Considering that most Americans cannot name all fifty states, or find S. Dakota on a map, it would not surprise me at all that those same folks think that slavery was invented, or re-invented, in the colonies now making up these United States. Unfortunately, what most Americans know of slavery was passed down from people who saw Alex Hailey’s fictionalized Roots mini-series. There is much more to slavery than this, as it has been going on for thousands of years.Slavery began when hunter-gathering ended, some say about 11,000 years ago. Once agriculture advances produced more food than people in certain areas could eat, people began enslaving others, as they could afford to keep their captives fed. Before that, they simply killed their enemies without a blink. To help our perspective, during the 1,000 or so years of the Roman Empire, 100 million people in an around the Mediterranean area were enslaved.
The lives of slaves have rarely been ‘good’, as some would describe. Throughout time, slaves have been property not people. Their treatment, and very existence, has always been at the whim of their owners. This means they could be killed, assaulted, neglected, or simply worked to death, without repercussions. In most cases slave women bore offspring into slavery, both replenishing and growing the ranks.
Slavery has always been profitable and the foundation of commerce for all societies. Slavery commerce was often the aim/outcome of going to war, where entire societies were enslaved and sold as spoils. It is estimated that 25 to 50% of the world’s population has been enslaved at some time in history. So, the millions of slaves captured and delivered during the Atlantic Slave Trade hold no distinction other than the distance they were transported, and timing with the moral question of acceptability.
The taboo nature of slavery history has fostered a level of ignorance, all the way around, that hinders placing it in proper perspective.
James C. Collier
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Technorati Tags: The Great Slavery Debate – Origins, Atlantic Slave Trade, Milton Meltzer, Commerce, Romans, Acting White
15 comments:
"So, the millions of slaves captured and delivered during the Atlantic Slave Trade hold no distinction other than the distance they were transported, and timing with the moral question of acceptability."
Wow, so the fact that we were stripped of our language, cultures, and religion is no biggy?? I guess in your mind this is what occurred in all other examples of slavery?? And the fact that we walk around with European names, worship a European (White) god, and are constantly bombarded with White supremacist propaganda (i.e. the Egyptians were White, Only non-White people can be terrorists, etc.) has no psychological impact in regards to the social dislocation we see in many Black communities?? I must ask you Mr. Collier who's reality are you living in????
MK
MK, From my research it was common for slaves to be stripped of language, culture, religion, and names, as well as getting the full treatment as property, not citizens. The natural law ascribed to throughout these times was that slaves were inferior - no better than common animals. If black slavery holds so little distinction, then current black dysfunction must have a different root, and we should be searching for something other than what seems not to be there. A traitor, this does not make me.
"MK, From my research it was common for slaves to be stripped of language, culture, religion, and names, as well as getting the full treatment as property, not citizens. The natural law ascribed to throughout these times was that slaves were inferior - no better than common animals."
Mr. Collier I would love for you to point me in the direction of the research that you have come across that lead you to that conclusion. From the research that I have come across, particularly in regards to Africa and the Middle East, slaves were allow to keep their mother tongues and cultures. Furthermore, we SHOULD NOT confuse your argument with a natural and UNCOHERST assimilation that would occur overtime. And in my opinion, White supremacy (and its manifestations in thought,word, and actions of White Americans) has always played a role in the dysfunction (ie lack of resources and low self-esteem) in our communities. In your opinion, such a systematic problem doesn't exist, but I must ask you this: Do you really THINK the racist White people that prowl your website truly want black people to succeed as a community? To take away the jobs, homes, and slots in good schools that they believe they and their children are entitled to???
MK
MK, I noted a significant source in post #2, but you seem more intent on trading insults to notice. I assure you that I continue to have no appetite for your approach. When you get your own blog do not forget to get a spell checker. UNCOHERST??? Did you mean assimilation not coerced, or incoherent?
I for one am satisfied to see the facts of the matter.
The history is there to read.
Slavery has manifested itself in the world for thousands of years and with many peoples.
For one group of people to somehow think their plight to be worse and therefore more deserving is very disturbing.
There are a many sources that support Mr. Collier's points. Thomas Sowell writes about slavery in several different societies in "Conquest and Culture" and "Race and Culture". There's a pretty decent book called "White Slaves Muslim Masters” about Europeans enslaved by the Ottomans. Most Africans that were enslaved and taken to the Middle East - the few that survived - were definitely stripped of their culture, language, etc. Not to mention being forced to convert to Islam. Read historical accounts of slavery in the Sudan and you will find they mirror the current situation in Darfur. The belief that the slave was innately inferior is common in most slave owning societies; the Spartans and the Helots in ancient Greece; the Ottomans thought the same of the Slavs; and obviously with whites and blacks in America. Slaves with unique skills (literacy, multilingualism, beauty) might have more freedom than slaves without. There were a several eunuchs that rose to prominence under the Ottomans. Greek and Roman slaves sometimes became trusted advisers. The same was true in the America. Tobacco slaves - because it took more skill to grow and cultivate it - had more freedom than slaves on a cotton plantation. Obviously, slaves and descendents of slaves suffered greatly in all cases, but it’s difficult to determine which problems within our communities are actually rooted in slavery. Some point to the breakdown of the black family, but that problem is worst today than during reconstruction – so unless we imagine the legacy of slavery skipped generations – its hard to say that slavery is the culprit. Anyway, my two cents.
