Slavery Rampant in Africa, Middle East; The West Wrongly Accuses Itself

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This thread is like punching somebody in the jaw and saying, "Just be glad I didn’t hit you in the head with a baseball bat. People in other countries are victims of that . . . "
1Lord1Faith said:
Real slave traders and racists – those who believe Western societies and values should not exist at all – most likely look at the current Western self-flagellation and cheer their approval.
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Excuse me, is this seriously the new criteria for non-racism now? “Hey, I don’t trade slaves or send death threats to religious minorities. So there’s no way I can be racist!”

Are we really setting the bar for racism that low? . . . . Really?
 
Mister_Friscus said:
When we speak out against unproven, theorized, politically expedient claims of racism more than actual racism elsewhere, it reveals one as somewhat of a fraud.
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Except that we are not. The level of evidence of systemic racism in this country is such that it would meet the standard of proof in civil court. What reads as fraudulent is attempting to pretend racism is a problem of a few individuals. When those individuals are in positions of power, it takes a concerted effort to make a change
Mister_Friscus said:
If you convince groups they are being mistreated as bad as or worse than true slaves, it’s disrespectful to the slaves, and warps the perspective of the convinced.
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So, as long as they’re not legally enslaved, we just need to change their perspective about the actual mistreatment they receive at the hands of law enforcement and the courts? That certainly one way of approaching it – but it reads a lot more like a propaganda campaign than anything resembling a search for truth or justice.
 
Well, to make an analogy, we Americans are the 1% of the world as far as living conditions, average income, etc. Even our “poor” live like kings compared to most of the world.

So, in America’s 1%, you have the billionaires on top, and the low end millionaires on the bottom. I’m sure there are ways, from their perspective, that the low-end millionaires think that the billionaires hold them down, aren’t fair to them. However, the rest of us working class quite honestly don’t want to hear it, and don’t buy the “whoa is me” from them… nor should we.

The same goes here.

You simply want to cut off the graph, like the statistical activists do to make diagonal lines longer and more steep to exaggerate claims and further their narrative. The truthful way to present the story is to provide people with the entire perspective, and let them decide on their own.

The entire perspective says that while not everything is perfect, America is the best place in the world for black people to live. You’d never know it by the media dogma and activists… but name a place where so many have risen to such heights and positions of power. The opportunities are clearly there.
 
Well, if you’re going to say that “those individuals in positions of power” are racist, you have to prove that. Feel free to attempt to do so, and I don’t want what you personally interpret… that’s a big claim. Prove the racism.

If laws are proven to be discriminatory, I’m all for looking at them. The problem is, the mainstream claims by this movement aren’t referring to what you are. They’re talking about how cops are actively out murdering unarmed innocent black people around every street corner. Words like “extermination” are used. The stats don’t back that up. 10-15 unarmed blacks are killed per year out of 30,000,000. Can we agree this is reckless to put so much fear into a race when the numbers prove such claims are astronomically incorrect?

Why are we out convincing black Americans that each and every one of their lives are in danger from police when statistically it’s such a rare occurrence? Do we convince people not to drive because it’s so dangerous? 80 people die per day in automobile accidents, many from drunk driving. Do we constantly warn people of not going outside on cloudy days because people get struck by lightning? No, that’s silly, because statistically it almost never happens, just like with cops killing unarmed, peaceful innocents in general, much less blacks. It’s a tragedy every time it happens, but if you’re going to cling to a fallacy that “one is too many”, well, we need to go back to living in caves, because nearly everything in your house, and everything in our world kills someone.

I suppose the choice is yours. I simply accept that rare tragedies do happen. I don’t stand over them and exaggerate them in order to lecture others.
 
Mister_Friscus said:
Why are we out convincing black Americans that each and every one of their lives are in danger from police when statistically it’s such a rare occurrence? Do we convince people not to drive because it’s so dangerous? 80 people die per day in automobile accidents, many from drunk driving. Do we constantly warn people of not going outside on cloudy days because people get struck by lightning? No, that’s silly, because statistically it almost never happens, just like with cops killing unarmed, peaceful innocents in general, much less blacks. It’s a tragedy every time it happens, but if you’re going to cling to a fallacy that “one is too many”, well, we need to go back to living in caves, because nearly everything in your house, and everything in our world kills someone.
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We are doing that because the far left needs blacks to be angry at whites.
 
