A Database of Fugitive Slave Ads Reveals Thousands of Untold Stories (2018)
hyperallergic.com
hyperallergic.com
Scrolling down, one sees an ad from none other than Thomas Jefferson:
> In Alberale, a Mulatto slave called Sandy, about 35 years of age, his stature is rather low, including to corpulence, and his complexion light; he is a shoemaker by trade, in which he uses his left hand principally, and is something of a horse jockey; ... Whoever conveys the said slave to me, in Albermarle, shall have 40 s. reward ...
One of the histories of the US that I read mentioned the ridicule that the British heaped on the Americans for their hypocrisy, a copy of the Declaration of Independence in one hand and a whip in the other.
It's striking to consider the self-delusion that must have been necessary for people at the time to believe in such wildly inconsistent notions as "inalienable rights" and slavery.
On the other hand, culture is a powerful reality distortion field. Scratch just a little below the surface and you'll find the most bizarre creatures scuttling for cover.
But we do the same today. A lot of us have pretty unsustainable lifestyles as far as the environment goes but we make ourselves feel good (or even superior to others) by adding a little bit of organic food and organic clothing. The hypocrisy gets even more exaggerated when stars promote climate change awareness while flying private jets all over the world and living in 20000 square foot houses.
The interesting thing is that a lot of famous hypocrites still do good. Maybe not with their own lifestyle but by other people being motivated to do better
Isn't it pretty clear and straight-forward? It was based on the beliefs (regardless of the degree to which you might think from your perspective that those beliefs accurately represent reality or not) that many people held back then that there are significant racial differences between slaves and people, and the same rules do not apply to white ones as to black ones because they are not the same species, they do not have the same brains/possibilities/rights/etc. Just like they did not grant any freedom to animals or trees.
However much one might disagree with the basic premise of the racist argument, it does not make it a hypocricy freedom-wise. If someone was holding these racist beliefs in this past USA (and many of them did) - they could very well believe in freedom of all people, and at the same time not consider the slaves "people" based on their racist beliefs that there are actual important and significat differences between those races.
Just because someone treats someone else badly doesn't automatically make it a hypocricy, the world is just more complicated than that and there are plenty of examples of violence or exploitation being based on well established logical thought systems or even ethical (from the point of view of the exploiter) beliefs. And this is important because if you want to make a change in a society, you might benefit from understanding how that society actually thinks and what ideology is behind it. Just calling it a hypocricy is not good enough.
Hypocrisy of deed is not covered up by some fig leaf of convenient belief systems.
Wikipedia says he fathered 6 children with her. Do you honestly believe that he thought dark complexion was some seriously different subhuman race?
Personally, I find it hard to believe that Southern whites, who lived in such close proximity to their slaves, actually believed this. It sounds like convenient bullshit that you would try to tell yourself in order to justify what you are doing. You see these people everyday, you speak to them, you own generations of them, and they raise generations of your own children in your house (mammies). Of course you would see enough to know that they are the same species and every bit as human as you are.
At the end of the day all of these high minded ideals are just excuses to justify ones own actions and world views.
Does CNN have a right to choose who can use their broadcast platform?
Is freedom of association allowed?
CNN will not invite you to rant unless you serve a demographic purpose for reaching its audience.
If you associate with the wrong political groups you will be spied on, and your organization will be disrupted intentionally by informants. Yes, in America.
So, as long as you are within the bounds of what the conversation is defined to be you enjoy freedoms, but then what has freedom become if so?
When I said that these distinctions are the determining factors of empires I am saying that these systems function quite similarly, but the distinctions in how they justify themselves are the breathing room where they are successful or fail to convince the population to go along.
The history of liberalism, from J.S. Mill to Jefferson is fraught with hypocrisies and inconsistencies like this[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism:_A_Counter-History
They had a "theory of slavery"... That's what blew me away. This officer wasn't evil, or stupid, he was the product (or even victim) of his culture. They thought slavery benefited the slaves. As insane as that sounds, that was the everyday psychosis of the culture.
