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‘The Point’ of a Truly Honest Discussion of Race
Townhall.com ^ | May 25, 2014 | Jack Kerwick

Posted on 05/25/2014 8:02:08 AM PDT by Kaslin

In reply to a recent article in which I disclosed some neglected facts concerning race and slavery, a reader inquired as to the point in unveiling them. Before answering, let’s review some of the tidbits that I shared in the interest of that “honest discussion” of race that the Eric Holders of the world continually charge the rest of us with deferring:

(1) For centuries, millions of white European Christians were enslaved by Asian and African Muslims;

(2) The first slaves in Colonial America were white;

(3) Blacks were in America prior to slavery;

(4) A significant portion of African blacks who eventually became slaves in America were already Christian;

(5) These black slaves had been converted by the African blacks who sold them into bondage;

(6) During the antebellum period, there existed several thousand slave owners who were black;

(7) The first slave master in Americawas a black man, Anthony Johnson, an Angolan who had originally been sold into slavery by his fellow Africans to Arabs and who owned black and white servants.

There is still other historical “trivia” that defy the conventional narrative on race and slavery.

The civilized world, justly, expresses outrage over the abduction and enslavement of hundreds of young Nigerian schoolgirls at the hands of the African Islamic terrorist organization, Bokum Haram. But the stone-cold truth of the matter is that this sort of thing has been transpiring in Africa from time immemorial. For millennia upon millennia, black Africans have seized upon and enslaved other black Africans. And, as notes famed Islamic scholar, Bernard Lewis, among others, from the dawn of Islam, Muslims have abducted and enslaved non-Muslims—both black and white.

It is estimated that well over 100 million black Africans died over the span of 14 centuries as they were marched across the scalding hot sands of the Sahara Desert by those Arab raiders and traders intent upon reducing them to a life of bondage in foreign lands.

In spite of the tremendous number of blacks transported to the Middle East, the latter consists of relatively few blacks today. Why? For one, African boys were frequently forced to undergo castration, a practice so barbaric that but a tiny percentage survived it. Those who did, however, fetched a purchasing price several times that of those of their peers who were not made into eunuchs.

Another consideration accounting for the miniscule black population in the contemporary Middle East is that African girls were sold as concubines and into sex slavery to Arab masters. This reflected the Islamic belief—most recently articulated by the leader of Bokum Haram but first stated in the Koran and practiced by Muhammad—that girls can and should become wives once they are nine years of age. Upon begetting their masters’ offspring, many eventually became assimilated into their families.

But, thirdly, the tragic fact is that many slaves were simply worked to death.

What follows are some other fascinating truths that are a “must” for any truly honest discussion of race and slavery:

While whites were by no means unique in practicing slavery, they were indeed unique insofar as they were the first people in all of history to have developed a moral revulsion against this age-old institution. No one liked being abducted and enslaved by others. But many of these same unfortunates wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to others if the opportunity had arisen. Whites, more specifically, English white Christians, personified and led by the conservative William Wilberforce, succeeded in prevailing upon the British Empire—the most economically and militarily powerful presence on the planet at that time—to abolish slavery, not just in England or even within the Empire, but in every area of the globe over which Britain could hope to exercise any of its influence.

More scandalously, the British met with much resistance from Arabs, Asians, and Africans. Bernard Lewis relays an exchange between a British Consul General in Morocco and the Sultan of that land that typifies precisely the challenges to its campaign against slavery that the English had to surmount. When the Sultan was asked what he had done to relegate to the dustbin of history the trade in human flesh, he “replied, in a letter expressing evident astonishment, that ‘the traffic in slaves is a matter on which all sects and nations have agreed from the time of the sons of Adam…up to this day.’” The Sultan added that slavery’s permissibility was “‘manifest to both high and low and requires no more demonstration than the light of day.’”

Incidentally, England’s success was a long time coming, for in some parts of the non-European world, places like India and Saudi Arabia, slavery didn’t become illegal until the 1940’s and 1960’s, respectively.

My reader who inquired as to the “point” in raising these facts at no time denies any of them. Thus, he confirms what some of us have long suspected: in their tireless promotion of the conventional orthodoxy on race and slavery in America, neither he nor his ilk has ever been in the least bit interested in history for its own sake. Rather, there has always been a “point” to their campaign, the advancement of a political agenda involving fictions concerning perpetual black suffering, white oppression, and white guilt.

The facts to which I allude here frustrate that agenda.

And this, by the way, is “the point” of mentioning them.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: antebellum; slave; slavery; slaves

1 posted on 05/25/2014 8:02:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Slavery continued in the USA until about 1915 ... Asians (mostly Chinese) were openly sold on the docks in San Francisco and in Portland men (mostly white) were “shanghai’d” fairly openly until about that time.


