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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A challenge: how did you benefit from slavery?
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
The challenge is to find out to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery. Did you attend a college or university that was built on land taken from Native Americans, or built with slave labor? Do you work for or own stock in a company that benefited directly from slavery? Or did your parents or grandparents? If you're in the UK, did your family benefit in any way from the Triangle Trade?
And what about the modern prison industry? Is your 401K invested in private prisons or in companies that exploit prisoners and their families?
Could you be standing where you are right now if you weren't standing on the backs of slaves?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
Economists estimate that pretty much every American has benefitted from slavery/oppression of indigenous persons. During 200 years of slavery/forced settlement the US built up an enormous reserve of wealth which is what pretty much everything built upon. Not just the more direct examples Josephine cites but pretty much everything can be traced to that. In one of his addresses (can't remember which one) Lincoln reminded the country of this-- essentially saying "you northerners can get off your moral high horse because you benefitted from the economic subsidies of southern wealth"). Since there was never any attempt to pay reparations to freed slaves/descendants of slaves, that wealth is part & parcel of the American economic system to this day, able to be leveraged advantageously.
The point being (as Josephine is alluding to) that it's no good for American whites to say "hey, I don't need to repent of slavery, I never owned slaves"). We all benefitted from slavery, regardless of whether we or our ancestors owned other human beings.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
Not just America. Here is a fairly depressing list of public buildings in Liverpool financed directly or indirectly through slavery.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Could you be standing where you are right now if you weren't standing on the backs of slaves?
No, I wouldn't.
Aside from echoing what cliffdweller said, I can point to lots of more direct connections. I do live in the South, after all. On a more personal level, I have in my house two pieces of family furniture that we guess may have been made by slaves. One is my chest of drawers. The other is a small table in our living room. Both are simply made but quite handsome.
Who knows—maybe neither was made by slaves, or maybe they both were, and some other family pieces we have were as well. It's not something I can undo if they were. What I can do, though, is let them be tangible, regular reminders to me of just built into the woof and warp of my life the effects—and benefits—of slavery are.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
My grandparents immigrated to the US from Denmark in the early 20th c. So it would be easy for me to believe that since they came more than a generation after the Civil War and the forced resettlements, I have no connection to those evils (of course, if we start opening that Viking history book...)
But... my grandparents were able to settle on land that was cleared by that early wealth accumulated thru slavery and stolen from indigenous peoples. When they moved West, it was to land that was explored and cleared thru violent and oppressive means, not just of indigenous people but also of Asian workers. The roads, buildings, everything that was and is part and parcel of the infrastructure-- was built with that early slave wealth.
Then there's the fact that even though they were immigrants who didn't speak the language and were often mistaken for those awful Germans, there were certain assumptions made about them because they were white. They could enter into a community, safe that their neighbors would assume that they were law-abiding, intelligent, and hard-working until proven otherwise. Similar assumptions would not be made of African- and native- Americans, even though those individuals would have greater knowledge of the language and customs of the US. That gave my grandparents significant advantages in work. educational and business settings-- advantages that I inherited both in material and social assets that were passed down and thru similar assumptions still made about me today as a European American.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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AmyBo
Shipmate
# 15040
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Posted
As a child, I was relieved to learn my ancestors were to poor and too northern to have been involved in the slave trade.They settled the prairie, building homesteads and farms on what was then the frontier. I know their faith precluded them personally from harboring ill will towards any people. But their settlement encroached on Ojibwe land.
I also like to point out that they crossed into the US from Canada without any documentation. By today's standards, my white family were non-English speaking illegals. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posts: 122 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Aug 2009
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I think that instead of dwelling on the past, one should ask about the slavery (and institutions nearly the equivalent) that persists today. It is one of the easiest societal vices to reinvent.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by AmyBo:
As a child, I was relieved to learn my ancestors were to poor and too northern to have been involved in the slave trade.They settled the prairie, building homesteads and farms on what was then the frontier. I know their faith precluded them personally from harboring ill will towards any people. But their settlement encroached on Ojibwe land.
and, again, was built with the wealth that was accumulated and/or subsidized by southern slave dollars.
quote:
Originally posted by AmyBo:
By today's standards, my white family were non-English speaking illegals.
