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The 15 Most Overrated White People

Overrated is to a certain extent perception. I personally think Abe Lincoln is incredibly overrated. Here's a guy whose racist comments are never mentioned in public school US history classes as he's held up as a great leader (wrong) who freed the slaves (also wrong) during a war about slavery and human rights (epic wrong).

I think the same could be said for a ton of other people of various races. I think Steven Spielberg is overrated. All those movies he's made and other than "Jaws" I thought his movies (on the whole) stunk, even "E.T." Phil Jackson, too. Not to degrade his accomplishments but I mean, really. You give me four of the NBA's ten greatest players of all-time on two teams and I'd have at least half of those rings - and I don't even know anything about basketball strategy.

I also think Hillary Clinton is monumentally overrated. I had a guy at work tell me in 2006 she was "probably the most qualified person for President" but when I pressed for SPECIFICS he had absolutely nothing to say to support that ridiculous idea. (Susan Estrich, the Dukakis campaign chair who is on Fox and whom I actually like pretty good, listed one of Hillary's "accomplishments" during the 2008 Democratic primary as 'has lived in the White House.' Apparently, this makes Barbara Bush Presidential timber).
 
skrayper77 said:
As with any race numbering in the millions, if you select the most heinous of crimes and apply them to all those of the same skin color, then that would make you just as guilty for the Holocaust.
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Are you likening Columbus to the Nazis? Regardless, I'm referring more to what is acceptable in a society. Whether you're talking about Columbus or those who peopled the Americas before Columbus, what they practiced then was generally acceptable to themselves as societies go. Of course, later societies like ours like to look back and somewhat irrationally cast aspersions on, or even idolize, those societies that came before.
 
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FWIW, there isn't a race of peoples on this planet that is all good, or all bad. There are good and bad among them all. Yes, the Caucasian race, including those in the US, have been guilty of the buying, selling, transporting and forcible labor of Blacks. But the Caucasians are not, and have not been, the only ones to do this. In fact, Blacks in other parts of the world have enslaved others of their own race for the same purposes. That doesn't make it right of course, but you also can't rightfully point an accusing finger at a single race for immoral acts perpetrated by races all over the world.
If you look at it from a legal standpoint, the US was the very first nation to outlaw and ban slavery within it's borders. There have been others to do so, but there are also nations around the world where forms of slavery are still practiced to this day.
 
Tide1986 said:
I'd certainly vote for her over the person currently holding the office. :)
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Well so would I, but that doesn't mean she's qualified.


Just because he holds the office doesn't even mean HE'S qualified given that it's based on a popularity contest anyway. As someone once said, "Experience only matters if you were any good in the first place."
 
I have always been struck by the "Christopher Columbus was a sociopathic killer" meme. I ran across this quote about the Mohegans' treatment of a captive Wampanoag in the mid-1600s:
Rev. William Hubbard said:
"In the first place therefore making a great circle they (the Englishmen’s Mohegan allies) placed him (captured Wampanoag warrior) in the middle that all their eyes might at the same time be pleased with the utmost revenge upon him. They first cut one of his fingers round in the joint at the trunk of his hand, with a sharp knife and then brake it off, as men do with a slaughtered beast before they uncase him; then they cut off another and another till they had dismembered one hand of all its digits, the blood sometimes spurting out in streams a yard from his hand, which barbarous and unheard of cruelty the English were not able to bear, it forcing tears from their eyes, yet did not the sufferer ever relent or show any sign of anguish, for being asked by some of his tormentors how he liked the war ..... this unsensible and hard-hearted monster answered, he liked it very well and found it as sweet as Englishmen did their sugar. In this frame he continued until his executioners had dealt with the toes of his feet as they had done with the fingers of his hands, all the while making him dance round the circle and sing, till he wearied both himself and them. At last they brake the bones of his legs, afterwards he was forced to sit down which 'tis said he silently did, till they knocked out his brains.”
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Note that it was the treatment of one Native by other Natives that upset this European so much. The English "were not able to bear" watching this cruelty.
Add to this the way Aztecs treated their prisoners and the Europeans don't seem any worse than the Natives in America.
 
Tidewater said:
Note that it was the treatment of one Native by other Natives that upset this European so much. The English "were not able to bear" watching this cruelty.
Add to this the way Aztecs treated their prisoners and the Europeans don't seem any worse than the Natives in America.
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Like Tide1986 said, I think you have to judge in part on what was acceptable in society and culture at the time. Personally I do not think Cortez was all that horrible and if you look at what they went through in taking down the Aztecs it is pretty impressive. Now the Pizzaros were psychopaths.
 
