The big topic of: Slavery and Racism in History

[temporal1]

i just noticed this separate forum category, History.
Good idea.

i think i just inadvertently bunny-trailed a poll on racism.
Page 2 / http://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php ... 7&start=10
decided to start a new topic here.

i hope in my lifetime, but am not at all assured it will happen,
that study of the history of slavery in the world, on all continents would be done.

both slavery, how and why it was initiated, as well as how it ended, maybe especially how life was lived out after ending. then, against this background, how contemporary U.S. compares in both experience and response to these various world/historical experiences. the U.S. seems to be unique in some ways. i’m unsure if better or worse.

the presumption is, slavery/racism are rooted together.
Josh may have a good point in this, pointing out the importance of CLASS in discrimination,
moreso than race.

i question if U.S. students have any hope of getting a grip on these matters while ignoring broader world history, learning as-if the U.S. is and always has been “the center of the universe,”
when this is so far from reality.

certainly, students can learn the narrative presented and demanded.
this has become the central goal of U.S. public education: memorize+live assigned narratives.
do this, and all will be well. you can keep your job! you can avoid being punished on social media!

reading a little about Quakers taken as slaves by N Africans, and Irish Christians taken as slaves by Vikings, brings questions. i’m not convinced youthful U.S. is getting much “right.” “right” in whose eyes? Jesus’? well, no. we can’t have that. (and, from Jesus’ perspective, what is right?)

i lack confidence (busy as they are) our U.S. legal system and academia are getting much right.

i’m intrigued by the idea Irish Christian slaves had such influence on their Viking slave masters.
this seems to align with Jesus’ way. (i have not studied enough to be assured.)

i have found Quakers and others in my family history, so far, no slave holders, except going back to Charlemagne, who took so many Slavs, the word, slave, came into use.

https://quatr.us/medieval/charlemagne-e ... e-ages.htm

.. Then about 800 AD Charlemagne conquered the Avars.
Charlemagne brought back thousands of Slavic prisoners from the Balkans to sell as slaves in France.

He brought back so many prisoners that people in his empire began to use the word “Slav” to mean slave, instead of the older Latin word “servus”, which started to mean “servant” as it does today.

Who were the Slavs? Where did they come from?
History of slavery ..

This poll is about contemporary racism. i guess i’m having trouble separating racism from slavery.
In the U.S. they most often appear together. Then i start wondering about the world history of slavery, and the world history of racism. i guess i think the topic is much broader than typically addressed.

My hope for this topic is to move away from hyper-focus on U.S. slavery and racism, to stretch beyond, to gain a broader view of how these things have played out in time, on all continents.

[temporal1]

History of Slavery / Professor Carr
https://quatr.us/economy/history-of-slavery.htm

All ancient and medieval cultures had slaves. But some had more slaves than others.
A slave is someone who is the property of somebody else, according to the laws of the place they live in. If you’re a slave you can be sold to somebody else, or forced to work without being paid at any kind of work your owner wants. Basically you can be treated like a horse or a cow.

Usually people who own slaves do take pretty good care of them. It’s just like people usually take good care of a cow, because it is worth a lot of money. But some people don’t. Some slave-owners certainly beat and starved their slaves. Owners took children from their parents. They killed them or sold them. And even if they were treated well, most people hated being slaves. They would rather be free to make their own choices.

From the Stone Age down into the Middle Ages, the color of your skin was not what made you a slave. Most slaves in Europe and West Asia were white. Most black people were free.
(Most white people were free too, and some black people were slaves).
People became enslaved in a lot of different ways. Often soldiers or their families who were captured in war (prisoners of war) were sold as slaves. It’s a way of raising money for the winning side.
That’s how many people who had once been free later became slaves.
Another way many people became slaves was by getting into debt. If you owed somebody money and you could not pay it, they could make you a slave. They could sell you to get the money.

Sometimes free people sold their children into slavery.
Maybe they needed money and could not afford to take care of their children.
Sometimes people sold themselves into slavery, because they could not feed themselves any other way. And if your mother was a slave, then you were automatically a slave also – even if your father was free.

The Greek philosopher Solon said that nobody should say he had a happy life until he was dead. Anybody who was free might later happen to become a slave. And anybody who was a slave might later become free. A few hundred years later, Aristotle did say that some people were just naturally born to be slaves, but he is the only one to say it. And he does not say that this is because of their race.

You might think that bishops and holy men and women would speak out against slavery, but this didn’t happen. Jesus, in the Bible, seems to say that if you are a slave, you should not rebel.
You should obey quietly, and wait for a reward in Heaven.
He says, “A student is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master;
it is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the slave like his master.”(Matthew 10:25)

It is true that some early Christian men and women (especially women) freed their slaves.
But they did it more as a way of getting rid of their property, than for the benefit of the slaves themselves. (Because Jesus said it was easier to get into Heaven if you were poor. He said that it is easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven).

