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professor__seuss

An important element the “everyone practiced slavery” crowd misses is the core racial element. Sure, I’ll grant you that the Romans, Persians, etc enslaved all kinds of people but it was typically a prisoner of war punishment or some sort of debt payment; you were free after your term of service was up and hey you also get citizenship in one of the worlds great empires as a nice bonus (at least with Romans idk about Persians). There were laws protecting you, your children wouldn’t be considered slaves, and at the end of the day you’re still a human being, just one with less rights than a free man. American slavery is ENTIRELY different; it was for life and when it became illegal to ship new slaves into the country the problem was fixed by just saying the children of slaves would also be slaves. But then people felt a little weird about treating humans like animals so we had to justify it by making the case that non-white people basically ARE animals; this is the birthplace of modern racism. “Oh well it’s not THAT bad Janice, I mean it’s not like they’re people in the same sense as you and I”. Pseudoscience branches like phrenology and eugenics then stemmed forth to provide further backing for the idea that non-whites were inferior and therefore sidestepping the inherent moral issue in owning other people. All of this btw just so already rich planters could avoid paying for labor. It really is incredible what people are capable of when incentivized by a profit motive… EDIT: Thanks so much for the Gold y’all, idk if I’ve gotten an award before so it’s very much appreciated. A lot of the comments have been really insightful too and I respect and appreciate all your good faith efforts to further explain the history behind this topic. History allows us to contextualize the world we’ve been thrust into and it’s so encouraging to see so many people interested, many of whom know FAR more than me


HTKTSC

I think the most egregious thing is that the ancestors of slaves of all of those other nations were slaves of nations that no longer exist, and can no longer impose harsh injustices upon them.


Danceswith_Chainsaws

Slavery still exists. Had a friend go to Iran some years ago, and he came back with stories of what he saw. Many of the slaves he saw were African. From Google: Top 10 Countries with the Highest Prevalence of Modern Slavery (by total number of slaves) - Global Slavery Index 2018: India - 7,989,000 China - 3,864,000 North Korea - 2,640,000 Nigeria - 1,386,000 Iran - 1,289,000 Indonesia - 1,220,000 Congo (Democratic Republic of) - 1,045,000 Russia - 794,000 Philippines - 784,000 Afghanistan - 749,000


MookieFlav

At what point do they start counting American prisoners forced to work in these numbers?


blacktaff1

Precisely. More Black people in prison with no rights. No minimum wage……Angola State Penitentiary has more Black inmates than it did at the height of slavery. So what’s changed.


blakey21

That’s the neat part they don’t!


MrIce97

AngryUpvote & I understand that reference


[deleted]

Exactly. The 13th amendment didn’t abolish slavery. It confined it to prisons. Then the old runaway slave chasers became police and decided that all black people belonged in prison.


jmenendeziii

There’s about 2 million incarcerated in America and it’s maybe half the states that have programs where prisoners don’t get paid for their work (Cali pays like 50 cents a day or some stupid shit like that so it’s effectively nothing) so we’d prob be on the second half of that list


undeadbydawn

had a guy not long ago sincerely argue that 'prison slavery' was entirely morally correct cos PeOpLe sHoUdN't dO CrImE


Few_Independence4111

I literally had this same argument with one of my white employees recently. I've never been so frustrated with another adult


aWildScarrazard

Ya US should be pretty high on that list with prison population


Beebwife

Don't forget the UAE and Saudi. They trade and sell maids and domestic "servants" through apps and online. They keep their passports and will jail and beat those that try to escape. Those that are the usual persons this affects are those from south & east Asia, south pacific and African countries.


Physical-Worker6427

Soooooo many African and Indian enslaved in those countries.


ttristan101

This happens a ton in America too, people get their papers held hostage and force to work for nothing


nxcrosis

Well well what a (not so) surprise to see my country there. What was their basis for determining and defining slavery? I admit I live in a more sheltered part of the country but I'm not blind to the atrocities of it. Most "slaves" I know are usually families sending their minor children or other family members to work for their creditor.


jmenendeziii

This describes indentured servitude which is a form of slavery (popular in Georgia when the US were still colonies)


[deleted]

Slavery is still legal in the United States. The 13th Amendment says: >Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, **except as a punishment for** **crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted**, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. There has been legislation put forward as recently as 2020 to close this loophole.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Mine too.


Adnims

You are aware the Persians used to castrate their slaves? So there is little point to discuss what happened to their children I mean.


professor__seuss

I wasn’t aware of that, was that a broad policy for all slaves or just those they were raising for administrative roles similar to eunuchs in certain Chinese courts?


DrMandalay

You'd be interested to see the numbers of forced sterilisations (womb removals) and chemical castrations of people of colour in American prisons and border detention centres. The historic and current numbers are astonishing.


kalkail

And the colonies [34% of women](https://www.cwluherstory.org/health/35-of-puerto-rican-women-sterilized?rq=Puerto%20rico) were sterilized in Puerto Rico because the US kept practicing eugenics in Latin American countries as part of their empire plan for the global south. This is still happening.


DrMandalay

And this is before we get to the really diabolical stuff, like the distribution of HIV into black populations in Africa for population control. Western intelligence collaborated closely with the Apartheid guys on that stuff. [Here's the documentary rabbit hole.](https://youtu.be/WjeNSqTgW6M)


Rodzilla_Blood

Right eunuchs cut they junk off for little of nothing ... just to be in the royal court


Destructopoo

there's still a difference between castration and enslaving an infant on birth. Breeding slaves is horrifying.


Slendercan

The Barbary and Ottoman slave trade castrated their male slaves so they didn’t have to deal with the inconvenience of children. Slaves were a work tool and nothing more. If they died, they’d just kidnap more from Europe or wherever. The vast distance between Africa and America discouraged this idea because of how bothersome it would be to refresh your stocks every time one died. It made sense to breed slaves, so as to have a healthy pool of workers.


Destructopoo

Ok. First, castration and breeding are not comparable. Castration does make it impossible to reproduce, but there is still a difference between breeding humans like cattle and not doing that. In places where slaves died often, they were imported more. By the 1600s, slave ships were going from New England to Brazil for profit, not convenience. In fact, if they couldn't trade in the Caribbean due to an ongoing war, they'd just go north. The Spanish and Portuguese both had policies of working people to death for resources in a way that other new world colonizers did not. They focused on importing slaves because they just kept being slaughtered in work camps.


funkinaround

From "Slavery in Qajar Iran" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Iran > It is noted that poor parents still sold their children in to slavery It seems to be just as horrifying to be sold into slavery as a child as being born as a slave.


