10 ms·

Genghis Khan died 800 years ago. The last American to have born into slavery died in the ~1970s~ 1960s.

0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg
- ModernMech 12d ago
  It's recent enough that people living today knew former slaves. That's not ancient history at all, so I think the comparison is not good. I'm sure Brazil also has to deal with fallout of their practices, but I don't see how it changes how the fallout of US slavery impacts the US.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
    >It's recent enough that people living today knew a slave. Slavery ended in 1865. That's 161 years ago. So maybe there are a few modern 80-year-olds who interacted with 80-year-old former slaves when the modern 80-year-olds were infants. Those 80-year-old former slaves would themselves have no memory of slavery since it would've ended before they could form memories. And the modern 80-year-olds would have no memory of the interaction, since they themselves were infants when the interaction happened. In other words: There aren't very many of these people, and it's unclear if most of them would count. You know something which happened more recently in the US than slavery? Prohibition. A trendy, self-righteous moral crusade which didn't accomplish what it set out to achieve, and ended up creating a bunch of problems instead. I think Prohibition is a pretty good template for understanding the form and tendencies of modern left-wing activist movements. But--at least reducing alcoholism was a good cause that we had a shot at doing something about! Short of inventing a time machine, crusading against slavery from centuries ago seems rather pointless. That's not a problem for activists whose primary goal is to be trendy and self-righteous, of course.
    - ModernMech 12d ago
      That's not the point, it's that people who were slaves died in a time when color TVs existed. This woman died in 1964! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper That's not long enough ago to call it ancient history.
      - bluGill 11d ago
        Someone who died in 1964 was technically a slave, but not yet old enough to function as a slave. Real slaves were mostly dead by 1940, the few who remained are outliers
        ModernMech 10d ago
        Babies being born into slavery served the slave system just as much as grown men slaving in a field. Slave was a legal status in a system, not a job title. A baby born into slavery is a real slave, not a fake slave. Either George, who enslaved her mother, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, who enslaved her older brothers, Rufus and Andrew,[3] was probably Anna's father So Anna came into existence because her mother was raped by a man who legally owned her as property. And that was recent enough that Anna lived to witness Gilligan’s Island. Moreover, she was still a slave until she was six and served her masters as a domestic house servant. When you were six you were probably being educated to read and write and do math. You guys are so quick with your “well ackshually” that you’re missing the point which is very simple and has been restated by other posters.
    - antonvs 12d ago
      [flagged]
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
        [dead]
  - hackernud3s 12d ago
    I think you need to check the math on that. Knew a former slave maybe?
    - ModernMech 12d ago
      Yes right indeed, edited.
  - budman1 11d ago
    I don't know any former slaves. I don't know anyone that has spoken to a former slave. And most people of color in the US's ancestors were not slaves in the US south. They came as immigrants from other countries. The issue is not slavery. It might be racism. But it is not "I can't have slaves anymore"
    - ModernMech 11d ago
      It really doesn't matter what you personally know, that's not the point.
    - anon84873628 11d ago
      A full 76 of current serving US Senators were born before the passing of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which officially ended segregation and the Jim Crow era). That certainly means it's recent to me. My own parents (both still alive) grew up while "separate but equal" was still law of the land. So, yes, it's definitely racism. Or shall we say, the lasting imprint of slavery and the Confederate ideology more generally. Reconstruction failed and therefore allowed the Confederate ideology to persist for 100 years of Jim Crow and right on into today.
- otterley 12d ago
  What’s your angle here, exactly? I don’t get it.
  - creato 12d ago
    That the issue of slavery has weak explanatory power for what is happening today.
    - otterley 12d ago
      I didn’t ask you. But since you chose to get involved: do you believe there is no lasting impact or consequences resulting from slavery in the USA?
      - WalterBright 12d ago
        Pretty much everything that has happened in the past has consequences today. It's the butterfly effect. Slavery has existed as far back as history. The idea that people are created equal, and are equal under the law, is very, very new, and that idea has resulted in a great many positive things happening.
