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There has to be more, because in Europe, and particularly in southern europe there has been slavery for thousends of years. Everyone has been slave to everyone,

There has to be more, because in Europe, and particularly in southern europe there has been slavery for thousends of years. Everyone has been slave to everyone, like a free for all. Yet there's no one making claims based on that, and I'm not aware that such claims existed in the past neither. People just accepted as a fact of life and moved on. If you look at how all the relations played out between southern europe, the Ottoman empire and northen africa in general, you'll see this isn't from so distant past.

arp242 5y ago
A lot of black people arrived in Europe comparatively recently, the last ~60 years or so, and often from a specific country rather than the vague concept of "my ancestors several hundred years ago came from somewhere in Africa, but who knows where exactly?" Besides, not all forms of slavery are equal; what made American slavery fairly unique is that you were born in to it, was for life, based on skin colour, and was an important part of society/the economy. While the general concept of slavery goes back to before history, this particular combination is actually fairly rare as far as I know. In modern Europe slavery was never part of society in the same way (i.e. you didn't have a slaves in England or Belgium, just the colonies), and in more ancient times slavery was a lot more "flexible" (detail differ greatly) compared to US slavery, in some cases being a temporary thing as punishment or crimes etc.
- ptr2voidStar 5y ago
  There has only been one time in human history where slavery was "racialised". The whole concept of "race" was invented to support this kind of slavery. The descendants of people who bear the same skin hue of the formerly enslaved still have to live with the stigma caused by slavery. This (and in many other ways as pointed out by the last commenter), is what makes the effects of the Translantic slavery still reverberate today - because people are still judged by skin colour because of that precedent that was set back then. I don't know why this has to be continually explained to supposedly intelligent people - wilful ignorance?
  - arp242 5y ago
    > I don't know why this has to be continually explained to supposedly intelligent people - wilful ignorance? Not everyone is from the United States; reasonably sure the person I was replying to isn't (I'm not either).
ptr2voidStar 5y ago
Username checks out. Of course you'd want to bury horrible history under the carpet and move on - despite people still continuing to be weighed down by it's legacy.

arp242 5y ago

A lot of black people arrived in Europe comparatively recently, the last ~60 years or so, and often from a specific country rather than the vague concept of "my ancestors several hundred years ago came from somewhere in Africa, but who knows where exactly?" Besides, not all forms of slavery are equal; what made American slavery fairly unique is that you were born in to it, was for life, based on skin colour, and was an important part of society/the economy. While the general concept of slavery goes back to before history, this particular combination is actually fairly rare as far as I know. In modern Europe slavery was never part of society in the same way (i.e. you didn't have a slaves in England or Belgium, just the colonies), and in more ancient times slavery was a lot more "flexible" (detail differ greatly) compared to US slavery, in some cases being a temporary thing as punishment or crimes etc.

ptr2voidStar 5y ago
There has only been one time in human history where slavery was "racialised". The whole concept of "race" was invented to support this kind of slavery. The descendants of people who bear the same skin hue of the formerly enslaved still have to live with the stigma caused by slavery. This (and in many other ways as pointed out by the last commenter), is what makes the effects of the Translantic slavery still reverberate today - because people are still judged by skin colour because of that precedent that was set back then. I don't know why this has to be continually explained to supposedly intelligent people - wilful ignorance?
- arp242 5y ago
  > I don't know why this has to be continually explained to supposedly intelligent people - wilful ignorance? Not everyone is from the United States; reasonably sure the person I was replying to isn't (I'm not either).

ptr2voidStar 5y ago

Username checks out. Of course you'd want to bury horrible history under the carpet and move on - despite people still continuing to be weighed down by it's legacy.