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You only need to go back 3 generations in my family to find someone born a slave. And I am not even middle aged. People don’t understand that hundreds of years

You only need to go back 3 generations in my family to find someone born a slave. And I am not even middle aged. People don’t understand that hundreds of years of enslavement and all the ensuing trauma doesn’t just go away after a few generations, it carries over in really strange and insidious ways.

Aeolun 2y ago
> hundreds of years of enslavement and all the ensuing trauma doesn’t just go away after a few generations This sounds unreasonable. If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago, then so can the US forget about slavery. If there’s continuing trauma, it isn’t caused by what happened 100 years ago, it’s because it is still being perpetuated somehow. That might be what you are trying to say, but I had to read it a few times to see it.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  > If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago, Europe has not forgotten about that, other than in terms of formal politics. Hell, England has not even forgotten about the Norman conquest of 1066. It does help somewhat that Germany has made really serious efforts to repudiate its own behavior, the culture that enabled it, and efforts to revive it. Much harder to say that about the equivalents for US slavery.
  - davidgay 2y ago
    > Hell, England has not even forgotten about the Norman conquest of 1066. I feel that's overstating it a bit. But my mother (English) was definitely brought up in a context that had not forgotten about Napoleon - Napoleon was viewed/presented as comparable to Hitler.
    - scott_w 2y ago
      Not really: the descendants of the Norman conquest remain some of the wealthiest landowners in England. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/high-house-prices-inequality-normans https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/high-h...
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        I've seen these claims (in much more detailed form that the Guardian link lays out, even the link it offers to one of its own articles to back up the claim). I'd really like to see some differentiation between: * a disproportionate number of people of Norman descent remain some of the wealthiest landowners in England and * a disproportion number of the wealthiest landowners in England are of Norman descent Since these are quite different claims.
- vladgur 2y ago
  Exactly. The history is filled with injustices directed by everyone at everyone if we go back generations. Are there injustices being perpetrated by the institutions today? Lets call them out. Injustices perpetrated generations ago belong in history books. We cant forget about them but Im not going to be held responsible for them.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    > Are there injustices being perpetrated by the institutions today? Lets call them out. Yes! welcome to black lives matter. But, that seems to have been labeled a terrorist group for some reason.
    - ipaddr 2y ago
      I haven't heard that but in general tactics and threats could get your labelled terrorist? You may feel you have a just cause but it doesn't mean your goal justifies your actions.
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        > You may feel you have a just cause but it doesn't mean your goal justifies your actions. Only ever said by someone that’s part of the establishment.
        dijit 2y ago
        by definition, if you want to destroy the established methods for change or circumvent them then yes, that is treason (or; terrorism) especially via threat or force. Real change that will jot be classified that way has to happen by engaging with the process for change- though I definitely recognise that its a lot slower and more difficult. So too is it more difficult to save up money instead of robbing a bank, but it doesn't mean you’re morally justified to rob a bank to give to charity vs working and giving a percentage of a paycheck.
    - vladgur 2y ago
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  >sounds unreasonable. If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago, then so can the US forget about slavery. Germany probably shouldn’t forget the genocide of millions of people from a variety of groups, just as the united states should not forget the systematic enslavement and repression of millions of people, who are also americans and their descendants are alive and numerous today. It doesn’t really make sense to me why people should forget that, and it cannot be forgotten by the people still living with the consequences of it today - but I’m not really willing to be baited into this type of discussion on a platform like this, so I’ll just say your fundamental premises in your post sound flawed if not extremely troubling in what you seem to be implying. It sounds completely unreasonable to say for instance, indigenous groups should forget they were pretty much wiped out by largely white colonizers. This isn’t a political statement, it’s just a matter of fact.
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    > they were pretty much wiped out by largely white colonizers. This isn’t a political statement, it’s just a matter of fact. And if were to say "...but those colonizers are no longer alive, and neither are their children.", is that not also a fact? Or is my wording a political statement but yours is not? I don't know that we can be so uneven in our evaluation.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    I think you are intentionally misreading this. My point is that we shouldn’t hold people responsible for actions they didn’t take. Sins of the father and all that. Doesn’t mean we should forget them. But getting angry at someone now because of something that his great grandfather did to your great grandfather is a great way for these grudges to never die.
    - KPGv2 2y ago
      > My point is that we shouldn’t hold people responsible for actions they didn’t take No one is holding people responsible for actions they didn't take. YOu're just mis-perceiving assistance given to historically oppressed people as a personal slight against yourself. Helping a black person is not punishing a white person, and you're showing your own ass when you suggest it is.
- spopejoy 2y ago
  Insofar as Europe has "forgotten" about the Nazis, you might want to check out how Israel legged into this in the early 60s, basically getting Germany to back any of their militaristic objectives in return for full diplomatic engagement with all the symbolic power that implied. Every government wants to "forget". France maintained a viewpoint that Vichy was a "few bad apples" until the evidence of deporting Jews until their death was undeniable.
