Racism: Coconuts, I.Q. Tests & Illusions of Progress.

hey modern vegans I was inspired to
create today's video after i saw izel mozart's video addressing cory mccarthy and some of the things that he and his girlfriend or wife I don't know if they're married we're saying in one of their videos which has been since made private but in essence the video was talking about how America was created by whites for whites that he and his girlfriend are not racist but that they think that people of other ethnicities and religions don't belong in the United States and Corey McCarthy responded to isil's video where ISIL kind of called him out for being racist crim McCarthy responded by saying I don't hate anyone and I don't hate these people but basically they should stay far away from my country and I think this is incredibly problematic what I found even more problematic was seeing Charles the vegan cheetah saying to his viewers do you think this is racist he didn't say it was racist he asked his viewers if it was racist so it surprised me that he was not willing to just come right out with it and say this is racist and I think that that is important I really think that it is important for us to be able to call a spade a spade or in this case to call a racist a racist everybody's got a lot to say about racism I probably could have switched this camera on at any point during the last two years and talked for two hours spontaneously about racism kanagavel racism within Canada within Europe within Asia you know within northern Laos a lot of tourists northern Laos to them it looks like everyone's just Asian or everyone's loud no no no no hang around study the language the history the politics you learn pretty quick there are distinctions between different ethnic groups in northern Laos then some cases really deeply hate each other in other cases the hatred is more cordial and shallow and cooperative you know what in the north of laos two of the groups were especially close and yet hated each other were the that I knew and the tiny this reminded me within canada of the difference between canadians and kennedy an as etymologically you're getting into a situation where these are almost the same word and yet a little bit of difference in the pronunciation you know hints at a profound difference between people who do not at all consider themselves historically ethnically or lingual e2b to be the same people and in other cases the differences in that part asian or more obvious the difference between the mon Khmer people and the Thai could I people etc etc and from their perspective you know like with the in Laos and the South allows can be very dramatic with in Laos there are differences that they themselves describe is the difference between black and white it's very interesting I do actually have some articles talking about this stuff ah but that's the story for another day it's peculiar that ninglin terms of an ism a word ending with is em like racism and we sometimes address them in terms of a phobia such as homophobia once in a while you hear negra phobia you know fear of black people but mostly we address this in terms of racism you know racism the word itself suggested it I ology whereas something like negra phobia suggests a fear both are problematic but as you have some more experience in life and this really I think has to be face-to-face experience with people this sort of thing you do not learn from books I don't really think you're going to learn it from the internet to be frank with you but you know you can meet people who have either become racist or have become retrenched in their racist views do to you know regrettably life experience I'm going to get out three examples pretty rapidly here first is a simple one I remember I knew a white man he was not a boy it was not a teenager as a fully grown man and at some point he had his bike stolen by a couple of black guys in the United States now my impression from what he said about it was that the black guys did not beat him up they just verbally threatened him and took his bicycle away from him as an adult and you know the result of this was again it it's really better to describe it as negra phobia rather than racism wasn't really an ideology it wasn't something he really believed in or espoused but he really was racist and although on some level you know his story is pathetic and you may find it sympathetically if you met him face-to-face or anything well this guy he feels this way because of this experience but it still is racism and it still is morally wrong and it still is as absurd and surreal as if you know white people have done all kinds of bad things to me the vast majority of crimes committed against myself or my family have been by white people because I grew up in a country that's majority white but if if white people stole my bicycle would I then respond to that by hating and fearing all white people know and this this guy this example would neither so obviously the interplay of fear and personal experience and constructing what ultimately is a racist worldview even if it's an implicitly racist one not one you know espoused and preaches would've loved you it's problematic even in a case like that um as another man I met who is one of the most remarkable and memorable examples of racism I'll ever meet in my life he was a white man originally from Scotland from Glasgow Scotland the city I know a city I know a little too well and yet another sense I don't know what at all definitely not anymore everyone tells me it's changed beyond recognition but this guy grew up in Scotland in