[QUOTE=monstro]
If the slaves hadn’t been around, we might have lost the Revolutionary War. We could be talking in a Cockney accent and eating blood pudding pops while we watch soccer on the tellie.
[/QUOTE]
And I, for one, am grateful for their efforts. (Sorry, just acknowledging a witty turn of phrase.)
I must say, the arguments advanced by monstro, tomndebb, and you with the face are compelling. The question posed by the OP is mostly without merit.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Don’t have one; that’s one reason why I asked if anyone else remembered that book. I read about this stuff many years ago, long before I had a computer to bookmark cites on.
[/QUOTE]
And you won’t find a legitimate one because your argument is laughably illogical.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
No, it’s an observation of human nature, and the impoverishment of the South. Sure, you can force them to work, just as you can force conscripts to fight; they just won’t do it very well. Not to mention that they had to keep the slaves uneducated to help control them, which meant there were a great many jobs the slave couldn’t do. The South stayed agricultural while the North industrialized, because slavery crippled it too badly.
[/QUOTE]
Wrong again.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
They would have gotten those materials from some other producer of raw materials and poorly made goods. It would have been a bit more expensive, and the South would have collapsed completely. Unless the raw material in question is something relatively rare like oil, that’s why the producers of raw materials tend to be impoverished; they have no economic leverage.
[/QUOTE]
But they didn’t get it from some place else did they? Unless you plan on supporting your arguments with cites or a logical coherent argument, please stop wasting everyone’s time.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
In some cases, because the employers don’t care, and are more concerned about grinding an economic boot into their employee’s faces than increasing profits. In others, they are simply ignorant. In yet others, they subscribe to the common managerial attitude that workers are just a replaceable resource, and don’t think of how they feel at all, much less about how that affects or does not affect productivity. Besides, the worst effects are felt on society as a whole, not on the individual boss/owner.
[/QUOTE]
I’m beginning to think you don’t understand economics at all. I don’t claim to be an expert, but it a obvious that having no labor costs is, in almost all circumstances, a huge benefit. To claim slaves were such poor workers that it would negate that effect is insulting and unfounded.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
I’m beginning to think you don’t understand economics at all. I don’t claim to be an expert, but it a obvious that having no labor costs is, in almost all circumstances, a huge benefit. To claim slaves were such poor workers that it would negate that effect is insulting and unfounded.
[/QUOTE]
But you do have labor costs with slavery, that where your argument falls. You need to give them room, board, medical treatment, overseers, and purchase them to satrt 9which I have heard was a significant capital outlay). In fact, slaves were’t cheaper that free factory workers were- they just worked less as they had poor resons to perform well. This is why the South failed.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
But you do have labor costs with slavery, that where your argument falls. You need to give them room, board, medical treatment, overseers, and purchase them to satrt 9which I have heard was a significant capital outlay).
[/QUOTE]
I sincerely doubt they had significant labor costs in the form of medical treeatment, overseers, room or board. I suppose I shouldn’t have said no labor costs.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
In fact, slaves were’t cheaper that free factory workers were- they just worked less as they had poor resons to perform well. This is why the South failed.
[/QUOTE]
Cite? For the fact that free factory workers were cheaper, and anything stating that the economic costs of slavery was the reason the south failed.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
This is why the South failed.
[/QUOTE]
That’s funny. I thought it was because they lost the Civil War. Learn something new everyday.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
I’ve heard many blacks say – sometimes argue fiercely – that that’s how they see themselves, and how they should see themselves. I recall one I saw on TV: “My granma used to say, ‘Kitten might crawl up in the oven but that don’t make him biscuit!’”
[/quote]
As “one” (a black person), I don’t think there are many black Americans who see themselves as exclusively African. But there is a cultural attachment to Africa, born out of the deep longing people in general seem to have for homelands. Indeed, black Americans and west Africans do share cultural similarities, and people like to rejoice in this relatedness because it reminds them that slavery did not obliterate all cultural roots. By looking at west Africans, we get glimspes into what have our ancestors may have been like. So in some non-trivial ways, many black Americans feel kinship to folks across the ocean. And genetically, there is a kinship. But it’s not exclusive.
While black Americans may feel connected to Africa, the converse generally isn’t true. I’ve heard stories about some Africans viewing American blacks as foreigners, as pseudo-white folks. Some Africans, even Sub-Saharans, don’t view themselves as black. I once read a posting from an Ethiopian online who characterized himself as a Caucasian, even though his skin is probably darker than mine. So whites want to lump us together out of convenience. Black Americans want to lump us together out of perceived solidarity. Africans respect the ethnic and nationality lines that separate us. Who’s to say who’s right and who’s wrong?
