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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A challenge: how did you benefit from slavery?
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by roybart:
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.
Thanks for bringing this here, Roybart. As you say, it is fascinating. I looked it up and read the whole thing and a few of 2000 plus comments.
The comments along with this thread make me wonder about the difference in perspectives from the white people who read it. So much of it doesn't apply to any white people I know, so it makes me feel defensive and unfairly attacked.
I wonder if those white people who agree with him are saying to themselves, "Yes, he's right. That's me," or are they mentally standing shoulder to shoulder with the professor and thinking, "Yes, that's all you other white people."
It's horrifying to me to see so much hatred toward the entire white race from a college professor. I wonder what he expects us to do to help blacks that we haven't done. I keep looking for specifics and all I see in articles like this, is "Admit it! You all suck!"
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I don't see anyone wasting that much verbiage on someone you hate. It sounds like a warning, to people the writer assumes are intelligent and concerned.
What it brought to mind is more real time non historical racism I had been taught. My Mormon grandma, who I adored, making bizarre claims about the personal hygene habits of black folk. The cute black boy in high school that flirted with me, but I didn't even consider him an option because I knew how my parents would act- not overtly cruel, just... Discouraging. The various teachers I had that seemed to have just a tiny bit more problem with the black kids in class than the rest of us. ( As well as the teachers who stood out-- who managed to make a classroom full of kids from ridiculously diverse racial and economic backgrounds feel like family. Thank you, Mrs. K.)
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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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roybart
Shipmate
# 17357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I wonder if those white people who agree with him are saying to themselves, "Yes, he's right. That's me," or are they mentally standing shoulder to shoulder with the professor and thinking, "Yes, that's all you other white people."
I guess that I find myself more or less in the first group. As I get older, my sense of the way in which my various privileges (most of which I was born with) have distorted the way I see and feel about so many things and people. Dyson's metaphor about the binoculars strikes me as being quite apt (speaking only for myself, of course).
Now that I am living in a relatively moderate part of a conservative Republican state, I find myself in contact with many people who share the attitudes -- and the acute sense of being being the aggrieved party -- of the "white" people characterized in Dyson's piece. It's mostly a matter of the people I overhear -- or whose letters to the editor I read -- or unsolicited comments by neighbors, people at the gym or on a checkout line, etc. I'm an elderly, white retiree. It's eye-opening, what people will share when they assume that they are talking to one of "us" about "them." The sense of us-versus-the Other is alive and well around here. Situations involving the police (almost universally seen as "one of us," in my limited experience) seem to bring this to the fore.
My feeling about the Dyson article is one of deep sadness about a tragic and (I can't believe I'm saying this) possibly irreversible situation.
Posts: 547 | From: here | Registered: Sep 2012
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by roybart:
I find myself in contact with many people who share the attitudes -- and the acute sense of being being the aggrieved party -- of the "white" people characterized in Dyson's piece.
I have a friend who can get annoyed at chatter about white males being privileged. It's not anti black or any other defined group, it's not a claim he deserves privilege, its a protest at being told he is inherently privileged because he's white male when the people in his office of various races, genders, sexual orientations or whatever live no differently than he does. (Or live better than he does because he's paying child support.)
Part of the problem may be the seeming dualism in the wording - you are privileged or you are not - when people are varying amounts of privileged.
It's especially hard for a person who is from a poor background, first in his family to attend college, worked his way through night school (which is a lower status education than a degree from a residential school), has a routine career, and has never had any special good breaks to help him get ahead, to see his life as "privileged".
That he has never been arrested for "driving while black" is invisible, you don't see the ways you have not been abused.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
John Scalzi is a great explainer and an all around good guy.
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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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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
So what is it that you're asking?
We all know roughly how much or how little we have in the now we live in. This present reality is the product of a history which includes slavery but also includes a lot of other stuff.
What's not so obvious is how much less wealth we would have if slavery hadn't happened. Which is an alternate history question. So I'm asking you to clarify what alternate history you're asking us to think about. E.g. How far back does it diverge from our history ?
Maybe you think that without the wealth from the slave trade, Britain and America would have been so much weaker economically that the Nazis would have won WW2 ?
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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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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
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.
Shame is even worse. I have a foot in one shame culture and one guilt culture, and guilt sucks, but at least there are accepted ways of getting rid of it.
But my problem is, I don't see at all how my feeling shame or guilt is going to advantage anybody else. It isn't going to motivate me to go out and change anything--far more likely to push me over the edge into depression and leave me hiding under the bed. I do enough of that already, and it benefits neither God nor man.
Furthermore, I am already taking action against present-day injustice and racism. How the hell can I do anything to change the past? I can't. I wasn't there. Nor can I change things that I am not a part of in the present. And I decline to suffer emotionally for the evil behavior of people who are not me nor influencable by me. I have enough to do with peace and justice stuff in my own neck of the woods.
Perhaps I'm over-reacting. But perhaps not. Consider this case: A couple of months ago we were having some Bible study text I've forgotten and I made a reference to "our black people" (meaning American black people, as opposed to Caribbean, South American, or African, etc.) and the many obstacles they face in "our" society. After class a seminarian (black, yes) took me aside and flayed me alive because in his view "our" could only mean that I was claiming personal ownership of other human beings. He went on to make remarks about my family's slave-owning past (no. We haven't got any). I apologized and explained what I'd meant. He continued to flay me. I finally fled the room in tears and continue to avoid him at church today.
