40000 Rapes in Congo

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by bfg9000


Unfortunately, this thread has not escaped the pile-on mentality of many OT posters who could care less about evaluating an argument and care more about just making a cute or outrageous post...

Yep, that is just typical behaviour around here.

[Spiffor]

Re: Consider this...

Originally posted by bfg9000
Africa became a continent of violence, war, fear and famine.

There is no causality between this statement, and the rest. Slavery did not turn Africa into a continent of violence, war, fear and famine. The forceful "modernization" of Africa turned the old, traditional and small scale conflicts into major ones. It also allowed a population boom.

And still, Africa is no more full of war, violence, fear and famine than 18th century Europe. Wars do occur, famines do occur, but people can generally live their lives, because war and famine are far from covering the whole of African territory.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Caligastia
Yep, that is just typical behaviour around here.

Cali, you're an avowed racist. It is no surprise that 'Poly dogpiles you, simply because very few people here are racists like you are.

If you were an avowed nazi, would you be surprised that people dogpile you?

[Caligastia]

Re: Consider this...

Originally posted by bfg9000
Africa became a continent of violence, war, fear and famine.

Violence, war, fear and famine were not exactly uncommon in Africa beforehand. You make it sound as if every misery that Africans suffer was unknown to them before the slave trade.

So I ask you again, as an African-American would you have wanted your ancestor to stay in Africa or head to America with the Europeans?

The vast majority of "African-Americans" have some european ancestors in their past. Therefore, without the slave trade, their ancestors would never have come in contact and these individuals would never have been born. I think you'd make a more convincing argument if you argued that Black Americans can thank the slave trade for their existence. If you could somehow know that someone's ancestors would have come together without the help of the slave trade, then yes, that person would have a reason to be thankful that their ancestors were brought to America, but I seriously doubt there is anyone like that alive today.

[Spiffor]

I don't know. The reason why I exist is because my mother fled the Romanian dictatorship and ended up in France, meeting my father.

I don't think I am thankful for the Romanian dictatorship however

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Cali, you're an avowed racist. It is no surprise that 'Poly dogpiles you, simply because very few people here are racists like you are.

If you were an avowed nazi, would you be surprised that people dogpile you?

I have never referred to myself as a "racist". Yes, I believe there are significant racial differences, but I don't think its fair to use such a negative word to describe someone who holds this belief. It might be accurate if you go by the strict dictionary definition, but IMO true racism is a form of hate, and I don't hate anybody as a result of my opinion on race.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I don't know. The reason why I exist is because my mother fled the Romanian dictatorship and ended up in France, meeting my father.

I don't think I am thankful for the Romanian dictatorship however

Don't you like existing?

[Drachasor]

The slave trade did do great damage to the existing governments in Africa, and quite argueably some even collapsed because of it.

However, there are are number of things you have to then consider about this.

1. No one should be "thanking god for slavery" since the trade caused great harm overall. It is quite possible that *without* the slave trade, Africa would have developed in a much more progressive and peaceful manner, thanks to the fact the native governments didn't collapse. The slave trade made Africa worse and caused a great deal of anarchy which Africa is still recovering from in many areas, imho.

2. Nor should anyone be thanking the slavers. That is like thanking someone for giving you a job after they kill your family on purpose. You might be better off with the job than you would have been jobless and an orphan, but that doesn't mean you should be thankful to the murdering job-giver.

3. At best you could say that looking back, it is perhaps better to of had your ancesters enslaved as opposed to staying in Africa, but this isn't the case for everyone in Africa certainly, so you can't be entirely certain about this. In any case, this is being thankful that you were involved in a lesser disaster, or less affected by the disaster. It was still a disaster however.

-Drachasor

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I don't know. The reason why I exist is because my mother fled the Romanian dictatorship and ended up in France, meeting my father.

I don't think I am thankful for the Romanian dictatorship however

Do French citizens of Romanian descent have a better quality of life than native Romanians?

