People that talk about Trump supporters are usually racists and classists

Anything predating July 4, 1776 is a reference to the British Empire. Not the United States.

And I'm not buying what you're selling considering African slavery occurred in the British and French West Indies before or at the same time.

 

I don't understand your question?
I thought you were asking if American form of slavery was unique or something that occured often throughout history in all parts of the globe?

And yes it was unique especially in terms of scale and the commodification of the slaves and their offsprings.

 

When did the British ban slavery in Britain?

If it was before the peak era of population growth during the industrial revolution then you should understand why it can't be the same. Slaves before the American chattel system were seen as helping hands, servants etc... not a commodity as important as oil is today to fuel the population boom that occured during the industrial revolution.

 

Keep in mind I'm not even making an argument that Americans were uniquely evil to create this system. The system created was a product of the era of industrial and population growth we've never seen in human civilization history and unfortunately America was one of the only industrial nations that didn't ban slavery by the time of the height of the industrial revolution.

 

What does the ban of slavery in metropolitan Britain have to do with anything?

What does the industrial revolution have to do with anything? Your original posts on the topic did not discuss the industrial revolution at all. I see you trying to shoehorn it in now because you think it gives you a better footing to b**** about American slavery.

 

I thought I explained why the industrial revolution was an important factor to why American slavery was unique. Are parts of my reply not registering on your end?

 

What does that have to do with anything?

I pushed back on the notion the United States invented race based slavery or was the only country engaged in it.

America was only founded on July 4, 1776.

The British, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese all engaged in the race based African slave trade for hundreds of years prior to this date.

The United States inherited the institution of african slavery from the British. We didn't invent it.

Most of these countries abolished slavery in approximately the same time period. The early to mid 19th century.

Americans weren't particularly early or late to abolition and certainly didn't "start" anything or do anything particularly unique.

 

Before the concept of American chattel slavery, slavery wasn't necessarily "race" based. It was "whoever we win wars and conquer" based. Europeans enslaved other Europeans before American slavery.

American slavery is unique in the sense of singling out one race to breed at a industrial scale to fuel a national economy.

Is that more precise language more agreeable to you?

 

Not really. The language is ambiguous.

When you say, "American slavery" are you referring to slavery in the "Americas" or the United States?

Because clearly, the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and British looked to Africa to supply slaves to work in their colonies and the basis/justification to purchase these slaves [already slaves taken as PoWs or spoils of war from other Africans] was based on race.

France, Spain, Britain, Portugal and the Dutch all imported huge quantities of slaves to the Western Hemisphere and bred them and enslaved their children for hundreds of years at an "industrial level" to fuel their economies.

Americans/The United States did not do anything unique.

 

Those countries did it to every part of the world they could conquer. The only people safe from slave labor back then were the actual subjects/citizens of the country itself. Whoever is conquered were slaves. No race required.


Again I can acknowledge the original statement is too vague and I narrowed the language to a more precise claim:

American slavery is unique in the sense of singling out one race to breed at a industrial scale to fuel a national economy.

Are my replies registering fully? Is that not showing up on your end?

 

It's not. American slavery is simply an inheritance from the British transatlantic slave trade which brought slaves to the American colonies as well as the rest of the British colonies in the Western hemisphere.

The French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish also all engaged in the transatlantic slave trade supplying their colonies in the western hemisphere with slaves.

Slaves brought to the Western Hemisphere in the transatlantic slave trade were almost exclusively African.

Slavery in the United States did not looking meaningfully different than slavery in most of the rest of the Western Hemisphere and its scope and scale was not markedly different either.

 

"American slavery is unique in the sense of singling out one race to breed at a industrial scale to fuel a national economy."

So that statement above applies to another country?

Can you name the specific race that was designated as the race to breed for generations and only that specific race for slavery within their borders?

"Within their borders" is very important to discussing the importance of the effects of slavery because the US created an internal population of a specific racial group breed to be slaves from birth to death for multiple generations that had to coexist with the population of citizens that were free. I mean it got to an absurd level to the point where the black slave population outnumbered the free white population in some of the Southern states that eventually joined the Confederacy. That's what I mean by industrial scale.

No European country had a similar system that resulted i these effects.

 

The French, British, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese in their Western Hemisphere colonial possessions singled out Africans to transport and breed at an industrial scale to fuel the economies.

 

So there were entire regions in Portugal where the Black slave population outnumbered the local white native population?

 

In Metropolitan Portugal?

No, not that I am aware of.

What's your point?

 

I regret that my word choice of "invented" has distracted us from the point of the conversation. I had meant it in the sense that we in North America had developed a practice of slavery that was based on the race of the enslaved. As a proof-point that we have a history of racism in the United States, it actually doesn't matter whether the practice was developed by Americans or pre-American English colonists, or whether they had the idea first or the Portuguese did. I feel like this arguing about history is a diversion from the main argument, which is that calling out racism has been a phenomenon for decades only because racism was there to be called out. If that has sown division, maybe some of the fault lies with the racists and not just the people who condemn them for their racism. You say liberals calling MAGA racists makes things toxic but have no criticism for the guy who says our blood is being poisoned by migrants.

 

I wanted to focus my post on the lefts role in the evolution in the national discourse over the last 25 years. I don't have to simultaneously discuss the rights contribution if the subject I want to discuss is the lefts. That broadens the scope of discussion and isn't effective in focusing on the lefts role. That's just whataboutism.

The national discourse has changed. The political atmosphere has changed. Liberals have used more progressively charged language calling people to the right of them Nazis, racists and homophobes. This has helped create a more divided country then ever.

Did conservatives become more racist, nazi-like or homophobic from 1998 to 2018? I don't see much evidence of that. Liberals began using burn the house down rhetoric. There can be no rapprochement with that type of rhetoric and you're seeing no rapprochement.

Now its simply just convert to liberal orthodoxy or die. Good strategy.

But go ahead, keep calling Republicans/Conservatives Racist/Nazi/Homophobes. I'm sure that will result in positive outcomes for the country.

 

Explain in your words how you would criticize and show concern that a person who has enough popular support to be a coin toss away from the presidency explicitly expressed Nazi rhetoric like migrants "ruining the blood of our country" that won't offend you and radicalize people like you to support said individual who expresses Nazi rhetoric?

 

Na. Pass. I don't feel like playing your games.

 

Sorry that I can't sympathize with:


Maga person - "people on the Internet and media call people like me racist so I'm not going to support a open racist who defense his policy positions with racism.".

That just tells me that person was already racist and using an excuse to openly support a racist.