Now was that a proportionate reaction to my wording? I have no doubt that I set off any number of triggers for other people's past evil behavior in his mind. But I freaking apologized. I made it clear that I had no part in that crap and that it had never entered my mind. It did me no good. He dumped all of his anger on me and there has been nothing since to suggest he has any second thoughts about that encounter. As far as I can tell, he sees nothing wrong with what he did.
This is fucked up. So I'm white (partly). I am not the person who hurt this man. I don't deserve to get publicly dumped upon totally out of proportion for a slip of the tongue that could have been quietly questioned and apologized for instead.
I'm on the receiving end of a fair amount of sexism, agism, and racism (=mixed marriage, also over the phone when people assume I'm ethnic Vietnamese and say shitty things to me). I'm not dumping that stuff back on innocent members of the communities my abusers came from. I hold the individuals responsible, and I do what I can to defuse the incipient hatred these incidents cause in my family members. And believe me, it does. Get burned repeatedly by several members of one ethnic group you don't know very well, and bang! a new case of racism. I try to head that off, in myself and in them.
I don't think things are going to get better until individuals can meet together and try to work together with good faith, holding one another responsible for their own sins and not those of non-present members of their communities. Is it hard? Hell yes. But it's the only way we're going to get past dumping historical shit on one another.
Human beings are not trash cans. And indiscriminate dumping only begets further anger and hatred. It's been two months, and I still have a damned hard time taking communion at the hand of this seminarian, because of all that shame he dumped on me publicly. Forgiving that is a hell of a challenge.
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
So what is it that you're asking?
We all know roughly how much or how little we have in the now we live in. This present reality is the product of a history which includes slavery but also includes a lot of other stuff.
What's not so obvious is how much less wealth we would have if slavery hadn't happened. Which is an alternate history question. So I'm asking you to clarify what alternate history you're asking us to think about. E.g. How far back does it diverge from our history ?
Maybe you think that without the wealth from the slave trade, Britain and America would have been so much weaker economically that the Nazis would have won WW2 ?
What Nazis?
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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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Maybe you think that without the wealth from the slave trade, Britain and America would have been so much weaker economically that the Nazis would have won WW2 ?
It is silly to take an event a century and a half after slavery and assume it would have happened in a timeline without slavery. The power structure of the Western world, if not the entire world would be different.
Hitler is used to cover a multitude of sins, this one is probably the most ridiculous I've heard.
X-post with the most concise rebuttle I can remember.
[ 10. July 2016, 23:36: 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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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
I'm in north east Scotland, not America. Our parish church was built at a time when there were men from the parish making fortunes in the Caribbean and remitting money home. I'm sure some of that money helped finance the church.
In the last ten years we have had two Afro-Carribean visitors to the church, both with Scottish surnames, both with ancestry here. Usually when I show a visitor with local ancestry round I say "welcome home!" but that didn't seem appropriate. I did not know what was appropriate.
It does seem important that we here in Scotland acknowledge where some of our wealth came from. I gave a talk at the local library on the subject two years ago and am booked to give another next winter. We have three (possibly four) gravestones in our churchyard belonging to slave owning families.
[ 11. July 2016, 02:33: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Maybe you think that without the wealth from the slave trade, Britain and America would have been so much weaker economically that the Nazis would have won WW2 ?
What Nazis?
Martin60 nailed it. The Nazis took the American eugenics movement to its logical conclusion. And the American eugenics movement was based on the American view of race.
If white folks in America hadn't regarded blacks (and Asians, and Native Americans) as less than fully human, there would have been no eugenics movement. And maybe the Nazis would never have existed. Maybe.
No way of knowing, of course. But interesting to think 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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Maybe you think that without the wealth from the slave trade, Britain and America would have been so much weaker economically that the Nazis would have won WW2 ?
What Nazis?
Martin60 nailed it.
He did, but not for this reason:
quote:
The Nazis took the American eugenics movement to its logical conclusion. And the American eugenics movement was based on the American view of race.
The political structure that led to the WWI then the rise of the Nazis and WWII would not have existed. A World War might still have arisen, but its nature would be different.
And no one needed slavery to think less of other "races". Indeed, that is what allowed slavery, but it did not have to lead to it.
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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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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
Excellent. It's only the second page and we've already managed to make white Americans responsible for the Nazi holocaust. This is going to be a wonderful thread.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And no one needed slavery to think less of other "races". Indeed, that is what allowed slavery, but it did not have to lead to it.
Actually, that's not what the latest scholarship says. The ancient peoples talked more about tribe and nations and people groups-- defined by things like ancestry and language and customs. The modern idea of "race" as some set of supposedly definable genetic characteristics was, according to recent sociologists, invented primarily to explain/justify slavery.
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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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And no one needed slavery to think less of other "races". Indeed, that is what allowed slavery, but it did not have to lead to it.
Actually, that's not what the latest scholarship says. The ancient peoples talked more about tribe and nations and people groups-- defined by things like ancestry and language and customs. The modern idea of "race" as some set of supposedly definable genetic characteristics was, according to recent sociologists, invented primarily to explain/justify slavery.