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  I don't know about the rest of Europe, but "getting more reparations out of Germany" is a constant refrain of Polish politics regardless of what wing, faction, or party is leading it. The thing about oppression is that it causes both long-lasting and recurring trauma. The people targeted will be hurt for a long time, and they will be the target of follow-up attacks because other bullies know they can get away with it. In the specific case of Nazi Germany, exterminating the Jews was not an original idea of Hitler. Hitler's only original idea was taking shittons of methamphetamine. Martin Luther had done the legwork of radicalizing Germany into hating Jews; once Germany had become a functionally unified nation-state the Holocaust was a forgone conclusion. This is the core belief of Zionism[0]: that the only way to stop Jews from becoming victims is for those Jews to form their own nation-state that can commit its own atrocities. BTW, this is the same logic the Japanese had in their head when they started invading and destroying the rest of East Asia, around the same time as Hitler. They wanted to be respected in the way that the Christian Bible would describe as "having the fear of God". The fact that this led to the horrific rape of China and Korea[1] would suggest that these victim narratives are morally self-defeating without some framework of reciprocal[2] tolerance and human rights to distinguish between justified self-defense and unjustified oppression. But America at least sort of has that, so we can make that distinction. In fact, that's part of what makes American race relations so weirdly straightforward. In the "old world" you have complicated webs of peoples angry at each other for shit that happened anywhere from ten to ten thousand years ago. But in America, there's just one very deep wound that never seems to heal. When does America "forget" slavery? Well, ideally, we don't 'forget', but we do 'forgive'. Practically, however, we can't. Every time a cop thinks it'd be a good idea to treat a criminal suspect like a demon in DOOM Eternal, and it hits social media, we get a huge reminder of "oh, there's still people in this country who think it's OK to do this to black people". [0] I'm a Mormon[3], so I'm morally obligated to point out that we fell into this rhetorical trap, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre [1] And yes, they still complain about it, too. It doesn't help that Japan's ruling LDP was run by a war crimes denialist for a decade and change. [2] As in, "tolerate all except the intolerant." See also: the GNU General Public License. [3] I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Mormonism, is in fact, LDS/Mormonism, or as I've recently taken to calling it, LDS plus Mormonism. Mormonism is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning LDS system made useful by the LDS Doctrine & Covenants, the Old & New Testaments, and the Pearl of Great Price comprising a full testament as defined by Jesus.
- KPGv2 2y ago
  > If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago Germany paid massive amounts of reparations for the sins of the Nazis, and on top of that, Nazi leadership was executed. It's simply ignorant to think a citation to post-war Germany is a winning argument for you.
- svara 2y ago
  > This sounds unreasonable. If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago That's politics. Many Europeans are certainly still hurting from the trauma the wars caused. That includes later born generations. Culturally, the two world wars have had a great impact, but that's another story. My main point is that individually experienced trauma does transmit over generations, while great national narrative can change relatively quickly.

Aeolun 2y ago

> hundreds of years of enslavement and all the ensuing trauma doesn’t just go away after a few generations This sounds unreasonable. If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago, then so can the US forget about slavery. If there’s continuing trauma, it isn’t caused by what happened 100 years ago, it’s because it is still being perpetuated somehow. That might be what you are trying to say, but I had to read it a few times to see it.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
> If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago, Europe has not forgotten about that, other than in terms of formal politics. Hell, England has not even forgotten about the Norman conquest of 1066. It does help somewhat that Germany has made really serious efforts to repudiate its own behavior, the culture that enabled it, and efforts to revive it. Much harder to say that about the equivalents for US slavery.
- davidgay 2y ago
  > Hell, England has not even forgotten about the Norman conquest of 1066. I feel that's overstating it a bit. But my mother (English) was definitely brought up in a context that had not forgotten about Napoleon - Napoleon was viewed/presented as comparable to Hitler.
  - scott_w 2y ago
    Not really: the descendants of the Norman conquest remain some of the wealthiest landowners in England. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/high-house-prices-inequality-normans https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/high-h...
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      I've seen these claims (in much more detailed form that the Guardian link lays out, even the link it offers to one of its own articles to back up the claim). I'd really like to see some differentiation between: * a disproportionate number of people of Norman descent remain some of the wealthiest landowners in England and * a disproportion number of the wealthiest landowners in England are of Norman descent Since these are quite different claims.
vladgur 2y ago
Exactly. The history is filled with injustices directed by everyone at everyone if we go back generations. Are there injustices being perpetrated by the institutions today? Lets call them out. Injustices perpetrated generations ago belong in history books. We cant forget about them but Im not going to be held responsible for them.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  > Are there injustices being perpetrated by the institutions today? Lets call them out. Yes! welcome to black lives matter. But, that seems to have been labeled a terrorist group for some reason.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    I haven't heard that but in general tactics and threats could get your labelled terrorist? You may feel you have a just cause but it doesn't mean your goal justifies your actions.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      > You may feel you have a just cause but it doesn't mean your goal justifies your actions. Only ever said by someone that’s part of the establishment.
      - dijit 2y ago
        by definition, if you want to destroy the established methods for change or circumvent them then yes, that is treason (or; terrorism) especially via threat or force. Real change that will jot be classified that way has to happen by engaging with the process for change- though I definitely recognise that its a lot slower and more difficult. So too is it more difficult to save up money instead of robbing a bank, but it doesn't mean you’re morally justified to rob a bank to give to charity vs working and giving a percentage of a paycheck.
