The Lasting Effects of Slavery

Originally posted by CSIfan
As hard as my ancestors worked, I didn't inherit one dime

That would be you and millions of white Americans too then...

...and had to fight just to be able to vote, in my own Country!

So just how much fighting did you do at the age of 12, an age at which neither you or any white child had the right to vote?

I was born without the right to vote in America...it took a law or an "act" to insure that right.

Just as it did for almost every woman in the world of whatever race or ethnic background in the not so distant past.

I'm genuinely sorry to sound harsh CSIfan but you are in very serious danger of crossing the line between feeling the pain of the systematic abuse of your ancestors and wallowing in self pity.

Originally posted by Scrub
So we can say white power as long as we make it clear that we mean the betterment of our people?

According to other races, white people already have it as good as it gets. I know... we have as many hardships as anyone else, but most non-white people don't seem to know or accept that. They think we have it better simply because we're white.

So... to advocate "white power" even if it means the betterment of "our people" has the appearance of discrimination against other colors of people, because we supposedly already have it better... for us to have it any better would just widen the gap between whites and non-whites.

Black power, OTOH, wanting to better things for blacks, results in narrowing the (alleged) gap between blacks and whites.

It would be like heterosexual pride... Even if a person is straight and proud to be so, to have a straight pride parade, where all the floats had rednecks, beer and football games and bare-breasted women carrying guns... would kinda look like they were putting down the gays.

Basically, people who are not historically oppressed by another group of people aren't really allowed to express "pride" in who they are or tout "power" for their group. It's ok to be proud of being white but it's not ok to say it.

Sorry to be off-topic, but this secondary conversation seems to be going on here and I had something to say about it.

Originally posted by CSIfan
Ceci,

Thank you for your insightful comments; you write like an editorialist!
You appear well informed, and extremely well educated.

I thank you very much for your lovely words. I humbly just like to call things as I see it.

I agree wholeheartedly with the points you made, and I look forward to hearing more from you on this topic.

I appreciate your gracious reply. I too look forward to reading your intelligent comments about slavery. I am with Truthseeka about keeping strong and continuing to fight to honor our ancestors' memories so that they get the proper respect that they deserve.

I find that since slavery is a very hard topic to focus upon alone so that people will do things to avoid discussing the pain of the situation. But even in this, always perservere with your ideas.

Thanks also for the warm welcome! I feel at home now...

You're very welcome. I hope you do feel at home here. We're an ecletic bunch, but it's a very versatile community.

I just wanted to tell you that. I will have a little bit more to say about the topic later.

Originally posted by Scrub

Originally posted by truthseekaYou think I give a DAMN?

Of course not but that wouldn't stop me from saying what I think. Just cause I'm the only one that thinks black power is racist against us every other race just like white power I'll still say it I don't care if you give a dam

It's funny because you STILL have no idea what that pic really means. Ah, well. Shucks, if it makes you feel better...

SIEG HEIL!!!

Yeah, don't try to educate him, truth, just laugh and point.

It's a pretty neat story, actually.

The 1968 Summer Olympics

The two American athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride and Carlos wore a string of beads, to commemorate black people who had been lynched.
...
As they left the podium they were booed by the crowd. Smith later said "If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight."

And much of white America understood...

[edit on 30-3-2007 by Benevolent Heretic]

I believe that any slave alive today should be paid one billion dollars.

I'm genuinely sorry to sound harsh CSIfan but you are in very serious danger of crossing the line between feeling the pain of the systematic abuse of your ancestors and wallowing in self pity.

Timeless,

Sorry I forgot to mention...on some days I do that too. Does that invalidate all of my other feelings on this topic? Does that invalidate HISTORY?

Originally posted by Johnmike
I believe that any slave alive today should be paid one billion dollars.

JM,

Well, we better start lining them up and get the "backpacks full of cash" ready, because Master's children have found another way to have a slave. There are millions of slaves here, they are paid a token salary and they live in poverty and fear. They have begun to demand amnesty and citizenship and, they are getting angry, very angry. If talks to mass deport them ever begin, I am sure there would be big trouble in "America the Beautiful". Master's children love to use people, but methinks they have created quite a
formidable monster this time. These people have weapons and organized gangs and "think tanks", supported by citizens and politicians, and a country to return to if they decide to annihilate their Masters. They are not as the "trapped" African slave was when brought over here.

