@bonefish
- Thread starter tjreese
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I’ve watched this and similar videos with the voice of Thomas Sowell. Where Sowell did a disservice is when he says slavery was not about race. Perhaps not about race on other parts of the world. Where he went wrong is when he leaves out chattel slavery. Where chattel slavery is when an enslaved person is considered property of the slave wonder and is enslaved for life as well as his entire family. Enslaving only Africans during the trans Atlantic slave trade was the important factor in chattel slavery at that time. During the colonial period of the US, the whites that were in servitude at that time were indentured servants that served like 7 years not for life. If slavery on the US was not about race, why were there almost 4 million black slaves by 1860.
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That video pretty much validates everything I've been trying to educate BNI on in regards to the intersection of race and slavery.
It's also not surprising that this young man, who seems interested in continuing to become well educated, has never heard this side of the story. Ever....
As I've said and as he almost quotes verbatim, is that this is "uncomfortable" to hear.
Yeh, it is. But it's also factually and historically accurate.
Also, interesting that he uses the word "narrative" several times and understands that the narrative he's been taught is one sided and that what he's been taught has left some of the really important facts because it doesn't fit the narrative.
I suspect this young man now has a very different perspective and can probably help educate his friends on the subject.
It's also not surprising that this young man, who seems interested in continuing to become well educated, has never heard this side of the story. Ever....
As I've said and as he almost quotes verbatim, is that this is "uncomfortable" to hear.
Yeh, it is. But it's also factually and historically accurate.
Also, interesting that he uses the word "narrative" several times and understands that the narrative he's been taught is one sided and that what he's been taught has left some of the really important facts because it doesn't fit the narrative.
I suspect this young man now has a very different perspective and can probably help educate his friends on the subject.
Come on man. Listen and learn.
Africans weren't enslaved because they were black. They were enslaved because their countrymen created a market, provided product to that market and that market happened to be geographically positioned making the routes economically and logistically viable.
If China were located where Africa was, then Chinese from West China would have likely ended up being the product of the slave trade.
It is and has always been about vulnerability. A man of any color that spends too much for what he makes may become vulnerable to that job and in a sense be a slave to that job and all the discomfort it brings. My deceased brother-in-law told me over 50 years ago that the only security a man has is in himself, not in his company, not in others, but in himself. I agree with that. If you develop yourself, then you will have choices and if you don't, those choices will be diminished. Lack of choices enslave someone in some fashion and make them vulnerable to other people and other things and that is only the mental side which is where we are in the USA today. Years ago there was more physical vulnerability as well. A woman with no guns is vulnerable to men of evil desires. A child believing so much in peers is vulnerable to less mature thought. The more vulnerable...the greater the potential problems...
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This post should be read by all the young people. Wishing I had this advice 50 years ago. This really sums up life’s destiny.
That’s the problem with you and others. Y’all see a black grifter like Sowell say things like slavery was not about race and it’s the gospel. If y’all bothered to take college level history courses plus a couple of Black Studies, as it was called back in the 80s, courses you would have learned what Sowell said is wrong. Sowell is an economist, not a historian. Talking about slavery is far out of his lane. Now Dr. Henry Louis Gates is a well internationally respected historian and professor at Yale University. If y’all bother to read any of his books or watch his PBS documentaries, you would see how far off Sowell is. Dr. Gates writes and educates that the trans Atlantic slave trade was ALL about race plus the practice of chattel slavery where the slave is property to the owner for life or until sold.
The young man in the video most likely, like most people only had high school history where very little detail on any particularly topic is limited. I bet this same young man, like we were, were taught in high school that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation which is wrong. It will take a college level history courses to properly teach what really happen. What truly happen was that the Emancipation Proclamation was ONLY a military document that allowed the slaves in the confederate states to go fight for the Union Army as they need more men to fight. The slaves in the northern states remained enslaved.
Again, I bet this young man, like were, were taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America. How can he discover America when people were already here. He wasn’t even the first European to travel to the Americas. Again due to limited time on the topics, they never taught that he and his men brutally raped, mutilated, and killed the indigenous people during his time in the Americas. Then some fools in the US decided to name a holiday after him. Name cities and schools after him.
