Would a systematic African American genocide have ever been plausible?

Look despite your inadvertent hilarity, I do sympathize. I will explain when I have time, unless someone helps you out before that.

Until then, I recommend considering the nature of Wikipedia, and looking into why on this board the site is often referred to as "the Armenian Genocide," or "the Polish Cabal."

Really? Seriously?
Oh, i get it. It's about being able to discredit the best and most accessible tool for learning history that non-specialists have. I guess the same happens to any kind of history popularization magazine. Right.

I don't get historians, really. In science we love the wikipedia. You can become a self taught expert in many scientific fields if you bother to study the corresponding wikipedia articles and dig deep enough... because scientists love writing articles and correcting others' articles.

No, i get that history isn't an objective discipline and it's open to interpretation in most cases (unlike science, where the open interpretation is limited to very few cases). But it isn't that hard to reflect in the wiki articles the main interpretations, according to the articles in peer reviewed journals. All the edit wars i've seen in history articles in the wiki were about one person removing the interpretation of another person, and viceversa, rarely about giving both interpretations.

The article(s) about the Armenian genocide are sufficiently documented and referenced to satisfy me. And seriously, there's enough scholarly literature on the topic...

More on concrete matters, what is that "over a long period of time for the sake of political expediency". It took place during 3 years, that's a lot shorter than the Holocaust. And the genocide is an act, not an end. The nazis claimed to have a good purpose in mind for killing all the jews.
Then again, i learned about these things in the Wiki, so i guess my opinions, with that source, are worthless. So, sorry for wasting your time.
 
Really? Seriously?
Oh, i get it. It's about being able to discredit the best and most accessible tool for learning history that non-specialists have. I guess the same happens to any kind of history popularization magazine. Right.

I don't get historians, really. In science we love the wikipedia. You can become a self taught expert in many scientific fields if you bother to study the corresponding wikipedia articles and dig deep enough... because scientists love writing articles and correcting others' articles.

No, i get that history isn't an objective discipline and it's open to interpretation in most cases (unlike science, where the open interpretation is limited to very few cases). But it isn't that hard to reflect in the wiki articles the main interpretations, according to the articles in peer reviewed journals. All the edit wars i've seen in history articles in the wiki were about one person removing the interpretation of another person, and viceversa, rarely about giving both interpretations.

The article(s) about the Armenian genocide are sufficiently documented and referenced to satisfy me. And seriously, there's enough scholarly literature on the topic...

That page is pretty outdated, most of the Armenian Genocide argument/"denial" was one (venerable and prolific) militant Turkish-nationalist member who got banned years ago. Nowadays referring to Wikipedia that way is pretty much only a joke by old members AFAIK, though it's true that most people consider it a better starting point to find other sources through/gain a basic summary than a place for serious research.
 

Flubber

Banned
Oh, i get it.


No, you don't. Wiki is not a source. Wiki can sometimes point to sources, but Wiki is basically a joke.

Need an example of Wiki's uselessness? Check out this page at Wiki itself. It's the main page detailing the internal Wiki discussion and effort to clean up 87 THOUSAND biased article edits made by ONE Wiki user between 2005 and their being banned in September of 2012.

Any damn fool can write any damn foolish thing at Wiki.
 
That page is pretty outdated, most of the Armenian Genocide argument/"denial" was one (venerable and prolific) militant Turkish-nationalist member who got banned years ago. Nowadays referring to Wikipedia that way is pretty much only a joke by old members AFAIK, though it's true that most people consider it a better starting point to find other sources through/gain a basic summary than a place for serious research.

Sure, after all it's an encyclopedia, no one should be advised to do serious research reading an encyclopedia. I was mostly ticked off about how often, not only in this site, saying that you read something in the wiki is treated with the same contempt as saying you read it in icr.org or in the conservapedia. Which is a shame, because the data it contains is quite reliable.
Specially in my field of expertise, which is where i can judge its reliability without having to trust random forum posters.
 
