Would whites re-institute slavery today if they could?

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Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

New Division posted:

So can anyone advance an convincing argument that whites in the US would re-institute slavery if allowed to that is not based on paranoia? I have to repeat my question as to what the point of re-instituting slavery would be in an economy where unskilled labor is not particularly valued anymore. Slavery's initial practice and growth in the US was driven by shortages of manual laborers as much as anything else, and there's no real lack of those in the modern US.

Wealthy people would love to have free domestic help. Certain forms of unmechanizable agriculture also, as well as sex slavery. All of these forms of slavery currently exist in the US today.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 21:49

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

Mukip posted:

My point was that racism was a symptom of slavery rather than a cause of it.

I think you might be ignoring the possibility that both of these things would exist independent of each other regardless. One doesn't have to cause the other.

edit: Just noticed that the OP seems to think that the Black Panthers were some evil/harmful group, haha. It's really depressing that so many white people have re-imagined the civil rights movement as something that MLK just rationally convinced everyone was a good idea or something.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Jun 14, 2014

# ? Jun 14, 2014 21:55

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Mukip posted:

Slavery existed in the ancient world in Europe; but it took off in the colonial period when Europeans came into contact with African tribes selling slaves. I think it's perfectly reasonable to hypothesize that if it weren't for the slave trade in Africa already existing at that time, then there might not have been a transatlantic slave trade at all.

"If a thing didn't exist in history, then it couldn't have had an impact on history" is not exactly a compelling or well-considered statement. I also theorize that if Europeans had not bought and shipped African slaves across the Atlantic ocean, then there would not have been a transatlantic slave trade. Let's all agree that we are very smart and well-read people.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 21:57

Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

That's missing the point. Colonial slavery is often attributed to a non-economic explanation of white racism, and pointing out that the African slave trade existed independently of Europeans is worth pointing out to correct that. I am not arguing that racism somehow doesn't exist or wasn't a factor in the slave trade or whatever it is you are insisting in reading into my posts.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:03

New Division: Jun 23, 2004; I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift, Mr. Lombardi, the city of Detroit.

Mukip posted:

That's missing the point. Colonial slavery is often attributed to a non-economic explanation of white racism, and pointing out that the African slave trade existed independently of Europeans is worth pointing out to correct that. I am not arguing that racism somehow doesn't exist or wasn't a factor in the slave trade or whatever it is you are insisting in reading into my posts.

The only time I've ever seen the whole "Africans did slaves too!" is in defence of slavery and white supremacy. Everyone back then did slavery. Europeans industrialized the practice, and in doing so contributed enormously to modern notions of racism.

It's kind of tone deaf to minimize the racism of medieval peoples by creating softer explanations of the practice in a way that is suspiciously similar to something that would show up in the Ron Paul Report.

New Division posted:

Paying migrant workers token wages is usually how domestic help and the remaining agricultural work is done in the US. I think that most of the wealthy is happy with being able to pay peanuts and sever relationships with poor wage workers at will (aka "OK, harvesting is over, now gently caress off till next year"). Now that's exploitation for sure, but it's not slavery in the classic sense at all.

Sure, but there are instances of this turning into actual literal slavery, in the United States, within the last few years. As in the police show up, knock down doors, and encounter some highly distressed non-english speaking individuals who had had their freedom restricted.

Now many exploiters just go the safe legal route and pay two bucks an basket to undocumented migrants to pick tomatoes, but only because nobody wants to be convicted of actual slavery. Were the law relaxed we would certainly more of these jobs transition to slavery.

An estimated 5% of migrant pickers in Florida are actual literal slaves.

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jun 14, 2014

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:07

Mukip: Jan 27, 2011; by Reene

As I see it, you are pretty much just rewording what I already said and then accusing me of being a closet white supremacist. I don't really care if you have anecdotal experience of somebody who made a similar arguement who was racist.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:11

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Mukip posted:

As I see it, you are pretty much just rewording what I already said and then accusing me of being a closet white supremacist. I don't really care if you have anecdotal experience of somebody who made a similar arguement who was racist.

If you don't like being accused of being a closet white supremacist, don't make arguments that only closet white supremacists make. Whether or not Africans had slaves has nothing to do with why Europeans bought African slaves. The existence of African slavery does not somehow preclude European racism.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:14

New Division: Jun 23, 2004; I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift, Mr. Lombardi, the city of Detroit.