the bad old days and he had spent his adult life in South America the Caribbean and Africa he was I mean honestly really he is probably among the most well-traveled man in africa i will ever meet in my life he's probably in the most the most traveled one percent of men he have really been to every corner of Africa you know obscure small towns around the whole continent he had in effect ended up exploring the entire continent of Africa and in all those places he was surrounded by black people lived with black people and especially dated and had his girl friends and lovers an enormous number of black women again a two-and-a-half continents if you like so and he could speak both Portuguese and Spanish fluently and his own ex-wife was black and his so his kids with that ex-wife he at least one he at least one kid with his ex-wife were you know half black or you know would identify as black I assume it's a huge part of his life was surrounded by and paused because it's a positive experience black people ah but he also lived in Baltimore the United States where he had a job in the construction sector you know building and renovating houses and he was the most racist person imaginable against specifically African Americans not Africans in Africa not African not Africans in Surrey nut people of African ancestry in Haiti he only hated african-americans and he hated them so bitterly and spoke against them with such you know unbelievable malice as contrast was sort of almost fascinating to me and I could member you know I wasn't trying to save his soul or anything like I'm we were saying to him you know don't you feel that your experience in one part of the economy in Baltimore Baltimore is a somewhat infamous City you know for its drug problems especially you know so working in construction in Baltimore coming into contact with organized crime with a lot of drug addicts with a lot of people you know who are seeking minimum wage jobs in construction and so on because he told me but that he told me about that world that he was involved in you know I was just trying to get him to reflect a little bit don't you think your experience with African Americans would be very different if you had just lived in Washington DC and had any other job any other part of the economy don't she'll be different has been in Northern California again had any other any other type of contact that France and you know he could he could reflect on a little bit but um the bitterness in him was was too deep for what it whatever combination of reasons and he was he was not going to let go that so unbelievable I hope it's on blue but as you grow up as you mature those types of contradictions they're they're exactly what what you have to believe it's the same way within Europe I mean the intense hatred between uh you know the British and the Irish obviously someone from here in China they can't see the difference between an Irishman and an Englishman but you know for centuries and centuries people really believe that was a profound biological difference and that you know the the English and the Irish were as different as night and day and like I was just saying up in northern Laos some of the groups some of the ethnic differences a foreigner shows up can't see the difference in people's faces I could but then in my time there I really could but um I was studying the language in history and politics and so on but you know those differences visible or invisible allegedly biological or cultural or historical whatever the whatever the story is people can people can hold onto them very tightly let's not have to too many anecdotal examples here but obviously also I think you guys know I used to live in Saskatchewan where I worked on Korean a jib way the algonquian languages politics of First Nations people and in a place like Saskatchewan the Nemean form of racism is not black versus white it's white versus red it's the tension surrounding Canada's indigenous people those are very much you know the the stories in the news are of police brutality against our native people and of that Fisher and of you know the legacy of our own terrible history and of where our society is going to go next given that history so I've dealt with questions of racism in many many different contexts and go everywhere I go everywhere I go anti-semitism you know the hysterical beliefs and theories about about Judaism and Jews I think everyone in the decadent West expected those things to fade out and be less and less of a problem in the 21st century but they're not if she still need two highly educated people who believe ridiculous theories uh you know what the russian revolution that Lenin was was secretly Jewish shitty Collins the entire Russian Revolution was a conspiracy little controlled by Israel or something totally anachronistic and absurd yeah but those things apparently will never leave us like blue jeans they're just never going to go out of style it comes back again and again I would think as vegans we would be particularly aware of this we would be particularly aware of the fact that might does not make right so in the last few days ahead a couple different videos discussing racism and I think many people ignored what I said at the beginning of those two videos because actually the intro to each one states very clearly what my purpose is and what my purpose isn't the more recent of the two videos as explained in the first few seconds was simply to give the other side a chance to fairly explain their worldview and the video does that you get a long largely uninterruptedly of what that view of the