Arkansas GOP Candidates on Slavery and Muslims

this can't be real life.

seriously... scares the living **** out of me just reading that. Whats even scarier is that this is the stuff I see under the tip of the iceberg from many neocons on here and other places.

 

Everybody realizes that slavery was a bad deal. It's not acceptable to force people to be slaves. I think we can all agree on that.

The separate question is "did TODAY's African Americans" benefit from slavery? Well, today's African Americans never worked a day in their life under the control of a slave owner. Secondly, nowhere on planet earth do people of African heritage have it better than in the US. That doesn't mean there aren't still negative effects of racism (which of course goes both ways, by the way...), but there's a reason you don't see African Americans desiring to up and move back to Nigeria or the Congo. So to say there were ZERO positive benefits for today's African Americans is not accurate.

 

good for them

 

I'm more in the camp where having your great great grandparents taken to another land against their will and further subjected to forced labor, rape, torture, and constant fear of living isn't such a great thing. At face value, there isn't anything factually wrong with what you're saying, but if the facts just had to present themselves, let's go through the archives.

To solidify the entire racket, it later became illegal for the great grand parents of Black Americans to read, vote or own any property let alone have authority over their children, you know because they could be sold off at any moment in time.

Interestingly, Black Americans today have produced a lot of culture unique from their African cousins, well maybe because their slave ancestors had to start from the several disparate cultures that was never directly passed down from generation to generation.

Later on, when all Blacks were considered free, there was at least a century's worth of institutionalized racism. Doesn't the fact that your parents lived in an age where minorities were fighting for their Civil Rights strike you as recent?

So no, I find something repulsive in that last line "So to say there were ZERO positive benefits [of slavery] for today's African Americans is not accurate". I find cultures of victimization as repelling as cultures of feigned persecution, but your linguistic torturing of that line, at the very least, implicitly acknowledges a time where things could better enough to the point where it can be debated without emotional attachment but aren't.

 

You either didn't understand my post or are trying to intentionally twist my words and change the argument. Not going to work

 

So overall you do not fully reject this mans claims?

Where did you get your info on the quality of life of people of African descent in other countries, I'd love to know. You never answered my question earlier as to what the normal upbringing of an African American is

Care to elaborate?

When a race or group has a hard time or is discriminated against, it's either move back or everything's ok then right? "Hell, gays don't mind not having equal rights, if they didn't like it they'd move to one of them there countries where they could get queer married!"

 

I understand their point. So many of the African Americans living here today, if not for slavery, would have to deal with complete and utter chaos that is Africa. Starvation, war, disease, etc etc would be their daily life (assuming they live past birth). Obviously some, a very few, would have been better off living in Africa all their life, but I can’t imagine that being a significant amount. Our poor (and I’m not saying all slavery decedents are poor and I’m not saying that all poor are descendants of slaves), while maybe not living the most luxurious lives in America, are decently taken care of the grand scheme of global poverty. However, as a political figure, you can't say that slavery was a 'blessing.' Just dumb on his part.

 

The most chilling part to me is when he says he's seeking a "solution to the Muslim problem". I really try not to bring out the Nazi comparisons, because I think they're usually over-the-top, knee-jerk responses to hot button topics, but this is some real Mein Kampf type stuff.

 

Sounds like a total nutter.

 

Best thing that happened to Lance Armstrong was getting Cancer.
Maybe getting shot in the head was the best thing for that senator senator . . . she more popular than ever now!!

When you overcome or survive a tragedy . . .its for the best . ..

New Rule: Mandatory Tragedies for everyone!! . .well except for those that think that Tragedies are best for OTHER PEOPLE.

Rocket River

 

I get the point you are making, but you aren't really responding to the claim being made.

The claim isn't that "slavery was good for the slaves" which is what "cancer was good for Lance Armstrong" would be the equivalent of.

The claim is "slavery was a blessing for the current generation of african americans because they are in America because of it" which is probably closer to "Lance armstrong getting cancer was a blessing for Susie Q who had her cancer cured thanks to money raised by Lance Armstrong."

It's still a premise that is dangerous because it is white politicians trying to say "see slavery wasn't so bad!"

 

That claim is ridiculous. The only way that current generations are in America is because their ancestors were slaves? Africans would have, could have, did and do immigrate to the US like every other culture.

 

No, it's still wrong.

Slavery is not a blessing for the current generation. The fight AGAINST slavery is what ended up being a good thing for the current African American generation, and their anscestors did that on their own and against the supporters of slavery, and any resulting benefits are shared by every single American afterwards regardless of race.

They are American and what their life would be like in Africa right now is irrelevant. They are not Africans anymore than other immigrants are Irish, French, Vietnamese, Filipino or anything else. If an African American had an adopted Irish-descendant brother, they would both share an equal connection with Nigeria or Congo or wherever.

