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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A challenge: how did you benefit from slavery?
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Slave owners do not owe their slaves because they have benefitted from a wrongful act. They owe their slaves because they have committed a wrongful act against them.
The wrongful act was committed because of the benefit; they are inexorably linked.
The correct term is institutional racism The "official" bit ends when laws are made.
quote:
Seems to me that what you're talking about here is the history of "official racism" in the US - the various ways in which low-level government bodies have unfairly discriminated against black people despite the top-level government decision that black Americans are full citizens.
Government officials are not a separate breed, class or origin. They are citizens just as everyone else. Institution can enforce or strengthen behaviours such as racism, but it exists in society first.
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It seems obvious that black people have been disbenefitted (if there is such a word) by such official racism. And that this would not have happened if not for slavery.
This statement should be enough for you to work out the rest.
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Have all white people benefitted thereby ?
Has Every. Single. white person benefited? No. White people as a group do not have as many barriers, as bad a treatment or inherent prejudice against them.
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Or would white people in general be better off without Ferguson-style policing, better off without redlining, without segregation ?
Broad prosperity follows lack of strife, so yes.
The building blocks of wealth of the US and UK were bought with the slave trade. So citizens within them will have the potential advantage that gives. And potential is the key word. That potential is blocked by melanin.
[ 21. July 2016, 02:05: 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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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It seems somewhat indecent, therefore, to argue that a system that was efficiently designed to keep black people at the bottom should be described as advantageous to black people when they're still frequently at the bottom, relative to the rest of that society!
"Indecent" in this context is merely an exploitative weasel word used for the purposes of virtue signalling and moral blackmail, and I am calling your bluff.
The issue is not decency or otherwise, but historical truth, and the truth is that despite all that African Americans have suffered and continue to suffer, they are still better off than they would be living in Africa with those whose ancestors were not traded (but might well have suffered sickening atrocities at the hands of African slave owners while avoiding sale to Europeans), and they are therefore beneficiaries of slavery.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
"Indecent" in this context is merely an exploitative weasel word used for the purposes of virtue signalling and moral blackmail, and I am calling your bluff.
That you ignore the current problems in Africa are the result in the same processes by the same people who engaged in the triangle trade and that infra-African slavery was on a massively smaller scale and would likely also be extinct by now is a fairly indecent position.
The historical truth is that slavery in the New World was a net deficit to those enslaved and Africa itself. That you use the devastation wrought by Europeans as a justification for the dependents of people kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed are better of being abused, killed, forced to live in poverty is ridiculous.
It is not emotional blackmail to point this out, it is weighing all the circumstance. And trying to isolate elements to prove a point is inaccurate and bizarre at best.
[ 21. July 2016, 05:39: 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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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
...the system of segregation, sharecropping, and exploitation that followed in the wake of abolition...
...institutions such as redlining in the mid-twentieth century...
...predatory policing practices, such as those uncovered in Ferguson, MO [PDF]...
Seems to me that what you're talking about here is the history of "official racism" in the US - the various ways in which low-level government bodies have unfairly discriminated against black people despite the top-level government decision that black Americans are full citizens.
Seems to me like you're completely ignoring my earlier post on redlining. Either that or you're perversely describing the Federal Housing Administration as a "low-level government bod[y]", rather than a powerful entity setting mortgage policy on a national level. The effects of the FHA decision not to underwrite mortgages for African-Americans (or not to underwrite mortgages in any neighborhood where African-Americans lived, which amounts to much the same thing) was deliberately designed to stifle economic growth in black communities (credit is the economic lifeblood of a community) and to siphon off African-American wealth to unscrupulous lenders.
For various reasons whenever discussing institutional racism this kind of "few bad apples" mythologizing keeps cropping up, insisting that only a few, scattered "low-level government bodies", like the FHA or the Armed Forces, engaged in such things, whereas the "top-level[s]" of the U.S. government would certainly recognize that "black Americans are full citizens". (If only someone had thought to inform the President that the military was segregated, I'm sure something would have been done!) If there's a charitable explanation for this kind of revisionism it eludes me.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Have all white people benefitted thereby ? Or would white people in general be better off without Ferguson-style policing, better off without redlining, without segregation ?
Because if you want to say that these are mechanisms by which white people in general have benefitted from slavery and black people have not, then you need these two points - that this counts as a benefit and is directly attributable to slavery.
