Blog against racism week, take one.
How You Still Profit From the Slave Trade (or if you’re black, how you still unprofit)
You defined as postcolonial industrialized peoples
Comment: My ancestors never owned slaves; that hasn’t nothing to do with me.
Comment: That was a long time ago, and I don’t know why I should apologize for things I had no control over in the past.
Comment: My relatives immigrated to this country after the Time of Greatest Oppression, so it has nothing to do with me.
What sort of amazes me is how often comments like this come from otherwise educated-seeming folks who are just letting slip their weariness with what they think is the root of the “race issue.” Oddly enough, I think most contemporary people being oppressed are at least as concerned about their daily confrontation with hatred, prejudice, and ignorance as they are with historical facts, but, you know, ymmv. The fact that someone feels that it’s acceptable to make remarks like the above points to the sort of pervasive, engrained racist we still live with today that is, in fact, one of the legacies of African slavery.
The slave trade: not just beneficial for dead white AMERICAN dudes from tons of years ago, but actually the backbone of the rapid industrialization that lead to the domination of the globe by Europeans, and later, Americans as well as a large part of why systematic racism exists in the West today.
^
^----That’s my thesis statement.
I’m going to mainly limit this to the States, because I’m American and my biggest issues with racism deal with my fellow citizens since it’s my society.
The reason why America is now postindustrial is that we were able to build an economy based on slave labor that produced raw agricultural products for industry both at home and abroad. We became a world power because of the wealth this afforded us. We followed in the footsteps of our predecessors in other currently postindustrialized societies, most importantly the UK. I always found it pretty disgusting and niggling as a youth that MPs in the Britain got all high horse about abolition of slavery prior to America following suit when they had already reaped the benefits from this practice and even if they beat us to the abolition finish line, that hardly negates the fact that they went on with de facto slavery for another century at least AND had built their empire on the backs of slaves.
Triangular Trade
Middle Passage
The slave trade reduced people to commodities. Commodities fuelled the empires. Empires fuelled further expansion and increased wealth. Increased wealth lead to capital investment in factories. Factories needed raw agricultural and other goods to make value-added goods. Slaves provided free labor to facilitate greater and greater tracts of agriculturally proficient land. This system worked to make Europe richer and richer until some colonies got tired of being the middle men and decided to reap all the benefits for themselves.
For us in this post, the operative concepts are that humans were reduced to commodities and that Europe and North America became rich because of that.
How do you make people into commodities? You dehumanize them. You come to believe they are better off enslaved than running about freely getting up to their natural inclinations. (Those inclinations could be: child sacrifice, worshipping Satan, raping white women, or many others. Take your pick.) You teach your children these values. You refuse to educate your precious commodities for fear your house of cards will implode. You do this for centuries. Eventually, these views come to be considered the Natural Order of Things. Those ingrained beliefs are built into the social structure and it's very difficult to alter the Natural Order of Things or "Just the way things are."
Yeah, yeah. We all probably learned about this in school (or maybe not, I am pretty constantly shocked by things I thought were common knowledge that turn out to not be). But what does it MEAN TODAY?
Katrina survivor's story
Institutionalized racism
It means this: if you live in a “western” or postindustrial (this means that the bulk of your work force isn’t mining and manufacturing and sewing and processing agricultural products) society today, you are most likely benefiting from the fact that the former colonial powers used slavery (both overt and covert) to build the empires that bloomed into our cultures.
Wait, but, still, what does that MEAN?
The term “privilege” gets tossed around a lot in fandom. The simple fact is that all of us with air conditioning and ample food supplies automatically are privileged in relation to the majority of humans on the planet. How did we get these wondrous amenities such as frozen pot pies and microwaves? Because our predecessors raped and pillaged the planet. We got snug homes (eventually) and security (of one form or another, and limited for some parts of society even now) because those who came before us didn’t have to PAY the people who did the majority of the work. Imagine a business where all the overhead for employees is feeding them rice once a day and replacing clothing once every two years. What good capitalist doesn’t see the benefit there?
