US, not africans, responsible for slavery

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

The US had a Constitution, prepared by educated people, which they duly ignored.

Where?

And, you know, I think half a million American deaths - at the time a significant fraction of our population - might be sufficient atonement for the crime of slavery. (yeah states rights/maintaining the union blah blah whatever)

No, not really, as the lives of those ex-slaves improved only slightly in many cases, and sourthern whites found ways to keep them second class citizens.

Besides, as you so unelloquently state, the main reason most Americans fought the war was not slavery itself, but the delegation of powers. So for a second reason, no, the civil war in no way diminishes the culpability of the US in keeping slavery around longer than most Europeans, or anyone else in the Americas, save the Brazilians.

And the US certainly has never done anything really to atone. Whether anyone can atone for such acts or even meaningfully apologize is certainly an interesting question. BUt the fact remains that the UNited States profited immensely from the labor of millions of Africans and to this day, their decendents do not share in any way equally in the fruits of those labors.

But it is always funny to see people speak about just how much they have actually done to appease the sins of the past-even thought its all bull.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Bosh
Well look at it this way. What would happen to the African kingdoms if they didn't sell slaves? They would find it damn hard to buy sufficient guns to ward off other tribes who were looking for people who didn't have enough guys to keep from becomming slaves. As long as one tribe was slaving and using the profits to buy guns, the rest had to start doing the same to defend themselves. Really really nasty prisoner dilemma.

What would the Europeans and Americans do if they didn't buy slaves? Make a bit less money.

Or perhaps those extra human beings could have been utilized to create stronger centralized states, therefore channeling human labor more efficiently, and creating greather wealth from other means, giving them the capital to import manufactured goods like other non-European systems did.....

I think it should be rather obvious to anyone that shifting tens of millions of man-hours of labor from one place to another will do wonders for one, and be terrible for the other.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by GePap
And the US certainly has never done anything really to atone. Whether anyone can atone for such acts or even meaningfully apologize is certainly an interesting question. BUt the fact remains that the UNited States profited immensely from the labor of millions of Africans and to this day, their decendents do not share in any way equally in the fruits of those labors.

But it is always funny to see people speak about just how much they have actually done to appease the sins of the past-even thought its all bull.

I think most people realize it was a very bad thing and readily admit that. Why exactly do we need to "atone"? What meaningful gesture could we possibly make? Every people has done some less than honorable things in their history, and we are no different.

[DinoDoc]

And of course slavery didn't exist before the Europeans got there and it ended when Europeans and Americans stopped buying? I'm weak. Feeding trolls can be fun

[Japher]

The only reason the American's needed african slaves was because the Native Americans were too weak, and died too quickly when put to the field.

[Sprayber]

If left up to some there would be a continual atomement with slavery as a ready made excuse for everything bad befalling them. It's a crutch and some people will never want to get rid of it for that very reason. Get over it and fight over things in the here and now. There are enough problems that actually do matter to people living right now.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


I think most people realize it was a very bad thing and readily admit that. Why exactly do we need to "atone"? What meaningful gesture could we possibly make? Every people has done some less than honorable things in their history, and we are no different.

Saying that one can't really make up for the past, a point I would generally agree with, is different from saying that the country has already paid for the past, as Kuci and Sprayber and others seem to imply.

One wonders of course when any people start to go on about the sins of others and *****ing about how another group of people have not atoned sufficiently for their past.

Now, to a certain extent, a group of people can try to make up for what they did, like the Germans generally did with the Jews, in terms not only of lots of actual apologies, but of material restitution and such. The problem is that the US in the 1860's never even tried with African Americans. The "40 acres and a mule" never happened, blacks did not really get to participate that much in the western land grab. IN short, they went from being slaves to being indentured servants or share croppers stuck to pretty much the same soil.

That, and not slavery, is probably the real sin. NOt that the US was taking part in an ancient system, no matter how hypocritical for a state built on the enlightenment notion of the freedom of man, but that when it finally gave it up, it gave so few and so terrible options for the ex-slave.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Get over it and fight over things in the here and now. There are enough problems that actually do matter to people living right now.

Like the fact blacks make up a hugely idsproportionate number of people with long prison sentences, that because partly of that large sections of their community are disemfranchised, that until 40 years ago in many parts of this country they were second class citizens..stuff like that?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Besides, as you so unelloquently state, the main reason most Americans fought the war was not slavery itself, but the delegation of powers. So for a second reason, no, the civil war in no way diminishes the culpability of the US in keeping slavery around longer than most Europeans, or anyone else in the Americas, save the Brazilians.