Possibly, but slavery based on the concept of inferior race was established before the US was. Unless Josephine meant America as in the continents and islands of America. But this is not what is normally meant when referring to American eugenics.
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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
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The ancient peoples talked more about tribe and nations and people groups-- defined by things like ancestry and language and customs. The modern idea of "race" as some set of supposedly definable genetic characteristics was, according to recent sociologists, invented primarily to explain/justify slavery.
Some years ago I read an article about - I don't know what century - that said class mattered, not race or nationality. Most blatant example given was that Royals married royals from other countries or cultures or languages rather than marry non royals (or at least nobility) from home.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
The Nazis took the American eugenics movement to its logical conclusion. And the American eugenics movement was based on the American view of race.
If white folks in America hadn't regarded blacks (and Asians, and Native Americans) as less than fully human, there would have been no eugenics movement. And maybe the Nazis would never have existed. Maybe.
Ahistorical nonsense.
Nazi race theories derived from nineteenth century European "scientific" anti-Semitism, and the eugenics movement which began in Britain.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Shame is even worse. I have a foot in one shame culture and one guilt culture, and guilt sucks, but at least there are accepted ways of getting rid of it.
But my problem is, I don't see at all how my feeling shame or guilt is going to advantage anybody else. It isn't going to motivate me to go out and change anything--far more likely to push me over the edge into depression and leave me hiding under the bed. I do enough of that already, and it benefits neither God nor man..
See, I think that's the difference between shame & guilt.
Shame is, as you suggest, a dead-end. Shame focuses on the past, and labels you a "bad" person. Shame leaves you stuck forever in the past, forever tied to your worst moment.
But the difference with guilt, otoh, is that it leads to repentance. It is a natural response to recognizing that you have done something wrong-- something that violates your moral code. But it's focus is not on the past, as with shame, but rather on the future-- on moving your forward. Shame says "you're not good"-- guilt says "you can do better."
In the context of the question of the OP: how did you (not your ancestors, not your race or ethnic group) benefit from slavery, the distinction is quite relevant as we so often do fall into shame. And yes, because shame is an intractable death-spiral we do tend to reject/deny shame, even when there is real, measurable wrong. But with guilt, the regret can and should move us forward-- to new behaviors. That's repentance. That's what we preach every Sunday.
And yes, we cannot repent for the sins of our ancestors, but we can and should repent for the sins we continue to participate in. For our unwillingness to see injustices that unfairly benefit us-- because it would be inconvenient to look too closely. And we do that corporately as well as individually-- because none of us are isolated, discrete units. We exist and live and worship-- and sin-- as a community.
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Furthermore, I am already taking action against present-day injustice and racism.
I know that is true. And so it very well may be that you are doing all you can, all you should be doing to fight the persistent racism. Just like any time we preach on any sort of sin, there will be people in the congregation for whom this particular sermon is inapplicable-- who don't struggle at all with this particular sin, never have never will-- just as there will be those who are cut to the quick. But we still preach on those things. And we still respond by praying "search me O God and know my thoughts"-- we ask the Spirit to do inventory. And if the sermon is inapplicable, we move on. But it doesn't mean we don't preach the sermon, because there are others who need to hear it.
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
How the hell can I do anything to change the past? I can't. I wasn't there. Nor can I change things that I am not a part of in the present.
The point of the OP is that we are all a part of it in the present.
As noted above, privilege exists in a multi-faceted continuum. One can be privileged in terms of race but not gender, or in age but not ability, or a 1000 other variations. And of course we don't choose any of those things. But the one thing we can do when we find ourselves in an area where we are "privileged" is to use that unearned power to open doors for others. "Privilege" means that we do have influence, in some small sphere. There are things to be done, things that can be done. Indeed, you ARE doing them-- that social justice stuff you referred to. The reason we engage in acts of social justice, whatever they might be, is precisely because we know that we do have influence, we know that those things matter, even if many times it seems like only a drop in an ocean of injustice and suffering. We keep on doing what we can. Certainly, I think here on the Ship you are in a position of influence. I suspect that is even more true in your RL community. You are making an impact. And that's important.
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Perhaps I'm over-reacting. But perhaps not. Consider this case...
It's been two months, and I still have a damned hard time taking communion at the hand of this seminarian, because of all that shame he dumped on me publicly. Forgiving that is a hell of a challenge.
You're not over-reacting there. That was horrible. It was an example of shaming. And again, shame feels horrible because we can't get rid of it. Because it addresses not your behavior or attitudes but tries to label you as a person. The seminarian was not interested in "the grief (guilt) that leads to repentance" but was instead attempting to impose the "worldly grief (shame) that produces death" (2 Cor. 7:9-10). No wonder you were pissed.
If that's what I've sounded like here, I apologize. That was not my intent.
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The ancient peoples talked more about tribe and nations and people groups-- defined by things like ancestry and language and customs. The modern idea of "race" as some set of supposedly definable genetic characteristics was, according to recent sociologists, invented primarily to explain/justify slavery.
Some years ago I read an article about - I don't know what century - that said class mattered, not race or nationality. Most blatant example given was that Royals married royals from other countries or cultures or languages rather than marry non royals (or at least nobility) from home.
This person clearly never read about the Romanovs. For whom the adjective "morganatic" may well have been invented.