To clarify, the mechanism that I can see by which your average ordinary white person with no inherited wealth has benefitted from slavery is what you might call "trickledown economics" - that everybody benefits to some degree from additional wealth in a society. That's the benefit I can see that I "enjoy", and it applies to everyone.
If you think there are other benefits which apply to all whites and only whites, go ahead and make the case...
I think I already did. Federal policy of only underwriting the mortgages of white Americans seems like an enormous benefit, generating the post-war boom in housing-based wealth. The same policy impoverished African-Americans by artificially inflating housing costs for them and provided a barrier to prevent any of that post-war boom generated wealth from "trickling" into African-American neighborhoods.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The issue is not decency or otherwise, but historical truth, and the truth is that despite all that African Americans have suffered and continue to suffer, they are still better off than they would be living in Africa with those whose ancestors were not traded (but might well have suffered sickening atrocities at the hands of African slave owners while avoiding sale to Europeans), and they are therefore beneficiaries of slavery.
Still waiting for that explanation as to how Barack Obama managed to become the first African-American president despite not having the "benefit" of enslaved ancestors. Perhaps we shouldn't read too much into a single data point, but the fact that it is a single point and that Mr. Obama managed to succeed where no American "advantaged" by the enslavement of his or her ancestors seems to warrant some kind of explanation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I think I already did. Federal policy of only underwriting the mortgages of white Americans seems like an enormous benefit, generating the post-war boom in housing-based wealth.
.. and add to this the effects of the GI Bill and the way in which it was implemented (also at a time when many southern universities didn't admit blacks), and then add this to the way in which Social Security was rolled out.
quote:
Perhaps we shouldn't read too much into a single data point, but the fact that it is a single point and that Mr. Obama managed to succeed where no American "advantaged" by the enslavement of his or her ancestors seems to warrant some kind of explanation.
Obama also presents another illustration - that of how being 'white' is seen as somehow normative. As someone with a white mother and a black father, he's automatically seen as 'black'.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It seems somewhat indecent, therefore, to argue that a system that was efficiently designed to keep black people at the bottom should be described as advantageous to black people when they're still frequently at the bottom, relative to the rest of that society!
"Indecent" in this context is merely an exploitative weasel word used for the purposes of virtue signalling and moral blackmail, and I am calling your bluff.
Wow! No one has ever thrown any of those particular words in my direction before! I was just trying to be polite and civilised rather than confrontational. I'm certainly not going to throw angry words about in order to condemn you or to change your mind. It's just a discussion.
On reflection, I do believe there's truth in the saying that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so I hope that the psychological and sociological trauma visited upon generations of African Americans in the USA (and indeed the descendants of Transatlantic slaves elsewhere) has somehow made something 'better' in a cosmic sense. It must be worth something. I hope it means something to God.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That you ignore the current problems in Africa are the result in the same processes by the same people who engaged in the triangle trade
I have made it quite clear upthread that I recognise that many of Africa's current problems are the result of European exploitation, including slavrey.
Don't verbal me.
quote:
infra-African slavery was on a massively smaller scale and would likely also be extinct by now
If it had really been "massively small" there would have been no point in Europeans' buying into it, and there is no evidence whatsoever that a system that was well entrenched before European involvement would today be extinct.
quote:
That you use the devastation wrought by Europeans as a justification for the dependents of people kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed are better of being abused, killed, forced to live in poverty is ridiculous.[/i]
It is certainly ridiculous, because I didn't say it.
It is a lie which you have invented.
Nowhere have I said that slavery was justified, that Africa didn't suffer from it, or that life has been easy for African Americans.
All I have maintained is the irrefutable fact that the descendants of transported slaves in America are better off than the descendants of those from the same areas of Africa who were not traded.
I simply refuse to believe that you cannot grasp that.
[ 22. July 2016, 06:53: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Still waiting for that explanation as to how Barack Obama managed to become the first African-American president despite not having the "benefit" of enslaved ancestors.
Put some coffee on and hire some videos, because it's going to be a long wait.
While you're waiting, you might like to think about why I am not going to waste my time explaining how the fact that a descendant of slaves has not yet become president in no way obviates the fact that the descendants of transported slaves are still better off than the descendants of those who were not transported.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I hope it means something to God.
Spiritual blackmail is no improvement on moral blackmail.
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
All I have maintained is the irrefutable fact that the descendants of transported slaves in America are better off than the descendants of those from the same areas of Africa who were not traded.
