I've been trying to find the right way to articulate this-- but the folks on the right have it backwards about who is driven by "white guilt" --
This impulse to cover up and distort the history of slavery reeks of shame. It's, frankly, weird. Nobody has perfect ancestors, what sort of crisis of identity leads one to lie about the past.
It's just the things that happened. You learn about them you learn from them. You do better. Don't make it so emotional and personal.
I assume you get why it's not a nice thing to say that "slavery helped black people in some ways" but I think some people miss why this particular idea is *exceptionally* racist.
One of the main arguments to justify slavery was that it "civilized" black people by making us Christian & teaching us obedience to our "betters." Black people were "lucky" or "better off" as slaves.
It assumes that when people were enslaved they had no skills, nothing to offer, that they were basically animals.
I get the feeling the original idea they wanted was "black people benefited from slavery because they became Christian." -- but, this was probably too obviously a violation of separation and racist.
Black people didn't just passively learn Christianity, btw. We re-invented it into a theology of liberation that drove the Civl Rights movement. So much synthesis and invention occurred *despite* slavery not because of it.
So much of what those people knew has been lost forever, but not all of it.
An issue I see in your posts here is that it comes across as setting up a series of strawmen, your putting words in others' mouths about what they're claiming in order to shoot down the things that they're not necessarily saying.
The arguments that you're attacking aren't the ones I've been hearing from the other side, so the stance doesn't come across as actually addressing the issue.
@volkris @futurebird she’s not though. These “arguments” are not new. They’ve been used before, and history shows damn well what they imply. Let’s not make excuses for racists now. Giving them epistemological cover is pretty intellectually dishonest, which is what you’re accusing her of.
Maybe it would be helpful for citation of specific cases where those arguments are made, so they can be addressed directly, instead of vaguely.
Again, the problem is that maybe those arguments are made or were made, but in the present case they're not the ones I've seen, hence it ends up sounding like a strawman attack.
I'd say specific citation would help set the criticism on a firmer foundation.
This is bad faith arguing. This has been documented extensively in both elite and in popular scholarship. You are trolling. You are asking for citations that the earth is round.
Stop. Also, fuck off.
The problem is that citations presented often disprove the claims being made. So the claims seem flat out factually wrong.
If a person wants to make a heated argument against something, it's a really good first step to first prove the thing that they are arguing against actually exists.
Again this is where the straw man argument comes up.
People notice when an argument is being made that just doesn't really address the reality they've seen.
It comes across as gas lighting at that point.
Sorry dude, I'm not arguing with tflat earthers. You've failed to do basic research and I'm not getting paid any money to lead your horse to water. You're not being gaslighted, you're not being dismissed, you're not being straw manned. You're denying the extraordinarily well documented experience of millions (me included) that have first had experience of slavery apologetics.
Go and learn and leave people the fuck alone.
Again, if you think this is about slavery apologetics then you really don't understand what's going on, as reported by fairly widely accepted members of the press not to mention primary sources like the officials themselves in the public record.
Simply saying this is not a straw man argument doesn't actually make it not a straw man argument.
@volkris @cadenza @futurebird
If you don't think this is about slavery apologetics then you didn't read the original OP and you're pulling fucking Gamergate bullshit by changing the subject and saying that's the real issue.