4 ms·

Here's how I look at it, slavery is not inherently racist, other cultures have captured slaves as POWs and have enslaved those of the same race and ethnic group

Here's how I look at it, slavery is not inherently racist, other cultures have captured slaves as POWs and have enslaved those of the same race and ethnic group. However, Western slavery required racism to justify it (they are less intelligent, they are genetically engineered for labor, they feel less pain, etc.) that racism has led to various laws that hold back people to this day and have been used to justify terrible policies, such as poll taxes, redlining, contract leasing, school segregation, medical discrimination, etc. Fundamentally the two biggest policies I'd like to see enacted to benefit ALL Americans is full enfranchisement and desegregation of schools. It's my belief, possibly naive, that these are root cause issues and would fix a lot of the artificial inequality we see today.

mieseratte 7y ago
First, thanks for leaving a great reply instead of questioning my motives! We need more of that on HN. I suppose my confusion or perhaps contention would be that it isn't slavery that is America's original sign but rather racism, or perhaps more generically "discrimination" as the definition of "white" is rather fluid over history itself. > full enfranchisement Would that be in the sense of removing barriers to voting (simply showing up) or re-enfranchisement of felony convicts? I wrestle with the former, security vs. incidental exclusion. The latter I'm fully in support of, though I don't know about voting while serving time but that is rather driven by a fear of some kind of "voting your way out." > desegregation of schools. In what sense? We do not have explicit segregation in schooling and haven't for decades, but people seem to group together along socio-economic lines which furthers the problem. I know that education is a severe problem, my home state has a "Corridor of Shame"[0] such that entire counties are just academic dumpster fires. I don't know that desegregation would help so much as simply adequately funding and reforming our dysfunctional schools. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that in am appropriate matter, when you run into children who don't care about academics from families that don't care about academics. [0] - http://www.corridorofshame.com/ http://www.corridorofshame.com/
- 40acres 7y ago
  Generally I think you're correct, Jamestown was established prior to 1619 and those settlers had conflict with Native Americans, so I believe it's correct to say discrimination is a good catch all term to summarize my point. In terms of full enfranchisement I mean simply showing up, I live in Oregon which has vote by mail and it's wonderful. I first voted in 2012 (NYC) and had to wait outside online for hours to do so, I lived in a low income neighborhood at the time and many folks left the line to go to work because they could not deal with the cold. I believe voting in a right that should not be taken away for almost any reason (perhaps treason), it's difficult for me to promote removing voting rights for felons with the understanding that our criminal justice system has disproportionately affected others, so a blanket policy remains my default position. Desegregation is a tougher cookie, but fundamentally I believe it is up to us to understand the factors that cause it and work to remove them. Because desegregation is a multi variable issue it requires looking at housing policy, transportation, zoning, criminal justice and others.
- robmccoll 7y ago
  Regarding desegregation of schools - I'm not sure how to solve problems in rural areas, but in suburban ones, it seems like redistricting and redistributing students and teachers over the set of schools almost at random might be an improvement. This episode of This American Life makes a pretty compelling argument to me: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-one https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live...
dnautics 7y ago
You're right that slavery isn't inherently racist. > Western slavery required racism to justify... That's not really congruous with history. Firstly, American slavery took on a uniquely racial tone about 50 or so years into Anglo colonization. At the outset slaves were legally treated identically to indentured servitude; to gloss over some obviously tortured history: at some point though it became onerous to track ownership and simply more convenient to identify someone as a slave by the color of their skin. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)
- mcguire 7y ago
  Well, yes and no. "At the outset of [Black Africans in Renaissance Europe], Kate Lowe defines the editors’ key question: how were the main stereotypes concerning black people established in this period? She provides several examples relating to the main set of prejudices: the African was generally identified as a naked person who would mutilate his/her face and body with scarification, piercings, and tattoos; he/she would be considered as carefree and characterized by immoderate laughter, unaware of his/her condition, lazy and sexually promiscuous, physically strong, a good musician or dancer. Lowe recognizes the existence of noble or ennobled black men in European courts, but she stresses the role of black people as a necessary counter-image in the construction of European whiteness and ‘civilization’ (a notion coined in the eighteenth century). This is a necessary starting point, although some of the chapters develop a more nuanced vision of race relations in this period." (https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/619 https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/619) It may not be possible to read too much into the legal change between temporary indenture and permanent slavery.
e40 7y ago
There was a great The Daily podcast on busing. I highly recommend it. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/podcasts/the-daily/busing-school-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/podcasts/the-daily/busing... The myth that it was failed was in my brain, and I was in a school district in KY in the 70's that was one of the early places to start it. That busing was too effect appears to be the case (the thesis of the podcast), and that's why it was stopped.

