Quote:
Originally Posted by garce
It was also the worst thing that happened to Ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, Mongolia, China, Mesopo-fucking-tamia... and... umm... umm... Great Britain. And every fucking place on the face of the earth. It was not just African Americans who were slaves.
And it continues all around the world to this very day. Right now, there's a twelve year old girl in China who's been away from her family for six months working sixteen hour days making Levi jeans. If she makes the train, she might see her loved ones for Chinese New Year. If she misses it, well, back to the grind little bitch! The first world needs some new pants!
The only country that seems to take any grief about slavery is The United States of America. Why is that? They've almost all participated in the practice.
On topic - The screencap says that the U.S. abolished slavery five years ago. It was a joke. Har-de-har-har-har. |
In my opinion, there are several reasons. The main ones:
1- Because that's what US itself exports.
See, US cultural exports to most places in the world are... movies. Since movies says slavery was a big deal, most people thinks it is (and let's not fool ourselves, it was THAT big). When you see "in US people kills their presidents so they can have slaves" then... well, you get the point.
2- Because it was one the latest in abolish slavery
At least between the most important countries in the world, US was the last one (or one of the latest) in abolish slavery
3- Because many people confuses racial segregation with slavery
And here comes 1- to help the confusion. Many people thinks that racism in US was slavery, so it's not uncommon to find people who thinks slavery was legal until second half of XX century.
As for the ancient civilizations and slavery, you can't compare a modern country to values that were common at some point. Furthermore, Rome and Greece slavery could be way more benign that slavery in America. And I don't mean America as US, I mean America as America.
A curious factoid: in Argentina and Chile there is no black people. Both countries were between the first in abolish slavery in America, so all of a sudden slaves found themselves without work, home, food... nothing. Therefore, they became cannon fodder in the Independence Wars or did all kind of risky works or moved to Brazil... to be slaves again. The last black population in Argentina died in the Yellow Fever Epidemic due to poor sanitary conditions and the fact they were the only ones willing to work removing the bodies of death people.
Another fact: most of Europe abolished slavery for economic reasons, not moral reasons. But they didn't abolish it in the colonies, so it's a double standard to the very least, both France and UK had slaves until well into XX century