[ 11. July 2016, 06:42: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Figuring out what can and should be done *today* to redress past and ongoing wrongs is hard and complicated, no matter how compassionate and motivated you are.
Example: Land that was wrongly taken from Native Americans. In most cases, it happened long ago, with many "in good faith" owners since then. So it's not as simple as making the land thieves give it back. Only way I can see is for the gov't to buy the land from the current owners, and transfer it to the appropriate tribe/people. If the current owners don't want to sell, then eminent domain procedures might come into play--which is the gov't taking land, again...And that's not even getting into whether the federal gov't can afford it, or how much turmoil and unrest it would spark.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Maybe you think that without the wealth from the slave trade, Britain and America would have been so much weaker economically that the Nazis would have won WW2 ?
What Nazis?
Martin60 nailed it. The Nazis took the American eugenics movement to its logical conclusion. And the American eugenics movement was based on the American view of race.
If white folks in America hadn't regarded blacks (and Asians, and Native Americans) as less than fully human, there would have been no eugenics movement. And maybe the Nazis would never have existed. Maybe.
No way of knowing, of course. But interesting to think about.
EXACTLY Josephine. There's no way Britain - including America - could have been that enlightened 350 years ago, Jesus would have had to have returned as written, in power. There are no short cuts in social evolution. We have to suffer. If a plague had just killed the English, I doubt history would look qualitatively any different. Conversely if the English had mutated rapidly in to a higher empathic, more enlightened sub-species (Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio & Children), the C20th would have been well in to Darwin's Millennium. No WWI, no Russian Revolution, no Nazis.
[ 11. July 2016, 10:11: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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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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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The political structure that led to the WWI then the rise of the Nazis and WWII would not have existed. A World War might still have arisen, but its nature would be different.
Allowing that events can have multiple causes, the idea that WW2 was "caused" by the settlement imposed on Germany after WW1 seems to me to have more merit than the idea that it was caused by Hitler reading either American or British eugenicists.
But what connection are you making between slavery and the causes of WW1 ?
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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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Slavery, and other forms of oppression like colonization, affected the power dynamic of Europe. Without it, the power balance, and the history of those power struggles, would have been different. Even had a world war still occurred, it would have been different.
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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 Golden Key:
Figuring out what can and should be done *today* to redress past and ongoing wrongs is hard and complicated, no matter how compassionate and motivated you are.
Absolutely. That applies both to your example of the land stolen from native Americans as well as the labor stolen from African slaves (and Asian workers in the West). It's more manageable when we deal with it relatively quickly-- as with the reparations paid to Japanese Americans who were unjustly interned during WW2. After so many generations it becomes really really complicated, most likely impossibly so.
And I think the impossibility of the task is a significant part of why we (white Americans) instinctively want to push it aside and say "that happened a long time ago, I didn't have anything to do with it." It's pretty uncomfortable to acknowledge you have a huge debt you cannot possibly pay. Again, the shame/guilt dynamic is at play-- when you cannot possibly set right the injustice, you tend to fall on the shame side of the equation-- which then tends to lead to denial or self-destruction (see Pilate and Judas). Yet I think we're seeing how denial just isn't working.
This is where I think the OP comes into play. Perhaps it we could come to that point where we confess out loud not just that, yes, this happened, yes, it was horribly horrifically evil, but also yes, we have been complicit in continuing unjust systemic oppression, then perhaps we can move forward-- even if full restitution is impossible. Sort of like the way a 12 step program beings by acknowledging your brokenness and admitting that you are powerless over your brokenness. Perhaps that is the key to moving forward and coming to a consensus about what CAN be done.
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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
Cliffdweller, you haven't sounded anything like that. My frustration was addressed generally, more or less to the whole world, I suppose. Thanks for the shame vs. guilt analysis--I'm going to have to think that one through.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Cliffdweller, you haven't sounded anything like that. My frustration was addressed generally, more or less to the whole world, I suppose. Thanks for the shame vs. guilt analysis--I'm going to have to think that one through.
Thanks, Lamb. I always rest more comfortably when we're on the same side.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I meant what I said about your influence both here and in your community. You are making a difference, so much of my "sermonizing" here is directed more to myself than to you.
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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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wots a user name
Apprentice
# 18619
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Posted
Yes the white west benefitd in many ways from slavery and still does. It is how we relate to, treat the alien in our communities that matter and how we encourage or help those in need of help.
The poor whether black, brown or white arn't poor because of slavery, but because of poor education.
How many here would vote for a party that would penalies them in order to help the disadvantaged?
How manychurches represented here have links with inner city churches in poor areas, ditto schools and colleges.
It's one thing to recognise a wrong in the past, but what about the wrongs thos old wrongs are causing in the present?
Posts: 3 | From: London | Registered: Jul 2016
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Yay, crosspost.
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Figuring out what can and should be done *today* to redress past and ongoing wrongs is hard and complicated, no matter how compassionate and motivated you are.
Absolutely. That applies both to your example of the land stolen from native Americans as well as the labor stolen from African slaves (and Asian workers in the West). It's more manageable when we deal with it relatively quickly-- as with the reparations paid to Japanese Americans who were unjustly interned during WW2. After so many generations it becomes really really complicated, most likely impossibly so.
