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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

Why should a site about American slavery cover something other than American slavery? Would you go onto a website about the New England Patriots and ask why there wasn't any coverage of the New York Giants, or onto a site about mountaintop removal mining asking why there wasn't more coverage about clearcutting? Do you go onto Kurdish sites and ask why they aren't covering the Armenian genocide?

Why should the African-American experience be minimized so as to not be considered a distinct experience from other differing experiences that have been labeled as "slavery"?

edit: This is not a rhetorical question.

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Because it lets white Americans say 'see! other people owned slaves too!' and feel more comfortable about the legacy of slavery in this country.

Same principle with 'well, African kingdoms sold us the slaves in the first place', it shifts the focus away from them and their ancestors.

Because it lets white Americans say 'see! other people owned slaves too!'

My ancestors first set foot in America in 1930. I do happen to be white though, so I'm curious as to whether you think I'm included in the people responsible for slavery. Or do you think it's only white people whose ancestors were in America more than 149 years ago? I'm just curious if you truly believe people are guilty by racial association or only by ancestral association.

If your ancestors had owned every slave and had been in the US since 1650, you still wouldn't be personally responsible for slavery.

What you are is a beneficiary of it, even if you came over on a boat last year. Just as if you had migrated to apartheid South Africa from Ireland in the 80s.

What you are is a beneficiary of it, even if you came over on a boat last year.

How am I a beneficiary of something that was outlawed in this country 149 years ago when I have only been alive a small fraction of that time and my ancestors have only been in this country for 84 years?

If your ancestors had only been here for five minutes, during those five minutes you would enjoy advantages based on your race that black people would not.

If your ancestors had only been here for five minutes, during those five minutes you would enjoy advantages based on your race that black people would not

You make this extraordinary claim without providing extraordinary evidence - or in fact, any evidence. How is what you say true possible? The only way I can imagine is that your logical argument is:

1. Slave owners had an advantage over slaves

2. Descendants of slave owners had an advantage of descendants of slaves

3. An additional 5-6 generations of descendants of slave owners continued to have an advantage over 5-6 generations of descendants of slaves

4. All descendants of slave owners (regardless of how many generations removed they are) are racists that give advantages to whites

5. Therefore, any new immigrants to America instantly inherit these advantages

Is that it? If not, explain how your extraordinary claim is possible.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the regulations for the Passover meal: No foreigner may eat it. Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised him"

-Exodus 12:43-44

Jews held slaves and are thus the beneficiaries of slavery. Using your mindset, Jews must be maligned as an entire people for all eternity for the past sins of slavery. Isn't that mindset just another name for defamation, though? If antisemitism is a danger to the Jewish people - requiring the countervailing of an "Anti Defamation League" - why wouldn't tarring all American Anglos as the beneficiaries of slavery be a similar danger to America's founding stock? Why is defamation bad for some and good for others?

Interesting how you define millions of the global population entirely by their race.

>Because it lets white Americans...[shift] the focus away from them and their ancestors.

Not every white American had ancestors that owned slaves. In fact, most white Americans had nothing to do with slavery--much like today, only the top 1.5% (1) or so of Americans enjoyed any of the benefits stereotypically ascribed to "white people." Poor white people were left to scrounge for low income jobs and educational funds, much as they are today.

Blaming all whites for slavery is much like blaming all Muslims for 9/11. From the past to the present, only the rich have benefited from slaves--as can be seen by the fact that the first slave owner in America was actually a rich black man. (2)

1. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Unite...]

2. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28colonist%29]

>white Americans had nothing to do with slavery

If they lived in America, they did. It affected the the prices of the goods they purchased and affected the price their labor could bring. It affected who they voted for, and years later where they would live. The fact that simply by virtue of the state of being white, they were immune to being enslaved within a culture of slavery affected their relationships to each other and to free black men.

>only the top 1.5% (1) or so of Americans enjoyed any of the benefits stereotypically ascribed to "white people."

Bullshit. If you can get a cab and a black man can't, you're enjoying "benefits stereotypically ascribed to 'white people.'" If a job application is turned down because a name sounds black, you're enjoying "benefits stereotypically ascribed to 'white people.'" Not recognizing that is just a sense of entitlement.