MK,
As one of the "racist White people that prowl your website", do I "truly want black people to succeed as a community"?
Wholeheartedly and unequivocally YES!
For many reasons, but one of the most basic and self-serving is that when your community succeeds, we all succeed.
Or to say it bluntly and with tongue-in-cheek: the more successful a person is the less likely they are to steal my shit. Rich people don't steal peoples shit (they might swindle you, sure). Middle class people don't steal peoples shit. But the poor people are much more likely to steal peoples shit.
So a community that succeeds is more likely to "play by the rules" of a society and therefore fit in better to the society. Hispanics and Asians have seemed to meld well (while still maintaining their own religion, values, culture) simply by the fact of succeeding.
Post Rules: No Profanity, Name-calling, or Gratuitous acts.
Mr. Collier, calling whites "bastards" is definitely against the above blog rules.....as well as quite a bit more of MKs rantings.
I hope you can get the very informative article back on track and inform MK to tone done the rule breaking and name calling insults.
Anon 7:03, Your concern and protest are duly noted. Mea culpa.
MK is obviously a person who is thoroughly indoctrinated by black liberation mythology. Therefore, it is useless to argue with her. She follows an agenda that won't be diverted from it's path of revolution.
I've heard a million revolutionaries who sound just like her. But, if you want to argue with her, at least put her on the defensive to prove her own ridiculous assertions.
James Collier, In 50 years I've read enough history books to fill my living room completely from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. What you are saying is true, and readily available in any one of those hundreds and hundreds of accounts I've read.
Your blog contributes something valuable to this whole messy issue.
What bothers me most about most every discussion of the effect of African slavery is that so many of the present African Americans referr back to slavery, when it seems to me the the worst most egregious wrongs were done after U.S. slavery was officially ended and they were supposed to be citizens. One other thing that is bothersome is that African Americans of slave ancestors seem to be indifferent on the subject of current slavery in the world today and also seem to say that it is a white aberration. Today there are hundreds of thousands of slaves in Africa and India an in much smaller amounts all over the world.
What is despairing to note is that so many of the various peoples of the world enslave their own nationality or ethnicity because that is where they have to contacts to enslave people. Sex slaves the world over, rug weavers, house cleaners et cetera are frequently found to have been enslaved by their own people. So no particular nationality or ethnicity is free from the taint. The fact that there are police and activists the world over who are STILL trying to stamp out this evil is encouraging.
MK SAYS :
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"Hispanics and Asians have seemed to meld well (while still maintaining their own religion, values, culture) simply by the fact of succeeding."
Or because they don't challenge this system of White Supremacy, which Black people have a knack for doing,
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ogunsiron :
yeah and all that challenging white supremacy is doing us a loooot of good isn't it ?
Do we have schools that are the envy of the world ? Do we have decent countries where people want to move to ? Are we known for our crime free neighborhoods ?
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i.e. the Civil Rights Movement. And the ironic thing is this "success" among the Hispanic and Asian communities that you talk about never would have happened if it wasn't for the Civil Rights movement.
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ogunsiron :
Yeah Ok. So I suppose that without martin luther King the chinese and koreans would be gang banging, their IQs would be rock bottom, their schools would be dangerous, their teens would be ridden with venereal diseases and they wouldn't be business owners but menial workers ?
I guess it's well known that without the civil rights movement, chinese usually end up at the bottom in every country they move to, right ?
You may have a point with the hispanics (not the cubans and other white hispanics though) but please, don't ridicule yourself by painting the east-asians as people who could never succeed in a white society.
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ogunsiron said......
MK SAYS :.......
I think the reality is that nothing is being challenged, and never will be as long as blacks continue clinging en masse to progressivist and other destructive leftist revolutionary paradigms like it, foisted upon them by white elites and their political stooges of every color.
Black people have a "knack" for challenging white supremacy? What a laugh that is. I don't believe the mainstream black concept of white supremacy is valid. But I do believe that whatever the "supremacy structure" is, it keeps the majority of blacks in line. The proof is in the pudding. I know birds can fly because they do it all the time. So ask yourself; what's different in South Africa now? Really, really?
Ladycracker said:
"One other thing that is bothersome is that African Americans of slave ancestors seem to be indifferent on the subject of current slavery in the world today and also seem to say that it is a white aberration."
It is bothersome to see how much our education system has been polluted by leftist ideologues who are more intent on brainwashing than they are educating, for revolutionary purposes. And that is the primary reason for so many mistaken intepretations of reality in America.
The more I think about it, the more I wish I had demanded my money back for some of the college courses I took.
I don't remember ever being on the left. When i started university i was kind of left of center I guess. A lot of people veer left in college. That wasn't the case for me :) By the end of university, overexposure to leftist postcolonialist queer gender theoretical garbage had made me much much more rightwing. It's quite possible that had i not been exposed to what leftist think of as the light, I'd be more accomodating of them right now because I wouldn't have been disgusted by them.
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