re: Just overheard a guy say "slavery wasn't racist"

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Slavery isn't, strictly, racist, even in the American experience.

Many white folks were subject to indentured servitude in North America, and there were very wealthy people of color in the South with large slave holdings.

Now, was slavery mired in racism? Certainly. Is slavery in North America one of the most complex socioeconomic issues in all of human history? Absolutely.

It isn't as simple as "Southern white people = bad - everyone else = Saints." But that is as complex as most Americans are willing to accept.

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Solid point.

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Was it legal to own white slaves?

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Kind of. Not straight chattel, but effectively the same. Google: indentured servitude.

It was legal for blacks to own slaves, too. Again, I get that some want this to be simple. It wasn't.

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Superior at what?

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Just "superior". It doesn't have to be logical, and it sure as heck doesn't have to supply bullet points in a Powerpoint presentation to occur.

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Doesn't explain the black slaveowner experience. Doesn't explain indentured servitude. Doesn't explain a shite ton of things. But, one cannot credibly deny the racist component of it - it just isn't the end of the discussion, as I have suggested.

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you're talking about a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of people. did black slave-owners form a government in this country that allowed enslaving humans?

The real history of slavery in America...

Prior to 1655 there was no slavery in America associated with the colonists or settlement of the continent. There was indentured servitude for a fixed period of time after which the indentured servant was free to seek other employment. This was the tool that many people who could not afford the cost of an ocean passage to North America used to get here. I say associated with the colonists or settlement because of course there was slavery amongst the native American tribes, but this was not race based...it was the sort of slavery associated with war and conquest that has been seen at various times in human history and is still seen in Islamic societies today.

The father of race based slavery in the US was Anthony Johnson, a tobacco farmer.

and?

(no message)

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The problem is it's impossible to separate the people who really want to dissect American slavery

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I'm willing to talk about the issue with anyone willing to listen.

The self-righteous northerners, most of whom were not even abolitionists, were eating slave-produced food, relying heavily on slave-produced cotton for their textile industry, slave-produced lumber for their construction and shipbuilding industries, and looking down on southerners, whether they owned slaves or not.

Southerners didn't invent slavery - it was part of the fabric of the country back to the 17th century. Many clearly detested it (look no further than Jefferson and Robert E. fricking Lee), yet are crucified in modern times by folks with the critical thinking skills of gravel.

Americans failed the slaves and each other by not compromising and coming to a better long-term solution than the Civil War. The South was wrong for the right reasons. The North was right for the wrong reasons.

Yet here we are, trying to dissect the most complex (IMHO) socioeconomic issue in history and we can't get past the fact that slavery was not strictly about either race or white supremacy, although those were clearly powerful factors within this extraordinarily complex issue.