Blacks and their poor work ethic are why the South failed. Not the planters who sat on their asses enjoying their ill-begotten aristocracy–while Northern capitalists had their noses to the grind like good little Protestants. The slave-owners weren’t at fault. No, it was the blacks who were out working in the boiling sun in the day, washing slop jars in the evening, and getting raped by Massa at night! They were why the South failed!
Oh, the irony. It tastes like burning.
But seriously now, racism does not need rationality to function, true, but slavery as a 300-year-old institution would not have existed for so long if it had not been profitable. People do stupid things, but they are not that stupid. I need cites from DrDeth and Der Trihs which back up their outrageous claims.
And not only that. The South did the blacks a favor by enslaving them. If it hadn’t been for the South’s sacrifice and dedication, those blacks would still be in Africa. And of course, that’s such a horrible thing that it makes centuries of dehumanization look like a mosquito bite.
So really, if anyone deserves an apology, it’s the South, monstro. And Germany deserves an apology, too. The Holocaust was good for the Jews because they got Israel out of it, didn’t they? And don’t forget about the American Indians, either. Sure, the Trail of Tears must of sucked, but they’ve got casinos now. How many people have casinos? Not that many. That makes them the envy of the world.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
But you do have labor costs with slavery, that where your argument falls. You need to give them room, board, medical treatment, overseers, and purchase them to satrt 9which I have heard was a significant capital outlay). In fact, slaves were’t cheaper that free factory workers were- they just worked less as they had poor resons to perform well. This is why the South failed.
[/QUOTE]
The South didn’t fail economically; it lost a war. And its reasons for losing the war were multiple, the main one being that the North had a better industrial base.
The reasons why the South kept slaves weren’t just economic. Having people totally under one’s control satisfied many of the ruling class’s baser desires. For example, having a bunch of slaves gave the slaveholders their own harems. It also made them higher in caste; they could lord it over both the slaves and the white trash. A totally evil and corrupt system.
As for whether it was “better” economically for the slaveholders, apparently it was, and uniquely suited to the cultivation of cotton.
Actually, some of the Founding Fathers who were uncomfortable with slavery figured they needn’t press the issue of abolition, because they expected economic inefficiency to gradually kill off the institution. Then Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, clearing a huge bottleneck in the process of cotton production. But there was no machine that would plant or pick cotton. Cotton-picking is work requiring only a little skill, and work so unpleasant (cotton is thorny, and has to be picked under a hot sun) it would be expensive to hire it done. Slaves were ideal for it. Huge cotton fortunes were made, and the Southern aristocracy was so dependent on cotton for its wealth and power that abolition became unmentionable.
Of course, people don’t act for purely economic reasons. There were cultural factors – the “gentlemen” of the plantocracy developed a cult of themselves as something like medieval nobility, lording it over their serfs. Everybody likes having someone to feel superior to. Male slaveowners got to use their slave women as concubines, that must’ve seemed hard to give up if you were used to it. And there was also fear. In 1791 there was a successful slave rebellion in Haiti and a lot of whites got killed – not killed in battle, but caught and lynched by blacks. Southern whites, knowing how numerous the American slaves were (a numerical majority in many counties, and of course on every plantation) lived in constant fear that they would act the same way if they ever slipped the leash. Only a minority of whites could afford slaves, of course, but all were terrified at the prospect of millions of resentful, brutalized negroes running around loose. In the event, there were no black-on-white lynchings following emancipation. Perhaps because the American slaves of 1865 were more “Christian” than the Haitians of 1791 had been – or perhaps because they owed their liberation to Federal troops and the troops were still there watching things.
Okay.
Little Nemo, why is a person who’s 25% white called black?
Well, Little Nemo, it’s because that person is 75% black.
Did I win a prize?
I agree with you that saying a person who’s 6.25% black (one black great great grandparent out of sixteen) and 93.75% white is black is ridiculous. But saying a person who’s 75% black and 25% white is black is not the same.
I also agree that black people in America are not Africans - not even to the extent that an Irish-American or a Chinese-American is Irish or Chinese. Africans who were brought to this country as slaves were intentionally denied their culture and are the only ethnic group for whom this is true.
But the descendants of these slaves do have a real culture. And that culture still exists. Black people are a distinct ethnic culture in the United States. The fact that many people who are identified as “black” are actually of mixed racial ancestry doesn’t change this.
Yes, race is a complex issue. But that doesn’t mean it’s too complicated to be discussed. It’s possible to talk about generalities while acknowledging that exceptions exist. And it’s possible to acknowledge the exceptions while still realizing the generalities are true as generalities.
