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Praising slavery while Black

"History" is such a tangled interconnected webs of "What ifs" that it's impossible to start pulling at threads more then a half century or so back and try to make any sort of predictions as to what the world would be like now that aren't just random guessing.

Slavery was bad and isn't excused via the current state of the decedents of those slaves.
 
dann said:
No, it certainly isn't! The current state of the descendants of slaves in the USA.
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I meant as "In reference to other members of the same historical lineage."

The "fact" that African Americans are, on average, "better off" than Africans (leaving aside whether or not that is true and/or what criteria we are using for "better off") doesn't excuse slavery is what I meant.
 
Africans in Africa seem happier than Africans in America, you have to give them that.
 
Many of the people reading this sentence wouldn't exist if not for the bubonic plague in the fourteenth century. Had that plague not occurred, our ancestors would have had a great deal more competition for mates, and a completely different set of human beings would have resulted from that point onward. Thank God for the plague!
 
"Africans in Africa seem happier than Africans in America, you have to give them that." Tell that to a Hutu child getting their arm chopped off by a Tutsi.

"Tragedy plus time equals comedy" comes to mind, don't know who said it.

There must be a word for this sociological concept.
I'm a privileged middle class white male and if some of my ancestors didn't here and spread the flu and other sickness's and or out right kill them I would be a starving peasant in some European slum, or never have been born at all.

Do I thank DOG for the Native American genocide?
No I think not
 
I tell you, as a Hawaiian, not thrilled with how the USA treated Hawaiians 100% of the time, but thankful as hell it wasn't one of the other colonial powers given how those turned out!
 
I'm sure there's a reason that some people prefer to compare the well-being of black Americans to black Africans, rather than black Americans to other Americans. But I can't quite put my finger on what that reason might be.
 
kedo1981 said:
"Africans in Africa seem happier than Africans in America, you have to give them that." Tell that to a Hutu child getting their arm chopped off by a Tutsi.
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I'll try but it's unlikely I'll get the opportunity. Right time, right place, etc.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Yes, you should be grateful for the actions of malicious actors because the long term, multi-generational unintended side effects were positive.

It's like if I get black out drunk, hop in my car, and run over a pedestrian, only to find out later that it was a serial killer out stalking his next victim. I'm a hero! They should be handing me the key to the city, not locking me up for DUI. The great grandchildren of the saved victim should be maintaining a shrine in my honor, with fresh beer poured over my 12 foot statue 24/7.

Or maybe an abusive husband beats his wife up so badly she is hospitalized and she misses a flight. Later, the plane crashes, killing all aboard. Johnny Heavyhands saved his wife's life! She ought to show some gratitude.
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Hmmm, in your first post I wasn't able to tell if you were sarcastically agreeing with my point, or if you had missed it entirely, however looking at your edit I believe the second is the more likely, so allow me to spell out what I said in really clear language so you get it.

Sometimes there are good side effects from bad actions, and some people might have a reason to say that they are better off, or exist, because of that bad action, but those side effects in no way decrease, lessen, or make better the original bad action nor diminish the repugnance one should feel towards the actors responsible for that bad action, even if something good came from it for you personally. And it certainly doesn't mean that you should treat the bad actors as heroes because you got a benefit from a terrible circumstance.

As another example, my father dying helped to pay for my wedding, but that doesn't lessen the tragedy of my father dying even though I was grateful for him leaving me the money.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
I meant as "In reference to other members of the same historical lineage."

The "fact" that African Americans are, on average, "better off" than Africans (leaving aside whether or not that is true and/or what criteria we are using for "better off") doesn't excuse slavery is what I meant.
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I know, I know!
My point was just to point out that the bar has been set very low if conditions of contemporary African-Americans are compared with those in Africa ... like when some Republicans feel the need to point out that U.S. Americans are better off than Venezuelans ...
By the way, African-Americans may not be tree-worshippers, but
African Americans are more religious than whites and Latinos by many measures of religious commitment.
5 Facts about the Religious Lives of African-Americans (Pew Research Center, Feb. 7, 2018)
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That doesn't seem to be very different from major parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
 
PhantomWolf said:
I wouldn't be on this Earth if not for Hitler (my father's parents only met because my Pop traveled to the UK and joined the RAF in WW2) but that doesn't mean that WW2 was a good thing, or that Hitler was a nice guy.
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We have something in common! I wouldn't be this Earth if not for Hitler either (my Mom met my Dad because her father moved the family to my Dad's hometown when he got a job in the shipyards that wouldn't have existed if not for the war effort).

But I'm not angry at Hitler for the circumstances of my birth nor do I think that the German people owe me restitution for my suffering the way that some black folks blame white people for the "wrongs" they have suffered due to the legacy of slavery.

Whether or not either Hitler or slavery is good or bad isn't a part of the equation.
 
baron said:
How long to we have to wait to find out? It's not looking too good...
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Yeah, in what alternate universe can you roll back the calendar so you can actually find out? 'Cuz, historically, it would seem that the current Africa, the one you're being snide about, actually did experience slavery and mass colonization. Perhaps you're referring to Schrodinger's Africa, or maybe Bizarro World Africa, 'cuz I can't tell for the life of me why one would post such a ridiculous comment.
 
CaptainHowdy said:
But I'm not angry at Hitler for the circumstances of my birth nor do I think that the German people owe me restitution for my suffering the way that some black folks blame white people for the "wrongs" they have suffered due to the legacy of slavery.
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Since I doubt that you have had your rights systematically repressed by the German people for the past 153 years, restitution has nothing to do with anything.
 
CoulsdonUK said:
I simply wondered how Africa as a continent would have developed without slavery and colonisation if it had control over its own resources during the past two or three hundred years. Dodgy neighbourhoods exist all over the world, I’m not aware of making any calculations as it is difficult to quantify how much slavery and colonisation impacted the natural development of the continent.

Maybe I have drifted off topic.
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Well a bit maybe.

Are you cutting it off at 2-300 years? Because the Roman Empire was taking slaves long before that, as well as the Arab Berbers acquiring slaves from rulers of the Ethiopian area. Probably around 1400 years of Arab slave trade in Africa.

I'd also point out that North Africa , by 200 AD, was extremely Roman. So to predict what would have happened to Africa 'as a continent', you might have to go back to 146 BC, when Rome finally destroyed the Carthagian Empire.

How far back are we going?
 
TragicMonkey said:
Many of the people reading this sentence wouldn't exist if not for the bubonic plague in the fourteenth century. Had that plague not occurred, our ancestors would have had a great deal more competition for mates, and a completely different set of human beings would have resulted from that point onward. Thank God for the plague!
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If it hadn't been for the discovery of penicillin in the 1920's (but only generally available to hospitals from the mid-40's), my mother would have died from tetanus for sure, after a farming incident. We are all a complete random accident of fate.

A different spermatozoa or egg and you could have been your brother or sister instead of you.
 
CaptainHowdy said:
We have something in common! I wouldn't be this Earth if not for Hitler either (my Mom met my Dad because her father moved the family to my Dad's hometown when he got a job in the shipyards that wouldn't have existed if not for the war effort).

But I'm not angry at Hitler for the circumstances of my birth nor do I think that the German people owe me restitution for my suffering the way that some black folks blame white people for the "wrongs" they have suffered due to the legacy of slavery.

Whether or not either Hitler or slavery is good or bad isn't a part of the equation.
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Poor logic, sorry. Unless you are equating your birth with the Holocaust or the effects of slavery. Sounds trite.
 
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