    - anon84873628 11d ago
      You should check out this podcast episode with two historians, tracing the influence of the Confederacy ideology all the way to the current Supreme Court: https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
    I'm anti-Trump. If you tell people "Trump is a corrupt asshole", that has a chance at convincing supporters to abandon him. If you tell people "the US needs a cultural revolution due to events from past centuries", that's what got him elected in the first place. A good general wouldn't voluntarily shift the battleground to a region where their troops are weak. Political persuasion is no different. The Democratic Party keeps losing because they cling to unpopular positions on cultural issues. If Trump is as bad as you say, prove it to me by showing willingness to strategically cede ground on a few issues in order to win more voters.
- tw04 12d ago
  And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?
  - Der_Einzige 12d ago
    De facto there’s hardly rule of law there so if you piss off the wrong people yes.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
    "Around the world, at least eleven million people are imprisoned, either pre-trial or following conviction. Most sentenced prisoners will work while in custody... ... Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work—sometimes for no pay, but typically for very low rates of pay. There are, even so, multiple potential benefits to prison work. For example, ICPR’s recent research indicated that prisoners who could not work (when prison regimes around the world were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic) reported many negative consequences, including to their mental and physical wellbeing. At the minimum, work may mitigate some harmful impacts of imprisonment. At best, it may increase prisoners’ prospects of successful reintegration into society, potentially also benefitting society by reducing recidivism." https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/labouring_behind_bars.pdf https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publicatio... (emphasis mine) Here's a photo from a Brazilian prison from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmateswork.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmat...
    - tw04 12d ago
      The question isn’t whether prisoners work in other countries which I’m confident you know and dodged. The question is whether the prisons in Brazil are private, and are allowed to sell prison labor FOR A PROFIT, incentivizing both greater incarceration rates, and disincentivizing release. The answer is no, I’m not aware of ANY other country that allows a private organization to profit off the labor if people imprisoned by the state. At least not any country we would consider 1st world. It’s absolutely absurd to suggest the current situation is beneficial to anyone but the ruling class and anyone claiming otherwise has never been to prison, never had a relative or friend who has been to prison, or is literally a psychopath who lacks basic human empathy.
- anon84873628 11d ago
  I don't think you can say "long dead" until no one who met them is still alive. We have 6 serving Senators over the age of 80, meaning they were born in the 40s or earlier. We have a total of 76 serving Senators who were born before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed...

The 1970s were 50 years ago. "Long dead", in other words. Did you know that Brazil didn't abolish until 1888? They also imported far more than the US: https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg https://www.slavevoyages.org/static/uploads/01.jpg

ModernMech 12d ago
It's recent enough that people living today knew former slaves. That's not ancient history at all, so I think the comparison is not good. I'm sure Brazil also has to deal with fallout of their practices, but I don't see how it changes how the fallout of US slavery impacts the US.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
  >It's recent enough that people living today knew a slave. Slavery ended in 1865. That's 161 years ago. So maybe there are a few modern 80-year-olds who interacted with 80-year-old former slaves when the modern 80-year-olds were infants. Those 80-year-old former slaves would themselves have no memory of slavery since it would've ended before they could form memories. And the modern 80-year-olds would have no memory of the interaction, since they themselves were infants when the interaction happened. In other words: There aren't very many of these people, and it's unclear if most of them would count. You know something which happened more recently in the US than slavery? Prohibition. A trendy, self-righteous moral crusade which didn't accomplish what it set out to achieve, and ended up creating a bunch of problems instead. I think Prohibition is a pretty good template for understanding the form and tendencies of modern left-wing activist movements. But--at least reducing alcoholism was a good cause that we had a shot at doing something about! Short of inventing a time machine, crusading against slavery from centuries ago seems rather pointless. That's not a problem for activists whose primary goal is to be trendy and self-righteous, of course.
  - ModernMech 12d ago
    That's not the point, it's that people who were slaves died in a time when color TVs existed. This woman died in 1964! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper That's not long enough ago to call it ancient history.
    - bluGill 11d ago
      Someone who died in 1964 was technically a slave, but not yet old enough to function as a slave. Real slaves were mostly dead by 1940, the few who remained are outliers
      - ModernMech 10d ago
        Babies being born into slavery served the slave system just as much as grown men slaving in a field. Slave was a legal status in a system, not a job title. A baby born into slavery is a real slave, not a fake slave. Either George, who enslaved her mother, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, who enslaved her older brothers, Rufus and Andrew,[3] was probably Anna's father So Anna came into existence because her mother was raped by a man who legally owned her as property. And that was recent enough that Anna lived to witness Gilligan’s Island. Moreover, she was still a slave until she was six and served her masters as a domestic house servant. When you were six you were probably being educated to read and write and do math. You guys are so quick with your “well ackshually” that you’re missing the point which is very simple and has been restated by other posters.