Master's children will do anything and everything to keep them here in America, but not let them become full citizens (guest worker program?). The illegal aliens working for pennies in this country is the next best thing to slavery for Master's children, who exploit everyone and everything!

Master's children and grandchildren make the laws, and decide which laws they want to enforce. Most of the laws are designed to support their agenda.

Here is your MODERN FORM OF SLAVERY IN TODAY'S AMERICA!

(Oh, and many Americans, including African Americans, and THE WORLD OPINION looks on amusedly, because they know exactly what is going on with the illegals AND IRAQ...and why do you think that Bush will veto the plan to pull out of Iraq? This administration went in planning to never leave, they want to own Iraq! They have now brought in the drugs, hoping that that old trick will help them to win...win what? A NEW COLONY of slaves for Master's children and grandchildren to exploit!)

[edit on 31-3-2007 by CSIfan]

[edit on 31-3-2007 by CSIfan]

I'm a slave. I'm a slave to the US government. I pay ridiculous taxes to pay for entitlement programs for people who breed, breed, breed, and suck the economy dry. Many of them aren't even fricking citizens.

I had nothing to do with slavery. My family got here 30 years after the Civil War. I could care less that your ancestors were slaves. Some of my distant ancestors were slaves as well. Back then they were called serfs. You don't hear me whining about it ad nauseum and demanding payment from the Russian government for it.

Why? Because that kind of demand is illogical and unreasonable.

Africans are not the first people in history to be enslaved. Far from it. And they won't be the last.

Stop snivelling and bloody M O V E O N. No one cares that your great, great, great whatEVUH had to pick cotton.

This is the 21st bloody century. Move on, crybabies. You aren't owed S M A C K.

[edit on 3/31/2007 by Tea]

[edit on 31-3-2007 by sanctum]

Originally posted by Tea
I'm a slave. I'm a slave to the US government. I pay ridiculous taxes to pay for entitlement programs for people who breed, breed, breed, and suck the economy dry. Many of them aren't even fricking citizens.

Tea,

I agree with some of what you say. Although your family did not participate in American enslavement of the Africans, I am sure they benefited from this government's complicity in slavery...THE COFFERS WERE NICE AND FULL OF ILL GOTTEN TAXES FROM THE MASTERS of the slaves. There was great opportunity for everyone, except us.

My question for you is: your tax dollars-would you prefer that they be spent on American citizens, or do you agree that your money should be used to support repressive regimes all over the world (foreign aid)? Should the Master's children be allowed to take billions of your tax dollars and go in and steal another country whenever they see fit?

Truth is, you don't matter either! Your opinions are only helpful to Master's children when they need you to support their oppression of American citizens or with their other radical ideas...like killing social programs for Americans in need.

Think about it... How could Social Security be endangered while the Master's children continue to send billions overseas for something called "foreign aid"? and, while they continue entitlement programs for "illegals"? and while they build "bridges to nowhere"? hah!

Can't you see how you and your opinion can be manipulated? These people could care less about America, the America you think you are a part of...people like you are quite useful to them though...they WILL use people like you to take benefits away from your fellow Americans...

Oh, and when you get a chance, take a look at the health and retirement plans that your tax dollars provide for your elected officials...you'll really enjoy that info, and I guarantee that you will never have any influence or affect on what these guys are getting.

Seriously, I am surprised that no one even touched on my last point.

One of the lasting effects of slavery is the fact that African Americans were part of a breeding program for centuries.

Do you, the OP, have a problem with the fact that you are the end result of a centuries long breeding program?

Does the fact that you and your ancestors were bred for strength even cross your mind, or are you too busy feeling sorry for yourself?

Originally posted by CSIfan
Although your family did not participate in American enslavement of the Africans, I am sure they benefited from this government's complicity in slavery

I had no idea until now how warped the thinking of some groups in the US is. How in Hades did you arrive at this ridiculous assumption?

I want examples to support this assertion because it's bloody out there.

My family hasn't gotten crap that they didn't earn. When they came here they learned the language and then they built homes and sewed dresses, farmed and opened a hardware store.