And I think the impossibility of the task is a significant part of why we (white Americans) instinctively want to push it aside and say "that happened a long time ago, I didn't have anything to do with it." It's pretty uncomfortable to acknowledge you have a huge debt you cannot possibly pay. ... Perhaps it we could come to that point where we confess out loud not just that, yes, this happened, yes, it was horribly horrifically evil, but also yes, we have been complicit in continuing unjust systemic oppression, then perhaps we can move forward-- even if full restitution is impossible. Sort of like the way a 12 step program beings by acknowledging your brokenness and admitting that you are powerless over your brokenness. Perhaps that is the key to moving forward and coming to a consensus about what CAN be done.
Just want to say that the only reason I'm quoting your post up above is that it so beautifully encapsulates both the good and the (IMHO) not-so-good of the communal repentance thing. It's not directed to you (the stuff that follows) but to the thread in general. Really, I'm rather surprised nobody's slapped me down yet. And so I blunder on...
We do need awareness of the past. We do need to think about reparations. But IMNSVHO we need to do this without invoking the toxic power of personal shame and guilt that I, at least, see hovering in phrases like "It's pretty uncomfortable to acknowledge you have a huge debt you cannot possibly pay... we
have been complicit".
No one alive today was complicit in pushing my ancestors off their land. None of that land is likely to be held by the original thief today, or even by his/her heirs. It's been too long. Innocent people have purchased and repurchased it. Innocent children have been born and inherited it. I don't want to call these people "complicit" because they weren't there. Nor did they purchase/inherit our land with the intent of doing the original owners out of their due.
I'll tell you who WAS there--the US government. And the US government is still around, and still owns its complicity, and deserves its shame and guilt, and ought to make reparations. That will certainly affect the millions of present-day Americans who end up footing the bill, losing land, or whatever. And that sucks. They/We will bear the burden of righting whatever can be righted at this late date. But they/we ought NOT to be expected or encouraged to take up personal guilt and shame with regard to the historic situation, IMHO. Because that's just going to come back to bite us all in the butt.
I would far rather proceed on the basis of justice, and let the motive be "let's do this thing to create justice," rather than bring in toxic emotions and start distributing them. Because in my observation, imposing those unjustly leads to rebellion on the part of those saddled with it. As can be seen on any Facebook feed.
I'd like to ask a question here and see how off base I am. Is there anybody here who finds guilt and shame an effective motivation for themselves? I don't mean the threat of g/s--goodness knows I'll haul myself out of bed some mornings only to avoid the g/s of arriving at work supremely late. But already-existing guilt and shame?
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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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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
In the interests of full disclosure, I have my own story of race-related "shaming" similar to Lamb's, and how shifting the balance to "guilt" is helpful.
When I was still a relatively new university instructor, the uni started stressing the need for more frank classroom conversations about race and diversity. This made sense to me, although I had no experience or training in doing that. But, foolishly, I waded into this fraught territory anyway, in a way that made sense to me pedagogically but due to the heavy weight of any discussion of race in America, blew up in my face big time. The students in my class had asked a question about slavery in the Bible. I responded to the question (which I intended to use as a case study in hermeneutics) by reading a relevant passage & then asking the African American students in the class to reflect on whether they read/heard the passage differently than their classmates because of the history of slavery in America.
Well, that did NOT go well. It was a ham-fisted attempt, and immediately obvious it was a huge disaster. All the air sucked out of the room the instant I asked the question. It might have been different with older, more mature grad students (these were freshmen) but in this setting it really Did. Not. Work.
I moved on quickly, then connected with the African American students after class to apologize and ask more about how they experienced the question. We had a good conversation. However, I didn't check in which the other (white & Asian) students.
Come student evaluation time, many weeks later, I was annihilated. The word "racist" was used. In evaluations that would be read by my dept chair and the dean (who happens to be African American). "Shame" really was and is the best word to describe my feelings then and even now, recounting it. In part because, as with Lamb, there was no way to rectify it. What was said was said, the class has now passed, the evaluations were anonymous, so there is no way to address the offended students, apologize, and seek forgiveness. It wasn't just that (like Lamb) I had used a careless, ham-fisted wording that I now regret-- it was that I had been labeled in a way that felt like an identity I would never be able to shed.
I immediately met with my dept chair (who would have called me in if I hadn't). Fortunately, the chair gets this whole shame/guilt thing. I was able to explain what happened, and together we framed the subsequent discussion in redemptive terms-- i.e. how I could introduce race into class discussions in a more natural way that would open exchange of ideas rather than shut them down. He gave me a lot of excellent ideas/advice. Later, the uni offered some training classes that were also most helpful. That whole experience very much shifted the dynamic from "shame" (I am a bad person who is probably racist) to "guilt" (I said something unfortunate out of ignorance that caused offense, that feels miserable, but I have taken steps to change that offensive behavior).
Huge difference. And one that I think is key to moving forward in discussions of diversity, not just re race (although perhaps particularly so) but in other areas of diversity as well.
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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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Slavery, and other forms of oppression like colonization, affected the power dynamic of Europe. Without it, the power balance, and the history of those power struggles, would have been different. Even had a world war still occurred, it would have been different.
Why stop there? Without slavery, would the Industrial Revolution even have happened?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Cliffdweller, you haven't sounded anything like that. My frustration was addressed generally, more or less to the whole world, I suppose. Thanks for the shame vs. guilt analysis--I'm going to have to think that one through.
