“Why do the white men have so much cargo and we new guineans have so little?” -Yali. When jared diamond was in Papua New Guinea a man named Yali asked him a question “Why do the white men have so much cargo and we new guineans have so little?” So this caused him to look in why the world was unequal. It boiled down to geography was the biggest source of inequality which led to four big categories for inequality they are Crops/Agricultural, Animal Domestication, Germs, and the manufacturing of steel and other metals.
The first thing to jump start in equality was different crops and agriculture in other parts of the world. In the Fertile Crescent there was wheat but in Papua New Guinea they have a plant called sago that the natives have to chop down and cut into the core of the plant this where they harvest the pulp and mix it with water so it turns into a paste that the people can then eat but it only stores for a couple of days, has little yield in calories, contains no protein, and can take up to
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All of the stuff stated before may just seem like nonsense but it all ties the thesis statement, it shows that geography was the source of most inequality in the world by letting certain places advance and others not. Like the people of Papua New Guinea even in the present day are living like they are in the stone age because they never had spare time to advance in tools or technology or structures this all took place because all their time was taken up by constantly have to harvest food such as sago. Although the people of Eurasia had more time then they knew what to do with they could just sit back while their wheat grew and advance their houses, tools, and technology they got a very easy start to move up on the hierarchy of needs and they were able to move up quite
Yali's question can be used as a basis for understanding and explaining world history because it allows us to reevaluate and break down our previous evolutionary causes in order for us to grasp the outcomes of today. Diamond begins breaking it down by bringing into context our differences between technology, politics, geography, diseases, weapons, and people since A.D. 1500. In the beginning of his prologue he writes," Of course, technological and political differences of A.D. 1500 were the immediate cause of modern world inequalities. Empires with steel weapons were able to conquer or exterminate tribes weapons of stone and wood" (Diamond, 15). This excerpt signifies that places such as Aboriginal Australia and many Native Americans have
Peddy McIntosh highlighted various unearned white privileges in her autobiographical article “White Privilege, Color and Crime: A Personal Account.” She illustrated the white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that one white person could count on cashing in each day. White people have these privileges given to them by the society in which they live in. The same society taught them to be ignorant and unawareness of these privileges. This system of unearned privileges established by white individuals made people of color feel oppressed. In this system being white is a norm and dominant power. Caucasians, who benefit most from the white privilege system in the United States, are more likely to
When the resources in a society are distributed unevenly it leads to social inequality. Often inequality is understood as being socio-economic and it is now closely associated with social inequality. “Social inequalities are differences in income, resources, power and status within and between societies. Such inequalities are maintained by those in powerful positions via institutions and social processes.” (Warwick-Booth, 2013 p.2)
Many white Americans are living with the fear that they didn't really deserve their success, and that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it, than brains and hard work. There are numerous reasons for the widespread discrimination at all levels, but the main reason for the existence of discrimination is a privilege to certain groups of people, and widespread social prejudice towards certain groups of people. Differences between people have always existed, but they gain in importance only when are different importance given to certain differences, so it creates privileges. People who are privileged in one society are often not aware of their privilege. It is very easy to be oblivious to the privilege. The problem of discrimination
For centuries and even today, gender inequality and racial prejudice continue to exist. Throughout time these concepts have overlapped and intertwined, each other creating complex interactions and a negative influence upon society. In the 1980s, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw through her article, named Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, introduced the term “Intersectionality.” Intersectionality, is the theory of how different types of discriminations interact thus, goes hand in hand with Judith Butler, in her article titled “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” which expresses the term “gender acts” and helps decipher a probable cause of the many discriminations faced in contemporary society. Since both gender inequality and racial inequality share a common thread, I believe that what intersectionality represents will help understand Judith Butler’s view on gender classification and the dynamic it’s caused on our social and political formation.
As it talks about racial inequality in chapter 10, the definition of racism is the belief that one race is supreme and all others are innately inferior. White people are actually at the top while the others (the minority groups) are at the bottom. Considering that the laws of the USA revolved around white men in the beginning of this country, it’s not surprising to see how little people are not aware that racism still exists. They claim that it’s the 21st century, slavery happened in the past and it should stay in the past where it belongs. No. We’re going to recognize what white people did to African Americans. We are going to see how white supremacy is ugly and not needed.