[Ken]

I would say that race is largely a social construct. So racism as it exists around the world is also a largely social construct.

Some of the most racist societies I have encountered are Japanese, Korean, Indian, Pakistan, middle east and North African countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and east European countries like Russia, Poland, Hungary.

When I was younger I worked as a US fisheries observer on board Japanese fishing vessels doing joint-venture fishing in the Bering Sea. The Japanese officers were the most horribly racist people I have ever seen towards their largely Filipino, Cambodian, and Vietnamese processing crews. Absolutely cruel and horrible. Worse than I have ever seen American supervisors ever act in similar situations with similar international crews. This would have been around 1989. But the racism was stone cold vicious like I was on a cotton plantation in the Jim Crow south.

That was when the Soviet Union was collapsing and a lot of Russian fishermen were coming across the Bering Sea to get jobs in the US fishing industry on processing ships. They were some of the most hard-headed racists I have ever met as well.

I suspect the US is kind of middle of the road today, but has a more racist past than a lot of other countries.

[Ken]

I also don't think it is really useful to look at slavery in ancient cultures that no long exist.

The industrial scale plantation slavery in the past 500 years is almost entirely African chattel slavery. Chattel slavery in that they were born into slavery and died as slaves and their children were born as slaves. Yes you can find pockets of all types of slavery from China to native American tribes. And even up to the present day. But the industrial scale plantation slavery that drove national economies from the time of Columbus to the 19th century was almost entirely Africans after the first attempts to enslave native people's in north and south America did not survive long-term for a variety of reasons.

I don't know what percentage of the black population in the western hemisphere from the US to Brazil have slave ancestry. But I expect it is exceedingly high. So basically if you are black and live in the western hemisphere it is very likely the case that your ancestors were slaves. Even a lot of the black immigrants to the US also descended from slaves if they came from Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, Brazil, or Haiti, etc.

[temporal1]

I also don't think it is really useful to look at slavery in ancient cultures that no long exist.

This is the forum’s History category. You are not required to read or respond.

Slavery existed in Africa, and in the (North and South) western hemisphere before Columbus.

[Ken]

I also don't think it is really useful to look at slavery in ancient cultures that no long exist.

This is the forum’s History category. You are not required to read or respond.

Slavery existed in Africa, and in the (North and South) western hemisphere before Columbus.

I meant "useful" as in understanding racism, which is a fairly modern concept. Sure, slavery in the ancient world is an interesting historical concept and it existed in virtually every culture on every continent. I just don't think that studying slavery in ancient Greece or Ming China or ancient Egypt or the Comanche really tells us much about modern racism.

[Josh]

Modern slavery is pretty bad - and worse than ever before. The largest offenders are India and China, but it is also widespread in Northern Africa.

It needs more attention.

[Bootstrap]

i hope in my lifetime, but am not at all assured it will happen,
that study of the history of slavery in the world, on all continents would be done.

There are books on this subject. Here's one:

Slavery: A World History

Wikipedia has an article on this:

History of Slavery

[temporal1]

i hope in my lifetime, but am not at all assured it will happen,
that study of the history of slavery in the world, on all continents would be done.

There are books on this subject. Here's one:

Slavery: A World History

Wikipedia has an article on this:

History of Slavery

Yes. To clarify a bit, i’d like to see these topics covered in public schools, to help students gain perspective from a broader view. So many in the U.S. seem to believe slavery and racism began with early white western europeans. Not close to true.

They are also bereft of scriptural context.
They face the real world handicapped with unnecessary (and institutionalized) ignorance.

[temporal1]

Modern slavery is pretty bad - and worse than ever before. The largest offenders are India and China, but it is also widespread in Northern Africa.

It needs more attention.

It does. For myself, i know less about contemporary slavery than slavery in history, i’m not pleased to say. i’m afraid i have a mental block that tells me, “this can’t be,” that does not help.

I also don't think it is really useful to look at slavery in ancient cultures that no long exist.

This is the forum’s History category. You are not required to read or respond.
Slavery existed in Africa, and in the (North and South) western hemisphere before Columbus.

I meant "useful" as in understanding racism, which is a fairly modern concept. Sure, slavery in the ancient world is an interesting historical concept and it existed in virtually every culture on every continent.

I just don't think that studying slavery in ancient Greece or Ming China or ancient Egypt or the Comanche really tells us much about modern racism.

This history thread is not about modern racism. My interest here is more anthropological.