Aplogise for slavery?

[Mr. G]

Generally, people just want a sincere apology.

Yeah. I sure as hell want a sincere apology from anyone/everyone who thinks I'm a racist just because my skin is beige-ish pink (aka: white) and because I'm directly related to my ancestors/not related to others of previous generations of "white" people whom I've never personally known or held sway over.

Imagine...

Pretend...

Now imagine that you are told that the person in the picture is "better off" as a slave. Imagine that you are told that "life wasn't that bad for slaves".

Imagine you're Iraqi.

Oh, the irony.

I think it's pretty useless to expect a white individual to say, "I'm sorry," when he never owned slaves. It's pretty useless, also, to expect white descendants of slave wealth to issue those apologies. Culturally, however, it is ridiculous that we should still treat blackness as poorly as we do while pretending that yesterday never happened or, at least, that it has nothing to do with today.

I also think it's pretty useless to expect black African slave merchants to apologize for selling their black slaves to white slave buyers.

I think it's equally culturally ridiculous that poor treatment of blackness is pretended to be all Whitey's doing.

Talk about pretending that yesterday never happened.

I'm expecting an apology I'm predicting you'll never give.

Funny how that works.

 

[Mr. G]

Waiting...

 

[Mr. G]

Waiting...

 

[Mr. G]

Pretty soon I'll be expecting reparation instead of mere apology.

What a system.

 

[Oniw17]

Who's supposed to apologise for slavery?

 

[Vega]

what about genocide???

 

[Tiassa]

Sincere apology can only come from somebody who comited a crime and now regrets it. Since nobody alive here commited having slaves, there is nothing to regret about.

Sorry, Syz, but this is the day I go off on this point: "Since nobody alive here committed having slaves ...." Now, just hang on.

Getting over it and moving on only requires that people do the right thing. If nobody does the right thing, should we really be upset at blacks for not getting over it?

Now then, tell me honestly that none of the profits of slave labor exist in the economy today. None of the families that ever became wealthy by slaves are still wealthy. Oh, wait ... that's not true? Well then, Syzygys, there are still people committing and profiting from the crime. Nobody's committing having slaves? That's just freakin' sick. Seriously, I would love to have that defense in court. I could send someone out to steal something valuable. I could have them bring me that something valuable. I could then defend my possession of it in court by pointing out that I never stole it.

Whole thing's over. My ill-gotten gain should, by that theory, remain mine. And I should never have to apologize or feel badly about the loss I inflicted on another because "I never committed the crime of stealing this thing".

Also you can only ask for apology if you were wronged. If your great-grand daddy was wronged, an apology NOW won't help him and you would be not sincere to accept it anyway...

If the wrong ended with great-granddaddy, sure, you'd have a point. However, the idea that you could even pretend to suggest that the effects of slavery are not still on us is so ridiculously mean-spirited that I realize there's very little chance of communicating the point.

The whole idea that the effects of slavery are gone is ridiculous. Indeed, history textbooks still malign the slaves, and repeat the Myth of Southern Reconstruction as fact despite its contradiction of the original historical record.

If a group is oppressed, and then that oppression breaks, a curious thing generally happens: the oppression finds a new way. The black man is dirty, ill-mannered, unwilling to help himself; not only does this myth fly in the face of history, but it blames the blacks for a condition they did not put themselves in. Show me one group of people so oppressed who recovered in a mere forty years in the face of such steep opposition that allowing them to take part in society somehow equaled oppression of the oppressors. We're about forty years out from civil rights, and white people still resist equality. The process that began with slavery still carries on today. And those who still profit from the imbalance owe much toward its solution; an apology is about the least one might ask.

If you stand around in a group of people watching white men beat up a black man for the crime of being black, sure, you haven't committed the crime of beating him. But blaming the black man for failing to overcome multiple, simultaneous assaults is just wrong. After all, if black men beat a white man, it's never the white man's fault that he didn't win the fight.

Treating people equally and fairly isn't so hard to do. Swallowing illegitmate pride, however, is an accomplishment far more demanding and bitter to the palate.

 

[vslayer]

Yeah. I sure as hell want a sincere apology from anyone/everyone who thinks I'm a racist just because my skin is beige-ish pink (aka: white) and because I'm directly related to my ancestors/not related to others of previous generations of "white" people whom I've never personally known or held sway over.

strange to hear such an ardent capitalist claiming you arent responsible for the actions of your father, while at the same time viciously defending your right to pass on your wealth to your children.

make up your mind. should we all be born with a clean slate and an equal start, or are you - by benefitting from your fathers actions - endorsing them?

 

[Tiassa]

I'm sorry I'm not stupid enough to buy it, G.

Yeah. I sure as hell want a sincere apology from anyone/everyone who thinks I'm a racist just because my skin is beige-ish pink (aka: white) and because I'm directly related to my ancestors/not related to others of previous generations of "white" people whom I've never personally known or held sway over.