I think YWTF’s question is a little more complicated than a simple equation, that 75% ‘black’, most likely isn’t 100% black and you have no telling what admixture you’re going to end up with when you combine another 25% of something else.
Yet as YWTF noted, it doesn’t matter. Once we’re aware of a person’s blackness, their physical appearance become irrelevant. They are considered black, even if they don’t look it.
Now it may be that this is a cultural thing and unless you spend a lot of time in and around intergrated situations, you don’t see it…but it’s facinating, yet sad at the same time; to see a person who one minute was considered white, have that whiteness stripped away, the moment one of their relatives who still retains more “african” genetic material walks in.
Just like that. There’s a difference between choosing to consider yourself “blacK” and being told you’re black.
Yes it’s complicated, yes you can talk about generailites, but it becomes very disheartening to see thread after thread treat “black” folk as other. What I mean by that is, you don’t see many threads as was noted, asking Jews if they’re better off now than they were in Egypt or in Spain or in Germany…we don’t get stories about the Irish reporter/doctor/Indian Chief telling his friends he’s glad his ancestors came to America, with tales his witnessing the IRA knee-capping someone or some poor guy walking from a blown up pub, holding his guts in. We don’t get threads asking whether the Italians are 'really" Italian and whether it’s just bowing to the PC police, to call them Italian-Americans.
Every culture as had it’s high and low points, yet it seems only Africa is always judged by it’s low points, further we move the goal posts and section off Africa and focuse solely on the “backwaterness” of the blacks. What’s that about?
The Africans “borrowed” from the Arabs, when noted that so did the great European civilizations, they are somehow different…oh sorry we didn’t really mean those Africans, we meant BLACK Africans.
I don’t know why it is, I don’t even have a name for it, but there seems to be an inability to be fair to history, to culture, to logic when it comes to Africa and things African. I’ve notice posters who are usually objective and honest, lose all that when it comes to Black Folk and I just don’t know why.
Perhaps someone can toss me a clue or am I just reading more into this pattern I see, than is really there?
[QUOTE=Aeschines]
The South didn’t fail economically; it lost a war. And its reasons for losing the war were multiple, the main one being that the North had a better industrial base..
[/QUOTE]
Which meant- when the chips were down- the South failed economically. Who won? The North. Becuase the North had better generals? :dubious: No, because- as you said- the North had a better industrial base becuase the idiot Southern Slaveholders were actually holding the economy of the South back as slavery just plain doesn’t work economically.
**
brickbacon**- tell ya what dude. Spend a few score hours or so studying the early industrial economies of the Northern USA and how the factory workers were trated, lived, ate and died, then tell me that slaves were cheaper. It’d be nigh impossible for the slaves to have eaten worse, be housed worse, or had poorer living conditions and medical care than those early pre-union factory workers. And, slaves were treated better (other than the whippings, rapes, and the fact that not only weren’t they free, their kids were slaves from birth too)- and that reason is that a good field “buck” slave was damn expensive, and factory workers were a dime a dozen.
A good field hand slave was as expensive as a prime horse. Now sure- there are cruel idiots in the world, and some of them did (and still do) mistreat their animal “property”. But like I said- those were idiots. Any half-smart master treated his slaves as prime livestock- they were well fed, and well cared for.
Of course, the HUGE difference is opportunity- a factory worker could get a lucky break and become rich, or his kid could become a “Horatio Alger story”. Rare, yes, but it happened all the time.
But a souther black slave had little to hope for and no opportunities at all for their children- their children were born slaves, lived as slaves and died as slaves- no matter how hard they worked. This lack of any hope of all is what made Southern Racial based slavery so fucking evil. Their only hope was the Underground Railroad.
Roman slaves could (and did) buy their freedom, their children were born free (in most cases, YMMV). They were slaves because they lost a war or commited a crime, in most cases- not because of their skin color. They could buy their freedom, their kids could become rich and their grandkids could become a Senator. In fact, a very few Freedmen did enter the Senate. *Opportunity. *
And, this is why- whips or no whips- slavery didn’t produce like Industrialization did (and salves who did work in factories were outperformed by their free brethren). Dudes work a lot fucking harder when they have opportunity, hope. This is also why Russian-style Communism failed.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Okay.
Little Nemo, why is a person who’s 25% white called black?
Well, Little Nemo, it’s because that person is 75% black.
[/quote]
And what would race would person be in who is 75% white and 25% African? Or 85/15, with a strong nose and a fro? I’ll give you hint: it ain’t white.
