Do you know the first slaves were white not black !!! (racist, job)
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When people say during the Atlantic slave trade white people were enslaved that's true but...
There was a racial hierarchy the colour line. Whites at the top above the colour line and people of colour below it with blacks right at the bottom
So what if whites were enslaved they don't face the same psychological effect they do today so its meaningless.
The displacement of west-Central Africans to the new world was not just simple slavery it was deeper than that - Irish people, Italians do not face the same issues.
Why don't you say the same for the Indian Ocean slave trades, Arab slave trades, Muslim/Islamic , and Jewish slave trades which all began earlier than the Transatlantic slave trade, and were much longer slave trades that were brutal and did very much harm to black Africans and in many ways still go on to this very day. So you have to touch upon this on a global level. Avoiding to do so lacks nuance and is a hit and miss.
When people say during the Atlantic slave trade white people were enslaved that's true but...
There was a racial hierarchy the colour line. Whites at the top above the colour line and people of colour below it with blacks right at the bottom
So what if whites were enslaved they don't face the same psychological effect they do today so its meaningless.
The displacement of west-Central Africans to the new world was not just simple slavery it was deeper than that - Irish people, Italians do not face the same issues.
Irish and Italians and Catholics of course got treated just as bad or even worse than blacks, even during 20th century Jim Crow era period in the USA.
Anyone who has been to an American high school should know that the Greeks and Romans had white slaves, and the ancient Egyptians made slaves of captured prisoners, only some of whom were black. If you went to a Catholic school you know the Irish captured the future St. Patrick on a slave raid, and he was slave there before he escaped. And so on. Some native American tribes enslaved captives as well.
But the fact is that after secondary school there are no reminders in the culture of these ancient non-black African slaves.
I think the enslavement of black Africans preoccupies the American people for a number of reasons:
1. The size of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the great amount of surviving material on it.
2. The fact that it existed quite late in the United States and Brazil.
3. The black and mixed-blood descendants of slaves are a sizable part of the population of the United States (and Brazil, of course.)
4. On the other hand, the fact that enslaved Roma and Tartar existed in present-day country of Romania until they were freed in the mid-19th century is probably virtually unknown due to the fact that their numbers where very much smaller, and their condition existed in an area (the Balkans) whose history is unimportant to most Americans.
And in the end, no one can deny that it is the existence of a slave system based on the ownership of black Africans that became a national issue, the focus of a terrible war, and a post-war history of Jim Crow laws, legal racial segregation of these people, and discrimination well into the 20th century. The absence of life-long chattel enslavement of white persons in the U.S. in practical terms makes that type of slavery an academic pursuit.
How many Americans ever saw or knew of a white person who was born and lived as a chattel slave, probably close to none (until the use of slave labor by the Third Reich). But most Americans of my generation and my parents knew of living black Africans who had been chattel slaves, and some whites would have know these people personally. And that is all the difference in the world.
Ok, somewhat of a more level headed and decent post, albeit a few inaccuracies and flaws, but the main issue in regards to USA was what happened when 20th century Jim Crow was imposed. That's the elephant in the room, more so than slavery.
Europeans saw Africans as labour force. Before industrial times people did the hard work, and West Africans were there en masse. Remember, just decades before Europeans were killing Europeans as they were Protestants/Catholics. The slave trade was NOT about racism but simply because there was labour available. And a pagan slave meant as much as much as a part of a windmill.
Even tribes in Africa started to enslave their fellow Africans and sell them to Europeans for money and gunpowder. The worst rape of Africa before Leopold II was that the African tribes turned against each other to sell slaves to Europeans. In East Africa the local kingdoms captured and sold millions of slaves to the Arabs. It was a win-win situation in any case.
Well said,
And don't forget that Arabs, Muslims and Jews were enslaving black African peoples since ancient times long before Europeans got into a transatlantic slave trade. Many of the slave traders and slave owners though were people of color, blacks, Jews, Muslims etc
Black people in the US were considered 3/5ths human. But nah, it wasn't about race at all.
When were black people considered 3/5 of a human being? That's not true. 3/5 law applied to slaves of all races. During colonial period, antebellum era etc, slavery was not based on race as there were slaves of all races. Slavery was based on matrilinealism, regardless of race.
During 20th century Jim Crow, blacks and peoples of African descent were definitely treated like second and/or even third class/tertiary citizens.
And this discounts that the majority of the slave owners or "slave masters" were European and most of the slaves were African?
Sobre, its not relevant because as a rule this wasn't the case its deeply offensive to me personally because my ancestors were slaves on the plantations in the Caribbean wiped, raped, overthrown at sea, hunted down like animals.
You are offending people so just stop with "some whites were slaves too" like that somehow changes history.
All of you are deluded and borderline racists including the one from Finland.
Yes, I said it RACIST.
For starters, I'm not white. I'm just a facts kind of guy. And please do not falsely accuse people of being racists etc. I can't speak for others but I'm not a racist and I'm proud of my history. And yes, everyone that participated in slave trades needs to be held accountable or called out for it. Also if you've seen my posts elsewhere, I've challenged people to check their racism and defend people that have been victims of racism. I'm just not a fan of people overlooking certain facts, or not viewing the full picture. I think it also makes people of African descent and African diaspora look doomed when attaching such to only slavery. Not all people of African descent were slaves and that deserves just as much attention as the narrative and retrospective analysis of slavery and other complex aspects of history.
Resorting to ad hominems and strawmen arguments will not make your arguments stronger!
And this discounts that the majority of the slave owners or "slave masters" were European and most of the slaves were African?
Sobre, its not relevant because as a rule this wasn't the case its deeply offensive to me personally because my ancestors were slaves on the plantations in the Caribbean wiped, raped, overthrown at sea, hunted down like animals.
You are offending people so just stop with "some whites were slaves too" like that somehow changes history.
All of you are deluded and borderline racists including the one from Finland.
Yes, I said it RACIST.
YOU are also offending the memory and legacy of African descended and Afrodiasporic peoples worldwide with varying degrees of aspects of misguided misinformation.
Afrocentrism/ethnocentrism is just as bad as the Eurocentrism that preceded it!
Racism is in the air, even when we think we're being "PC" or when we're joking we're being racist we can't except it because that's the only way we know to think.
Quite frankly, statements like that are fairly obnoxious.
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