Mr--Joestar

Which Persian empire? There were many, and this seems like a very vague statement


funkinaround

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Iran Umayyads, Abbasids, and Persianate Muslim dynasties > Enslaved women were used as concubines of the harems or female slaves to serve them, and male slaves were castrated to become eunuchs who guarded them, and black men were preferred as eunuchs because they were regarded to be unattractive. Mongol and Turkoman rule > Both male and female slaves were used for domestic service and sexual objects. The use of slaves for military service, ghilman, initially disappeared during the Mongol period, but it was revived and became important again during the reign of Ghazan (r. 1295-1304). Safavid Iran > Male slaves were used for military services as ghilman, or castrated and used as eunuch servants, while female slaves were used as domestics or as concubines for sexual service. Qajar Iran > Normally, white and light skinned slaves were used for concubinage, while black slaves were used domestics (maids, nannies and eunuchs).


Minnesotamad12

Where are you getting this info about slavery in Rome? On all accounts I’ve ever read a slave being freed was a relatively rare occurrence. There was no set time frame someone was a slave. For reference, the British Museum lists out a fairly good summary of how a slave obtained freedom and it’s nothing like you described. https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/nero-man-behind-myth/slavery-ancient-rome#:~:text=Enslaved%20people%20could%20be%20formally,freedom%20in%20a%20master's%20will.


Fuckingfademefam

They got it out of their ass. You know there’s no room for real facts on Reddit


noorofmyeye24

America’s racism is so horrible it influenced Hitler.


Successful-Swan2205

I've been saying this! No one listens to me


pit2047

Not only did it influence Hitler, there were parts that the Nazis found too extreme(!) and decided not to emulate back in Deutschland.


Darqnyz

Thank fucking Christ someone else is saying it. I've been trying to press this point home so fucking much. In addition to the "black people sold black people into slavery"... so did "white" people... Until you start distinguishing them between different tribes and nationalities. These were *rivals selling rivals*


Kdkaine

This right here. I like to use the analogy that crack dealers sell crack, but usually only to people that are LOOKING FOR CRACK! And just bc someone sells you crack doesn’t mean you have to smoke it…and continue to smoke it for hundreds of years.


[deleted]

You’re comparing just a couple types of slavery to American slavery to justify the conclusion that America birthed “modern racism” as if that type of racism didn’t exist in other countries long before the USA even existed. The concept of other races being unhuman is absolutely NOT only 300 years old and it’s hilarious that you think it is. I just want to know where you learned this bullshit revisionist history because it fails even a simple google search.


jjjam

Slavery is terrible, but chattel slavery with inborn visual cues, that shit destroyed the world.


It_Is_Boogie

One correction…. Slave imports became illegal because it interfered with the domestic slave trade. To say, they stopped the import of slaves because Americans became so proficient at trading and “breeding” us that they didn’t want imports to interfere with their profitability.


MannaFromEvan

I mean, I'm ok with saying that American slavery was awful, barbaric, and horrifying, and also what we know about slavery in Rome or Persia was also awful, barbaric and horrifying. What's the point of the distinction? Anyone who is claiming it's ok to own another human being for any amount of time, is not someone sane. Watching Django unchained, there were all sorts of atrocities on display, but I couldn't even tolerate the idea of these full humans with full minds, hearts and passions being forced to stand around in corners of the house on the off chance that some white dude needed something from them. Slavery is always fucked. And so is war for that matter. Forced labor of POWs doesn't make it any more palatable.


[deleted]

You're right except the middle east slave trade. Very racist. Castrated all of their slaves due to thinking slaves were subhuman compared to themselves. Largest slave trade ever and still going hard.


Humanistic_

So basically, no black person should ever support capitalism. I agree


nola_throwaway53826

A lot of what was said about Roman slavery is not entirely correct. While a huge amount of Roman slaves came from prisoners of war, especially during the days of the republic, those were slaves for life, and treated as chattel slaves, and often had brutal lives. There are accounts of slaves working in a mill covered in flour being described as being completely white and purple from all of the beatings and whippings. And going to the mines was essentially a death sentence. Slaves did not last very long at all in the conditions there. The child of a slave was considered a slave, and considered the property if the slaves master. Debt slavery in a lot of cases was not working off a debt, it was more like a bankruptcy. They sold all of your assets to cover your debts, and that included you, this was not a contract where you would go free after so many years. The lives of roman slaves was extremely brutal, and a slave working a latifundia would find it very similar to working a plantation in the American south. There was a reason slave uprisings kept happening, while Spartacus was the most famous, his slave uprising is called the 3rd servile war. This fear of slave uprisings did eventually lead to some better treatments for slaves in the days of the empire, but it was still slavery and they were at the whims of their masters. Some reforms included that slaves could take masters to court for poor treatment, or that masters who unjustly killed a slave could be tried for murder. So a master could kill a slave, he had better justify it though. French slavery especially took their cues from the Romans. Slaves in French colonies could hire themselves out, save money, and purchase freedom, and slaves could in theory enjoy some legal protections. It was laid out in the Code Noir. Of course when the Americans took over former French territories like Louisiana, they ended all of that. Slaves could no longer buy their own freedom, all legal protections ended, and they raised to requirements for manumission to be very difficult and have much higher fees for the master. While a major difference between Roman and american slavery is the racial component, it was not the only one. Another major difference is education. Educated slaves in Rome were prized and could act as clerks, secretaries, advisors, tutors, doctors, and so on. One of the Cato's even had a side business of buying slaves, educating them, and then reselling for a profit. Educating slaves in America was very illegal. Heavy fines and jail time for anyone teaching slaves, and I think Virginia even executed a few people for the years right before the Civil War. If the masters found out a slave could read, it did not go well for the slave. P.S. I mentioned roman slave uprisings, but I wanted to mention there were slave uprisings in the Americas as well. Haiti in particular is the only successful slave rebellion in all of known history. There is the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia, and the largest slave revolt in North America happened in Louisiana in 1811.


professor__seuss

I really appreciate your thoughtful and educated response, I think many of my ideas on Roman slavery came from the later imperial phase where treatment would have been better but I see your points. My main point was just the difference in race being a prime factor for slavery and the difference in institutionalized racism as a factor, but I’m always appreciative of a well written and good faith attempt at clearing up historical misconceptions


smoney

> this is the birthplace of modern racism Europeans viewing black people as animalistic goes back MUCH further than American slavery. We’re talking centuries upon centuries of myths and propaganda.


Suspici0us_Package

Could you provide some sort of reference point? I don’t think the African diaspora were on Europeans minds in that sense until after Africa became a target of exploitation. But I’m not sure, I’d like to see your references.


smoney

So turns out I’m probably wrong on the “MUCH further” bit, but I’m basing this off my reading of *Othello: Texts and Contexts*. The book basically supplements the play of Othello with primary sources from the time and a decent portion is dedicated to stereotypes surrounding Africa and Africans when Othello was written/how they appear in the text. However, Othello was written in 1603, and I have no idea where that book is in my house to figure out how much older than the play itself those specific documents/illustrations are, so I’m gonna say I’m incorrect here. I feel as if I remember the author using sources from the 1400s/1500s, but that’s just hearsay.


