• HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      It absolutely is. It’s a pretty well established observation for example that the great ancient structures built by white people never have alien conspiracy theories associated with them unlike those in the rest of the world. For a more modern example, a huge part of the “those damn Chinese/Indians/Mexicans/etc are stealing our jobs” rethoric comes from hatred of the fact that people in those places are getting better at and even surpassing the West in skilled labour when in the minds of racists they’re supposed to be backwards and primitive compared to white people. People of color and Indigenous peoples in high paying positions (who are already severely underrepresented in those positions) are also much more likely to receive hate compared to white people of the same rank and pay, where racists literally say things like “they don’t deserve to be there” or “they probably faked their qualifications” when there is no evidence of that. They were also banned from attending universities for the longest time specifically to keep them uneducated and reinforce the notion that white people have superior intellect.

      • dil@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        they probably faked their qualifications

        Obama’s “fake” birth certificate 😮‍💨

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          What’s nuts is that he would still be a US citizen if he was born in Kenya so their argument was insanely moronic even if they were right.

          • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Actually, this is a case of the US constitution being moronic. Because it forbids anyone not born on US soil from becoming president. For context, most countries only require you to be a citizen for a minimum amount of time before you can be head of state. Boris Johnson was born in the US and was still UK prime minister for example.

            It’s really ironic the settlers care so much about only people being naturally born in a particular place getting to rule that place.

            • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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              8 months ago

              No, it’s not. The provision was written into the US Constitution for reasons that made perfect sense at the time of its drafting. The framers were worried about the possibility of people who had been born elsewhere in the British Empire being subject to pressures on their extended families. The idea specifically revolved around the concept that only colonists could become president, again because they were worried about family entanglements with the rest of the British Empire.

              It doesn’t make a lot of sense in a modern context, but in order to accommodate the slave states, the US system was deliberately designed to be almost impossible to change and/or update, so we live with it even today.

      • jimbo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        What qualifies as a “great ancient structure built by white people”?

        • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Obviously your definition varies but I personally count things like the Roman coliseum, Greek Pantheon, Notre Dame and many other cathedrals, not to mention the many castles across Europe.

          • jimbo@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Ok, and we have pretty much unbroken historical records about the construction of those. That doesn’t really leave much room for people to invent theories about aliens doing it. Notice that there also aren’t a lot of theories about how great structures in China were built, as we have well preserved history for those, too. On the other hand, we do have people theorizing that Stonehedge was built by aliens, despite being an “ancient structure built by white people”. We don’t have any historical records for that structure.

            That all said, I’m not really buying that theories about aliens building things are racist. It seems to have much more to do with which structures we still have the history for and which ones we do not.

            • mriormro@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              It mostly stems from racist or colonial sentiments. It’s a little bit dishonest to insinuate that really it’s unbroken historical records that assuage ancient alien theory and not the racist notion that “savage races couldn’t have possibly built this”.

        • N0N0@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          European Cathedrals (like the dome of cologne or the Hagia Sophia in istanbul), the Roman limes (great wall structures, plural), Roman aqueducts and the Colloseum, some later pyramides were designed by hellenistic architects (successors of Alexander the Great and his fellowers), further in the past come Stonehenge and other megalite structures, and many more - sadly lost - antique wonders of the world.