| "It's The White Guys Fault" -- Part 2 Slavery |
by Bill Zettler |
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From the Desk of Bill Zettler *
In Part 1 of this series ("It's The White Guys Fault"), I discussed how the media and the Left automatically assign blame to white guys. In this article, I will review the media's obsession with slavery as strictly a white-guy issue.
Historically speaking, there are such "blame the white guy" items as the "Slavery Reparations" issue. The theory is since America (meaning European white guys) allowed slavery, they should have to pay -- and pay big. Ignore the fact that a white president wrote the Emancipation Proclamation and white guys by the 100's of thousands died in the Civil War to free the slaves. And since 90% of U.S. immigration took place after 1860, the overwhelming majority of Americans living now are descendents of people who were not even in America at the time of the Civil War and, therefore, could not have been slaveholders. So what you end up with is just another political extortion plot. The reparation seekers -- and they are a small minority -- are asking: How much can we get if we support certain politicians?
How about the Williamsburg Historical site renouncing the "invasion" of America by white Europeans into a country of civilized people (American Indians) living in peace and harmony with each other. The Indians, of course, were the first slaveholders in North America and slavery was not only common with Indians, it was a way of life.
"The Cherokee, the Creek, the Seminoles, Choctaw, and Chickasaw owned slaves. One reason they did this was purely economical. Some Indian groups had large, profitable Southern plantations and needed labor." Yarbrough (2005).
No different than the white guys, just as abhorrent, but only less profitable. Unfortunately, the white slave owners were just better businessmen when it came to slavery than the Red slave owners. The sad point is both owned slaves.
Interestingly, the Cherokee Nation voted on March 3, 2007 by special election to amend their Constitution to exclude non-blood descendents of freed slaves and intermarried whites from the tribes. The amendment was overwhelmingly approved by a vote of 6,693 (77%) to 2,040 (23%). Doesn't sound like any reparations will be coming from the "civilized" Cherokees.
In the fourth century B.C. the Greeks had approximately 20 slaves per citizen. Since Alexander conquered most of the known world in the 4th century B.C., one has to wonder how many of us are descendents of Greek slaves? Easily a billion people, right? Unfortunately, Greece is a relatively poor country, but with a good lawyer maybe we could pick up five bucks apiece. Oh, wait, we have to pay the lawyers, so maybe three bucks.
And let us not forget slavery in Africa, which is still occurring today. In the West African nation of Mauritania, between eighty and ninety thousand human beings are owned outright by other people and the Sudan Muslim chattel slaves number in the tens of thousands, many of them Christian children.
And who was it that brought the slaves from the African interior to the white European ships on the coasts? It was Africans, of course, who have a history of slavery at least as old as Europe, Rome and all the other white guys. It is certainly true that some of the Africans captured and taken to the ships were slave owners themselves before they were captured.
The Chinese had slaves from 200 B.C. up until the 20th century. Asian Indian slaves were authorized in original Sanskrit law. In 1841, a British census of India showed eight million slaves. The British (the white guys) abolished Indian slavery shortly afterward.
The point is every racial group has historical slavery in his or her background somewhere; it was never a white guy monopoly. When Africans pay reparations for their historical slavery and American Indians pay reparations for theirs, and the Chinese pay reparations for theirs, and Asian Indians pay reparations for theirs, and Arabs pay reparations for theirs, and Greeks pay reparations for theirs then Americans should pay reparations for theirs.
Let's agree with Samuel Coleridge who said, "Slavery is an absolute subversion of all morality," but accept the fact that each of our histories is most certainly tainted with slavery. The point is not to absolve white Europeans and Americans of their part in slavery, it is to insist that every other ethnic group also accept their responsibility. Anything else is utter hypocrisy.
Let's agree with Samuel Coleridge who said, "Slavery is an absolute subversion of all morality," but accept the fact that each of our histories is most certainly tainted with slavery. The point is not to absolve white Europeans and Americans of their part in slavery, it is to insist that every other ethnic group also accept their responsibility. Anything else is utter hypocrisy.
Slicing and dicing history to determine who was the worst "slaver" is a waste of time and energy. Instead, let's spend our energy fighting today's "subversion of all morality" in places such as Mauritania and the Sudan.
Most importantly, let us all be slaves to the truth.
NOTE: Future issues of “It’s The White Guys Fault” series include Part 3 Colonialism and Part 4 Africa’s Problems.
Copyright 2007 Bill Zettler / RFFM.org
* The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of RFFM.org's management.
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