I would, too. But it doesn't come up much. Can't remember the last time it did, in fact. Maybe it's your attitude. For instance, I don't think so poorly of your intellect because I think you're white or anything like that. Rather, it's your spiteful attitude, dodgy theses, and incompetent arguments. Maybe this applies in your own life, or maybe you just live in one of those strange neighborhoods where people say dumb stuff like, "Hey, you! I've never met you, but you're white, so you owe me an apology for treating my great-grandpa like a circus monkey!"

Pretend

Once again, your retort utterly misses the mark. That you have no sympathy whatsoever for your fellow human beings might actually have something to do with how you think people perceive you. Maybe it's not your skin. Maybe it's just your striking, glittering inhumanity.

Imagine you're Iraqi.

Oh, the irony.

I'd ask what irony you're referring to, but I'm afraid that we'd get bogged down there. If you bothered to answer coherently at all, your history here suggests that the answer would be one rooted in such amazing contortions of logic that we'll all be surprised that your back's not broken.

I also think it's pretty useless to expect black African slave merchants to apologize for selling their black slaves to white slave buyers.

Given that slavery in the United States changed the face of slavery around the world, I think it's pretty damn ridiculous to expect the African chiefs to have realized what they were getting into.

I think it's equally culturally ridiculous that poor treatment of blackness is pretended to be all Whitey's doing.

Who pretends that? Once Whitey deals with his share for once, the discussion can move on. If Whitey's role dominates the discussion, it's mostly because Whitey is too cowardly to admit that role.

Talk about pretending that yesterday never happened.

Depends on what you're talking about. But you're doing a great job of pretending.

What was it you said? Oh, yeah. "Pretend ...." Seems to be your talent. I suppose I should stop viewing you as lacking creativity or imagination. After all, it does take some effort to be so hateful and arrogant. It would be interesting if you would find some new ways, but your variations on a theme definitely contradict the notion that you are an uninspired dolt.

I'm expecting an apology I'm predicting you'll never give.

Funny how that works.

Yeah. You expect too many apologies.

 

[Islamsmylife]

View from the first Black responder

After reading through all of the threads it seems that I am the ONLY African American to respond so far. Firstly if you follow any of the main monotheistic religions you'd believe that we all descend from the same source Adam and Eve, And if you believe in the theory of evolution you'd still believe that we decended from the same source. So essentially we are all one. The only difference between us is melatonin in our skin. After time we became dfferent races. And depending upon whch time in history you examine any one particular race you'd find that they were once enslaved/ oppressed and they were once the rulers/ dominant. So no race is inferior to others; our only differences are genetics and enviornment .

There is a cause and effect for everything. So regardless of if slavery was 200 hundred years ago or not the effects are still being felt. For example the tactics that were used in slavery were highly sophisticated and strategically excuted to keep the people slavelike generations after. First you disattach them from the origin and home land (history has shown that people rarely beome slaves in their own home land rather they die fighting or escape--ex the Natve Americans) Forced migration has severe effects on a people.

Second you replace their religious beliefs with your religion. This has many effects: for example the concept that Jesus is white psychologically made and is currently making the blacks feel inferior.

The void of any practical education/ realstic opportunities for blacks ensured their lineage's generational cycle of poverty and substandard way of of life.

The psychological divisons of blacks lightskin vs dark skin only deepens the wounds of inferiority and self hatred.

The seperation of parents from their children, husband from wives, and the intentional congoinment of "suitable" males to "suitable" females destorys the family structure.

The raping of the women.

The elevation of blacks as entertainers and the stratigic destruction of blacks as intellectuals had and is still having generational effects of blacks.
There is much more but you get the point.

The flase propagation that whites are superior. And much more

The apology is not important for these and many more crimes that were committed against black Americans but what is important is the acknowledgment from the master status (white mans) infliction of the current cycle of poverty and ignorance that plagues blacks today with simialr tactics still being propagated. Through the double edge sword of the bias hip hop industry back by powerhouse white elites or the inferior educational systems in black neighborhoods surrounded by the liqour and gun stores, through the governmental placement (it is doucmented that this is true) of crack in urban communities, or thorugh the highly influential media/ instutional systems of America.

And just like what the Native Americans recieved benefts for the crimes against them (which is comparitivly nothing) to the hugh benefits the Jews recieved from their atroicity, black americans should not only receive some type of aid (not only finacial but educational) to imporve their socioeconomic situation.

 

[Baron Max]

...black americans should not only receive some type of aid (not only finacial but educational) to imporve their socioeconomic situation.

Blacks are always asking that things be given to them ...without working for it ...just because they're black ...and a few of their ancestors were slaves.

And yet you say, "So essentially we are all one. The only difference between us is melatonin in our skin."

