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You can call that a fact all you wish; I can call my computer mouse a hockey stick, too, but that won't make it so. Lots of nations extracted resources from Africa for well over a century after the end of the European version of the slave trade, well into the mid-1900s. Ending the slave trade did nothing to end the looting. It just meant that human beings weren't very likely anymore to be rounded up by slavers and their African flunkies, loaded in ships and exported to the Americas.
And the fact remains: the typical black American is better off today than the typical black African. Prove that wrong if you can. Or just throw around a little more ridicule, if that's easier than supporting your statements.
Many "typical" American Blacks leave America and choose to live in Africa. I have a young friend who after graduation from college will live some where in West Africa. I too after visiting Africa thought if it where not such a logistical night mare I would like to move myself and family to Africa. I was staying with a "typical" African Family, the father a middle management executive his wife a health care worker, the son typical college age kid interested in America Rap. They owned two cars one a German Luxury sedan and lived in a house by American comparison would be $300,000 and up in a nice neighborhood, (they were the only black family) I don't think they could have the same life style in America. America is perhaps the greatest country in the world on the battlefield, but in many respects its really no better or worse than countless other places around the world for blacks, or judging by the number of America whites you see living abroad, any one else.
Uncle Remus seemed happy as a slave, with a blue bird on his sholder. Briar rabbit did not like that tar baby to much though!!!!!!!!!! Made a great childrens story. Disney even made a movie about it, but it has been taken out of cirucaltion I think.
I am going to say this as calmly as possible. That is a stereotype. Most slaves were not happy being slaves. The only reason to create such a film is to perpetuate a stereotype so that anyone can say "those people are like that" and use it as an excuse to continue inhumane treatment. That character is not real. Do you really think the person playing that character really wanted to play Remus? Back in those days blacks could not get roles that were dignifying.
Interesting. Can you provide specifics as to how many?
When I used the word typical I mean typical in their mindset, I consider myself typical and would of never considered living in Africa Until I was lucky enough to visit there, But the estimated $10,000 it would take to relocate my family was prohibitive.
There are an estimated 4 million+ (and growing ) Americans Living abroad which does not include Military and Government employees. I would expect Blacks to make up a relative number of that group.
Back to the topic, The South eliminating Slavery would be tantamount to oil companies closing down their refineries and investing in Green fuels , where would the dollars come from ?, The wealth of the South was not so much in Slavery per se as it was in Slaves. Even when the value of a slave dropped it was still equal to or greater than a years income for a small farmer. I think an agricultural economist could easily figure out what kind of farming operation it would take to be able to : 1. perpetually sell off slaves like Live stock , 2. be self sufficient enough to maintain that number in perpetuity, Like a cattle heard managed by several generations in the same family.
This scenario would be based on the premise that the price of a slave kept up with yearly income, and the Slave barons continued to own all the available labor in the south. By the time of the Civil War the South had developed a Philosophy that Slavery was a moral obligation they had to a race of people who where not able to care for or govern them selves.
officially 1862 yes stopped and probably would have, but unofficial slavery marches on
walmart forced labor products (china) are slavery, under age women being sold daily on the streets by slave masters aka pimps (decendants of slaves) 21 million illegals "undetected" by our government under paid and under housed, americans are fine with slavery, as long as its not them.
When I used the word typical I mean typical in their mindset, I consider myself typical and would of never considered living in Africa Until I was lucky enough to visit there, But the estimated $10,000 it would take to relocate my family was prohibitive.
There are an estimated 4 million+ (and growing ) Americans Living abroad which does not include Military and Government employees. I would expect Blacks to make up a relative number of that group.
Unfortunately, we cannot necessarily assume that blacks make up a proportionate number of the living-abroad group, since the socioeconomic imbalance between blacks and the national average has not yet been put to rights. (When some horrendous percentage of the adult black male population is in jail, kind of makes socioeconomic rebalancing difficult.) Furthermore, taking 4 million as a fair estimate (sounds credible enough to me), there is the question of where they reside. I'm betting that a good many are early boomer retirees, disproportionately white, who have decided to finish their days in Latin America because they didn't save enough money to retire here. I'm betting that a relatively small percentage overall have decided to live and work in Africa, though I can imagine that group having a slightly higher percentage of blacks than the national average. I'd expect the percentage living in Ireland to contain more Irish-Americans than the national average, for example, so that makes sense.
Unfortunately, it doesn't reveal evidence of a significant movement among black Americans to choose to live in Africa. If it did, that would be revelatory.
You can call that a fact all you wish; I can call my computer mouse a hockey stick, too, but that won't make it so.
What idiocy!
Let's review:
"their modern descendants did get at least one form of compensation: they live here, rather than in Africa."
Compensation, for what? Dying to insure American liberty? Over 5,000 persons of African descent served in the Continental Army and over the next 200 years served and died in every conflict fought by this country. From a economic standpoint, African Americans labored in every field of endeavor to produce this countries material wealth at less than fair compensation. It was African Americans who forced this nation to live up to its own standards of justice and equality. Nothing have ever been freely given, our "compensation" was earned but has never been duly compensated for.
As for the canard, the African Americans should kiss their lucky stars for being dragged to this continent, kept in chattel bondage, and even when freed, forced to live as second class citizens which has in no small part kept a significant portion of its community mired in poverty and self hatred, devoid of its cultural heritage and identity is the height of arrogance, and white paternalism.
Compensation for slavery? Hell this country owes a far greater debt to African Americans that should be stamped, long past due!
Now with regards to the "condition" of Africa. Yes, by all means even the poorest African American lives at a higher standard of living than the poorest African, certainly in a material sense, but materiality is not the only standard by which the lives of humans should be of value. Even the poorest Ibo, Yoruban, or Samburu, knows who he is, understands his cultures history and heritage. We, African Americans, are still trying to carve, develop and refine ours.
As for your argument that the slave trade, it you cannot discern the linearity between the adaptation of the less than human rational for the enslavement of African people, the centuries of exploitation and how that has shaped the socio-political structures of the continent... I see little point in continuing this line of argument.
What idiocy!
(...)
I see little point in continuing this line of argument.
I do too. Not only are you being gratuitously insulting, you're taking my statements and adding your own words to them in an effort to make it appear I took a position to odd extremes, when in fact you simply added silly details and then ridiculed them. It's a common hobby on message boards, because if you keep someone constantly saying "I didn't say what you say I said," that's all they'll have time to do. It's a contemptible one, however, and I hold its users in great intellectual disrespect.
Now that I see the kind of thinking behind this 'compensation' movement, I'm more against it than ever. Congratulations: you helped sway my viewpoint.
I do too. Not only are you being gratuitously insulting,
I find your entire proposition to be gratuitously insulting, so forgive me for responding in exactly the manner in which I have taken your post. If I an taking misquoting or mischaracterizing your comments then please point out where I have done so.
"Now that I see the kind of thinking behind this 'compensation' movement, I'm more against it than ever. Congratulations: you helped sway my viewpoint."
You know such thing, since I am not now nor have I ever been a proponent of financial reparations, or any legislation supporting such, so your ignorance of the thinking of those who do is as great as it was before we began this argument. The fact that you are "more against it than ever" tells me that I had the gist of your argument exactly right to begin with.
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