Black National Anthem

[masonbengals fan]

(07-04-2020, 12:49 PM)Benton Wrote: Having pride and recognition in your heritage is part of what makes this country great. At the same time, I think that comes secondary to the national identity.

Slavery was wrong. Segregation was wrong. Trying to have a nation within a nation is wrong, too.

[fredtoast]

(07-04-2020, 12:42 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: This kind of ganging up condescension is exactly why the new rules are going to be implemented.

No it isn't.

It was because of comments like this.

(07-04-2020, 12:42 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Don’t bother responding at all. Just cut this kind of junior high crap out.

[Millhouse]

(07-04-2020, 01:02 AM)samhain Wrote: People should do whatever they feel morally obligated to do.  That said, I don't really get depriving yourself of something you enjoy over politics.  The league definitely does not care.  They're at a fork in the road where they have to choose who to piss off.  They would be damaged immensely  if they allowed themselves to be perceived as the league that's anti-brutality protest.  They already know that they can survive pissing off the far right, as they did it in 17 and still make money hand over fist.  

In the end, is it all that awful of a thing?  It's a short song, and unless you're at the game, you probably won't see/hear it anyway.  Seems like a small thing to make a person stop enjoying something.

Yeah it's kind of like Nike. I've liked their shoes, shirts, and other things over the decades. 

But I won't stop buying them because they decided NOT to put the Betsy Ross American flag on a special release shoe last year because of that commie* who told them they shouldn't because it is 'offensive' (oh boo hoo hoo).

* commie is referring to the great kneeling patriot Kaepernick who wore PRO-Fidel Castro shirts. 

[Dill]

(07-04-2020, 09:13 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: In the years prior to that dispute and ensuing war, a great many slaves fled their owners and plantations.  Where did those people flee to?  They didn't run to Mexico.  They didn't travel West and claim their own territory to form their own Nation.  They didn't take boats back to Africa, where their own people sold them down river into slavery in the first place.  No, they fled to America, land of the free, home of the brave.  A place where we live as "One Nation, indivisible".

The notion of a "second" National Anthem, one specifically aimed at one people in a great melting pot, is sort of contradictory to the ideals that the Nation is actually principled upon.  Perhaps the general messaging in society shouldn't be "hey, some of you were mean to us", but rather "thanks for seeing us as equals, and making things right"?

Just a quick addition to some of Bpat's points--clearly we weren't living as "one nation, indivisible" during the Civil War. Not Canada, not Mexico, but America, land of the free, was "home of the slaves" in North America until 1865. And then home of racial apartheid for another hundred years.

Texas seceded from Mexico, the destination of some 30% of runaway slaves, precisely because Mexico outlawed slavery. And it was added to the Union in part to increase the number of slave state senators in Congress.

Since the founding there has been an argument about what this nation was "principled upon." The author of our national anthem, Francis Scott Key, was a slave holder and ardent defender of "our peculiar institution" as he called slavery.

Some people (nowdays you'd call them "liberals") began embracing the "melting pot" ideal in the last quarter of the 19th century. It's from that time that political cartoons and illustrations began circulating with an "inclusive" message. They only finally won this battle in the 1960s, or at least succeeded in getting a majority to agree that THAT was the principle upon which the US was founded, part of what made the US "exceptional."

Now people speak as if racial inclusion was always the goal at the Founding. Every step of the way, advocates of civil rights and equality have been "divisive" only because there were people who opposed civil rights and equality. 

The latest round of civil rights protest has arisen because a sufficient number of people agrees that we are in fact not "one nation, indivisible" when it comes to police protection, even if we are in anthems, pledges and patriotic paintings. We need to consider closely why they should be suddenly cast as divisive in current debates, and most visibly by a president sliding downward in the polls.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-04-2020, 01:14 PM)fredtoast Wrote: No it isn't.

It was because of comments like this.

I can't tell you how epic it is that you responded to that post.  :andy:

[Dill]

(07-04-2020, 12:42 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: This kind of ganging up condescension is exactly why the new rules are going to be implemented. While I don’t agree with OP’s point there are people actually debating this issue in a serious manner. Your condescending mocking of that position does absolutely nothing to contribute to the conversation in a positive manner. All done while nudging your buddy and laughing at the “others”.

