Reparations To American Blacks... Yes/No?

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:
Before the 8th Century, what did "Ger" mean ?
The Romans called at first (3rd century BC)

I guess we shud call them the Romen!

@georgeob1,

The Bavarians are actually Africans, who came here with Hannibal.
And when Hannibal crossed the Alps, he said: all the ill, footsores and otherwise handicapped, Left Flank March. And since those days, they live there, the Bavarians ..

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Check out the late 19th century cartoons newspaper cartoons depicting simian like irishmen: the "No Irish need apply" warnings in New England job solicitations; and the similar slanders directed at Jews, Italians and Poles. Neighborhoods in East Coast and Midwest cities were often defined by their ethnic boundaries, and the epithets used by nearly one and all to describe the "other" were uniformly derogatory and meant to be offensive.

I'm quite familiar with the history of immigration in the US, which is why I took issue with you statement that every immigrant group faced discrimination. No doubt the "no Irish need apply" signs were evidence of widespread discrimination against Irish immigrants in the 19th century, but that was at the hands of a group that, by and large, didn't face discrimination. And while the Irish may have had it rough, they were never at the bottom of the heap. There was always one group that they could discriminate against - the blacks.

georgeob1 wrote:

Rather I was pretty clear that today's situation for Blacks is comparable th those of the earlier minorities when they arrived.

But it's not. When the great wave of Irish immigration began in the 1840s, blacks had already been in this land for over 200 years. An entire economic system had been built around exploiting black labor, and a socio-political system had been erected upon the idea that blacks should constitute a permanent underlclass. The Irish never faced that level of pervasive discrimination.

georgeob1 wrote:

It is even more difficult to take you seriously when you fail to grasp the very obvious effects of the passage of time and the repeatedly successful adjustments of people from various and often very different ethnic and cultural backgrounds to living together and developing a common culture with ingredients from all of them. That was the very obvious central point.

I'm not sure that's a point worth making in a discussion about reparations. Why should that matter? Are you saying that blacks should be all bootstrappy and emulate white European immigrant groups instead of complaining about reparations?

georgeob1 wrote:

Can you point out another country that has achieved such long-term success in assimilating large, repeated waves of immigrants?

Canada.

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I guess we shud call them the Romen!

You certainly can try to change the Latin language, too.

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@joefromchicago,

You are merely quibbling without adding anything meaningful to the conversation.

That the Pilgrim fathers weren't discriminated against by any earlier settlers (expect perhaps the Indians they exterminated, is implicit in the context. I did note that they wasted no time in discriminating with each other over sectarian issues.

I don't think your Canadian example holds water -- at least not in Quebec.

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@georgeob1,

It would have been easier if you had just said up front that you weren't interested in discussing the topic of this thread.

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@Thomas,

Word origins are always interesting but not universally agreed upon.

I have understood that the Franks (and thus the French) were called so because of their highly effective weapon the francisca, a throwing axe that was instrumental in their overcoming other "barabarian" tribes. Recently I saw an assertion that the name's origin is the German word "frank" meaning free.

So out of curiosity I did a quick search on the origins of "German" and found one theory is that it is derived for from a Gaulish word for "noisy" and another that it's origin is the Old French "germaine" or "closely related."

I can certainly imagine that a group of people might be known to others based upon a unique or singular weapon: "Look out! Here come the Spear Men!" It's less easy to accept that they were known because of some characteristic like "being free": "Hey look, there go those guys who seem like they don't have a care in the world!" It would seem that only those who were not free would refer to a people as being free.

As for whether or not early "Germans" made such rackets that they would be named for a boorish behavior: "Listen, it's those damned Noisy Men again," I'll leave that to you and Walter for comment.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

The Bavarians are actually Africans, who came here with Hannibal.
And when Hannibal crossed the Alps, he said: all the ill, footsores and otherwise handicapped, Left Flank March. And since those days, they live there, the Bavarians ..

I heard a similar story from a Hungarian friend. After a discussion of the common structures of the Finnish and Hungarian languages, he told me a story involving the original migration of the Magyars from the South East. It seems they came upon a sign that said "good pastureland on the left". All the proto-Finns turned right, etc. I'm sure there are even earlier versions.

The Bavarians I know are a bit Irish in their behavior and their humor.

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@Thomas,

Laughing..

I'm gonna click on Thomas's link and enjoy. (I took a semester of german, liked it. Didn't go further because it was too far between classes (zoology bldg to humanities and back at a near run three days a week).

Or was it two days..

I had trouble keeping up then, taking two buses each way to work after classes and weekends, then late night reading of godknowswhat. Up early to get to school again. Point being, I'm sorry I didn't learn more german. It was like a complex puzzle that I sort of got.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

It would have been easier if you had just said up front that you weren't interested in discussing the topic of this thread.

My purpose wasn't to offend, and if I offended you, I apologize.

However, it seems to me that you went to fairly great lengths to miss some obvious points. That didn't help the discussion either.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

I have understood that the Franks (and thus the French) were called so because of their highly effective weapon the francisca, a throwing axe that was instrumental in their overcoming other "barabarian" tribes. Recently I saw an assertion that the name's origin is the German word "frank" meaning free.

"Frank" is in German only known since the 15th/16th century, coming from the French franc or Italian franco.
'Franks' were the "brave"/"bold" tribe (the original meaning). Only when they had moved and settled to what is now partly France, the name got the meaning "free". (The were 'free' in those years as opposed the "barbaric" tribe on the other side of the Rhine.)

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

So out of curiosity I did a quick search on the origins of "German" and found one theory is that it is derived for from a Gaulish word for "noisy" and another that it's origin is the Old French "germaine" or "closely related."

Before someone spoke Old French, they spoke Latin. And Germania was and the tribes there was known to Caesar already ... known to everyone who had to read him in Latin.

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What we have here is a classic epic A2K thread arc......from american slave reparations to the origin of the word " german" in 10 pages.

Nice to know that we can still do it.

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@Walter Hinteler,

That may be Walter, but I'm not arguing for any particular theory, just pointing out that there are usually more than one.

Surprisingly Wikipedia doesn't list you as a source expert for etymology Smile

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

My purpose wasn't to offend, and if I offended you, I apologize.

Not offended in the least. It's just that you and I were discussing two entirely different things.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Surprisingly Wikipedia doesn't list you as a source expert for etymology

No, for a quite good reason: my exam in old history isn't published.

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I finally found a rather good map in English showing that the Frankish tribes came from where I live now (most probably they moved westward because Saxon tribes moved in their regions)

http://i1334.photobucket.com/albums/w641/Walter_Hinteler/b_zps6836a19e.jpg

This map shows the expansion of the Frankish territories

http://i1334.photobucket.com/albums/w641/Walter_Hinteler/a_zpsebfb3819.jpg

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@BillRM,

You didn't need to write all that. I was merely stating that a classical argument racist tend to use was the whole "everyone practiced slavery too..." My argument subsequently highlighted the fact that the practice of slavery was different from culture to culture. Nevertheless, white Americans who had slaves and also practiced systematic racism also allowed the pain to endure by creating an environment where people remained at a disadvantage.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Which Africans? Egyptians, Ghanians? Every country in Africa didn't contain a homogenous culture.

Reparations To American Blacks... Yes/No?

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