This is true of virtually all European Americans whose ancestors immigrated here up until at least the 20th c. "Illegal immigration" is yet another convenient mythology invented to suppress "the other".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
I believe there to be a huge, inevitable irony about this whole question.
The world's economy is now so heavily dependant on a few global corporations, so many of which benefitted from slavery to a greater or lesser extent, that to a very real extent, we are all touched by the economic legacy of slavery.
Our economic connectedness now challenges the ability of history to define whether or not we have benefited: if we trace our families' history back that may or may not show effects of slavery, but across our global family now, we are all touched by it.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I think that instead of dwelling on the past, one should ask about the slavery (and institutions nearly the equivalent) that persists today. It is one of the easiest societal vices to reinvent.
The two are not unrelated. It is precisely because we (white Americans) have allowed ourselves to believe that slavery has nothing to do with us today, that enslaving and oppressive systems continue today. The same mental "lockbox" that allows us to ignore the way past slavery benefits us economically today allows us to ignore the way slavery on the other side of the world benefits us economically today. Talking about our past helps us to see the way the past is still impacting us today. We won't move forward w/o dealing with the past.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
None of us now alive today could be here without the probably violent and certainly messy exploitation of people in the past. The past was not a nice place. Go back far enough and you too have an ancestor who clouted someone on the head with a rock and then ate him.
I agree it is not likely to help, now, to dig back into the past. After a certain number of years/centuries/millennia we should accept that it's over. The dead have buried their dead. We have to live today.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I agree it is not likely to help, now, to dig back into the past. After a certain number of years/centuries/millennia we should accept that it's over. The dead have buried their dead. We have to live today.
This may be true cross-pond, not for me to say. But in the US, it's barely more than 1 century past, and it's definitely not over. The events of this week have demonstrated how very much it is a part of our present. If we are to live today, we will have to deal with the legacy of the past.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Cliffdweller, you seem to think of slavery only in terms of its past in the U.S. There was plenty of slavery before it came to the North American colonies, and there is plenty of slavery left today, in many places and in several forms.
I am unsure of the purpose of this thread. One could similarly ask how you in your life have benefited from the French Revolution, the opium trade, the Protestant Reformation, the Silk Road, the building of the Roman roads, or the conquests of Alexander.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Cliffdweller, you seem to think of slavery only in terms of its past in the U.S. There was plenty of slavery before it came to the North American colonies, and there is plenty of slavery left today, in many places and in several forms.
No, I'm trying not to speak beyond my own sphere. I was explicitly acknowledging that slavery did (and still does in some parts) exist outside the US. I just felt it was important to focus on my own country. It would be hypocritical for me to speak beyond that.
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
I am unsure of the purpose of this thread. One could similarly ask how you in your life have benefited from the French Revolution, the opium trade, the Protestant Reformation, the Silk Road, the building of the Roman roads, or the conquests of Alexander.
The point is because that legacy is still impacting us today in the form of economic, social, and judicial inequality. If we wear blinders and just say "well, that happened a long time ago and has nothing to do with today" then you're apt to be less sympathetic toward movements like BlackLivesMatter and programs like affirmative action which are trying to deal with these basic inequalities. When you look at how the legacy is still a part of our economic, social, and political systems today you're more likely to see why these movements and programs are needed.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
Back in 2004, I visited Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.
Cape Coast Castle was the centre of the slave trade. As most of you will know, Britain did not have slaves but we became rich by exporting slaves from West Africa to the West Indies and United States.
Nearly 200 years later, I stood there and felt the ghosts of that place.
The slave trade is part of what made the UK wealthy. The wealth of the UK is the reason I got my education and healthcare and why I am where I am.
So, yeah, I benefited from slavery.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Cliffdweller, you seem to think of slavery only in terms of its past in the U.S. There was plenty of slavery before it came to the North American colonies, and there is plenty of slavery left today, in many places and in several forms.
No, I'm trying not to speak beyond my own sphere. I was explicitly acknowledging that slavery did (and still does in some parts) exist outside the US.
