What if Whites had been enslaved?

Question

I was just sittin here thinking to myself, what it were Whites had been enslaved? What if their families were made to be split apart? If they were told their name isn't going to be this it's going to be this? If they were boiled alive, if they were beaten with whips that made deep lacerations, if their women were raped consistently, if their men dehumanized and stripped of their masculinity? If their limbs cut off, if they couldn't gain access to books? If they picked cotton, tended to our children, stole their music, killed for looking at our women, killed for being on the wrong side of the sidewalk, stopped because you're not supposed to be in a particular town or car. Made fun of for years, centuries really? Pitted against one another for divisive purposes, having to fight for everything that is rightfully yours? Would you want us to forget that?

I wasn't there either but I'm/we are still reaping its benefits and so is this country as well as others, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, Blacks were taken EVRYWHERE, and thusly so each place has definitely benefited from our being there. So, I'm not asking you apologize I wouldn't want it but I only wanted to elicit an empathetic impression that would elicit cogitation upon post effects.

I'd figure someone would mention the whole egypt thing or Africa thing, it's a scapegoat i understand, no one really wants to fess up and say BLACK slavery was the most horrible of them all every1 just wants to forget about it and not take respnsibility. Let me clarify the whole AFRICA thing before someone else decides to put that in their response. Africa sold them as INDENTURED servants, not SLAVES and the ones that they sold as INDENTURED SERVANTS were WAR CAPTIVES, a FORM of PUNISHMENT, also, if I am correct the type of Slavery used was not like the slavery used in AMERICA and other PLACES, totally different. the Africans did not do what SOUTHERN/EUROPEAN/SOUTH AMERICAN slave owners did, totally different man totally different.

APPARENTLY many of you do NOT know what racism means! LOL, this question isn't racist and for the Chic with the BLACK Avatar you ought to be ashamed girl! I can't help it if you're nebulous/discombobulated/bewildered perhaps or just plain inept, however, this question is what it is a THOUGHT provoking question not a PREJUDICED laced question.

oh and by the way, I'm very much aware that WHITES and NATIVE AMERICANS were enslaved, however, my question wasn't regarding them

You know the only thing I want from this post is acknowledgement and amny of you can't even do that, which suggests to me that you really do feel guilty and don't want to fess up about it. Blacks and when I say Blacks I mean TRUE Black PPLE will never be able to TRUST WHITES simply because you all don't even have the deceny to acknowledge that A-A Slavery was just absolutely horrible, the only thing I see flying out of your mouths is GET OVER IT! Well in actuality I don't have anything to get over, I don't where this on my shoulders however, I do acknowlege it and understand its effects and the effects of today. many of you just don't know our experiences and never will, thusly you say get over it, I'd ask you to take a step back, actually read about Slavery and not the crap they give you in school and place yourself in our postions and perhaps you'll understand more. It's amazing though, no one wants to fess up about it but they don't mind reaping the benefits of what came out of it.

SOME of you are SEETHING with GUILT! OMG it's so unbelievable...GRITS, NIKKI, JESUS H, and FLYGRL16 all our seething with guilt. Questions like these are thought provoking if you DON'T feel GUILTY you wont' get so ANGRY! If someone is incorrect you won't get so ANGRY! and the fact that you have well it says a lot. NIKKI since you're Black, then again IDK mos Carribs don't consider themselves Black which is just sheer hebittude because Carribs are a by product of Slavery 2. Nikki in your case you might actually be trying to distance yourself from the experiences of A_A so that way you won't have to be associated with us, just remember though we all came from Africa, honey

Answer 1

Okay, I'm going to try and answer the question in the context that it was meant. I was looking for this question afterall. In reading a book entitled "Can we talk about race?" the other day, I walked away with this feeling that you wrote of.

If I spent a day understanding this on that level, not just being mildly sympathic. Could my empathy reach that far? Into what it's like to be black? That this isn't 100 years ago, really. In 1955, Rosa Parks was fighting for a right to sit where she wanted on a bus. Water fountains were segregated. Things didn't change so drastically with the Civil war that blacks were suddenly treated equal. Blacks had to fight for that and for many of us. In our lifetime.

