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PJfanwillneverleave1

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PJ_Soul

No, ancestors of wrong-doers don't owe anyone an apology. That's a stupid idea IMO. It's understandable for governments to offer apologies for historical injustices, as it's a symbolic acknowledgment of the ongoing harm done to the generations that follow (and of course tends to be the first step in a reparation plan).

That said, if I discovered that I had an ancestor who was a slave owner or trader, I would definitely NOT feel indifferent.

Enkidu

I'm from the south. Way back, Daughters of the American Revolution and all that. Years ago my mom sent me part of a family tree some relatives worked on. And I was horrified to see I had relatives who owned slaves. Not fancy pants plantation owners, medium-sized farmers. But it's right there in their wills, "I give to my daughter the following slaves; Celia and her children and her future increase and a boy named Hiram."

I looked that up in the family tree.

It makes me sick. It was really upsetting when I found out. Yeah, I can't change the past. I don't know who I would apologize to. I think Ben Affleck was a coward to hide the information. I don't think I'm indifferent, I'm more sad.

(My hometown is in a huge mess now because a group of people want to change the name of the high school - Robert E. Lee. I think sometimes you have to forget the PC stuff and just let history exist.)

brianlux

I'd say neither "yes" or "no" but instead would try learning more about the people through books written by the people who lived it (in this case, blacks mainly in the south), films about that period in history and so forth. I think being educated about a people and their history (and our own) and forming an honest evaluation of what happened and what still exists today is more useful. And if someone feels sincerely apologetic, they can say so- no problem. Me, I'd rather rap than sap. But most of all, being in-the-moment real and sincere makes more sense to me. If it's rote or forced it quickly fades or fails.

PJ_Soul said:

No, ancestors of wrong-doers don't owe anyone an apology. That's a stupid idea IMO. It's understandable for governments to offer apologies for historical injustices, as it's a symbolic acknowledgment of the ongoing harm done to the generations that follow (and of course tends to be the first step in a reparation plan).

That said, if I discovered that I had an ancestor who was a slave owner or trader, I would definitely NOT feel indifferent.

Definitely not me either. I honestly don't know because my family on one side was all Amish and on the other side westward pioneers who didn't leave good records.

hedonist

Can totally see where you're coming from, Enkidu. You may not be directly responsible but it's part of your history. Surely has to have an effect.

Still, if anyone here were a descendant of a Nazi officer, no way would I expect or want an apology. We're all responsible for our own actions.

Reading this earlier, thought about PJ_Soul's comment and yes, some governments do step up (whether of their own volition, I don't know). Words or money, hope either would make a difference to those who need it. The reparations my stepmother received from Germany were apparently valuable enough so that she married my father in the religious sense only, vs legal.

Kinda strange my father never received the same, given that his mother died in a camp, and he fought in WWII as a naturalized citizen. Maybe the citizenship was his reparation. If so, OK by me. I'm here because of that.

Anyway, lingering guilt? Understandable but (to me), unnecessary.

We carry our own burdens. The ones beyond our control, gotta somehow let them go.

rr165892

Enkidu,I did the whole family tree/ancestry.com thing and I also found a couple of descendants that way back in the early days had some slave ownership on their coastal Virginia farms.Not many just a few.
I remember feeling odd when I found out.But that's not me or my values and it was many,many generations ago.I like to think that maybe that was just the times and my relatives treated them with respect and care and their staff was embraced as part of the family.

callen

It's important to understand how very recent slave ownership is in our countries young history and how the lingering affects(income distribution, education, racism) is still alive.

Godfather.

why would I ? that fact this was even news worthy makes no sense to me.

Godfather.

mickeyrat

Godfather. said:

why would I ? that fact this was even news worthy makes no sense to me.

Godfather.

Because the PM of England is visiting Jamaica. A place his ancestors owned slaves in and received cash payment from the crown when slavery was abolished in the lands occupied by england.

Folks there want the apology from him and reparations for their slave ancestors.

Godfather.

mickeyrat said:

Godfather. said:

why would I ? that fact this was even news worthy makes no sense to me.

Godfather.

Because the PM of England is visiting Jamaica. A place his ancestors owned slaves in and received cash payment from the crown when slavery was abolished in the lands occupied by england.

Folks there want the apology from him and reparations for their slave ancestors.

man talk about wanting something for nothing...if a surviving slave wanted some reimbursement I'd say maybe but 100 to 200 years after the fact ? seems a little bit of a reach.

Godfather.

ldent42

Unless we're talking about a direct interaction between people, I don't like to think anyone owes anyone else anything. But if you discover that you have slave owners in your family tree and you find that regrettable, there's nothing wrong with feeling that way and expressing that feeling.

When I found out a Great Uncle worked in the oil business it left a bad taste in my mouth but it's someone else's life choices. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with it without feeling responsible for it.

