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you have never failed to avoid answering this question, so lets see if you continue.
Based on this threads subject and your paragraph essentially blaming the plight of blacks on slavery that happened many generations ago, this is an apropos question.
When does the excuse of slavery or even segregation ever end in the liberals mind?
Billions of dollars have been spent, discriminatory programs giving special treatment to blacks have been in place for many decades, etc., etc.
So for moderates and conservatives, we would like an answer from those on the far left as to when it will stop being a crutch/excuse?
It is nonsensical to attempt to act as though ONE ethnic group equates to the OVER 45 African ethnic groups brought across the Americas, the vast majority of whom lost knowledge of ethnic origin (unlike the Irish), languages, religions, names, traditions etc. Every ethnic group was considered their own race before that point because the word race had a different meaning then. Funny how you can speak about the Irish but have nothing to say about any of the 45 African ethnicities/races. Wonder why...
It is you who are off base on this one.
Do you have a link showing this......anything but Wikipedia would do. I could not find a good reading on this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2sleepy
The last time I heard this crap was when I worked in a jail and listened to FAIM gang members talk it up all the time. (FAIM- Family Affiliated Irish Mafia) used to love to tell those stories over and over again, just like all white supremacist groups do in order to justify their hatred of blacks.
To hear it here is disgusting, clearly you either deny or have no knowledge of what blacks endured under slavery in the US. shame on you
So Irish should not identify with slavery, because some white guys use it for recruiting..... Shame on you for not recognizing some white people went through hell.....being slaves in America.
Yet, BLM use it and many where not slaves or have any slave history.......my guess some people assume ALL blacks are from slave of America.
So what's the point of this thread? That since there were white slaves, black slavery wasn't really all that bad?
I believe the OP is making the point that most immigrants who came to this country with hardships, whether it be no money, no education, slaves, treated like dogs, didn't speak the language, etc., have eventually had their future generations succeed.
For some reason, the black culture has not done so in over a century, while some other minorities (such as the Oriental cultures) have done so in one generation or less.
Frankly I do not have all the answers, but I can say that the black culture was healthier, much healthier, in the past than it is today. Granted society in general is experiencing the degradation of American values, morals and our culture.
However most ethnic groups collectively have not languished or gone backwards as blacks have.
For just one example, a guy I knew back in the late 80's told me how he had lost his black childhood friends. This talk was born out of us discussing how he was working two jobs and going to the local community college to get ahead. He said most of his old friends started to shun him, saying "he was turning white", or "giving in to the man".
Needless to say they were going nowhere, and probably due to jealousy in part, were deriding him for trying to get ahead and provide for his families future.
At the time I had just assumed he had a pack of losers he grew up with because I had never heard any other black people say such a thing. I knew a few white collar blacks, such as MD's and lawyers, and they never expressed any such shunning.
Yet as the years have gone by, I have heard this same story from several others who have cared to share it with me.
To the best of my recollection, I have never heard this negative/defeatist attitude from any other racial or ethnic group.
If this attitude is as pervasive as I now suspect it is, that is a huge hurdle for anyone to overcome. That is especially true if your role models (i.e. parents, elder siblings) espouse it, and/or live off the government.
Generational poverty and despair are not unique to blacks alone. However there seems to be something especially wrong with modern black culture that was not there in the 1950's for example. Kids are no longer being forced to stay on the right path via, school, church, etc. largely due to a lack of Fathers being involved with their kids daily lives.
While single women can raise kids alone, it is much harder, just from a time standpoint, much less economically.
Boys will especially become a problem as they hit their teens from a control/crime standpoint. Girls will fall into the same pattern their Mom's did by getting pregnant early, eventually by different boys who have no future.
Add to that many of these mothers are practically kids themselves, and when you are talking a bunch of kids instead of just one or two, how can any single mother be expected to cope with all that responsibility alone?
The bottom line is that there is a sickness in the current black culture, and it is not the fault of slavery, segregation, or any current prejudice against blacks by others. Instead it must come from within, maybe from a spiritual leader like MLK use to be. However, instead of focusing on things like hardships (occasional racism or police brutality, i.e. making excuses for the plight), the focus needs to be on positive re-enforcement of how to start on the right path TODAY, and then TOMORROW and the NEXT DAY!
Almost like a boot camp for the soul.
Slavery is slavery, no matter what race. It doesn't lessen the inhumanity of it. And it doesn't absolve the US from the buying and selling of black human beings.
Laws were not codified to make Irish people inferior to non-Irish people in America.
All early servants in America, including black people, were indentured servants until the late 1600s when the colonies made being black a condition of lifetime servitude.
You all need to quit believing everything you read on the internet. Irish indentured servitude and African indentured servitude is common knowledge for people who remotely study colonial American history.
And FWIW, the OP link is based upon another link that speaks of how this so-called Irish "slavery" was perpetuated in other places, not America.
There was also a thread about the other link. I'll post my reply to that link below.
Originally Posted by residinghere2007 Just wanted to state that I have seen the above link. It is historically inaccurrate. Contrary to what it states, the Irish in America were indeed indentured servants. The majority of black persons in the US were also indentured servants in the 17th century.
