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The involvement of Africans in the slave trade is conspicuous in its absence from the article. Whenever that fact is obscured, we promote the false perception t
by deepdriver 4y ago
The involvement of Africans in the slave trade is conspicuous in its absence from the article. Whenever that fact is obscured, we promote the false perception that slavery is the fault of one race in particular. This feeds into modern attitudes, especially in the US, of innate racial good or evil and inherited guilt or grievance based on skin color. Teaching the full history of slavery, i.e. it was practiced with all its cruelties by every race of people who ever lived, is a necessary building block to healthy race relations. I think it is important to share this knowledge wherever it is clearly absent.
- lkrubner 4y ago"The involvement of Africans in the slave trade is conspicuous in its absence from the article." Because it is completely irrelevant to the article. "Whenever that fact is obscured, we promote the false perception that slavery is the fault of one race in particular." This is untrue, and it is ridiculous thing to say. You do yourself no credit, trying to drag racial politics into a situation where they do not add explanatory power.
- deepdriver 4y agoRacial politics are central to the article because they are central to Haiti's history and development. Discussing racial politics in a wilfully blindered manner has serious harmful side-effects.
- gumby 4y agoCentral? Can you point to an example, apart from one of imagery wrt refugees crossing the US border?
- Apocryphon 4y agoYou are bringing up the racial in a way that is irrelevant to the political. The Kingdom of Dahomey did not profit from the Republic of Haiti via reparations post-independence. They do not have any relation to the continued immiseration of Haiti, unlike France did.
- D13Fd 4y agoIt sounds like you didn’t read the article. The discussion of slavery is just brief context for the majority of the article, which is about the post-slavery period.
- gumby 4y agoSlavery is a not a major part of the discussion in the article, almost all of which is post-revolutionary times. The word slave only appears in a few paragraphs. And they were ripped from their homes — referred to in passing without saying by whom. I feel your comment tries to inject something not relevant to the article.
- rayiner 4y ago
- tptacek 4y agoEschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
- rayiner 4y agoI don’t see how it’s flame bait. I’m using “white supremacy” in the accepted academic sense. And the article is about how Haiti got to be the way it is. Pointing out that pop history is loathe to ascribe moral agency to non-whites seems directly on point.
- tptacek 4y agoNo part of this article has anything to do with contemporaneous African culpability for slavery, obviously. Unlike the previous commenter, I generally assume you comment here in good faith. So I guess I'd ask: why did you bring this up? How was this a contribution to the discussion of the divergence between Haiti and the Dominican Republic?
- Spooky23 4y agoIt’s not really relevant. If you’re worried about attitudes and racial grievance, whitewashing the events that took place in Haiti with whataboutism probably isn’t the way to go. If anything saying “what about Africa” distracts from the fact that slaves were being slaughtered like abused donkeys faster than they could reproduce. That by itself speaks to the horrors of this period. The reality is that Haiti demonstrated how racism drove policy and actions of the colonial power. French colonial society was different than the US and evolved differently. France was distracted by its own problems and wasn’t able to maintain the dehumanizing regime necessary to maintain the slave system. The whole thing is gross and disgusting. It’s a scar on society, and was no better in antiquity.