I'd say it does exist within the U.S. too. Why else do we have a similar rate of drug use between Caucasian and African-American people and yet a hugely higher rate of incarceration for African-Americans. Who then conveniently get to work for $0.25 an hour. But that's not slavery at all, right?
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Cliffdweller, you seem to think of slavery only in terms of its past in the U.S. There was plenty of slavery before it came to the North American colonies, and there is plenty of slavery left today, in many places and in several forms.
No, I'm trying not to speak beyond my own sphere. I was explicitly acknowledging that slavery did (and still does in some parts) exist outside the US.
I'd say it does exist within the U.S. too. Why else do we have a similar rate of drug use between Caucasian and African-American people and yet a hugely higher rate of incarceration for African-Americans. Who then conveniently get to work for $0.25 an hour. But that's not slavery at all, right?
Yes, which is why it's called
The New Jim Crow.
Which, again, is not unrelated to the prior slavery. Which again, is why we can't just dismiss it as something "in the past" with no relevance to today.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I'm probably going to regret this (okay, I regret it already) but I have a hard time seeing how anybody can actually "repent" the sins of another person, ancestor or no. I think we can take actions to try to right historic wrongs, and we should. And we can look and see where we might be repeating the sins of the past in the present. But beating my breast because one or more of my ancestors (possibly--I have no discernable ties to slavery) was probably oppressing others of my ancestors (American Indian, in my case)? Meh.
My newly-assumed guilt is not going to help anybody. If anything, it is likely to inspire emotional rebellion against the extra burden (as in fact it is doing in me right now). I think I can get on with peace and justice work on the grounds of "it's just right to do that" without the guilt stimulus.
And the corresponding self-righteous stimulus ("Yes, you rotten descendants of Andrew Jackson, you oppressed my people!")--well, I don't need that temptation either. Better to attempt to root out assholery in myself using other methods.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Or, put it another way, we all have sinned. It's in our blood and heritage -- hitting Neanderthals with rocks and eating them, you know. The very fact that you are here now reading this is due to the fact that one sperm, and not another, hit the egg. All the others, sadly, died.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I have no knowledge of having benefitted from historical slavery, and if I did I'm not sure what I could do to right the wrong that was done.
I discovered through a news item that the sourcing of fish in the tins I was buying my cat was from ships that employed slave labour. I immediately switched to locally slaughtered meat. I'm also in the process of tracking down the volunteers who run a Seafarers' Centre to make a donation to their work.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
I hate to say it, but in the 1600's my ancestors in Connecticut owned slaves. I was not aware of this until 12 Years a Slave came out and member of the extended family reported he found my family owned slaves in the property records.
I also knew that the branch my maternal grandmother came from also owned slaves. They lived in Tennessee.
My wife's family were strict abolitionists as far back as she can tell.
[ 10. July 2016, 01:28: Message edited by: Gramps49 ]
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I agree Lamb Chopped, well said.
There is so much wrong in the world right now, so much starvation, desperately ill people with no medical care, child abuse, violence, women mutilated as a part of cultural tradition, and of course the slavery that continues in many places. It's overwhelming just as it is now without taking on the burden of guilt over things that happened in the past over which we have no control.
I understand that awareness of historical wrongs help keep us from repeating them, but I'm not sure how it benefits the present to find things like slavery in a company's history unless we're prepared to boycott them all. Most older companies have some history of child labor or horrific working conditions. Just think of the fire in the textile factory in Lowell. The coal mines in West Virginia once considered the loss of human life as a fair trade for saving money through skipping safety measures.
I think it's enough to try to make things better now. There is a danger that self-flagellation over the past can serve as a salve to the conscience that might delay doing anything about the problems of the present.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Or, put it another way, we all have sinned. It's in our blood and heritage -- hitting Neanderthals with rocks and eating them, you know. The very fact that you are here now reading this is due to the fact that one sperm, and not another, hit the egg. All the others, sadly, died. There is nobody with clean hands, nobody who can say "I'm totally innocent."
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Darn, sorry there are two versions of that. I thought the backspace button was working, but no....
