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Comment by daveslash | Hacker News Reader

Something similar that I find both fascinating and heart-breakingly tragic: The "Black Belt" in the U.S. Deep South. The Black Belt is both a geological term used to refer to the rich & dark soil [0] and a geopolitical term to refer to the high percentage of African Americans [1]. During the Cretaceous period, the shore-line at the time ran through the middle of Alabama and Mississippi, depositing rich organic deposits, which in turn allowed for plantations to thrive in those parts of the deep south. Even nearly 160 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, those counties still have some of the highest percentages of African American Populations. Overlaying the population demographic map on a a map of the cretaceous shoreline shows a correlation [2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_(geological_formati... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_in_the_American_Sou... [2] https://politicartoons.livejournal.com/4422659.html

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Yep, this is cool, and it's mentioned in the thread!

Oh! So it is!!! Oops, I didn't scroll down enough on the Twitter Thread to see! My bad - thank you!

What's heartbreakingly tragic about this? Your statements reads as if a county having a high percentage of African American residents is negative.

Most of African Americans who live in the BB are descendants of slaves. They didn’t want to be in the black belt.

Do they want to be in Africa? I doubt it. Slavery is bad, but that doesn’t mean it is tragic that the descendants of those slaves are living in America.

I think bag_boy was trying to highlight the tragedy that we can still see direct effects of slavery in the United States, not that it's tragic that descendants of Africans live in America

I can't speak for bag_boy, but yes, that was more or less what I was getting at; while the correlation is fascinating, it's also sad to think about the "why" and "how" behind it. I didn't mean to kick a hornets nest...

That’s right - thank you

It isn't absolutely tragic, but there is surely some tragedy within the overall story, including in some lingering after effects.

It's the chattel slavery that's tragic.

I think you're ignoring the mistreatment of Black people in the black belt. For example, recently when Alabama instituted its voter ID laws it closed every DMV in the black belt so that Black people wouldn't have access to get IDs and vote.

Well...the fact plantations were more viable due to soil conditions, does that by itself mean the slaves were treated worse? Could be, could be.

Plus I believe rural blacks in the South just want to work good land, which by this point they often own. It's an agricultural area, the most people live on the best land. And further, the weather is more similar to Africa, hotter sunnier more humid. Subtropical. And then plus they're segregating of their own accord, they like each other they go to the same churches they share recipes for soul and Creole food, cook that pig good, share the crops. Sing together. Elect black representatives to go to Washington for them, being in a majority, that's another thing. Electing black Senators, that changes the game. And for that they need to be together in one place.

>...does that by itself mean the slaves were treated worse?

No, but specifically targeting Black people for marginalization by doing things like removing their ability to vote does count as being "treated worse".

>... just want to work good land, which by this point they often own.

If you think that the end of slavery automatically resulted in Black people owning land they farm on you need to read about what actually happens.

The naming irony / play on words. It's tragic because of this fertile 'black belt' slavery was able to exist profitably in that region.

>depositing rich organic deposits, which in turn allowed for plantations to thrive in those parts of the deep south.

that is to say, the rich organic deposits of the black belt allowed slavery in the plantation model, creating the black belt as a racial profile.

> heart-breakingly tragic

African Americans are glad to be living in the US, and they're deeply enmeshed in the fabric of American society. Slavery was a bad part of history (and of the present where it still exists) but it's not more "heart-breakingly tragic" that a large number of African Americans today live on fertile land in the Old South any moreso than a large number of Aficans living on all sorts of land including not-so-fertile in Africa.

I did not know that African Americans got together, had a vote, and decided that they’re happy to live in the US!

Or that they voted that living in the South is tragic!

In fact, let's take a step back instead of escalating the point. OP used a weird term for the context without qualifying the tragedy. Yes, slavery and other systemic abuses existed and we see echoes and displays of it today. That is tragic. But the simple fact where people live isn't tragic. It's the why they live where they live, to a degree.

no vote necessary, Americans overwhelmingly are glad to live in America, and African Americans are not different.

I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where we can just refer to people as Americans, instead of just some <subset>.

Huh, didn't realise that the Voice of African Americans was a member of HN.

I encourage people to read about Liberia. It's one of those hilarious episodes of American- African American relations that makes learning about history so interesting (and they will never teach it at school).

Any keywords or a summary to kick off the readings?

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