Really? Seriously?
Oh, i get it. It's about being able to discredit the best and most accessible tool for learning history that non-specialists have. I guess the same happens to any kind of history popularization magazine. Right.

Who are you arguing with? The anonymous wiki authors of the article on Wikipedia?

You're inferring my opinions from my sense of humor, which is all well and good, except that you're coming out with an incorrect answer. If you're going to use Wikipedia and you have the sense to check its sources, quote the sources to us, not the site that I can go edit to say that the AG was caused primarily by residual anger over the fall of the Hittites. Contrary to your assumption, I'd agree that it is "the best and most accessible tool for learning history that non-specialists have." It's just emphatically not an end point, nor a valid supporting reference for a historical debate on a controversial topic that is a pet project to a community of Wikipedia mods of a related nationality.

I think that much is obvious, no?

I don't get historians, really. In science we love the wikipedia. You can become a self taught expert in many scientific fields if you bother to study the corresponding wikipedia articles and dig deep enough... because scientists love writing articles and correcting others' articles.

Digging deep enough is indeed the qualifying factor.

No, i get that history isn't an objective discipline and it's open to interpretation in most cases (unlike science, where the open interpretation is limited to very few cases). But it isn't that hard to reflect in the wiki articles the main interpretations, according to the articles in peer reviewed journals. All the edit wars i've seen in history articles in the wiki were about one person removing the interpretation of another person, and viceversa, rarely about giving both interpretations.

The article(s) about the Armenian genocide are sufficiently documented and referenced to satisfy me. And seriously, there's enough scholarly literature on the topic...

For myself I am careful to take literature on the topic with a grain of salt. Genocide denial - perceived or real - is a guaranteed career breaker in academia. Taking on and publicizing an atrocity is a powerful act of national myth-making (in the identity/folk history sense, not the Thor's hammer sense). The bias with these things runs only one way, except when it's research by the "guilty party," and obviously they aren't much use themselves.

More on concrete matters, what is that "over a long period of time for the sake of political expediency". It took place during 3 years, that's a lot shorter than the Holocaust. And the genocide is an act, not an end. The nazis claimed to have a good purpose in mind for killing all the jews.
Then again, i learned about these things in the Wiki, so i guess my opinions, with that source, are worthless. So, sorry for wasting your time.

Okay, you're now responding to someone else entirely. And someone I may not agree with at that. At the least it is unrelated to any of my points.
 
I didn't use it as an end point. I used it to point out some numbers that don't even appear as redacted text, but as scanned documentation.
And i also used it to register that there's a fairly wide consensus that the Armenian genocide did indeed happen and was indeed a genocide.
Certainly, that kind of data that should be considered general knowledge, and for that, citing the wikipedia should suffice.

If you tell me about kind of bond appears between the atoms of some weird molecule that is hard to synthetize, i'd ask you to cite the paper where it appears. If you tell me the atomic weight of the carbon atom, citing a highschool textbook is enough.


For myself I am careful to take literature on the topic with a grain of salt. Genocide denial - perceived or real - is a guaranteed career breaker in academia. Taking on and publicizing an atrocity is a powerful act of national myth-making (in the identity/folk history sense, not the Thor's hammer sense). The bias with these things runs only one way, except when it's research by the "guilty party," and obviously they aren't much use themselves.

In science we have topics that are also career breakers. If a scientist decides to try and publish creationism, or paranormal activity, or expanding earth... their career is forfeit.
And with a good reason.
 
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Genocide denial - perceived or real - is a guaranteed career breaker in academia.

As it should be. Unless there is definite proof that a genocide did not happen (and the burden of proof is on the denier, definitely) it's quite a dick move to claim that no, the survivors of the crime are idiots and their relatives didn't get killed, in fact. And so far, I don't know of one single instance of genocide which has been denied by numerous academics worldwide and it later turned out that they were indeed right, or are likely to be right. I'm rather more irritated by the fact that the Armenian genocide is more "acceptable" to question or deny in general, just because Turkey is a Western puppet.
 