If we're all the same, and should all be treated the same, how can you argue that blacks should be treated differently?

Baron Max

 

[Islamsmylife]

Did you read what I just wrote? It's because of the past and present societial oppression that befell that particular race. Why cant whites admit their history of worldwide oppression domination and indoctrination? You cant really understand the severe results of slavery which remenants still exist today because you see with different bias eyes. So I wont attempt to continually explain.

 

[orcot]

Why cant whites admit their history of worldwide oppression domination and indoctrination?

The've done no more then any other race I suspect the biggest difference is that they did it more to others in stead of themselfs.

Concidering that the crualties of the whites are pretty much true the best defends is to points fingers. This is extremly cruel because especially with africa your get a situation where altough it's still not yustified colonisation was the better of 2 evils. Sorry to say so but it's true
But I wont argue especialy to the I gues the Indians that the whites do have to make a apolegy

 

[Baron Max]

Did you read what I just wrote? It's because of the past and present societial oppression that befell that particular race. Why cant whites admit their history of worldwide oppression domination and indoctrination? You cant really understand the severe results of slavery which remenants still exist today because you see with different bias eyes. So I wont attempt to continually explain.

What you fail to realize or admit is that virtually all, that's right, ALL black slaves were captured and sold to the whites by ......other black men!

Now ...just who owes whom an apology???

Baron Max

 

[Islamsmylife]

This particular aspect of history where they say blacks sold blacks to whites is a little shaky to me. For example how is this proven? what historian do you know that has this documented in details as to how this occcurred? Also how can a black person in Africa communicate with the white colonialists when they didnt speak their language? When you can prove/explain that to me I'd really like to know.

 

[Tiassa]

The institutions of slavery that existed around the world before the American experience is such that the African sellers had no idea what they were selling into. It would be like hiring someone to babysit, and you come home to find they've smothered the baby to death with their ass.

Yeah, apparently it's the parent's fault for hiring a babysitter. It could never be the babysitter's, right?

See, most people don't expect the babysitter to actually sit on the baby. In the modern day, we might fault the parents for failing to check references, but that's not quite a valid argument in seventeenth-century Africa.

Even by biblical standards (remembering that the white Europeans were Christians), American slavery was obscene.

 

[John99]

The institutions of slavery that existed around the world before the American experience is such that the African sellers had no idea what they were selling into. It would be like hiring someone to babysit, and you come home to find they've smothered the baby to death with their ass.

Yeah, apparently it's the parent's fault for hiring a babysitter. It could never be the babysitter's, right?

See, most people don't expect the babysitter to actually sit on the baby. In the modern day, we might fault the parents for failing to check references, but that's not quite a valid argument in seventeenth-century Africa.

Even by biblical standards (remembering that the white Europeans were Christians), American slavery was obscene.

So then when is it good to sell people?

It wasnt only African's who were enslaved, far from it and there are too many skin tones (from this all the way to this) to list who enslaved others.

 

[Baron Max]

Even by biblical standards (remembering that the white Europeans were Christians), American slavery was obscene.

No, it wasn't. It was no different to buying and selling any other animal ...blacks weren't viewed as humans, just wild animals that looked a bit like humans and worked better. Nothing obscene about it from a biblical sense at all.

Baron Max

 

[Baron Max]

This particular aspect of history where they say blacks sold blacks to whites is a little shaky to me. For example how is this proven?

Do some checking and some thinking ...it'll come to you.

Also how can a black person in Africa communicate with the white colonialists when they didnt speak their language? When you can prove/explain that to me I'd really like to know.

Huh? People communicate all the time without knowing the other's language. Where have you been????

Baron Max

 

[Tiassa]

Various

So then when is it good to sell people?

I can't think of a good time to sell people. But if you believe you're selling to one or another condition, and it turns out to be untrue, perhaps you would have thought differently. And so we might wonder of them.

No, it wasn't. It was no different to buying and selling any other animal ...blacks weren't viewed as humans, just wild animals that looked a bit like humans and worked better. Nothing obscene about it from a biblical sense at all.

You've hit on the difference, Max. That's exactly what made it savage. American slavery was fairly unique in its racism. Historically, slaves have been viewed as both commodity and people. The right to hold a person as a commodity was determined by the politics and economy of the times. American slavery, however, established the right to hold a slave based on ethnic lines, because nonwhites were not human.

How many African king, for instance, ever overloaded a freighter and sailed his slaves across the sea, only caring whether they lived or died because of the profit loss and the headache of disposing of the bodies.

Read some of the diaries of the white slave captains: they struggled with the question. They knew that compared to their own chosen historical precedent they were in unexplored territory. To see the slaves suffering and dying wrenched hearts, but, hey, they were not considered human and there was money to be made, so the captains kept doing it.

The slave captains knew at the time they were setting a new precedent for savagery. And most of them kept at it anyway.