This argument is fucking stupid.
Comment on Based Red Dead
frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe 10 months agoNot comparable
SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee 10 months ago
frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe 10 months ago
The argument that chattle slavery and ye olde roman slavery are wildly different is stupid and racist?
callyral@pawb.social 10 months ago
They’re both two types of slavery. They’re in the same category. They can be compared.
threeganzi@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Of course they are comparable, just that the statement is a little strange in the context of American history.
frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe 10 months ago
Well sure anything can be compared in a literal sense. For example, based on your responses, I think you are either more racist or more ignorant than the average individual. However, the literal comparability of the two types of slavery is not exactly the point anyone is making here.
callyral@pawb.social 10 months ago
I must’ve misunderstood, sorry.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Slavery is slavery no matter who does it or whom it’s done to.
M1nds3nd@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Not even close. Chattel slavery is much worse.
Empricorn@feddit.nl 10 months ago
“White slavery” was white people that were slaves. Black slaves literally weren’t viewed as people! Thus, no one cared if you beat them, starved them, raped them, tortured them, and/or killed them. Which we as a country did. That’s the difference.
luciferofastora@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
“viewed as people” is meaningless unless it confers some special rights afforded to people.
White slaves didn’t have any more rights than black slaves, largely because skin-color based distinction is a rather modern invention (compared to the institution of slavery) and the defining traits of both black and white slaves were that they’re slaves. And slaves were universally treated poorly. Even the most benevolent slave owners in antiquity were cruel, because why wouldn’t you be? The damn thing might start getting uppity if you didn’t remind it you’re in control. Just imagine it might cause damage to someone else, and you’d be dragged to court over it!
A crime against your slave was a crime against your household (assuming you’re the head of the household), which you were entitled to drag the other party to court for. But there was literally no legal framework that would allow any kind of prosecution for anything you did to your own household. You could also beat them, kill them, rape them, literally anything. They had no defense. The only person empowered to prosecute on their behalf would be the one beating them.
So no, “white people that were slaves” weren’t people in any meaningful sense, because oppression and supremacy in much of the pre-modern world didn’t care about skin color. The romanticism around white slavery is bullshit, because owning other humans has never been anything but cruel.
AeonFelis@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I don’t think it was about “white vs black” as much as it was about “America can take any system, good or bad, and turn it into something so much worse”.
frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe 10 months ago
Try again