world is and where I've edited it it is mostly just for the sake of consistency because the original video did meander as you can imagine or as you can see for yourself now the first of the two videos also says very clearly what its purpose is and what it isn't in that video what I was trying to do simply was to draw attention to a problem with in veganism the tendency we've had on the internet to make a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to issues of race racism etc but to ignore the mountains that are really there the big problems frankly people who either really are neo-nazis or who are on the cusp of being neo-nazis but extreme fascistic racist views of the world that are being espoused within twenty first century veganism so those are two very simple and blunt purposes and neither one of them really offers a critique of the claims being offered by the other side why is that look some of my earlier videos fundamentally why would you offer critique because it's going to be educational for the people being engaged in the debate of the discussion I had an earlier critique of the vegan anarchist that you know where I took the time to at some length criticize what he said about us housing policy for the poor and the homeless how governments in modern Western countries like the United States provide subsidized housing to poor people and why they don't simply reassign vacant lots and abandoned houses to become housing for the poor in America now I think the vast majority of people who watch that video really learn something from it because most people never think about that kind of issue and most people don't have the kind of technical background in political science economics whatever you want to say to be able to speak to that issue so I knew that was educational for everyone involved the point wasn't just to disagree with this one other person on YouTube the point wasn't just to show off something I happen to know about but people involved are really going to learn from it and I do think that's at that example discussing housing policy for how to help the poor in the homeless it's also an example where people could really change their minds over the long term definitely there are a lot of left-wing people who seem to imagine these problems have very simple immediate solutions if only the government wasn't crave only we elected someone who agreed with me all these problems could be solved overnight and when you think through it in a more systematic way you realize no this isn't a simple issue of left-wing versus right-wing actually procedurally and economically providing housing the people who are currently homeless or poor it's complicated and there's a reason why basically no government in the history the world is be able to solve it overnight unless you want to look at complete disasters in history of the world where suddenly homelessness is not a problem because your population is collapsed you have more housing the kikis or what have you um you know a lot of political ideologies offer simple solution to complex questions and it can be very meaningful say no no let's let's take some time to really through the complexities on this issue I mean all right what are you going to address factually and who is going to benefit from dressing it this is a situation where the views being discussed are so far beneath contempt they're so impossible for the majority of people take seriously the vast majority people in this channel take seriously that there's really no point of engaging a critique of them I know it's quite a few comments both publicly and you know emails or messages sent to me privately quite a few people you know were stunned by the UM the coconut falling from a tree comment that you know Cory made recording was justifying the difference between western white Western civilization and various tropical civilizations Africa or Asia what have you but say that that somehow agriculture in Europe the history of agriculture in North Northern Europe and in Western Europe was supposedly so much more impressive than thrust to the world because these hotter portlets the world people could simply have a coconut fall on their head and therefore survival was easy now Cory nobody watching here this comes do you think he's read a single book on the history of agriculture in Cambodia i have i've read about history of agriculture kapadia i've read it with history of agriculture in laos and thailand i have done much less reading about the history of agriculture in china but i know enough to be aware that in terms of not just thousands of years but tens of thousands of years places like China and North Africa and North India have a very long history of Agriculture and there has been good archeology history written about it but but aside from all that the idea that survival in the tropics is easy and doesn't require intelligence and ingenuity and self-discipline as you the guy has obviously never never read anything about the survival of any group of indigenous people in a tropical country anywhere and not on the island of Tonga and not in Cambodia Laos or Africa or what have you is a huge literature of anthropology dealing with these kinds of things and I mean almost everybody reads this even if they are racist because plenty of people were interested in that type of them until aunt plug frankly they aren't racist most people who do any reading above that come out of it with a tremendous sense of respect for historically how those people survived whether you're talking about people who did have advanced and complex systems of