So, I just wrote that big thing on ‘progressive’ white America’s modern view of the chattel slavery of African Americans, and I have deiced, on behalf of all white people, we need to stop lying to each other. Teachers, tour guides, even just random people, when they get asked “Was Master X nice to his slaves” or “But most slaves were treated well, right?” Need to uniformly answer “No.”
No owner ever treated a slave well. Not George Washington, Not Thomas Jefferson, not your potential ancestors, not the nice family you heard about on vacation last year. To own another human being is to not treat them well.
We have to stop lying to kids (and each other) and saying that there is a humane way to strip another human being of there right to self, to take a person and create a marketable commodity .
White Americans still benefit from the legacy of slavery, and Black American’s still suffer from it. We need to stop teaching it as an ancient quirk that left few scars because everyone was more or less happy.
It wasn’t symbiotic, it was parasitic, and we need to stop saying otherwise.
To own another human being is to not treat them well.