New Division posted:

The racism developed as a result of the trade,

There's really no way of knowing this, given that modern racism has roots in the Enlightenment. But there's no reason to assume that Europeans somehow weren't racist, otheriziation and looking at people different from you as inferior is a constant strain of human society. One could make the argument that there were few specific reasons for Europeans to be racist against Africans before the slave trade but I don't know why unless someone's trying to disassociate racism from the purchase and transport of humans to die in forced labor.

Mukip posted:

Or alternately, stop making GBS threads up the thread with your unnecessary hostile attitude. Whether an arguement "sounds like something a baddy would say" has no logical bearing on it's merit.

I've made my point that not only is your argument bad, but it's a carbon copy racist argument. Focusing on how insulted you feel is just ignoring the fact that your argument is also bad.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:21

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

It's pretty clear that racism of sorts existed pre-Enlightenment. The story of the Good Samaritan is literally "this guy is one of the good ones" to a racist audience.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:22

E-Tank: Aug 4, 2011

computer parts posted:

It's pretty clear that racism of sorts existed pre-Enlightenment. The story of the Good Samaritan is literally "this guy is one of the good ones" to a racist audience.

I always thought it was 'Don't let your ego get too inflated or else they'll be nicer than you are and you'll end up looking bad in front of God'.

Though then again God ended up killing the good Samaritan because he dared to try and stop the ark from falling over, and thereby touched the ark, so :shrug:

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:26

New Division: Jun 23, 2004; I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift, Mr. Lombardi, the city of Detroit.

New Division posted:

Slavery doesn't always involved another race. It would be pretty drat difficult to argue that Roman slavery was based on race. It was really just based on "oh poo poo, I just lost in a war and now I belong to this dude who beat me"

The existence of non-racially based slavery in general does not mean that any other system of slavery in particular is not influenced by racism. There is the possibility, but something simply being possible is not proof that it is so.

Also, our idea of 'race' is entirely artificial anyway, which makes it fluid over time. There very well could have been some sort of quasi-racial component to Roman slavery, on top of the socioeconomic or self-identity aspects.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:28

MarksMan: Mar 18, 2001; Nap Ghost

MarksMan posted:

Yes, you figured it out. I need to feel superior on Facebook so I gathered the collective "Force" of the Goons to make myself rebut with a superior argument.

But, to be serious, no I gave up responding to them, before I made this post, because I realized nothing I say will change their views. They are convinced that I, as a white person, am against them and that I secretly wish they were slaves. I was just curious as to how a totally different demographic than my Facebook friends would view this. Nothing said here is going to be re-posted there, I have no desire to argue with a broken record.

You could also just listen and ask why they feel this way, instead of arguing that they're wrong.

While I feel the opinions in the OP are extreme and unrealistic, I'm also not surprised. The underlying fear that African Americans will continue to be unfairly dominated and exploited by a society created by and for white Americans is an entirely valid and rational thing. Literal slavery isn't likely to come back but there are enough institutions that impose similar hardship on non-white individuals that slavery is useful as a metaphor for continual poor treatment.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:37

MarksMan: Mar 18, 2001; Nap Ghost

Ytlaya posted:

I think you might be ignoring the possibility that both of these things would exist independent of each other regardless. One doesn't have to cause the other.

edit: Just noticed that the OP seems to think that the Black Panthers were some evil/harmful group, haha. It's really depressing that so many white people have re-imagined the civil rights movement as something that MLK just rationally convinced everyone was a good idea or something.

Ok, well I apologize -- I Google'ed and realized that statements I had seen from the "New" Black Panther Party are not endorsed or supported by the original BPP. The "New" BPP is most definitely racist and promotes violence against whites without a doubt and are monitored by the SPLC.

And based on statements from this FB friend and his other friends on FB, they fall more towards the "New" BPP ideology.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:43

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

New Division posted:

So can anyone advance an convincing argument that whites in the US would re-institute slavery if allowed to that is not based on paranoia? I have to repeat my question as to what the point of re-instituting slavery would be in an economy where unskilled labor is not particularly valued anymore. Slavery's initial practice and growth in the US was driven by shortages of manual laborers as much as anything else, and there's no real lack of those in the modern US.

Slavery still persists today in the agricultural sector. Florida farmworker organizations allege that there's over a thousand literal slaves - minority workers in involuntary servitude, forced to work for masters who buy and sell them as if they were objects - working various fields in Florida today, and have enough escaped slaves and imprisoned slaveowners to prove they're not just making it all up.