I'm not sure why you think this is relevant. There is no sensible counterfactual history where all those African Americans would be born in Africa instead. It's like suggesting they are better off than they would be if they had been born in 12th Century China.
At some point their ancestors arrived in America, just as many other people of other races did. From that point on their descendants lives have been - on average - worse than the lives of their non-black contemporaries because of slavery.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I hope it means something to God.
Spiritual blackmail is no improvement on moral blackmail.
Now you're just being melodramatic. I don't even know if you believe in God, but this is the Ship of Fools so I didn't think such a reference would offend you. There's no blackmail involved.
African Americans, I'm sure, will continue to hold a range of opinions on the matter, as is their right, considering that being 'better off' is a subjective concept, depending on which criteria one values most highly.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
All I have maintained is the irrefutable fact that the descendants of transported slaves in America are better off than the descendants of those from the same areas of Africa who were not traded.
I'm not entirely convinced that that is an irrefutable fact. It's mainly going to depend on how you define "better off".
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
There is no sensible counterfactual history where all those African Americans would be born in Africa instead.
You can take the view that there is no sensible counterfactual history. That what happened happened and we have to make the best of it and the might-have-beens are irrelevant.
That's a reasonable position to take. If you apply it even-handedly, to the man born and raised in the Southern mansion as well as to the man of African descent born & raised in America.
What's inconsistent is to pick and choose. To use a counterfactual in which there was no American slavery as normative, as what should have happened, when it suits you, and deny the validity of that way of thinking when the conclusions don't suit you.
In such an alternate history, with no transatlantic slave trade, Africa is precisely where the people who are currently African-Americans would be born.
You're uncomfortable with taking that fact as in any way normative, as implying that that's where they belong.
And rightly so.
Does anybody really want a world order which works like that ? Where the consensus as to what alternate history "should have happened" defines people's rights ? Better not to go there.
So think it through. Reject the idea that anyone should be compensated for the alternate histories that didn't materialise.
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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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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
In such an alternate history, with no transatlantic slave trade, Africa is precisely where the people who are currently African-Americans would be born.
One might as well ask where a child of a raped mother would have been born had the mother not been raped.
Aside from the metaphor, given the frequency of sexual abuse I would guess that many African Americans (perhaps even the majority) have a white male sexual abuser somewhere in their genealogy.
I would imagine many of them could be considered insufficiently grateful for the gift of life that gave them.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
In such an alternate history, with no transatlantic slave trade, Africa is precisely where the people who are currently African-Americans would be born.
To be pedantic, most people who are currently African American wouldn't exist at all. For the reasons mdjion mentions as well as the fact that the route to America from Africa would have been different, resulting in different pairings.
But this tack you and KC take is ridiculous on many levels. The first, and largest, is that Europe raped Africa. They destroyed political and social structure, instigated and encouraged internecine strife, stole resources, caused famine, etc.
This myth that Africa entire was primitive tribes living in squalor and killing each other is sickening, racist rubbish. The European powers did not float up and just buy slave that were already on market, they turned it into an industry. And whilst they were doing that, they were in a mad race to control as much of the continent as possible with little regard to the indigenous. Even after the triangle trade stopped, the ravaging continued. Many of the reasons you see as Africa being so horrible to be born in are directly attributable to the very same process which resulted in theses "oh so lucky" black Americans. Yeah, they get to be abused by authority, kept in poverty, lynched and shunned in America! Better than the uncivilised treatment of darkest Africa.
And, a pedantic note: Whilst it is better to be black in the UK, it is not all sunshine and ice cream. Slavery, racism and the rape of Africa play part in that as well.
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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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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
One might as well ask where a child of a raped mother would have been born had the mother not been raped.
That's not a refutation of Russ's argument. I think his position (which, if I've understood it right, I agree with) is that the fact that someone has benefitted from a historical event does not make that event right, or place them in a state of moral indebtedness to those who's ancestors suffered from the same event. So while it is indeed true (and IMO undeniable) that a person conceived by rape has benefitted, the moral duty to refrain from, prevent, disapprove of, and to assist the victims of, rape is entirely unaffected whether or not one has rapists or rape victims in one's ancestry.
The premise of this thread seems to be that knowing how one has benefitted from historical slavery would make a difference to present duties. That seems to me to be no more valid than a similar conclusion based on a historical rape would be.
