philosophical question

[Iranus]

Your potential for growth is limited, it kind of makes you just want to give up. People assume they know your character because of how you look, it's frustrating to say 'Hello Ma'am' to an older white lady in Walmart, and have her glare at you.

I'm white, and it's hilarious to see some white people assume that they know whether black people experience racism.  The only group you can ask about if black people experience racism is black people, and if a large amount of them say yes then they do.  That's just basic logic.

I thought Greenbits was black. I believe I heard him mention somewhere that he's from Africa. Starts with M, I think it's Mozambique.

That was intended to be support for his views, because of all the people trying to discredit what he says about the existence of racism.  I can see how it might have been confusing now.

If you think of it now, yes, blacks in the US definitely have it better than those in say, Sudan or Sierra Leone. But that is only a fluke. What would have happened if slavery was never abolished? Many European countries has already started abolishing it at the time, but what would have happened if the US lagged, like how some countries in Africa (the irony) still practice it now?

Estimates largely suggest that India has the largest amount of slaves in the present day.  See Wikipedia's article on contemporary slavery.

Unfortunately capitalist societies result in slavery, because multinational corporations try to find the cheapest labour possible to produce a product with a competitive price, which often involves moving to the third world in order to subvert Western workers' rights and unions.

[saddampbuh]

bad for america because it saddled that country with the burden of taking care of millions of blacks up until the present day, bad for the blacks who were forced to live in a country where they were never wanted and to which they will never fully belong, the slavery experience itself wasn't so terrible for most of them but thats not the point

[GreenBits]

Your potential for growth is limited, it kind of makes you just want to give up. People assume they know your character because of how you look, it's frustrating to say 'Hello Ma'am' to an older white lady in Walmart, and have her glare at you.

I'm white, and it's hilarious to see some white people assume that they know whether black people experience racism.  The only group you can ask about if black people experience racism is black people, and if a large amount of them say yes then they do.  That's just basic logic.

I thought Greenbits was black. I believe I heard him mention somewhere that he's from Africa. Starts with M, I think it's Mozambique.

That was intended to be support for his views, because of all the people trying to discredit what he says about the existence of racism.  I can see how it might have been confusing now.

Hehe, thanks bruvs, and yes I'm Black, but I reside in North Carolina, by way of Louisiana. I think it's Slow Death (the guy with the ant in an army hat avatar) that lives in Africa, I might be mistaken though.

We haven't even talked about the Chinese and American Railroad construction. Or the Irish.

and Oburkabinladin, I apologize for dismissing you this morning. I had a rough start, took that out on you, and you responded poorly, but I initiated all of that. To actual respond to you, I think genocide is a retroactive destination, that is legislative policy, or cultural practice that physically harms and reduces the genetic viability of a specific population of people. For example. I don't think the monolithic intent of the Trail of Tears was genocide (we will ignore the smallpox blanket shaped elephant for the sake of this argument), but we can't argue that was the effect. An exercise in relocation turned into a decimation. Same with California's foray into eugenics:

As an early leading force in the field of eugenics, California became the third state in the United States to enact a sterilization law. By 1921, California had accounted for 80% of the sterilizations nationwide. This continued until World War II, after which the number of sterilizations began to decrease, largely due to the fallout of Hitler's eugenics movement.[1] There were about 20,000 forced sterilizations in California between 1909 and 1963.[2]

If that's not genocide, I have plenty of other colorful words for it. Eradication. Extermination. Genetic repression. Dire harm with malicious intent.

But you did make my day with that cuck And you still get those cookies.

Mome and Iranus can have a cookie as well, and can sit with us (I invited Mome to sit with us a while back, but I have never interacted directly with you Iranus. I do follow your posts though )

[Mometaskers]

If you think of it now, yes, blacks in the US definitely have it better than those in say, Sudan or Sierra Leone. But that is only a fluke. What would have happened if slavery was never abolished? Many European countries has already started abolishing it at the time, but what would have happened if the US lagged, like how some countries in Africa (the irony) still practice it now?

Estimates largely suggest that India has the largest amount of slaves in the present day.  See Wikipedia's article on contemporary slavery.

Unfortunately capitalist societies result in slavery, because multinational corporations try to find the cheapest labour possible to produce a product with a competitive price, which often involves moving to the third world in order to subvert Western workers' rights and unions.

It's still practiced in many third world countries. Heck even in the Middle East. There are many reports of domestic helpers being locked in by employers and not given pay.

As for capitalistic practices, it is technically not slavery, since they are getting paid but yes, worker's rights are not as well protected in those countries. Reminded me of the incident in Bangladesh where a factory collapsed, killing many workers in it.

Even in China where many factories are at least better than Bangladesh, it seem that workers still feel bad. Saw a video of the iPhone factory, they even have screens everywhere to prevent workers from jumping to death. If people would commit suicide in those fairly better looking facilities, just imagine the condition in sweat shops in Africa and South Asia.

[BitcoinSupremo]

Slavery is always bad. No one has the right to decide for any other human being life. That concept is from the middle ages and I find it strange there are people here mentioning it like it is something good, this is shocking to say the least. In South Africa life has improved considerably and I have a few friends studying there which only speaks good about Johannesburg.

However real slavery is right now in our days where the employer do not give a damn for the employee , he wants to use it even more than a slave, that is what capitalism is unfortunately.

[haroldtee]

I don't mean any offence or to offend anybody at all, it's simply a question.

Was slavery in the US that bad? By having slaves and abolishing slavery later on, yes it was cruel and wrong BUT with slavery they've saved the many generations of africans from potentially dying from a disease, war,etc... and gave the new generations of slaves to live a normal and a lot more happy life in the US later on. So was slavery actually that bad?

I hope that you've understood the question I wanted to ask, really sleepy right now but wanted to hear your opinion on this one.

None taken! Apparently what you are saying is that at the long run, the future generation of the slaves ended up benefitting from the sufferings their forefathers had to go through? Going back in time, it was bad. I am pretty sure most of them were used as animals without human sympathy and feeling. Some died in the process while some got lucky maybe, but however it is, slavery ain't ever and will never be a good thing. Moreover, not like the offsprings ending up in the U.S is a big deal. Why paint it like being in their own country will limit them from being what they wanna become.

[merchantofzeny]

It was helpful for the Americans, or at least those in the South where the economy is reliant on labor. Was it helpful to blacks? Well probably not, they were enslaved, at least the generation before abolition. Even after that, there was segregation.

I think the question is similar to "is colonization helpful?". We can always say that colonized people were exposed to Western science and technology and were able to get past their tribal political structure...

[PramLooker4]

I think it was that bad, maybe in their countries they wouldn't have jobs, but i don't think agressions have been part of their lifes.