Just how much do you expect to change in 40 years, if it's not "the thing" to talk about it? IF every question is met with the wall called racism.

I thought about how that would be for me as a white person to have memories of degradation in the lifetime of my parents, and gifted with alittle more freedoms in mine.

How would I behave if the world were that new?

Mistakes would be made for sure. But so would their be triumpths. For every black that achieves greatness, it's an open door for others. What the person of color does now is of huge importance to our society. There has been evidence that not all doors are open to them. That in New Orleans, for instance; property on the higher ground was not open for them. I don't know if this is true. Perhaps someone knows more about this. I can tell you that if something like this is true it needs to be called out into the open. OUr not talking, would be allowing for this to continue.

I feel that if I truly want to claim that there is no racism in our society and that "they" should just get over it, that I need to make sure that this is even true. For partically it's about the human freedom to decide how you want to live, and partically for all of us to make sure that our society is really what it says it is.

There is afterall, so much corruption out there that we all like to turn a blind eye too, and not hearing an entire race say that there is racism in our society has me wondering. "How, why, where?"

Are you stuck in the past, or is the present needing some more marches?

Speechless,...you don't care? Take the ride...there are leaders in the black community that are making it pretty difficult to keep things as they are. The status quo is about to be turned on it's ***. There is no getting over it until we're through with it. So, lets just get this party started.

Answer 2

Actually, whites also were enslaved quite a bit. In fact, Africans and Arabs enslaved quite a number of whites during some of the failed crusades. Whites also enslaved other whites, either permanently or as indentured servants.

The use of African slaves in the Americas were due to the death rates among native americans who were enslaved, the fact that other Europeans were too well defended. I was listening to an historian today on Jamestown and Captain John Smith was at one point in time sold into slavery himself and was technically an escaped slave who made it back to England and then ended up with the Virginia Company.

Answer 3

I'm not apologizing for slavery. I wasn't there at the time. I come from a long line of poor white people who could barely afford to own a mule, let alone another human being.

And there have been slaves of ALL races throughout history. It's not an exclusively black thing. Get over it and move on, Jesse.

Answer 4

I guarantee you, their freedom would come at the expense of countless lives. There would be war. Not only civil, but Europe would come to their aid. Their freedom from oppression has always involved WAR. Look at the American Revolution, but Black people were expected to get their freedom by "Turning the Other Cheek", and "Loving Thy Enemy".

The posters are right, look to history

Answer 5

White were also enslaved. My ancestors (shom were white) were slaves and owned by white people. Yes slavery is wrong but the ones that should be blamed are the people who sold them not the people who are alive today.

Answer 6

Every race on this earth has been enslaved at one point or another in human history. What I don't get is how people could treat anyone so badly and be accepted by their peers. We all have a lot of psychos in our histories, don't we?

Answer 7

but it wasn't that was- so that is a mute point - it also was over 100 years ago no living person has memories of the enslavement - so , it's time to let it go - you wear your heart on your sleeve for pain that's not yours

Answer 8

Ok, this question is simply blatant racism trying (very poorly) to mask itself as a valid philosophical exercise.

If you are a Psycology major, you really should know better.

Answer 9

would of made no differance if it japinese .
main thing now is today the tommorow so you do not hang on to the what if if do not get nothing it is now how a in da -vid- - ual ....... do they treat you well now today your race or there race ......... be accepted in the now the way your being treated by whom ever every body not going to like you same as race so why think the race card were is it going to get you --TREATMENT IN THE NOW .you not trated right by whom ever move on to who accepts you not yesterdays that can not be relived

Answer 10

But then you forget, it was your own people that sold you into slavery soooo.....who should you hate, the buyer or seller? As for me, the seller seems like it would be the bad guy but then you would hate your own people sooooo, you have your own people to thank. P.S. Your music sucks.