If you’re really serious about wanting civil discourse be the change you claim you want and cut this crap out. It’s exactly this type of gestalt belittling that pushed many people to stop posting here. Don’t bother with a ten paragraph reply about how you weren’t doing what you were doing. Don’t bother responding at all. Just cut this kind of junior high crap out.

Parody has always been a part of political debate. And a "serious" one. So I'm not afraid to "admit" that I enjoy that genre of response. With it, one can highlight the extremism of a position by pretending to adopt it, without a long explanation/argument.

It has never been excluded from "civil discourse" in the past, as personal attack has been for over two millenia.

This is just a guy constantly flagged for direct, egregious personal attack--serious "junior high crap"--on the lookout for "condescension" in hopes of leveraging that into some kind of equivalent. 

If the moderators ban blatant personal attacks, which can be discerned pretty easily, discussion will flourish.

If they ban "condescension," a label people can apply to most any poster who disagrees with them, as you do, then discussion will wither.

I don't call people out, tell them to do as I say, then tell them not to respond. If you dispute the above or otherwise have more to say, then I'll be happy to respond, but not on this thread. Take it to the one recently started by Bengalholic, so people on this one can continue discussing the Black National Anthem. I won't respond to this topic anymore here.

I urge others to follow suit; don' let yet another thread fall a series of sniping one liners off the topic.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-04-2020, 01:51 PM)Dill Wrote: Parody has always been a part of political debate. And a "serious" one. So I'm not afraid to "admit" that I enjoy that genre of response. With it, one can highlight the extremism of a position by pretending to adopt it, without a long explanation/argument.

It has never been excluded from "civil discourse" in the past, as personal attack has been for over two millenia.

This is just a guy constantly flagged for direct, egregious personal attack--serious "junior high crap"--on the lookout for "condescension" in hopes of leveraging that into some kind of equivalent. 

If the moderators ban blatant personal attacks, which can be discerned pretty easily, discussion will flourish.

If they ban "condescension," a label people can apply to most any poster who disagrees with them, as you do, then discussion will wither.

I don't call people out and then tell them to do as I say and not to respond. If you dispute the above or otherwise have more to say, then I'll be happy to respond, but not on this thread. Take it to the one recently started by Bengalholic, so people on this one can continue discussing the Black National Anthem. I won't respond to this topic anymore here.

I urge others to follow suit; don' let yet another thread fall into  sniping one liners between substantive posts.

Couldn't resist could you?  You always have a superficial excuse for why what you do is fine but what others do is not.  It's so predictable I called it in the post you responded to.  The only person you're convincing is yourself.

You consistently join in on group condescension of posts you feel unworthy of consideration.  Maybe you, and the others who also participate, find some kind of solace in your gestalt clique?  I don't know.  What I do know is that I'm far from the only person who notices it, is sick of it and would ask that you kindly cease.

[SunsetBengal]

(07-04-2020, 11:30 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: This is actually incorrect. Fugitive slaves absolutely went to Spanish territories and Canada (an estimated 30% of escaped slaves in the 19th century went to Canada) as slavery was outlawed there. We annexed Florida from the Spanish after a war partially because it was where many slaves ran to. Many also did go to Africa as well. Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, was one of those destinations. 

Congress passed versions of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1793 and 1850, requiring all citizens and government officials to aid in the arrest of any escaped slave, and then in 1857 the Supreme Court said that the US Constitution did not grant citizenship to any black person, free or enslaved. 

They didn't "flee to America" because they were in America. Many did head to free states, but the law did not protect them. Very, very few slaves escaped slavery in the South.

After the Civil War, the US government gave up on enforcing the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and abandoned Reconstruction, allowing for Jim Crow laws to control the lives of black people for the next 80 years. During this era of segregation, incarceration, bondage via sharecropping, and lynching, the NAACP commissioned a song to be a symbol of hope and resilience for the black community as they began a long legal battle to fight against the laws of the "land of the free" that made them 2nd class citizens without full rights. This was decades before the US adopted the Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem. 

