Should Blacks in the US thank the slavers?

Dida

Dida

YHWH
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Sep 11, 2003
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Slavers abducted the ancestors of the Black population from their native Africa, and subjected them to slavery in the US. No doubt, slavery was a terrible institution and should be abolished.
Viewing the whole affair retrospectively, however, becoming a slave in the US was actually a benefit for the Africans. Their life in Africa might have been better than life in slavery, but slavery came with long term benefit. To see the benefit, compare the quality of life that an average African American enjoys in US to that enjoyed by an average person in sub-Sahara Africa.
 
maybe if the slavers hadnt taken so many slaves and white europeans hadnt colonized subsaharan africa things might have been better for them.
 
Well, maybe "thank" is not the right word to use. I do not mean that African Americans should feel grateful to have been enslaved. The topic of discussion is simply whether slavery produced a net positive effect on the lives of those African slaves and their decedents.
 
Of course not. The legacy of Slavery, and the racial discrimination that followed right afterwards, is partially responsible for some of the social ills Blacks face *today*.

Everybody in America would have been better off if slavery hadn't happened.
 
Well such a question is rediculous to propose because it makes little sense and suggests 'blacks in the US' today have experienced slavery or that Africans today would rather be forced into slave labour then live in Africa.
 
downtown said:
Of course not. The legacy of Slavery, and the racial discrimination that followed right afterwards, is partially responsible for some of the social ills Blacks face *today*.

Everybody in America would have been better off if slavery hadn't happened.
Click to expand...

I think the analysis you just performed is misdirected, because if slavery never happened, African population in the US would be negligible. Vast majority of African American today would be living in Africa. So the comparison should be between their life as it is today, versus what their life would have been (in Africa).
 
Dida said:
I think the analysis you just performed is misdirected, because if slavery never happened, African population in the US would be negligible. Vast majority of African American today would be living in Africa. So the comparison should be between their life as it is today, versus what their life would have been (in Africa).
Click to expand...

We can't say that for certain. After the immigration quota system changed in the 1960s, we had people pouring in from everywhere. Maybe without slavery, we would have done it sooner? Who knows? How many black people are actually descended from American slaves?

Or, perhaps life in Africa would be better, if less people had left? We can't say for certain about that either.
 
Dida said:
I think the analysis you just performed is misdirected, because if slavery never happened, African population in the US would be negligible. Vast majority of African American today would be living in Africa. So the comparison should be between their life as it is today, versus what their life would have been (in Africa).
Click to expand...

Your analysis is unfair because it would assume that the rest of exploitation would be happen, just crossing off only the colonial slavery.
 
Are we talking just the white ( mainly Dutch) or the African and Arab slave traders too? Slavers who by the way traded slaves long before and after old whitey got involved.
 
Um, no. There was no net positive effect for the slaves themselves, that's for sure. I mean, they were slaves. Do their descendents live in a better environment than they would have otherwise. These same descendents would not exist because the slaves probably would have procreated with someone else, leading to totally different descendents. NO telling what Africa may have been like. No, it would not be the leading scientific or commerce center of the world, but it may have been a lot better off.
 
And beyond which, not everyone in Africa is necessarily poorly off even now. It's entirely possible that the descendants in Africa of some of those slaves would have wound up in better situations than the one their descendants in America are in today.
 
I think it's just smart to adopt a "hey, how about we're even now, kind of maybe?" sort of policy. White people benefited from Black people as slaves far more than African Americans benefit now for being American citizens of either marginal or middle class status...

Besides, asking this question itself seems to me like waving the race flag all over again. Let it rest. Or at least until the next Al Sharpton rally.
 
Dida said:
Slavers abducted the ancestors of the Black population from their native Africa, and subjected them to slavery in the US. No doubt, slavery was a terrible institution and should be abolished.
Viewing the whole affair retrospectively, however, becoming a slave in the US was actually a benefit for the Africans. Their life in Africa might have been better than life in slavery, but slavery came with long term benefit. To see the benefit, compare the quality of life that an average African American enjoys in US to that enjoyed by an average person in sub-Sahara Africa.
Click to expand...

Even if the descendants of slaves wanted to thank the slavers (slavers?) - they couldn't.. as the slavers are long dead.

Should they be thankful that they live in a prosperous country? Yes.

Should they be thankful that their ancestors were enslaved? No.

NEXT
 
hossam said:
maybe if the slavers hadnt taken so many slaves and white europeans hadnt colonized subsaharan africa things might have been better for them.
Click to expand...

And maybe if the African colonies didn't revolt from colonialism thereby making their economies even worse off than before, things might have been better for them also. What you said is a moot to the question presented.
 
QuoVadisNation said:
I think it's just smart to adopt a "hey, how about we're even now, kind of maybe?" sort of policy. White people benefited from Black people as slaves far more than African Americans benefit now for being American citizens of either marginal or middle class status...
Click to expand...

Hm... They say the Civil War was as much about states' rights as it was about slavery itself, but I wonder if we still would have fought the Civil War if slavery had never been popular in the South. That particular event didn't work out to well for white Americans either.

I don't think it has much to do with the initial question, but it's an interesting point to think about.
 
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