True Left

The worst of False Leftism:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/no-black-and-asian-people-do-not-resent-e2-80-98western-achievements-e2-80-99-we-made-them-possible/ar-AAWwIZx

No, Black and Asian people do not resent ‘Western achievements.’ We made them possible.

Those who do resent Western achievements, such as ourselves, would never call ourselves "black" or "Asian" (Western terms) in the first place.

Why would we resent something that we have contributed significantly to?

Because we we were forced to contribute to it?

Historically, the U.S. has relied heavily on the labor of people of color and immigrants for its economy. Enslaved Black people were responsible for the growth of America’s economy in the 19th century. Slavery has been called the economic engine of the South, which at one point was the source of the majority of cotton used in Britain, France and Russia. By the start of the Civil War, the South was profiting handsomely from the labor of enslaved Black people.

Are you arguing that we should not resent slavery just because slavery ended up contributing to the economy of a civilization that added a lot of machines to the world?

Around the same time as the war, in the early to mid-1860s, the Central Pacific Railroad was recruiting Chinese laborers to work on the country’s first transcontinental railroad after an insufficient number of white workers responded to its ads. Doing extremely dangerous and exhausting work while being paid less than their white counterparts, these estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese migrants were essential to what has been described as “one of the most ambitious American engineering enterprises at the time” — despite the lack of recognition they receive even to this day.

Are you arguing that we should not resent being unfairly paid for dangerous work, again just because this ended up contributing to the economy of a civilization that added a lot of machines to the world? (What happened to rail travel in the US, by the way? It was soon sidelined by newer modes of transport such as cars and planes. This is how Western civilization ultimately repaid the railroad labourers. Should we not resent this?)

The man behind Zoom, the video conferencing platform that most of us have depended on to work from home during the pandemic, is Eric Yuan, an Asian man who immigrated to the U.S. from China in 1997. Baiju Bhatt, an Indian American entrepreneur, is one of the co-founders and the chief creative officer of Robinhood, the commission-free trading app that has made investing in and trading stocks and other financial assets more accessible to the masses and has been valued at $32 billion. As its name suggests, Beats by Dr. Dre, which Apple acquired in 2014 for a record $3 billion and is one of the most recognizable headphone brands on the market, was created by Dr. Dre — a Black American rapper, producer and entrepreneur from Compton, California — with business partner Jimmy Iovine.

Many more such examples exist of both Asian Americans — who “drive Silicon Valley innovation,” according to a 2016 Nikkei Asia article — and Black Americans, who have succeeded despite the lack of support from Silicon Valley investors.

These particular individuals probably do not resent Western civilization, but only because they have personally profited from it. Are you arguing, therefore, that personal profit should be considered more important than ethical principles?

In this day and age, when the global community is so interconnected and constantly collaborating, the term “Western achievements” feels outdated. The East-West divide that Wax’s rhetoric perpetuates is unnecessary and dangerous, as it could enforce stereotypes about differences that are not accurate and fan the flames of xenophobia.

No, I welcome Wax's use of the term "Western achievements". I only disagree with Wax in that I would prefer Western achievements to never have occurred. Both Wax and I would argue that if the same individuals behind Zoom, Robinhood, etc. had been born in an alternate world in which Western civilization had never existed, they would not have come up with Zoom, Robinhood, etc.. The difference is that I would prefer the alternate world to have been our reality. In practice, this means I want to destroy Western civilization so that the rest of us can return to a lifestyle more like what we had before the colonial era.