I am more than happy to go into more detail and chronicle a full 400 years of oppression against Black folks that spins a different light on this romanticized and half correct history you are attempting to use to justify your disapproval of a song. I don't think any of that will matter. You are determined to see a song as a symbol of division, despite it not being that. This is like when people said Obama divided the nation. He didn't, people did that in response to him being president. Likewise, this song does not divide people. People are just manufacturing outrage over it.

Thank you for the insight.  I usually learn a little something from your postings.  As long as we're on the topic of slavery and history, I did a little looking around and found this.

Quote:‘Africa’s Role in the Slave Trade Has Been Deliberately Forgotten… They Created a Myth That We Were Innocent,’ African Historian Says

• BEN DAVIS ON JUNE 20, 2020
  

[/url][url=http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?via=caldronpool&text=%27Africa%27s%20Role%20in%20the%20Slave%20Trade%20Has%20Been%20Deliberately%20Forgotten%E2%80%A6%20They%20Created%20a%20Myth%20That%20We%20Were%20Innocent%2C%27%20African%20Historian%20Says&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcaldronpool.com%2Fafricas-role-in-the-slave-trade-has-been-deliberately-forgotten-they-created-a-myth-that-we-were-innocent-african-historian-says%2Famp%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2apQ7NqJ8_V8k7TEMymtbHw-tqmE9wFGN-GUvQ3w1NkVNc-X1gYSrNwwY][/url]



“There is a willful amnesia about the roles Africans played in the slave trade,” according to Nat Nunoo-Amarteifio, historian, author and former mayor of Accra, Ghana’s capital.
Speaking with PRI’s [url=https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-08-20/willful-amnesia-how-africans-forgot-and-remembered-their-role-slave-trade]The Word, Amarteifio said when Europeans came to Africa in search of gold, they found an already existing slave system that they later adopted for the New World.


Initially, most of the slaves who were traded by the rulers of West African states and kingdoms were criminals and prisoners of war. Frequent conflicts between competing tribes resulted in the availability of captives for purchase after it was discovered that it was more profitable to sell your enemy rather than simply kill him.
But as the demand for slaves increased, slavery replaced other criminal sentences, while African rulers, traders and military aristocracy grew wealthier and wealthier through the trade.
Wars and raids were eventually carried out by African chiefs solely for the purpose of taking captives. Individuals were falsely accused of crimes in order to be sold. S. Pearl Sharp notes that even some families sold their children into slavery to clear their debts.


But it wasn’t the Europeans capturing the Africans, according to Amarteifio. “They couldn’t do so without getting sick and dying from illnesses such as malaria,” he said. “So, African ethnic groups seized the business opportunity and began warring with other groups in order to capture prisoners and then sell them.”
Millions of men, women, and children from inland villages were kidnapped by African slave traders and raiders in the process and forced to march to the slave-trading centres on the coast where they were sold to Europeans and the Arabs slave trade.
“The organization of the slave trade was structured to have the Europeans stay along the coastlines, relying on African middlemen and merchants to bring the slaves to them,” said Toyin Falola, a Nigerian professor of African studies at the University of Texas. “The Europeans couldn’t have gone into the interior to get the slaves themselves.”


Amarteifio explained: “To pursue slavery successfully, you need a highly organised group because somebody has to go out there — somebody has to locate the victims; somebody has to lead an army there; somebody has to capture them, transport them to the selling centres; all the time, keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t revolt. And then sell them, and move on.”
In 1788, Dr Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon who served aboard a number of slave ships, said he had “great reason” to believe that most of the slaves purchased by the Europeans were kidnapped and sold by their own people:

Quote:The extreme care taken by the black traders to prevent the Europeans from gaining any intelligence of their modes of proceeding; the great distance insland from whence the Negroes are brought; and our ignorance of their language (with which, very frequently, the black traders themselves are equally unacquainted), prevent our obtaining such information on this head as we could wish…
I was told by a negroe woman that she was on her return home one evening from some neighbours… she was kidnapped and [even though] she was big with child, sold for a slave.