In observing that some African-Americans have benefitted from slavery by (a) being born at all, or (b) being born in a generally more prosperous country, it seems to me that Russ in emphatically not inviting the conclusion: "So slavery isn't that bad" or "So African-Americans have inherited a moral debt, too" he's inviting the conclusion "So what? That makes no difference to anyone's present day obligations". Which it doesn't.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
In such an alternate history, with no transatlantic slave trade, Africa is precisely where the people who are currently African-Americans would be born.
The underlying assumptions here are rather interesting. The premise seems to be that while people in Germany or China or elsewhere might have the initiative to voluntarily migrate to North America, no one living in Africa could possibly possess similar initiative. There's some pretty ugly history behind such assumptions.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Slave owners do not owe their slaves because they have benefited from a wrongful act. They owe their slaves because they have committed a wrongful act against them.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Does anybody really want a world order which works like that ? Where the consensus as to what alternate history "should have happened" defines people's rights ? Better not to go there.
So think it through. Reject the idea that anyone should be compensated for the alternate histories that didn't materialise.
Again these two positions seem contradictory. On the one hand Russ is saying that a slave owner owes something to his slaves based on a "wrongful act", which seems to require an argument from what "should have happened" (i.e. the slave's non-enslavement). On the other, he rejects any kind of compensation based on "alternate histories that didn't materialise", such as a slave arguing that he shouldn't have been enslaved. I don't see any way to thread this needle.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
You can take the view that there is no sensible counterfactual history. That what happened happened and we have to make the best of it and the might-have-beens are irrelevant.
No, all I take for now is a somewhat narrower view; that the specific counter factual being posed is one where the particular set of people being reasoned about (African Americans) don't exist. As such I don't think that particular counterfactual makes much sense or has much relevance.
quote:
That's a reasonable position to take. If you apply it even-handedly, to the man born and raised in the Southern mansion as well as to the man of African descent born & raised in America.
Actually it's fairly arbitrary to take the position that one set of property claims should be honored and should be inheritable even as others are not.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The premise of this thread seems to be that knowing how one has benefitted from historical slavery would make a difference to present duties.
To me at least, admittedly coming at this through the lens of my own experience, I understand the premise slightly differently—knowing how one has benefitted from historical slavery and how others still suffer the effects of historical slavery would make a difference to present understanding of both obvious and subtle racial inequalities and put us in a better position to find a just way forward.
I regularly hear one or more from other white people in the American South:
— Slavery ended 150 years ago, so why are we still talking about it. Move on already.
— My family may have owned slaves, but that was 150 years ago, and it doesn't effect me now.
— My family didn't own slaves, so it has nothing to do with me.
— My family didn't even come here until after the Civil War, so slavery has nothing to do with me.
Discussions about the ongoing effects of historical slavery are a challenge to move beyond such simplistic thinking and look at the ways that slavery and its racist after-effects—Jim Crow, separate but equal, redlining, etc.—have led to systematic privilege for some, including many whose families never owned slaves, but not for others.
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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
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The European powers did not float up and just buy slave that were already on market
That's precisely what they did.
The already existing and flourishing slave trade meant that that they could buy men and women from Arab and sub-Saharan African dealers instead of having to take off into the hinterland and hunt them down for themselves.
You're going around in circles, seemingly for the opportunity to exhibitionistically emote.
For the seventeenth time: agreed that slavery was a bad thing; agreed that European colonial exploitation of Africa is one of the reasons for its current problems; agreed that life has been difficult and dangerous for African Americans ever since the abolition of slavery; agreed that relatively better living conditions for African Americans compared to the descendants of the non-transported in Africa in no way justifies slavery.
None of this changes the facts that the slave trade happened, and that on balance today's African Americans are net beneficiaries of it.
[ 24. July 2016, 03:20: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The European powers did not float up and just buy slave that were already on market
That's precisely what they did.
Yes, the slave trade existed, but it was nowhere near the scale it became with the triangle trade.
quote:
None of this changes the facts that the slave trade happened, and that on balance today's African Americans are net beneficiaries of it.
For this to be true, Africa without the Atlantic slave trade and the accompanying ravaging of the continent would have to be as fucked up as it is today. And that is quite a condition on your premise.
And you have to have a fairly subjective definition of "better".
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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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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The European powers did not float up and just buy slave that were already on market
That's precisely what they did.
