Today I’m going to be controversial again.
I have long argued that slavery is not racist in nature. It’s more primitive than racism. Racism is a product of rational mind, slavery is a product of most primitive economic relationships. You cannot repay your debt? Become a slave. You are a prisoner of war and your team lost? You have to work for the winner. Your village is “protected” by a powerful feudal? Keep working, serf.
As the society developed, slavery got more and more about “them vs us”. Indeed, we tend to protect those who we appreciate: family members, people of the same class, countrymen, people who look like us. As you can see, racism comes last in this pyramid for justifying slavery or oppression of any kind. Indeed, it took some evolution of thought to make people think skin color makes someone less human.
Yet, white people had white slaves. Black people had black slaves. Middle Eastern people had a lot of white slaves (in particularly, Slavic people in the Ottoman Empire). There were black slaveowners having white slaves too. Unfortunately, exploitation is part of the human nature. Part of our dark side.
So, at some point slavery was recognized as bad and immoral. Then two things happened. Slavery was abolished in Europe, while racist theories flourished to justify enslaving Africans. Does it mean white people stopped being slaves to other white people? No. Abolishing something in name doesn’t always mean abolishing the thing itself. Here is soome food for thought, if you doubt: Jack London’s 1903 People of the Abyss set of articles covering the life of the London working class and Servants: a true life below the stairs a BBC documentary about the life of servants up until very recently (in history terms).
You will see that white people in the working class had terrible life; difference between a specific worker and a black slave then was about the amount of luck in a specific case. And luck in both cases was represented by the almighty Master/Owner/Employer (those words could really be used interchangeably). Social lifts were hardly available for those white people, there lives were short and miserable.
Interesting, that Jack London seems to have found conditions of the UK working class worse than those of the US working class of the time, although he did cover the latter realistically with all the possible indignation (Valley of the Moon, Martin Eden, The Sea-Wolf). Note that by the time London became a writer black slaves had been liberated, so definitely their living conditions were not worse than of those working class people in Europe.
Even racism has not been used exclusively against black people throughout the human history! There is/was antisemitism, russophobia, sinophobia (or in broader terms, hate for all Asian people), racist treatment of Native Americans. As I said, racism is not directly related to slavery, it can be used for clearing territories, robbing, exterminating those who are considered inferior. What makes racism against black people “special” is that it was broadly supported by pseudoscience that became mainstream. But…Hitler did the same for Jews, Gipsies and Russians (the latter are quite white, but not white enough, apparently).
There is another point I need to make here though it is touchy. Yes, black slaves were transported to America in a brutal, inhuman way and many died on the way, many didn’t survive hard labor, especially at sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean islands. It was a crime against humanity. Yet, can you blame the white slave traders alone, despite their crime being beyond pardon? They did create the demand, but this demand was satisfied by the African elites of the time and adventurers who set up expeditions into the Continent to get slaves and sell those in exchange for European money and goods. Slavery did exist in Africa before the white people came. Here is a good article about slavery in Africa (in Russian).
What is the point of this article? Definitely not to justify slavery. It is to probably give arguments against modern slavery that is far more subtle, and exploits both bodies and minds. I have heard that the black community in the USA raises the compensation issue often. Does it mean all descendants of working class people, serfs (existed outside Russia too, all dependent peasants in Europe), white slaves have to demand compensation now? You know, it will make the majority of the mankind. It will not lead us anywhere. Fighting the past is futile.
Instead of vilifying white people to help the elites reach their ends through the conflict, I would suggest admitting that both white and black people contributed to building the nation in what is now the USA. Again, history of every country knows periods when a very large part of the population was exploited, and it is easier to get over it when there is no racial issue involved. But maybe it is easier if you understand that racism is not the cause or main part of this story, it is one of the tools that was used before to justify slavery and now is used again for basically the same purpose. While I was writing this, it occurred to me that it is very similar to the divide and conquer strategy that was used in Ukraine against Russia; same idea, local version.
Yes, racism is a concept, and as with all theoretical creations it’s a lie.
So what do you do when there’s no race question? You create one. You import millions of people from different racial backgrounds and when the inevitable tensions arise you scream and shout RACISM.
This is what’s happening in Europe and the U.S. and it’s not going to end well. In fact I believe Enoch Powell’s now famous speech “rivers of blood” will assume a physical form, with literal blood, a lot of it, on the streets of Western cities.
nicely done. just a few bullet points to add:
1. far more slaves went to the arabian world and south america than north america. the reason you don’t see a huge population of black people in the modern gulf states is that the males were all castrated.
2. one of (if not THE) best books on these subjects:
https://nyupress.org/9781479893409/the-counter-revolution-of-1776/
he mentions many of the issues you did but gives a lot of attention to the “invention of whiteness” that was used in an attempt to unite different bickering european nationalities and turn all their malice toward the africans. that was also a reason for the white slaves as they were seen as more “trust worthy” and were the “inside men/women” that kept an eye on the black folks who were developing the fun habit of rising up and killing their “massas”.
3. slavery – for all the window dressing by biological determinists and other scum – is practiced by ants. (“trigger” warning on the wiki: gross bug pictures):
https://www.science.org/content/article/how-blood-red-ants-became-slave-snatchers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave-making_ant
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-rebellion-of-the-ant-slaves
they also practice agriculture by growing mold and milking aphids. if only human slave owners could have been dealt with by a can of raid.
America became a prosperous industrial power in the 19th century.
On the backs of slave labor? Not really, since the south was left behind as a backwater.
But definitely on the backs of coolie Chinese labor (built the railroads).
Not to forget the institution of bonded labor … you could be bonded to a master because of some debt or to learn a trade.
The obligation lasted 7 years, regardless of the debt.
Many European immigrants (millions) paid off the money they borrowed for crossing to America with 7 years of bonded labor, basically slavery.