We all benefited from slavery in most of the countries the majority of people reading this live in. Not everyone, because no sweeping generalization ever covers every yahoo in a group.
Part of the lingering benefit from slavery is white privilege. It’s the nasty part that people don’t want to really own up to. It’s easier to say “oh, you assume everyone on the internet is white, that is blindness and can be cured.” Ok.
What about getting a home loan? What about getting into college without the aspersions of “affirmative action” taint? What about living where you choose and not being stared at? What about not having to be the spokesperson for your whole race because you speak out and interact with the majority?
Unpacking white privilege
What about people saying “my ancestors moved here after the Civil War, so I had nothing to do with slavery?” Imagine talking to someone who you otherwise thought was a rational, good, amusing, sane person. Suddenly, this person is denying the concrete financial benefits the U.S. reaped through slavery and denying the existence of the racist power structure that was created because of slavery. How would you feel that they think that sort of statement is a reasonable thing to say that causes no offense? Would you be hurt? Would you be angry? Would be become radicalized?
“My ancestors didn’t own slaves. They lived in a non-slave state.” You didn't need to own slaves to benefit from slavery. All you needed to do was in live in a country that had it and not be a slave.
If you are sitting in North America or Western Europe, you have *somehow* benefited from slavery. Time to own up to that and move on to questions like, what can I do to affect change in my own life so I am no longer part of the *current* problem for the real life human beings in my community? Or like, how does the legacy of slavery still impact me and my fellow citizens today; can I be part of a solution?
Racism didn’t just spring into life in a cultural void with no explanation and without centuries of hard work put into it by people who used lies, coercion, murder, and enslavement to make their own, pathetic lives *easier.* We aren’t going to just “fix” it with equality laws (shittily enforced) and education for those we denied education to previously. We have to acknowledge that we’ve all been lied to and been the beneficiaries of those lies, first and foremost, and admit our own on-going participation in not only racism, but also the legacy of slavery.
I didn’t cut this. Suck it up.
You defined as postcolonial industrialized peoples
Comment: My ancestors never owned slaves; that hasn’t nothing to do with me.
Comment: That was a long time ago, and I don’t know why I should apologize for things I had no control over in the past.
Comment: My relatives immigrated to this country after the Time of Greatest Oppression, so it has nothing to do with me.
What sort of amazes me is how often comments like this come from otherwise educated-seeming folks who are just letting slip their weariness with what they think is the root of the “race issue.” Oddly enough, I think most contemporary people being oppressed are at least as concerned about their daily confrontation with hatred, prejudice, and ignorance as they are with historical facts, but, you know, ymmv. The fact that someone feels that it’s acceptable to make remarks like the above points to the sort of pervasive, engrained racist we still live with today that is, in fact, one of the legacies of African slavery.
The slave trade: not just beneficial for dead white AMERICAN dudes from tons of years ago, but actually the backbone of the rapid industrialization that lead to the domination of the globe by Europeans, and later, Americans as well as a large part of why systematic racism exists in the West today.
^
^----That’s my thesis statement.
I’m going to mainly limit this to the States, because I’m American and my biggest issues with racism deal with my fellow citizens since it’s my society.
The reason why America is now postindustrial is that we were able to build an economy based on slave labor that produced raw agricultural products for industry both at home and abroad. We became a world power because of the wealth this afforded us. We followed in the footsteps of our predecessors in other currently postindustrialized societies, most importantly the UK. I always found it pretty disgusting and niggling as a youth that MPs in the Britain got all high horse about abolition of slavery prior to America following suit when they had already reaped the benefits from this practice and even if they beat us to the abolition finish line, that hardly negates the fact that they went on with de facto slavery for another century at least AND had built their empire on the backs of slaves.