The already existing and flourishing slave trade meant that that they could buy men and women from Arab and sub-Saharan African dealers instead of having to take off into the hinterland and hunt them down for themselves.
Yes, but the demands of the trans-Atlantic trade resulted in a boom in the trade in Africa. Many of the slave ports that flourished only existed because of the trans-Atlantic trade. Most of the African and Arab slave traders were only in business because of the trans-Atlantic trade.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I don't see any way to thread this needle.
Look at this way.
Every choice conceptually creates an alternative history based on the path not taken.
If the choice made is a morally wrong choice, then people tend to feel that the alternative history "should have happened" instead of the real history. Also, if the choice made is a morally wrong choice, then some form of reparation for that wrong is likely to be owed.
It does not follow that every alternative history that we feel "should have happened" gives rise to a moral claim for compensation. (E.g. Should WW1 have happened ? And if not whom do we sue ?)
If A implies B and A implies C, then it does not follow that B implies C. That's probably a fallacy that there's some Greek name for...
It's entirely consistent to argue that there is no right to compensation (C) arising from an alternative history that should have happened (B). Giving examples of where a wrongful act (A) creates both does not prove what you want it to prove.
quote:
Originally posted by Croesus:
The premise seems to be that while people in Germany or China or elsewhere might have the initiative to voluntarily migrate to North America, no one living in Africa could possibly possess similar initiative.
Not at all. Real life is so complex that in general alternate history can say very little about individuals. The best we can do is to reason plausibly about the big trends. Mass migrations can be explained in terms of causes. Individual migrations are a matter of free will.
The possibility of individual Africans migrating to China or anywhere else is not ruled out. But to suggest that there would be a mass migration of Africans to anywhere, as part of an alternate history, would require some causal explanation.
You could argue, I suppose, that a slavery-free history would somehow lead to an event in Africa comparable to the Irish Potato Famine, which would cause mass migration of Africans to America. If that's what you think, I look forward to hearing the reasoning.
But it seems to me that the opposite case is being put forward by lilBuddha - that everything in Africa would be sweetness and light if it wasn't for transatlantic slavery.
Needless to say, I don't believe that either.
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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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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
One might as well ask where a child of a raped mother would have been born had the mother not been raped.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
That's not a refutation of Russ's argument...In observing that some African-Americans have benefitted from slavery by (a) being born at all
I think it is a refutation. I accept that whether someone benefits directly or indirectly doesn't determine morality. That seems obvious. If a kidnap inadvertently saves a victim from an earthquake it doesn't change the morality of the kidnap. But my refutation is the application of that logic in this instance.
You wouldn't describe the child of a raped mother as having benefited from his/her mother's rape. It's true to say that the benefit or lack of benefit doesn't influence the morality of the rape, but I have a problem with asking the question whether the child of the raped mother benefits in the first place.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The premise of this thread seems to be that knowing how one has benefitted from historical slavery would make a difference to present duties.
To me at least, admittedly coming at this through the lens of my own experience, I understand the premise slightly differently—knowing how one has benefitted from historical slavery and how others still suffer the effects of historical slavery would make a difference to present understanding of both obvious and subtle racial inequalities and put us in a better position to find a just way forward.
Exactly.
quote:
I regularly hear one or more from other white people in the American South:
And not just in the South. I've heard those sorts of statements from white people everywhere.
I understand wanting to turn away from the past. But I think it's important to look at it and acknowledge it, so you can see the effects that it's still having. And seeing them, it might be easier to figure out what needs to be done now.
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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 Russ:
You could argue, I suppose, that a slavery-free history would somehow lead to an event in Africa comparable to the Irish Potato Famine, which would cause mass migration of Africans to America. If that's what you think, I look forward to hearing the reasoning.
But it seems to me that the opposite case is being put forward by lilBuddha - that everything in Africa would be sweetness and light if it wasn't for transatlantic slavery.
Sweetness and light. That is sooo precious, but wrong. What I am saying is that Africa would be better of id Europeans had not been greedy, racist, rapine bastards. Better, not perfect.
What you appear to be implying is that a continent which saw the rise and fall of civilizations whilst Europe sat in huts would find no way of coping with modernity, despite flourishing trade and abundant resource.
Tell me how this is not racist? Tell me how this is not revisionist?
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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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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
And not just in the South. I've heard those sorts of statements from white people everywhere.
I have no doubt of that. I've lived my entire life in the South, though, which is why I qualified it that way.
