I don't mean to downplay the severity, but there are procedural differences. Slavery was pro forma banned at the time. Effectively, I agree, for all practical purposes of the folk in chains, it was slavery.
And he might have ended up being a standup dude in another time.
That’s something that I think about often.
The average intelligence of the population of the world isn’t that great. Most people accept whatever reality is instilled in them. If you take a little baby and raise it up to think of some people as animals, they’ll probably never question it, and being surrounded only by people who accept that reality, they’ll never have a reason to question it. I very rarely meet a person who has ever really questioned their reality. It always surprised me when I do.
Most abolitionists came from a world where they were they weren’t exposed to slavery, so they were able to question it. Even then, only around 2% of the population were abolitionists, they just fought really hard for their cause until it rose up high enough to actually be considered for action.
I’m not even putting myself into that small group of people smart enough to question their reality. If I hadn’t grown up with the internet there’s a good chance I’d be a preacher in a Pentecostal holiness church somewhere. That small handful of people who question their reality help spread their questions to the idiot masses.
That’s why I admire people who fight for positive change above all other people. They fight an uphill battle daily. Sometimes they win big and I’m grateful they do.
One of my kids came out as gay. I grew up in a very homophobic environment in the 70s. I would quite often called timid people puffs etc. Sometimes around my kids, because that was how I grew up. You discouraged timid behaviour to stop them getting bullied. Realising one of your kids is gay was a real eye opener for me as to how bad these phrases are.
I would never treat a gay person differently. I just saw it as an expression that was common when I was young, and also in the environment I worked in. For context, I used to play squash with a guy from work, who everyone was convinced was gay. He actually got married in a heterosexual relationship a few years later, but whether he was or wasn’t never bothered me. This ofc doesn’t excuse the practise, it just shows how warped I was.
General Sherman early in life was quite alright with slavery and a casual racist against Black people, and later became an ardent anti-racist (at least, anti-racist with regards to anti-Black racism). He noted, some years after the US CIvil War, when asked by younger folk how so many people could have blithely accepted slavery, that man is more a creature of habit than originality.
That enormous cockhole Rolf Harris sung about this in Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport like it was no big deal. And it was a huge hit and no one said anything.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the lyrics you wrote are the only lyrics to the entire song that I know, and I’ve always thought it was just some weird gibberish. Granted, I’ve never actively listened to it or sought it out, I’ve only heard it in passing.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction
And it only took the bloodiest civil war in history, a war we’re still paying the price for not going the extra mile and abolishing the southern states and replacing them with Union members.
Such is the price to end slavery in America and advance the worldwide abolitionist movement.
And I wish federal occupation had lasted significantly longer, enough to replace the older generation with a enlightened, Yankee way of thinking and attitude. That or go the route of Jacob Smith and just shoot about everyone above the age of ten and sell all the land for cheap.
What gets me is that yeah that’s their excuse, but if someone treated, say, an orangutan or a baboon like this I’d think that was pretty fucked up too. We were so gross. We still are (dog fighting, circus elephants etc) but the cruelty that we’re capable of without what is essentially moral peer pressure, is chilling to think about. Even today we fight tooth and nail against moral progress and treating everyone with respect.
Aboriginals we’re even denied a seat in politics just in the last few months. I remember being shocked they voted in Tony abbot …who for years screamed about women’s menstruation in parliament. Australia is super backwards.
The Voice which, if I understand correctly, wasn’t an offer of a seat in parliament, it was a constitutional amendment that would allow an advisory board for Aboriginal and Torres strait islanders. They wouldn’t have had any actual power any way.
America still had slavery in the 1940s when the last slave was freed (might’ve been later than that) and it still has slavery in the form of prison labor
I’ll take solace in knowing we will never be as racist as Europeans. Because we’re a proud multicultural country and you’re the lot who keep toying with nationalism and genocide.
You would never hear anyone in Australia mutter the vile hate they spew towards Romani. And their treatment of refugees is so bad, that they make us look good in comparison.
At the end of the day, outside of say NZ/Canada you will not find a less racist country.
He, it is not a contest. I never say Europe was less racist than other country/area. Just I don’t hide by using some words to softening the reality.
I don’t try to move away the initial discussion : we don’t care if it is true or not that native people where considered as fauna. The point was native people are considered as second class people, that do not deserve respect, unfortunately.
Aboriginal Australians were often arrested on spurious charges, such as 'Entering city limits while Aboriginal', and given long prison sentences, after which they were rented out as convict labor, chained to prevent escape. This is just one group of such folk.
That’s part of ceremonial scarification, there are several mobs and groups of indigenous peoples where this is a sacred cultural practice.
Though in many cases the British used the evidence of ritual scarification as some kind of proof that aboriginal people didn’t feel pain the same way Europeans did, so you had to whip them harder and longer than white prisoners for the same transgressions.
Thanks for the details, I assumed something cultural because of the consistent horizontal orientation - it would have to be an extremely specific whipping technique to create those. It’s a shame colonizers and slavers used that practice as reason to hurt them even more, though…
Could be the low resolution/beards but I am honestly surprised at how similar everyone looks. I guess that’s how it is as an island aboriginal - not a lot of genes to mix
Ah yes, just a tiny 7,692,024 km2 island, just a quick 150km Kai Marina sailing trip from PNG and Indonesia.
Human genome studies continue to explore the the genetic diversity of indigenous Australians, as it’s a key to help understand early human migration. ABC summary of the genome report.
Australia is really not that much smaller than the lower 48 of the USA, and yet people (mostly Americans) seem to think it’s some tiny rural island.
They look pretty distinct to me, but different hairstyles and clothing, neither of which are plentiful here, are often more eye-catching in differentiating people at a glance.
Well, they all have the same expression on their faces, probably because there’s only one way to feel when you’re chained up and made to sit on the floor while someone takes your picture.
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