RDV4ROUBAIX said:
Well you can't say I didn't give you fair warning. I'm willing to bet I've talked to more people in the bike industry there than you, and experienced more of Europe than most people who live there. By the way, Europeans brought black persecution here. History doesn't lie. You planted the seed, and we grew it, until MLK fought it. It doesn't take away from the fact that bike racing was created by white Europeans. Europe has an undeniable racist problem, just like every where else, but racism by whites has a much longer European history than anywhere else, it was invented there, to deny it would be unbelievably naive. Bike racing started there, not here, and the US spawned the 1st Black cyclists of any significance. Go figure.
Actually it was invented by "Europeans" in the colonies, the binary opposite of Europe. For Europe to have any meaning at all, it needed an hierarchically inferior counterpart, namely the colonies. It was in opposition to the colonies that the image of Europe came into existence.
When explorers 'discovered' the Americas, (one only dis-covers or better un-covers something that is already assumed and therefore has meaning before it is located... see the "higgs particle"), but also Africa and the Far East, it was deemed inferior to "europe" in political, cultural, economic and legal aspects. Montesquieu wrote his Trias Politica in opposition to the observations of the cultures and legal traditions that existed among local tribes in India. He hierarchised despotism (India, inferior), under monarchism (European), and republicanism (European, superior). Even though he failed to really distinguish between despotism and monarchism, he still managed to undervalue the Indian ways of societal regulations and sanctioning.
Kant connected moral qualities with physiology/anatomy, also known as physiognomy, and became therefore one of the forebears of the non-cultural form of anthropology. He asumed that blacks were incapable of moral acts.
Linneaus, a biologist, started categorizing species, from animals to human beings. Again, only after early colonization had provided him with the exotic species that came to stand in opposition to the 'known' species.
To continue how "europe" and "the colonies" worked together as a tandem (see there is cycling in this story), the rattling gun was invented by the English in Africa, to contain rowdy tribes that weren't too easily subdued by normal firepower already. The English even perfected containment against rebellious Boers, and can be seen as an early form of concentration camp in South Africa against the Boers.
Even nationalism was a form of togetherness that basically came into existence in the colonies. Early administrators in Latin America found soon that their work was far from appreciated by the courts in Europe. People near the kings had far more change of climbing the social ladder then the expats, so that they soon figured that their ties were closer to the indigenous population and overcame their native ties. Claims of more autonomy and self-rule eventually lead to claims of independence, and the birth of nations. Out of 3 revolutions that founded nations, 2 were former colonies, namely Haiti (1790) and the US (1776). This new sense of sharing 'cultural' ties, and the identification of a 'culture' as such, soon took over in Europe, and which eventually lead up to World War I and II.
Isn't it ironic, that colonization outside Europe, then eventually lead to the self-destruction of Europe.
All this was not to criticize, but more or less to support what you hinted at.
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