Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 08-06-2014, 06:08 PM
 
Location: Northern Virginia
498 posts, read 974,957 times
Reputation: 1207

Advertisements

History shouldn't be forgotten. What's more important is for everyone to stop taking history personally. If it happened to you yourself, great, be mad about it. I'll support you. But don't get pissy just because your ancestors had it rough.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 08-06-2014, 06:15 PM
 
Location: Type 0.73 Kardashev
11,110 posts, read 9,770,079 times
Reputation: 40161
Just out of curiosity, would it also be 'beneficial' for the Confederate flag-wavers to 'forget' the past and stop the flag-waving, too? How about all those various states where Robert E. Lee and/or Jefferson Davis have days set aside as holidays to honor them, to say nothing about the countless memorials, streets, highways, parks, etc. named after them?

Or is 'getting over' the past just something non-whites need to do?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 06:25 PM
 
1,554 posts, read 1,898,274 times
Reputation: 501
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heavenese View Post
As everyone know, out of all the injustices that took place on this soil, slavery often ranks number one in a lot of people's heart. Although it's not right to say so because it undermines other wrongs done to people of all ethnicity. Yet at the end of the day, as a black person I ask myself what did it profit, and what did all the suffering under Jim Crow profit? You had 300+ years of free labor and at the end of day, no black slave received anything when they were set free. I often been told freedom itself were the slaves' reparations, that good white men gave their lives to fight for our freedom against the south. So slavery was repaid in being set free.


Then you had the period of terrorism on black people and the subsequent Jim Crow era. In that period black people tried to get on their feet in this country, but without protection under the law, we could only go so far. Eventually that led to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. After that we finally got protection under the law, and even programs like Affirmative Action got thrown into the mix. Yet at the end of the day, those programs weren't just for black people, but all minorities and white women. To this day white women benefited more from Affirmative Action than any other group, and by association the program help white families more than black families. Again, no specific reparations or payment of any kind was given to those black people who suffered during Jim Crow.


So my thinking is here are two times where black people's suffering profited nothing. I used to think at least from the Civil Rights Movement, black people contributed to all minority people and women with all the civil rights programs that was issued as a result. I used to think because of black people's suffering in the early 20th century, other people coming into this country wouldn't have to suffer in the same way because of the Civil Rights Movement. Yet when I talk to people about it who's family immigrated here, they give all the credit to the hard work of their family in making it. I at least thought we had that contribution to the US, but no one is really thankful for that, it's not their history. At the end of the day then, what worth is there from all that suffering? The only thing I get from that history is it's over, no one is to blame for that, and that we should get over it. I see no contribution to the US if immigrants didn't need our suffering, and slavery itself was a legal activity.
People should not forget about any of it, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse for present situations.

Also it's very disingenuous to confine blacks solely to a history if slavery experience. Not all black people were slaves. And many black people were never slaves, and came as free people and remained free.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 06:41 PM
 
Location: Arizona
8,247 posts, read 8,596,826 times
Reputation: 27576
To me it seems that success comes to those who move on from their past. Compare Native Americans on the reservation and the ones that have lived in major metro areas for several generations. I am sure they all remember their history but who are more likely to dwell on it?

You should never forget the past but you have to get over it. Everyone has had something bad happen in their life to one degree or another. If you can't move on from it, how does your life work out?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 07:06 PM
 
1,554 posts, read 1,898,274 times
Reputation: 501
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heavenese View Post
As everyone know, out of all the injustices that took place on this soil, slavery often ranks number one in a lot of people's heart. Although it's not right to say so because it undermines other wrongs done to people of all ethnicity. Yet at the end of the day, as a black person I ask myself what did it profit, and what did all the suffering under Jim Crow profit? You had 300+ years of free labor and at the end of day, no black slave received anything when they were set free. I often been told freedom itself were the slaves' reparations, that good white men gave their lives to fight for our freedom against the south. So slavery was repaid in being set free.


Then you had the period of terrorism on black people and the subsequent Jim Crow era. In that period black people tried to get on their feet in this country, but without protection under the law, we could only go so far. Eventually that led to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. After that we finally got protection under the law, and even programs like Affirmative Action got thrown into the mix. Yet at the end of the day, those programs weren't just for black people, but all minorities and white women. To this day white women benefited more from Affirmative Action than any other group, and by association the program help white families more than black families. Again, no specific reparations or payment of any kind was given to those black people who suffered during Jim Crow.