The article, if you read the entire thing, states that miscegnation laws were passed to forbade interracial relationships but does not mention that this was due to the fact that white, Irish indentured women, were free persons in Colonial America and so their offspring would be born free. The laws were a way to prevent a large free mullato population in America. Practically every colony had "black laws" such as this on the books.
I do a lot of genealogical research and historical research on specific areas falls into line with this hobby of mine. I have a line of free persons of color who hail from PA and another line from VA. Both those states had similar laws and for similar reasons - to stop the propagation of free persons of color in the colony.
Also, the article incorrectly speaks about "expensive" Africans were versus the Irish, which is not true either. The Middle Passage had blacks sent primarily to the Caribbean and to South America. The article mentions the Irish in the Caribbean too, but doesn't mention that millions and millions of black slaves died in the Americas after arriving and working in the fields, especially sugar plantations. It was extremely cheap to replace them as they had frequent arrivals. Even in VA, Africans fared no better than the Irish as indentured servants and it was easier to replace them and especially to bound them and their children for life, to work on tobacco plantations. Most people in general didn't last more than 5-10 years in the 1600s in the Americas.
But on the whole, it is silly for people to believe that only black Americans were enslaved and it is silly for people to believe that black Americans THINK that they were the only ones enslaved worldwide.
Slavery is a long standing tradition around the world. Most black Americans know this and as a black American I will be honest and state that the many tales of "white slavery" that is now espoused by many whites in this digital age is pretty pitiable and odd. In one way, they want pity for the Irish and in the other way (that is odd) they are trying to negate the effect of slavery on black Americans in this country by seeking to take away the huge contribution it had to the condition of formerly enslaved persons and their progeny.
Also, slavery is not the primary issue in regards to black Americans and societal racism. The system of societal racism in this country does have a base in black enslavement but the continuous, legally sanctioned system of white supremacy and black inferiority is the primary gripe, so to speak of blacks in this country. Not slavery. Trying to bring "Irish Slavery" into the forefront does not negate the concept of black inferiority in America and actually world wide. The Irish in America by the 1900s were seen as "white" and were afforded all the benefits of being white in this country. Today, no one knows, unless a person of Irish descent informs them, that the Irish are even Irish in America. People know a black person if they have even a hint of "black features." The negative connotations of blacks permeate American society. The negative connotations of the Irish in the past, have been left in the past.
Informed Consent, I highly doubt your step father's ancestor was an Irish slave in America. They may have been an Irish slave in Ireland or England but not here in America since the Irish were never slaves in America.
My step-father's family are descendents of those Irish slaves. No one in their family thinks they're owed reparations, nor do they have a giant chip on their shoulders.
It would be odd if they did-slavery was a tiny blip in Irish-American history, and Irish were allowed to prosper and "became white" relatively soon after coming to the US. The real injustices committed against the Irish was done in Ireland by the English for many centuries. My own Grandparents came from Ireland with nothing to their name in the 1940's and 1950's and quickly joined the ranks of the Middle Class. The Irish have become one of the most successful groups in American history, along with Jewish people, so to demand reparations in a country where we have been so successful is strange.
Slavery was only one part of black injustices-and things like Jim Crow prolonged the discrimination and ostracizing and kept blacks down for centuries. Even more recently "Reagonomics" has destroyed black household wealth since 1980, at a time when family averages between black and white were nearly equal. The differences have since widened to record levels. Too many blacks are still forced to live in ghettos across the country with little in resources/opportunity.
Slavery was 265 years, Segregation was 99 years, blacks have been "free" for only 50 years.
Will also add that I find it odd that so many of you think that black Americans use slavery as a crutch or as some sort of weapon against you.
You all are sad sad people to believe such things. Most blacks in this country don't think about slavery and for many generations it was something to be ashamed of. That makes it much more odd that you all want to claim to be descendants of slaves as if it makes your plights as a white person equal to that of a black person in America today.
As stated in my quoted reply above, I do a LOT of research into black American history and genealogy of my own family and I am currently devoted to exploring the colonial American experience of free people of color due to seeking to find out more about my own ancestor's circumstances.
Some interesting finds for me have been "miscegenation" laws and "black codes/laws" and the fact that free black people had no rights post 1700 in most America colonies and even free black men were not readily acknowledged as citizens of the USA post revolution. The same is not true for early Irish indentured servants who served their indentrued periods and if they didn't run away, or in the case of an Irish woman, they didn't have a "mullato" child with a black man, then they were free to go and do whatever with their lives. Many Irish signed multiple indenture contracts due to being poor and not being able to suppor themselves. Many white Irish women were given extended indentured terms, I have seen records where they were indentured for 20-30 additional years and their children, due to being mullato would be given automatic 20-30 year indentured periods. Very sad situation faced upon these women and children and many people during the colonial period lived short, hard lives.
But I don't see the point in perpetuating the lie that there were Irish "slaves" in America.
But FYI, being a prisoner in practically all time periods, including today means that ones rights can be stripped and one can be relegated as a slave. The 13th amendment even allows one to become a slave as a condition of being a convicted criminal:
Thirteenth Amendment Text from Wikipedia:
Quote:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Bold added by me.
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Shame on you for not recognizing some white people went through hell.....being slaves in America.
