Quote:
Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls
Can you give a couple examples? I may just be oblivious to what you're trying to explain. I call my mom racist all the time, and I find her general attitude about a lot of things appalling, but typically the people like her own it and don't give a ****. They are set in their ways and apathetic, which I think is different than downplaying. If we are using different words to describe the same attitude, than sure I agree with you. Not trying to make this semantic.
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I'm not sure I understand your comments about your mother in the context of this conversation. I'm talking about the way our history of slavery is often discussed in this country. Here are a few examples that come to mind:
"You know, there were white indentured servants back then too." Indentured servants may have lived hardscrabble lives, but they weren't even remotely comparable to slaves. They weren't systematically broken and tortured like slaves were. They couldn't just be murdered with no consequence for their killer. They also chose indentured servitude and were free once they met the terms of their contract.
"It was so long ago, people just need to get over it." There were people born into slavery still alive in this country until at least the 1970s. We really aren't as far removed from that era as people like to think.
"They were better off here than they would have been in Africa." Hopefully I don't need to even elaborate on all the problems with this one.
"Their own people sold them into slavery." One of the times I heard this crap was right here on MB. People love to drop this one like its some revelatory piece of info that nobody's ever heard before, which somehow absolves American history for the crime of the slave trade. It doesn't. And of course it's also not true so that's another issue with it.
"They got free room and board, life wasn't so bad." Ignoring, of course, the fact that they were property who could be abused and disposed of just like any other piece of property.
Here's a specific example of a celebrity engaging in this one.