
Why So Many People Think Eli Whitney, Cotton Gin Inventor, Was Black - smacktoward
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/02/02/eli_whitney_inventor_of_the_cotton_gin_wasn_t_black_but_here_s_why_so_many.html
======
apetresc
Unless I'm missing something, the article gives exactly 0 information (or even
speculation) on why people think this. It's just a lot of examples of people
thinking so.

~~~
strgrd
Did you want an opinion piece, or a news article about a phenomenon? Because
you got the latter. You got examples presented without narrative or opinion.
It's up to the reader to connect the dots.

When I was in grade school, this .pdf helped greatly in improving my reading
comprehension
[https://www.hand2mind.com/pdf/miriam/grades_1_2.pdf](https://www.hand2mind.com/pdf/miriam/grades_1_2.pdf)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Did you want an opinion piece, or a news article about a phenomenon?

I suspect GP wants a body that goes with the headline: if the headline says
the article is going to tell you why an effect occurs, then the article
should, in fact, do so. It's fine for an article not to have a conclusion as
to the "why", particularly if it's a new article and that's not a question
that the facts answer But then the headline should match what the article is.

------
danielvf
TLDR: Eli Whitney is introduced during "black history month" in US schools -
thus he's assumed by many students to be black.

------
mikestew
The article does a fine job of completely failing at answering the question.
And how on earth could one believe that? As I remember it, Whitney's machine
was responsible for a _greater_ importation of slave labor. Picking it was far
less labor intensive than getting the seeds out. But once a machine was made
to eliminate the labor-intensive part, one now needs more slave labor to pick
it.

So even if Whitney were black, I don't think I'd rank him up there with
Fredrick Douglas or MLK, Jr. for doing good things for black people. The fact
that Whitney was white makes it even more mystifying...and somewhat moronic.

~~~
strgrd
This comment does a fine job of opining on the incompleteness of an article
that the commenter has clearly not read in full. This is a great example of
irony, I think, because your point about the irony of a black man inventing a
machine that increased the desire for slaves, is covered in the third
paragraph from the bottom. And here you are, claiming the article as
incomplete because it failed to consider the irony. But it did! You just
skimmed it. It is in fact _you_ who is incomplete. I think it is fair to
describe this scenario as "a state of affairs or an event that seems
deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result."

RTFA before opining next time :-)

~~~
mikestew
_RTFA before opining next time_

You used up a lot of fancy words, and yet still didn't point out where in the
article the question is answered. For all of your "RTFA", you seem unable to
address this question any better than the article did. Perhaps you are
confused and read an article different from the one I did? If you click on the
title at the top, it'll take you right to it.

Despite that, my complaint was not with the article but with folks that would
believe such a thing without giving even the most minute bit of thought. Since
the article's author seemed unable to answer the question, I thought I'd take
a whack at it, and failed because to me the impedance mismatch seemed obvious
for the reason I stated.

~~~
strgrd
This comment does a fine job of opining on the incompleteness of a comment
that the commenter has clearly not read in full. This is a great example of
irony, I think, because your point about not pointing out where in the article
the question was answered, was covered in the same sentence as this sentence
in the previous comment. And here you are, claiming the comment as incomplete
because it failed to point out the location of where the question was
answered. But it did! You just skimmed it. It is in fact you who is
incomplete. I think it is fair to describe this scenario as "a state of
affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and
is often amusing as a result."

RTFC before opining next time :-)

------
KSS42
Wait a cotton pickin' minute, Sinbad never made a movie called Shazaam?

