One of most common myths that people are forced to repeat in the Left’s never-ending quest to humiliate whites at the altar of egalitarianism and multiculturalism is the idea that whites should feel guilty about the so-called “legacy of slavery”.
According to the politically correct ideologues, minorities are never to blame for any of their troubles, and whites are the source of all things that are wrong with the world. Actions by whites, even those that have taken place a century and a half ago, are somehow to blame for the flaws of the American blacks today, and all whites must be held responsible only because of the color of their skin.
Many people correctly cite that all the world’s nations, and especially the Africans, owned slaves. What most people forget is that whites were the first people to eliminate slavery, not only by abolishing it in their own societies, but by forcing the rest of the world to abandon the practice.
Arabs, who kidnapped and enslaved blacks long before Europeans did, had legalized slavery until the 1980s in two countries – Sudan and Mauritania. Even Egypt had lawful slavery until the 1960s. To this day, the Arabic word for blacks and for slaves is the same – ‘abd’.
Blacks themselves engaged in slavery and slave trade. The vast majority of blacks taken to Europe and the New World were not enslaved by whites, but rather by their fellow blacks. Nor can whites be held responsible for black-on-black enslavement, as it began long before whites began buying slaves. Blacks were selling slaves to each other, as well as to the Arabs. Even the main hero of Amistad, upon winning his freedom, went back to Africa and became a slave-trader.
Today, Africans claim that slave trade devastated the continent. Were it true, they themselves would be to blame. But the claim is false. Indeed, it was slave trade that built an empire in West Africa.
The only reason slavery ended is the realization by whites that slavery is immoral. If the slave market existed today, we can be sure that blacks participate in slave-ownership and slave trade, as they do when they can – such as forced labor in African gold mines and the kidnapping of children who are turned into child-soldiers for African militias.
Back in the United States, the Human Rights Watch published “No Escape” that described slavery, including rape and other severe abuse, in prisons. The majority of slaves are white and the vast majority of slave-owners are black.
Blacks and others do not feel guilty enslaving people, especially those who belong to other races. Only whites do.
For white people, the legacy of slavery is not starting the practice, but ending it. It should be the source of pride, not guilt.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT SLAVERY
There is a mainstream book out there called “White Cargo” published a few years by two Brits back that covers the topic. While I have not read it, I have been told about it by others. There is a favorable 2008 NYT book review of the paperback version out there on the web to give you a taste:
www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/books/review/Lau-t.html
In a nutshell, there were White Slaves of European stock brought to the Colonies against their will long before Black slaves. This is in addition to the White indentured servants who for all practical purposes were often treated like slaves. (If my memory serves me, I think the stat is like 50% of all colonists in the 17th and 18th century were indentured.) This group, unlike slaves, could earn their freedom in theory. The book asserts this often did not occur.
Bottom line it looks like Blacks don’t have an unique claim to the institution of slavery in the Colonies.
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There is nothing unique about black slavery. The peculiar institution of slavery has existed throughout recorded history. Aristotle believed in “natural slavery” – i.e. some people are born to be slaves and others masters.
Very few people (I’m talking about whites here) who, if they had access to their complete family history, would not find some ancestor in a servile condition. In feudal societies, there were huge numbers of serfs without any personal freedoms – except perhaps those granted by the lord of the manor. Many people arrived in America as bondsmen and women: these people were slaves in all but name, and had to work off their servile status over many years.
Blacks need to understand that their experience of slavery is part of a continuum of human misery which has been alleviated by the compassion, social reforms, and ultimately the emancipation efforts of…… guess who?
[...] the same salary, blacks have several times less in savings. This is not due to the so-called “legacy of slavery” – very few whites have any savings that were passed on to them from the 1860s or even 1960s. [...]
American blacks have benefited, not suffered, from their” legacy of slavery.” If their forebears had not been “enslaved and transported,” who would these American blacks be today? A starving Ethopian? A Hutu or Tutsi cutting off hands or having their hands cut off? A black “war veteran” raping, mutilating, and then killing some white woman in front of her husband, before mutilating and killing him and stealing his farm? One of those white farmers’ farm workers who suffers the same fate from their own co-racials?
American blacks should be GRATEFUL for their forebears having been brought here; any suffering by their long-dead ancestors should be valued with compassion and sorrow as the ticket to their civilization by America!
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