Aside from that, though, slavery as practiced two centuries ago is kind of an obsolete system from capital's perspective. The high cost of slaves made them an investment as well as a product, meaning that much money and productivity had to be lost in order to protect the long-term health of the slave. Wage slavery, where there's no upfront cost and thus no long-term stake in the health of the worker, extracts better overall productivity.

Mukip posted:

Slavery existed in the ancient world in Europe; but it took off in the colonial period when Europeans came into contact with African tribes selling slaves. I think it's perfectly reasonable to hypothesize that if it weren't for the slave trade in Africa already existing at that time, then there might not have been a transatlantic slave trade at all. While some white supremacists may seek to absolve the Europeans of any responsibility with similar arguments that is not my goal. My point was that racism was a symptom of slavery rather than a cause of it. Your second point is similar to what I said myself in that regard.

e: spelling

Transatlantic slave trade or not, colonialists were perfectly happy to enslave the natives where convenient. If Americans hadn't been importing African slaves, they'd have just enslaved every Native American they could get their hands on instead.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:45

New Division: Jun 23, 2004; I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift, Mr. Lombardi, the city of Detroit.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Europeans turned to Africa in part because their Native slaves died so quickly when concentrated onto plantations and enconeimendas (pretty sure I misspelled that)

Main Paineframe posted:

Slavery still persists today in the agricultural sector. Florida farmworker organizations allege that there's over a thousand literal slaves - minority workers in involuntary servitude, forced to work for masters who buy and sell them as if they were objects - working various fields in Florida today, and have enough escaped slaves and imprisoned slaveowners to prove they're not just making it all up.

I'm not entirely surprised that there's some of that going on in Florida. It's a shame that labor laws are so often gleefully flouted in this country and no one does anything.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 22:50

EA Sports: Feb 10, 2007; by Azathoth

Main Paineframe posted:

Slavery still persists today in the agricultural sector. Florida farmworker organizations allege that there's over a thousand literal slaves - minority workers in involuntary servitude, forced to work for masters who buy and sell them as if they were objects - working various fields in Florida today, and have enough escaped slaves and imprisoned slaveowners to prove they're not just making it all up.

My father works in shirt printing in florida and was asked by his boss one day to pick up shirts from a different shop down near miami. He said when he got there you could see prison bars on these little rooms that looked like they kept there workers in. He also noticed the spanish workers hands were cuffed to where they were working.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:11

E-Tank: Aug 4, 2011

EA Sports posted:

My father works in shirt printing in florida and was asked by his boss one day to pick up shirts from a different shop down near miami. He said when he got there you could see prison bars on these little rooms that looked like they kept there workers in. He also noticed the spanish workers hands were cuffed to where they were working.

Did he report it to the police? 'cause...that sounds like a slave run labor camp.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:17

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

The answer to the original question is probably "no," but only in the most evasive way. "Slavery" has the same sort of status as "racism," it's a cartoonized pejorative that people view as something only practiced by moustache-twirling incarnations of pure evil that lived in the past and that everyone is now past it, so they'll happily just say it doesn't apply to them without digging down and analyzing what it actually is, how it was appealing, and how it was justified.

The result is basically the same too: Most of what people hated about slavery is persisting in other forms: One class of people thrives on the labor of another class that they only have to compensate with basic survival necessities, both pass their role in that relationship down to their children, and it's enforced by the state.

Also, as much as that's practiced domestically, it's practiced much more obnoxiously overseas, with things like the mass-ownership of farm land, mines, and other natural resources by huge European/American companies.

New Division posted:

I'm not entirely surprised that there's some of that going on in Florida. It's a shame that labor laws are so often gleefully flouted in this country and no one does anything.

IIRC, it's not so much labor laws as immigration laws. It's basically all off-the-books immigrant workers that their "employers" blackmail by threatening to report them to the authorities.

E-Tank posted:

Did he report it to the police? 'cause...that sounds like a slave run labor camp.

See above. Report it = Get deported.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:19

E-Tank: Aug 4, 2011

OneEightHundred posted:

See above. Report it = Get deported.

Chains holding them to tables means that they're being treated as slaves. Reporting it and getting them deported seems to be the nicer thing to do simply because then they won't be loving *slaves*.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:36

Pththya-lyi: Nov 8, 2009; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2020

MarksMan posted:

They are convinced that I, as a white person, am against them and that I secretly wish they were slaves.

