When Africans Meet African-Americans (country, life, cost, culture)
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Are you for reparations or not? Reparations can be paid in many forms. Africans and their descendents should be getting reparations it should be a global agenda.
Just because slavery ended a 100 years ago racism and its terrorism is identifiable since slavery up until current date. Tell the Jews and Chinese people and other groups that they shouldn't get reparations.
I'll entertain the reparations debate the day that folks start demanding that African nations cough up the dough given that the slave trade would not have been anywhere near as successful as it was if Africans didn't kidnap and sell other Africans to Europeans.
So you are really going to attempt to compare white indentured servitude to chattel slavery? Poor whites suffered from slavery too, hmmm. I'm not going to debate this further than what will be written below as your agenda is very clear and is deplorably and wickedly unsafistcally sad.
-Were these white slaves chattel slaves or forced labor? No they weren't. The Irish came to the USA voluntarily and most of them were indentured servants or criminals. There is a HUGE difference in the African American slavery experience than people who willing came here.
-The white people were not slaves it was a derogatory terms used.
-The children of the so called white slaves were born free unlike enslaved blacks.
-So called enslaved whites could pay for their freedom or ask that their sentenced be lowered so they can get out of their indentured servitude
-The indentured servants were never subjected to perpetual, hereditary slavery in the colonies, based on notions of ‘race’. - Slavery was the basis of white supremacy, which united all whites in a racist hierarchy.
- While the life of an indentured servant was harsh and restrictive, it wasn't slavery. There were laws that protected their rights
- As demands for labor grew, so did the cost of indentured servants (that's right they were paid for their services, when was the African slave paid a wage for their service, I'll wait on the answer). Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants demand for land. The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude. Landowners turned to African slaves as a more profitable and ever-renewable source of labor and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun.
- Many historians argue that the indentured servants were better off than those new immigrants who came freely to the country. Their contract may have included at least 25 acres of land, a year's worth of corn, arms, a cow and new clothes. Some servants did rise to become part of the colonial elite
- How were the descendents of white indentured servants treated during Jim Crow? Were they lynched for being black?
- You are writing about the poor land they were given what happened to the land African Americans were promised?
I'm sorry but I do not empathize with the poor whites or the romanized theories about them. Through their ignorance and divisiveness have believed in the myth that they are superior and entitled because of their skin tone. All whites to this day benefit from the system they have designed, the thing though now is that they are all on drugs and many realities are setting in.
prospectheightsresident Not all Africans were part of the slave trade or were happy or benefited from it and those that call themselves Africans were not. Many Western African elites and tribes were forced to sell Africans it wasn't all voluntarily done and many slave traders were put into slavery themselves. How much money were Africans paid for their part in the slave trade? How many Europeans did they kidnap and sell?
While there is some element of truth to Africans selling Africans, but to speak of the slave trade solely as Africans selling each other is a gross oversimplification of what was a complex historical event. This also seems to be an attempt to shift the burden of the slave trade on the victims of that very trade
Did the Africans that sold other Africans really benefit from slavery and if so how? Reparations is not solely or squarely based on slavery. It is about the inadequacies and treatment during and after slavery. Africans did not inflect or encourage the aftermath of slavery. Many African nations have apologized for their part some have offered free land (a form of reparations) and some have sent for their people, more can and should be done on the Africans side.
But who used the slave, beat, mained, killed, forced them to work, rape them, sold newborn babies (and sometimes as alligator bait), who castrated men, sterilized women, injected army men that fought for their country with syphilis, stole inventions, introduced mass incarceration, established red lining territories, Africans didn't bring drugs or guns and didn't inject their people with HIV and or AIDs, etc. etc etc. Who really benefited from slavery? It was Europeans and their descendants and for that reparations are owed by them.
Bayareagirl, the bottom line is that the slave trade would not and could not exist as it did if not for Africans selling other Africans into slavery. Europeans would not have been able to engage in raids of villages themselves (they didn't know the area and would have been resisted).
You mention that not all Africans were part of the slave trade, which is true. But the same is true for not all Americans, etc., being part of the slave trade. But, ultimately, the argument that the US benefited from the slave trade can be used to many of the successor states to slave trading African nations (to include the Ashanti Empire-Ghana).
Thus, again, until calls for reparations include calls for African nations to cough up some dough, I'll refuse to even entertain the idea.
Those blacks who benefit from affirmative action (such as it exists and I debate that its not as important in 2019 as it might have been before) are disproportionately from middle class or upper working class backgrounds. You will not be admitted into any tertiary level institution without reaching certain standards. Given the stark differences in educational levels that middle and pooer kids receive it becomes very hard for these poorer kids to reach the Ivies. Its usually the exceptional narrative
So yes the black middle class has grown but poverty has also become more entrenched at the bottom of the social ladder.
Btw I was admitted as a foreign student and the vast majority of those came from Europe in those days. There wasn't anywhere to enter on the form my race. Rules differ for foreign students. In fact what was most interesting to them is whether I was able to get the resources to pay tuition and other costs as it was made very apparent that as a foreign student I would have NONE of the benefits that US students had, and that included some programs aimed at increasing black/Hispanic enrollment.
Affirmative Action at colleges certainly has opened doors for the black middle class (and others including white legacy kids who benefit even more as the recent scandals have shown). It certainly has NOT reduced the levels of extreme socio economic isolation for the poorest. When I went to Columbia the local blacks almost all came from solid middle class (some lower middle blue collar) families. Very few came from the deeply impoverished, and I cannot recall any from NYCHA.
For undergraduates at Columbia or other Ivies, these days one can attend for three of one’s parents make less than 120k. This is to avoid having to pay taxes on their income.