Just like the Emancipation Proclamation, chattel slavery, Columbus, and the race aspect of the trans Atlantic slave trade, college level history classes teach and discuss this stuff. Nowadays, a little google search won’t hurt either.
So hopefully this young man will learn to critically think and not take word of an economist about history and do further research on this topic
Slavery not only happened due to vulnerability, but through all of history outside of direct sex, it concerned monetary resources or ties into economics. Thomas Sowell has many videos on Youtube on a variety of historic issues that many times are not just cultural, but tied to economics inside the research. To date I'm unaware of any debates in Youtube where an opponent got the upper hand. The man is not only brilliant, but accurate with decades of study. It is quite common for his books to have 50 or more pages with references to other books and studies. He doesn't shoot from the hip and is recognized as one of the most brilliant men of our time.
Just to add to your Emancipation Proclamation which is a "fair start" Lincoln had been waiting for the right moment to issue it as the North was weary of war and about to turn on him with an election coming up. It did nothing to the south because Lincoln was NOT the leader of the south and so it was a victory lap for Lincoln to make a speech that did nothing like we have seen many times since by presidents. Another victory or so and the south was about to get financial help from overseas. Now the north "could" have freed slaves, but many didn't. I'll also add that since Lincoln was not the leader of the south it didn't free slave in the south, but for any that escaped they would be welcomed to fight for the north. Just this paragraph and it is easy to see the Civil War was bigger than just slavery. Had the south not been flanked in the sunken road...who knows how things might have turned out? Still, the north had time and the south didn't and why we see Gettysburg and Lee so desperate.
Here is Bloody Lane or the sunken road where the south was flanked and if I recall correctly the first time there were photographs of the dead and war for people to see how nasty it was. All the dead bodies lying in the heat gave off quite a stench. Not a lot of visitors go there even though it I believe may be the highest death toll of a battle on a given day of any the country has experienced.
For you to speak as you do about Sowell is an injustice to all. Because he's an economist doesn't mean that he has no knowledge about slavery. And Gates is, I believe a racist muckraker, which in turn makes him a wealthy antagonist. By the way, you still have not answered my questions from three weeks ago.
Please...don't confuse BNI with facts such as you just did.Slavery not only happened due to vulnerability, but through all of history outside of direct sex, it concerned monetary resources or ties into economics. Thomas Sowell has many videos on Youtube on a variety of historic issues that many times are not just cultural, but tied to economics inside the research. To date I'm unaware of any debates in Youtube where an opponent got the upper hand. The man is not only brilliant, but accurate with decades of study. It is quite common for his books to have 50 or more pages with references to other books and studies. He doesn't shoot from the hip and is recognized as one of the most brilliant men of our time.
Just to add to your Emancipation Proclamation which is a "fair start" Lincoln had been waiting for the right moment to issue it as the North was weary of war and about to turn on him with an election coming up. It did nothing to the south because Lincoln was NOT the leader of the south and so it was a victory lap for Lincoln to make a speech that did nothing like we have seen many times since by presidents. Another victory or so and the south was about to get financial help from overseas. Now the north "could" have freed slaves, but many didn't. I'll also add that since Lincoln was not the leader of the south it didn't free slave in the south, but for any that escaped they would be welcomed to fight for the north. Just this paragraph and it is easy to see the Civil War was bigger than just slavery. Had the south not been flanked in the sunken road...who knows how things might have turned out? Still, the north had time and the south didn't and why we see Gettysburg and Lee so desperate.
Here is Bloody Lane or the sunken road where the south was flanked and if I recall correctly the first time there were photographs of the dead and war for people to see how nasty it was. All the dead bodies lying in the heat gave off quite a stench. Not a lot of visitors go there even though it I believe may be the highest death toll of a battle on a given day of any the country has experienced.
This is his latest book @bonefish1 and will touch on marriage and a few points you have tried to make in the past. It is a seven minute video that is worth listening. I think I may have said some of these things if this thread or another. Just a snippet of the book that is 7 minutes long. It should make us wonder how we found our way to Biden instead of Thomas Sowell!
