• drislands@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      1 year ago

      IIRC, the common argument is that modern Black Americans have great opportunities by virtue of being in America. Without slavery, they would have been born in Africa.

      This is ludicrous for a variety of reasons. It’s the same kind of thinking that leads to people saying your relative died “because of God’s plan”, as if suffering always has a good reason to it.

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        11 months ago

        They overlook the destabilization of Africa that went on during colonialism that led to its current state

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        11 months ago

        The lesson Florida is teaching is that slaves learned ‘useful skills.’ They don’t say who those skills were useful to though.

      • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Yeah this argument fails because it subverts the context slavery existed in with a modern notion of American exceptionalism, and applies it in a transhistorical fashion to events in the past.