A Black intellectual asks this question, talking about a White man:
Confronted by someone who is constantly bludgeoning me about the evils of colonialism, urging me to tear down the statues of “dead white men,” insisting that I apologize for what my white forebears did to the “peoples of color” in years past, demanding that I settle my historical indebtedness via reparations, and so forth—I well might begin to ask myself, were I one of these “white oppressors,” on exactly what foundations does human civilization in the 21st century stand? I might begin to enumerate the great works of philosophy, mathematics and science that ushered in the “Age of Enlightenment,” that allowed modern medicine to exist, that gave rise to the core of human knowledge about the origins of the species or of the universe. I might begin to tick-off the great artistic achievements of European culture, the architectural innovations, the paintings, the symphonies, etc. And then, were I in a particularly agitated mood, I might even ask these “people of color,” who think that they can simply bully me into a state of guilt-ridden self-loathing, where is “their” civilization?
Good question, because there is no answer.
And as the title suggests, this is no hypothetical question because it is asked and answered every day by us White people.
The plain and simple fact is that the sum of our civilization, whether technology, sciences, language, philosophy and culture has been created almost exclusively by “Caucasian” or “White” men, and the contributions by “other races” — all of them — have been practically zero or at very best, minimal.
Prove me wrong.