So my thinking is here are two times where black people's suffering profited nothing. I used to think at least from the Civil Rights Movement, black people contributed to all minority people and women with all the civil rights programs that was issued as a result. I used to think because of black people's suffering in the early 20th century, other people coming into this country wouldn't have to suffer in the same way because of the Civil Rights Movement. Yet when I talk to people about it who's family immigrated here, they give all the credit to the hard work of their family in making it. I at least thought we had that contribution to the US, but no one is really thankful for that, it's not their history. At the end of the day then, what worth is there from all that suffering? The only thing I get from that history is it's over, no one is to blame for that, and that we should get over it. I see no contribution to the US if immigrants didn't need our suffering, and slavery itself was a legal activity.
There have been some cases of blacks getting reparations as well as individual cases of blacks getting reparations.

If reparations are given, they should be given to survivors of an oppressive ordeal or experience. And then those survivors need to be able to prove and/or show damages.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 07:10 PM
 
1,554 posts, read 1,898,274 times
Reputation: 501
Quote:
Originally Posted by thriftylefty View Post
The history of many white people in America is told outside of their plantation dealings with blacks. Blacks of the same period seem to be forever linked to their servitude. Why is it we don't refer to the fathers of our country as plantation masters as in " slave owner Thomas Jefferson" , Benjamin Banneker a contemporary of his is always referred to as "freeman Benjamin Banneker "

IMO plantation owners and whites who benefitted from the Jim Crow system did not have as much control over the lives of blacks as they believed they did. There is evidence that some Slaves; accumulated as much as $20,000, opened bank accounts , built vacation homes and the fist black person to accumulate a million dollars died in 1919.

There is a whole history of black people that can be told outside of their lives as slaves just as we study whites with out broaching the subject of their interaction with their slaves as important parts of their life. Just as the story of the first settlers who endured the rigors of the west and it's inherent dangers and hard ships that they had no control over, the story of black people can be told also with tales of enduring hardship that they to had no control over.
Remember that Jim Crow & slavery are two separate different things & two different time periods.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 07:11 PM
 
1,554 posts, read 1,898,274 times
Reputation: 501
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk View Post
Black Boomers--of which there are millions.

Heck, I myself was in the 7th grade before I ever knew a white person by name or was allowed to sit in the same social setting as a white kid. And I personally know some white men my age who are still angry at that happening.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 07:47 PM
 
28,624 posts, read 18,677,825 times
Reputation: 30904
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander View Post
The old racism which was open, widespread, institutionalized and legalized has been overcome to the degree that the virulent forms which still exist, exist as public pariahs, their numbers and potency dwindling with each passing generation.
At the moment the overriding dynamic is still the fact that the last generation to be born and raised into apartheid is still in control of politics, industry, and media.

I had thought differently myself up until six years ago, but I see now we Boomers will not achieve King's dream, and neither will the nation until we Boomers are dead and the Millennial generation is firmly in control--give it another 25-30 years.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 07:49 PM
 
28,624 posts, read 18,677,825 times
Reputation: 30904
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heavenese View Post
Of course there are great stories in our history. Yet I'm looking at this thing as a whole. As a people, our history is one from suffering, that's the basis for every african american story. Any time you talk about a black person in american history, the back drop will always be the struggle against racism and so forth. Again, 400 years and nothing to show for that. Did the US benefit from slavery? Unofficially yes, but officially no. Did the US benefit from the Civil Rights Movement? Unofficially yes, but officially no. So I think thinking about it hypothetically, it may be better to forget it in order to truly move on.
That's rather like asking Jews to give up everything in the OT after Genesis.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-06-2014, 07:50 PM
 
28,624 posts, read 18,677,825 times
Reputation: 30904
Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsettomati View Post
Just out of curiosity, would it also be 'beneficial' for the Confederate flag-wavers to 'forget' the past and stop the flag-waving, too? How about all those various states where Robert E. Lee and/or Jefferson Davis have days set aside as holidays to honor them, to say nothing about the countless memorials, streets, highways, parks, etc. named after them?

Or is 'getting over' the past just something non-whites need to do?
And those "Wasn't life much better in the 50s?" threads.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:53 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top