This was also the experience of Ottobah Cugoano, a former slave who in 1787 wrote:

Quote:I must own, to the shame of my own countrymen, that I was first kidnapped and betrayed by some of my own complexion, who were the first cause of my exile and slavery.

The process of carrying out raids in order to capture slaves was explained in 1789 in the memoirs of former-slave, Olaudah Equiano:

Quote:When a trader wants slaves, he applies to a chief for them, and tempts him with his wares. It is not extraordinary, if on this occasion he yields to the temptation with a little firmness, and accepts the price of his fellow creature’s liberty with as little reluctance, as the enlightened merchant. Accordingly, he falls upon his neighbours, and a desperate battle ensues. If he prevails, and takes prisoners, he gratifies his avarice by selling them.

During a 2014 TED Talk titled, ‘The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you‘, Anthony Hazard, assistant professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at Santa Clara University, said, African rulers and merchants, didn’t view their captives as fellow Africans, but as criminals, debtors, or prisoners of war from rival tribes.

Quote:By selling them, kings enriched their own realms and strengthened them against neighbouring enemies. African kingdoms prospered from the slave trade… Capturing slaves became a motivation for war rather than its result.
To defend themselves from slave raids neighbouring kingdoms needed European firearms, which they also bought with slaves. The slave trade had become an arms race.

When the British eventually abolished the slave trade, the move was met with fierce opposition, not only from European slave traders but also from African rulers who had immensely profited from the business of selling their captives to the Europeans and Arabs.

The British began patrolling the coastlines to ensure no illegal slave ships were still in operation and protection treaties were established with African chiefs. However, the slave trade still continued in many parts of Africa.
According to Amarteifio, the African role in the slave trade was deliberately forgotten and replaced with a false history.
“The chiefs and peoples decided, ‘All right, we will not talk about it.’ They created a mythology that we were innocent bystanders whose land was raped by Europeans.”
Last year, Nigerian author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani wrote an essay that was published in the Wall Street Journal on the African role in the slave trade. Nwaubani notes that despite the fact that Africans were deeply involved, the debate about guilt and responsibility is largely absent in Africa.
According to her piece, Donald Duke, former governor of Calabar, Nigeria, said he doesn’t feel ashamed for his ancestors’ participation in the slave trade.
“I’m not ashamed of it because I personally wasn’t directly involved,” he said.
But Duke doesn’t want Africa’s dark history ignored or forgotten either. While governor, Duke established a museum of Calabar’s history as a slave-exporting hub.
In modern times, slavery has often been characterised as an injustice uniquely carried out by predominately white nations, but this reflects an entirely false view of history.
As African-American economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell pointed out, slavery has been a universal institution for thousands of years, as far back as you can trace human history. And whites were not immune.

Quote:More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States.

Until slavery was abolished by British Christians, it was universally practised for as long as we’ve know. It was the norm across the world. All known societies above the very primitive level were slave societies. So, it’s not possible to isolate one particular group as responsible.
But as historian Rodney Stark notes, it is amid this universal slavery that only one civilization ever rejected human bondage: Christendom, and it did it twice!
Or as contributor James Macpherson recently put it, “The West didn’t create slavery, but the West did end it.”
As the following map from the Global Slavery Index reveals, those predominantly white countries which are continually singled out for their involvement in the slave trade have done the most to end slavery.
Source: The Washington Post. The darker the colour, the higher the prevalence of slavery.
Cugoano was right in saying that if there were fewer buyers there would be fewer sellers, but it’s also true that if there were fewer sellers there’d be fewer buyers. The fact remains, slavery and racism are not simply a skin issue, but a sin issue. That’s why it took Christianity to do what no other civilization could.
Tragically, there are approximately 9 million men, women, and children still living in modern slavery throughout Africa to this day.

[BmorePat87]

(07-04-2020, 03:43 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Thank you for the insight.  I usually learn a little something from your postings.  As long as we're on the topic of slavery and history, I did a little looking around and found this.

