3.9 Zimbabwe, A Lesson About Why Discriminating on the
Basis of Race
is a Huge Mistake
In America there is a big push for transferring power and jobs to black people by discriminating against white people. The Biden administration's infrastructure plan will hire contractors to build infrastructure and other things and it favors blacks. If a black contractor and a white contractor applies for the same infrastructure job, the black contractor will be chosen even if they are not as qualified for the job.
Far away in Africa there is a country named Zimbabwe.
The former president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe took away farms that were run by white people and gave them to black people who weren't good at running farms. The result was a huge drop in the amount of food produced. The value of a country's currency depends on how much goods it produces. If a country prints a million country dollars but only produces one loaf of bread those million country dollars are only worth one loaf of bread. The more dollars a country prints or the less goods it produces the more the more inflation there is. The drop in the amount of crops produced led to the buying power of the Zimbabwean dollar to become less and less. Then the Zimbabwean government bought military equipment by printing money and that inflated their currency even more. The story is in the video below.
The result of Mugabe's polices was poverty and starvation in a country that used to produce a lot of food. The people began to realize that the white farmers were a good thing and that they brought prosperity to Zimbabwe. The government decided to invite white farmers back. The video below tells us about a couple of white farmers who did come back and the result. Within a short time they were able to create a big crop of potatoes that brought in money for all the people who worked for them. I could not embed the video below because it is copyrighted. However if you click on the picture below it will take you to a web page and the first video is the one to watch.
There are important lessons here. One is people should be hired on the basis of merit, which is how well can do a job. Another lesson is how bad things can get if people are hired on the basis of race. The government and many of the people of Zimbabwe did not appreciate their white farmers. They saw them as colonists who took their land. They didn't appreciate the wealth that those farmers brought to Zimbabwe. Many American school children are being taught that whites are bad oppressors. They are not taught to appreciate all the good things whites do and to appreciate the wealth that whites create for everyone. American schools also teach how bad colonialism was, in which European countries took land but they never tell about the good European colonists did. We can see the good whites did in Zimbabwe by looking at how bad things became when they were forced out and how good it was for everyone when they were invited back. One lesson not to draw from this is that all black farmers are not good farmers. Instead the lesson is that people should be hired for a job if they are good at it whether they are black or white and should not be hired just because of their race.
Click here to find out how to get rewards for taking quizzes
 Lesson List |