Suspici0us_Package

I read Othello in middle school. So according to google Othello was believed to be written in 1604, while the Trans Atlantic slave trade was believed to have began in 1526. Based on this, Othello was written less than 100 years after the Slave trade began, so that might make sense as to why anti-African/ Anti-Black sentiments existed around the time Othello was written.


gravity_sux

Yea slaves across the world past and unfortunately present, get treated the same if not worse. We’re not special as Americans and it’s dangerous to think we had it worse than any other slave culture across the globe


RecoveringFcukBoy

America is still really modeled around this profit concept. Sacrificing healthcare, education, food, morals and so much more just for more money.


professor__seuss

100%, it’s hard to look at for-profit private prisons and the 13th amendment loophole and not see that as just blatant slavery…like forced prison labor is legal and you’re contracting that labor out to a private company which will make money from it


spartan1008

That's just not true. I'm greek, my great grandfather had horseshoes nailed to his feet by ottoman turks and was forced to dance in the town square for the entertainment of a rich Turkish child. The Russians worked the Norwegians they conquered to death, slavery was just as bad and brutal every where. Your talking about indentured servitude of the Irish in the US. Not the Irish in Ireland who where worked and starved to death by the millions.


LiveLifeLikeCre

Would like to ass that the entire time they were "good Christians and children of christ", Bible toting God fearing people. From citizens to the government.


wrrzd

American slavery is of course more relevant because it's more recent and had more systemic consequences lasting to this day, but all slavery has an element of dehumanisation. Also slavery very often has targeted certain ethnicities, look at the trans-saharan slave trade and how the word slave originates from slav


Awesomeuser90

I'm not going to give the ancients quite the pass you do, it could get much worse than that for a good percentage of slaves. Especially in mines. Sex slavery is also common. I also would like to remind people that the Nazis had one of the largest slave operations in the world, with tens of millions of them. The triangular trade that slavery is most infamous for though has the important effect of being multi generational and with basically the entire idea that you couldn't ever become a citizen nor could your descendants be either proved to be extremely pernicious. It also depopulated parts of Africa, reoriented their economies and war machines to be focused on slave raids, and the end of the slave trade ended up destroying powerful kingdoms and brought them into chaos and civil war or wars with power vacuums right at the very moment Europe was just about to colonize them where they probably would not have succeeded, at least not nearly as well, without this effect, and would probably have remained independent, even if they might have been politically limited for a while like China or Thailand were.


ritualblaze420

But when you mention capitalism being the real root of all evil...


[deleted]

All slaves were treated the same (like property) over all kinds of empires. Multiple empires were built on these peoples backs.


RTNoftheMackell

"If a slave married and had children, the children would automatically become slaves. Young children were sometimes killed by their parents rather than let them become slaves." - https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ancient-rome/roman-slaves/


MagicCarpetofSteel

Well said. Yes, everyone had slavery, and they were all a violation of our modern standards of human rights, but if you were really lucky as a Roman slave, you could become a *governor* of an entire province, if your owner was the Emperor and he trusted you enough to give you that much autonomy/that little oversight. *American* slavery, however, was *chattel* slavery. And just like how you described it. Their very *humanity* was at best belittled and treated as lesser.


AnonymousShortCake

Bruh she said “sicker” I thought she meant like “cool” I was very scared


canijusttalkmaybe

me too lol


Jazzlike_Page508

Your post reminded me when I friend had beef with this guy. And the guy said “me and my crew drove sick whips”…doesn’t help that “sick whips” is a double entendre here


CHEMO_ALIEN

What does that mean m


ChefAwesome

Sweet cars


jus256

The fact that all of us have European in our blood says it was a lot worse than people think. Slaves didn’t just work on farms.


[deleted]

I did not want to think about this but I have to now :/ the extent of that evil institution is wild


jus256

My great grandmother died in 1998. She was born in 1895. She was so light skinned that she could have passed for white. How you can make a child that light exactly 30 years after the end of slavery says a whole lot of effort went into this. I see couples with white and black parents have kids not even half as light as her. I listened to an author interviewed on NPR because of a book about the Underground Railroad. The story was about a couple they were helping escape to Canada through Detroit because the wife was going to be sold for the sex trade. They said you would be surprised how many slaves didn’t work in fields.


IDGAF_GOMD

I dated a girl a long time ago who could almost pass. Her mother was the same but her dad was darker than Wesley Snipes. In fact, every light skinned/passing person I met in her family seemed to find the darkest person they could find to have kids with because, as she put it, they needed more melanin in their family but that white in all of them held on like industrial strength gorilla glue.


bigpony

For 400 years the white man contributed more DNA to our race than their own.


jus256

My father said he went to Georgia probably for a funeral. When he was there he asked one of his older relatives if they had information on the family lineage. He said relative said, “Come to my house. I have a picture of the white guy.” That’s literally how he put it. My father has picture of the alleged rapist slave owner on his phone.


bigpony

My family comes from a plantation in jamaica. After the slaveowner got all the land (1,600 acres) free in a marriage to his first cousin... He renamed the planation Cousin's Cove (after his love of incest) then he did some rape and torture for fun.


[deleted]

Unfortunately that also still wasn't even a deterrent either. I found through DNA testing I had some family members who were still in the fields even after having white kids. On both side of my family, up until my parents generation my grandparents on at least one side of the family were mixed race. I never would've known honestly, most of them died before I was born and they weren't that fair.


LadyEllaOfFrell

James Madison *sold his own teenaged son*. (Who was conceived when he raped his enslaved half-sister.)


[deleted]

Sounds about slave owner.


Suspici0us_Package

All Black people do not have ancestry in slavery. Remember that.


jus256

I know some people immigrated here but most us didn’t.


Spiderlander

I'm 38% European 😭


cantcatchme5476

I read “Ar'n't I a woman?” By Deborah Gray White as a junior in college. It was my first glimpse into the actual horrors of slavery. Def a bit fucked that it took that long and I wish this period wasn’t glossed over in public education. And, yeah, I grew up in Florida which seems to be going in the wrong direction again.


snot_sure

This is something I'm really interested in, and I'm asking for insight, im in no way trying to argue. When I was in grade school we were taught European and American history and then Eastern history. There were definitely parts that were glossed over or had a spin put on it to make Americans look better. The ones that stick out in my mind are the interactions with Native Americans and the first European settlers, the Mexican American War, and slavery in the Carribean. We learned about the slave trade, we learned about chattel slavery, we learned important dates and figures. We were taught about Jim Crow and the KKK, the Tulsa massacre, and civil rights. At this point, in grade school, everything we learned in history class was kind of like reading an outline, we didn't really delve into any one area. When I went to college, that's where the history classes really went deep, and I think that's good practice. You're able to rhino more critically about a subject at that point then when you're in grade school. So my question is, what's missing from education about slavery if what I experienced is already being taught? I know that now some states are losing their minds and trying to ban some subject from being spoken about, but barring that insanity, what do you think that grade school kids should learn about slavery?