Triangular Trade
Middle Passage
The slave trade reduced people to commodities. Commodities fuelled the empires. Empires fuelled further expansion and increased wealth. Increased wealth lead to capital investment in factories. Factories needed raw agricultural and other goods to make value-added goods. Slaves provided free labor to facilitate greater and greater tracts of agriculturally proficient land. This system worked to make Europe richer and richer until some colonies got tired of being the middle men and decided to reap all the benefits for themselves.
For us in this post, the operative concepts are that humans were reduced to commodities and that Europe and North America became rich because of that.
How do you make people into commodities? You dehumanize them. You come to believe they are better off enslaved than running about freely getting up to their natural inclinations. (Those inclinations could be: child sacrifice, worshipping Satan, raping white women, or many others. Take your pick.) You teach your children these values. You refuse to educate your precious commodities for fear your house of cards will implode. You do this for centuries. Eventually, these views come to be considered the Natural Order of Things. Those ingrained beliefs are built into the social structure and it's very difficult to alter the Natural Order of Things or "Just the way things are."
Yeah, yeah. We all probably learned about this in school (or maybe not, I am pretty constantly shocked by things I thought were common knowledge that turn out to not be). But what does it MEAN TODAY?
Katrina survivor's story
Institutionalized racism
It means this: if you live in a “western” or postindustrial (this means that the bulk of your work force isn’t mining and manufacturing and sewing and processing agricultural products) society today, you are most likely benefiting from the fact that the former colonial powers used slavery (both overt and covert) to build the empires that bloomed into our cultures.
Wait, but, still, what does that MEAN?
The term “privilege” gets tossed around a lot in fandom. The simple fact is that all of us with air conditioning and ample food supplies automatically are privileged in relation to the majority of humans on the planet. How did we get these wondrous amenities such as frozen pot pies and microwaves? Because our predecessors raped and pillaged the planet. We got snug homes (eventually) and security (of one form or another, and limited for some parts of society even now) because those who came before us didn’t have to PAY the people who did the majority of the work. Imagine a business where all the overhead for employees is feeding them rice once a day and replacing clothing once every two years. What good capitalist doesn’t see the benefit there?
We all benefited from slavery in most of the countries the majority of people reading this live in. Not everyone, because no sweeping generalization ever covers every yahoo in a group.
Part of the lingering benefit from slavery is white privilege. It’s the nasty part that people don’t want to really own up to. It’s easier to say “oh, you assume everyone on the internet is white, that is blindness and can be cured.” Ok.
What about getting a home loan? What about getting into college without the aspersions of “affirmative action” taint? What about living where you choose and not being stared at? What about not having to be the spokesperson for your whole race because you speak out and interact with the majority?
Unpacking white privilege
What about people saying “my ancestors moved here after the Civil War, so I had nothing to do with slavery?” Imagine talking to someone who you otherwise thought was a rational, good, amusing, sane person. Suddenly, this person is denying the concrete financial benefits the U.S. reaped through slavery and denying the existence of the racist power structure that was created because of slavery. How would you feel that they think that sort of statement is a reasonable thing to say that causes no offense? Would you be hurt? Would you be angry? Would be become radicalized?
“My ancestors didn’t own slaves. They lived in a non-slave state.” You didn't need to own slaves to benefit from slavery. All you needed to do was in live in a country that had it and not be a slave.
If you are sitting in North America or Western Europe, you have *somehow* benefited from slavery. Time to own up to that and move on to questions like, what can I do to affect change in my own life so I am no longer part of the *current* problem for the real life human beings in my community? Or like, how does the legacy of slavery still impact me and my fellow citizens today; can I be part of a solution?
Racism didn’t just spring into life in a cultural void with no explanation and without centuries of hard work put into it by people who used lies, coercion, murder, and enslavement to make their own, pathetic lives *easier.* We aren’t going to just “fix” it with equality laws (shittily enforced) and education for those we denied education to previously. We have to acknowledge that we’ve all been lied to and been the beneficiaries of those lies, first and foremost, and admit our own on-going participation in not only racism, but also the legacy of slavery.
I didn’t cut this. Suck it up.