LC, when I read your account of the event, the thought in my mind was "a person who views others from their pain, there is no satisfactory wording." Probably anything you said, any wording choice, would have gotten the same reaction. The issue is not what you said, the issue is you said anything.
Of course, not saying anything would also have been an issue because that would be the same as labeling him and his pain and all others who have been hurt in the past "not worth noticing."
The lesson I get from these (rare) encounters (not specifically blacks, any group that feels oppressed or belittled) is that some people have been deeply hurt. Their reaction expresses their pain, which they can't see beyond. The pain is real, but it really has nothing to do with my personhood or my behavior.
I would like to say "educate me, what wording should I have used to express this concept?" but an angry or hurt person is not usually in a mood conductive to calm helpful discussion.
He believes he did nothing wrong in how he spoke to you. There's not going to be any reaching out to you. Whether you can find a way to reach out to him that isn't instantly scorned, I don't know.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I would far rather proceed on the basis of justice, and let the motive be "let's do this thing to create justice," rather than bring in toxic emotions and start distributing them. Because in my observation, imposing those unjustly leads to rebellion on the part of those saddled with it. As can be seen on any Facebook feed.
I'd like to ask a question here and see how off base I am. Is there anybody here who finds guilt and shame an effective motivation for themselves? I don't mean the threat of g/s--goodness knows I'll haul myself out of bed some mornings only to avoid the g/s of arriving at work supremely late. But already-existing guilt and shame?
cross-posted w/ Lamb in my prior post re my personal experience.
Just to bring it to your specific question, for me (and the way I'm defining the terms) you have to separate the two. "Shame" is a horrible way of motivating change. In fact, that's the defining difference-- the way you know if you are feeling shame or if you are feeling guilt. Shame keeps you stuck. It doesn't motivate you to move forward, it leads to passivity. Since "shame" deals with your core identity, not your choices or actions, nothing you can do will ever get rid of it. That doesn't motivate you to move forward, it motivates you to deny or hide. (Something we can see in shame-based cultures).
Guilt, otoh, I think is defined precisely by the fact that it can be redemptive. By the fact that there is a way forward. By the fact that we can honestly acknowledge our sin/offense, take responsibility for it, and move forward. The momentary pain of guilt doesn't immobilize us, instead it propels us forward-- to different actions, different choices. It is one of the ways the Spirit brings transformation.
Shame is permanent, immobilizing, and keeps you stuck in the past. Guilt is temporary, motivating, and moves you to a better future.
All very very relevant I think to the way we talk about race.
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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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why stop there? Without slavery, would the Industrial Revolution even have happened?
That slavery funded the Industrial Revolution, doesn't mean nothing else could have. I think it would have been different. Possibly slower growth, but Europe could not have sustained major growth without technological progress.
So, perhaps an Industrial Progression?
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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 Belle Ringer:
LC, when I read your account of the event, the thought in my mind was "a person who views others from their pain, there is no satisfactory wording." Probably anything you said, any wording choice, would have gotten the same reaction. The issue is not what you said, the issue is you said anything.
Of course, not saying anything would also have been an issue because that would be the same as labeling him and his pain and all others who have been hurt in the past "not worth noticing."
The lesson I get from these (rare) encounters (not specifically blacks, any group that feels oppressed or belittled) is that some people have been deeply hurt. Their reaction expresses their pain, which they can't see beyond. The pain is real, but it really has nothing to do with my personhood or my behavior.
I would like to say "educate me, what wording should I have used to express this concept?" but an angry or hurt person is not usually in a mood conductive to calm helpful discussion.
He believes he did nothing wrong in how he spoke to you. There's not going to be any reaching out to you. Whether you can find a way to reach out to him that isn't instantly scorned, I don't know.
This strikes me as very true and helpful. Sometimes the pain is so great there is nothing you can do-- at least with that person, at that time. That's part of the burden we all carry-- there are hurts we can't fix, we can only pray.
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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
Just to messy things up a bit more--
I have problems with guilt, too, because I run to OCD tendencies (YES, I MEAN THE DIAGNOSIS) and so guilt is basically permanent for me, barring the miraculous help of God. I don't know how other people experience, but it has a similarly toxic effect to shame in my experience. That may just be me.
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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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why stop there? Without slavery, would the Industrial Revolution even have happened?
That slavery funded the Industrial Revolution, doesn't mean nothing else could have.
So without slavery the Western World would still have been dominant over and richer than the rest?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Just to messy things up a bit more--
I have problems with guilt, too, because I run to OCD tendencies (YES, I MEAN THE DIAGNOSIS) and so guilt is basically permanent for me, barring the miraculous help of God. I don't know how other people experience, but it has a similarly toxic effect to shame in my experience. That may just be me.
Yeah, it's probably just a difference in terminology, but anytime it's
permanent like that, I think it's not a good or healthy thing. Any time it keeps you stuck in the past or becomes a part of your identity, I'd call that shame or what Paul calls "the worldly grief that leads to death." The point of the "pain" we feel when we do something bad/wrong/immoral/stupid is to move us forward, not backward. It's not meant to be a permanent life sentence, it's meant to help move us to repentance and new behavior. It's meant to bring life, not death. Anything else is not from God but from the other guy.