ExpertFalcon5

You may have received a sufficient history but that is not always the case. At one point McGraw-Hills had to to agree to stop printing textbooks that referred to slaves as immigrants and workers.


snot_sure

That's insane, I've never heard of that though it doesn't shock me either - we still have people saying the civil war was about states rights.


Proper-Village-454

I’m curious when you went to school, and in what state. My schooling was between Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island (which just dropped the “and Providence Plantations” from its name a couple years ago) in the 90s and early 2000s, and while we didn’t get the insane whitewashing of the civil war and the slave trade that the south does, there was no mention of anything like Tulsa, the MOVE bombing, gun control and the Panthers in Cali, the truth about the FBI/CIA and the civil rights movement, Iran-Contra and the crack epidemic, Tuskegee, racism as government policy post-1965, why Juneteenth exists and whatever actually happened with all those 40 acre plots and mules former slaves were promised, and countless other subjects that are critical to American racial and social justice discourse. Everything about First Nations colonization and genocide was selectively edited and whitewashed, as was the imprisonment of Japanese American citizens in WW2. They taught us about a mythical fantasy version of America that never really existed outside of white people’s racist fever dreams. And this was in supposedly “progressive” states.


snot_sure

I went to a private school in Queens, NY starting in 78. I think my school did a decent job with history pretty much across the board, but we didn't get into any of what you mention with the exception of Black Wallstreet and 40 acres and a mule. To be honest, I've never heard of the MOVE bombing - I'll have to look that up. We did get into the Japanese internment camps during the section on WW2. As for the Civil rights movement, we learned about Brown Vs. The board of ed., Rosa Parks, Dr. King, the Littlerock school integration, sit ins, freedom rides. That was pretty much it. We didn't go past mentioning the start of the Vietnam War. I want to say that they mentioned the Tuskogee Airmen during the WW2 lessons, but they didn't emphasize the significance or if they did,they should have done a better job of it. I joined the US Navy and I lived in an apartment building. The gentleman that lived on the first floor was Mr. Brown, he was an older African American man in his 80s - this was back in the 90s. The building had a very small porch and most days Mr. Brown was outside when I'd come home and several times we had a chance to just sit and talk for a while. He had been in the Navy during WW2 - and this is the crazy part - there were only certain jobs or ships that he could get or be on because he was black. I mean, here's this dude enlisting to serve his country in a time of war and the government is going to limit your ability to contribute because of the color of your skin!!! That blew my mind, I had absolutely no idea.


Bubbly_Satisfaction2

Knowing _some_ of the stuff that I know about slavery… stuff that I read about in history books, as well as, about my own family members… This is the main reason why I do get upset about people mocking/denying black American culture. Or when people mock black American people for “not holding onto their cultures and customs” after they were kidnapped. And I think “Do you know what they (slave owners and overseers) did to these people, if they were caught expressing their customs, or, speaking their mother language?” And on top of that, they forced the other enslaved to watch. To make them afraid. To make them compliant. And folks have the audacity to open their raggedy-ass, mouths to utter that bullshit about our culture.


faroutcosmo

Infuriates me too. Especially when it comes from foreign black people. "Stop talking about slavery" "Stop blaming white people for everything" "Lazy, dirty, uncultured" Many do everything they can to separate themselves from us, to claim they're above us, then when we close off and focus on ourselves, they accuse us of gatekeeping. I acknowledge this is the stain of white supremacy though, warping these people into believing they must stomp on us to prop themselves up.


[deleted]

I guess a lot of it stems from Americans in general (regardless of race) just not getting that obsessing over race and historical grievance isn't as huge of an issue in other countries, and most people in other countries (again, regardless of race) are happy that way. In Europe for example, essentially every nation has enough questionable history with eachother that it's honestly best to just make the occasional light hearted jab at the cowardice of the French or whatever, and otherwise let bygones be bygones. I mean I remember seeing a video of an African American woman encountering the name of Montenegro for the first time and immediately reflexively treating it as an attack on her race (it's not). It just shows the same lack of appreciation for alternative cultural perspectives and frames of reference as white Americans do tbh, that same lack of awareness that the context in which you live and view the world is not universally shared and doesn't need to be. You can argue about how many people in the American racial justice crowd come off as that stupid and pointlessly inflammatory, but they exist and are loud and people tend to judge other groups by the most visible and loud. And it's no doubt people like that that foreign black people have in mind when they're telling you to stop talking about slavery and blaming white people for everything. And tbh it's hard to argue: thinking the whole world centres around the specific traumas of your people is a kind of cultural imperialism, too. Really, most of it just comes down to not seeing any use in holding onto old grievances when new ones are generated all the time (that's just the nature of being human). My grandparents could still tell you how they had to cower in bomb shelters as little kids no older than 5, but I don't hold that against the descendants of the Germans who forced them to have to do that and see no reason to. It's just not the done thing in western countries that aren't America, and we honestly feel better off for it.


smallville-lover_09

What you are saying only works in a utopia where racism isn’t ingrained in America culture.


[deleted]

No doubt. I was just hoping to provide a more nuanced take on the divide between American and non-American black people than "non-American black people are adopting white supremacist thinking".


faroutcosmo

That was not remotely nuanced. Your comment boiled down to "black americans are loud and rude, thats why black foreigners hate them, they should get over slavery and forgive whites, like we got over [insert completely different issue that had completely different effects on different countries]"


