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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

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The trick is to find non-white people so indifferent to their traditions and culture* that they’ll sell it to white supremacists for material gain.

*Also did 19th century Muslim Egyptians really consider mummies part of “their” culture? Or is the idea of “Egypt” also a White imperialist imposition?

We're specifically talking about the British Empire and its attitude towards colonized people and cultures. I'm sure that Muslim Egyptians had their own prejudice, but Muslim Egyptian prejudice didn't inform British people's alienation and dehumanization of non-white cultures whereas white supremacy did. They didn't use mummies for firewood, to garnish their soup or grind them into paint because Egyptian Muslims considered them pagans or whatever.

I don't know why you're being so defensive, this is just history.

It is as a student of history that the more I learn, the more I realize that The "White people did colonialism and everyone was sad" attitude I grew up with is simplistic when not flat out wrong. Egyptians (who were technically not part of the British Empire) were willing participants in the mummy trade. To ignore that is also dehumanizing.

But white people did do colonialism, and a lot of people were "sad." Genocide and slavery do tend to make people sad.

That the Egyptians were willing participants in the mummy trade doesn't somehow cancel out the nature or effects of British imperialism, any more than Africans participating in the slave trade cancels out chattel slavery.

But fine - "white people did colonialism and everyone was sad and Egyptians helped." Would that satisfy you?

Sure. I’m not trying to whitewash colonialism just pointing out that it is a lot more complex than the standard anti-colonialist view would have you believe. E.g. in the context of Egypt, the Ottomans were also a colonial imperial power. To ignore that is also “White supremacist”.

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