But the normal, healthy process of temporary guilt (or remorse if that word fits better)/ repentance/ transformation gets really mucked up by things from our culture, our families, etc.
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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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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why stop there? Without slavery, would the Industrial Revolution even have happened?
That slavery funded the Industrial Revolution, doesn't mean nothing else could have.
So without slavery the Western World would still have been dominant over and richer than the rest?
Do you wish to make a point, or do you want to drag this out?
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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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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Without slavery, would the Industrial Revolution even have happened?
Almost certainly. Slavery (and similar forms of forced labor) seems to arise in situations where the the prevailing wage for free labor is significantly higher than human subsistence. If a market equilibrium price of labor is close to subsistence it's easier to pay that. In many ways industrialization is a different answer to the same problem, substituting mechanization for costly human labor. The main difference is that it requires a higher degree of technical knowledge and a nearby source of concentrated energy (historically coal).
In fact the early industrialized economy and slave economy seem antithetical to each other. If you had the one it seems impossible to maintain the other in the same geographical economy. The United States in the early nineteenth century was as close to a natural experiment as you usually get in economics. At the time of the Declaration of Independence slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies/states, but much more prevalent in the South. The rise of industrialization in the North seems to very closely parallel the decline of slavery there.
The case could even be made that by providing a low-tech substitute for mechanization, the existence of slavery actually hindered the development of industrialization.
The question then reduces to "can the raw materials and resources needed to sustain an industrial economy be supplied through the efforts of paid labor rather than forced labor?" The fact that sugar and cotton and other various commercial crops are grown today using paid labor seems to indicate that this is at the very least possible.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Slavery (and similar forms of forced labor) seems to arise in situations where the the prevailing wage for free labor is significantly higher than human subsistence.
Looking at that you would expect the Black Death in Western Europe to have resulted in serfdom regathering strength as an institution. As I understand it, in conventional history the Black Death is supposed to have killed serfdom off. Is that accounted for in the theory?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
guilt (or remorse if that word fits better)
Discussions of guilt are often confused by making the term "guilt" synonymous with "feelings of guilt".
Guilt itself is an objective condition of being somehow responsible for something wrong.
Actual guilt is sometimes accoompanied by no feelings of guilt (eg psychopaths), and sometimes people have false feelings of guilt when they are not in fact guilty of anything.
Shame, on the other hand, is always a sensation - sometimes unjustified, sometimes disproportionate to the point of toxicity, but sometimes entirely appropriate and a sign of moral health and awareness.
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
guilt (or remorse if that word fits better)
Discussions of guilt are often confused by making the term "guilt" synonymous with "feelings of guilt".
Guilt itself is an objective condition of being somehow responsible for something wrong.
Actual guilt is sometimes accoompanied by no feelings of guilt (eg psychopaths), and sometimes people have false feelings of guilt when they are not in fact guilty of anything.
Shame, on the other hand, is always a sensation - sometimes unjustified, sometimes disproportionate to the point of toxicity, but sometimes entirely appropriate and a sign of moral health and awareness.
Not the way I'm using the terms, but for that reason a good illustration of how much variation and subjectivity there is in the way we use these particular words.
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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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why stop there? Without slavery, would the Industrial Revolution even have happened?
That slavery funded the Industrial Revolution, doesn't mean nothing else could have.
So without slavery the Western World would still have been dominant over and richer than the rest?
Do you wish to make a point, or do you want to drag this out?
I'm trying to imagine what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing, especially in light of the central thesis of this thread that our prosperity is entirely due to our ancestors exploitation of slaves.
In the context of the Industrial Revolution, one could say that without slavery mechanisation would have progressed even faster in order to provide the raw materials (especially cotton) for the mills and factories to process. But it feels a bit "chicken and egg" to me - did the slave trade grow in order to feed the mills or did the mills grow because of the abundant raw materials that the slave trade provided? While doubtless both factors combined to form a self-perpetuating cycle, I suspect that the latter played more of a part in starting the cycle than did the former.
Given that textiles were by far the dominant industry during the Industrial Revolution, and assuming that that was the case largely due to the high volume of raw materials provided by the slave trade, it seems valid to ask if the IR would have come about without the slave trade. And the IR was directly responsible for the subsequent unprecedented growth in global (but primarily Western) prosperity.
So yes, we have benefitted from the slave trade. Vastly. But ISTM that that applies to everyone currently living in an industrialised country. And therefore the question is not so much who has and has not benefitted from the slave trade (we all have), but who has benefitted a lot (business owners) and who has benefitted a little (everyone else).
That's just the economic side of the discussion, of course. In social terms it's unarguable that slavery has had profound and persistent negative impacts on ethnic minorities, especially African Americans. Several hundreds of years of societal attitudes being built around the worst form of oppression doesn't just disappear because some politicians signed a bill, and we are still very much in the "growing pains" stage of a society with more inclusive and equal attitudes towards its members. There is much work still to be done, and each of us has a key role to play in that. This, I feel, should be the primary focus of our efforts. Changing the economic situation without changing societal attitudes is a recipe for discontent and unrest, but changing societal attitudes will inevitably lead to a change in the economic situation. It will be slower, yes, but it will be far more enduring.