PJ_Soul

brianlux said:

I'd say neither "yes" or "no" but instead would try learning more about the people through books written by the people who lived it (in this case, blacks mainly in the south), films about that period in history and so forth. I think being educated about a people and their history (and our own) and forming an honest evaluation of what happened and what still exists today is more useful. And if someone feels sincerely apologetic, they can say so- no problem. Me, I'd rather rap than sap. But most of all, being in-the-moment real and sincere makes more sense to me. If it's rote or forced it quickly fades or fails.

PJ_Soul said:

No, ancestors of wrong-doers don't owe anyone an apology. That's a stupid idea IMO. It's understandable for governments to offer apologies for historical injustices, as it's a symbolic acknowledgment of the ongoing harm done to the generations that follow (and of course tends to be the first step in a reparation plan).

That said, if I discovered that I had an ancestor who was a slave owner or trader, I would definitely NOT feel indifferent.

Definitely not me either. I honestly don't know because my family on one side was all Amish and on the other side westward pioneers who didn't leave good records.

Well I mean, people love to trot out their heritage when they have someone awesome in their family tree, like a President, and famous movie actor, a war hero, or a person who lived their life helping people, whatever. They tend to take pride in that, and I get the impression that they feel like that person is kind of a part of who they are, so really they do "accept responsibility" for that person's status or good deeds. But then all of a sudden, once you're talking about someone bad, like a slave trader or a founding member of the KKK or something else outstandingly negative that affected many people, people try to say they're indifferent? I think that's kind of bullshitty.

Dirtie_Frank

ldent42 said:

Unless we're talking about a direct interaction between people, I don't like to think anyone owes anyone else anything. But if you discover that you have slave owners in your family tree and you find that regrettable, there's nothing wrong with feeling that way and expressing that feeling.

When I found out a Great Uncle worked in the oil business it left a bad taste in my mouth but it's someone else's life choices. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with it without feeling responsible for it.

Why would working in the oil business do that? You just used either a computer, tablet, or smartphone to type this message. Unless you lived in the woods without electricity then statement is very hypocritical.

To the original point. The whole world would be apologizing to each other if we worried about everything that happened in the past and felt bad.

PJ_Soul

Dirtie_Frank said:

The whole world would be apologizing to each other if we worried about everything that happened in the past and felt bad.

I think it's okay to feel bad on some level - I know I feel bad about all the havoc the British and white Canadians wreaked on Canadian Natives in particular, because that is a shameful part of my heritage - but feeling bad or sorry about that happening because of a link to it through my heritage is a lot different than feeling apologetic. I think there is no point whatsoever in individuals apologizing for shit they didn't do, and yes, I agree that if everyone decided to dwell on the sins of all of our ancestors to the point where we're apolgizing for them, we'd barely be able to get anything done!

JUST A GIRL

Let's discuss this

Many Slave owners were black in the south. History has all but erased this fact. How come no one says anything about that on the news?

PJ_Soul

JUST A GIRL said:

Let's discuss this

Many Slave owners were black in the south. History has all but erased this fact. How come no one says anything about that on the news?

"Many"? Relative to what? And how many of those had simply bought their own family in order to save them? At any rate, what kind of conversation are you looking for here? If you want anyone to say that a black slave owner who simply owned their slaves in order to make them work (as opposed to owning them in order to save them) is just as bad as a white one, I'll say it. I don't see why that would be controversial. It is wrong to treat humans like property, period. It doesn't matter who did it. Or did you want to discuss why no one says anything about black slave owners on the news? I don't know for sure... but I would say it's because it's not relevant. What point do you think it would serve to mention black slave owners, specifically, every time slavery comes up? Why do you think that would be useful? Would it be to deflect responsibility from white people?

Anyway, here is a good article on the subject with links to yet more info:
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist.html

And from that article, I'll post this, just because you said that "many" slave owners were black:


"So what do the actual numbers of black slave owners and their slaves tell us? In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States, so the numbers of slaves owned by black people over all was quite small by comparison with the number owned by white people. In his essay, " 'The Known World' of Free Black Slaveholders," Thomas J. Pressly, using Woodson's statistics, calculated that 54 (or about 1 percent) of these black slave owners in 1830 owned between 20 and 84 slaves; 172 (about 4 percent) owned between 10 to 19 slaves; and 3,550 (about 94 percent) each owned between 1 and 9 slaves. Crucially, 42 percent owned just one slave.

Pressly also shows that the percentage of free black slave owners as the total number of free black heads of families was quite high in several states, namely 43 percent in South Carolina, 40 percent in Louisiana, 26 percent in Mississippi, 25 percent in Alabama and 20 percent in Georgia. So why did these free black people own these slaves?

It is reasonable to assume that the 42 percent of the free black slave owners who owned just one slave probably owned a family member to protect that person, as did many of the other black slave owners who owned only slightly larger numbers of slaves. As Woodson put it in 1924's Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, "The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."

brianlux

JUST A GIRL said:

Let's discuss this

Many Slave owners were black in the south. History has all but erased this fact. How come no one says anything about that on the news?

