A history lesson with PumaClaw

[Boris_B]

Join me in these pearls of wisdom I learned from the great PumaClaw. He has often said how anyone who disagrees with him is in need of a history lesson, and by the looks of it, he’s right. I didn’t know any of these things!

In the thread on Genocide/democide, we learn that Diseases cannot both be accidentally and intentionally introduced to the same continent

I know you want to believe that these diseases were introduced accidentally but unfortunately your belief is not based on fact. Smallpox was used as biological warfare.

We also learn that you can tell the skin color of a poster by the content of their posts.

Arnold, you can’t tell that from the posts themselves?

Did you know that by debating the scope and nature of crimes in history, you are actually debating the pros and cons?

By the time you debate the pros and cons of the American holocaust, maybe we’ll continue by also debating the upside of Hitler’s holocaust or what?

And, somehow, using numbers to assess the scope of something is peculiar to a certain race

Let me point out here also that the preoccupation with numbers is a white folly

I had no idea how simple the history of Europe was. All technological and cultural developments in Europe have been intended to improve techniques of killing people in large numbers

It’s the white people who turned their entire technology toward improving the success in slaughtering people.

I kind of thought they were a persecuted minority, but apparently the pilgrims were religious fanatics and riff-raff that Europe could not deal with

Right about now, I would say that the whole world would be better off if the indigenous population here had had stricter immigration policies and had run off the entire lot, the religious fanatics as well as the convicts in Georgia, and sent them back to where they had come from.

Forget all that nonsense about learning and understanding. Cultural disagreements can only be solved by wholesale ethnic retreat

I might also point out to you that if the white people didn’t like our customs here, they were free to go back to Europe and stay there.

North Americans of a specific skin color were and are savages who have started most of the wars since 1492

Not only were white invaders here the only savages in evidence, unfortunately, their offspring are no improvement judging from the US’s propensity to get involved in every war there is, starting most of them in some form or other.

Repeated, broad daylight attempts at vehicular assault are evidence of the egotism of this race

I can stand beside the nearest artery of heavy traffic and watch white people demonstrating their traditional disrespect for the life of others as they deliberately try to run each other off the road, as they engage in the most dangerous maneuvers spawned by their egotistical desire to get somewhere a few minutes sooner.

[Arden_Ranger]

Good lord.

That’s scary

[AncientHumanoid]

Yeah, that’s pretty much why I pulled out of that thread. Not only did I make an ass of my own self, but I gave Claw another group of people to rail against.

Once I stopped posting, though, it became high entertainment.

[Boris_B]

From the thread on Native America, page 1 of 3 we learn that an individual claiming descent from both European and original American people is like unto a mass-produced snack cake, and telling that person that, far from being an insult, is a way of enlightening them

Okay, NoClueBoy, let me enlighten you about something: You’re considered a “twinkie” in Indian circles, possibly even a “wannabe.”

On page 2 we learn even more about the dangers of people who are not ethnically pure. Does someone claim descent from more than one American tribe, e.g. Comanche and Cherokee? He’s obviously wrong.

If you have not even a clue which Indian Nation your ancestors supposedly stem from, could it be that they’re not Indian at all? We usually know which nation we belong to.

Did you know that skin color applies to your insides as well as your skin? Huh, I sure didn’t

No matter what your exterior looks like, your interior is white.

Blame for the criminal activities of a specific group of immigrants lies more or less equally on all immigrants from that country

Leave it to the “Knights of Columbus,” Italian-Americans, to honor him as a hero and shove him down our throat with an annual parade; but then, that’s the folks who also introduced America to the Cosa Nostra (Mafia), so what can we expect?

Exposure to racism and understanding of American Indian culture is totally dependent on having a sufficient fraction of Indian blood

And why someone who’s totally assimilated and his appearance doesn’t suggest he’s anything but white would even bother anybody with his real or fictitious Indian ancestry is totally beyond my comprehension. What point is such an apple even trying to make? Obviously this person was never exposed to racism and also doesn’t know beans about any Indian culture, so why should anyone be impressed with his 2 drops of Indian blood?