Why would anyone want to be friends - even Facebook friends - with someone who (they think) wants to enslave them? :psyduck:

# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:43

i am harry: Oct 14, 2003

Hey has anyone tried that slave shrimp yet? I love Thai food.

# ? Jun 14, 2014 23:50

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

E-Tank posted:

Chains holding them to tables means that they're being treated as slaves. Reporting it and getting them deported seems to be the nicer thing to do simply because then they won't be loving *slaves*.

Nevermind, read into it and it looks like that's an entirely different thing, but there is overlap between the two scenarios. Threatening to break up someone's family can be just as powerful as threatening them with violence, and there are slave-labor operations that use that threat to cement it.

# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:16

new phone who dis: May 24, 2007; by VideoGames; Morbid Hound

E-Tank posted:

Chains holding them to tables means that they're being treated as slaves. Reporting it and getting them deported seems to be the nicer thing to do simply because then they won't be loving *slaves*.

You would think so but life in 3rd world countries for many people is literally worse than slavery in a better one.

# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:30

MarksMan: Mar 18, 2001; Nap Ghost

Pththya-lyi posted:

Why would anyone want to be friends - even Facebook friends - with someone who (they think) wants to enslave them?

Because up until about 1 year ago he was a completely different person. I have no idea what radicalized him, but he went from being normal and non-racial/non-political, to being a hardcore New BPP, "white devil hating" type poo poo.

Also, according to him and his friends (this is something he "shared"), white people did not end slavery -- for some reasoning I don't quite fully understand?

quote:

Also, whites didn�t end slavery. Abraham Lincoln didn�t care about Black people and slavery until he knew that slavery was a very important economic part of the South, so he threatened to end slavery if they didn�t surrender because then the Confederate states would crumble, which is mostly what happened after they had to surrender. Slavery wasn�t necessary over after the Emancipation Proclamation, either. He only freed the slaves in the South. Sharecropping happened so after, which is basically slavery but only with drowning in debt so the Black families could become dependent on the white folk they�re on the land and work for.

MarksMan fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Jun 15, 2014

# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:36

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

computer parts posted:

It's pretty clear that racism of sorts existed pre-Enlightenment. The story of the Good Samaritan is literally "this guy is one of the good ones" to a racist audience.

E-Tank posted:

I always thought it was 'Don't let your ego get too inflated or else they'll be nicer than you are and you'll end up looking bad in front of God'.

To be fair, Jesus' audience did call him out on that racist story.

# ? Jun 15, 2014 00:39

ReidRansom: Oct 25, 2004

OneEightHundred posted:

See above. Report it = Get deported.

Or, you know, they could all die because a fire or some poo poo breaks out and they're all chained to their workstations.

# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:04

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

MarksMan posted:

Also, according to him and his friends (this is something he "shared"), white people did not end slavery -- for some reasoning I don't quite fully understand?

When he talks about white people, does he really mean white Americans? That's one of the hosed-up things I feel about racial relations in the US, no one escapes the americentric perspectives, even the people who for racial reasons have been rejected as proper members of the society which their worldview is entirely attuned to.

# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:20

Sucrose: Dec 9, 2009

Main Paineframe posted:

Slavery still persists today in the agricultural sector. Florida farmworker organizations allege that there's over a thousand literal slaves - minority workers in involuntary servitude, forced to work for masters who buy and sell them as if they were objects - working various fields in Florida today, and have enough escaped slaves and imprisoned slaveowners to prove they're not just making it all up.

Aside from that, though, slavery as practiced two centuries ago is kind of an obsolete system from capital's perspective. The high cost of slaves made them an investment as well as a product, meaning that much money and productivity had to be lost in order to protect the long-term health of the slave. Wage slavery, where there's no upfront cost and thus no long-term stake in the health of the worker, extracts better overall productivity.

Transatlantic slave trade or not, colonialists were perfectly happy to enslave the natives where convenient. If Americans hadn't been importing African slaves, they'd have just enslaved every Native American they could get their hands on instead.

