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Myths about Slavery


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"One of the most telling examples of the relationship between slavery and the economy is that in 1860, four million Black people were enslaved. Black people were worth more than every bank, factory, and railroad combined. The four million Black people were worth more than all the manufacturing in this country before the Civil War began."

 

Factor in the 400 year head start in wealth building based on forced labor (slavery) and compound the interest.

 

That's part of the math required to calculate what I was thinking about when outlining reparations in another thread.

 

America might hope that history will wash away its original sin but that seems less likely to happen when there are so many standing reminders of it. 😎

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I didn't click on Delano's thread yet, because I was concerned about what I might find...lol.

When I hear something called "Myths about Slavery'...it makes me wonder if they are going to somehow try to make it seem as if it wasn't as bad or cruel as we commonly think, or feature a bunch of Black and Native American slave owners to make us think it wasn't about race.
That's getting to be pretty common now a days on social media.
 

 

 

 

 

You know what I've taken an interest in lately?

The rampant racism down in Latin America and how much more pervasive and open it is compared with the U.S. today.


Right now there are movements in both Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to WHITEWASH those island nations and erase their Blk presence.
It starts with taking down the statues, erasing the pictures, then making movies and television show that feature lighter and lighter characters supposedly representing the people.

Even in the U.S. there was a recent case about a sister who was a firefighter somewhere down South who's face was erased and replaced with that of a White persons!

Racism is real and deliberate.

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I never knew about this!

And Yes, I can see how today, the issue of chattel slavery has become an effort to downplay it just as this author has shown! 

 

"Smith's book is a systematic takedown of many myths about slavery,

including one that the Whitney exhibit disproves --

that most slaves just passively accepted their fate."

 

"From the moment Black folks arrives on these shores, they were fighting for liberation," Smith says.

"They fought for freedom that they never had the opportunity to see, but they fought for it anyway

because they knew that someday someone would. When I see that at the Whitney, I think of all those sacrifices."

The myths about slavery that still hold America captive - CNN

 

And I am acquainted with many African Americans today too, that cringe when this subject comes up and become very aggressive in efforts to portray chattel slavery as a thing of the distant past.

 

 

Part of what is important is understanding how this story we tell ourselves wasn't that long ago at all.

I remember learning about slavery and being made to feel that it was something that happened i

n the Jurassic period -- like it was the dinosaurs, "The Flintstones" and slavery.

The myths about slavery that still hold America captive - CNN

 

 

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