Agriculture or if you talk about the hunter-gatherers I mean the lives of hunter-gatherer peoples people who did not practice agriculture in a tropical jungle it's very impressive mentally physically and otherwise just you know so this is just stupidity self-righteous ignorance and malice and I think on some level everyone knows that so you know why offer a critique of the facts what on the one hand the people I'm disagreeing with show no interest in the facts none what do you think you think cory what cory has to say about the history of agriculture even within europe you did this is based on an open-minded interested study and mystery valley I know you again me because of where I live the research i did a country like Laos laos in northern Thailand I know much more about the history of agriculture there than then I do about history bad culture in Haiti another fascinating case study they have done some reading about but no matter where you look at this Rebecca culture whether you're looking at you know the time scale of thousands of years tens of thousand years or just the last couple of centuries and then you know the challenge of modernity and how traditional methods changed and so on nobody could possibly take with Corey has to say seriously even just looking at it and this as an isolated fact as if we can separate this argument from the racist and imperialist narrative that it serves that it's a part of but again you know why would you even address the factual argument when it's so obvious that the factual argument is just an ornament for hatred when it's just an ornament for malice there's the motive is everything and the facts are nothing and obviously he's discarding you know thousands of facts that are contrary to its opinion to pick out fact that he feels favors opinion and so on but this comes back to that Latin phrase that I mentioned a few videos ago on this channel you know villain on this guitar I can teach you something but I can't teach you to want to learn I can't teach you to listen I can teach you to be willing to listen I can't teach you to will I can't teach you to want it and that's exactly what i said in both of those videos in the second video replying to it to corey mccarthy you know it toward the end it says look you know Cory if you actually are gonna if your views are going to become more sophisticated more informed fundamentally you just have to have more respect for the people who disagree with you to be willing to listen to their side to be willing to listen to their facts and to be won't listen they're more concerns so there is no point in offering khatik on the facts of the matter and I mean it again so in the very first video I stated very very succinctly the the moral and ethical problem which is simply that there is no bridge between the facts as he presents them and he believes their facts I don't believe their facts I think what he's presenting is deeply flawed but we can recognize okay given that he believes in these facts how do you build the bridge between those facts and the normative moral ethical claims about what we should do now you know okay in terms of human inequality I used to live in a little country named laos in southeast asia did a lot of research there in terms of people being born with impaired IQ impaired intelligence the rest of their lives Laos is a very important example of that and not for reasons of DNA in Laos they had a custom that to my knowledge is still predominant when I was there the government was considering doing up a health education campaign to try to change this custom they have a custom of pregnant mothers starving themselves during the final trimester of pregnancy they would starve themselves by eating nothing but a thin bamboo soup during basically the final three months of pregnancy now the women did this for a variety of traditional beliefs with the traditionalists with the most powerful motive ultimately was linking this to vanity so the women believed and this is not sadly this is not going to the unscientific that if they starve themselves this way during the last three months of pregnancy the baby's skull would not grow as much which science tells me is true it in literally retards brain development if pregnant mother starves during the last trimester that the skull doesn't grow as much and then that the pregnant woman when she gave gives birth the birth will be easier and the woman will not lose her figure so shall retain more of the lean look that is desirable that they want to sustain into their middle age so fundamentally there's vanity and selfishness as well as a kind of cultural mythology and other beliefs that I'm not mentioning here that are linked to this practice has done throughout the country now the result is that very directly damages the intelligence it causes brain damage to infants it causes impaired brain development to unborn infants in that country and to a huge number of them uh you know there are other factors there are real racial stereotypes of allow people being being stupid compared two Cambodians or thai people or what-have-you next door I think even though that's a dramatic and terrible public health problem that you know when I was there as say the government was considering making it their priority but at that time that a couple of other campaigns you know they still worried about AIDS they were still worrying about helmets the big campaign at that time was getting people to prevent brain damage by wearing helmets when they wrote a motorcycle anyway the government had other priorities at that moment but they may have finally