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Our wealth is stolen goods, stolen land, stolen lives. We can't / won't give it all back, but we can still be judged on how we as a society handle our stolen wealth. Do we allow fewer and fewer people to hoard it or do we actually use it to benefit all the people?
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
we have a similar rate of drug use between Caucasian and African-American people and yet a hugely higher rate of incarceration for African-Americans. Who then conveniently get to work for $0.25 an hour. But that's not slavery at all, right?
Yes, which is why it's called
The New Jim Crow.
Which, again, is not unrelated to the prior slavery. Which again, is why we can't just dismiss it as something "in the past" with no relevance to today.
Very much in the present in multiple ways.
Private prisons are guaranteed something like 97% occupancy, meaning enough people have to be thrown in prison and kept there past parole eligibility to keep them full. I read an article a year ago about prisoners trained as firefighters for forest fires and a states Deputy Attorney General argued in court against releasing prisoner firefighters early because their nearly free labor saves the state 80 million dollars a year, freeing a firefighter early would hurt the state. (At least one judge agreed.)
Nixon created the war on drugs against the advice of the committee he appointed to declare marijuana dangerous (look up Shafer Commission), they concluded Marijuana private use is harmless and should not be criminalized, but Nixon overruled them. "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman.
The history is well known and yet we *still* have those harsh laws based on nothing but Nixon's personal political benefit. (In USA it has been illegal since Nixon to do any scientific research that demonstrates marijuana is not harmful. Any research that accidentally discovers usefulness instead of harm gets shut down immediately.)
DEA has LOTS of staff, many of those jobs depend on having lots of "criminals" to investigate and arrest.
The prison industry needs lots of arrests to stay profitable (not just private prisons, in some areas the local sheriff is given a food allowance for prisoners, if he can feed them for less he legally pockets the difference).
If prisoners learn useful skills or make a fair wage, they will be able to create a life outside and not return to prison. Is that why the system is not set up to promote learning marketable skills? (Often there are not even GED classes.)
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I agree Lamb Chopped, well said.
There is so much wrong in the world right now, so much starvation, desperately ill people with no medical care, child abuse, violence, women mutilated as a part of cultural tradition, and of course the slavery that continues in many places. It's overwhelming just as it is now without taking on the burden of guilt over things that happened in the past over which we have no control.
I don't feel any burden of guilt over things I had no control over, nor do I flagellate myself about it. I just think it's important to be honest with myself not just about history in general, but my own family history, both good and bad.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
I discovered through a news item that the sourcing of fish in the tins I was buying my cat was from ships that employed slave labour. I immediately switched to locally slaughtered meat.
I fret over awareness that the clothes I buy are made by people obviously paid very little. Is it slave labor or the Northern (USA) equivalent the "company town" where workers were kept in debt to the company and worked until disabled or dead and then the family kicked out pennyless, or is it a good job with decent wages and safe conditions that can churn out t-shirts for less than I have to pay for the fabric to make one myself?
I stopped eating chocolate when I read just about any we buy is mixed with chocolate from slave labor, but are the pickers of the tomatoes or lettuce I eat treated much better? How can I know?
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm probably going to regret this (okay, I regret it already) but I have a hard time seeing how anybody can actually "repent" the sins of another person, ancestor or no.
I don't care if anyone repents of the sins of the past.
I am more than content with this:
quote:
I think we can take actions to try to right historic wrongs, and we should. And we can look and see where we might be repeating the sins of the past in the present.
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
I discovered through a news item that the sourcing of fish in the tins I was buying my cat was from ships that employed slave labour. I immediately switched to locally slaughtered meat. I'm also in the process of tracking down the volunteers who run a Seafarers' Centre to make a donation to their work.
Huia
This is extremely laudable. If people cared more for the slave labour which produced their food than buying cheap prawns, coffee, biscuits/cookies and chocolate, we could be a massive force for change.