People are still making this argument today. Just a few examples:
[1] http://www.theamericancause.org/032108.htm
[2] https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/trent-franks-blacks-bet...
[3] https://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/07/11/social-conservativ...
Perhaps they simply viewed one as the goal to strive towards, and the other as the current, unfortunate state of reality. Especially given that they had a civil war not six decades after Jefferson's presidency, and paid a high price in their own blood to secure those rights.
Edit: By 'they', I meant people in general, not specifically Washington and Jefferson.
> William "Billy" Lee (1750–1828), also known as Will Lee, was George Washington's personal assistant and the only one of Washington's slaves freed immediately by Washington in his will. Because he served by Washington's side throughout the American Revolutionary War and was sometimes depicted next to Washington in paintings, Lee was one of the most publicized African Americans of his time.
> Whoever conveys the said slave to me, in Albemarle, shall have 40 s. reward, if taken up within the county, 4 l. if elsewhere within the colony, and 10 l. if in any other colony ...
Is that "s" for small, "l" for large? small/large what?
The US jailed 70,000 migrant children this year. I doubt history will smile on that.
The US went from 87.9% white in 1900, to 72.4% in 2010 [2]. Unfortunately, I couldn't find such demographic histories for other countries. But search for "US/Europe becoming more diverse", and you'll find countless articles, from mainstream publications, asserting this. So to claim otherwise is extremely fringe.
And there is mathematically no way for a place to be becoming more diverse, while keeping historically constant migration. If the migration hadn't changed in some way, then it would already be diverse. It also means that, if it's becoming more diverse, that it was less diverse, i.e. more homogeneous, in the past.
Looking at the present, China is 91.6% ethnically Han [3], and Hungary is 93.5% ethnically Hungarian [4]. So unless you think China or Hungary or US in 1900-1970 are "the most remote parts of the world", then no, homogeneity is provably not a fallacy.
So yes, "People have been migrating from place to place for all of recorded history", but both the rate and nature of this migration changed, and just a quick glance at the headlines of virtually any news source is enough to tell you this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden#History
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...
Do you have sources to back this up? And how did those countries become homogeneous, then?
And, modern nation states are very new. For example, France drove to extinction or near extinction all languages besides French spoken in what is now present day France through government policy. Like the language of Bretagne.
Your profound misunderstanding of history is not something I can rectify with citations. Read a book? Like, a scholarly book.
Well that would be a giant step back from all the gains that have been made post WWII with the development of the United Nations, UN Security Council, UN Charter, and the entire body of international laws which is founded on sovereign nations voluntarily subjecting themselves to these international law, treaties, customs and norms.
Why will future generations be interested in things that never existed?
EDIT: Why the downvotes? I'm asking a genuine question. How did I manage to offend?
People also want temporary residence to be given to asylum seekers, as specified in the UN Convention on Refugees. Allowing someone to remain in the country is not the same as granting them citizenship. It is also not the same as entitlement to benefits, entitlement to vote, etc.
To be fair here, those who support the detention regime are also generally in favour of deportation. However, current US laws require amounts of due process (to evaluate the claim on its merits) that -- combined with current administrative resources -- result in a slow timeline for hearings and deportation.
Therefore, immigration advocates argue for continuing the past practice of release on bail-like conditions, whereas restrictionists argue that such release is itself a threat (e.g., claimants can 'disappear' as illegal immigrants) and detention is necessary notwithstanding the human cost.
In the meantime, there is also evidently an informal argument that detention itself should act as a deterrent, as weaponized cruelty. This argument is legally and morally reprehensible, but as far as I know policymakers have not officially made it.
Literally none of those are "giving citizenship to everyone who wants it". To take your eventually example to the next step, if their children's children have kids on US soil, they will automatically be US citizens. By your logic, the existing US Constitution is "little different" from the same policy.
8 U.S. Code § 1158. Asylum Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.
False dichotomy.
"A situation in which two alternative points of view are presented as the only options, when others are available."
