finarfin #racist

finarfin #racist mediamatters.org

["I've read posts where this fool has actually justified slavery.]

August heat, the fact that i "justify" slavery is not wrong in itself. If i am able to properly justify slavery, then slavery has justification! You realize that the term "justification" does not have to have "good" connotations in order to be used? . It is simply justification, whether good or evil!

Slavery is justified by the fact that there was a lot of farmable land in colonial America but there were to few people to farm it. hence the bringing over of slaves. I do not think we brought them here just to be 'mean' to black people.

["He judges entire cultures."]

Is that evil or hateful? I've heard plenty of liberals judge entire cultures saying they were "agrarian," "ingenious," "artistic," "colorful," "interesting," "war-like." These are all judgments, but are they hateful?

[ "Did you read the hoodlum comment about blacks being "tribal"."]

Well, aren't they? I'm just basing this off of observation. Witnessing their stereotypically primitive, animalistic behavior i naturally come to that conclusion.

43 comments

old comment by Kat S.

"Slavery is justified by the fact that there was a lot of farmable land in colonial America but there were to few people to farm it. hence the bringing over of slaves."

That is not a justification for slavery. The reason blacks were ultimately picked was primarily the white farmers wanted free labor. They couldn't get it with the indentured servants on punishment for being poor and unemployed because they were on contract to receive land, a house, and money after the contractual agreement was done and the servant survived through. Native Americans as slaves was a bad idea since they knew the land and could simply run away and fight against their captors. Black slaves were considered ideal because they didn't have either advantages previously explained.

old comment by Lucilius

@1207697: Eh, only sort of. Racism wasn't the original driver of African enslavement. It was more of a post hoc justification. Europeans held a variety of slaves, always choosing them from an ethnic group that could be rationalized as "others," but not necessarily dark-skinned people - the very word "Slav" grew from that concept, since so many folk from the Volga crowded Mediterranean slave pens. Africa became the preferred source when other groups like the Slavs organized enough to resist; European slave traders co-opted coastal African groups to do the hard part (capture) for them. When Renaissance thinkers started debating early ideas of inherent human rights, slavers defended their fortunes with rationalizations: "They don't have our kind of rights because they're slightly less than human. They're primitive, stupid, violent, dirty, etc." As the institution grew even worse and yet more fundamental to slave economies, the excuses grew even more far-fetched - until they reached the level of repulsive absurdity displayed by finarfin and his fellow anachronisms.

old comment by Vox

I'm black and I have to agree with tmarcl. Without knowing the rest of the context and what reasons he used to "justify" slavery he was doing alright until the third part.

There is no objective measure that black people act differently than white people. He also doesn't understand what tribalism means because it doesn't mean "acting primitive" as tribes aren't necessarily any less ethical than non-tribal societies. Tribalism means to view the world as one's own ethnic or cultural "in-group" vs. everyone else. White Nationalism/White Supremacism IS a form of tribalism.

If you want to look for historical examples European colonialism and both World Wars were the ultimate modern examples of tribalism.

old comment by Vox

@YT - That cartoon makes no sense in light of the fact that black Americans pay taxes and aren't receiving free services. That means those things are being funded by black tax dollars as well as white ones. Since white Americans use those services as well that means some black dollars have been funding the upkeep of white prisoners, white Americans using healthcare and drug treatment programs, whites on welfare and food stamps, etc.

The cartoon also acts as if black people have all been jobless since the end of slavery and haven't done anything. Black labor has built the American economy alongside white labor. Aside from the trillions of dollars (in modern dollars) that slavery generated for the American economy black agricultural, industrial and service labor since then has generated trillions more. So has black consumption. African-Americans are the second-largest consumer group in the US and generate over $1 Trillion annually in consumer spending.

http://www.bizreport.com/2008/02/report_affluent_africanamericans_have_45_of_buying_power.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS218860+06-Feb-2008+PRN20080206

African-American taxes helped pay for the G.I. Bill (one of the main programs which helped build the white American middle class) at the end of WWII even though most black soldiers didn't even start benefiting from the G.I. Bill until the Vietnam War.

old comment by Lucilius

Not sure if you're referring to my previous post, Brendan; but if so, I'm not suggesting that it took Americans until the 1800s to develop racist attitudes toward slaves. The "peculiar institution" has a much longer history here. The Spanish were importing black slaves in the 16th century, after Native American slaves so inconsiderately died off by the million. Of course, the Spanish already had considerable familiarity with the enslavement of Africans, after long contact with Moorish slave traders. The first slave ship arrived at Jamestown in 1619, and even the Puritans began dealing in slaves on trading missions to the Caribbean. Interestingly, at first many Africans were treated as indentured servants alongside whites; but after a decade or so, white servants' status rose while blacks' fell - as Americans absorbed and adopted specifically racist justifications for perpetual enslavement.