What is privilege? What does it mean? Is privilege inherited or is it earned? As an American resident of color I’ve learned that privilege in this country is something that is innate and inherited. The privilege that I speak of is that of White privilege.
The world is very unequal because Geographic location affects what crops a civilization can grow and how they develop because a civilization can grow a variety of crops on different continents which rely on the weather and the climate which depends upon where the civilization is located. In the middle east is where civilizations grew wheat and wheat is high in protein and last a very long time as long as it is dry. Unlike sago is what they grew in papua new guinea, the sago is low in protein and only last three to four days. This is what affects the health and well being of the people which benefits the civilizations only if they have healthy food. The geography affects the agriculture which makes a civilization’s ability to produce agriculture
My first mention is the Neolithic Revolution. Prior to the Neolithic Revolution, humans lived in an age called the Paleolithic Age. In this time, humans were nomadic hunter and gatherers. They did not make permeant settlements and lived on the go, following animal migrations and vegetation cycles. It wasn’t until after the end of the last ice age around 10,000 B.C. when humans changed from hunter and gatherer nomads to learning how to grow their own crops and settling down into locations and settlements with other peoples. This was a big change for humans moving forward. Humans could now participate in trade with others and instead of being on the go all the time, they now had a chance to settle down and build shelter and participate in things that they couldn’t prior. This change in human ways also gave rise to what is patriarchy. As the book says, “Men assumed the responsibility for working in the fields and herding animals, jobs that kept them away from the home” while the women took on the roles of “caring for the children, weaving cloth, and
Being an African American woman in a Caucasian male dominated society, I have experienced my share of racial and sexual inequalities. Nonetheless, for the purpose of assignment only racial inequality will be discussed. As stated in last week’s assignment. For centuries, inhabitants of the earth have had an innate superiority complex, countries with greater weapons, numbers, technology and economic resources, created systems of inequality through domination of inferior-minority-groups, maintained and perpetuated through social forces.
Inequality is still common in the world today. Some suggest that inequality is a result of some people being biologically inferior to others. Jared Diamond challenges this by taking specifically about what gave the Spanish an advantage over the Incas.
In my opinion these videos contain very haunting subject matter. After watching In the White Man’s Image it provided me a different perspective for understanding the plight of minorities today. Recently in the national media the shootings of Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, with fatal police encounters with Eric Garner and Sandra Bland, reveal how minorities still struggle for equality. Oftentimes, the media helps to legitimate the inequalities in class and race relations. African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans have been discriminated against for years, but with the crime in our communities and police shootings plastered across the media, they continue to perpetuate negative perceptions. We have seen movies where the Indians
Throughout America’s past, racial inequality has been a reoccurring theme in our society. Ever since the Europeans invaded America the white man has been superior compared to all ethnicities. No more than two hundred years ago, African Americans were slaves and only counted as three fifths of a person. Within the past hundred years African Americans have managed to obtain more equality in some situations, but in other cases racial inequality has become worse than it was when segregation took place. The gaps between the quality of education of white and black students receive appears to be growing instead of shrinking. The lack of quality education blacks receive has contributed to significant health differences between
That being able to store for a time led to excess food which led to only a few people having to farm which let to specialist being created and the domestication of animals was done by specialist who choose animals for their diet, breeding habits and growth rates. That close proximity to animals spread disease which over time lead to immunity. Another thing that came out of having specialist was steel and without steel the Europeans would not have been able to conquer as much as they did with the help of germs. The information helps prove my thesis by really giving a much more in depth look at the key factors of inequality. This topic matters because it is a very thought provoking topic I know personally that i had never thought about the Roots of Inequality before and that is concerning, I bet most people had never thought about it
Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden” epitomizes the European man’s view on imperialism, Euro-centrism and social Darwinism. Four centuries before 1899, such ideas were briefly hinted in the letter from Christopher Columbus to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, however by 1899 these attitudes strengthened and developed fully into their complete meaning. The U.S and Europe’s imperialism in the nineteenth century were the most influential ever in the history of human civilization. The immense motive for imperialism came from social factors including religion and Social Darwinism.