[Arrian]

So I ask you again, as an African-American would you have wanted your ancestor to stay in Africa or head to America with the Europeans?

Or, alternatively, would you have wanted the Europeans to just stay the hell out of Africa?

I think many would take option #3.

After all, if the Europeans hadn't colonized Africa and engaged in the slave trade (no, slavery wasn't new to Africa, but on that scale? Come on), what is to say that the antecedents of this African-American couldn't have emigrated to the United States normally, as opposed to on a slave ship? You know, like so many other people did, seeking the land of opportunity?

To assume that the only way Africans could get here is via the slave trade is silly... much like the basic premise of this thread.

-Arrian

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by Arrian


Or, alternatively, would you have wanted the Europeans to just stay the hell out of Africa?

I think many would take option #3.

After all, if the Europeans hadn't colonized Africa and engaged in the slave trade (no, slavery wasn't new to Africa, but on that scale? Come on), what is to say that the antecedents of this African-American couldn't have emigrated to the United States normally, as opposed to on a slave ship? You know, like so many other people did, seeking the land of opportunity?

To assume that the only way Africans could get here is via the slave trade is silly... much like the basic premise of this thread.

-Arrian

Do you spend a lot of time wishing that things from history did not happen and basing arguments on those wishes? My argument is not hypothetical, yours is.

Reality Check: read a few posts back - the one that I begin with "Slavery was not new to Africa".

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Do you spend a lot of time wishing that things from history did not happen and basing arguments on those wishes? My argument is not hypothetical, yours is.

Reality Check: read a few posts back - the one that I begin with "Slavery was not new to Africa".

Even you admit it was very, very different when done by the West.

And you have completely ignored my posts, on multiple occasions.

-Drachasor

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Do French citizens of Romanian descent have a better quality of life than native Romanians?

Generally yes. And in my case, the difference is astounding (I'm comfortably middle class in France, which PWNs pretty much everybody in Romania, save for the super-rich).

Yet, I don't think I should thank a brutal dictatorship that killed thousands, kept a population in fear, and generally destroyed my whole country of origin.

As for my existence: if my mother hadn't met my father, his sperm would have given somebody different, and her ovaries would have given somebody different. Heck, had they made love with one day of difference, I would have never existed. Like everybody here, I am purely a result of chance. And as such, I don't feel I should cherish the circumstances that led to my birth. It could have been a billion of different individuals, and I wouldn't be here to regret it.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by bfg9000

Do you spend a lot of time wishing that things from history did not happen and basing arguments on those wishes? My argument is not hypothetical, yours is.

Reality Check: read a few posts back - the one that I begin with "Slavery was not new to Africa".

Your premise is that an African-American should be happy his/her ancestors were sold as slaves because it got them here and thus allowed them to have a better life than they would have had in Africa.

This breaks down if you remove the assumption that the only way those ancestors could have gotten here is in the belly of a slave ship.

-Arrian

[Brundlefly]

Re: Re: Consider this...

Originally posted by Caligastia

The vast majority of "African-Americans" have some european ancestors in their past. Therefore, without the slave trade, their ancestors would never have come in contact and these individuals would never have been born. I think you'd make a more convincing argument if you argued that Black Americans can thank the slave trade for their existence. If you could somehow know that someone's ancestors would have come together without the help of the slave trade, then yes, that person would have a reason to be thankful that their ancestors were brought to America, but I seriously doubt there is anyone like that alive today.

Yes, I see your point again. If I knew more about philosophy maybe I could challenge you on the subject of existence, but I don't, so I'll concede that to you.

It is better for me to argue this not as it benefits individual African-Americans, but how American slavery has benefit the African race as a whole because it has allowed Africans to assimilate into a stronger conquering culture and make significant contributions to humanity. Contributions that they were not going to make had they been left in Africa to be ravaged by 19th-century European Imperialist economic exploitation and colonization.