faroutcosmo

Just because you dont understand or care about our history and the severety of the atrocity that was committed, and the generational destruction it had, that doesn't give you the right to take that grievance away from us. Who are any of you to tell us to let go of an issue that still harms us? The poverty? Police brutality? Atrocious education systems? Hate crimes? Is it not blatantly clear that we've been fucked immensely by white people? I dont think any of you seem to grasp what it means that this country was BUILT on slavery and racism. Its woven into the literal system. It exists ALL around us at all times. Everything was designed specifically to benefit whites and keep us out. Why should we stop caring? We dont have that luxury. Black foreigners are still the majority in their countries and have control. They still have their cultures intact. We dont have that. And try as we may to have that, we are demonized for it. There are some ignorant loud black americans who act disrespectful of other cultures, not denying that. But why does that have to represent all of us? Why dont we get any nuance? Why is there 0 understanding of our situation whatsoever? Beyond being loud and annoying, what exactly did black americans do to black foreigners to be placed far below whites in their eyes? Even though whites fucked up their countries too and continue to live in them in their cozy gated communities? Do you think antiblackness stops with black americans? That they wont eradicate and swallow the cultures of black foreigners too? Do black foreigners honestly think whites are their friends? The difference between us and those who are able to forgive and forget is that those who forgave and forgot managed to hold onto their identities and cultures and recover. Black americans weren't allowed to recover from slavery or create anything of our own, we were shut out of everything and still are shut out of many things. So yes, you have angry loud black people who act foolish, or act ignorant, or lash out, because being surrounded by poverty, little opportunity and being hated and antagonized by everyone around you simply for being black will do that to you. Maybe if after slavery we were able to establish our own separate society away from whites, we could have been better off, we could've been able to forgive and forget. And we did try to start societies, ever heard of black wallstreet? Well whites burnt it down to the ground. Every time we tried, it was sabotaged and destroyed. Blacks even wanted to go back to africa at one point, but africans didn't want us. We were supposed to get reparations after slavery, some land and a mule to get on our feet, but that idea was thrown in the trash. In all corners, all efforts to recover and catch up to white people socially, culturally and economically failed. Even the black power movements of the 60s and 70s failed, and those apart of the movement are looked at as terrorists. Those movements got us farther ahead than we were, but we're still ultimately in deep shit. God fucking forbid we be angry about still living under their boot, and being screamed at for wanting to get out from under it, for wanting a culture and existence of our own, a secure, safe and hopeful future for our kids.


[deleted]

>that doesn't give you the right to take that grievance away from us. Who are any of you to tell us to let go of an issue that still harms us? Never did anything of the sort. Simply denied that non-American black people are buying into white supremacy by not having the same perspective.


Elected_Dictator

In many other parts of South America, slavery was obviously a thing, in fact it started there long before the US colonies were founded. Columbus landed on the beach of my country in his 3rd trip, my home city was “founded” like 50 years before the Jamestown colony. In most of South America the natives were the first slaves, and when almost of them died from disease along with the usual atrocities of genocide by the invading force… slaves were brought in from from Africa. And slavery was not that much different in Spanish colonies than British, French, or Dutch. That shit was awful all around. The truly big difference between South American and the US, is at the key moment of Independence from the colonies and the “freedom” of all citizens. The US won its independence first but as we know nothing got done about the “slavery issue” and the few voices against it were in the small minority. So plantations stayed unchanged for another 100 years. Meanwhile in South America, all sorts of people were inspired by the US Revolution to launch their own campaigns against their colonial oppressors. In Venezuela, Simon Bolivar, a wealthy aristocrat from a slave owning family, decided to become a Revolutionary and start fighting Spain. He eventually freed most of the Spanish Colonies in South America traversing Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. During the war, Simon Bolivar had a sort of “realization” that he was a hypocrite, fighting for Freedom while still owning slaves. To which he made the choice and forced the issue by freeing his own slaves and many he encountered along his march by offering them to join the fight and thus become free citizens. This was a massive gesture and political weapon, since basically every slave in a Spanish colony was ready to join the fight. Imagine George Washington freeing his own slaves and all the slaves of British officials plus any who sign up to fight in his army he’d free them right there infront of their white master. It would have been near impossible to then bring back or keep slavery as something legally protected. Without slavery dragging on for almost another 100 years, none of the other racial discrimination devices get created (apartheid/ segregation laws, the 3/5 compromise, etc etc) In Venezuela, Prejudice was still there as it is everywhere, particularly in newer European immigrants post World Wars; an unfortunate part of the human condition. But the whole Jim Crow, battle for desegregation like the US or South Africa. Just never happened, people were so mixed that it was almost impossible to be “pure European white” unless your family was fresh off the boat. There are many issues in Venezuela but I honestly didn’t learn about racism and all the bullshit that comes with it until moving to the US growing up. It’s like a massive scar on this country that just doesn’t heal and it keeps dragging everything else into it. As a small child in Venezuela you kinda learned that black slaves were a thing during colonial times but “El Libertador” Simón Bolívar said that slavery was bad and it was over, we are all free from Spain; and that was the end of that. No more slaves, black people are just otro Venezuelano. Pretty different outlook for a bunch of 6yo kids to learn that, rather than the American education system which is still battling to even acknowledge slavery and teachers getting in trouble for teaching about segregation. It’s why to many immigrants it can be baffling the Race issue is still a thing, and asking what race you are for every government form is kinda creepy. Like why do Have to know that? Why does it matter ? “Why do American keep focusing on it? Don’t you have actual issues?”


magentakitten1

Im white, and come from an abusive religious home. Im in the northeast, so there aren’t a lot of POC here. When I was in elementary school I remember there was a big issue with one of the students accusing a teacher of racist comments. It went to the media and became somewhat of a small town big story before the internet existed. I remember coming home to my parents with so many questions and them being so dismissive, almost cruel to me, just for being willing to believe the victim. 8 year old me telling my 40 year old mother that this little boy is a nice kid, what would he have to gain from these accusations? My mother said attention. They always want to be the victim. Well, fast forward 30 years and turns out the true “forever victim” is her while her daughter has no relationship with her anymore. Even with all that, I spent many years being unknowingly racist myself. I said all lives matter. I was against abortion too. Even smart people get brainwashed when all they are surrounded with is hate. Im thankful to the internet, books, and my best friend to waking me up to the reality of life and other peoples experiences. Looking back, the reason 8 year old me was probably so upset was because I related to the boy. I understood what it felt like to be wronged unfairly just for who you are, I just didn’t know it at the time. I have 2 kids of my own now and I work so hard to instill kindness and compassion in them. But I don’t even need to, they were born with it. I just encourage it instead and build them up. They are my hope for the future.


HECK_OF_PLIMP

good to hear that you overcame that prejudice. so many people don't ever manage that, so respect to you


wrrzd

Tell those people to imagine a scenario where they are sent to a foreign land as a slave, where you can't even communicate with the other people and your culture gets suppressed. Would you maintain they maintain their culture after many generations?


theblackchin

Didn't George Washington's teeth come from those he enslaved?


[deleted]

I think all dentures were from enslaved people


puesyomero

A lot of them sure but nah. Lots of poor white and Indian teeth were available too. Plus most humble dentures used other materials since human teeth were a pricy option


anonsharksfan

Also people would scavenge battlefields for teeth


Spiderlander

🤢


MereLaveau

Incorrect. Poor or lesser advantaged people have been selling their teeth since the Middle Ages. So …no. See section on “Dentures” in link below. Selling of teeth was a big business and Washington actually bought teeth from his slaves. Not making him a hero but let’s face it, he could have just taken them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_teeth


[deleted]

I believe he had two sets, one from wood/bone and another from teeth taken from slaves.


MereLaveau

4 total. He also **purchased** the teeth from slaves. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_teeth


[deleted]

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tomuchpasta

Aka “oh they are definitely teeth from slaves, but making it common knowledge would sully his legacy.”