  - antonvs 12d ago
    [flagged]
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
      [dead]
- hackernud3s 12d ago
  I think you need to check the math on that. Knew a former slave maybe?
  - ModernMech 12d ago
    Yes right indeed, edited.
- budman1 11d ago
  I don't know any former slaves. I don't know anyone that has spoken to a former slave. And most people of color in the US's ancestors were not slaves in the US south. They came as immigrants from other countries. The issue is not slavery. It might be racism. But it is not "I can't have slaves anymore"
  - ModernMech 11d ago
    It really doesn't matter what you personally know, that's not the point.
  - anon84873628 11d ago
    A full 76 of current serving US Senators were born before the passing of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which officially ended segregation and the Jim Crow era). That certainly means it's recent to me. My own parents (both still alive) grew up while "separate but equal" was still law of the land. So, yes, it's definitely racism. Or shall we say, the lasting imprint of slavery and the Confederate ideology more generally. Reconstruction failed and therefore allowed the Confederate ideology to persist for 100 years of Jim Crow and right on into today.
otterley 12d ago
What’s your angle here, exactly? I don’t get it.
- creato 12d ago
  That the issue of slavery has weak explanatory power for what is happening today.
  - otterley 12d ago
    I didn’t ask you. But since you chose to get involved: do you believe there is no lasting impact or consequences resulting from slavery in the USA?
    - WalterBright 12d ago
      Pretty much everything that has happened in the past has consequences today. It's the butterfly effect. Slavery has existed as far back as history. The idea that people are created equal, and are equal under the law, is very, very new, and that idea has resulted in a great many positive things happening.
  - anon84873628 11d ago
    You should check out this podcast episode with two historians, tracing the influence of the Confederacy ideology all the way to the current Supreme Court: https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu https://youtu.be/1i2VuPACBbU?si=8jv8XrRTLHJ9hHTu
- 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
  I'm anti-Trump. If you tell people "Trump is a corrupt asshole", that has a chance at convincing supporters to abandon him. If you tell people "the US needs a cultural revolution due to events from past centuries", that's what got him elected in the first place. A good general wouldn't voluntarily shift the battleground to a region where their troops are weak. Political persuasion is no different. The Democratic Party keeps losing because they cling to unpopular positions on cultural issues. If Trump is as bad as you say, prove it to me by showing willingness to strategically cede ground on a few issues in order to win more voters.
tw04 12d ago
And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?
- Der_Einzige 12d ago
  De facto there’s hardly rule of law there so if you piss off the wrong people yes.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 12d ago
  "Around the world, at least eleven million people are imprisoned, either pre-trial or following conviction. Most sentenced prisoners will work while in custody... ... Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work—sometimes for no pay, but typically for very low rates of pay. There are, even so, multiple potential benefits to prison work. For example, ICPR’s recent research indicated that prisoners who could not work (when prison regimes around the world were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic) reported many negative consequences, including to their mental and physical wellbeing. At the minimum, work may mitigate some harmful impacts of imprisonment. At best, it may increase prisoners’ prospects of successful reintegration into society, potentially also benefitting society by reducing recidivism." https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/labouring_behind_bars.pdf https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publicatio... (emphasis mine) Here's a photo from a Brazilian prison from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmateswork.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmat...
  - tw04 12d ago
    The question isn’t whether prisoners work in other countries which I’m confident you know and dodged. The question is whether the prisons in Brazil are private, and are allowed to sell prison labor FOR A PROFIT, incentivizing both greater incarceration rates, and disincentivizing release. The answer is no, I’m not aware of ANY other country that allows a private organization to profit off the labor if people imprisoned by the state. At least not any country we would consider 1st world. It’s absolutely absurd to suggest the current situation is beneficial to anyone but the ruling class and anyone claiming otherwise has never been to prison, never had a relative or friend who has been to prison, or is literally a psychopath who lacks basic human empathy.
anon84873628 11d ago
I don't think you can say "long dead" until no one who met them is still alive. We have 6 serving Senators over the age of 80, meaning they were born in the 40s or earlier. We have a total of 76 serving Senators who were born before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed...