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Wednesday, June 19, 2019

This Juneteenth, Read 'The Real History of Slavery'

Today, it seems obvious that, as President Lincoln wrote, “if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Yet through the vast majority of recorded history, in the New World and the Old and in each major religious tradition, slavery was normal, a regular part of the social fabric. Slavery’s abolition is recent and aberrant, perhaps the finest achievement of the West.

American abolition came in 1865 when on June 19, soon dubbed Juneteenth, Union General Gordon Granger freed the last enslaved Africans in Texas.

America’s Juneteenth hardly ended slavery, however. China, Brazil, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco, all 26 nation-states governing most of humanity, abolished slavery after - in many cases long after - over 300,000 Union soldiers died in large part to end U.S. slavery.

A nation with substantial economic ties with the U.S., Saudi Arabia, only got around to ending slavery in 1962. Yet I would never define Saudi Arabia by its history of slavery, and I bristle when people define America that way. Virtually all peoples have histories of enslaving and brutalizing others, so obsessing over America’s sins while ignoring everyone else’s is anti-American in the purest sense. Alas, such views proliferate in the media, academia, and politics.

For that reason, I commemorate Juneteenth by re-reading Thomas Sowell’s classic essay, “The Real History of Slavery,” written in part to debunk popular misconceptions spread by the likes of Alex Haley’s Roots. A part of his collection of mainly original essays in Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Sowell's essay teaches politically incorrect lessons no longer taught in higher education or pop culture.

First, slavery impoverished rather than built societies, by stigmatizing work and thrift while exalting as role models a slave-owning leisure class. In some respects, slave owners were like Hollywood stars, widely envied, and notorious for their conspicuous consumption and reckless disregard of others. Within places as distinct as China, Brazil, the Middle East, and America, locales with high concentrations of slaves were the poorest and most backward.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Real History of Slaves is >>> That there were Far
more White & Other slaves than Black >>>> FACT

Check it out ALL you like >>> Facts are Facts

So time to give Whites REPARATIONS !!!!
And as for Equality today >>> there is NONE as long as there
is AFFIRMATIVE ACTION >>> which Discriminates against
Whites in America and is Just as bad as anything that
happened to Blacks in the last 60 years !!!! Fact

Anonymous said...

A Race WAR is a Shure thing / with all this crap of giving

Blacks Any Reparations or anymore of anything / Period !!!

What about Indian Reparations / White Reparations ????

Whites Saved the World in WW2 / so next time in WW3
it's the Blacks turn to fight that one !!!! While Whites kick back !!!

Anonymous said...


The phrase I like is:

My family never owned slaves, and you never picked any cotton.

It's ancient history.

Anonymous said...

Matter of FACT >> NO-one alive today or their relatives
alive today were a Damn Slave Period !!!

Stop trying to punish Whites who are alive today, for what
Others years ago did or did not do / which has Nothing to
do with anyone Alive today !!!

Do away with AFFIRMATIVE ACTION because it IS wrong &
IS DISCRIMINATION against Whites & Others Not Black !!!

Have REAL Equality or the Hate will just Keep Going On !!!

Anonymous said...

These Blacks today would not want to be a slave back then
with their attitude , & racism , they would have been Killed !

They are never satisfied , and will Hate Whites Forever no
matter how much Whites give them . Fact

They got Affirmative Action & still Not satisfied
They want Whites alive today , not even Born back then
in the slavery days , to Pay for it >>> Not Happening !!!

Lincoln should have sent them ALL back to Africa & this
was his Biggest Mistake of the civil war & the govt's !!!!