OTOH, you are soooo elloquent.

I said that to say that I knew the whole "states rights" etc would be mentioned as a counter and that I don't accept it, not to concede that it is correct.

And the US certainly has never done anything really to atone. Whether anyone can atone for such acts or even meaningfully apologize is certainly an interesting question. BUt the fact remains that the UNited States profited immensely from the labor of millions of Africans and to this day, their decendents do not share in any way equally in the fruits of those labors.

As I said, half a million dead.

But it is always funny to see people speak about just how much they have actually done to appease the sins of the past-even thought its all bull.

This is starting to sound like the doctrine of original sin...

[Cyclotron]

The problem seems to be that there is too much disconnect between the days of slavery and the present day to make much material difference.

The heyday of the civil rights struggle is not long behind us, and you can see that Americans are still attempting to solve the problems we created with institutionalized racism; there is a lot of discourse about rectifying this (perhaps not enough, but it can't be denied that it continue to be a major topic, driving such controversial and important issues like affirmitive action) even today, which is a very good thing.

In the case of slavery, however, we are somewhat beyond the point where such direct methods could be used to right the wrongs of the past. At one point, it might have been as easy as 40 acres and a mule, but now? In the case of reparations, who pays? There have been millions of immigrants since then who probably don't deserve and don't want to pay for the restitution of a 19th century wrong that they didn't have any part in. Many of the companies and families that benefitted either do not exist or have changed into other entities, and we have no real way of fairly assessing them. My family dates back in this country from before the Civil War (my ancestors fought in the West Virginia volunteers - yes, point and laugh ), so maybe I benefitted - but then, West Virginia was on the Union side, and furthermore barely had any slave plantations at all, so how culpable were my ancestors, and how much do I have to pay?

I think we have come to a point where we cannot fairly correct that wrong. We can keep fighting in the present to improve the lot of our african american minority, and to continue educating people against racism, but this is not atonement for slavery - we have other minorities that we have not enslaved that deserve the same kind of social programs and political efforts.

I don't think the civil war "atoned" for slavery - somehow I doubt that when my great, great, etc. grandfather joined the volunteers, it was because he wanted to free the slaves. But more importantly, I don't think we can always atone for history - we can try to right wrongs, but we don't live in the past anymore and we need to let present needs guide us.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by GePap


Or perhaps those extra human beings could have been utilized to create stronger centralized states, therefore channeling human labor more efficiently, and creating greather wealth from other means, giving them the capital to import manufactured goods like other non-European systems did.....

I think it should be rather obvious to anyone that shifting tens of millions of man-hours of labor from one place to another will do wonders for one, and be terrible for the other.

All of that takes time. Once one kingdom started selling slaves the other kingdoms suddenly found themselves in desperate need of guns IMMEDIATELY to stop themselves from being turned into merchandise. There was no other way to raise cash quickly enough to compete with the slaving kingdoms. You had similar boughts of carnage when guns were first introduced to other areas of the world, for example to New Zealand where the appearance of guns unleashed twenty years of carnage.

In othe areas the situations were different and there wasn't any desire on the European part for, say, Indian slaves especially when the Indians already had all kinds of other stuff for the Europeans to grab.

[Kuciwalker]

Clearly Europeans should atone for making guns.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Bosh

All of that takes time. Once one kingdom started selling slaves the other kingdoms suddenly found themselves in desperate need of guns IMMEDIATELY to stop themselves from being turned into merchandise. There was no other way to raise cash quickly enough to compete with the slaving kingdoms. You had similar boughts of carnage when guns were first introduced to other areas of the world, for example to New Zealand where the appearance of guns unleashed twenty years of carnage.

And yet those coastal kingdoms went nowhere. Certainly they had an incentive to sell slaves, but it was very short term thinking. Too bad no statemens rose in West Africa to realize just how to handle the Europeans.

In othe areas the situations were different and there wasn't any desire on the European part for, say, Indian slaves especially when the Indians already had all kinds of other stuff for the Europeans to grab.

Indian slaves were economically unfeasable. No way they would survive that long a journey. West Africa was used because it was so damned convinient.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Clearly Europeans should atone for making guns.

Why? The Chinese invented gunpowder.

Is this the sort of shoddy education they give you?

[Kuciwalker]

Gunpowder != guns.

Though I suppose to someone with your understanding of technology there isn't much difference...