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>> a demographic that doesn't have recent, painful memories of slavery with horrible, tragic effects that persist to this day "Recent" means about 2-300 years?

>> a demographic that doesn't have recent, painful memories of slavery with horrible, tragic effects that persist to this day "Recent" means about 2-300 years? I thought slavery was abolished in US over 150 years ago, that is several generations that never met, so other than books where are the memories? Have you ever met a slave? Have you ever heard about a slave in your lifetime? Do you know anyone who ever talked to a slave?

chillacy 6y ago
I think the idea is that despite the time difference, some black americans in industry find it distasteful because identity is a tricky thing which persists. Though this HN thread is really missing that perspective... Anyways, there are plenty of southerners who care a great deal about confederate icons despite being just as far apart in time, why do they care about statues and flags of people who they have never met, who they have never talked to? There's still some sense of being wronged (I once listened to someone from Georgea talk about Sherman's March with a great degree of pain).
musingsole 6y ago
Hardly. It's more uncommon by the day, but there are living first generation descendants of American slaves (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96581933 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=965819...). So yeah, there's still a number of Americans who have talked to a former slave.
vector_spaces 6y ago
Recent means within 2 lifetimes (in other words, possibly within the lifetime of someone's great grandparents), and only one if you count the systems of indentured servitude that existed throughout the United States in the aftermath of the civil war[1] -- not to mention the modern institution prison labor which is the legacy of these very systems. Black people weren't "free" in the sense of "empowered to thrive" -- they were "free" in the sense that "slavery on paper is illegal (except where states and local laws allow it under a different name), but you are still legally second class citizens, will possibly very quickly find yourself subject to extreme violence, imprisonment, death, or all of the above if any white stranger doesn't like the way you're looking at them, and you'll have access to subpar everything -- from medical care, to education, to service at a restaurant" And it is recent relative to the scale of the trauma it wrought -- we're talking an entire population of people subject to extreme brutality and repression. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unfree_labor_in_the_United_States#Peonage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unfree_labor_in_the...

chillacy 6y ago

I think the idea is that despite the time difference, some black americans in industry find it distasteful because identity is a tricky thing which persists. Though this HN thread is really missing that perspective... Anyways, there are plenty of southerners who care a great deal about confederate icons despite being just as far apart in time, why do they care about statues and flags of people who they have never met, who they have never talked to? There's still some sense of being wronged (I once listened to someone from Georgea talk about Sherman's March with a great degree of pain).

musingsole 6y ago

Hardly. It's more uncommon by the day, but there are living first generation descendants of American slaves (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96581933 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=965819...). So yeah, there's still a number of Americans who have talked to a former slave.

vector_spaces 6y ago

Recent means within 2 lifetimes (in other words, possibly within the lifetime of someone's great grandparents), and only one if you count the systems of indentured servitude that existed throughout the United States in the aftermath of the civil war[1] -- not to mention the modern institution prison labor which is the legacy of these very systems. Black people weren't "free" in the sense of "empowered to thrive" -- they were "free" in the sense that "slavery on paper is illegal (except where states and local laws allow it under a different name), but you are still legally second class citizens, will possibly very quickly find yourself subject to extreme violence, imprisonment, death, or all of the above if any white stranger doesn't like the way you're looking at them, and you'll have access to subpar everything -- from medical care, to education, to service at a restaurant" And it is recent relative to the scale of the trauma it wrought -- we're talking an entire population of people subject to extreme brutality and repression. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unfree_labor_in_the_United_States#Peonage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unfree_labor_in_the...