Go ahead, keep stretching this taffy. Pretty soon the illusion will snap and you'll be right back where you started - delusional and no further ahead in your cause.

your tax dollars-would you prefer that they be spent on American citizens, or do you agree that your money should be used to support repressive regimes all over the world

I'm trying to figure out what the hell this has to do with the slavery issue, but I confess I must be a complete idiot. Again, I have no clue.

What does warmongering have to do with enslavement of blacks in the early years of the US? Ah, I'll give you a hint. Nothing. This is an apples to oranges comparison and all you're going to get from this baby is a lot of juice while you squeeze it for the gold that ain't there.

when you get a chance, take a look at the health and retirement plans that your tax dollars provide for your elected officials...you'll really enjoy that info, and I guarantee that you will never have any influence or affect on what these guys are getting.

So, you've cornered the market on staying current? Do you think the other 250,000,000+ people in the US don't watch the news or surf the 'Net or seek information about what's going on in the world? Do you really think that the rest of us have no blasted clue about the cancer that is the federal government?

Wake the hell up. Cast those blinders aside. You aren't the only sucker with a clue.

Now, if you'll excuse my lily-white buttocks, I'm going to take my metoprolol so Big Pharma can reap the benefits of American slavery and I can avoid a heart attack that would give them a major woody.

Originally posted by Tea
My family hasn't gotten crap that they didn't earn. When they came here they learned the language and then they built homes and sewed dresses, farmed and opened a hardware store.

Ahhh... But alas, their skin was still white and according to some (those preaching here), that, in itself makes them and you GUILTY of practicing and supporting white privilege and taking advantage of unearned benefits! (which was born of slavery - see the connection can be made to make us all as guilty as the next white person)

Never mind that everyone in this country has access to and takes advantage of unearned benefits.
Never mind that your ancestors weren't here during slavery or that my ancestors had nothing to do with slavery, we are guilty!
Never mind that we struggle just as much as anyone else to get what we have.
Never mind that black people also had slaves and sold their own as slaves.
Never mind that I have no clue where my grandparents came from or what my "heritage" really is... The descendants of slaves need to know theirs.

Basically just never mind anything you have to say because you're wrong. Accept it! The line is drawn. The gauntlet is down and this person wants their money. Cough it up!

/sarcasm

Do you really think that the rest of us have no blasted clue about the cancer that is the federal government?

Wake the hell up. Cast those blinders aside. You aren't the only sucker with a clue.

Sarcasm aside, I think this is a really important point. White people (as one monolithic group - with named exceptions who agree) get preached at here on this board as if we've never heard of slavery before, as if we're personally responsible for it, as if we're stupid, non-empathetic, ignorant, callous, unaware, dim-witted, insensitive, dullards, who have to be told what pain is, what suffering is, what slavery WAS, and how responsible we are for all the pain and suffering of blacks in the country.

You know what, preachers? You're talking to the wrong crowd! Most of us are just average joes who can't do a thing about your predicament even if we wanted to. Get your groups together and fight "the Master's children", because we are not them! You're wasting your time and energy arguing with us here because we're not going to send you a check. We're not going to feel guilty. We're as impotent as you are to DO ANYTHING about this government.

Even if we all agreed 100% with you we'd be as impotent as we are now to change a thing. I honestly don't know why you're trying to convince us (here on a discussion forum) that you're owed something from your government. We don't have a key. I can't call up GW and suggest he throw a little cash your way.

If you want something, do something about it, but trying to convince us of something will get you NOWHERE.

I'll probably regret this rant later, but oh, well...

phoenix, you have a really good point. I know I'm not the one you are looking to respond, but the breeding for strength turns out to be breeding for beauty as well. There's nothing more beautiful than a strong healthy black body, male or female, IMHO.

Originally posted by Tea
I could care less that your ancestors were slaves.

No one cares that your great, great, great whatEVUH had to pick cotton.

This is the 21st bloody century. Move on, crybabies. You aren't owed S M A C K.

Well, CSIfan, hate to say "I told you so..."

Alright, Phoenix, I'll take a shot at that...

First, I ask do you think this 100 year breeding program, as you call it, REALLY enhanced our physical strength. Here's what I mean...