I know that it's very easy for me to advocate a "slow and sure" approach, as it's not me who's waiting for the end result. But I do think that in the long term that is the approach that will work out the best for everyone.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Germany didn't have slaves during its industrialization in the 19th century. Russia had serfdom until 1861. But the rest of Europe abolished it by ~1815. England was an anomaly to have stopped in the 15th century.
Re benefits from slaves, after a Bangladeshi factory collapsed a few years that was supplying shirts to a major Canadian chain, we learned that discount tshirts selling for some $22 paid the workers 14 cents. With malnutrition and inability to manage life.
Like genocide, slavery seems to come in variations, with no end in sight and no clear will to fix it.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
In the context of the Industrial Revolution, one could say that without slavery mechanisation would have progressed even faster in order to provide the raw materials (especially cotton) for the mills and factories to process. But it feels a bit "chicken and egg" to me - did the slave trade grow in order to feed the mills or did the mills grow because of the abundant raw materials that the slave trade provided? While doubtless both factors combined to form a self-perpetuating cycle, I suspect that the latter played more of a part in starting the cycle than did the former.
Given that textiles were by far the dominant industry during the Industrial Revolution, and assuming that that was the case largely due to the high volume of raw materials provided by the slave trade, it seems valid to ask if the IR would have come about without the slave trade. And the IR was directly responsible for the subsequent unprecedented growth in global (but primarily Western) prosperity.
You seem to be assuming rather than demonstrating your conclusion. It's not at all clear that a system of paid labor is incapable of producing cotton in industrial quantities. In fact, given cotton is produced today largely using paid labor it seems fairly clear that the premise that cotton agriculture requires slavery is faulty.
In fact, it could be argued that slavery impedes industrialization in another way. A paid worker is also a potential customer. An unpaid worker is not. Using an enslaved workforce is a constraint on market size.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's just the economic side of the discussion, of course. In social terms it's unarguable that slavery has had profound and persistent negative impacts on ethnic minorities, especially African Americans. Several hundreds of years of societal attitudes being built around the worst form of oppression doesn't just disappear because some politicians signed a bill, and we are still very much in the "growing pains" stage of a society with more inclusive and equal attitudes towards its members. There is much work still to be done, and each of us has a key role to play in that. This, I feel, should be the primary focus of our efforts. Changing the economic situation without changing societal attitudes is a recipe for discontent and unrest, but changing societal attitudes will inevitably lead to a change in the economic situation. It will be slower, yes, but it will be far more enduring.
I disagree. History has shown repeatedly that waiting for slaveowners to voluntarily manumit their human property through "changing societal attitudes" is a fruitless endeavor. Something like the Slavery Abolition Act or the Thirteenth Amendment is always required to "chang[e] the economic situation" first.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I know that it's very easy for me to advocate a "slow and sure" approach, as it's not me who's waiting for the end result. But I do think that in the long term that is the approach that will work out the best for everyone.
I take issue with the notion that waiting patiently for "changing societal attitudes" to take effect is in any way "sure". This was the argument heard for about a century from ardent Segregationists in America's southern states, that things like the Civil Rights Act were needlessly disruptive of the "slow and sure" progress underway since the end of Reconstruction. That such "progress" was undetectable seems to have been more of a feature than a bug.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Re benefits from slaves, after a Bangladeshi factory collapsed a few years that was supplying shirts to a major Canadian chain, we learned that discount tshirts selling for some $22 paid the workers 14 cents. With malnutrition and inability to manage life.
Like genocide, slavery seems to come in variations, with no end in sight and no clear will to fix it.
It is a foreign problem, the company have promised to address the issue, some factory/sweatshop owner has gone to the dock, problem solved. And we still get our clothing cheap.
That is actually the maddening thing. Because of the differences in labour cost, we could still have inexpensive kit and they could have decent standards and a living wage. We care so little, because it is them that we will not apply the proper pressure.
But merely suggest that the shape of our bananas is threatened, an we will kick ourselves down a stairwell to avoid an imaginary inconvenience.
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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
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# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm trying to imagine what the world would look like had slavery never been a thing, especially in light of the central thesis of this thread that our prosperity is entirely due to our ancestors exploitation of slaves.
Your addition of "entirely" qualifies this as a strawman, IMHO. No one has suggested Western prosperity is entirely due to slavery. The OP invites us to speculate re how much of our prosperity is due to slavery.
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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
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# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I know that it's very easy for me to advocate a "slow and sure" approach, as it's not me who's waiting for the end result. But I do think that in the long term that is the approach that will work out the best for everyone.
I take issue with the notion that waiting patiently for "changing societal attitudes" to take effect is in any way "sure". This was the argument heard for about a century from ardent Segregationists in America's southern states, that things like the Civil Rights Act were needlessly disruptive of the "slow and sure" progress underway since the end of Reconstruction. That such "progress" was undetectable seems to have been more of a feature than a bug. [/QB]
Indeed. Rather than add my own argument I'll simply refer Martin to MLK's
Why We Can't Wait
[ 12. July 2016, 16:35: 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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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
History has shown repeatedly that waiting for slaveowners to voluntarily manumit their human property through "changing societal attitudes" is a fruitless endeavor. Something like the Slavery Abolition Act or the Thirteenth Amendment is always required to "chang[e] the economic situation" first.
It may be important that one of those passed peacefully.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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