Where did I say anything about people being racist?
This site states that the total number of Africans exported as slaves during the period 1500-1900 was 12 million. From 1500-1808 (when import of slaves became illegal) about 6% came to what is now US territory, making the total less than 720,000. How does this square with an estimate of 350,000,000 deaths?
You also need to address the question as to why US slavery was worse than slavery in the rest of the world.
If you can support the estimate of 350,000,000 dead, you’re going to win this one handily.
Otherwise, from several choices I’ll nominate Stalin’s Terror Famine of 1930-37. In Harvest of Sorrow, author Robert Conquest gives the total dead as 14.5 million.
They were born into a society that they did not start - it was the way it has always been. Washington tried to free his slaves, but the reality is that they would have been captured and returned to a life of slavery. Washington even bought an island in an attempt to find a place where the slaves could live free.
I hate to even get into this type of thread!
How was slavery and treatment of blacks different in the US from in places like South American countries? I believe slavery was just as rampant in South America as it was in the US. I ask because I worked with lots of people from SA and they had some interesting comments about the difference in people from SA compared to those from the US.
It is my assumption that the OP was referring to race relations in the US (correct me if this is wrong).
If so, Napier’s claim that slavery was worse than anything in human history (which I would dispute) is a red herring: The relevant comparison is to things that have happened in American history.
From the internment of Japanese immigrants during WW II to the treatment of Chinese immigrants in the west in the 19th century, there are plenty of really horrific examples.
But when you consider the number of people affected, the duration of the efforts, and the involvement of government in the process, it’s hard to think of anything worse in American history than the treatment of the Indians; and the treatment of blacks in the south. (I’m not comparing these two cases – that would be more involved, and again, irrelevant to the discussion here).
For this reason, it wouldn’t really surprise me to learn that there are more racial tensions between whites and blacks than between whites and Asians.
Also, B & I, it is my understanding that Washington did free his slaves, after his death.
I make generalized statements all the time, usually prefaced with some sort of “I’m not trying to be racist, but this is what I’ve noticed” disclaimer. Generalizations exsist because groups sharing similar traits share similar cultures and commonly act or create perceptions in a similar manner. I don’t feel bad about making generaliztions. They’re natural.
Generalizations aside, I treat each person as an individual. Every person has an equal chance to prove to me they are a worthwhle human being. If they approach me with in such a way as to portray an offensive stereotype, thats their fault, not mine.
But apparenty its my problem that a young black man wants to act like a “thug.” Apparently because I was born of european ancestry I deserve to be targetted as an oppressor of minorities. My ancestors came to America in the late 1800’s, early 1900’s. None of them were wealthy enough to own slaves, even if they were legal. Being Polish, Irish and German, they suffered racist sentiment upon arriving in america, and somehow soldierred through. My parents are decent middle class Americans, as likely will be my siblings and myself.
Slavery was a great atrocity in history, but it is history. There may be a few very old black persons from the south who remember just how bad it used to be, but for the most part, how bad it is now is a product of choices that are made by the individual, not oppression of the masses [please leave your conspiracy theories and imagined agenda’s of “The Man” at the door].
I feel terrible that there are people in America who suffer. But I can not believe that there is no way for them to better themselves without crying foul for something that happened lifetimes before they were born, or I was. If I can laugh at some dumb pollock jokes, or claim drinking superiority because of my Irish heritage, then everyone else can get over themselves.
Black American Generation Xers are the first in their families to have been born as full-fledged citizens. Not even our parents can make that claim.
Ponder this as you talk about “choices”, “conspiracy theories”, and “imagined agendas”.