Yea, slavery has existed throughout all of recorded human history. Nearly every region has struggled with it at some point in time.

I would advise against using unreliable sources like Caldron Pool, however, if you are trying to learn more about history.

For example, the quote from Thomas Sowell attempts to downplay the impact of the transatlantic slave trade and suggest that white Christians had it worse, but he's referring to a very specific figure: slaves imported into only the 13 colonies prior to 1776 versus a North African slave trade that existed hundreds of years prior. 

The transatlantic slave trade resulted in the largest forced population shift in all of human history: 10-13m African slaves taken to the Americas. It's estimated that maybe 500,000 to 1,500,000 white Christians were enslaved by North Africans in a 400 year period. It is estimated that there were up to a million more African slaves that died during the transportation to the US than there were white Christian slaves enslaved period. 

The claims made later are questionable as well. Attempting to portray abolition as a uniquely Christian invention is wrong. For one, abolishing slavery was not first done by Christians. Second, you won't find many historians treating European Christians as a monolith because they were not. Third, the transatlantic slave trade was a European invention, so it's weird to praise European Christians for getting rid of the terrible system they developed without properly giving them any of the blame. 

Further review of Caldron Pool reveals it to be a far right, Christian propaganda website that deals in pseudoscience and falsehoods, so I can see why the author wrote that, but there's far too many things taken wildly out of context or outright falsified to take it seriously. 

[SunsetBengal]

(07-05-2020, 02:39 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Yea, slavery has existed throughout all of recorded human history. Nearly every region has struggled with it at some point in time.

I would advise against using unreliable sources like Caldron Pool, however, if you are trying to learn more about history.

For example, the quote from Thomas Sowell attempts to downplay the impact of the transatlantic slave trade and suggest that white Christians had it worse, but he's referring to a very specific figure: slaves imported into only the 13 colonies prior to 1776 versus a North African slave trade that existed hundreds of years prior. 

The transatlantic slave trade resulted in the largest forced population shift in all of human history: 10-13m African slaves taken to the Americas. It's estimated that maybe 500,000 to 1,500,000 white Christians were enslaved by North Africans in a 400 year period. It is estimated that there were up to a million more African slaves that died during the transportation to the US than there were white Christian slaves enslaved period. 

The claims made later are questionable as well. Attempting to portray abolition as a uniquely Christian invention is wrong. For one, abolishing slavery was not first done by Christians. Second, you won't find many historians treating European Christians as a monolith because they were not. Third, the transatlantic slave trade was a European invention, so it's weird to praise European Christians for getting rid of the terrible system they developed without properly giving them any of the blame. 

Further review of Caldron Pool reveals it to be a far right, Christian propaganda website that deals in pseudoscience and falsehoods, so I can see why the author wrote that, but there's far too many things taken wildly out of context or outright falsified to take it seriously. 

So, we should reject and refute an article stocked with direct quotes from what many would consider to be reliable sources?  One is a historian, author, and former Mayor of Ghana, one quote was cited from a Surgeon on a slave ship, another from a Nigerian who is a Professor of African Studies, one from an actual person who was held in slavery, another from an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, one from a Nigerian author that was part of an essay posted in the Wall Street Journal, African-American economist and Social Theorist Thomas Sowell. and even a citation from The Washington Post?

I completely understand the need to debunk disinformation and items falsely portrayed as factual.  However, this particular piece appears to be legitimately resourced and written to shed light upon historical activities based on the opinions and accounts of people who have expanded knowledge of, and or actual participation in the actual slave trade process.

[BmorePat87]

(07-05-2020, 08:40 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: So, we should reject and refute an article stocked with direct quotes from what many would consider to be reliable sources?  One is a historian, author, and former Mayor of Ghana, one quote was cited from a Surgeon on a slave ship, another from a Nigerian who is a Professor of African Studies, one from an actual person who was held in slavery, another from an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, one from a Nigerian author that was part of an essay posted in the Wall Street Journal, African-American economist and Social Theorist Thomas Sowell. and even a citation from The Washington Post?