Deleted member 14881

How did we get to the Armenian Genocide?

back to the OP I can see expulsion from the North ,and Labor Camps in the South. I dont see a Final Soultion to the Black Problem. but its genocide of cheap Labor and the South needs some kind of cheap Labor.
 
I didn't use it as an end point. I used it to point out some numbers that don't even appear as redacted text, but as scanned documentation.

Didn't say you did.

And i also used it to register that there's a fairly wide consensus that the Armenian genocide did indeed happen and was indeed a genocide.
Certainly, that kind of data that should be considered general knowledge, and for that, citing the wikipedia should suffice.

If you tell me about kind of bond appears between the atoms of some weird molecule that is hard to synthetize, i'd ask you to cite the paper where it appears. If you tell me the atomic weight of the carbon atom, citing a highschool textbook is enough.

Carbon atoms didn't march anyone's grandparents into the desert. Emotional arguments of this scale demand extraordinary evidence.

In science we have topics that are also career breakers. If a scientist decides to try and publish creationism, or paranormal activity, or expanding earth... their career is forfeit.
And with a good reason.

Are you deliberately misrepresenting my points?

Genocide denial - perceived or real

Emphasis added. Questions of death counts in historical atrocities, the intent, words, or actions of actors at various levels, etc. are valid areas of research. The Nanjing horrors wouldn't be less evil if the numbers of deaths or rapes were found to be lower, but that is exactly the attitude that tends to prevail. Anyone on the "wrong" side is hampered by the fact that they can easily be viewed as genocide denial. Do you believe that everyone on that side of these academic debates should have their careers forfeit?
 
Genocide denial - perceived or real - is a guaranteed career breaker in academia.

As it should be. Unless there is definite proof that a genocide did not happen (and the burden of proof is on the denier, definitely) it's quite a dick move to claim that no, the survivors of the crime are idiots and their relatives didn't get killed, in fact. And so far, I don't know of one single instance of genocide which has been denied by numerous academics worldwide and it later turned out that they were indeed right, or are likely to be right.

See the above post. I know it'd be great if you were arguing with a vicious racist apologist. There's nothing quite like the thrill of being incontrovertibly right in the face of bad people being wrong on the Internet. Unfortunately you are only arguing with me, and you can only keep being completely in the right if you keep missing my point.

I'm rather more irritated by the fact that the Armenian genocide is more "acceptable" to question or deny in general, just because Turkey is a Western puppet.

Your sentence is bad.
 
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Carbon atoms didn't march anyone's grandparents into the desert. Emotional arguments of this scale demand extraordinary evidence.
I wasn't using the numbers to say "see? there was so many armenians in 1914 and then there was so many in 1920". My argument was that it was possible to commit genocide against a group that represented a very big percentage of the population of the area where the group lives (consequently saying that a black people genocide would not be physically impossible as someone was saying). I was not, from any point of view, trying to make numbers of how many people were killed or how many people were deported or whatever. I was just pointing out how the armenians in the couple of provinces where they lived, they were a very important group demographically, being more than 50% in some cities.

Just that.

The numbers i was trying to use carried no emotional value because they were not the numbers of killed, tortured, illegally imprisioned or deported. Just the numbers of the Armenian population before the wacky hijinx began.


Are you deliberately misrepresenting my points?
No, i'm just saying that defending certain ideas show that one is so out of touch with the knowledge and methods of their field that they are very logically ostracized.