Tell us. How many?

This should be interesting.

JUST A GIRL

brianlux said:

JUST A GIRL said:

Let's discuss this

Many Slave owners were black in the south. History has all but erased this fact. How come no one says anything about that on the news?

Tell us. How many?

This should be interesting.

Ok. Let's say 423645

What's the point of talking about it? Because it never is. A lot of young black people don't even know this, because it's been erased from history.. Like I already said.

Maybe try reading what I said instead of being so hasty to try and prove me wrong.

Why is it erased? Because it doesn't sell the same I'm a victim story anymore. That's why I feel it is.

Dirtie_Frank

There also needs to be discussion on how slaves were sold to the Europeans by the chiefs of the tribes in Africa.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/41431

However, confronting the history of the Atlantic slave trade requires more than a sentence acknowledging that the Amistad prisoners “had been captured in Africa by Africans who sold them to European slave traders.” Website readers must understand that this terrible traffic in millions of human beings had been, as affirmed by the PBS Africans in America series, a joint venture: “During this era, Africans and Europeans stood together as equals, companions in commerce and profit. Kings exchanged respectful letters across color lines and addressed each other as colleagues. Natives of the two continents were tied into a common economy.” - See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/41431#sthash.zPiLPY33.dpuf

brianlux

Yes, Just A Girl and yes Dirty Frank, both are facts: black owned slaves, blacks in Africa sold slave to Europeans. PJ_Soul's reply covers a lot of this. And I could go into more detail but really... what is the point of this?

gimmesometruth27

everyone on this planet owes someone an apology. if you are alive, you are guilty of something.

Bentleyspop

brianlux said:

JUST A GIRL said:

Let's discuss this

Many Slave owners were black in the south. History has all but erased this fact. How come no one says anything about that on the news?

Tell us. How many?

This should be interesting.

Brian you're a smart person who has been around this site for a long time. You should know better than to ask questions of people who will never ever answer appropriately nor ever produce reliable and believable proof of charges.

Dirtie_Frank

brianlux said:

Yes, Just A Girl and yes Dirty Frank, both are facts: black owned slaves, blacks in Africa sold slave to Europeans. PJ_Soul's reply covers a lot of this. And I could go into more detail but really... what is the point of this?

You are right Brianlux. There is more important things to worry about. Just like I said earlier and gimme just said everyone owes everyone an apology. We need to remember the past but strive for the future. Make it better for all of us and future generations.

hedonist

gimmesometruth27 said:

everyone on this planet owes someone an apology. if you are alive, you are guilty of something.

mickeyrat

gimmesometruth27 said:

everyone on this planet owes someone an apology. if you are alive, you are guilty of something.

I demand an apology for that remark I resemble!!!!

gimmesometruth27

mickeyrat said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

everyone on this planet owes someone an apology. if you are alive, you are guilty of something.

I demand an apology for that remark I resemble!!!!

sorry dude.

brianlux

Dirtie_Frank said:

brianlux said:

Yes, Just A Girl and yes Dirty Frank, both are facts: black owned slaves, blacks in Africa sold slave to Europeans. PJ_Soul's reply covers a lot of this. And I could go into more detail but really... what is the point of this?

You are right Brianlux. There is more important things to worry about. Just like I said earlier and gimme just said everyone owes everyone an apology. We need to remember the past but strive for the future. Make it better for all of us and future generations.

Humbling thoughts. Thanks both and I apologize if I came across as harsh.

Jason P

gimmesometruth27 said:

everyone on this planet owes someone an apology. if you are alive, you are guilty of something.

gimmesometruth27

Jason P said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

everyone on this planet owes someone an apology. if you are alive, you are guilty of something.

he is just one of the billions of guilty.

Dirtie_Frank

brianlux said:

Dirtie_Frank said:

brianlux said:

Yes, Just A Girl and yes Dirty Frank, both are facts: black owned slaves, blacks in Africa sold slave to Europeans. PJ_Soul's reply covers a lot of this. And I could go into more detail but really... what is the point of this?

You are right Brianlux. There is more important things to worry about. Just like I said earlier and gimme just said everyone owes everyone an apology. We need to remember the past but strive for the future. Make it better for all of us and future generations.

Humbling thoughts. Thanks both and I apologize if I came across as harsh.

No you are fine. Cheers my friend!

Godfather.

brianlux said:

JUST A GIRL said:

Let's discuss this

Many Slave owners were black in the south. History has all but erased this fact. How come no one says anything about that on the news?

Tell us. How many?

This should be interesting.

she's right Brian, many slaves actually were given freedom and slaves along with plantations ,
also not all slaves were just kidnapped during the raids, many were sold or traded by other blacks and then put on the ships headed for north America.
history is deep we can't just pick and choose to fit our own idea of the past.

Godfather.