2 posted on 05/25/2014 8:08:23 AM PDT by Neidermeyer
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To: Kaslin

Actually, my final position on having a realistic discussion of race, past transgressions, etc. ended with the election of this excuse of diversity we currently call a President. I’m not in a disposition, willingness nor mood to ‘discuss’ it any further.

Take it on up the street to somebody who cares about it, Jack.


3 posted on 05/25/2014 8:09:22 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Kaslin

Thank you for posting this article.

Some ‘food for thought’.


4 posted on 05/25/2014 8:13:34 AM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: Gaffer

I agree...we have been “discussing” white racism for at least 50 years and we have mostly eliminated it.
As far as I’m concerned, until we start discussing black racism (affirmative action, knockout game, etc.) the discussion is over.


5 posted on 05/25/2014 8:16:47 AM PDT by axxmann (If McCain is conservative then I'm a freakin' anarchist.)
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To: axxmann

“As far as I’m concerned, until we start discussing black racism (affirmative action, knockout game, etc.) the discussion is over.”

Looks as though some blacks in Detroit have started having their own “internal discussion” through the effective use of firearms on “their own.”


6 posted on 05/25/2014 8:32:06 AM PDT by vette6387 (n)
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To: axxmann



7 posted on 05/25/2014 8:35:44 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey ( "Never, never, never give up". Winston Churchill)
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To: Kaslin

Talking about “race” benefits only parasites. The “discussion” - or let’s call it a lecture - we need to have is about the means available to everyone to achieve reasonable success in life. Get a decent education. Get a job and work hard at it. Get married before having children, and stay married.

Once we’ve all assimilated this message, we can discuss how to eliminate the obstacles to everyone’s achievement. These obstacles include anyone who wants to discuss “race.”


8 posted on 05/25/2014 8:36:54 AM PDT by Tax-chick (You say I'm insane ... I say you're afraid.)
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To: Kaslin

Great post.
I can hear racist Liberal demagogues holding their pointed heads lest they pop.
Slavery has been called, by ignorant black people and ignorant white trash, to be white and Christian in nature and history. As the article points out, neither smear is accurate, not that racist black or white trash care.
TWB


9 posted on 05/25/2014 8:43:24 AM PDT by TWhiteBear
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To: Kaslin

Life expectancy comparisons between American slaves and tribes back home

Concept of freedom in general in negroid Africa

Barracoons.....what lovely places run by black overlords

Folks once had a realistic appraisal on the worldwide condition of the dispersal of tropical Africans

Kethcup is slow.


10 posted on 05/25/2014 8:45:45 AM PDT by wardaddy (we will not take back our way of life through peaceful means.....i have 5 kids....i fear for them)
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To: Kaslin

Those who are represented by white slaves are also deserving of reparations.


11 posted on 05/25/2014 8:54:02 AM PDT by Mark was here (If I had a Rodeo Clown he would look like Barak Obama.)
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To: Kaslin

Bookmark


12 posted on 05/25/2014 9:02:34 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: Kaslin

bkmk


13 posted on 05/25/2014 9:03:29 AM PDT by AllAmericanGirl44
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To: Kaslin; All

I do not understand why there is a continued effort to have an “honest conversation” about race, when the very people pimping this card at EVERY single turn on ANY issue brought forth by the media for the normal consumption by the people, is somewhat a noble cause to rally behind...

The people who listen to every single syllable uttered by these Sharpton’s, Jackson’s and your local race pimps (most large communities have these shakedown artists among them), are solely intent upon the white people in this country to get their come-uppances for generations past transgressions, much to their ignorance of the historical and timeline facts of race relations in this country, is their bread and butter...They love it when the white man gets stung by the mear accusation of being called a racist publically...

So I do not see ANY “moving forward”, any improvement to the social fabric of this country till the black people in this country that feed off this conflict realize that it is not an issue anymore...It is not in the race pimping industries best interests to stave off and improve anything in this country...It is a power card that is played way to much, and accepted way to much by people that should know better...

But hey, if people want to go to war over this, that’s on them, no one will win in the end...

The people that need to be utterly destroyed in this war need to be the media that fan this flame for justifying their existence in the public eye...

What an absolute waste of this countries greatness to rise above its faults and remain at the top of the international fray is beyond my ability to comprehend over these last few years...

Personally, I believe we have bigger issues to deal with before this fabricated outrage form such a small segment of people that do not understand the big picture...


14 posted on 05/25/2014 9:06:31 AM PDT by stevie_d_64 (It's not the color of one's skin that offends people...it's how thin it is.)
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15 posted on 05/25/2014 9:08:49 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (The Fed Gov is not one ring to rule them all)
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To: Kaslin

For those that can’t handle the truth, this will be like garlic to a vampire.


16 posted on 05/25/2014 7:19:41 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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