Leyla Martinez, Joseph Matthews, and Richard Gamarra were both non white convicted felons who were admitted to, and who graduated from Columbia. They received financial aid.
Two of them are Latino and one is Black. There are others. Criminal justice reform and the movement to end mass incarceration are pretty huge at the modern Columbia.
Most of white Americans benefited from the slave trade and were paid reparations for their slaves after the civil war. Reparations is not just about slavery that is the bottom line. Most white Americans benefited from free labor while torturing slaves and their descendents.
Africans, who even after emancipation were subject to almost a century of violence, disenfranchisement, and pervasive oppression, with social, economic, and cultural effects that persist to the present.
African slave owners and sellers did not inflict pain and suffering to the equivalent of the colonizer. The colonizer had the gun and colonized most of Africa don't forget this was the major factor in the African "complicity". Let's not forget that Africa was exploited, repressed, and colonized.
This is a useless debate for me as I don't believe reparations will ever be paid (although Germany has paid some southern countries in Africa reparations).
Ghana has provided free land and citizenship. As I wrote previously African nations can do more towards reparations.
Most of white Americans benefited from the slave trade and were paid reparations for their slaves after the civil war. Reparations is not just about slavery that is the bottom line. Most white Americans benefited from free labor while torturing slaves and their descendents.
Africans, who even after emancipation were subject to almost a century of violence, disenfranchisement, and pervasive oppression, with social, economic, and cultural effects that persist to the present.
African slave owners and sellers did not inflict pain and suffering to the equivalent of the colonizer. The colonizer had the gun and colonized most of Africa don't forget this was the major factor in the African "complicity". Let's not forget that Africa was exploited, repressed, and colonized.
This is a useless debate for me as I don't believe reparations will ever be paid (although Germany has paid some southern countries in Africa reparations).
Ghana has provided free land and citizenship. As I wrote previously African nations can do more towards reparations.
I'd imagine that the black slave owners (of which there were more than many think) also received reparations after the Civil War to compensate them for the loss of their slaves.
If the argument is going to be reparations for Jim Crow and other things post slavery, then fine. But that's not what I'm hearing for the most part. Instead, I'm hearing reparations for slavery, which is why I bring up the point about Africans needing to pay black Americans reparations as well.
I would say,concentrate the argument for reparations on Jim Crow, de facto segregation, redlining of residential areas and
focus on economic/educational disfranchisement that set the starting point behind for people who are still living.
As far as Africans are concerned, it should be noted that already that leaders from Benin and Ghana apologized to AAs in
Atlanta for their countries role in slavery. (Dahomey and Ashanti kingdoms economy and profit was built on slavery, these
were slaving states that arose from the profit of the slave-trade.)
In a documentary, one Benin woman who is descended from a large slave-trading family says every time she meets a Black American
she feels guilty.
Were there black slave owners in the USA yes there were, many paid their slaves, had term limits, and many of their slaves were their family members which were kept as slaves for their own protection. Were black slave owners compensated after the Civil War I don't know about that and don't see any evidence of this either.
My initial response was towards another poster that went into white indentured servitude comparisons with slavery.
Slavery is an aspect of reparations. Reparations has more to do with treatment during and after slave days as I've stated many times. Additionally, the colonizer should pay for many wrong doings within the continent especially as it pertains to land grabs and the utilization and degradation of it throughout time, initiated conflicts and coups, gases used, the funds they have of African leaders in their banks they aren't giving up, the looting of artifacts, genocidal experiments conducted (many Africans were amongst the first to be executed in Germany during the Holocaust in addition to many viruses and diseases were purposely spread on the continent), etc While your debate is about African slave traders having slaves to begin with, many people around the globe had slaves this isn't the issue. In addition many African nations that participated in the slave trade apologized for their part and have offered citizenship, and Ghana as you know has offered land (a form of reparations).
Some countries like Germany have given reparations to African countries this isn't unrealistic. But I won't hold my breathe on this matter.
He and his family are leaving the country because in his words white Americans hate Jews, Blacks, Latinos, Gays, Asians, etc more than they love America.
Keep in mind synagogues have been targeted and people murdered by right wing groups. Just as domestic terrorists have killed Latinos in supermarkets and African Americans in churches.
Persecution of Black people at the hands of white people have never STOPPED in the United States.
People try to distract by saying that some Black people were involved in slavery, as if that makes systematic destruction of a people okay.
The African role in slavery is not relevant to Jim Crow, to segregation, to mass incarceration, to massive discrimination in housing and employment.
If the argument is going to be reparations for Jim Crow and other things post slavery, then fine. But that's not what I'm hearing for the most part. Instead, I'm hearing reparations for slavery, which is why I bring up the point about Africans needing to pay black Americans reparations as well.
The whole reparations strategy is flawed and based on lay thinking. It is a fact that Transatlantic slavery was as large as it was because there was active participation of Africans in these ventures. This being especially true for those traded out of the Gold Coast and the Bights of Benin and Biafra. It is also a fact that few whites living in the USA in 2019 benefitted from slavery.
The focus should instead be based on the losses that Jim Crow created. There was wanton destruction of many black communities with many blacks losing assets. This not due only to criminal acts of private individuals, but also due to the active involvement in state actors. There was also the redlining of many majority nonwhite communities with "urban renewal" being an especially destructive aspect of this. Thanks to actions by the Federal gov't blacks were denied access to the tools which would have allowed wealth accumulation.
It is easy to prove that people DIRECTLY suffered from these acts as people can point to specific events and how their families were damaged. Most whites also benefitted from this, regardless as to whether their ancestors were involved in slavery or not. In addition these actions are purely the result of decisions that were made by people in the USA, so we need not get into what people in Africa did.
So refocus on the damaging impacts of Jim Crow and its aftermath, inclusive of redlining. Forget that slavery part.
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