I completely understand the need to debunk disinformation and items falsely portrayed as factual.  However, this particular piece appears to be legitimately resourced and written to shed light upon historical activities based on the opinions and accounts of people who have expanded knowledge of, and or actual participation in the actual slave trade process.

Citations from legitimate sources unrelated to the author's bogus claim do not inherently make the author's bogus claim legitimate. 

[fredtoast]

The fact that the slaves come from Africa means as much as the fact that all our cocaine comes from South America

I don't see anyone saying cocaine addicts in America are not to blame for their problem and instead it is all the fault of South America.

[*bfine32*]

(07-05-2020, 10:57 AM)fredtoast Wrote: The fact that the slaves come from Africa means as much as the fact that all our cocaine comes from South America

I don't see anyone saying cocaine addicts in America are not to blame for their problem and instead it is all the fault of South America.

What? I've seen lots of folks blaming our drug problems on source countries.

[bengaloo]

(07-04-2020, 12:37 PM)Dill Wrote: Sad that protests demanding equal and just treatment for blacks are "pushing blacks away."

If thousands are leaving the Democratic party because of "the hate," this will register in the polls very soon.

It will register in the election results big time. Polls are totally worthless. Democrats want mail in voting for a reason.

I think people, in particular black people are starting to look at who runs their communities and turning off the media narrative. The cop who killed George was a democrat, as was the police chief, as was the mayor, and the city counsel, the congress, senate, etc. I mean, that cop had over 15 complaints of abuse of force. It wasnt Orange Man who allowed him to stay a cop, it was a bunch of democrats. And then those same democrat leaders allowed protesters, many of which were a bunch of college age white liberals, burn their neighborhoods down and destroy businesses. Now they want to defund the police lol. This is a total clown show for democrats right now. Its really an absolute embarrassment for these elected officials, and this is backfiring on them ten fold, as it should. And Joe Biden? I mean he could be a stand up comedy act, except he's not trying to be. Wtf lol???!!

Maybe down the road it will work itself out, but as it stands now, the Democrat party looks like its being run by a bunch of angry children. Its really an embarrassment. Yeah its going to show up when the real elections happen. No doubt in my mind.

[Dill]

(07-05-2020, 08:40 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: So, we should reject and refute an article stocked with direct quotes from what many would consider to be reliable sources?  One is a historian, author, and former Mayor of Ghana, one quote was cited from a Surgeon on a slave ship, another from a Nigerian who is a Professor of African Studies, one from an actual person who was held in slavery, another from an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, one from a Nigerian author that was part of an essay posted in the Wall Street Journal, African-American economist and Social Theorist Thomas Sowell. and even a citation from The Washington Post?

I completely understand the need to debunk disinformation and items falsely portrayed as factual.  However, this particular piece appears to be legitimately resourced and written to shed light upon historical activities based on the opinions and accounts of people who have expanded knowledge of, and or actual participation in the actual slave trade process.

These are excellent questions, and the right ones, I think.  We ought to also pay attention to how some of these quotes were originally used and then how they are deployed in your article, and to what purpose, in contemporary US debates, and what those debates are really about.

Regarding those debates, I think there is an effort by some scholars to make Americans more aware of the legacy of slavery, of the work that went into building US wealth without compensation, and the lasting international effects of that institution over 200 years as some Americans have tried to integrate blacks as equal citizens and others have tried to block this. This has been recently complicated by a demand for "reparations," setting off a round of questions about who owes what to whom, and how/whether that could ever be determined. People who currently compose "the other side" in these debates cast it as a kind of blame game, claiming whites are blamed for slavery as if it were alone their creation and responsibility. US whites may indeed feel "blamed," though most have never owned slaves. Hence the market for articles "proving" what no one has ever doubted, that slavery has existed everywhere from the beginning of human societies. Africans "sold their own," and the like. Some don't stop at "white folks are only as bad as everyone else," but go on to claim a special role for "whites" in ending slavery, an extra effort to manage any charge of guilt.

