Question: Other than the start of slavery, what happened in Africa in the 1400-1600s that affected the modern world?
What happened in Asia?
What happened in Europe?
Ontopic Affirmative Action
- Thread starter Mr. Argumentor
- Start date
What happened in Asia?
What happened in Europe?
A ridiculous amount in asia and europe. Too much to include in one standard class though, which is why we have european history and asian history classes.
Agreed
Asia has a huge, well documented history, technological and medical innovations.
What happened in Africa?
And a lot in africa too, but it was mainly "contained". It didnt affect the rest of the world in other words.
Even before the brits came, there was mass intra-continental tribal colonization going on. Which ill admit never gets taught about. Most of it was driven by the spread of islam
Even before the brits came, there was mass intra-continental tribal colonization going on. Which ill admit never gets taught about. Most of it was driven by the spread of islam
I'm not sure. But as much as my lack of knowledge may be indicative of Africa's supposed inferiority, it is also indicative of my Euro-centric education. I'll bite, though. We're strictly talking sub-saharan Africa, right?
Off the top of my head, I know that Mali was one of the world's great kingdoms/empires, and that Timbuktu was one of the greatest places of learning at its height, but I don't remember when that was. Gold was in abundance. Songhai was another powerful kingdom.
I also know that much of sub-saharan Africa remained tribal while European powers centralized into kingdoms. This occurred for a variety of reasons, such as Europe's high population density and limited resources forcing people to organize more efficiently, while Africa's low pop density and abundant resources eliminated that need. More importantly, this doesn't mean we should exclude African history (although I was specifically talking about black American history in my post) from our history courses. I went to a good school in the state with the best school system, and I had an especially good teacher. Can we say the same for most other kids?
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If you read Guns, Germs, and Steel... The idea that the author suggests is that since Africa is a 'vertical' country it has VASTLY different climates. This prevented technology from spreading because anything 'invented' was useless a couple hundred miles away or so. Eurasia being an East-West continent allowed human innovation to prosper more readily along similar climates. Since more people could live in the same latitude in Eurasia than a place like Africa, it because a positive feedback loop of tech.
That said, I don't think you can make people like another race. The best thing we could have done was remove any laws based in racism and let society slowly fix the rest. Affirmative Action only reminds everyone of racism now and in the past.
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hey! i went and read wiki too
(no, seriously, i did, because i had no idea what happened in africa then)
No one is making excuses. People just want to try and understand why the birthplace of humanity didn't become the most advanced. On the surface, it seems illogical.
hey! i went and read wiki too
(no, seriously, i did, because i had no idea what happened in africa then)
lolz. That was all off the top of my head. Admittedly, I learned the shit about European vs African development in college. I've also forgotten basically everything else from that class.
There are a lot of things that we should not exclude from children's education. To my mind, I feel like there are more important things we should worry about teaching our children than things that don't affect their lives. It's important to know where you come from, but more important should be learning skills that aid you in coping with the real world.
Exactly. You know what's more important than slavery? Learning how to handle your money and not go into fucking credit card debt.
Well yeah, that's why I argue we should improve education about black, hispanic, asian American etc etc history, especially in elementary and middle school when you learn mostly about the US. I think all high schools should require a world history course that spends at least half its time on non-European history. It's very difficult to figure out what to teach and what to leave out, since there are so many things we should know but such limited time to learn them.
Also a personal finances class is important, but shouldn't be taught at the expense of a history class.
Interesting. On first thought I'm not sure I believe it considering how slow the mass movement of humanity has been until the past two hundred years. I'd also have to see exactly the examples he's given as I'm not sure what technologies would not be able to be moved, but that's just me always thinking why an idea won't work.
There might be an argument for sources of resources, Britain was important because of the forests and tin.
heres the thing. Those are all foreign history. Its not a race thing. They arent america.
The american school system prioritizes american history. Just like the british school system prioritizes british history, etc.
Personal finance classes (not just one) should be an absolute fucking requirement in every school though. I cant believe we have thing like cooking, but not that.
Syrup Beaver
pants log
Ann Coulter was on Bill Maher tonight.
She spewed so much hate that I was sure I could hear 5ive's balls tightening from here.
She spewed so much hate that I was sure I could hear 5ive's balls tightening from here.