I would add that Thomas is a well read man that not only is an economist, but quite the historian of various cultures that tie into economics. I mean everything ties into economics in some fashion and why his studies went into so much history all over the world Many do not know that as a young man he had communist OR Marxist thoughts on economics...until he started studying the evidence that is above what is taught in most colleges. I just can't say enough about how much a person can learn from him that they will not learn elsewhere...and it makes so much sense. Between him and Jordan Peterson (another very well read person) there is a tome of intellectual heft. Jordan is really good when it gets into Intersectionality.
You simply don't like Sowell because he's black but not a liberal or believe in victimhood.
You still believe slavery was about race, when in fact, it was about economics, exploitation and supply/demand.
Not that BNI profits from racism, but many do. Racism, sexism and all forms of Intersectionality are the foundation of the democrat party and its media through not only promotion of unsupported stances, but the censorship of any and all things it opposes. Freedom of thought AND speech is not a desired occurrence from those in power today.
I'm reminded of The Emperor's New Clothes as we witness people projecting a moral high ground while actually voting for or will vote for an unethical, immoral continuation that we see today through some kind of disconnect with reality. It absolutely blows my mind that lack of self reflection of such.
It’s not victimhood correcting someone’s erroneous statements about whether US involvement in slavery was race based. If you want to discuss history, particularly black history, the discussion begins and ends with Harvard professor, Dr. Henry Louis Gates. If you read any of his books or watch his documentaries y’all would learn that US slavery was all about race.
So Gates opinion is the only one that counts and everyone else is a crock of crap.
What's the difference between slavery that occurred in the US when compared to slavery that was occurring in other parts of the world?
Keep in mind, white Europeans didn't go all the way to Africa and create the slave trade. It was already in existence with Africans enslaving other Africans. The white Europeans just figured out a way to scale and exploit it on a much larger level to meet the demands of a growing economy highly dependent on manual labor. It's not the fact that they skin were dark, it's the fact that they happened to be the available commodity (cheap labor) in this supply/demand equation.
I've never read any of Gates' writings, but I'd be curious to know where his historical documentaries of slavery take place. Does he address the origins and who the original slave traders in Africa were or does his start once the slave trips are on the way to the US?
Not saying they wouldn't, but isn't PBS highly unlikely to broadcast a show that doesn't fit the very liberal narrative.
Maybe I'm confusing PBS with NPR?
Dude, as far as slavery in the US, in grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter where the slaves came from. They were here and the so called founding fathers as well as other US citizens were complicit in owning slaves. Sadly it’s mostly conservatives that deflect and bring up that slavery existed elsewhere or the US did not invent slavery. I’ve h read them all. The so this to somehow lessen the impact and make them feel better about the inexplicable roll the US had in slavery.
You see, that’s part of your problem. You always think there is some sort of an agenda when it ain’t.
Again, slavery in the Americas was chattel slavery where the slaves were property for life. They were bought and sold as property. It was during the 16 and 17 centuries where white supremacist European and subsequently US scientists wrote that Africans were not as intelligent as Europeans just by the small sample size of skulls. There were other false so called experiments done in addition to the skull size crap. This planted the seed that is still implanted to this day. This led to the Europeans colonizing some of the African countries as well as the beginnings of the trans Atlantic slave trade and the reason why it was raced based slavery.
You give the impression that there is an agenda that people are suppressing the fact that African tribes sold other Africans to the European AND US slave traders. No one is hiding anything. The African tribes had wars with each other like any other country or local factions around the world. The losing tribe became prisoners of war to the victors. The victors would either kill them, enslave then themselves, or for the most part trade them to the European/US slave traders.
Matter of fact there was a Hollywood movie that came out in 2022 called “The Woman King”. Good movie by the way. Y’all need to check it out. The movie was based on an actual African tribe that had trained women warriors so that they could increase their numbers during battle. The side plot was that they traded the losing tribe to the slave traders. The bottom line is that this is no secret. Even Hollywood made a movie about it.
Slavery was wrong. There is no sugar coating it. It is an ugly scab on humanity every place it was, and still is practiced. It is going on today. That said all of history must be viewed through the eyes of the time for accurate understandings of the time. In all of history every race has committed horrific assaults on humanity. No race is immune. In spite of that, there has also been good committed by all races and the USA on the whole has possibly been the greatest country since its existence to promote peace and improvements all across the globe even with its sins of slavery. A balanced perspective sometimes is warranted...