Emphasis added. Questions of death counts in historical atrocities, the intent, words, or actions of actors at various levels, etc. are valid areas of research. The Nanjing horrors wouldn't be less evil if the numbers of deaths or rapes were found to be lower, but that is exactly the attitude that tends to prevail. Anyone on the "wrong" side is hampered by the fact that they can easily be viewed as genocide denial. Do you believe that everyone on that side of these academic debates should have their careers forfeit?
I have seen plenty of people adjusting, for example, the realistic numbers of the nazi holocaust. And said historians have not been excluded from their scholarly circles.
The problem comes when an actual denialist (for example, in the jewish case, let's say Ahmadinejad) comes and uses publicly your published data to make it say something you are not saying. They are using your research to push their denialism. In such a case, it's completely up to the researcher to come up and say "no, that's a misuse of my data, and my data doesn't show such a thing". If you don't do that, you are tacitly accepting that the denialist interpretation of your data is correct.
 
I wasn't using the numbers to say "see? there was so many armenians in 1914 and then there was so many in 1920". My argument was that it was possible to commit genocide against a group that represented a very big percentage of the population of the area where the group lives (consequently saying that a black people genocide would not be physically impossible as someone was saying). I was not, from any point of view, trying to make numbers of how many people were killed or how many people were deported or whatever. I was just pointing out how the armenians in the couple of provinces where they lived, they were a very important group demographically, being more than 50% in some cities.

Just that.

The numbers i was trying to use carried no emotional value because they were not the numbers of killed, tortured, illegally imprisioned or deported. Just the numbers of the Armenian population before the wacky hijinx began.

I appreciate the difference you perceive there without agreeing with it. Come on, you really think the numbers before a genocide carry no emotional weight? They're the basis for its demographic proof!

No, i'm just saying that defending certain ideas show that one is so out of touch with the knowledge and methods of their field that they are very logically ostracized.

Okay, fair enough. I feel I'm referring to people who are in touch with their field but too risk averse to get involved with these kinds of issues.

I have seen plenty of people adjusting, for example, the realistic numbers of the nazi holocaust. And said historians have not been excluded from their scholarly circles.

Indeed, but the Holocaust is a special case in both sheer weight of evidence and cultural memory, is it not? It's simply overwhelming. I can't recall any case of what I'm describing in relation to it.

The problem comes when an actual denialist (for example, in the jewish case, let's say Ahmadinejad) comes and uses publicly your published data to make it say something you are not saying. They are using your research to push their denialism. In such a case, it's completely up to the researcher to come up and say "no, that's a misuse of my data, and my data doesn't show such a thing". If you don't do that, you are tacitly accepting that the denialist interpretation of your data is correct.

That's a very real issue, but not quite the sort of thing I'm referring to. Full disclosure: I'm referring to anecdotal evidence from conversations with university professors on the board and in person, and they all took place better than half a decade ago.
 
I appreciate the difference you perceive there without agreeing with it. Come on, you really think the numbers before a genocide carry no emotional weight? They're the basis for its demographic proof!
Yes, but in what i was saying, i wasn't even arguing the genocide. I was taking it for granted (i thought only place where it was challenged was Turkey, and even then, they will have to swallow their pride and acknowledge it, if they want in the EU).
The numbers i was looking for were merely to show what i said.

Okay, fair enough. I feel I'm referring to people who are in touch with their field but too risk averse to get involved with these kinds of issues.
[...]
That's a very real issue, but not quite the sort of thing I'm referring to. Full disclosure: I'm referring to anecdotal evidence from conversations with university professors on the board and in person, and they all took place better than half a decade ago.
Ok, i see now what you mean. Not about proper academics,not about discussions held through published papers, but more like "camarilla" politics of the scholarly circles. And you meant "career breaker" in the sense of actually having problems to find a job, a position, not in the sense of your research being publicly discredited and having the editors reject your submitted papers on sight.
And you say that pressure enforces a form of self-censorship, where the interpretations of the data are made to lean to the "good" side.

Could be. But the reviewers in the peer review process are anonymous, hence they are not subjected to that pressure, and it's their job to say that the interpretations of the data in a certain paper are slanted and they don't derive correctly from that data.
So i think in principle, the papers should be reliable... as realiable as the peer review process is, anyway.
 
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