Quote:
Originally Posted by Little32
Also, the fact is that slavery was about race. I am trying to find the year, but early on in the existence of the institution, a law was passed that legalized perpetual servitude for Africans and African descended people. Before that, indentured servitude was the more common practice.
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That doesn't make slavery about "race" at the onset and in its earliest stages. I never said it wasn't about race at all, although some people in this thread may have. There are also academicians who believe it wasn't about race at all, hence the continuous debate (off of GC).
Perhaps people do not understand what it means when I say slavery wasn't about "race" but I have already explained it in previous posts but I'll try once more. To make something about "race" is more than saying "hey, there are Africans over here who would be great slaves in a foreign land where they don't speak the language and are easily identifiable as NOT European." Being about "race" requires more than the identifiability of someone whose skin is darker than yours and language is different. It also requires negative beliefs and stereotypes that fuel the use of those people for economic purposes. Not the other way around, which argues that the economic purposes were established first, the people (from and outside of Africa) were chosen, and then to reinforce this slavery institution there were negative beliefs of stereotypes such as "these people are immoral savages who NEED to be brought to this land...they aren't even human." So it
became more and more about race as the negative beliefs and stereotypes grew but was not initially about this.
There is no hard evidence that places the causal ordering of the economic purposes and negative beliefs and stereotypes. Therefore, we are forced to interpret history and apply theory to understand why slavery and systemic oppression of racial groups, in general, was able to perpetuate. If it was just about "race" and prejudices, we could have knocked slavery, Jim Crow, and all inequalities out the box by educating people and eliminating bigotry. But I know that you don't have to be a "race bigot" in order to be a racist. You can love everyone and have minority friends but still refuse to hire a racial or ethnic minority because it hurts your company's profit when bigoted white people will no longer patron you. These types of racists would claim that they aren't doing it because of "race," they are doing it because of "economics"/profit. Whatever's whatever.