[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

What him telling me what I 'struggle' with? Thanks Vicky :/

Oh wow, this is maybe why I should quote the actual post I am on about..

I meant Yesterday, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Churchill was a cultural white supremacist and a colonialist Kizzy, that much is true, but he was patently not a eugenicist. If you're going to focus on his ... less admirable ... attributes, at least make sure you have the history right. He believed that white people were more civilised and more intelligent than other races, and essentially that Britain was "doing the world a favour" by colonising Africa and the Americas because we were bringing a more civilised lifestyle to a more primitive brand of humanity. He didn't believe that it was a world only for white people, he didn't want to kill off other races (as Hitler did)... in fact he had no malice or hatred for other races at all. He simply and genuinely believed that white people were more advanced. I believe he actually spoke a few times about how white British people actually had a duty to support and protect "disadvantaged" races and countries and, like I said, he believed that colonialism was morally correct in that it actually provided a superior lifestyle. I guess you could say... he was sort of like a white supremacist vegan? He believed that they were inferior but didn't believe that they should be harmed for that.

Was he correct? No. And yes it is unquestionably a racist and small-minded attitude. However, it's not close to the same thing as Hitler's eugenics ideas and genocide. Trying to make out that it is, is just as much butchering true history as it is to suggest that he wasn't racist at all.

Also, it's not so much an excuse as a flat-out fact to say that the VAST majority of people born in the late 1800's - of all classes and positions - would have held, by todays standards, pretty racist and white-supremacist ideas. Not from a place of anger or hatred, people just mistakenly believed that it was cold hard fact... and as others in this thread have said, trying to get on a moral high-horse about historical figures is utterly pointless. All that's really required is a "thankfully things are dramatically improved, let's make sure they keep improving". It doesn't, and can't, over-write the REST of history... or else every examination of every historical figure would just read "YEAH BUT THEY WRR RACIST THO!!" in block capitals.

**** knows why i didn't actually quote rather than doing this, its not my style at all..so its..weird that i felt the need to do that instead of quoting