People who discuss cultural diversity among European-Americans are completely unaware of one of the most fundamental levels of human experience

When someone starts talking about a variety of white cultures in the US, he doesn’t even know what a culture consists of.

If you share the skin color of a long dead person who committed certain historical crimes, you are not entitled to be trusted

White actions against us have made us wary, there’s no reason to trust a people who have engaged in genocide, slavery, apartheid, and the rest.

The exact definition of “white” as a racial term is known inherently by all members of that race

Ask a few white people why they consider themselves white. Heck ask the KKK what their definition of white is. They’re the experts, I believe. Check on the laws the US entertained over time, they’ll give you a clue as to what the US considers white.

Socrates was not a major philosopher

Fact is that the man’s “philosophy” never got anywhere period.

[Melandry]

From his latest post on page 3:

Obviously, these people have no debating skills and know even less about the art of polite conversation. They just want to attack whatever one says or attack what they think one says or attack something that’s not even remotely being said.

As for an intelligent discussion, that’s obviously unheard of on this board. In fact, I didn’t even pronounce judgment over white people here…

I’m not sure PumaClaw is reading the same board as the rest of us…

[Arden_Ranger]

Okay, NoClueBoy, let me enlighten you about something: You’re considered a “twinkie” in Indian circles, possibly even a “wannabe.”

What a load of shit.

I’ll be sure and inform the numerous Native Americans I know, a large percentage of mixed ancestory, around Oklahoma of that. No doubt they’ll be restructing their councils after being informed quite a few of their leaders aren’t really Native Americans, just wannabes.

:rolleyes:

[Boris_B]

The nuggets of ethnically-correct history continue for a third page on the Native America thread.

Crime statistics about modern U.S. cities might be debatable, but one thing is for certain: There are were no violent acts among certain American tribes for at least one period

BTW, the Cherokee (as well as several other nations) were quite assimilated and sure as hey didn’t kill or rape anybody when Jackson decided to send them on their deadly march.

The only way for the U.S. to show any collective awareness of the killing and general mistreatment of American tribes by European settlers would be for a single politician to apologize

Oh, and no, no US president has ever offered a formal apology, so no, the wrongs have not been officially acknowledged.

Repeatedly telling people to read favorite www links and take community college courses does not constitute a request

I also don’t recall that I ever said I wanted anything.

People who have argued with PumaClaw’s version of history are uniformly uneducated and hostile

If I wanted something, I sure as heck wouldn’t pose my requests or demands before a pile of uneducated, belligerent cyber jockeys.

Most importantly, in case there was any misunderstanding, PumaClaw has not come to any moral conclusions about Europeans or European-Americans on this thread

In fact, I didn’t even pronounce judgment over white people here

[AncientHumanoid]

I thought it rather cool that same people who admonished me for being an arrogant poster were also the same ones who defended me on general principal.

My heritage is my heritage, I can do nothing about it, nor do I want to. I am proud to be ME!!!

It’s wrong to judge people based on something they have no control over. It’s also wrong (IMHO) to hold on to values and/or opinions that are shown to be based on falsehoods. Sometimes, you can’t even accurately judge based on what you think you have observed about that person.

Which is why I didn’t start a Pitting. I truley couldn’t tell where he was coming from until after about 90 or so posts on his thread. Call me dense. Even now, I’m not quite sure what point he was trying to make about me. You don’t know anything about me other than what you could get from what I’ve posted.

Did I really come across as such an asshole that I deserved his diatribe about me and my family?

I’ll get my narrow minded ass out of the way for now.

[Arden_Ranger]

Leave it to the “Knights of Columbus,” Italian-Americans, to honor him as a hero and shove him down our throat with an annual parade; but then, that’s the folks who also introduced America to the Cosa Nostra (Mafia), so what can we expect?

Oh, and kiss my lily white Irish-Italian ass.

[Boris_B]

Man, NoClueBoy, you’re taking what he wrote about you a lot better than I did. Not that he wrote anything about me, of course. It just really stuck in my craw - not just the words he used but the fact that he dismissed you entirely as not even fit to have an opinion.