>Blaming all whites for slavery is much like blaming all Muslims for 9/11.

Muslims didn't get to vote (and take up arms against each other) to support 9/11, thousands of times in thousands of contexts over hundreds of years, and they didn't get the economic boost that comes from a large proportion of the population existing to serve.

> If they lived in America, they did.

I think that is the point. Many (maybe most? I don't know) did not. Only a quarter of my family tree has people living in America before ~1930.

Did they, being white people in a still racist society, benefit from not being black in the 1930s? Sure, of course they did. They didn't have anything to do with American slavery though.

It's interesting the way these people never try to apply this sort of "logic" to any other situation. Probably because original sin was first popularized by the Catholic Church, and outside of white guilt and religion (where cognitive dissonance keeps people from realizing the inconsistencies), the concept would obviously be considered laughable at best and ragingly discriminatory at worst.

> The fact that simply by virtue of the state of being white, they were immune to being enslaved within a culture of slavery

White people were slaves, too. Both in the Americas and elsewhere. In many places, they were treated more harshly and considered less valuable than African slaves.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgo...

>If you can get a cab

If you're poor, you aren't going to be taking a cab no matter what color your skin is.

>Muslims didn't get to...thousands of times in thousands of contexts over hundreds of years...get the economic boost that comes from a large proportion of the population existing to serve.

"During the 8th and 9th centuries of the Fatimid Caliphate, most of the slaves were Europeans (called Saqaliba) captured along European coasts and during wars.[2] Historians estimate that between 650 and 1900, 10 to 18 million peoples were enslaved by Arab slave traders and taken from Africa across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara desert.[3]

Unlike the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the New World, Arabs supplied African slaves to the Arab world, which at its peak stretched over three continents from the Atlantic to the Far East."

If you want to condemn white people for slavery, you're going to have to condemn everyone else for it, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

What is also overlooked is that the crew members of the slave ships were also themselves kidnapped via press-ganging. This was one of the social pressures that brought an end to the trade in the UK. More and more young men were being kidnapped from port towns to serve on ships and eventually the residents began to organise protest. Wilberforce acted as agent between the towns to give the protest support, orchestration and communication with London.

Stop making generalizations. Plenty of white people immigrated to the US in the 20th century. Still more didn't live in slave states and had little or nothing to do with the slave economy.

My ancestors spent the 19th century being exploited by the British Empire in Ireland. Nobody in my family had a thing to do with slavery, and there are millions like me.

"the first slave owner in America was actually a rich black man."

Oh, that's another 'but but but' excuse I forgot, thanks.

So, it's okay to enslave people if you're black?

Statistically speaking, there were probably hundreds of jewish people killed by other jewish people in 1930s Germany.

The domain is broad: "slaverystories" not "americanslaverystories". Hence my recommendation since american slavery is such a small part of the vast history of slavery.

This seems pedantic. There are plenty of reasons the site owner may have chosen the domain name.

Not every discussion of a subject must be comprehensive--you noted in your comment that the history of slavery is vast. Why is this site owner expected to address all the different instances on his/her site?

There are plenty of sites that discuss the broader history of slavery, or specific instances of it. This one fits in with the mosaic of other sites out there.

>american slavery is such a small part of the vast history of slavery.

This, of course, was the unspoken thought behind your suggestion. You just don't think that the subject is important. American chattel slavery is both unbelievably important and unique in the history of the world. To minimize its importance in the establishment and rise of the US, the history of Africa and Europe, or its importance in world culture is willful ignorance.

>unique in the history of the world.

Hardly. People have been enslaving each other throughout the entirety of human history. To suggest that America is somehow exceptional in this regard reeks of ethnocentrism. The Arab slave trade is arguably just as important, but somehow I doubt you condemn residents of the Middle East as harshly as you do whites...

No one is talking about minimizing it's importance.

If anything, you're trying to 'minimize the importance' of the enslavement of people in practically every civilization on earth, for generations before the US was founded and still continuing today.

At the end of the day though, that's what the site owner wants, I just don't understand your vitriolic responses to people questioning it.

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