Biologists generally consider the modern human generation time to be 20 years. With that, you'd get 5 generations of breeding slaves for strength. But, if we consider the accelerated breeding the slavers did, let's say we bring that number down to 15 years. Now, we get 6.66 generations (really, it's 6.67 with a bar over the 7, but you can appreciate the play on the Christian obsession with the former, I think ).

So, let's say we have 6 and a half generations of slavers breeding slaves for raw power. My question to you is, do you think this is long enough to cause a SIGNIFICANT amping of our physical prowess? Hell, it might be, as this stuff has been off the top of my head (except for the 6.66(7) calculation. I knew it was around 6 and a half, but I used a calculator here). I'll check into that, though, but let me know what you think so far...


Ah, what the hell. To answer you as if there indeed was an enhancement of raw power, I'd say that I can appreciate that by-product of slavery. It comes in handy when doing so-called "man-stuff," like moving heavy furniture, pushing cars, building fences (I actually hated doing this, and am glad we no longer have horses ), and fighting. Well, I guess women fight too, but still. Sure, I'm more of a combo puncher than a one-punch KO artist, but I can throw a one-hitta quitta from time to time.

While I was thus employed by my master, I was often a witness to cruelties of every kind, which were exercised on my unhappy fellow slaves. I used frequently to have different cargoes of new Negroes in my care for sale; and it was almost a constant practice with our clerks, and other whites, to commit violent depredations on the chastity of the female slaves; and these I was, though with reluctance, obliged to submit to at all times, being unable to help them.

I have even known them to gratify their brutal passion with females not ten years old; and these abominations, some of them practised to such scandalous excess, that one of our captains discharged the mate and others on that account. And yet in Montserrat I have seen a Negro man staked to the ground, and cut most shockingly, and then his ears cut off bit by bit, because he had been connected with a white woman, who was a common prostitute. As if it were no crime in the whites to rob an innocent African girl of her virtue, but most heinous in a black man only to gratify a passion of nature, where the temptation was offered by one of a different color, though the most abandoned woman of her species.

Plenty of the colored women have children by the white men. She know better than to not do what he say. Didn't have much of that until the men from South Carolina come up here and settle and bring slaves. Then they take them very same children what have they own blood and make slaves out of them. If the missus find out she raise revolution. But she hardly find out. The white men not going to tell and the 'n-word' women were always afraid to. So they just go on hoping that things won't be that way always.

Yep. Slave live was the good life INDEED!



[edit on 31-3-2007 by truthseeka]

Your explanation of the "lasting effects of slavery" simply prove you keep your self down, not whitey. If it is passed generation through generation that is your own issues to deal with, not mine. Perhaps instead of listening to ma'ma all the time, open your eyes and take a look around, this world is nothing like your parents world.. if you don't appreciate the progress made, you will never break from your past. The objective is to rise above what you where once made to be, not sink down the level and dwell in history that you never participated in.. IMO assuming your feeling effects of slavery is no different then a white guy feeling his superior because his great great grand father had slaves.

If you want to be treated as an EQUAL in society.. you have to treat your self one first. I know many blacks who feel the same way as I do.. maybe its because they rose above what was expected of them and are in college awaiting a career at an age your fathers would have killed for. Progress.

Mod Edit: Removed Unnecessary Comments. Please Review the Link Below.

Courtesy is Mandatory

[edit on 3/31/2007 by chissler]

This is Fred Douglas, with some insight on one of the most RIDICULOUS comments I've seen on this site, that slaves were more responsible for their lives than their current-day descendants.

I have, however, been a slave, and am still a slave according to the laws of the United States. I never had a day's schooling in my life, and, therefore, any learned or eloquent language from me need not be expected. I come here to tell a simple tale of slavery, as coming under my own observation.

God has given to the slave a mind; but that mind may be improved only as the slave owner may choose. The slave has no privilege or enjoyment save those which the slave-holder thinks will be a means of increasing his value as a slave. If he supposes that teaching a slave to read militates against the value of the slave, he has power to withhold that knowledge from him, and he exerts upon him that power. If he thinks that religion militates against his interest, he withholds it from the slave, who only lives for his master, not for himself, not for the improvement and developement of his faculties; but merely to administer to the ease and luxury of the slave-holder.