There was never really a crisis until we created one.
Recently, Trump's DOJ reverted policy back to the way had been for decades. This has reduced the incentive to send women and children first because domestic violence/crime are no longer grounds for asylum claims.
Yes, they crossed the border illegally, in order to apply for asylum, because they would have been automatically rejected otherwise.
Think though, for a moment, how desperate someone must be, to give up their home, travel thousands of miles (not in an airplane) and put their lives in danger, just for the chance for asylum in the USA.
> They possibly even did it with the idea of appealing to emotion of US citizens to get away with it.
Yes, because parents of children often sacrifice their children's health and livelihood just to make a point. Or as a media stunt.
If you don't care about these people, if you feel no sympathy at all, that's fine (well... it's not fine, but it is besides the point). But such cynicism as to their own motives is not accurate.
The founding fathers weren't shy about writing their ideas down. If you're going to speak of the founding, maybe you can quote the actual words of the actual founding fathers, instead of a poet 100 years later. Where did they say the country was founded as a refuge for asylum-seekers?
Also ironic you would bring them up since they were very much an "asylum for me, but not for thee" group, which explains all of the religious refugees leaving Massachusetts during the pilgrim's rule.
vs.
No it isn't.
“Conquerors” and “immigrants” are meaningfully distinct, and the reason the indigenous people of the continent aren't dominant is at least as much the former as the latter.
Also, "aslyum-seeker" and "immigrant" are two distinct concepts.
A) "I had no way to provide food for my family, and didn't want to be killed by drug cartels."
If you choose to enforce your presence on a country that doesn't want you, you're in the wrong.
What the USA is doing is inhumane (news at 11) but I have very little sympathy for people who put their children at risk like that.
I'd turn into a criminal before putting my children at risk like that. Maybe this makes me a worse person. It certainly makes me a person whose children are not in involuntary semi-permanent detention.
At least, that’s the fear of those who are fleeing. I wouldn’t know how accurate their beliefs are.
I don't think you grasp the severity of the situation in Mexico. Perhaps you should go strut your tough stuff over the border. The state dept advise against it due to the high levels of violence and kidnapping.
That wouldn't matter to a would-be criminal though.
It literally includes all other countries in the American continent except for Guyana.
Immigrate to these countries instead. Thank me later.
Why would someone illegally immigrate to the USA in this day and age is beyond my comprehension.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Specifically to respond to this misconception: ALL of the people from "the caravan", ALL of the parents of the 70,000 children that were locked up and taken away FOLLOWED THE LAW and DID EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE TOLD THEM TO DO. They were seeking asylum and political refuge. They followed our law to receive protection/shelter.
Any other dialog is pure rhetoric and Trump based fear mongering.
So most of these recent claims can and should be immediately rejected. There was brief window where Obama's DOJ changed policy and allowed granting asylum for local criminal problems (non-state oppression). Trump's DOJ changed the asylum policy, returning to international norms.
So unless an alien is fleeing state oppression and they have tried to get asylum at the nearest/adjacent non-conflict country, they have no grounds for receiving asylum in the USA.
Asylum and political refuge? Cause you're poor and from a violent place? Might as well bring in the whole of south America then...
> Any other dialog is pure rhetoric and Trump based fear mongering.
I don't have a horse in this race. I'm a south-American immigrant myself. I didn't vote nor care for y'alls Orange Leader. I just feel personal responsibility shouldn't be downplayed.
I remember a (googleable) exchange of letters between the former owner and an ex-slave. The former was genuinely hurt by slave's betrayal and urged them to go back.
There were people for whom owning other people was so normalized that they were actually angry at their former slaves. I wonder if any of our current practices will be viewed as barbaric. Or maybe we'll go back and the future generations will laugh at our idealistic concept of "human rights", while sipping drinks served by their slaves.
"First Premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.
Second Premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.
Third Premise: By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.
Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong."
[1] https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/
They bought back the publishing rights, so it is freely downloadable.
