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a lot of people in this country of ours spend an awful lot of their bandwidth on attempts to say slavery wasn't so bad or that the people who practiced it weren't bad. and then they say systemic racism no longer exists or never existed. and boy oh boy.
im honestly trying to think of things in either black america or liberalism that in a majority way we attempt to dismiss overwhelming historical evidence and i cant think of one. (and i admit i could be missing one)
you have fringes within black america who talk nonsense about oj or cosby or michael jackson being innocent, but even if many people did believe it, its not on par with *slavery*.
and you certainly have people on the left who don't properly put jfk and lbj in context re vietnam, or some who refuse to address the negatives of communism. but again, these are fringe beliefs. so im kind of at a loss.
i still fall back to my theory about us learning fairy tale history at an early age then having it repeated to us over the ensuing decade in elementary, middle, high school. and to reckon with reality vs fairy tale leads to mass discord and anger.
i believe it is very difficult for americans to resolve george washington, military genius, father of the country, man who set the mold for the presidency with george washington, guy who owned a ton of people and had them work themselves to the bone to build his wealth.
i once posted these photos from mt vernon showing a reproduction of the slave quarters and i got so many comments saying they didnt look so bad. and i was like ... i feel like you're missing the point.
it seems weird to say, and as a black person i have never had this problem, but i feel almost as if we don't make it clear enough when teaching american history that slavery means you *owned human beings*. they werent just serfs (which was bad!) but *property*.
and i dont know how to separate the personal either. my mom, as i have said at length, was a very blunt and up front person. she just spoke her mind. and when she spoke about our ancestors in jamaica, she'd say very clearly that yes, of course the masters raped the women.
the house i lived at the longest in jamaica was in montego bay, and it wasn't very far from the infamous white hall, that is said to be haunted by a woman who was an evil slaveowner (the story is a mix of myth and truth). https://theculturetrip.com/caribbean/jamaica/articles/who-is-the-white-witch-of-rose-hall/
so i dont know how much all that colors my perception when i hear people trying to weasel out of the very clear fact that slavery was one of the most evil thing man has ever done. the very notion of defending it or its defenders makes me want to vomit.
every time i see someone making even the slightest hint of apology for the confederacy it riles something deep inside me. these are men who so wanted to own people, or defend those who owned people, they went *to war*. and then we put up statues?! i dunno.
its not something i can understand. this thread is too long and unfocused, but it just honestly blows my mind at the mental contortions, dishonesty, and embrace of *one of the worst things a human being has ever done*.
(and bear in mind, this was not directly my family. my family was enslaved in jamaica when all this went down. but the people they held in america were my family too. and even if not, we and they are all humans, man)