[ 10. July 2016, 03:26: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm probably going to regret this (okay, I regret it already) but I have a hard time seeing how anybody can actually "repent" the sins of another person, ancestor or no. I think we can take actions to try to right historic wrongs, and we should. And we can look and see where we might be repeating the sins of the past in the present. But beating my breast because one or more of my ancestors (possibly--I have no discernable ties to slavery) was probably oppressing others of my ancestors (American Indian, in my case)? Meh.
I'm going to disagree with you, even though the few times I've done that in the past I've always regretted it (because I usually end up seeing the wisdom of your side). I think this reflects the individualism that is so completely woven into our society and for that reason, completely woven into Western (and particularly) American Christianity. I think we're reading this individualism into Scripture. I just don't think we can separate ourselves off from our society that easily. We are part & parcel of it. We can't act as if we're not a part of it-- we are. We have benefitted from it, as detailed above. And we (those of us who are white Americans, anyway) continue to benefit from it, whether we chose it or not.
I don't think any of us who live in American can claim to have "no discernible ties to slavery", for the reasons cited above. Again, my ancestors came here a generation after the Civil War so certainly never owned slaves. And yet they benefited from slavery, as we all do still to this day.
There is a strong biblical thread of communal repentance, that is just as strong and consistent, if not more so, than individual repentance. We have sinned as a community, and we continue to sin as a community. We have not taken actions to reverse the horrible results of our sin. So we, as a community, need repentance. If we saw anything this week, we saw our desperate need for restoration-- and that begins with repentance.
I would agree that we shouldn't spend our time anxious over things we don't have control over. But that's the thing-- we do have control. We have control over the choices we make about consumer products, as detailed above. But we also have choices about things like affirmative action that are seeking to rectify inequities that are a legacy of the past, including slavery and oppression. There is still more work to be done to continue to address the persistent inequities that can be linked to the legacy of slavery. When we repent, we will be led to do that work. That's what repentance means. And it is something we very much have control over and can choose, right now, today.
[ 10. July 2016, 03:40: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
My newly-assumed guilt is not going to help anybody.
The difference between shame and guilt is helpful here.
It is not appropriate to assume or project guilt for actions taken by others (such as Jews blaming themselves for Jesus's death, or Gentiles demanding that they do), but is is not inappropriate to feel shame for actions taken by collective entities with which we associate ourselves.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
To invert the question, how do the winners of history NOT benefit from slavery?
And to answer that question, we do not benefit except in material well being at others' obscene cost, historically, currently and robbed from the future.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Originally posted by Huia:
I discovered through a news item that the sourcing of fish in the tins I was buying my cat was from ships that employed slave labour. I immediately switched to locally slaughtered meat. I'm also in the process of tracking down the volunteers who run a Seafarers' Centre to make a donation to their work.
Huia
This is extremely laudable. If people cared more for the slave labour which produced their food than buying cheap prawns, coffee, biscuits/cookies and chocolate, we could be a massive force for change. [/QUOTE]
To be honest I reacted so quickly because it was happening locally - although the crew concerned were from S.E Asia. I thought our government had taken action so that boats fishing in the NZ economic zone were covered by NZ laws to prevent this kind of thing taking place. I was really angry to find this wasn't so. It may be naively optimistic of me, but I expect the laws here to protect people better than this, and I felt both angry and ashamed they didn't. Also I could easily source an alternative.
It's kind of weird, but I think I hold my country to a higher standard than I do other countries* because the exploitation of clothing workers has not been on my radar as clearly. It is almost impossible to buy clothing that isn't imported, so I need to do some research on ethical employment practices.
* I just realised that as I was writing this, so I haven't really thought it through.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
It is almost impossible to buy clothing that isn't imported, so I need to do some research on ethical employment practices.
We, as nations, just don't care enough. Clothing, as you say, is largely imported. And much is made in heinous conditions and workers, many children, die unecessarily every year.
If we cared enough, this would not be true.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
Hard to tell from here (UK shires)/Wasp.
Guessing from family trades at WW1-WW2 not obviously direct individual beneficiaries (I.E nothing suggests money from shares or anything)*.
Practically given at least 1000 ancestors at the time (having the extra century) and various things (such as dead child workers not having kids) it's highly likely got some DNA from those who benefited greatly, but nothing else obviously inherited.
