty much only a handful of western countries used the practice."
Sheer nonsense. From Wikipedia: "Many slaves were used in agriculture and cultivation from ancient times to about 1860." Heck, the slave trade is still going (mostly in Africa). Slavery was a worldwide institution and has roots that go back almost to the beginning of time.
"we were in the vast minority"
Ridiculous.
"I however find the idea of revising history to suit your needs appalling."
Then stop doing it.
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Your name, Fenrir, leads me to believe that you are probably a Neo-Nazi. That would certainly explain your morally and intellectually dishonest attempt to whitewash America's horrible racist past and its continued racial polarization. This is a country that was brought into existence with the words,"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Yet, the very man who wrote those words bought and sold people. He lined his pockets with the profits of wholesale rape, murder, torture and lifelong abject misery. All the while, he blathered on, his hypocrisy unbounded, about inalienable rights and civil liberties.
If anything needs to be taken with a grain of salt, it is your wholly disingenuous apologia for AmeriKKKa's intrinsic racism.
well, one thing that doesn't make sense is slaves driving cars and not being able to read legally...
considering there were no cars during the time that slavery was legal
I've done the research on this, and it appears that "slave-breeding" was rampant, like it was in the Nazi Concentration Camps in the second World War. The hardest-working prisoners or those believed to have favourable genes were (in WWII) coerced into procreating with pre-chosen female guards.
Maybe Chris might have the facts mixed up? But the anti-intellectual "if you read you die" segment probably has more truth in it today. Particularly in Reagan's tenure, where paranoia was at its highest, they feared most the intelligentsia of American society, who would see through the totalitarianism.
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"We are all in the gutter, but some of us find ourselves looking up at the stars" - Oscar Wilde
Has anyone stopped to question the logic of "human breeding"? I thought that the issue of slave breeeding was one of the few things Rock's act could've done without, actually.
In terms of genetics, I don't see how human breeding would be successful. If you look at an adult, athletic human, that might be the opposite of how they were in their youth. It might have been hard training and not genetics that contributed to them looking that way as an adult. The qualities that the individual worked hard to rid themselves of when they were younger might show up in their offspring, because that's how they are naturally, without the hard work.
Human genes also have recessive qualities, so those athletic traits might not even get passed in the next generation. You might have two olympic athletes turn out a naturally chubby or skinny child, one that without training would only have average athletic ability. Physical ability in the human sense comes as much from the will and spirit as it does genetics. Anyone can be fit, and how a person looks as an adult is no indication of how they looked when younger, or how they would be naturally, without training
The reason why blacks excel in the sports Rock mentioned is more due to economics and the culture of African Americans than to genetics. School systems in urban areas rarely offer much in the way of extra curiculars other than sports, and a basketball hoop in the hood costs no money, so of course the children who live there are going to be naturally attracted to it. Children in suburban areas have access to a wider range of activities, due to the superior funding and resources of their parents and schoolsystems. The importance that African American culture has placed on the sports he mentioned also have a lot to do with many of the athletes in those sports being black. But there simply isn't any scientific evidence to support the idea of successfully breeding humans like horses, even if that is what ignorant slave owners tried to do.
"Bulls**t MR.Han Man!!"--Jim Kelly in Enter the Dragon
In terms of genetics, I don't see how human breeding would be successful. If you look at an adult, athletic human, that might be the opposite of how they were in their youth. It might have been hard training and not genetics that contributed to them looking that way as an adult. The qualities that the individual worked hard to rid themselves of when they were younger might show up in their offspring, because that's how they are naturally, without the hard work.
This is true, but genetic factors can actually have a powerful influence on an individual's propensity for developing natural physical prowess. Mesomorphs, those who are naturally muscular and find it easier than ectomorphs (skinny, slight bone structure) and endomorphs (larger, stockier individuals) to adapt to physically taxing activities. Plus there's the evolutionary phenomenon of Cellular Memory, in which the cells of the organs of the body seem to "remember" the total composition and adaptions (phsyical and mental) all the other cells had made. This can transfer into the genetic code, and prevent all the other cells having to play "catch up" so they can evolve further.
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"We are all in the gutter, but some of us find ourselves looking up at the stars" - Oscar Wilde
yes its true, read the story of frederick douglass; he was a slave and his father was actually his owner. also, my english professor told me that it was a common practice for slave-owners to rape the female slaves and get them pregnant, so they could have more slaves.
shareholly cow!
only one sick demented pervert would make a slave of his own child...
to actually think those guys "really" existed...it's just....
The slavery bit in general was my least favorite part of the special as it became more preachy than anything else in the special (and this includes his rant about Rich vs Wealth)...
And yet, this line always kills: "Who taught you OCTAGON *beep*
My official blog: http://cinetarium.blogspot.com/
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