I do think statements such as the examples I gave are particularly discordant here, where remnants of slave labor, including many public buildings, abound. (Sometimes I wonder if some of these folks think that all slaves either worked in the fields or served in the house.)
Of course, if we're talking public buildings, there's always the United States Capitol and the White House.
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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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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Africa would be better of id Europeans had not been greedy, racist, rapine bastards.
Correction: technologically superior "greedy, racist, rapine bastards" ("...we have got/The Maxim gun, and they have not").
Morally. there was nothing between Africans and Europeans.
quote:
a continent which saw the rise and fall of civilizations whilst Europe sat in huts
Historically rather dubious.
Obviously there is some truth in it as regards Ancient Egypt, but this discussion is about sub-Saharan Africa where the slaves came from, and despite the emergence of a number of relatively sophisticated kingdoms and empires across this region over the centuries, there is little evidence of anything which could be grandiosely described as a "civilization", certainly one which provided any markedly better way of life for its members than did Europe.
[ 25. July 2016, 11:00: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Morally. there was nothing between Africans and Europeans.
Why make that point? It strikes me as highly dubious to try and weigh the morality of two enormous and overlapping groups of people in the balance.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There is little evidence of anything which could be grandiosely described as a "civilization", certainly one which provided any markedly better way of life for its members than did Europe.
Is one example enough?
But again I don't understand your point. Are we comparing Africans and Europeans to work out who is "better"?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
The common practice among Europeans from at least the 12th Century was to define themselves as civilised, and that anything which didn't conform to their own standard as un-civilised. So, nations and empires which didn't create cities of stone that last for centuries were considered un-civilised. Not having a written language, or holding religious beliefs that were not a reasonable approximation to the Christian faith, and structures that didn't look like an episcopalian church was another mark of non-civilisation. And, of course, the absence of certain technologies was a massive indication of not being civilised - a currency, the wheel, horse back riding etc.
And, of course, if you look at Africa and judge how civilised a nation was by European standards it will fall below Europe. That's almost by definition. But, so what if somewhere like the Kingdom of Kongo was structured around villages that moved every decade or so and hence were non-permanent structures? Or, that they didn't use wheeled carts to move their produce? Or, their clothing didn't conform to European standards of modesty? Does that make them less civilised?
Long after the end of slavery, the attitude hadn't changed. It was the burden of the white man to civilise the ignorant savages of Africa (and, of Asia and the Americas). Sadly, that colonial attitude is still alive and well in far too large a proportion of our nations.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I don't see any way to thread this needle.
Look at this way.
Every choice conceptually creates an alternative history based on the path not taken.
If the choice made is a morally wrong choice, then people tend to feel that the alternative history "should have happened" instead of the real history. Also, if the choice made is a morally wrong choice, then some form of reparation for that wrong is likely to be owed.
This is where the contradiction comes in. You can't argue that "some form of reparation for that wrong is likely to be owed" and that we should "[r]eject the idea that anyone should be compensated for the alternate histories that didn't materialise". You're arguing that reparation is owed for past wrongs, but that compensation should never be owed for past wrongs (a.k.a. "alternate histories that didn't materialise").
I also question how you can decide something is "morally wrong" if you reject any consideration of what "should have happened". Morality is all about what should and shouldn't happen.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Croesus:
The premise seems to be that while people in Germany or China or elsewhere might have the initiative to voluntarily migrate to North America, no one living in Africa could possibly possess similar initiative.
Not at all. Real life is so complex that in general alternate history can say very little about individuals. The best we can do is to reason plausibly about the big trends. Mass migrations can be explained in terms of causes. Individual migrations are a matter of free will.
The possibility of individual Africans migrating to China or anywhere else is not ruled out. But to suggest that there would be a mass migration of Africans to anywhere, as part of an alternate history, would require some causal explanation.
I'm a bit perplexed by the sudden right turn there. I argued the people living in China and what would become Germany managed to immigrate in numbers to North America and asked why you believe those living in Africa couldn't possibly have the same initiative as just about everyone else living on the eastern edge of the Atlantic. You respond by speculating on African immigration to . . . China? ![[Confused]](confused.gif) Not someplace usually known as a destination for immigrants. Is the idea of Africans voluntarily immigrating to North America so alien to you that you can't imagine it even hypothetically?