Yeah, slavery in Europe and its early colonies originally revolved around the idea that Christians couldn't be enslaved, but non-Christians were fair game. Same deal with Islam. Thus our word "slave," from the sheer number of then-Pagan Slavs traded through Europe's slave markets. When Europeans first invaded the Americas, slave raiders enslaved the natives with impunity, but due to their lack of resistance to Eurasian diseases and ability to escape back to their home tribes, Europeans decided to buy Africans as slave-labor instead, fueling slave-raiding against rival tribes and kingdoms throughout the continent.Then, after African slaves had been enslaved in the Americas for some time, they started converting to Christianity, meaning that slave-owners needed a new excuse other than religion to keep them enslaved. And so the idea arose that Africans were subhuman and were unique among all races as naturally suitable for slavery, and their descendants could be kept in slavery forever. And we're still living with the legacy of that.

The point is that the really nasty racism against blacks was caused by slavery, the slavery wasn't caused by the racism.

# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:38

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

OneEightHundred posted:

IIRC, it's not so much labor laws as immigration laws. It's basically all off-the-books immigrant workers that their "employers" blackmail by threatening to report them to the authorities.

See above. Report it = Get deported.

Oh, there actually is literal "chain your employees to their workplace, then throw them into a locked trailer with armed guards at night" slavery occasionally, it's just a lot rarer than the type you're talking about because it's much harder to keep secret outside of rural nowhere and you have to spend a lot more money on chains, locks, and armed guards.

MarksMan posted:

Also, according to him and his friends (this is something he "shared"), white people did not end slavery -- for some reasoning I don't quite fully understand?

It's not really wrong. Not really 100% right, either, but it's built on a foundation of truths, it's just using them to make some iffy inferences.

It's true that the Emancipation Proclamation was partially justified as a form of economic warfare against the South, and that it only applied to Confederate states, exempting any slaveholding states that remained in the Union as well as some Confederate territory that was already under Union control. To say that this meant that Northern politicians didn't really want to end slavery is absurd, though - the Emancipation Proclamation, being an executive order issued in Lincoln's capacity as commander-in-chief, could only really cover what Lincoln could cook up a half-decent military justification for. He didn't have the authority to end slavery in the Northern states all by himself; that had to be done by legislative action, not just an executive order.

Similarly, while it's true that slavery essentially continued in the South under things like sharecropping, the failure of Reconstruction is somewhat more complex and nuanced than "Northerners didn't really want to end slavery".

# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:39

Sucrose: Dec 9, 2009

Main Paineframe posted:

Oh, there actually is literal "chain your employees to their workplace, then throw them into a locked trailer with armed guards at night" slavery occasionally, it's just a lot rarer than the type you're talking about because it's much harder to keep secret outside of rural nowhere and you have to spend a lot more money on chains, locks, and armed guards.

It's not really wrong. Not really 100% right, either, but it's built on a foundation of truths, it's just using them to make some iffy inferences.

It's true that the Emancipation Proclamation was partially justified as a form of economic warfare against the South, and that it only applied to Confederate states, exempting any slaveholding states that remained in the Union as well as some Confederate territory that was already under Union control. To say that this meant that Northern politicians didn't really want to end slavery is absurd, though - the Emancipation Proclamation, being an executive order issued in Lincoln's capacity as commander-in-chief, could only really cover what Lincoln could cook up a half-decent military justification for. He didn't have the authority to end slavery in the Northern states all by himself; that had to be done by legislative action, not just an executive order.

Similarly, while it's true that slavery essentially continued in the South under things like sharecropping, the failure of Reconstruction is somewhat more complex and nuanced than "Northerners didn't really want to end slavery".

Yeah, Confederate apologists love to go on about how Lincoln didn't really free the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation, because it only freed the slaves in Confederate territory. But they completely ignore the part where Lincoln had no authority to free slaves except as a war measure against rebels, and that only the passage of a constitutional amendment could legally end it everywhere in the country. Which is, of course, exactly what happened a year after the war ended. But then Confederate apologists have never been real concerned with facts.

# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:50

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 00:25

EA Sports: Feb 10, 2007; by Azathoth

E-Tank posted:

Did he report it to the police? 'cause...that sounds like a slave run labor camp.

He did an anonymous tip after he was laid off like six months later. I don't know if anything came of it.

If you're surprised about stuff like this happening, right now where I live in a poor Spanish area their is a cocaine dealing business going on under cover of being a repair shop. Its open twenty four hours and you never see them actually working on anycars AND it's most "busy" at night. All the cops know they're there and yet do nothing. The word on the street is that they're giving kickbacks to the cops so they can operate. This is still in florida.

EA Sports fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jun 15, 2014

# ? Jun 15, 2014 01:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Would whites re-institute slavery today if they could?

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