Obviously he dismissed everybody else as well, but it sounded like he was singling you out and that irked me. I felt kind of odd about pitting him because I don’t like “piling on”. He has plenty of people tangling with him on those threads and for a while I felt like he didn’t need another. Then I came to the opinion that Meatros, monstro, and Sampiro are going to easy on him, obviously because it is a GD thread and they are trying to obey the rules.

To me, he is treading the ragged age of hate speech and that’s why I pitted him.

I don’t recall what you did exactly that you feel made an ass of you, but if you need a pittin’ just holler. Seriously, I know you don’t need somebody defending you; it doesn’t seem like you took this guy’s brand of insults too hard. After a while I just couldn’t sit by and let this go unchallenged except for the “Oh dear, Mr. PumaClaw, could you rephrase that, it seems an itsy-bit like you’ve implied somewhat indelicately that the opinions of a certain group of people could have no value just because of the color of their skin. Now sit down and have a nice cup of tea and I’ll figure out what simply delightful open-minded thing it was that you intended to say” tone of the debate.

And yes, that’s an exaggeration. I’m a little cranky now; forgive me.

P.S. You guys are quick! I had figured I would have all three of my first posts on this thread before anyone responded. Shows you have fast I can do vB coding.

[AncientHumanoid]

First thing I did was call the OP a name and the Mod said “no no…”

Then I posted some personal stuff in response to jac. (I kinda liked jac. Didn’t agree 100%, but he was alright, for both sides of the debate)

Then some others said I was being trite.

Then, Claw came on and got stupid (IMHO)

I posted again and was called arrogant by someone else.

So I watched for a while and saw a really odd evolution to the thread. I thought almost everyone was being a little snotty, and many points were just opinions. And Claw was piling wood on his own funeral pyre.

“Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll just bow out with maybe a little grace and watch the rest. Maybe I was arrogant and trite.”

Well, I watched some more but had nothing really worth saying til this pit.

Sometimes it’s better just to walk away, but I couldn’t stand not having a last word.

BTW, I have run into racism from many different groups. It’s a deadly disease.

Let me say again: I am proud of being ME!!!

[Boris_B]

Jimminy, I didn’t even notice what he handed to monstro the first couple times reading over that thread. She had been addressing him in tones I can only describe as mild and sympathetic, describing the experience of her parents and how it might relate to those of a Native American. To wit, monstro’s father is so light-skinned that his African ancestry is not fully apparent; she implies that her mother is somewhat darker-skinned, and talked about the completely different experience she had because of it. Does PumaClaw warm up in the slightest to someone who might share an experience with racial prejudice or the justified outrage that could follow? Hardly,

Monstro, there is something about Indian cultures that you don’t understand… In fact, the biggest crime that white America has committed against black people is that they robbed them of their tribal culture, their individual culture, their tribal language, their tribal spiritualism. They have robbed the black people of their roots, so to speak.
Since you don’t even know what I’m involved in, please don’t comment on it.

That’s right - PumaClaw can tell African-Americans exactly what happened to them as a race, but they can’t empathize in the slightest with the sufferings of American tribes, and aren’t permitted to speak to an American Indian on a message board.

Or maybe I missed something even more insulting - and correct me if I’m wrong here - Is PumaClaw saying that black people could never relate American Indians because, while American Indians have a special, secret culture that could never be properly studied, much less understood by outside, while black people have no culture at all? That would explain why a shared experience with racism wouldn’t bridge the perceived gap, in his mind, but it is an even smellier pot of bile than PumaClaw is usually selling.

As usual, she turned the other cheek with a thoughtful reply. I simply don’t think I could reply to this in the style required by Great Debates. I’m too angry.

[AncientHumanoid]

Oh, for the record, when I said many posters were getting a little snotty themselves, I realize that it was a reaction to the stuff spoken about here. Many good points were still getting made, even though the format had become rather more argumentative.

The GD format is hard to figure out sometimes. Many intellectual discusions get weighed down by stimulus / response type posts. And a valid point is worth defending, but who decides what’s valid?

I thought about saying something trite and facetious right here, but you guys are making a much more intellectual pitting for me to do that.