moved forward and trying to eradicate that cultural practice which is entrenched but probably the single most visible thing in terms of impaired intelligence that you see in Laos is simply that in the whole country culturally in terms of habit people do not sleep through the night people are very sleep-deprived they're taking short naps during the day all the time because they're just getting little bits of pieces of sleep here and there I could I could talk about this for an hour but both in the city and in the countryside you're always surrounded by people who are sleep-deprived and who are taking naps while they're sitting next to you at strange times and what have you and you know even even for me if I don't sleep well if I'm in that kind of scattered state my intelligence is massively impaired so I know that's effect that's impacting the pee around me so poor nutrition during pregnancy and irregular sleep two things that have nothing to do with your DNA do in a very meaningful sense impact the intelligence that you can observe in people when you're in Laos so in this case I'm presenting this USA as a fact some percentage of people in Laos I think a very significant percentage suffer from these two problems and when you're there you might well perceive them as being low IQ people being people of very limited intelligence cable what where does that lead us morally ethically normatively terms of planning for the future so what so does that justify the French Empire should the French conquer Laos and turn it into a colony no no should the Americans conquer Laos and turn it into a pawn in their Cold War politics while they tried didn't work out didn't work out for the lab people didn't wherever the Americans either despite having an unlimited budget the Americans dropped more bombs on Laos and I dropped on germany during world war two enormous loss of human life enormous loss of money of material resources what have you what does this justify and now another thing on a case-by-case basis when you meet lao people with an open mind and open heart you have to just judge them individually as to who's smart and who's not and who's who you can work with and you can't who you're going to be friends with and you're not going to be friends with you have to in an open-minded way with each verse you meet judge them fairly even if this information prejudices your tough sense what are we going to do with our lives in relation to people who may be disadvantaged intellectually as well as physically as well as financially from from being born in those circumstances there's this whole list of chronic diseases there's the there's the mal nourishment during pregnancy but there's also you know iodine deficiency is a long list of real chronic health problems and Laos that can impair brain development what does that justify what is my attitude going to be yes I want you know the Government of Laos to carry out public education campaigns on iodine to avoid iodine deficiency I want them to care at health campaigns about you know pregnant women eating properly and feeding your children properly after the born I a whole lot of positive concern and engagement for me comes out of that but it absolutely no point did i respond to that by you know me being on an ego trip or me feeling this kind of hatred or me having this this agenda to denigrate and belittle others and try to make up my own civilization amount cultural history to be to be better than them and so on I would think as vegans we would be particularly aware of this we would be particularly aware of the fact that might does not make right Cory McCarthy says in his video which again is made private now but he made this Conte this comment in his video that we should not feel guilty about what happened in the past when the natives were pretty much wiped out by by white people because we had superior technology and of course we won and so we won fair and square he's asserting that might makes right in the most basic sense and if we followed that sort of logic we would live in utter chaos part of living under a social contract is agreeing to care for people who cannot care for themselves and it's also about giving up all right to commit random acts of violence whenever we happen to disagree with people I guess in closing I'll say you know people who do humanitarian work sometimes get raked over the coals get criticized for having a so-called you know white Savior complex or Superman complex or feeling superior to the the people they're trying to help if there's anything that this corey mccarthy controversy shows you it's that you know what there are worse things than the then the savior complex those people i've met those people i have me obviously the christian missionaries who are out there trying to save people's souls call them rice bag converts go to a village full of starving people or poverty-stricken people offer them a sack of rice in exchange for their immortal soul a lot of things you know very psychologically damaging about that transaction but nevertheless as dark and disturbing as that may be it certainly compares favorably to the racist Pro Empire pro genocide world view of someone like Cory McCarthy of the golden one and you know this controversy that happened to have transpired within the world of the digital vegan demi-monde I don't know I hope you can take something positive from it and apply to your own life because all of us all of us have to learn to tread water in a world where these terrible inequalities exist and where none of us have you no simple solutions to complicated problems