Thoughts and Prayers Department

If it’s not possible to offer a comprehensive discussion on slavery here , then why use a cherry picked piece to fit an argument? Why is that acceptable to you? It’s strange how you pick what you will and won’t argue in here.

If I have to explain “woke “ to you, and how it pertains to using cherry picked pieces of comprehensive topics, then you aren’t in touch enough to what’s being said these days.

(insert “what’s being said, who’s saying it, where are they saying it, why are they saying it, what are they eating while saying it, where’s their parents,what’s the weather when they are saying it?”)
It’s funny how you say I keep getting further off track, when you are the one dragging it there with your questioning .

“talking firearms” was obviously a joke, and I’m sure everyone here knew that. Except you? No, you did too, but you wouldn’t miss your chance at a drag out argument in an online thread , as usual to the point of exhaustion and eye rolling.

 

African slavery in the south flourished because white contract laborers didn't survive their 7 year contracts after being transported from England. The climate was too hot and the work was too hard in that context.

Slavery had existed in the Americas from long before the first permanent English colonies, initially being really harsh legal obligations imposed by the Spanish on native Americans in the Caribbean. However the natives did not last long as Old World epidemic diseases wiped them out. They were suited for the climate but not the new diseases.

Africans however already had some immunities to the various epidemic diseases and so they were hardier in the new world. This, and easy access to slaves via the incessant warfare and raiding in central and west Africa, made African slavery the economical solution.

The downsides were that slavery was going out of style just as North American slavery took off. Also indentured servants were unlikely to revolt en masse whereas this was always a threat with people bound against their wishes.

English indentured servants had very few rights under the law but slaves had none. What a man did with his property on his property was his business and his alone.

As to whether you should individually feel some responsibility for the after-effects of slavery: the main question is did your family profit and are you wealthy today because of a fortune amassed via slavery in any form? Then you should think about what impact your ancestors had and maybe find a way to make individual reparations.

As to whether we should collectively feel the need to make reparations, well, yeah we should because the notion that bygones will be bygones completely misses the fact that we're still grappling with the after-effects 160 years after slavery was abolished.

Also, we need to address the native American issues but one thing at a time.

 

the majority of Americans would fit in the no category of this, because of 1900s immigration. Even so, I disagree anyway, because asking someone in anyway to be responsible for the actions of another is quite a slippery slope. As barbaric as it was, slaves were sold in a primitive business. So, do we also go after the ancestors of the dealers? What about people from Ireland? Do they find a way into this conversation too? No, the best thing that can be done is opportunity, for everyone.

 

reparations are one thing, but the least you can do is not chalk up their history as "woke".... or say it shouldn't be taught.

We can't right the wrongs of the past but we can still learn about them

 

If opportunity were provided equally this would be a good idea.

How many white men have died with a police officers boot on their neck recently?

 

Reparations don’t have to me monetary. It could be something that is put into communities… like opportunity centers etc. maybe call it something other than reparations. But I’m not sure how at this point any one in power could sell that or any other idea to people in need residing here, when en mass , we are importing more people with need… and placing them in those in need neighborhoods from what I am reading (Chicago, for one).

 

Maybe look up the numbers… whites being killed at the hands of police out number any other by far, even if it is because of a higher percentage of population, you would have to think at least a percentage of those were unjustified, right? But they don’t make it to the news, so we would never know.

actually, come to think of it, not many police killings at all make it to the news unless it’s an election year.

 

All reparations are going to have a monetary basis. Whether that is in the form of direct payments, community assistance, etc.

However they are scheduled it needs to be in a way that makes things better for the community, not worse. The limited reparations that we have put in place (welfare in the 30's, food stamps in the 40's, Medicaid in the 60's) were all designed for different populations and then crudely adapted to fit the urban poor.

The perfect example of a program that didn't fit was the AFDC which was designed for aid to families who had dependent children and in which one of the parents was deceased, missing or incapacitated. In white rural communities there tended to be enough opportunity for families with two parents to manage things and it was only when a parent was lost that the family fell into poverty. In black urban communities the employment situation was not the same and particularly the father tended to be discriminated against in the job market. This meant lots of black families below the poverty line with an unemployed or very under-employed father in the house. In order to qualify for the AFDC the father had to leave the house, which over a few generations turned into the parents never getting married at all and the father being not present officially in the house.

If the AFDC had been written to reflect the reality of an urban black family it would have carefully indexed benefits to the employment opportunities in the community in question and not driven fathers out of the house in the first place.

 

And then you can add in the introduction of drugs to not only those communities, but even rural white communities like in West Virginia, that are decimated by the declining coal industry. Honestly, as long as drugs are there, and the appetite and addiction for that exists, I’m not sure how anything can be fixed. For both the addict, and the dealer who sees instant money instead of a long journey to success .

 

Drugs have long been used as a tool to marginalize and divide communities.

 

That’s not at all what I was saying. Not even close. Slavery has a much broader history than just white ownership of slaves in America . But there are many people in the “woke” category, who would refuse to converse any further than that aspect. That’s not to take away from America’s part in it; but to acknowledge that it’s not the only part.

I’m not sure where you are getting that I think it shouldn’t be taught. Or that I’m chalking anyones history up to being “woke” based on what said…. I said it should be taught in its entirety.

 

Double post

 

Both sides are bad.

 

What are you talking about? I already have , numerous times. I’ve also numerous times suggested calling it a day , and yet you keep going.

 

That’s not what I said . At all. And I’m not sure who you think you are, but you can take your demands elsewhere.

And for the record , what I consider anti- american, is the anti American rhetoric coming from the far left these days using part of the story while leaving out other parts to make their claims . Does it have anything to do with gun violence? No. But neither did our fore fathers being “people who own other people”. I’m no expounding on any of this any further .