mieseratte 7y ago

First, thanks for leaving a great reply instead of questioning my motives! We need more of that on HN. I suppose my confusion or perhaps contention would be that it isn't slavery that is America's original sign but rather racism, or perhaps more generically "discrimination" as the definition of "white" is rather fluid over history itself. > full enfranchisement Would that be in the sense of removing barriers to voting (simply showing up) or re-enfranchisement of felony convicts? I wrestle with the former, security vs. incidental exclusion. The latter I'm fully in support of, though I don't know about voting while serving time but that is rather driven by a fear of some kind of "voting your way out." > desegregation of schools. In what sense? We do not have explicit segregation in schooling and haven't for decades, but people seem to group together along socio-economic lines which furthers the problem. I know that education is a severe problem, my home state has a "Corridor of Shame"[0] such that entire counties are just academic dumpster fires. I don't know that desegregation would help so much as simply adequately funding and reforming our dysfunctional schools. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that in am appropriate matter, when you run into children who don't care about academics from families that don't care about academics. [0] - http://www.corridorofshame.com/ http://www.corridorofshame.com/

40acres 7y ago
Generally I think you're correct, Jamestown was established prior to 1619 and those settlers had conflict with Native Americans, so I believe it's correct to say discrimination is a good catch all term to summarize my point. In terms of full enfranchisement I mean simply showing up, I live in Oregon which has vote by mail and it's wonderful. I first voted in 2012 (NYC) and had to wait outside online for hours to do so, I lived in a low income neighborhood at the time and many folks left the line to go to work because they could not deal with the cold. I believe voting in a right that should not be taken away for almost any reason (perhaps treason), it's difficult for me to promote removing voting rights for felons with the understanding that our criminal justice system has disproportionately affected others, so a blanket policy remains my default position. Desegregation is a tougher cookie, but fundamentally I believe it is up to us to understand the factors that cause it and work to remove them. Because desegregation is a multi variable issue it requires looking at housing policy, transportation, zoning, criminal justice and others.
robmccoll 7y ago
Regarding desegregation of schools - I'm not sure how to solve problems in rural areas, but in suburban ones, it seems like redistricting and redistributing students and teachers over the set of schools almost at random might be an improvement. This episode of This American Life makes a pretty compelling argument to me: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-one https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live...

dnautics 7y ago

You're right that slavery isn't inherently racist. > Western slavery required racism to justify... That's not really congruous with history. Firstly, American slavery took on a uniquely racial tone about 50 or so years into Anglo colonization. At the outset slaves were legally treated identically to indentured servitude; to gloss over some obviously tortured history: at some point though it became onerous to track ownership and simply more convenient to identify someone as a slave by the color of their skin. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)

mcguire 7y ago
Well, yes and no. "At the outset of [Black Africans in Renaissance Europe], Kate Lowe defines the editors’ key question: how were the main stereotypes concerning black people established in this period? She provides several examples relating to the main set of prejudices: the African was generally identified as a naked person who would mutilate his/her face and body with scarification, piercings, and tattoos; he/she would be considered as carefree and characterized by immoderate laughter, unaware of his/her condition, lazy and sexually promiscuous, physically strong, a good musician or dancer. Lowe recognizes the existence of noble or ennobled black men in European courts, but she stresses the role of black people as a necessary counter-image in the construction of European whiteness and ‘civilization’ (a notion coined in the eighteenth century). This is a necessary starting point, although some of the chapters develop a more nuanced vision of race relations in this period." (https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/619 https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/619) It may not be possible to read too much into the legal change between temporary indenture and permanent slavery.

e40 7y ago

There was a great The Daily podcast on busing. I highly recommend it. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/podcasts/the-daily/busing-school-segregation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/podcasts/the-daily/busing... The myth that it was failed was in my brain, and I was in a school district in KY in the 70's that was one of the early places to start it. That busing was too effect appears to be the case (the thesis of the podcast), and that's why it was stopped.