Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Syt]

Bit of a tangent, but didn't a lot of slaves indenture themselves after the war because they had few economic prospects?

After what war?  The American Civil War?  In that case, I think that you are referring to sharecropping, not indentured servitude.  There were some similarities in that the power structure was entirely in the hands of the landowners.

Thanks for clarification. Is there a book you could recommend about the reconstruction period?

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm waiting for the proof that tens of thousands of African-Americans held white slaves in the US before the ACW.  That's something the media definitely isn't reporting.

[Valmy]

I'm waiting for the proof that tens of thousands of African-Americans held white slaves in the US before the ACW.  That's something the media definitely isn't reporting.

If they were desperate to find Africans holding lots of European Slaves they only had centuries and centuries of the Mediterranean slave system to refer to. I guess if all you care about in the history of slavery is personally not feeling bad because of how much melanin you have in your skin that can provide some comfort.

[Josquius]

I'm waiting for the proof that tens of thousands of African-Americans held white slaves in the US before the ACW.  That's something the media definitely isn't reporting.

If they were desperate to find Africans holding lots of European Slaves they only had centuries and centuries of the Mediterranean slave system to refer to. I guess if all you care about in the history of slavery is personally not feeling bad because of how much melanin you have in your skin that can provide some comfort.

You often see them talking about that too to be fair.
They seem to particularly love that one time the evil muslamics raided Ireland.

[Valmy]

I'm waiting for the proof that tens of thousands of African-Americans held white slaves in the US before the ACW.  That's something the media definitely isn't reporting.

If they were desperate to find Africans holding lots of European Slaves they only had centuries and centuries of the Mediterranean slave system to refer to. I guess if all you care about in the history of slavery is personally not feeling bad because of how much melanin you have in your skin that can provide some comfort.

You often see them talking about that too to be fair.
They seem to particularly love that one time the evil muslamics raided Ireland.

The defensiveness and tendency to take it personally when people from hundreds of years ago did something that, by the standards of today, was really bad is strange.

And I think most descendants of enslaved people wouldn't give a shit people in the past were enslaved if everything to day was great. That is what it is really about, not some oppression Olympics about the days of yore.

[grumbler]

Bit of a tangent, but didn't a lot of slaves indenture themselves after the war because they had few economic prospects?

After what war?  The American Civil War?  In that case, I think that you are referring to sharecropping, not indentured servitude.  There were some similarities in that the power structure was entirely in the hands of the landowners.

Thanks for clarification. Is there a book you could recommend about the reconstruction period?

If you haven't read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, you can get that and read the portion about the Reconstruction.  It's not history-history, in that it isn't trying to tell a dispassionate story of what happened, but the account is true and it is very well-written popular history.

Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution is probably the text that college intro courses are using.  Foner is a very accomplished academic historian, so his book is much more balanced and complete, but less well-written.

[Syt]

Thanks.

[Oexmelin]

Yes, Foner is very much the textbook on the issue. He's got a shorter "Short history of the reconstruction" as well.

You can also read W. E. B. Dubois' important inaugural essay into Reconstruction, "The Freedmen's Bureau", written in 1901 for the Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1901/03/the-freedmens-bureau/308772/

[Razgovory]

Bit of a tangent, but didn't a lot of slaves indenture themselves after the war because they had few economic prospects?

There was a much more slavery-like practice in the US after the Civil War: Prisoner Lease.  States could lease out convicts to private citizens as cheap workers.  As a result black people were regularly arrested on trumped up.  A black man who couldn't show that he was gainfully employed had a real chance of being charged with "vagrancy" and find himself right back on the plantation.  White prisoners could be leased out as well but the burden fell overwhelmingly on black men.  This practice lasted well into the 20th century.

Oh, my cat wanted to comment on this as well so she typed the following:

mnjjjjjjjjjjjjjjsdxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzfgvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

[Barrister]

Bit of a tangent, but didn't a lot of slaves indenture themselves after the war because they had few economic prospects?

There was a much more slavery-like practice in the US after the Civil War: Prisoner Lease.  States could lease out convicts to private citizens as cheap workers.  As a result black people were regularly arrested on trumped up.  A black man who couldn't show that he was gainfully employed had a real chance of being charged with "vagrancy" and find himself right back on the plantation.  White prisoners could be leased out as well but the burden fell overwhelmingly on black men.  This practice lasted well into the 20th century.

Oh, my cat wanted to comment on this as well so she typed the following:

mnjjjjjjjjjjjjjjsdxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzfgvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

We demand pictures of Sally. 

[Zanza]

This practice lasted well into the 20th century.

I was under the impression that the United States still has forced labor in its prison system to this day. Maybe my impression is wrong?

[Razgovory]

This practice lasted well into the 20th century.

I was under the impression that the United States still has forced labor in its prison system to this day. Maybe my impression is wrong?

They can't be leased out to private entities and in Missouri you can't force them to work and you must pay them.  Still, not a great system. You can see why African-Americans have such a critical view of Law Enforcement and frequently indifference to obedience to the law.  Why follow the law if they are just going to throw you in jail anyway?

[Maximus]

You can't force them to work and you must pay them, but you can pay them $2 per day and charge them $15 for a phone call. Also in many places the prisons are private entities.

[Barrister]

So my wife's cousin has started posting vaguely right-wing idiotic memes on Facebook.  One of which was posted by (I think) Syt's sister and re-posted in this thread - about how cops don't need more training, rather that parents failed their child.

I haven't had a lot to do with this guy over the years, but he was quite kind to me when I was first coming to meet her family and has always seemed like a stand-up guy (his brother is also in law enforcement so a pro-cop POV is pretty understandable).  But more importantly he almost certainly is suffering from Huntington's Disease which is a neurological disorder that absolutely can affect your thinking and reasoning skills.

I guess I just ignore it.

[Syt]