Do u believe that Kanye West is a racist ? 🤔 ⚖️ ⚖️ ⚖️

@deadgerbil That in itself is a reflection of our society.

@deadgerbil I think it was a stupid way of saying that Europeans and Jewish slave traders bought black slaves from black slave traders who owned other black people.

@pianoplayingsteve perhaps. But if he actually articulated that perspective, it would still be ignorant, as Americans kept the brutal institution of slavery going, well after the slave trade from Africa was outlawed. Them buying slaves from Africans previously is no valid excuse to downplay the effects of slavery.

@deadgerbil ‘Americans kept the brutal institution of slavery going’ so every day Americans and America as a whole? Your average American didn’t actually like the slave trade, as it reduced their job prospects as big businesses owners could just have their slaves work for free for a one time payment to their previous owner, as opposed to paying constant wages to free Americans

@pianoplayingsteve Americans, as in the elites of society, big business, people in gov, etc whose decisions define what America is all about. The Americans who stood to gain from cheap slave labor as opposed to paying poor people to do the work.

Yes, the average Joe didn't have a slave and was harmed economically even their jobs were replaced by very cheap slave labor. This is a key theme in Bacon's rebellion, where poor whites, indentured servants, black slaves, etc came together and protested. Unfortunately, their united protest was divided when the ruling class gave poor whites more rights etc than black people, causing division in a previously united group, bc ultimately, the average person is looking out for themselves and their group more than they are for a different person.

A problem with the "black people sold black people" argument is that it is used to make excuses for what America did to black people, trying to cheapen their experience and systemic discrimination, as well as absolving America from wrong doing.

@deadgerbil ‘Unfortunately, their united protest was divided when the ruling class gave poor whites more rights etc than black people’ hmm I see similarities to today with the elite telling groups that other groups have more privilege etc to prevent unification against them

@pianoplayingsteve yes, bc the reality is that suffering transcends racial lines. There are degrees to suffering though due to how the ruling class treats different groups, in their attempt to stoke division amongst the poor. If we're talking about privilege, like white privilege, whites had that privilege of not being forced into slavery on a systemic scale. They still had their own sufferings though, but they had more rights than blacks and natives. Some people take it too far and try to say that whites didn't have it bad.

@deadgerbil “If we're talking about privilege, like white privilege, whites had that privilege of not being forced into slavery on a systemic scale.” The largest slave trade in history was carried out against Europeans by the Islamic Ottomon empire, enslaving literally millions of Europeans at its height

@pianoplayingsteve we're talking about the context of America and how poor people here were treated, so what I said is accurate if you're actually going to stick with the context of the convo.

Expanding it to include the ottoman empire and its history, I hope that no one would try to cheapen the experiences of the white people who found themselves enslaved, as people try to do with black people in the US. Or just like how, despite ruling empires globally, Christianity found itself fighting for its existence in the Roman colosseum and catacombs. No one should use Christianity's later prominence to detract from what martyrs went through

@deadgerbil you never said it was restricted to America, you just said ‘whites’. Whites exist outside of present day America. I’m sorry if I misunderstood you.
I’m glad however, you don’t take the fairly tale narrative of ‘muh crusades were evil’ to push the beyond ignorant idea that Christians and white people were oppressors wherever they went and no one else ever did anything wrong. So I respect you for that

@pianoplayingsteve it's pretty much implied that I'm talking about American history, from my first comment to you about "Americans" as well as my subsequent comments.

And yes, plenty of other groups did plenty wrong. People talk about Hitler and his crimes, but one doesn't hear as much about imperial Japan and how they were just as terrible, so there is a bias present.

@deadgerbil But you also cannot forget about institutionalized and systematic .or systemic racism that exists today. Not to mention segregation.

@Zonuss yeah, I didn't touch on it but the legacy of slavery is a big one. Jim crow, separate but equal etc.

Whites had it bad too but blacks were at the bottom of the barrel along with natives, and the enduring legacies of these systemic discriminations make their degrees of suffering worse than the average experience of a poor white in America

@deadgerbil yes, we were discussing America, however the term ‘white privilege’ is a specific stand alone idea and is applied to white people regardless of nationality and so my criticism of the term was based on that application of the term. I wasn’t intending to twist what you said :)

And indeed. People criticise just Hitler and ignore, for example, the genocidal Bolshevik state next door that helped create the conditions for Hitlers rise, because the idea of Hitler being the ultimate evil is part of the foundational mythos of the 20th century. There is bias because people are more interested in presenting history in a way that fits that narrative, than in a more complicated, accurate way that would point to the fact that all groups and ideas have had their merits and faults.