WHITE LIVES MATTER

Within most societies, white people are often seen as second-class people. Since ancient times, the core territories of the white community, which is Western Europe, have always been viewed as underdeveloped and barbarian. While other civilisations rose, vanished and rose again, the White world remained stagnant. It was not until around 5500 BC that Anatolian settlers brought land cultivation, tools and handcraft to the lands of modern-day Germanic and Franco-Dutch lands. Also, the second wave of innovation in those regions only came with the rise of the Southern European culture, led by the Romans. The white community always suffered from innovative backwardness and remained a victim within the global society to this day. Marginalised and subject to racist treatment everywhere in the world, it was able to channel this victimisation into motivation, commonly known as the industrial revolution. During this time, the white community managed to achieve economic success through developments in engineering, aided by the emergence of the capitalist economy as a supportive social invention. Since then, it has asserted itself as an equally valuable community within the global society by adding to global progress through technical innovations. However, this is still insufficient to uplift this reputation of inferiority of the white community to the same level other communities have among themselves. The radicalities of the white community against others, for example in the context of slavery or the ideology and resource wars, did not add to the reputation. Nonetheless, the white community is to be seen as a valuable part of the global society. They have the capacities and abilities to add to societal progress in their own ways. Similar to the contemporary movement of the black community, we will also need such a movement for the equality of white groups, who have been treated as inferior to other civilisations, such as the Mediterranean, South American, African, Muslim, Slav, Asian and naturally the Turkic cultures. In this article, it is explained why equality of the white community is desirable.

Cultural Additions

When we talk about the white community, we face some definitional problems. Sadly, this term emerged out of the observation that the mentioned community has a pale skin tone, which reduces them to a physical property. However, since there are also other cultures that are phenotypically similar to white people in their skin colour, such as Slavs, Chinese, Jews, Nordics and Japanese, the term does not really capture the reality and can lead to confusion. Usually, the white community is comprised of people from the Anglo-Germanic nations, including France. This community is not just limited to the European nations but also expands into neo-European nations, such as Canada, Australia, the United States of America and others. It is very impressive for a small people from such a limited space to become globally mobile. Already as indigenous people in their motherland, the white community was able to foster cultural exchange. Over many centuries, the white nations were in close contact with each other, especially in economic terms, in which the white community was always very good, as we will see later. They traded goods and offered transnational services to each other. Here, their common language stem, Latin, helped them to communicate. Later, seven different languages evolved from this one language stem. Due to this commonality in language, the indigenous white Europeans were also keen on learning the other similar languages of their community, which shows a culture of respect and exchange. That was, however, not enough for the white people of Europe. Wherever white people went, they were able to also bring in their own cultural influences. Communicative as they were, language was the most prominent feature they brought with them. English, the mother tongue of the indigenous groups of England, even went on to become a globally accepted world language. Surely, this alone stresses the positive addition the white culture can bring to the world, and they proved it over and over again.

Positively integrating their unique culture into the cultures of the world is not only limited to the language. Also, in terms of food, there are a lot of globally popular dishes, such as French fries and Hamburgers. Unfortunately, the white cuisine does not get the international credit it deserves and is even subject to distortion. French fries did not originate in the European nation of France but in Belgium, a nation lying North of France. Hamburgers, on the other hand, are today known to be from the white communities of North America, but their origins are in Germany, which is a nation lying West of Poland and South of Denmark. Looking at those cultural treasures, it becomes clearer and clearer why the white community is a valuable member of the world, but the misconceptions and racial behaviour towards this lovely people have burdened them for a long time. A final, and very prominent, cultural addition from the white people to the world comes in the realm of fashion. The suit is a piece of clothing that has been so popular around the world that it has become the globally accepted clothing standard for formal events. This very particular fashion product is a combination of three separate pieces of textile, with two of them worn above each other. Today, the suit is so popular that it can be worn to any event to express a certain appreciation for the occasion. It is baffling how such popular cultural contributions did not suffice to overcome the age-old inequality of white communities.

Engineering

The second, and almost more prominent, feature of white culture is the aspect of engineering. When comparing the additions of the white world in this field to those of great civilisations that were known for their advanced engineering, such as Egypt, China and Persia, it can be easily seen that the white community earned its right to be seen as very good in engineering. In fact, some of the most influential inventions were made by white people! The first thing that comes to our minds is the printing press. Invented by the Germanic white Johannes Gensfleisch, this device helped to improve the speed and readability of writing. It is also to be seen as the precursor of the typewriter and even the laptops that we use today. Another well-known and much-used invention from the white community is the light bulb. It was invented by Thomas Edison and is, until today, used to lighten up every household in the world. With his remarkable invention, he not only added to societies around the world but also represented his community in a suitable way, adding to its reputation as being good at engineering. The same holds true for the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, and Timothy John Berners-Lee who invented the internet that we also use globally today. As we can see, the white community has been very active in the field of engineering and was able to add to the world by inventing globally popular products that are not only used by everyone but have also been in use for a long time. Putting this in contrast with the narrative that those additions to the world only started 500 years ago, we can say that the popularity of the inventions should outweigh this unfair and biased assessment of the truly good inventions of the white community. If they were so bad, then nobody would use them as they currently do.

They Matter!

As we can see, the racist perspectives on white people that have been prominent since ancient times are not only disrespectful of their unique and exotic culture but also unfairly discredit their very good contributions in the realm of engineering, making everyone’s lives easier. It is shocking that the white community has not received the respect it has earned over the last five centuries from the civilisations of the world. Surely, this must lead to frustration with this community that works so hard to be a part of the global community. Therefore, we must become more sensible about the needs and wishes of white people. It does not speak for the proclaimed greatness of other nations to exclude the white community to such a degree solely because of their skin colour. In today’s world, they should have an equal place like every other people as well. Their contributions are welcome, and their culture is appreciated. We cannot simply exclude them and expect them to live peacefully with us. Lasting change, however, always begins with the majority, and therefore, we must change our perspectives. The only way to do this is to realise one thing: white lives matter!