They tend to be more progressive...after all, they seem to be the ones who went out and sought new lands far and wide

The Asians have copied them in certain areas, and have managed to surpass them in others...

There is of course laid back and uptight in the nature of people, in the whole, then throwing culture in the midst you end with a Hodge Podge of people, we have some progressive some not so progressive etc.   

Bull crap. Europeans (your friend most likely is referring to European culture) expanded for greed, or economics.

Tell your friend to read Guns, Germs and Steel for some food for thought.

Also tell your friend that European culture is such that it takes what it wants, and destroys what it can't take so no one else can have it.

That's called hegemony.

There is a thing called WHITE PRIVILEGE...IRISH PRIVILEGE....they look after their own.

I copped  a phrase about a road going to my primary school with white estate managers compound on the left, with a gate. 

The pavement end, where white privilege begins.

We had to walk the rest of the road of  mud and burnt bricks, injuring our bare feet, while they had pavement for their vehicles.     

Recommended reading:

read it!

...but the real question is, can they jump?

Here's one Guyanese black man who smashed the white man's myth. Read his book.

Dis is one ah me favourite movies... 'White Men Can't Jump'. 

Pure bullshit.....it is a modern perspective given the view of post colonial dominance. Just one example...the name of the first Englishman to be known to history was not until the 5th century AD. Dark skinned people from the Semites to blacks to Indians and even Chinese had known personages dating back to almost 2 to 3 thousand BC. London was a Roman camp when the Mayans were building massively in stone. People culture etc are happenstance.  

What is progressive the kind of greed that precipitated black and brown  genocide across centuries? The enlightenment could be seen as a declaration of principles that established rigid racism. How could the label progressive apply to a people who affirm one thing for themselves and another for others?

Note  Spain, England, France, Germany, Portugal...all rose on the backs of subjugated and exploited peoples.

Everywhere else where other darker races had the chance to obliterate white people they held their hand and reasoned only to be double crossed. No whites could have been left in north America after Pontiac defeated them and drove them to the see only to say take the lands up to the Allegheny but do not cross.

White people have become a people with conscience through the voices from the other side. They became civilized due to being ashamed of their own wanton brutality. The darker races,through tears, on bended knees on the rack and as voices crying in the wilderness, give them their moral foundation. It is one thing to intellectualize on it but another to abstract that lesson and apply it in ones society.

Ok,so what about the size of their feet?

I don't disagree...just that they seem more inclined to travel and discover new lands, plus they had the means

Two feet.

It was not an inclination. It was economic expansion fueled by greed.

U mean white people doan rule?

If y'all that a step back and look at all the responses here - they are actually proving that the whites are smarter and progressive. We can look back at history and say certain things were done by the whites etc. While the whites may have exploited other races - the other races were to busy exploiting themselves. Ok - lets put all the history behind us. Where are we now - the whites seems to be dominating the world in education/innovation and a whole list of things. Who should be blame for this?

Yo is need to blame yo self, seein how yo no wuh progressive is then yo should be so, no 

The response demonstrates that you are attuned to vernacular belief systems and not focusing in on the specifics as to what constitute  "white" and "progressive". The first part, mere phenotype ie physical appearance does not constitute causation ie smarts. The latter has various elements of it that when deconstructed falls flat on its face. Progressive means forward looking ie moral planners for stable societies following some rules fabricated by and native to the group. It also means producers of artifacts that benefits all.

White people were plagued with internecine tribal wars and the happenstance of the discovery of the west saw the rise of powers that looted the treasures of others to make themselves rich. Rich people can participate in vicarious crafts and most of all philosophize. Feudalism was no enlightened creed and it only died out in the 19th century with the rise of industrialism. For the Russians it persisted into the early 20th century. We had another 6 centuries from the Magna carta to constitutionalism and all the while this denied progress to poor whites, women and others.

Today whites are everywhere intermingled with others with whom they function as a symbiotic culture. One cannot be removed from the other or civilization will collapse. They are controllers because history of taking more than their share has them in that position. However, the idea of white privileged is everywhere being abandoned by the culture as it is being accepting of principles of moral social and political behavior. The rise of this as a default condition shapes present modern societies but has deep roots in other cultures.

Ideas of democracy may seem recent but it developed organically across many cultures. The same goes for federalism which is subsidia in political form and has its origins consolidated by christian scholars but who reflect on for example the Iroquois confederacy. Thinking is not the domain of the whites and no white person is better in any qualitative way from any other person. That such a belief persists and one as you can still premise white superiority is truly sad. Look to yourself and ask, what is it the average white person can do that you would find difficult. I doubt you are so poor of spirit to think you are lesser than the average red neck. Note that is a white person also. They do not come with superior genes but with all the baggage and gifts humanity as one specie has to offer.