My comment was regarding certain individuals somehow holding people of a particular race accountable for transgressions caused by other people of the same race hundreds of years ago or even yesterday - i.e. holding ‘me’ especially accountable, for example, for transgressions that might have been performed by some whites (whether ancesters or not) in the past or others I’m not associated with. If one does hold others accountable simply because their race happens to match those that performed the transgressions, it’s racism clear and simple.</p>
<p>No, that’s not racism. White people in this country still benefit from the legacy of slavery* just as black people still suffer from it. Asking those who have benefitted from past atrocities to stop pretending that their race does not benefit them is not racism.</p>
<p>We were taught (50’s) that the NW natives were killed off by a multitude of childhood European Diseases: mumps, measles, chickenpox, influenza, etc. by Cook, Lewis & Clark, traders and trappers and ships trading with China and the West Coast of America.
By the 1830’s most were gone and by 1842 when the first wagon trains arrived in Oregon, the pioneers found pretty much an uninhabited land.</p>
<p>IOW: It may not really matter if a blanket or just plain first contact is the causative.</p>
<p>Where would most African Americans be today if there had never been slavery? Africa. How would that have worked out for them? Who with slave ancestors wishes their ancestors had never been brought to the US?</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad posted:
“^^ It’s absolutely racism but I guess you don’t see it. Oh well.”</p>
<p>Agreed. Absolutely. </p>
<p>Lergnom:</p>
<p>Excellent post.</p>
<p>The history of the world consists of a nearly infinite series of atrocities. White Americans do not have the market cornered on committing them, and as ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad points out, the whites (as a race) today should not have to bear the sins of the fathers.</p>
<p>Well you do know that that question is something of a non-starter, don’t you, barrons? If not for the slave trade, there would be no-African Americans whose ancestors were slaves. There might be African immigrants who became Americans, just as there are immigrants from hundreds of other countries who have done the same, but as far as asking where I would be if not for American Slavery, the answer is non-existent, and given the fact that I can’t miss having never been cognizant of my own non-existence, the point is entirely moot. </p>
<p>What I do gather from your attempt at making a point, is the idea that since most of Africa is an economic and political disaster, we African Americans should be “thanking our lucky stars” that there was indeed British/American slavery.:rolleyes: (For the record, I do no such thing.)</p>
<p>What you fail to take into account is that there are many, many ways to play the “what if” game, and one of them involves asking what the African continent would be like had it not been subject to centuries of wholesale European and American political and economic exploitation. I know it benefits a conservative’s world view to pretend that it played little to no role in helping to bringing about the Africa we now know to exist, but do a little sincere and objective research on the history of European and American involvement in The African Subcontinent. The same racism that supported the doctrine of God-decreed black slavery on the American Continent, is what brought about arbitrary (and self-serving European/American) partitioning/colonization the African Sub-continent’s lands and peoples. Yes, I’d much prefer to live here than to live in almost any part of Africa (in no small part because I am an American, and my ancestors damn well earned the right to be considered Americans also), but that doesn’t mean I think slavery can be said to have benefited me or any other African American in any way. That’s just a sorry rationalization put forth by people who want to somehow marginalize slavery and the lasting effects of its legacy.</p>
<p>If the scholarly estimates I’ve heard are accurate, then most enslaved Africans who were on their way to the Americas never made it. Tragically, their remains are at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. So being enslaved certainly didn’t benefit them, and their decendants aren’t alive to speculate about how being seized from Africa was a godsend.</p>
<p>Mathmom, thanks for the heads up about the Orson Scott Card book [been curious about him for a long time]. I’ll look into it. It sounds very similar (then again, time-travel paradoxes are quite frequent in novels these days) to the book “Black in Time,” the author of which I believe is H.L. Heinlin. And writer Ismael Reed also authored a time-travel story around slavery several years ago.</p>
<p>I misspoke about the authors; ‘Black in Time’ was written by John Jakes. I was thinking of Robert A. Heinlein, the noted Sci-fi writer who used space aliens in his fiction as a metaphor for the fight for equality and harmonious ethnic relations in the U.S. Also, while Ishmael Reed’s novel ‘Flight to Canada’ isn’t about time travel per se, it’s a satire on antebellum mores with an absurdist contemporary twist.</p>
<p>poetsheart, Thank you for the badly needed dose of reality in this thread. </p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, That you keep repeating incorrect information makes it no less incorrect. Your lack of interest in what racism is is far more telling than what you continue to write.</p>
<p>Yea barrons, you just made a giant doo-doo and stepped right in it. </p>
<p>Next you’ll be saying that the potato famine was good for the Irish or the Holocaust good for the Jews because it brought them in large numbers to these golden shores… Sheesh!</p>
Ha - And I think what you’re stating is incorrect, of course. And either you simply don’t understand what I’m saying or perhaps you disagree but your comment regarding my ‘interest in racism’ is way off the mark and not appreciated. You can go back over any post I’ve ever made on CC and you won’t find a single racist comment although you’d find a number of them decrying racism. I don’t know what ‘incorrect information’ I posted you’re referring to. </p>
<p>I simply don’t believe in holding something against someone simply because of their race, something they have no control over, which is what the context of the statements were in this thread. I don’t believe that there’s some kind of ‘original sin’ that should be placed on babies born of a certain race due to actions of some others who happen to be of the same race. I’d expect most recipients of racist diatribe and acts would agree with this.</p>
<p>I completely agree with this. It is horribly unfair. But, I don’t see where most posters were suggesting that people should accept blame for things they did not do, nor participated in, simply because others of their race perpetrated discrimination or atrocities.</p>
<ol>
<li>The Slave Trade by Hugh Thomas. The only comprehensive history of the Atlantic slave trade.</li>
<li>Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life by Stephen Deyle. Not a great read but very important work. The essence is that slavery was expected to die out but didn’t because new markets in the interior created demand. When the Atlantic slave trade stopped, the value of slaves in Virginia et al began to rise. The number of slaves and their values increased as the domestic trade supplied the new markets. You can clearly see how this drove the conflict over new slave territories and states and then toward the Civil War.</li>
</ol>
<p>LW-the estimates you remember are way off. Most I found indicate that around 10% -20% died in the crossing on average as this was a business venture and a dead slave had no value and was a waste of effort.<br>
Also many were on the losing end of local wars and faced similar or worse fate if they had stayed.<br>
Many who came to the US were fleeing bad conditions in their home countries be it religious persecution, ethnic/race persecution or other problems. Half came as indentured servants. There is no similarity to the relatively few who made it out from the Nazi persecutions. Also after the Nazi’s were defeated Europe was still an attractive place to live.</p>
<p>So if you are ever facing religious persecution, you will solve that by denouncing your rights as a human being and instead willingly become the property of someone no different than their mules. Sure, you will.</p>
<p>barrons,
One would easily guess that you are a white male of at least middle class privilege who has had little or no prejudices placed upon you in such a way that it puts untold burdens on your life.</p>
<p>Easy to crow from that nest/perch.</p>
<p>To your comment “there is no corpse,” are you in college or kindergarten?</p>
<p>Amherst was wrong and “The Trail of Tears” never existed either - right?</p>