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
You could argue, I suppose, that a slavery-free history would somehow lead to an event in Africa comparable to the Irish Potato Famine, which would cause mass migration of Africans to America. If that's what you think, I look forward to hearing the reasoning.
I don't need to postulate an hypothetical event, the well-known collapse of the west African economy* in the 16th century coupled with labor demands in the New World would have been a powerful motivator. The combination of bad local economic prospects and strong labor demands coupled with opportunity were sufficient motivators for virtually every other group of immigrants to the New World. I ask again why you believe Africans are so uniquely lazy and shiftless that, unlike every other group given the opportunity, they'd rather starve at home than immigrate?
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*The main export commodity of the west African region involved in what became the trans-Atlantic slave trade was gold, and the price of gold cratered as soon as Spain started hauling it back by the galleon-load from its Aztec and Inca conquests.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
And, of course, if you look at Africa and judge how civilised a nation was by European standards it will fall below Europe. That's almost by definition. But, so what if somewhere like the Kingdom of Kongo was structured around villages that moved every decade or so and hence were non-permanent structures? Or, that they didn't use wheeled carts to move their produce? Or, their clothing didn't conform to European standards of modesty? Does that make them less civilised?
You make a good point Alan but chose an unfortunate example. Kongo was a more urban and settled society than many in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its capital M'banza-Kongo, visited by Portuguese missionaries in the 1480s before any meaningful Atlantic slave trade commenced, was a substantial city with a developed hinterland of supporting farming communities. The kingdom was relatively centralised, administered from the capital by a form of royal and clan bureaucracy that was familiar to contemporary Europeans.
Further, the tradition of slavery was then already long established in Kongo and in all the kingdoms and empires around it. The Portuguese went on to disrupt that trade, but only by becoming a voracious new customer which Kongo couldn't supply without raiding far and wide across its borders.
The prevalence of slavery within Africa is one reason why it is pretty difficult to speculate meaningfully about what 21st Century Africa might have been like had the Atlantic slave trade never happened. Another is the Arab demand for African slaves. This trade was at least as extensive as the Atlantic trade and far more enduring, and it might simply have expanded further still if the Atlantic trade have never materialised.
Posts: 701 | From: middle England | Registered: May 2005
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Is the idea of Africans voluntarily immigrating to North America so alien to you that you can't imagine it even hypothetically?
Ira Berlin estimates that 1 in 4 black Americans are first or second generation African immigrants.
[ 25. July 2016, 17:29: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Russ--
Since you believe that African-Americans benefited from the slave trade, are you saying that makes slavery ok?
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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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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The common practice among Europeans from at least the 12th Century was to define themselves as civilised, and that anything which didn't conform to their own standard as un-civilised.
As indeed, so did the Chinese and Japanese in particular - various of the empires in the sib-continent, Persia and the Americas to a range of lesser degrees.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Russ--
Since you believe that African-Americans benefited from the slave trade, are you saying that makes slavery ok?
Not as I read his posts. Russ has repeatedly said that he believes that slave-owners committed a wrong against their slaves. ISTM that a necessary concomitant of that is a belief that slavery as an institution is wrong.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Gee D--
However, some people take a view that if something good happened in the wake of something bad, it's ok--even good--that the bad thing happened. ISTM that Russ is at least dancing on the edge of that.
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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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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
However, some people take a view that if something good happened in the wake of something bad, it's ok--even good--that the bad thing happened. ISTM that Russ is at least dancing on the edge of that.
A result of the holocaust is that in the west anti-Semitism is regarded as a hateful evil. Before that anti-Semitism was common to the point of being the norm throughout Europe and America.
I don't believe that anyone would say that this good result in any way justifies the holocaust.
It is very common for evil things to have some kind of good consequences. This is just the way that things work, and it in no way justifies the wrong.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Russ--
Since you believe that African-Americans benefited from the slave trade, are you saying that makes slavery ok?
Which still leaves out the problem of the descendants of slaves have clearly benefited LESS from slavery than the descendants of slave owners.
So, Russ, let's say I steal your car, but afterwards I occasionally give you a ride to the store. Would you feel better about the loss of your car if I explained that since you're getting the occasional free ride, you're better off than if you didn't have a car at all?
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Here is a link (PDF) giving a, relatively, short brief of how Europe fucked Africa. It is asinine to claim African Americans are better off in America when the process which brought them there ravaged where they were brought from.
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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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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Is one example enough?
But again I don't understand your point. Are we comparing Africans and Europeans to work out who is "better"?