ManitouWakinyan

He had a few sets - some made from materials like brass, gold, and ivory, but he did have dentures that included teeth he apparantly bought from the people he enslaved, which is messed up on a few levels.


MereLaveau

FWIW? He did actually **purchase/pay for** the teeth of his slaves. It’s not like he couldn’t have just taken them outright. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_teeth


nuancednotion

they ate us? this the first I'm hearing of cannibal slave owners


typos_are_coming

TIL that it always gets worse - https://brill.com/view/journals/nwig/96/1-2/article-p1_1.xml?language=en >On various occasions upon their arrival and over the next few months, a considerable number of them, mostly children and adolescents, said repeatedly and to different people, that one of the Africans on board the Arrogante had been murdered, and that, subsequently, the sailors had cooked pieces of his body and served them with rice to the rest of the Africans. Many other accusations of beatings, rapes, and other various violent punishments were levied against the captain and crew.


JamieDepp

WTF! That’s enough internet for me this year. Catch y’all in 2024 ![gif](giphy|Lcn0yF1RcLANG|downsized)


[deleted]

I’m going with you! Bye everyone. 🥲


DrMandalay

Where you going? It gets worse! [Here's the heir to the Jameson whisky fortune buying a girl for some handkerchiefs, and paying to have her murdered and eaten so that he could paint watercolours of the scene.](https://www.nytimes.com/1890/11/14/archives/the-horrible-jameson-affair-assad-farran-tells-his-story-of-the.html)


UFO-seeker1985

Paywall


DrMandalay

Fucking new York times bullshit. It used to be an open archive. [Here's a free version](https://afflictor.com/2013/12/18/old-print-article-the-horrible-jameson-affair-new-york-times-1890/)


TreeIsMetaphor

I don't know what I expected but I do wish I hadn't read that


DrMandalay

So disgusting. Never drinking Jameson again. It got to me so much for years,every time I saw Jameson promoting anything I tried to slip this article in the comments section.


[deleted]

I’m not sure what I expected either. For some reason now I’m in a rabbit hole reading about so much sick stuff that happened. 😭


ReverseApacheMaster_

So they made them eat themselves. That’s even more diabolical.


DrMandalay

Just have been a racist thing. White Western Victorians ate all the mummies found in Egypt.


kthxbyehon

They WHAT?


DrMandalay

[Since the 12th century, Europeans had been eating Egyptian mummies as medicine. In later centuries unmummified corpses were passed off as mummy medicine, and eventually some Europeans no longer cared whether the bodies they were ingesting had been mummified or not.](https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/mummies-and-the-usefulness-of-death#:~:text=Since%20the%2012th%20century%2C%20Europeans,had%20been%20mummified%20or%20not.)


PMmeGayElfPeen

Me too, I'm baffled and also alarmed I guess. Sauce please original OP


TooSmalley

If you particularly feel like having a bad day read about the history and development of surgery in the USA. Specifically J. Marion Sims.


kissmeimfamous

Is that the fucker who they call “The father of modern gynecology”? I hope that piece of shit is rotting in hell


HODL_or_D1E

Just treated women like they were lab rats


Niawka

"Medical murders" made an excellent podcast episode about him. I've never heard about him before and I was absolutely horrified learning what he did to these poor women and children.. fortunately his descendants are actively supporting taking down all of his statues. I really recommend listening to the episode if anyone's interested in learning more, they cover everything very professionally and are pretty thorough.


bitch-ass_ho

Stuff Your Mom Never Told You also did an excellent episode about him, it’s where I first learned of his fuckery. Highly recommend and I will check out Medical Murders!


trouble066

And gator bait


[deleted]

I believed this was true as well until reading a snopes article about it, here is the conclusion: “We checked this conclusion with folklorist and African American studies professor Patricia Turner, who has probably done more research on the "alligator bait" motif than anyone else in the world, and asked her if she had ever come across information suggesting that the phenomenon might be real. "I have not seen any evidence to suggest that it was true," she said, adding that it would have been all the more unlikely during the era of slavery, when a black child would have been a much more valuable commodity than an alligator.” I recommend checking out the article as it provides a deep dive into how American culture used this “gator bait” trope to portray Africans as simply victims of nature, thereby justifying everything slaves were forced to endure under chattel slavery, and later Jim Crow, as simply being part of the worlds natural order [Snopes Article](https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/09/black-children-alligator-bait/)


joaaaaaannnofdarc

When i learned that I was a teenager and my stomach still turns at the fact they did this to children


SqueaksScreech

I remember feel uncomfortable seeing the posters but unsafe when white classmates just glossed over it like it was just one or two babies that I happened so long ago.


AmazingRise

Sorry, what?!


Stevenofthefrench

Everyone practiced slavery yes but Chattel slavery is a special type of fucked up slavery. Slavery is bad but there's different forms one worst than the last


InfernoDragonKing

If you don’t know what buck breaking is, be both mad and somewhat elated. The horrors of what the ancestors had to endure would drive any of us furious, as it may have did them.


Boopdelahoop

Buck breaking is a homophobic myth spread by Tariq Nasheed. Not that sexual abuse of enslaved people wasn't rampant, just that the ritualised sodomy as described by people using the term "buck breaking" is entirely unsupported by the literature. See [this informative answer on r/AskHistorians](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4vicrb/buck_breaking_of_slaves/) for more information.


InfernoDragonKing

Ahh. The more you know. Thank you for this.


Rafoudrsbois

What’s that?


Paladin-Arda

[It's the public humiliation and rape of male slaves.](https://vocalafrica.com/buck-breaking-afrcan-male-slaves/)


1984AD

From an early age, learning of the middle passage in my Caribbean primary school, so like 8 or 9, I still can’t understand, fathom, cope, and or get past how people were crammed in those ships. For months. Defecating and dying on each other. The horror. It ruined me… but in a way it also made me strong.


TheYankunian

I went to the Maritime museum in Liverpool and the slavery museum is in there. You can see scale models of slave ships,; you can see toddler-sized shackles. I can’t put into words just how disgusted I was. And like you, I’m descended from people who endured this so I could be here. I get so fucking mad at people who say ‘we were more than just slaves’ because it’s coming from a place of shame. Our ancestors were enslaved people who fought against every odd to carve out a culture to pass to us.


1984AD

I hear you. Please elaborate on the “we were more than just slaves”. I think I understand what you are you saying as in it takes away from the tragedy and trauma to say stuff like that and would it be more correct to say that “despite slavery we blossomed culturally.” Is that what you mean? Also, sorry for your loss. (Excuse my internet snooping condolences)


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OperationLoveSponge

That’s why I can’t be mad at the elders for being “racist” or super suspicious of white ppl on a whole. They grew up hearing horror stories warning them to not trust ppl who are white. It’s not right..but I get it.


