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Re: There were not slave traders and slaves in Africa...a clarification
What I am saying is that there were not simply distinct slave traders and slaves: anyone could trade, anyone could be enslaved. Some societies profited more than others from the trade, and probably some suffered more from it. But slavery has been a part of the human scene for as long as there has been work to be done, and anyone who didn't want to or couldn't do it themselves.
I think we tend not to realize what a landmark change it was when mainstream society finally came around to condemning the practice of overt human ownership. Which is not to say slavery doesn't continue in covert forms. It is a deeply-embedded human dynamic.
posted by
Ciel
on October 19, 2008 at 1:25 PM
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There were not slave traders and slaves in Africa...
Slavery was a cultural institution which just about every Mediterranean and African society participated in--some more than others, but still, it was commonplace, a part of life. The thing that was so bizarre for the Africans consigned to the Americas was the inhumanity with which they were packed into ships and carried off to worlds they never dreamed existed. Abducted by aliens, aliens with utterly no regard for the fact of their captives' humanity.
Barack Obama may not have been the decendent of slaves in America, but he grew up in America, and surely has experienced the prejudices on all sides which that means: judgments about being too white, too black, not white enough, not black enough... Those who judge by skin colors do not look up family trees before concluding they know what they think they know.
If anyone is qualified to bring some unity and humanity to the issue, it is Obama.
posted by
Ciel
on October 19, 2008 at 1:15 PM
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"a true African American in every sense of the word"
He doesn't even come close....his is not born of descendants of slaves.....but rather a father who is a descendant of slave traders......so that is not a possibility.........
posted by
Corbin_Dallas
on October 19, 2008 at 11:21 AM
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