The slave has no rights; he is a being with all the capacities of a man in the condition of the brute. Such is the slave in the American plantations. He can decide no question relative to his own actions; the slave-holder decides what he shall eat or drink, when and to whom he shall speak, when he shall work, and how long he shall work; when he shall marry, and how long the marriage shall be binding, and what shall be the cause of its dissolution—what is right and wrong, virtue or vice. The slave-holder becomes the sole disposer of the mind, soul and body of his slave, who has no rights, all of which are taken from him.

docsouth.unc.edu...

Give it a break, truthseeka. Everyone knows slavery wasn't a piece of cake. But some were happy. That's a statement of fact.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
I'm not saying all slaves were happy or treated well. I'm saying many were.

I noticed you didn't leave a source. Is that because you didn't want people to know that your "unhappy" slaves were kidnapped as children by black people in the night and sold to the slave traders?

One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both; and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on, when we reached a small house, where the robbers halted for refreshment, and spent the night. We were then unbound; but were unable to take any food; and, being quite overpowered by fatigue and grief, our only relief was some sleep, which allayed our misfortune for a short time.


(4) Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano the African (1789)

The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast, was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror, when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled, and tossed up to see if I were sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me.

Their complexions, too, differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, (which was very different from any I had ever heard) united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country.

Source

You KNOW I'm not saying slavery was a good thing. I'm saying that many black people of today (including yourself, I believe) are a lot more upset and obviously angry and resentful toward white people than many of the actual slaves were.

[edit on 31-3-2007 by Benevolent Heretic]

CSI, great opening post. I have never seen those points layed out so eloquently, and concise. Only the truly retarded could fail to understand and empathize with them.

I am hoping that you have the propensity to help me help you. I've asked what I can do to help mitigate the situation, and I've been given a slew of things to do. Then I'm told that no matter how much of those I do, it won't be enough; that there is nothing I can really do to help.

1. So where does that leave us?

If the current government, and I mean the people in the government, because thats all a government is, the people who participate, decide that monetary reperations are what's needed, then so be it. I really don't have a problem with it - but my concern is after. I know that those reperations will not mitigate the feelings that you laid out so well in the OP.

2. So again, where does that leave us?

3. Would you, or could you tell me some examples of succesfull black persons, you feel are uncle toms, and why? - and give me examples of succesfull black persons who are not uncle toms and why?

4. Would you, or could you also explain to me what 'black culture' in America is?

(as a side note: I think the black community does benefit from the labor of it's American ancestors. I can get into that more, if you request so)

If you can answer these questions for me, you will be my hero.

Phoenix, according to this source (the same one that the first list of slave accounts came from), slave breeding was more about maximizing slave numbers than slave strength.

Slave Breeding

The death-rate amongst slaves was high. To replace their losses, plantation owners encouraged the slaves to have children. Child-bearing started around the age of thirteen, and by twenty the women slaves would be expected to have four or five children. To encourage child-bearing some population owners promised women slaves their freedom after they had produced fifteen children.

Young women were often advertised for sale as "good breeding stock". To encourage child-bearing some population owners promised women slaves their freedom after they had produced fifteen children. One slave trader from Virginia boasted that his successful breeding policies enabled him to sell 6,000 slave children a year.

Not saying the slavers didn't breed for strength as well, as they likely did.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
I'm saying that many black people of today (including yourself, I believe) are a lot more upset and obviously angry and resentful toward white people than many of the actual slaves were.

Taurus feces! Not only am I not upset and resentful at white people as a whole, but I was never:

Beaten worse than Rodney King
Whipped
Branded
Forced to slave all day
Forced to watch my mother/sister/aunt/other female relatives be raped by white men
Mutilated
Had EVERY aspect of my life controlled by white slavers

This latest comment tops the others you have made. You have NO IDEA how...foolish it sounds that I hate white people more than slaves who had this stuff done to them. That slaves subjected to this treatment were HAPPY about it is even MORE foolish.

No matter how many accounts from house niggas you post, NONE OF WHICH are more eminent than Frederick Douglas, this will STILL be WAY up there on my list of most ridiculous things I've read on ATS.

That includes some posts about reptilians, some UFO posts, some religious posts, and some posts about 9/11.


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Mod Edit: Adding the [/quote] tag to make the post more readable.


[edit on 3/31/2007 by chissler]