How can I join this learning ?
https://books.google.it/books?id=vhmZCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y
"A passionate and convincing case for the sophistication of nonhuman minds." —Alison Gopnik, The Atlantic
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/animal-emotions/2017...
The point of the exercise is humility — to think about how people in the future might think your ethics are wrong and evil — not arrogance.
It's not at all arrogant to think future people will share my ethics, just like abolitionists were not arrogant to hope for a world without slavery. Arrogance would be believing they'd share all of your ethics, and just as well I'm sure most abolitionists were still very racist, sexist, homophobic, ...
Everyone from Caesar to the crusaders to Martin Luther to the American revolutionaries to the KKK to the Amish to the imperial Japanese to the 1960s hippies to the Taliban to the IRA is on the right side of the shift as they see/saw it.
We can't all be right, some people have to be wrong. Some people will be right on some things and wrong on others. Some people will be so right or wrong on particular things that it will overshadow how right/wrong they were on others.
I'm not even sure that clean meat relies on genetic modifications, but even if, so what? There is no reason to believe that targeted changes are more harmfull than random mutations.
Circumcision aka male genital mutilation is the first thing that comes to mind.
Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Anderson#Letter
Since public education became a thing for all the states, conservative Christians have been opposed to it. They will moderate their message depending on the audience, but when discussed among themselves they talk about abolishing it. The really ridiculous thing is how schools are funded. I won't go into it here, but it guarantees that poor people will have a bad education.
It is for many things but education (not indoctrination or brainwashing) is not one if them. Thankfully I realized this very early.
Some amount of education does occur, but it's incidental to social indoctrination, keeping parents' wages high by forcing kids out of the job market, etc.
That's America's choice to have a failing system, not a universal property of schooling.
Both public and private schools can be places where people experience violence, but many more people experience violence at home first.
Rein it in, minuteman.
What more could you ask for in a prison?
I hope you never see a real prison. I'm serious about this. They are horrifying.
By the way, what do you call a well-treated slave?
It does happen, and if I did meet someone that was forced into slavery, I would hope that I could find help?
If anything I was defending public school? What the hell are you talking about?
It's easier to agree with if you widen your concept of slavery, beyond the specific institution of African slavery in the US... during the later years. That system was so brutal and unethical by slavery standards. So, it's hard to compare to.
Before, during & after chattel slavery, the Americas had other systems of "slavery." Most were not that* brutal, but still slavery.
Indentured service was huge, at a certain point. Share croppers. These people probably outnumbered free employees in many times and places.
Serfs were not free to go. Monks were arguably enslaved by abbots. Artisans sometimes bought apprentices as children.
In western Europe, the "tenant" concept that replaced serfdom was often similar to sharecropping.. arguably also a system of slavery.
We know of ancient examples: Greek, Roman, Jewish, Persian, Babylonian... Ancient law codes (including the bible) dedicated a lot of ink to slavery laws. Slaver rights, slave rights, manumission, and such. A Greek slave could be wealthy, and that should help broaden the concept.
Marxism sees slavery in class terms. Ie it's just a name to describe the lowest class, and wage labour is a descendant of slavery.
There are even many modern-economy examples where employers have a say in an employee's marriage or reproductive choices. That arguably is slavery-like.
Anyway... once you widen the concept of slavery with multiple examples that you easily accept as "obviously slavery*, drawing analogies to other institutions is easy.
Indenture, for example, exists, today, in practice, widely... in many forms. Invariably, the "slavers" think it's ethically sound.
I don't know that the former master was genuinely hurt as much as he was trying to get some more free labor.
I became vegan after asking myself that same question.
Here we go again, everyone posts their pet not-actually-barbaric thing under the moral authority of people from the future.
Very few problems are as unambiguous as slavery. A lot of our problems are much more nuanced.
The most barbaric things we do now are probably closely guarded by people as legitimate traditions or rights.
Of course, but if you say which ones they are they'll be censored on all the consensus based websites like this one, since people won't agree.