Actually, I didn’t say it is ridiculous. The one-drop rule is ridiculous, but not because of how we define blackness. The insanity comes from how we define whiteness. But that is an essay for another day.
Well, gee, I didn’t know that. Black people have a culture? They are a distinct ethnic group? Get out of here!
That still doesn’t affect my point, you know. As long as you continue to steadfastly view the descendants of American slaves through the lens of the one-drop rule, you’ll continue to see merit in the OP’s question where there is none.
Saying that blacks are better off here in the States than we would be if we had been left alone in Africa is as silly as taking a bowl of tomatos, taking a third of it and putting it in another bowl, adding a bunch of lettuce and carrots to it, throwing some dressing on top, and still calling it “a bowl of tomatoes”. A smart person with recognize this newly formed product as a salad, not as a bowl of tomatoes, and would not try to compare the former to the latter.
What exceptions do you think I’m basing my argument on?
[QUOTE=you with the face]
And what would race would person be in who is 75% white and 25% African? Or 85/15, with a strong nose and a fro? I’ll give you hint: it ain’t white.
[/quote]
The ol’ “one drop rule,” y’know?
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Which meant- when the chips were down- the South failed economically. Who won? The North. Becuase the North had better generals? :dubious: No, because- as you said- the North had a better industrial base becuase the idiot Southern Slaveholders were actually holding the economy of the South back as slavery just plain doesn’t work economically.
[/quote]
It worked fine for an agrarian society, which, as you might know, the South largely was. As soon as slavery was abolished, guess what happened to the South? It had no choice but to became more industrialized. You have your history backwards. It wasn’t slavery that made the South less competitive on the battle field. It was their reliance on agriculture. The only thing that slavery did was allow the South to remain agrarian as long as it did.
And the South wasn’t as much of weakling in war as you are making them out to be, either. For a North that was supposedly so powerful and superior, they lost a lot of lives over the course of those years. The South held its own.
And? What is your point? You are comparing factory workers in an industrial economy to field hands in an agrarian one. The South and North had their own niches to fill. They did not compete with one another in the marketplace, so it doesn’t matter if the sweatshop laborforce was more or less costly than the enslaved one. The South still profited from slaves. The whole country did. It’s astonishing that this even needs to be stated.
It’s not so much that slavery didn’t work, economically, for the South, as that it tended to freeze out the far more efficient and profitable path of industrialization. The gentry had a vested interest (economic, cultural and psychological) in plantation agriculture based on slave labor, and no interest in anything else. European immigrants provided an almost equally cheap labor force for the North, but they didn’t care to go to the South, where there was nothing for them.
Which, BTW, is another reason the Union won the Civil War. It not only had more industry and better facilities to arm and supply its troops; it also had more men to fill the ranks of the Army – many of them foreign-born. I recall a character early in Gone With the Wind declaring, “There ya go! Gen’lmen can always fight better’n rabble!” Arguably they can – if they get to fight one-on-one. But numbers still count for a lot.
Maybe not to you. But I’d say somebody who was three quarters white is white unless I had some particular reason not to.
Your point, as you’ve presented it, seems to be that black people don’t really exist because they’re all actually white people. If I’m not following the logic of that, maybe you should explain your views a little more clearly.
Steadfast? I’ve repeatedly said the “one-drop rule” is wrong. You’re the one who’s been repeating it.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Maybe not to you. But I’d say somebody who was three quarters white is white unless I had some particular reason not to.
[/quote]
Like if they “look” black, right? Problem is, the threshold for looking black, relative to looking white, is pretty low. You probably see 75/25 (Euro/African) mixes rather frequently, but mentally peg them as black or at least “other”.
All I’ve been saying is a longer version of the cliche that race is a social construct. A construct that was a by-product of slavery itself. Black people exist, but the genetic gulf between them and whites exists only in our minds. The one-drop rule means that salads get called bowls of tomatoes, even if those so-called “bowls of tomatoes” actually contain more lettuce and carrots.
I don’t know how to make it any clearer. Perhaps you are just not versed enough in the subject of race to understand what I’m saying.
I have not said its wrong. (Wrong compared to what? There is no “right” way to define race.) What is wrong (in a logical sense) is attempting to answer the OPs question using a system of defining people that was a direct consequence of the institution under debate. That system being the one drop rule and that institution being slavery.
Saying that black people are better off requires one to believe that black = African. Or, to return to my analogy, salad = bowl of tomatoes. It is only after one steps outside of the paradigm established by the one-drop rule that one can see the folly of comparing salads and tomatoes. I don’t know how to make it any clearer.