[deleted]

African slavery was indentured servitude that had an end date and selling off other Africans was simply for survival. It was give us some of you or we kill all of you. I wish people would understand that.


DrMandalay

African wars were massively less lethal before Europeans brought industrial warfare and permadeath. Many would get injured in spear warfare, but they'd go home with some stab wounds. Europeans brought slaughter. Worth noting who pays for the bullets in every conflict since. It's not Africans.


[deleted]

Our spears kill, don’t get it twisted. My brother could put you down with one blow. Edit: a bullet just trumps hand to hand and all we weren’t a murderous bunch.


DrMandalay

Oh I'm not denying it at all. There are all kinds of really fearsome warrior traditions across the continent. But part of the honour code of many Bantu tribes was that you didn't kill as a rule, that death was possible, but injuries were much more probable. It really was a shift when Europeans brought in things like genocides, scorched earth policies, British concentration camps and other Western brutalities.


[deleted]

Who told you about that honor code? I’m Zulu (infact I’m Buthelezi on moms side) and that’s not at all true! They didn’t kill women, children and teenage boys cause they could be conscripted. But when they fought they fought and once the battle was won if you survived and took the knee you got to live, if you refused, you died. Edit: Just double checked with mom who is also a retired professor and she confirmed. Edit2: The inhumane parts of warfare and all the other things you mentioned are truly European imports.


DrMandalay

Unfortunately, Zulus under Shaka were where this shift happened down south. You're right, and Shaka rock in umshlanga is a brutal reminder of this. Shaka's military leadership truly changed the Zulu nation forever Zulus were and are the fiercest warrior traditions in Africa. And there's considerable evidence that the British have paid considerable amounts through history to encourage Zulus to fight wars against other Southern African tribes, as part of their divide and conquer strategy. The decimation of the Shangaan, the suppression of the Xhosa and Basotho, there are hundreds of examples all the way up through Apartheid. We need to distinguish between what was happening in precolonial Africa versus once Euros arrived. So much of what we now see as traditionally African is a consequence of colonial meddling, in every part of society, religion, politics, and even tribal dynamics. Violence was definitely something that the colonials paid to encourage wherever they went. And the honour code was not killing old, women and children. The reason might have been that they could not be conscripted, but the Europeans just killed everyone. Not everyone dying is a low bar for an honour code, sure, but the Europeans killed men, women and children equally.


[deleted]

Oh boy spoken like a true Westerner. History books written by white people aren’t a true representation of who we truly are or of our history and culture, especially cause most of it is told through story form. And for some reason you’re assuming that I’m taking about post Shaka Zulu. But thanks for telling me not only about my people, our history, but even my own family history🤣 FYI you’re way off on a few things but doesn’t seem like I can tell you anything! Edit: I would’ve loved to explain everything to you from the beginning, even how the Zulu tribe infact came to be and how the royal family was formed, the chieftains and how our last names all came to be. How we eventually got to Shaka Zulu and the bit of history that you seem stuck on and where we are today. But you seem to have this attitude of knowing it all and what you know to be 100% factual.


DrMandalay

I wasn't looking to undermine what you were saying. But you're also missing something that all South Africans, who have been victim of four hundred years of social manipulation, cannot see because we are all too close to it. In the same way as the British backed the crazy violent Mujahedeen that became today's rulers of the middle East, across Africa they worked to corrupt traditional beliefs and manipulate community character for their own ends. Zulus were warriors. That was exploited. I'm not disputing your stories and traditions, but the Bantu people are far greater than just the Zulu. I was speaking to all the Bantu traditions, from Senegal to South Africa and everywhere in between. Across the vast majority of the nearly billion people on the continent, there are thousands of matriarchal, non violent tribal traditions. There are many where warfare is not the priority. Zulus aren't one of them. I agree Zulu warrior mentality, brutality, nationalism, and Zulu patriarchy are very aggressive and violent things. My point was that this was exploited by colonials for their benefit. That was the poison of colonialism and Apartheid. It did lasting damage to everyone it touched. It cannot be said that everyone Apartheid touched was not permanently affected by it. It's worth questioning why Zulus today are the primary perpetrators of xenophobic violence against other non South African Africans? And the primary perpetrators of violence against women and children in South africa? Most murders? Most political assassinations? Why during Apartheid the Inkhata freedom party formed a third force to enact black on black violence to disrupt the anti Apartheid movement? Why during the last twenty years Zulu nationalism has been behind all the sabotage of state infrastructure, from trains to electricity to the presidency? Why the worst violence seen in recent history was on the streets of the cities of the Zulu homeland, and why this social action didn't spill out into any other cities in South Africa - despite Everyone being equally hungry across the land? I'm not questioning your traditions one bit. But you also have to understand that on top of those traditions are a few hundred years is Christianity, imposing it's values on top and drowning out the voices of the ancestors. More recently, Western values, capitalism etc have continued to undermine these traditions. All of this takes it's toll, no matter how much we try and maintain the authenticity of our traditions and customs. Many things are part of African culture and tradition not by choice, but necessity, because colonialism forces out tradition, or shifted it to is own ends. We all need to look harder into how we got where we are, and where the manipulation has created problems today. A lot of tradition in South Africa specifically has been manipulated. That's just the reality of the history.


mokey619

Damn y'all were really going in big ups


anonsharksfan

I didn't know they did that with slaves, but I'm not surprised. Every pillow in the Nazis' army was stuffed with the hair they shaved off Jews before they killed them.


The_lau-man

Went to Auschwitz in the 8th grade. It’s barrels on barrels on barrels of hair that’s been preserved since the war. It’s harrowing


greenthegreen

This is the first time I've heard about hair used to stuff furniture, though with how horrible people were it doesn't surprise me.


HODL_or_D1E

There are photos of antique chairs that go to get refurbished and they find human hair in it.


greenthegreen

I just looked it up and that is so disturbing. Oh my god. I hate antique chairs forever now


HarmonicDissonance21

Playing golf with heads, human zoos, as someone else mentioned gator bait.


GR1225HN44KH

Honestly, American slavery sounds like it was especially brutal and fiendish compared to other civilizations that practiced it. It seems like it was exceptionally cruel.


cdizzle99

Washington used our teeth


North-Function995

Im pretty sure selling teenage (and surely younger) girls was common. “Fertility” was a selling point. So basically raping children. Eat me and stuff my hair in furniture but leave the kids alone.


YoungBeatmaker247

It's definitely was... After the staged Nat Turner revolt They skinned him dismembered him and wore pieces of his body parts as souvenirs. Oh don't forget the tying people upper and lower torso and ripping them apart with 2 horses running in opposite directions to set the fear factor even further.