Town Library is Carnegie, so that has clear connections.
Hospital is local landowners land, in the current form I think the money mainly comes from the clearances, dissolution and court positions in the C17th (...).
Other civic structure is offshoot of farm machinery trade.
Town had a number of anti-slavery campaigners (missionaries), not sure if that implies other activities.
Inland so again, town industry I think grew after and wrt supplying the army, so more likely indirectly Indian money than slave money.
University almost certainly connected with slave owners (it definitely had some future ones as students).
So I think it would be a question of average effects for Britain. Which someone else can prob go into. But skipping to the conclusion, there's lots of reason why it's not the case that UKIP are beheading random people while ISIS are celebrating leaving the Persariabian Union. And why the 'victims' of UKIP are getting as much sympathy in Germany as the victims of ISIS. But some of that's down to Blair/Bush and multiple other chains many of which are tied to slavery.
*which isn't particularly helpful, but contrast with say Cameroon.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
My mother's father's family had a biggish country house with farmland near Tunbridge Wells - much now under the Bewl Bridge reservoir. Money must have come from investments, so probably some from slavery, via sugar or something. Since they lost the lot via some bad investments advised to them by someone bent, karma presumably struck. My grandfather was supposed not to get married but to keep his mother and sister in the manner to which they had been accustomed, in the small cottage they could afford, but he took no notice of that.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
The challenge is to find out to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery.
Benefited relative to what counterfactual ? What exactly is the slavery-free alternate history you're assuming here ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
There is a strong biblical thread of communal repentance, that is just as strong and consistent, if not more so, than individual repentance.
That is not the same as "identificational repentance". In NT terms, it makes no sense at all to repent of the sins of our fathers.
Communal repentance involves somebody leading the community in repentance. If that person is not a legitimate representative of the community, the process is meaningless. In my experience, in Christian circles such ceremonies are very likely to be a substitute for engaging in any practical action.
ETA: I also would like to know just what Josephine is seeking to achieve here.
[ 10. July 2016, 13:27: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
The challenge is to find out to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery.
Benefited relative to what counterfactual ? What exactly is the slavery-free alternate history you're assuming here ?
I'm not sure what you're asking. If I asked,
"How much money did you make at your job last year?" you wouldn't respond, "How much money relative to what counterfactual? What exactly is the job-free alternative history you're assuming here?" That just doesn't make sense.
So what is it that you're asking?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
The challenge is to find out to what extent you and your family have benefited from America's long history of slavery.
Benefited relative to what counterfactual ? What exactly is the slavery-free alternate history you're assuming here ?
Thanks to slavery and colonialism, my Irish ancestors were able to escape starvation, genocide and Catholic sharia law. The "alternative" history is the history of the people who stayed i.e. your ancestors.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
ETA: I also would like to know just what Josephine is seeking to achieve here.
Sorry, for some reason I didn't see your post when I replied to Russ.
What I'm trying to achieve? A conversation.
I've seen discussions before of the long-lasting harm of the American institution of slavery, harm that continues to the present day. But I have rarely seen discussions of the long-lasting benefits.
Those discussions are rare because they're uncomfortable. But I think they're important. I think it's important, if we're to understand what's going on today, to understand how our present follows from our past. I think it matters.
I think it's too easy, for those of us who benefit from the legacy of slavery in this country, to say, "That was a long time ago. It doesn't have anything to do with me. It just makes me feel guilty or ashamed. I don't want to talk about it."
But I think we need to talk about it, even if it's uncomfortable, and even if we don't want to. I think that understanding how we continue to benefit from the legacy of things that happened 150+ years ago allows us to see how others continue to be harmed by that same legacy.
The fact that some of my ancestors were slave-owners in Mississippi has an effect on my wellbeing, and that fact has a different effect on the wellbeing of the descendents of the slaves.
I think these things are worth thinking about, and worth talking about.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Communal repentance involves somebody leading the community in repentance. If that person is not a legitimate representative of the community, the process is meaningless. In my experience, in Christian circles such ceremonies are very likely to be a substitute for engaging in any practical action.