  - vladgur 2y ago
JohnMakin 2y ago
>sounds unreasonable. If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago, then so can the US forget about slavery. Germany probably shouldn’t forget the genocide of millions of people from a variety of groups, just as the united states should not forget the systematic enslavement and repression of millions of people, who are also americans and their descendants are alive and numerous today. It doesn’t really make sense to me why people should forget that, and it cannot be forgotten by the people still living with the consequences of it today - but I’m not really willing to be baited into this type of discussion on a platform like this, so I’ll just say your fundamental premises in your post sound flawed if not extremely troubling in what you seem to be implying. It sounds completely unreasonable to say for instance, indigenous groups should forget they were pretty much wiped out by largely white colonizers. This isn’t a political statement, it’s just a matter of fact.
- andsoitis 2y ago
  > they were pretty much wiped out by largely white colonizers. This isn’t a political statement, it’s just a matter of fact. And if were to say "...but those colonizers are no longer alive, and neither are their children.", is that not also a fact? Or is my wording a political statement but yours is not? I don't know that we can be so uneven in our evaluation.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  I think you are intentionally misreading this. My point is that we shouldn’t hold people responsible for actions they didn’t take. Sins of the father and all that. Doesn’t mean we should forget them. But getting angry at someone now because of something that his great grandfather did to your great grandfather is a great way for these grudges to never die.
  - KPGv2 2y ago
    > My point is that we shouldn’t hold people responsible for actions they didn’t take No one is holding people responsible for actions they didn't take. YOu're just mis-perceiving assistance given to historically oppressed people as a personal slight against yourself. Helping a black person is not punishing a white person, and you're showing your own ass when you suggest it is.
spopejoy 2y ago
Insofar as Europe has "forgotten" about the Nazis, you might want to check out how Israel legged into this in the early 60s, basically getting Germany to back any of their militaristic objectives in return for full diplomatic engagement with all the symbolic power that implied. Every government wants to "forget". France maintained a viewpoint that Vichy was a "few bad apples" until the evidence of deporting Jews until their death was undeniable.
kmeisthax 2y ago
I don't know about the rest of Europe, but "getting more reparations out of Germany" is a constant refrain of Polish politics regardless of what wing, faction, or party is leading it. The thing about oppression is that it causes both long-lasting and recurring trauma. The people targeted will be hurt for a long time, and they will be the target of follow-up attacks because other bullies know they can get away with it. In the specific case of Nazi Germany, exterminating the Jews was not an original idea of Hitler. Hitler's only original idea was taking shittons of methamphetamine. Martin Luther had done the legwork of radicalizing Germany into hating Jews; once Germany had become a functionally unified nation-state the Holocaust was a forgone conclusion. This is the core belief of Zionism[0]: that the only way to stop Jews from becoming victims is for those Jews to form their own nation-state that can commit its own atrocities. BTW, this is the same logic the Japanese had in their head when they started invading and destroying the rest of East Asia, around the same time as Hitler. They wanted to be respected in the way that the Christian Bible would describe as "having the fear of God". The fact that this led to the horrific rape of China and Korea[1] would suggest that these victim narratives are morally self-defeating without some framework of reciprocal[2] tolerance and human rights to distinguish between justified self-defense and unjustified oppression. But America at least sort of has that, so we can make that distinction. In fact, that's part of what makes American race relations so weirdly straightforward. In the "old world" you have complicated webs of peoples angry at each other for shit that happened anywhere from ten to ten thousand years ago. But in America, there's just one very deep wound that never seems to heal. When does America "forget" slavery? Well, ideally, we don't 'forget', but we do 'forgive'. Practically, however, we can't. Every time a cop thinks it'd be a good idea to treat a criminal suspect like a demon in DOOM Eternal, and it hits social media, we get a huge reminder of "oh, there's still people in this country who think it's OK to do this to black people". [0] I'm a Mormon[3], so I'm morally obligated to point out that we fell into this rhetorical trap, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre [1] And yes, they still complain about it, too. It doesn't help that Japan's ruling LDP was run by a war crimes denialist for a decade and change. [2] As in, "tolerate all except the intolerant." See also: the GNU General Public License. [3] I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Mormonism, is in fact, LDS/Mormonism, or as I've recently taken to calling it, LDS plus Mormonism. Mormonism is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning LDS system made useful by the LDS Doctrine & Covenants, the Old & New Testaments, and the Pearl of Great Price comprising a full testament as defined by Jesus.
KPGv2 2y ago
> If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago Germany paid massive amounts of reparations for the sins of the Nazis, and on top of that, Nazi leadership was executed. It's simply ignorant to think a citation to post-war Germany is a winning argument for you.
svara 2y ago
> This sounds unreasonable. If Europe can forget about Germany messing with everyone some 80 years ago That's politics. Many Europeans are certainly still hurting from the trauma the wars caused. That includes later born generations. Culturally, the two world wars have had a great impact, but that's another story. My main point is that individually experienced trauma does transmit over generations, while great national narrative can change relatively quickly.