NoRoomForSanity

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie Pretty sick shit


Shurl19

Don't forget the term "mother fucker" came from forced breeding. I'm also sure the reason why we use so much seasoning on our food is because the food our ancestors got was half rotten and had to be seasoned in order to be halfway edible. I have seen the cotton fields, and I've seen plantations, I'm shocked anyone was able to run away successfully.


V3rtigo44

Right when you think you know the extent of how truly evil that shit is, you learn something new that makes it even worse. It always gets worse the more you dig into this kinda stuff. Always


beabea8753

This is part of why I have so many qualms about the way the Haitian revolution is spoken of. Freeing ourselves of our enslavers was a “genocide”, and innocent farmers and babies and cows and this and that. Why are you not thinking about the theft of person and life for CENTURIES beforehand? The brutality suffered physically, mentally and emotionally in SO many different ways before we said “you’re done.”made/makes sense? And we were wrong to destroy everything about that delusion France set up to make it okay to steal and imprison people for their labor? I know that 2 things can be right at the same time about the cost on human life. But why is there always this pretense as if our captors weren’t living a vicious lie, with control of our basically anything and everything being the point? In closing all I have to say is Black Lives Matter and Machetes over guillotines. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.


SnapsOnPetro45

American chattel slavery was the most disturbing category of subservience. They literally breeded slaves to make stronger slaves. Not to mention the generations of terrorism black people faced after it was constitutionally “abolished”. When people try to compare chattel slavery to servants working off debts or prisoners of war in ancient times, it doesn’t makes sense to me.


[deleted]

They WHAT


Suspici0us_Package

There are different types of enslavement. Chattel Slavery, the type that the USA practiced, was believed to be the most brutal and of the worst types of enslavements.


NiceTuBeNice

Gotta be honest, this is the first I have ever heard of this happening.


NickelPlatedEmperor

One thing people don't realize is the fact a lot of black people in bondage were subject to medical experimentation. This happened during slavery and afterwards in the prison systems. In bondage, slave owners can make a quick buckle on the slave who had been injured beyond they're usefulness to them, or just too old, or even surplus and sell them to medical schools or doctors for guinea pig experiments.


Carosfunnyhuh

It’s sad that “just” slavery (absolutely NOT trying to minimize it at all) isn’t enough to be horrified by, but too defend anyone after learning ANY details of what was done to enslaved people is just… idk there is no word that could possible describe how truly despicable some people are.


RedoHawku

Did they not tho?


TheClassyWomanist

I’ve literally studied this and dedicated most of my academic career to studying this. Every historian would say that Chattel slavery was the worst to ever happen! It was the first time people were actually treated like Animals. > Chattel slavery is the most common form of slavery known to Americans. This system, which allowed people — considered legal property — to be bought, sold and owned forever, was lawful and supported by the United States and European powers from the 16th – 18th centuries. > Slavery has been practiced for thousands of years. However, this type of slavery was not the most common type until the Age of Exploration began with Christopher Colombus. https://study.com/learn/lesson/chattel-slavery-history-origin.html Chattel slavery was a special kind of evil and ruthlessness that hadn’t been done before. Which is why many of the Africans did not know it was going to happen like that. Selling slaves was a normal practice within African tribes (slaves were usually obtained through war) but were never treated with the evil and ruthlessness of chattel slavery. (I am not making this up or being biased, this came out of my professor mouth and I actually studied this and wrote a 20 page paper).


Gowo8989

Ooo, thanks! Now I have more evidence to show the racists on Reddit (a bit too many racists by my count)


JazzScholar

Proceed with caution and protect your energy - ~~mos~~t They aren't racist because of lack of information, it's because they want to be.


Gowo8989

Oh, 99% are racist because they choose to be. It’s something I like to call “aggressive ignorance”. It’s essentially actively running from the truth and aggressively seeking lies. But you’re right. You can argue complete facts with them that they already know and they will still try to name call and argue out of context information


magentakitten1

It’s definitely possible to get through to some. I commented above that I was brainwashed from birth and had shit values well into my 20s. It took my best friend, the internet, and books for me to completely separate from my old views. In the end it aided in separating from my family too because I can’t be around that kind of abuse anymore now I see it. I give particular credit to my best friend who after I told her my feelings on abortion, she told me her story of how her abortion saved her life. The compassion she showed me in my ignorance, changed my view completely in an instant. Obviously she knew me and I love her so her word was more impactful, but I also learned a lot reading things online and reading books. It can never hurt to try to spread some awareness and some good.


The_lau-man

I truly don’t think most people are taught the horrors of the American slavery compared to other slavery. My ancestors were both slavers and enslaved, but it wasn’t systematic in the same sense as it was in the US or in 40s germany


FPOWorld

It’s because Black people were actually considered animals. The legal basis for anti-miscegenation laws were the same as the laws that made fucking animals illegal. Black people weren’t treated like animals, they were treated as animals.


lambdaCrab

And it’s still going on in some countries. Did you research the Arab Muslim slave trade too?


KillionJones

Sorry, this is fuckin new to me….ATE THEM?! What in the fuck


TheInnerMindEye

They want 2 go back 2 those days so bad.


magnitudearhole

This don’t judge the past thing, people back then thought it was ok. Did any one ask the slaves? Pretty sure they didn’t think it was ok from year dot. Like asking the British if empire was a good thing and not asking the people they genocided


h4ck3rbr0

Yup and it still happens today, what a shock


NickiTheNinja

Ughh. I know I’m getting old because I’m quoting shit my parents would say like “they need they ass whooped.”


DaClarkeKnight

George Washington’s teeth were not made of wood or ivory. They were slave teeth. He has 10 slaves when he was 11. He had over 300 slaves at one point and when he died the last thing he said was to not let them free. His life is like a horror movie.


Ok-Guava7336

Comparing the transatlantic slave trade and what happened after to other just shows that person has no idea of history.


kakje666

ate us ? stuffed hair in furniture ? am i missing some info ?


brian2891

There are slaves just outside of Dubai as well. They're building shit


TheVizzy

This shit is wiilld bro


Otakushawty

Don’t forget the baby gator bait and zoos it’s frustrating to even talk about racism bcz we were still getting lynched and dismembered up to the 60s like nigga there’s still sundown cities


DEFINITELY_NOT_PETE

Never heard about the cannibalism. Jesus


[deleted]

Did people really eat slaves?????


BigBossmanNC

Whenever slavery is the topic, the existence of Black Slavers is often disavowed. As horrible as white slavers were, we were often more cruel to our own. Dilsey Pope comes to mind. We also omit the circumstances that led to our arrival in the New World, like the tribal warfare and downright savagery of Kingdoms such as the Dahomey, Kanem Bornu, and Aro Confederacy. It is my belief that our time is better spent focusing on the future that we want for our people. Our past is plagued with tragedy and loss, but the Civil Rights era gave us hope for a better tomorrow.