Kush was not sub-Saharan, but you and AC make a fair semantic point as regards the word "civilisation".
It is a very elastic term which can be used to describe a wide variety of cultures and societies - though the truth remains that there was never a time when any sub-Saharan civilisation was such that contemporary European civilisation could be comparatively be described in terms of Europeans sitting "in huts".
No, we are not trying to work out whether Africans or Europeans are "better".
I was just correcting lilBuddha's Manichaean implication that Africa was a civilised, peaceful haven of light that was destroyed by the dark forces of belligerent, barbarian Europe.
Africans exploited their fellow Africans just as badly as Europeans did, just less efficiently.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Here is a link (PDF) giving a, relatively, short brief of how Europe fucked Africa.
For the umpteenth time, no-one is denying it.
quote:
It is asinine to claim African Americans are better off in America when the process which brought them there ravaged where they were brought from.
It. Does. Not. Follow.
For the umpteenth time, the fact that European exploitation was one factor in Africa's current problems does not change the fact that today's African Americans are the beneficiaries of their ancestors having been transported to America.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Gee D--
However, some people take a view that if something good happened in the wake of something bad, it's ok--even good--that the bad thing happened. ISTM that Russ is at least dancing on the edge of that.
No, I don't think he's dancing on the edge, because his view is not that you set out. All he is saying, at least as I read him, is that the present day lot of African Americans generally better than the lot of those in the countries from where the ancestors came. He's not saying that the lot of African Americans is generally equal to that of white Americans either. It most certainly is not and I would not be surprised if that of the descendants of those inhabitants displaced from their lands by European settlement was even worse.
The other point he's tried to make is that there is no value in compensating the descendants of slaves for the wrong done to their ancestors. I have much more trouble with that, but would have less if that were coupled with some expression along the lines that we as a society should introduce programmes designed to address the needs of all those in a particular position regardless of their ancestry.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is a very elastic term which can be used to describe a wide variety of cultures and societies - though the truth remains that there was never a time when any sub-Saharan civilisation was such that contemporary European civilisation could be comparatively be described in terms of Europeans sitting "in huts".
It depends which part of Europe you're talking about. Axum would have compared favourably with northern and eastern Europe during the Roman Empire and early middle ages; I would suppose that the Ethiopian eunuch from Acts could have looked down on anywhere in contemporary Britain.
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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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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
The idea that the African internal acquisition and use of slaves was just the same as (but somehow less effective) than the large-scale transportation, brutalisation, dehumanisation and deculturation of Africans on the way to and in the Americas is a curious one. I've never come across a scholarly account that likens the two experiences of slavery in this way.
Of course, slavery has existed throughout human history. Europeans were perfectly willing to enslave each other. In fact, it's been noted that the Transatlantic slave trade took off at the point when slavery was dying out in Europe. I'm inclined to think that wasn't a coincidence. What made the one economically undesirable could well have made the other economically desirable.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Europeans were perfectly willing to enslave each other. In fact, it's been noted that the Transatlantic slave trade took off at the point when slavery was dying out in Europe. I'm inclined to think that wasn't a coincidence. What made the one economically undesirable could well have made the other economically desirable.
A big issue was the fact that European slaves, or indentured servants, were not economically desirable, due to their tendency to die like flies in the Americas. Africans were resistant to malaria.
A side benefit was that Africans proved to be less likely to try to kill their masters than some of the other population groups tested.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
You wouldn't describe the child of a raped mother as having benefited from his/her mother's rape. It's true to say that the benefit or lack of benefit doesn't influence the morality of the rape, but I have a problem with asking the question whether the child of the raped mother benefits in the first place.
Would you have just as much of a problem with people suggesting that the child, due to its heritage, is a victim of rape?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
So, Russ, let's say I steal your car, but afterwards I occasionally give you a ride to the store. Would you feel better about the loss of your car if I explained that since you're getting the occasional free ride, you're better off than if you didn't have a car at all?
I think a better comparison would be that you steal Russ' car, and that causes him to us public transportation, which puts him in touch with a new group of friends who help him become a millionaire.
Maybe he's better off, but you still go to jail.
But I would dispute that African-Americans are better off than those in Africa. Africa is by and large a wonderful place, with very low crime rates and beautiful, loving people. Terrible things do happen there, as they do everywhere, but Europeans and Americans get a hugely slanted view from watching the news.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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