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America is not vested in admitting its problems because then we couldn't export "home of the free and brave" abroad.
The irony is that most outside these borders see the hypocrisy as well or better than many of us living here.
"You buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years?"
If it was merely a matter of purchasing, how does he account for the hundred years of systematic racism that followed.
With that said, THANK YOU for making this point. People would be up in arms if Germany told the Holocaust survivors and descendants to "get over it." That is, in essence, what this nation has done with Black America. And I think that to accelerate progress, this country has to acknowledge the ripple effects of slavery. You can't begin to solve a problem without acknowledging the probem exists.
Heck, even approach the gov to seek matching funds?
It's always been about how normal and okee-dokee the enslavement of Africans was, just like it's been crucial to the American political system to NEVER question the righteousness of so-called "Manifest Destiny", the illegal theft of indigenous lands.
Unlike in Germany where at the least many of these groups lived with some semblance of harmony before the brutal and disgusting machine-like genocide of the Holocaust, the engine of the American system has ALWAYS run on black and brown blood. We have always been subjugated. It was how America came to be. That's why American politicians, in part, find it so hard to do anything like what Germany is doing, because to do so would be to de-legitimize their own sovereignty.
We all know that power never concedes willingly. If we want that recognition of our past, we have to drive it ourselves, and not expect any other group to give a damn.
For once, we agree....LOL.
Who in their right mind would want to build a monument to anything having to do with slavery (or apartheid)? Aren't we supposed to be past that issue now. Yes, slavery was bad...but no monument that we erect won't change the fact that it happenED (past tense emphasized). If we keep living in the past and dragging it up, how are we supposed to ever move forward?
Besides, take a look at what's being memorialized: gypsies, gays and lesbians. It's not like the Germans are erecting monuments to the the Jews that were killed.
And, by definition, I don't think that slavery can be called genocide. Theory being that "deliberate and systemic extermination" of the slaves would've been counterproductive to the point of slavery.
For us as a nation to not even allow the descendants of the slaves to say their stories out loud, in a public forum, is counterintuitive to every thing we know that works for the victims of violent crime. And that IS what it is, slavery is a violent crime.
you just proved all the other posters points.
When will America accept that fact that it kidnapped, tortured, enslaved, raped, and brutalized an entire race of people simply because of the color of their skins? That the presumed assumption that white is right was found wanting.
Your lack of knowledge regarding history is glaring as these groups were exterminated along with the Jews, as Africans were enslaved in this country, its women raped, families torn apart, which benefitted people like you who now want to just forget it ever happened and everything will be okay if we just look to the future and not remember the ugliness of this country and the terror visited daily upon Americans who if they made the wrong move would be putting their lives in jeopardy. Now you try and live your life and that of your family in those conditions.
Were any members of your family enslaved, prohibited from learning, denied jobs because of the color of their skin, unable to seek protection from law enforcement, jailed (enslaved) for the slightest infraction? When you can answer yes to any of those questions, then we can talk.
The counterproductiveness is only relevant for people who would wish to dismiss the evil arrogance of this country and its sins against humanity by telling us once again to get over it with academic arguments void of common sense or facts and patronizing bromides. How dare you?
I'm in favor of an American monument commemorating the survival of slavery and apartheid, just like a good 'ol American patriot would be in favor of a monument commemorating 9/11.
I misunderstood. But I would support that as well.
Squarepeg,
I'm not discounting that slavery was bad. Not in the least. I acknowledge that it was horrible.
The only thing I'm calling into question is whether it fits the definition of genocide. The counterproductiveness is relevent because the author cited slavery as one of "the most horrifying examples of genocide in human history." For sake of argument, if the "slave traders" had gathered all the "slaves" and killed them, "slavery" wouldn't exist. Then it would be a deliberate attempt to eradicate Africans. THAT'S what genocide is-deliberate and systemic elimination of a race or cultural group. Essentially, "slavery" by definition and "genocide" by definition can't coexist in describing the same event.
Yes, it's an academic argument. But, in the context of this post, I think it's one that needs to be had.
And to me, d., the intentional killing of all Black people's minds and spirits ...
Well, what would you that?
If you take a look at the Holocaust, Jewish national identity-"spirit," if you will-was essentially formed out of that event. Their identity wasn't killed off; if anything, it was born FROM an attempt at genocide.
Your spirit is the essence of who you are as a human being. Without it, you're an empty vessel existing only for the purpose and pleasure of someone or something other than yourself.
A slave owner could no more have their slave possessing a sound mind and spirit, any more than you can tolerate your dog not recognizing you as its master.
And you still didn't answer the question: what do you call the systematic killing of the minds and spirits of millions of Black Africans?
Its certainly racist.
Seriously, I find it fascinating that Germany, as a country, posseses the humility to erect monuments to those people they killed, and that includes Jews. I think an earlier poster failed to realize that the monuments to Jews ALREADY exist in Germany, they were referenced indirectly in the article.
Further I disagree that slavery could not be classififed as genocide because outright killing of slaves would be counterproductive to slavery. Counterproductive or not, many of those taken as slaves perished on the way to America and/or on the way to their final destination due to neglect starvation and poor treatment. The slave trade decimated whole villages and tribes back in Africa. The slaves that did survive the journey were so brutally treated that many died unnatural and early deaths.