Professor Gates’ documentaries and books aren’t his opinions. They are historical facts backed up by actual research. Professor Gates is one of the most renown historical scholars in the world. His current project on PBS is the series, “Finding Your Roots” in its 10th season.
Gates is not a historian, but a literary critic. I suspect you have never read anything he has written.
Here are some of his words from a famous 2010 opinion piece in NYT. You should read it.
While we are all familiar with the role played by the United States and the European colonial powers like Britain, France, Holland, Portugal and Spain, there is very little discussion of the role Africans themselves played. And that role, it turns out, was a considerable one, especially for the slave-trading kingdoms of western and central Africa. These included the Akan of the kingdom of Asante in what is now Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin), the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern Angola and the Kongo of today’s Congo, among several others.
For centuries, Europeans in Africa kept close to their military and trading posts on the coast. Exploration of the interior, home to the bulk of Africans sold into bondage at the height of the slave trade, came only during the colonial conquests.
Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in “Roots.” The truth, however, is much more complex: slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike.
Alex Haley has admitted that "Roots" was an historical, inaccurate myth! When any person is a slave, at any time in history, that person can be physically and mentally abused and has been. Slaves exist only to please the master or group controlling the slave in whatever desires the master or group controlling the slaves wish. That in essence is why slavery has EVER happened and exists in ALL slavery history.
To pretend that one group of slaves have more fundamental rights than another group cannot be founded on any form of logic and to pretend such doesn't suggest a lot of thought. That quest to pretend it is different is similar to those that went for black lives matter, but rejected all lives matter as somehow a black life is more important than all lives and yet all lives include black lives. You just can't make this up, like the pablum fed to so many that gobble it up and want more like a drug addict needing another fix.
Do you really want to go there and actually limit and undervalue Dr. Henry Louis Gates’ distinguished career as just a literary critic. He went to Yale along with your favorite Negroes, Justice Clarence Thomas and Dr. Ben Carson through an affirmative action program where he majored in history. Then a long career at Harvard as a professor. I’ve read a couple of his books back in the 80s. The piece you pasted says nothing new than what we’re been discussing.
His MA and PhD are in English, not history.
I did not undervalue him at all. How do you think I did - or did you just blurt it out without thinking?
The title is 'Ending the Slavery Blame-Game', which is counter to your "Blame Whitey for Slavery Game."
Yes, but his bachelor degree is history. Plus all the African American Studies and history research he has done for over 50 years or so.
You undervalued him by saying that he is not a historian when he is an African American and history professor at Harvard. Then you say that is just a literary critic. I don’t even know what Gates’ political affiliation is but do this to a lot of non-conservative blacks. Y’all never undervalued the political ne’er do well like Herschel Walker when he ran for the GA Senate. He was clearly not qualified. I don’t like the politics of Sen. Tim Scott but he is qualified to be a senator.
Does not counter anything that I’ve said. The article just spreads the blame the the African that traded other Africans to the slave traders. Stuff we know all along. The article speaks about reparations which is a tall hill to climb. You haven’t heard me talk about reparations much have you? I ain’t turning down any checks but it would be hard to determine who qualifies for reparations. However, slave owners from Maryland got compensated for the “property” they lost after the 13th Amendment.
What is wrong with being a literary critic? I do not see "history" in his title at Harvard.
Yeah, I’m not against reparations. I just know it ain’t happenin’. I ain’t going to quit my gig and wait for a check to come. That’s why I don’t bring it up, nor talk about reparations much. Low on my priority list that’s for sure. A while back, Sen. Corey Booker put a bill on the table that would at least create a study to determine the feasibility of reparations. It never went any further. I’m just curious about what the black grifters, who are against reparations, will do if reparations was implemented. Will they apply for it or not. Similarly with the student debt relief. How many conservatives applied for it?
I am sure "Rev" Al, Jesse, Joy Reid and all the many other black grifters on the dem plantation will have their hands out as fast as they can.
“Stuff we know all about”
That’s 100% false.
TJReese posted the video of the college student who was completely clueless as to the origins of slavery in the Americas. He was shocked to learn what you say “we all know”.
Again, I highly doubt, and I’m pretty confident in saying, that our liberal educational system doesn’t talk about the origins of how black Africans became slaves.
As I’ve said before, if the checks start flowing, then I’ll be identifying as black.