Hell, how do you know they wouldn't become wealthy Africans in Africa had slavery not occurred? How do you ignore the role of slavery in widening this gap between Africa and the US? It is ridiculous to think in these terms.

Absolutely idiotic.

Modern racists and bigots will not ever come out and say racist or bigoted things. Historically, racists and bigots say things that are borderline racist in the context of their own times. If we want to weed out racists, we have to stop comparing their 2012 actions/words to 1950's standards of racism. What we consider racism today was borderline racism in the past. Today's racists will rarely, if ever, come out and say things that would blatantly be considered racist by everyone.

Like cowards, people like this will forever dance on the line of racism and bigotry and draw you into technicalities about whether they crossed the line or not. Non-racist people rarely if ever need to walk on those lines to make a valid and appropriate point.

Sick.

 

So, let me get this straight: whereas African-Americans have benefitted from the benevolence of the white man in bringing them to America, Africans in Africa are stuck in a chaotic situation of their own making? A situation which whites had no part in creating?

Yeah, right. The truth is that any improvement in people of African descent's quality of life, whether in America or Africa, has come in spite of oppression by whites. Pointing to Africa as some kind of control case of the natural course of African society, untouched by whites, is just so much offensive nonsense.

 

Out of curiosity, have you ever been to Africa? Starvation/war/disease is not the standard of living for most people in Africa - just the ones we hear about. Starvation and war is limited to certain regions. Sure, most are poor by our standards, but they also don't crave wealth in the way we do. They don't have fancy cars and fancy TVs, but they also don't dream of having those things. Outside of the war-torn regions, I would suspect their perceived happiness is higher than that of many much wealthier Americans.

On a side note, here's an article on progress on infant mortality in Africa: http://www.economist.com/node/21555571 . While it has a long way to go, things are fairly rapidly changing on the continent. I've only been to western Africa, but the Africa we hear about most often seems to be a caricature of the continent.

 

I have not, myself, been to Africa. However, my roommate works every other month in the Congo (for the past few years) and have a good friend who was raised in Nigeria. So, while I don't have first hand knowledge/experience, I've heard much about Africa that I feel I know more than the average person who has not been there.

One story I've heard is that there are dead people laying on the sides of the road. You don't acknowledge them because, in their culture, the one who last touches (or makes refrence) to the deceased is responsible for their final arrangements. And since not very many people have money, no one can pay for it, so they just leave the dead laying in the streets.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of wealthy people there. My Nigerian buddy was one of them. But, that's few and far between. Starvation and war MIGHT NOT be the standard, but it's much greater there than it is in the US.

My point was, if a poor person gets, lets say, the flu here in Amercia, I'm gonna guess they have a much high chance of survival than someone in an equal position in Africa. Does that mean they're better off here in America? Well, that's up to personal preference. I don't agree with Africa Americans are better off due to slavery, but there is a valid arguement.

 

No its not an argument at all.

You can't make counter-factual arguments about "what would happen if" without analyzing the entire history of Africa. People who make this argument are assuming that history would have otherwise not changed in Africa if the slave trade didn't exist.

That's just a bogus argument. So what happens if Europeans don't go to West Africa and engage in the slave trade? You could just as easily make the argument that the course of history for West Africa would have been very different. Tribal communities basically sold each other out to sell others to the Europeans. That doesn't happen if the slave trade doesn't exist. So do these tribal groups then develop more peaceful relations that lead to greater shared prosperity?

The entire history of African colonialism changes if the slave trade doesn't exist. Europeans really didn't care for the natural resources in Africa until much later in history. But their interest was only sparked by their initial presence there thanks to the slave trade. So do the Europeans colonize Africa in the same way without the slave trade being the initial impetus for bringing them there? Perhaps at the end of the day, Western African actually prospers because the Europeans never showed up.

The point of the above is not to pretend to know what would have happened but rather to question the absurdity of the argument that the slave trade might have had positive benefits.[/U]

History only happens once. It happened with the slave trade and NONE OF US are omniscient enough to know how history would have gone in a different timeline. And to top it off, we're making wild statements about how one of the most reviled periods of American history might have benefited African Americans.

This whole line of reasoning is disgusting.

 

The western world didn't really leave Africa alone after ending the slave trade, I'm sure colonizing and politically and legally disenfranchising them, and then bribing and irresponsibly arming their leaders for 100 years afterwards, probably contributed to their current state. What's worse I think this is just a backhanded way of stating that blacks, in our most natural state and absent the influence of whites, are dumber, more savage or less productive. I think I'm done making racial comments on the board, though.

 

Bigot.