What I find remarkable about the above article is how some of the sources are used in it.

Equiano, for example, a former slave who published his autobiography in 1789 THE INTERESTING NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF OLAUDAH EQUIANO, OR GUSTAVUS VASSA, THE AFRICAN. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF (1789). https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15399/15399-h/15399-h.htm.

This was published in part for its help UK debates over the slave trade. It was largely forgotten for almost 200 years, then "rediscovered" by US scholars studying the history of slavery. There has been some controversy over whether O was actaully born in Africa, but most accept his compelling account as authentic, if it if was cribbed from other slave accounts (I don't believe it was, but do want to mention the controversy).

For present purposes, I'll mention Chapter II, in which he describes his capture in Africa as a child, by other Africans, and first held as a well-treated African slave by an African family, then sold to Europeans and eventually brought to Virginia. This is the part that might interest you, as it contrasts the institution of African slavery with that of British/American, in an economy based upon capitalism. O goes from being treated like a family member to being a piece of stock, a commodity chained and stacked below deck, in ship where every cubic foot is subject to a cost benefit analysis. (For those who love military history, check the naval engagement between British and French ships in Chapter IV--EXCELLENT description; O was a powder monkey on the HMS Namur.)

It is odd to deploy this work in support of arguments that slavery has "existed everywhere in all ages" when its primary interest for scholars has been precisely its picture of the difference between the Atlantic slave trade and others kinds.

The assistant professor of Ethnic Studies, Tony Hazard, is most noted for his work on "anti-racism," how that emerged in the US and played a role in US politics and foreign policy, as "liberals" began expunging racist terms and evaluations and language from government policy, setting off a backlash from social conservatives in the '40s and '50s. Citing his mention of African slavery in a TED talk conveys the impression that was the point of the talk, when if fact it was only a passing mention of what every historian already knows. Hazard's goal was to help non-historians understand how the European market for slaves altered African societies, making some suddenly economically dependent upon slavery for their livelihood, forcing neighbors to enter the slave trade and war for slaves to get weapons to defend themselves, depleting their own countries of manpower and destabilizing their economies anew when they collapsed after the trade was outlawed.  Like O., his work contrasts the difference between slave trade practiced under capitalism, and other varieties which have existed.

Duke, the Nigerian politician, is directly participating in African (Nigerian) debates about the legacy of the slave trade. He doesn't want contemporary Nigerians blaming Europeans for political dysfunction in Nigeria today. Same for the Ghanese historian Amarteifio and his claim Africans' role in the slave trade may be "deliberately forgotten" there, but is that a claim about the US?  Sowell is a black economist who has for decades to support conservative economic policies; I do not disrespect his work, but I do say it is often slanted towards winning culture war debates with "the Left."

So my complaint about the article is not that "this guy is no expert" or "that fact is wrong," but its slant, its selection of information to feed the impression that somewhere people are arguing that "Whites are all to blame," while the "truth" is that Africans were no angels and white Christians turn out to be anti-slavery heroes. ("9 milion in Africa still in bondage"! "It took Christianity" ) 

[CJD]

I have a very complicated relationship with national pride...

On the one hand, taking pride in a community you are a part of is important. It makes you work towards improving it and it makes you want the best for it. It helps you relate to others and build bonds with others that might not otherwise have been built. I think having pride in something that is associated with hardship is incredibly important, as it further strengthens those bonds and keeps those hardships in the conscious memory of those people and, to a certain extent, the whole world.

But the other side of that coin is so ugly. Nationalism and superiority complexes halt meaningful conversation and impede things that actively make your country better, like immigration. Especially a country like America that was literally built around diversity and immigration. It also assumes a single national identity, with that identity almost always implicitly tied to White, European and/or Christian roots.

You could see that ugly side of the coin with Colin's protest. People were so blinded by their national pride that they couldn't even fathom listening to what he had to say. People thought he was being so disrespectful that, somehow, his real and meaningful point of protest was completely shrouded to the point that I've actually had conversations with conservatives who thought his protest was ABOUT our military. Like, not that they felt it was disrespectful towards our military. They thought his intention was to protest the military.

