Comment on It'S tHe SaMe PiCtUrE!!!
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day agoYou tell me how a singular war fought primarily by whites against whites compares the US’s and Western World’s systematic eradication of Native Americans.
The Trail of Tears might not have involved actual deaths of Native Americans, but it’s the hallmark heinous injustice and US-done marker of their centuries-long genocide (even if it’s considered more ethnic cleansing than genocide).
Nothing about what you’ve said has refuted my point. More deaths are worse than less deaths.
QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Why are you making this about race at all? That is weird and kind of racist. It is also factually untrue to suggest it only impacted white people. War impacts everyone who lives in the war-zone. That would include many non-white peoples.
Again unless you have the mentality of a child there’s no hierarchy to evil.The Trail of Tears wasn’t less horrific than the Holodomor just because fewer were impacted.
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
I had a response typed up, but I guess it didn’t send.
Basically, white people have caused the genocide of Native Americans, and some say the genocide of slaves and black people too, although it’s not clear if what’s going on there is a genocide. There is clearly a race arrow pointing from one group of people towards others.
The arrival of Europeans and passing of the baton from the British, Spanish, and French to the Americans introduced diseases that Native Americans weren’t prepared for, and this was a major factor in their decline. If you think the Civil War had impacts on civilians and those not participating, then you must recognize the impacts European contact had. It’s so much worse than the Civil War.
And in the case of European contact, and again Americans’ continued settlement and structural violence against the Native Americans, pretty much only Native Americans were impacted. The diseases and technologies carried over by the whites completely overwhelmed Native Americans. Virtually no impacts to whites, which IMO is a worse outcome. At least in war, people sustain similar casualties and impacts on both sides, and this helps fuel empathy. Not the case when you’re the oppressor.
There is a hierarchy to evil because there is a hierarchy to violence. Violence can be direct or acute, and then it can be indirect through structural violence (or social murder). Violence just means harm against others. That harm can manifest in many different ways. The ultimate harm is killing people, but there are many other harms to be done towards the outgroup.
In the case of the Holodomor vs the Trail of Tears, I think we can make a good distinction that one was worse than the other. The Trail of Tears was essentially ethnic cleansing, or the displacement of people from one area or another. The Holodomor involved a famine that may or may not have been intentionally caused by the USSR, but which may or may not have been accelerated once the USSR learned of it. That IMO makes it a genocide. Ethnic cleansing is bad, but people don’t die as a result. With genocide, that is the case. The Holodomor as an event IMO was worse than the Trail of Tears, but there are other events in the history of the genocide of Native Americans that compare to the Holodomor or appear worse.
QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
You start with a frankly racist position and now you are trying to claim a moral high ground? How do you think that works?
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
It’s not racist to speak about which parties play the role of the oppressor and the oppressed. It’s reality.