Bama Reb said:
FWIW, there isn't a race of peoples on this planet that is all good, or all bad. There are good and bad among them all. Yes, the Caucasian race, including those in the US, have been guilty of the buying, selling, transporting and forcible labor of Blacks. But the Caucasians are not, and have not been, the only ones to do this. In fact, Blacks in other parts of the world have enslaved others of their own race for the same purposes. That doesn't make it right of course, but you also can't rightfully point an accusing finger at a single race for immoral acts perpetrated by races all over the world.
If you look at it from a legal standpoint, the US was the very first nation to outlaw and ban slavery within it's borders. There have been others to do so, but there are also nations around the world where forms of slavery are still practiced to this day.
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Actually, quite a few places banned slavery long before we did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

A few tidbits:

1117: Slavery abolished in Iceland
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1274: Landslova (Land's Law) in Norway mentions only former slaves, which indicates that slavery was abolished in Norway
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1335: Sweden (including Finland at the time) makes slavery illegal
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1416: Republic of Ragusa (modern day Dubrovnik, Croatia) abolished slavery and slave trading
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Tidewater said:
I have always been struck by the "Christopher Columbus was a sociopathic killer" meme. I ran across this quote about the Mohegans' treatment of a captive Wampanoag in the mid-1600s:

Note that it was the treatment of one Native by other Natives that upset this European so much. The English "were not able to bear" watching this cruelty.
Add to this the way Aztecs treated their prisoners and the Europeans don't seem any worse than the Natives in America.
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My biggest issue is when we try to lump groups of people into the biggest lumping we can possibly imagine (like saying all Native American tribes held the same values, or saying all Europeans did - when I would think that Italy and Germany in the mid-20th century had a very different set of values than, say, the British or Swedish did at the time). It just feels lazy to me. We separate the Aztecs from the Incas and Mayans, but why not the Cherokee and Choctaw and Chickasaw and Apache tribes?
 
Tide1986 said:
Gasp...you think "Schindler's List" is junk? It did win a few Academy Awards. You must be a racist. :)

By the way, I've never seen "Schindler's List". :)
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Huh... I haven't seen it either.

Probably because I don't really want to watch movies that will depress me.
 
WMack4Bama said:
The shirt was more for her than anyone else. Self-esteem builder. Historically, black women have been on the short end of it, and the antagonists more often than not have been Black men, among others. The Black Girls Rock/Rule campaign was started a little less than a decade ago to help try and improve the self image of young Black girls (who genetically may look differently than the "standard" of beauty by popular media) who have been told that they're not beautiful by everyone from popular media to the sick family members who violate their chastity, to try and help improve the self worth/self image of those young girls.

So you know...don't take it as her putting anyone down. Just trying to uplift herself
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Thanks for the post and info. I have no problem with someone trying to improve self-esteem. My motto always has been, "Why not be confident? If you can't like yourself who can you like!?"
 
WMack4Bama said:
The shirt was more for her than anyone else. Self-esteem builder. Historically, black women have been on the short end of it, and the antagonists more often than not have been Black men, among others. The Black Girls Rock/Rule campaign was started a little less than a decade ago to help try and improve the self image of young Black girls (who genetically may look differently than the "standard" of beauty by popular media) who have been told that they're not beautiful by everyone from popular media to the sick family members who violate their chastity, to try and help improve the self worth/self image of those young girls.

So you know...don't take it as her putting anyone down. Just trying to uplift herself
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The problem isn't really her shirt or the self-esteem builder and it's not that she's trying to put anyone down. The problem is the politically correct double standard that says a white person would be considered racist for essentially the same kind of idea/campaign being used. I don't have a problem with anyone having pride in their roots and/or using that pride to raise their self-image, but unfortunately one group of people is no longer allowed to do that while everyone else is encouraged to.
 
skrayper77 said:
My biggest issue is when we try to lump groups of people into the biggest lumping we can possibly imagine (like saying all Native American tribes held the same values, or saying all Europeans did - when I would think that Italy and Germany in the mid-20th century had a very different set of values than, say, the British or Swedish did at the time). It just feels lazy to me. We separate the Aztecs from the Incas and Mayans, but why not the Cherokee and Choctaw and Chickasaw and Apache tribes?
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The "Columbus was a sociopath" crowd love to point to the excesses of Europeans in the Americas and lay them at the feet of Columbus (even when Columbus did not participate in the alleged outrages). The "Columbus was a sociopath" crowd, however, do not look at the atrocities Natives committed on each other, atrocities to which Europeans put an end. This would apply to the live human sacrifice done by the Aztecs (cutting open a living person's chest and pulling out the beating heart), the murder of non-combatants by Cherokees or Warreskoyaks, or the cruel torture and murder of defenseless prisoners by Mohegans. Those activities need to be put into the balance sheet when judging the incusions of Europeans into the Americas.
 
Tidewater said:
The "Columbus was a sociopath" crowd love to point to the excesses of Europeans in the Americas and lay them at the feet of Columbus (even when Columbus did not participate in the alleged outrages). The "Columbus was a sociopath" crowd, however, do not look at the atrocities Natives committed on each other, atrocities to which Europeans put an end. This would apply to the live human sacrifice done by the Aztecs (cutting open a living person's chest and pulling out the beating heart), the murder of non-combatants by Cherokees or Warreskoyaks, or the cruel torture and murder of defenseless prisoners by Mohegans. Those activities need to be put into the balance sheet when judging the incusions of Europeans into the Americas.
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In discussing these matters, humans can be very evil to other humans regardless of race or people group.
 
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