You could see that ugly side of the coin when, in protest of the police budget increasing in Cincinnati despite the brutality that peaceful protesters experienced at their hands, American flags were burned and people were upset not about the brutality but the flags being burned.

You could see that ugly side of the coin when Trump gave a speech about how we must stop the people desecrating some American statues when he was AT THE SITE of one of America's greatest historical acts of desecration even going so far as to, at the absolute pinnacle of irony, state that Mount Rushmore will never be desecrated.

And now we're seeing it in the outrage surrounding the NFL playing an anthem intended to show black people that they stand with them in their fight against injustice. People seem to think singing a song that acknowledges black people is a form of division, for whatever reason (it sounds like the same basic argument behind supporting All Lives Matter as opposed to Black Lives Matter, which is incredibly flawed).

Now, I don't have an in depth understanding of the black national anthem, but when I first heard it, at a black church that my wife and friends took me to, it was explained to me as a unifying song in a time that black Americans did not feel the actual national anthem was unifying at all. They said it's a song about remembering the past but pushing forward for the future. They said it is a song of solidarity for a truly united America, and they wished it would be adopted officially (just like they wish that Juneteenth would be adopted as a national holiday). The lyrics themselves are beautiful.

I'm honestly pretty disappointed they're only playing it for 1 week. It should be played all season, in my opinion.

[Trademark]

I watch sports for sports not to have political agendas shoved in my face. Can’t believe there’s so many people defending this, I bet you all would bow down to blacks and kiss their shoes too wouldn’t you? I love every race don’t get me wrong, this is one nation under God! The NFL needs to stay out of politics, playing the black national anthem is segregation 101....The NBA is getting super political too. Honestly might be done with sports if this keeps up

[Dill]

(07-05-2020, 12:06 PM)bengaloo Wrote: It will register in the election results big time. Polls are totally worthless. Democrats want mail in voting for a reason.

I think people, in particular black people are starting to look at who runs their communities and turning off the media narrative. The cop who killed George was a democrat, as was the police chief, as was the mayor, and the city counsel, the congress, senate, etc. I mean, that cop had over 15 complaints of abuse of force. It wasnt Orange Man who allowed him to stay a cop, it was a bunch of democrats. And then those same democrat leaders allowed protesters, many of which were a bunch of college age white liberals, burn their neighborhoods down and destroy businesses. Now they want to defund the police lol. This is a total clown show for democrats right now. Its really an absolute embarrassment for these elected officials, and this is backfiring on them ten fold, as it should. And Joe Biden? I mean he could be a stand up comedy act, except he's not trying to be. Wtf lol???!!

Maybe down the road it will work itself out, but as it stands now, the Democrat party looks like its being run by a bunch of angry children. Its really an embarrassment. Yeah its going to show up when the real elections happen. No doubt in my mind.

Well save this post. If your prediction turns out to be right then you have loads of cred from me.  But "Mail in voting"? What??

Meantime, though, I just want to mention that the "Democrat" cop was protected for years not by a Democrat mayor and police chief but by a very pro-Trump union. 

I have not seen lots of evidence the rioters were "college-age white liberals." The riots were in "their" part of Minneapolis? Their businesses?

I have seen a lot of black people protesting police violence. Is that the minority?

[Dill]

(07-05-2020, 01:20 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I have a very complicated relationship with national pride...

Such a thoughtful 4th of July post.

Double rep for the C-Dawg.

[Dill]

(07-05-2020, 01:23 PM)Trademark Wrote: I watch sports for sports not to have political agendas shoved in my face. Can’t believe there’s so many people defending this, I bet you all would bow down to blacks and kiss their shoes too wouldn’t you? I love every race don’t get me wrong, this is one nation under God! The NFL needs to stay out of politics, playing the black national anthem is segregation 101....The NBA is getting super political too. Honestly might be done with sports if this keeps up

Sounds like "the blacks" are forcing their stuff on us again.   

Can they force us to grant equal treatment under the law, though?

Do we have to bow down to them in everything?