[Pythagras]

And, somehow, using numbers to assess the scope of something is peculiar to a certain race

Actually this has truth to it. Understanding the world through quantification is mostly a result of the western sceintific revolution. If you’d like a cite see The Measure of Reality by Crosby amongst others.

I kind of thought they were a persecuted minority, but apparently the pilgrims were religious fanatics and riff-raff that Europe could not deal with

This, also, has a lot of truth to it. Minus the riff-raff part. Extremly narrow-minded missionary work that failed completly and utterly to begin to understand the nature of Native American culture really fucked everything about the converted Native American’s lives up. If you have access to jstor, a publications database, see “Red Puritans” by Neal Salisbury or “A Reappraisal of the Praying Indians” by Harold W. Van Lonkhuyzen. However, that being said, Indians, were not forced to convert, in fact many chose to in order to get cozier with the new power on the block (Puritans). Unfortunately it ended up being a bad decision in the long term, but with hindsight its not like they had many options.

Socrates was not a major philosopher

At least half the world’s population lives in an area where Socrates is not really a part of the culture. Socrates being a major philosopher is indicative only to Western/European and maybe Middle-Eastern culture.

The exact definition of “white” as a racial term is known inherently by all members of that race

Actually “white” is probably the least-understood racial category. “White” once meant only Northwestern Europeans, then over time the lines broadened. If you see Haney Lopez’s

White By Law you’ll see that the definition of white, as applied to restrictive immigration laws, had much trouble attempting to figure out who is white and who isnt. Eventually these courts threw away Anthropology as being useless and the Supreme Court ruled that “common sense” was the best way to determine who’s white and who’s not. Hmm…

Did you know that skin color applies to your insides as well as your skin? Huh, I sure didn’t

Well I personally think it applies to your “insides” and not your “skin.”

an individual claiming descent from both European and original American people is like unto a mass-produced snack cake, and telling that person that, far from being an insult, is a way of enlightening them

Funny since tribes have been admitting white people since colonial times, tribes still exist as weakened, yet culturally strong, political entities, where many of the members have more than 50% white (or black) heritage.

The only way for the U.S. to show any collective awareness of the killing and general mistreatment of American tribes by European settlers would be for a single politician to apologize

I thought there were apologies… Maybe FDR?

There are were no violent acts among certain American tribes for at least one period

Well it is more true than false. Cherokee sat on the gold in Georgia. They lived much like typical Georgians. Its not far fetched to propose the trail of tears thing was a big conspiracy to get the Cherokee to relinquish their gold bearing lands in N. Georgia.

There’s something about tribal-culture puma-claw doesnt understand. Native American tribes are very open minded and flexible. They have survived because they adapt ideologically, culturally, politically, every way possible. Nowadays, maybe they’ve adapted too much, but its not really anybody’s fault IMO.

[Sublight]

You’re considered a “twinkie” in Indian circles

Now this is where I get confused. I thought my wife was a twinkie, and that I, in turn, was an egg. If you’re a white guy who wants to be Native American, wouldn’t that make you a frosted cherry pie or something? Those were always my favorites, though the blueberry ones were good, too.

[Liberal]

*Originally posted by Arden Ranger *
**Oh, and kiss my lily white Irish-Italian ass. **

He can also kiss my ruby red ass.

[…vaguely disoriented for finding myself in agreement with Urban Ranger…]

[Arden_Ranger]

You aren’t in agreement with Urban Ranger, you silly man.

You’re agreeing with Arden Ranger.

[Liberal]

Whew! Thank God.

[Neurotik]

*Originally posted by Pythagras *
**At least half the world’s population lives in an area where Socrates is not really a part of the culture. Socrates being a major philosopher is indicative only to Western/European and maybe Middle-Eastern culture. **

What the heck does that have to do with anything? Any time a philosopher lays the groundwork for 2000 years of philosophical thought, that person is a major philosopher, no matter what region he or she lived.

By your criteria, what philosophers can be considered major?

[elf6c]

Wow. That is one sad ass racist pile of shit.

The irony of the content of his posts and the topic on which they are based is stunning.

The last time we had posters with content that bigoted, they were banned after 3 posts (think “weather type” and “not the back, but the _ _ _ _ _” ).

Did he manage to find one race not to offend?