quote:

Wow.

You realize that people read this shit?

Addressing a problem isn't the same as condoning it-- that's what I'm doing, addressing a really existent, empirically undeniable problem. Ignoring a problem and supporting stupid fucking arguments about African slave traders -- that's what you're doing. If anyone is being racist by ignoring that race is an issue, hmmm... let's see... yeah... and the candidate... is... you.

quote:

And make criminal backgrounds disappear once 'criminals' (usually black people) 'serve' (woops... the truth came out) their time.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Elisabella

quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

7) In Africa at the time, especially West Africa, for many it was a matter of enslave or be enslaved. You had to buy guns to defend yourself; the only way you could buy guns was by selling slaves. If you were a leader who impeded the slave trade, the Europeans would have you ousted. Complicit? That's basically wrong, or at least it obscures the important points.

Points 5) and 7) are the most critical.

Except there was slavery in Africa before Europeans bought them:

quote:

Slavery in Africa, the institution of slavery as it existed in Africa, and the effects of world slave-trade systems on African people and societies. As in most of the world, slavery, or involuntary human servitude, was practiced across Africa from prehistoric times to the modern era.

http://autocww.colorado.edu/~blackmon/E64ContentFiles/AfricanHistory/SlaveryInAfrica.html

And continues to this day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_modern_Africa

So you can't really blame the Europeans for a problem that existed before they came and after they left.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

quote:

Wow.

You realize that people read this shit?

Addressing a problem isn't the same as condoning it-- that's what I'm doing, addressing a really existent, empirically undeniable problem. Ignoring a problem and supporting stupid fucking arguments about African slave traders -- that's what you're doing. If anyone is being racist by ignoring that race is an issue, hmmm... let's see... yeah... and the candidate... is... you.

Alot of people will read this... and your comment

quote:

And make criminal backgrounds disappear once 'criminals' (usually black people) 'serve' (woops... the truth came out) their time.

So, lets see your proof of such a claim.

quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Silence,if you feel like discussing these issues,and they are real and relevant issues,feel free to start a thread discussing why America has such a large prison population.But that is not ,strictly speaking the focus of this thread.Now far be from me to tell anyone else they are hijacking a thread...I can go off on a tangent with the best of them...but the issues you are trying to inject here deserve there own thread...rather than as a sidebar to this reparations thread.They are separate and distinctly different issues perhaps both deserving of their own distinct conversations.

• When people like to stress the role of African slave traders in the trade here in America, my question is always "What difference does it make?"  How long did it take for that African to sell that slave? A couple days?   The next couple hundred years of rape, murder, and being worked to death happened here. Once they had their shiny new slave they could have let him go.  But they chose to keep him down.  The 1st generation slave might have been sold by Africans, but his children, and his children's children, were all bought, sold, and put to work, here.  Did Africa have slavery?  Yes. You know what else Africa had? Murder.  Now does that justify the murder of black people in America, or is murder wrong no matter where it happens?

• People need to understand what the "Come on, slavery happened way back then" mindset sounds like to the rest of us. Sort of like a extinguishing a burning man and then telling him, "Yeah I know, setting you on fire was kind up messed up, but it's in the past now" and then refusing to acknowledge that he still has the burns.  I started to go into this rant about the long term effects of slavery on race and class but I'm sure I don't need to, I have faith in you all :-) 

• Let those other countries that have slavery in their pasts worry about how to deal with slavery.  This is our country so we're dealing with our slavery issues.  And the reality is, that the country is what it is today because of the hundreds of years of free labor that fueled the economy of the fledgling nation.  The whole reparations argument, futile as it may be, is about more than, "Oops, slavery. My bad." It's also about recompense for building the country.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

And exactly what was the degree and severity.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8
You most certainly can, especially when the degree and severity of the conditions in question can hardly be compared.

You most certainly can, when Western economic policy continues to strangle African development as well as African American.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

I take it you haven't seen 'Hotel Rwanda'.

quote:


Reparations = Our ancestors did horrible things to your ancestors but the result is you ended up born in one of the most advanced countries in the world instead of dying before 30 from civil war/famine/AIDS/violent rape and murder/all of the above.

quote:

ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

My people were also slaves. Driven from their own lands onto reservations. Women and child raped, families killed, no regard for their lives because they were "just animals". The Trail of Tears was not a walk in the park. It was a death march. Slavery came in lots of forms. Slavery affected lots of people, lots of races, lots of generations. Its a lesson we should never forget, but to lay blame on anyone now is a bit silly. As far as i know, no one alive now ever owned a slave... unless its a consensual one.

quote:

ORIGINAL: VioletGray

The implication here is that we should be thankful for slavery, because if not for slavery then we wouldn't live in this great country.  Part of the reason the country is great is because of the work of the slaves in the first place.

Imagine if one day you got raped, and the rapist says, "Sure, I raped you, but look at all the wonderful friends you made at your support group."

quote:

ORIGINAL: Silence8

quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Silence,if you feel like discussing these issues,and they are real and relevant issues,feel free to start a thread discussing why America has such a large prison population.But that is not ,strictly speaking the focus of this thread.Now far be from me to tell anyone else they are hijacking a thread...I can go off on a tangent with the best of them...but the issues you are trying to inject here deserve there own thread...rather than as a sidebar to this reparations thread.They are separate and distinctly different issues perhaps both deserving of their own distinct conversations.

They're not that separated.

Slaves are prisoners; prisoners are slaves. Yeah, it's a simplification -- that's what thought is, a simplification. Thought simplifies.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Elisabella

quote:

ORIGINAL: VioletGray

The implication here is that we should be thankful for slavery, because if not for slavery then we wouldn't live in this great country.  Part of the reason the country is great is because of the work of the slaves in the first place.

Imagine if one day you got raped, and the rapist says, "Sure, I raped you, but look at all the wonderful friends you made at your support group."

No, the implication is that something that happened over 150 years ago is not interchangeable with something that happens today.

And it would be more like if some guy rescued me from drowning in a lake, and says "Hey, just for the record, my great-great-grandfather raped your great-great grandmother, so uh, feel free to yell at me and say I should have left you in the lake."