there's so much racism on youtube...

...and so much of it as actual racism, too. not just mindlessness. but, actual arguments for racial hierarchy.

listen.

let's say you carried out a cross-oceanic trade in people, then took those people and separated out the weak and turned the strong into slaves. now, let's say that you selectively bred those people for physical characteristics, and you killed all the ones you thought might be smart enough to figure out a way to stop you. now, let's say that this carried on for hundreds of years, over many generations.

if, centuries later, the descendants of these people showed disproportionate levels of aggression and a heightened difficulty in assimilating, along with exceptional athletic abilities, would you suggest that the cause of this is their skin colour?

if i were a deity trying to correct the consequences of human folly, i would ensure that the descendants of black american slaves find their way to new african immigrants in order to breed. and, i would no doubt work in mysterious ways.

if i were a government representing a people that is opposed to forced marriages, and there are of course good reasons to oppose forced marriages, i would prioritize infusing more ancestral african dna (i'm trying to avoid using terms related to increasing variation, because that's not quite right - it's more a question of watering down the effects of the targeted breeding) into the african american population by increasing immigration from africa. it actually doesn't even have to be targeted at the smartest people. it just has to counteract the saturation of certain alleles, by providing american blacks that do not show these gene expressions greater opportunity to avoid mating with people that do. self-selection may not be a proper evolutionary concept, but we are unique in our cognitive abilities on this planet.

the point is that there are good reasons to try and minimize population increases from certain particularly devastated segments of the slave descendant population.

i think the long term genetic consequences of slavery should not be underestimated. one could point to the middle east as an example of a society that has been defined by the genetic consequences of not just slavery but also mass rape, and the consequences are somewhat dire. mass rape, especially, prevents women from choosing proper suitors, creating a generation of children who did not have mothers that screened for good sperm. it's well understood that a lot of the problems that exist in the broader middle east today can be traced to the mongol invasions, but i don't think that the genetic component is well understood. that's not a racial comment, either. any group invading a region, killing the men and mass raping the women would create a comparable demographic problem where, a few dozen generations down the line, the majority of the population is the consequence of forced breeding rather than proper mating rituals. women are gatekeepers of their eggs for good evolutionary reasons.