Title shortened from "Shocking Photos of Escaped Slave Gordon Showing His Scarred Back at a Medical Examination, Louisiana, 1863"
mistrial9 712 days ago [-]
let's talk about 1000 years of Central European slavery, indentured military conscripts, and Middle East markets. Why not? unless you have a specific, current political villification purpose with specifically chosen awful examples, which history is very full of..
My ancestors fought and died to end slavery in the USA.
edit these pictures are upsetting to me. Modern politics is full of emotional drivers chosen for a response, as has been noted here and elsewhere about "outrage clicks" .. this difficult, true history, out of context, appears to be an "outrage driver" why? to fix wrongs from 160 years ago? or to advance a topic of discussion today..
As an urban dweller in a Blue state, I get sideways accosted by accusations of racism, personally, because of my skin color, pretty regularly.. as the social situation is more difficult recently, this has happened less, but with more intensity. I am defensive about this, and these are my opinions here.
alphabettsy 712 days ago [-]
> As an urban dweller in a Blue state, I get sideways accosted by accusations of racism, personally, because of my skin color, pretty regularly..
Just basing my opinion on your comment here. I doubt it’s solely because of your skin color.
You can’t even handle a post with no apparent agenda about the slavery of Africans in America without a rant.
So either this comment is a bad day or it’s indicative of your real life reactions, responses maybe even just body language and microaggressions that generate the responses you’ve received.
mistrial9 712 days ago [-]
ok - I was walking my dog around the urban block in a city you have heard of, past some low-income apartments, and a three or four year old boy walks out of the door and says in loud voice "f* you white boy" .. I was upset by this, since my parents went to great lengths to teach us that racist name calling is always wrong. I did nothing to those people in that apartment.
So how did I handle it? I walked away.. much later, more than a month, a old African American man was walking and appeared to be headed into that apartment complex, in the daytime. I stopped him and told him just about exactly what I just said to you. I pointed to the door the boy came from.. he nodded knowingly, as if it was not a complete shock. He looked me in the eye and said he would try to have a word with them. I have never approached that place, and few people know this story.
edit: your sig says you live "Remote SWE in Midwest US" and you "doubt" my story ?
alphabettsy 712 days ago [-]
First, I don’t believe I stated in anyway that I doubt your story. I said that I don’t believe it’s out of nowhere as you implied in the multiple encounters.
> a three or four year old boy walks out of the door and says in loud voice "f* you white boy" .. I was upset by this, since my parents went to great lengths to teach us that racist name calling is always wrong. I did nothing to those people in that apartment.
> a three or four year old boy
This can’t possibly be the example that you’re referring to. Do you have an example of what you actually stated in your comment? Where someone just called you a racist out of the blue for no reason?
You’ll get no debate from me against the idea that all people, including Black people, can be racially discriminatory.
mistrial9 712 days ago [-]
ok - I was riding my bicycle in the University town where I am typing now. Broad daylight, in the summer.. urban houses. One house is vacant, and has been for years. There are dry leaves and the house is wooden, a giant old tree is in the center of the front yard that drop leaves often. The stairs and porch are painted wood but years old, from neglect. An apparently-homeless black woman had her urban homeless baggage with her, on the steps, and she was smoking a cigarette and talking to herself. We have had fires here, more on the way. I stopped and said "Hey, cigarattes? that is super dangerous. Can you please not smoke cigarettes there?" big, dismissive, mildly cursing no.. So I repeated, "really, its really not OK to smoke there. There are things all around you that can catch fire" .. BIG, resentful, harsh retaliation including "you are a racist!" etc
No movement, no accomodation.. I rode my bike fifty feet, found a neighbor and pointed it out. The middle aged woman neighbor made a bad face, and was completely unhappy about this, as I was.
mixmastamyk 712 days ago [-]
I find when folks react this way they typically have spent a lot of time in front of the television and/or more recently twitter. They definitely promote this type of constant crisis mentality.
foogazi 712 days ago [-]
I fail to understand what your ancestors and what they did has to do with you today
Why make this about yourself and your feelings?
number6 712 days ago [-]
This argument cuts both ways
foogazi 711 days ago [-]
It sure does
greymalik 712 days ago [-]
I’m missing where in this thread or in the linked article that someone is blaming you or your ancestors for anything. Can you point it out to me please?
schleck8 712 days ago [-]
Unbelievable how someone can be this cruel
cglee 712 days ago [-]
For me it's not shocking that any one person can be this cruel. What's difficult to process is how entire social structures and institutions can be this cruel.
steve_adams_86 712 days ago [-]
Agreed. People do cruel things all the time.
But how was this perpetrated broadly by multiple societies?
I try to remind myself that the part of humans that makes this possible is in all of us. I don’t think it’s anything special – there needs to be constant vigilance to ensure we don’t allow things like this over and over.
It could be illogical, but it seems true to me if this can occur for generations at such broad scale. It’s a feature of humanity, and to an unknown degree even me as a result.
wittycardio 712 days ago [-]
Societies are commonly cruel without knowing it. Even modern Western society which ostensibly tries to minimise cruelty depends heavily on animal cruelty and horrific work conditions in the third world. Individual people being truly horrible is rarer
trh0awayman 712 days ago [-]
We'll look back on homelessness the same way in 100 years
My ancestors fought and died to end slavery in the USA.
edit these pictures are upsetting to me. Modern politics is full of emotional drivers chosen for a response, as has been noted here and elsewhere about "outrage clicks" .. this difficult, true history, out of context, appears to be an "outrage driver" why? to fix wrongs from 160 years ago? or to advance a topic of discussion today..
As an urban dweller in a Blue state, I get sideways accosted by accusations of racism, personally, because of my skin color, pretty regularly.. as the social situation is more difficult recently, this has happened less, but with more intensity. I am defensive about this, and these are my opinions here.
Just basing my opinion on your comment here. I doubt it’s solely because of your skin color.
You can’t even handle a post with no apparent agenda about the slavery of Africans in America without a rant.
So either this comment is a bad day or it’s indicative of your real life reactions, responses maybe even just body language and microaggressions that generate the responses you’ve received.
So how did I handle it? I walked away.. much later, more than a month, a old African American man was walking and appeared to be headed into that apartment complex, in the daytime. I stopped him and told him just about exactly what I just said to you. I pointed to the door the boy came from.. he nodded knowingly, as if it was not a complete shock. He looked me in the eye and said he would try to have a word with them. I have never approached that place, and few people know this story.
edit: your sig says you live "Remote SWE in Midwest US" and you "doubt" my story ?
> a three or four year old boy walks out of the door and says in loud voice "f* you white boy" .. I was upset by this, since my parents went to great lengths to teach us that racist name calling is always wrong. I did nothing to those people in that apartment.
> a three or four year old boy
This can’t possibly be the example that you’re referring to. Do you have an example of what you actually stated in your comment? Where someone just called you a racist out of the blue for no reason?
You’ll get no debate from me against the idea that all people, including Black people, can be racially discriminatory.
Why make this about yourself and your feelings?
But how was this perpetrated broadly by multiple societies?
I try to remind myself that the part of humans that makes this possible is in all of us. I don’t think it’s anything special – there needs to be constant vigilance to ensure we don’t allow things like this over and over.
It could be illogical, but it seems true to me if this can occur for generations at such broad scale. It’s a feature of humanity, and to an unknown degree even me as a result.