Very much agree. The solution though, IMHO, is to call/work toward communal repentance that IS paired with meaningful action. Something like the truth & reconciliation commissions that were enacted in South Africa might be a model.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
ETA: I also would like to know just what Josephine is seeking to achieve here.
Sorry, for some reason I didn't see your post when I replied to Russ.
What I'm trying to achieve? A conversation.
I've seen discussions before of the long-lasting harm of the American institution of slavery, harm that continues to the present day. But I have rarely seen discussions of the long-lasting benefits.
Those discussions are rare because they're uncomfortable. But I think they're important. I think it's important, if we're to understand what's going on today, to understand how our present follows from our past. I think it matters.
I think it's too easy, for those of us who benefit from the legacy of slavery in this country, to say, "That was a long time ago. It doesn't have anything to do with me. It just makes me feel guilty or ashamed. I don't want to talk about it."
But I think we need to talk about it, even if it's uncomfortable, and even if we don't want to. I think that understanding how we continue to benefit from the legacy of things that happened 150+ years ago allows us to see how others continue to be harmed by that same legacy.
The fact that some of my ancestors were slave-owners in Mississippi has an effect on my wellbeing, and that fact has a different effect on the wellbeing of the descendents of the slaves.
I think these things are worth thinking about, and worth talking about.
Agreed.
I think one of the reasons why it's so uncomfortable is that if we really look and acknowledge the way we (Americans anyway) are still benefitting from slavery, the logical and just conclusion is that it will cost us something. It might cost us economically as we see that reparations for centuries of last wages are owed to the descendants of slavery. It might cost us professionally as we see that the education and careers we were able to achieve were built on a faulty system that gave some of us an unfair advantage.
The illustration often given of race relations in America is of a race where when the starting gun is fired, some runners are held back by force, allowing others to get a significant head start. Halfway through the race someone intervenes to protest this injustice. As the system currently appears, the participants ultimately acknowledged the unfair practices and agreed to no longer hold back the disadvantaged runners. But the race was allowed to continue from the point it stopped, without rectifying the head start given to the privileged runners.
When we look at that image, I think most of us like and appreciate the idea of bringing the disadvantaged runners forward to race from the same point as the privileged runners. What makes us uncomfortable is the image of moving the privileged runners back to the starting line-- the place where the disadvantaged runners were held to.
It's an imperfect metaphor, but I think it gets at our discomfort. We like the idea of helping others who have been disadvantaged by our ancestor's evil when that means bringing them forward. We don't like the notion that that might cost us something-- that we or our children might be set back by just reparations, financial or otherwise. And the greater the debt, the disparity, the greater the cost of rectifying the wrong. In this case the debt and the disparity are significant. On some level we know that, and are frightened by it.
All of this I think is reflective in our instinctive desire to draw a line and say "let's just move on from here".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
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Posted
These things are definitely worth thinking and talking about. Thank you, Josephine, for the topic.
Looking back at my family's history after arriving in the U.S., I realize that they/I had a number of advantages that helped them in fitting in and later blending in to the larger society. The greatest these was being white.
Coincidentally, I read this morning a fascinating op-ed piece in the NY Times by Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University and author of The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America
From "Death in Black and White" --
quote:
At birth, you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead when the encounter is over.
Those binoculars are also stories, bad stories, biased stories, harmful stories, about how black people are lazy, or dumb, or slick, or immoral, people who can’t be helped by the best schools or even God himself. These beliefs don’t make it into contemporary books, or into most classrooms. But they are passed down, informally, from one white mind to the next.
The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know. Your knowledge of black life, of the hardships we face, yes, those we sometimes create, those we most often endure, don’t concern you much. You think we have been handed everything because we have fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it — all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace — should be yours first, and foremost, and if there’s anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully.
So you demand the Supreme Court give you back what was taken from you: more space in college classrooms that you dominate; better access to jobs in fire departments and police forces that you control. All the while your resentment builds, and your slow hate gathers steam. Your whiteness has become a burden too heavy for you to carry, so you outsource it to a vile political figure who amplifies your most detestable private thoughts.