Contrary to assertions that the point of holding slaves was to hold them and not to exterminate them, most american slave owners were so violently cruel and inhumane in their treatment of slaves that they inspired both England and Canada to outlaw slavery long before America. Further American slaveholders treated slaves as the original "renewable resource", there was no care taken not to damage the merchandise - not when there was an entire continent of replacements to be had back in Africa.
It is estimated that as many as 4 to 6 million Africans taken for the slave trade died. Given that slavery was based on the notion that the color of our skin was reason enough to assume our subhumananity and to enslave us I don't know what else you could call slavery but a systematic destruction of a race or culture. In my dictionary that spells genocide.
I think the argument only proves the point the author was trying to make in the first place. In this Country many find it easier to downplay the severity of slavery and the following jim crow oppression than to face the real consequences of such actions and the lingering effects. Its easier to make theoretical, academic and technical arguments than it is to take a good long hard look inward and challenge cherished beliefs about the structure of our society and how it came to be.
america would prefer that people forget.
more needs to be done regarding slavery.
I get the feeling we will see that German monument before any type of effort to come to terms with the history of slavery in America.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2170159,00.html
I'll put down some euros betting Germany will erect a monument for African-AMERICAN slavery before America does, just to show us up.
Not only is America's DNA programmed to forget past exploitation, but we as black people, separate from any official national/gov effort, have yet to fully acknowledge the pain and impact of a system like slavery.
We have emerged from a brutal phase in an ongoing abusive relationship, and we haven't begun to process it in a healthy way.
This is one of the great reasons this country is falling from its perch of "super power" due to its arrogance that the so called leaders and citizens have.
The past is alive and well in the present due to slavery, and, its not going away becase people don't want to admit it was wrong.
"Section 1. 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."
"Except as a punishment for a crime..." means slavery is legal for criminals. Private prisons are one of the fastest growing businesses in Amerikka.
Prison labor? The war on drugs aka the war on black people? Black incarceration rates? Understand?!
Would you apologize for something that you were still perpetrating?
D, you need get a grip and read the Genocide Convention of 1948:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Any questions?
ps. As far as the black experience in nazi germany, Hans Jurgen Massaquoi's autobiography (the title in German is "Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger") about growing up black in nazi germany is good.
pps. Yes, Germany was conquered, and this has something to do with the way they deal with history, but it wasn't until the social upheavals of the sixties that German society really came to grips with the past. The idea that they learned all of this at gunpoint from the American military is not entirely correct. Austria and Japan, for instance, also committed atrocities during WWII, were also conquered, but are much more "American" about their past.
ppps. Another interesting historical tidbit: America never protested the Nurnberg Laws because they were in large part lifted from Jim Crow legislation.
I think you're missing the point of the monuments. They're not just for the dead and the living who are related to them, they are for the Germans. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and so the Germans are determined to remember, rather than rationalize.
Also, I understand the "genocide is counterproductive to slavery" argument but you haven't really addressed the fact that the Middle Passage was ultimately responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people. The fact that the system was set up to preserve some for labor does not discount the outright unbelievable number of people who were murdered. Your argument is not unlike someone saying the Holocaust wasn't "genocide" because the Nazis didn't actually succeed, or because they used the Jews for slave labor and they were therefore a vital part of the German Economy. It's why you'll never see me buy a Volkswagen or a Mercedes.
In this context, genocide applies as the only appropriate word to describe the SCALE of death, both in the Holocaust and the Middle Passage.
Its certainly racist. (meaning, the systematic killing of the minds and spirits of enslaved Black Africans)
Well, Robert E. Lee and other Confederates were racist. Yet there's no shortage of monuments to them. Exhibit A is Stone Mountain, Georgia.
I know, D., I know; racism is merely a state of mind, and it's only as effective as the degree to which we let it bother us ... yadda, yadda, yadda.
Fair enough. When used to describe the scale of death, I see why you used it. My argument wasn't meant to discount the fact that thousands of people did lose their lives during slavery. That's an inescapable fact.
Ronnie,
Your last sentence is true...
I'm gonna guess you're in the military....?
Here's the thing, man: to some people, this issue runs deep. There are people who are going believe that the U.S. is the worst country on earth, and compare us to every other repressive regime that exists or ever existed. And, from someone who did serve, it does get tiring to hear after a while.
But, regardless of how you or I feel about people bashing our country, the things that dna outlines did happen (had to look at the numbers myself this morning). You make a point; we shouldn't be beholdened to the past. I agree. That doesn't mean, however, that we can just completely write it off.
Germany didn't end the Holocaust -- Americans and Russians did. Germany would be burning jews today if they had one.
America DID end slavery -- and fought a bitter war to do it. Plus, millions of whites have battled since then for civil rights.
So Germany built some monyment?
Big deal -- they didn't stop killing jews -- they were stopped by others.
If you want some stupid meaningless monumment - go build one. We have monuments about ending slavery. Take a look at Gettysburg, take a look at Lincoln's Memorial.