This seems awfully defensive to me. What folks should know is that the African slave trade (which lasted some 300 years) was greatly fomented by Europeans and vastly dwarfed any other occasion of slavery in world history.

And it is over.
 
JulianN said:
Except that we are not. The level of evidence of systemic racism in this country is such that it would meet the standard of proof in civil court. What reads as fraudulent is attempting to pretend racism is a problem of a few individuals. When those individuals are in positions of power, it takes a concerted effort to make a change
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What “system” is racist? Which powerful person is racist?
 
Yes, the slave trade is thankfully over.

What isn’t taught and what perspective isn’t introduced is that slavery is not uniquely an American evil. It’s ridiculous to even have to clarify that. Even in the African slave trade, blacks captured other blacks to sell. Slavery has existed in all races, cultures, and ethnicities. Slavery was already rampant in Africa AND in North America among Native American tribes before and during America. That’s sadly not taught by leftist college seminaries, for obvious reasons given their political activism.

We’re made to think only white people and Americans could be so cruel, and that Africans and Natives were peaceful united people. That’s incredibly incorrect. Both civilizations were savage and brutal, and western civilization thankfully brought greater morals and ethics to the world. Hell, Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in 1962.

It’s a good thing western civilization exists… isn’t it!
 
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Mister_Friscus said:
Even in the African slave trade, blacks captured other blacks to sell. Slavery was already rampant in Africa AND in North America among Native American tribes.
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Yes and no. Actually in the African slave trade it was more Arabs trading in slaves than equatorial Africans enslaving other Africans. Slavery among Native Americans was more war booty than anything else. The African slave trad moved millions of people to the Americas in a system where the lives were certainly cheap. It was organized and made into an economic force by Europeans; that is inescapable. Folks now try to explain that away but it cannot be done.

But slavery , at least in the US, is less than half the story. The systemic racial discrimination which festered in America for more than 200 years is what must be understood.
 
Oh there’s been plenty of racial discrimination… most of it from programs like the New Deal that set blacks back for decades. Nobody denies the history… the question becomes, what do we do about it?

Are we seeking equality for all humans? Or are we immorally seeking equality of outcome to make ourselves feel good? The only way you get equality is to treat people equally. Once you start segregating and supporting tribalist thought and policy, people become divided down race lines. Once one points fingers at an entire race as inherently evil and having racism in their DNA… you become racist, as you view a race as being morally inferior to others.

So are you for or against reparations?
 
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Mister_Friscus said:
Nobody denies the history…
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Many researchers and authorities deny your partisan theory. Consider the black Georgia police retirees: Do we make them equal to everyone else by NOW treating them equally while their retirement pay for the rest of their lives will be less than that of majority workers who did the same work? Your logic is specious.
 
So what do we do about it:

A. Reparations
B. Racist policy to “even things out”
C. Lip service

Which are you proposing?
 
You’re correct in part - I say “in part” because slaves are still sold in many Muslim areas.

Slavery in 21st-century jihadism - Wikipedia

BTW, there’s no such thing as “systemic racism” in the US, unless you count affirmative action, i.e., giving preferences to minorities based on race rather than merit.
 
The thesis of this thread appears to be that America should not “accuse” itself regarding its past slavery and current problems with racism because there are others who were / are worse. But that thesis is inconsistent with Catholic theology.
And why seest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye: but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypocrite, cast first the beam out of thy own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother’s eye.
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Luke 6:41-42.

We absolutely should be pointing out our own problems and fixing them. Refusing to fix racist problems here because someone else is worse somewhere else is un-Christian.
 
Theologically, I think you’re correct. In fact, I think your post is actually very insightful.

However, the argument is, “I don’t have anything in my eye that needs removing.” As to that, 1) I agree and 2) even if there’s some speck in my eye, it’s very small and over-focusing on it at the expense of a real plank elsewhere is intellectually dishonest, since it would be genuinely better for people to collaborate to remove the plank than to badger me about a tiny speck in my eye.
 
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Nepperhan said:
This seems awfully defensive to me. What folks should know is that the African slave trade (which lasted some 300 years) was greatly fomented by Europeans and vastly dwarfed any other occasion of slavery in world history
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This isn’t true. Muslims and Asians had way more slaves.
 
JulianN said:
Being “better” than Tehran in how we treat the less powerful members of our society is setting a pretty low bar.
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I agree with that, but being way better then almost everyone else and then embarking on a process of destroying the foundations of what makes us better than everyone else is criminal.
Remember the old addage: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
 
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