Whiteness is blindness. It is the wish not to see what it will not know.
Those binoculars are still hanging around our necks and dragging us down. Dyson ends with one of the most heart-wrenching statements I've ever read on the topic of whites and blacks in the U.S.
quote:
We cannot hate you, not really, not most of us; that is our gift to you. We cannot halt you; that is our curse.
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"The consolations of the imaginary are not imaginary consolations."
-- Roger Scruton
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The solution though, IMHO, is to call/work toward communal repentance that IS paired with meaningful action. Something like the truth & reconciliation commissions that were enacted in South Africa might be a model.
The process in SA was very much dealing with the sins of NOW, where the process in the US/UK/Canada, etc. would be addressing the sins of yesterday and how they created those of today. And sins of today are very much those many do not wish to acknowledge.
"that was then, this is today" ignoring that today was bought with the blood and lives of other peoples' yesterday.
Look at the UK EU referendum. The UK's present power is a direct result of the exploitation of foreigners, yet a significant portion of the Leave vote was to exclude foreigners sharing in that bounty,
The US' wealth was built on a foundation of slavery and exploitation, yet many beneficiaries of that wish to deny/can't be arsed to care about the direct decedents sharing in the benefit.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Trying to answer the OP, it got awful complicated.
Great-great grandfather owned a plantation, lost it when slaves were freed. No labor means no crop means no way to pay the bills.
Started over as a grocer, together with his son.
They would argue he started with nothing and built a business and his son built it more and differently and became somewhat wealthy and any black man could have done the same.
But as former plantation owners they probably had business skills, a social network of other people with business skills, a little money to start with by selling whatever they could carry away from the plantation like family silver and gemstone jewelry.
Their starting over from nothing was hugely different from a freed slave's experience of starting with literally nothing, even if we leave out of the comparison things like ability to read and do numbers, skin-color-based social stratification, and legal system persecution.
My ancestors build a new thriving business without the direct help of slaves but with a lot of training and social advantages slaves had been forbidden to pursue.
My great-grandfather lost everything in the depression, by then he had already sent all his sons to college, an advantage uncommon even among whites in the gay 90s and 10s and 20s.
As a woman it gets complicated - he sent his sons, not his daughters, to university (Grandma remained opposed to education for women all her life). When I graduated college most careers legally barred women. Women in exactly the same job as a man were paid significantly less.
And yet, the jobs open to white women were better than the jobs open to black women.
And my high school gave us a better education than some community colleges do today while the black schools didn't have enough books and taught at a much lower level.
Direct gain from slavery, no. Indirect gain, not sure.
But definitely advantages being white skinned in an anti-black culture if only more gentle treatment by police.
Also advantages being reared with a value system that taught believe in the future, believe you can develop abilities, delay marriage until you get a college degree so you can live comfortably, instead of being reared by people who experience life as constant putdowns and fatalism and are reared to expect to drop out of school and live in poverty because that's all any of their family have ever done.
It's not solely about slavery. A group that culturally teaches believe in your worth and yes you can learn and get ahead is the Jewish community; even in severe discriminated they have access to a self understanding they are God's chosen people. No matter how a society treats them, they have value.
Black slaves had no such inner cultural encouragement. Slave owners worked hard to break any cultural identity, and the slaves had no unified story of self worth to turn to.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
All us whites have benefited from slavery because wew all live in this world and draw benefits from it, and this world was created in part by slavery.
And yes, in my case, though I like to boast that my great great grandfather ran a stop on the underground railroad, it's equally true that on the other side of my family there were slave owners.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I visited the old graveyard in Pescadero once- a rural coast town about 30 minutes south-- and discovered a small section devoted to Japanese graves, dating back 1800s. Took me a moment for it to register that these people were probably part of the huge wave of Asian immigration, where people came here hoping for prosperity and were pretty much conscripted for labor jobs that were little more than slavery. The Coastal railway system was built by Asian labor.
This is why the internment camps were full of sometimes second or third generation Japanese folks- their parents were sent over here to break rocks. Out of that sad history they still managed to unify and build solid, vital communities-- only to be ripped out of them in the forties.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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