The real question is:

If we all knew then what we all know now--the knowledge, the technology, the scholastic activities (although that is still arguable today by some folks), would we be able to handle the similar kinds of slavery our ancestors endured?

My grandmother is the only person I know that has actually met someone in her family (my family) that was slave, who eventually was emancipated. It was her great uncle and she said he was very old when she met him as a little girl.

The scariest stuff is those that lived during Jim Crow (apres slavery) barely speak on the humilation they endured...

If you would born prior to 1980 and your parents were adults in the south pre- and during the 1960's before the 1965 civil rights act and before MLK was assasinated, then that means your folks endured Jim Crow and segregationists laws.

My folks barely speak about the humiliation they endured while they were in college... The arrests for integrating a lunch counter... Being blown away by a fire hose for protesting for civil rights...

These things our ancestors endured are so fragile that we can lose them so quickly that the next thing we know, we have failed to learn from our history to succeed in our futures... We'll be slaves again if we don't shape up our actions... And don't even begin to ask me how to do that because I just don't know outside of pure reparations...

I don't think anything could really prepare you for what slaves endured, especially the women.

Now, Jim Crow, the Lord knows...

Sitting in the back of the bus? I'd rather walk, thank you. Drinking from 'colored only' water fountains? I don't drink from any fountains, Sir. Entering the diner through the back door? Or, arresting me for integrating a lunch counter? Quite frankly Ma'am, you can have the diner and the counter. I have better food in my own kitchen. (You can't get good Louisiana cuisine just anywhere anyway! ) Being bitten by dogs and blown away by a fire hose for protesting for civil rights? I would more likely have been blown away by a police bullet, because I would have been armed and firing at the dogs and the man holding the hose just as soon as they began to act up.

GodlyAspiringDr, like you, I really don't think I could have lived accepting slavery, and I probably would have gotten myself killed resisting JC too. :(

What do you mean by "pure reparations"? Monetary relief? Or... something else? :confused:

Yes I could have done it to an extent. Being po' - I have a survival instinct. So, I would have been the one that did it quietly - while figuring a way to gather a group to escape w/o getting lynched or getting my foot chopped off.

I havent posted alot on here...im kind of a silent observer.....

But this post caught my eye.....I was born and for half of my life raised in south africa.....now i live in canada and the freedoms i experience here everyday are sometimes beyond belief for me

My mother and father voted for the very first time in their lives in 1993.......1993.....thats lil over 10 yrs ago.....now i am in no way sayin that there isnt forms over discrimination all over north and especially southern america....and im in no way down playing wat has happened to anyone or their families.....

And even though some of you have said "no i wouldnt be able to have done what they did"....i think youre wrong.....i kno that every single one of the ladiez and gentlemen of colour could do it..... see in the face of pain and sufferin we as a beautiful people come together and remember our inner worth.....we have a strength untestable....that has been past down.....and never lost....of a proud people who suffer, yes, but endure.....

and not only our ability to endure and prosper.....but we face a different form of racism now that is ripping us as a people apart..... its drugs and gang violence.....the misrepresentation of people of colour......and the viscious cycle that has occured because of slavery.....alot of people dont want to believe it but we live in "mental slavery" as bob marley said....we live a different kind of slavery.....and instead of wearing clothes over their heads they wear business suits.....and they dont fund schools in neighbourhoods that actually need funding

now i could go on forever about this and that.....
but i think its important that we recognize what happened in the past......remember and learn it...know it....because its apart of who we are.....but we need to recognize the struggles we face today...thats whats important.....

and that is why i respect members of organizations such as this one....because yougive back to a community starving to kno its history....and screamin out for someone to pull them from the viscious cycle that is killing them.......

i hope i havent offended anyone purple yellow brown black red or turquoise......because that was not my intention.....and if i did please feel free to email me personally and challenge anythin i have said above.....

and i also hope i have made my point......

Re: Do you think you could have done it? (Not for the sensitive....Trust me!
 

I'll say that you would be amazed at what you WILL do when you HAVE to do it. I think that's why our ancestors persevered. Not only that but our people have a strength unlike any other. Slavery involved a strong sense of community among slaves. So it may be safe to assume that our ancestors endured for those that couldn't and that they persevered for us (future generations).

Please read my second post from 2003. You should be able to put those thoughts together with the thoughts from my inital post. Together, you will see that I was not THAT amazed...(still not...)

Gyrl7,
I.do.not.know!

I guess my next topic in 2007 will be, do you think you could ever have the strength to become a tornado chaser?

I'm just gon' sit right'chere and eat my lays dill pickle potato chips and read......:D ;)

Re: Do you think you could have done it? (Not for the sensitive....Trust me!
 

To the extent that I think that most humans (including myself) have a natural desire to LIVE I think that I (and many of us) probably could have done it. I think that it's less a matter of strength and more a matter of your will to live...which seems strong in most humans.

SC