Race, lets make this serious! It is nearly 2013.

[O Really]

The key term continues to be "intent." The slavers did not intend to destroy slaves as a group any more than people of the time intended to destroy the horses they abused and worked to death. They were simply considered working livestock who had value as long as they could work. I agree with billy.p - why say "slavery is this...slavery is that"? Isn't it bad enough as it was to stand alone?

[Ulysses]

From OR:

"The UN defines it (genocide) as " a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.""

[O Really]

From OR:

"The UN defines it (genocide) as " a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.""

That is correct. "...with the intent to destroy..."

[Vrede too]

No, slavery was not genocide. It was awful to be sure, but calling it genocide is either just more lazy history, or some attempt to make slavery sound worse by attaching other horrendous words to it. Slavery was bad enough on its own without mixing it up with genocide.

Possibly slavery in the Caribbean could border on genocide as the slaves in this tropical environment were worked all year and had a life expectancy of under 7 years as a worker slave.
Whereas slaves in this country worked seasonal crops and were needed year after year. They lived a lifespan not that dissimilar to whites....

Limiting the discussion to "slaves in this country" is doing exactly what Canadian scholar Adam Jones cautions against above - ignoring the genocide it took to get those humans to this country. Original sin, the genocide doesn't end until the oppression does.

[Ulysses]

From OR:

"The UN defines it (genocide) as " a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.""

That is correct. "...with the intent to destroy..."

In other words, was there not an intent to destroy those african slaves in America who refused to submit to slavery?'

How is that not genocide?

[neoplacebo]

I think they just whipped them when they refused to submit. That's not genocide. Murder isn't genocide, either.

[Vrede too]

... Oxford defines "genocide" as "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group"

The UN defines it as " a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part."

The "one estimate" of 15 to 20 million deaths may be suspect, since many other estimates of the total number of transatlantic market slaves was about 12.5 mill, but in any case the fact that a large percentage may have died or for some reason killed in transit or after enslavement doesn't show intent to destroy. Negligence, maybe. Uncaring, for sure. Cruel, of course. But no intent to take out the whole group.

Wiki also has this article:

Genocide of indigenous peoples

If you search "slavery" in it, the word appears throughout as an element of the genocides that were perpetrated. The entire existing economy and culture of West Africa was destroyed by the slave trade, and many many communities and tribes were wiped out. Does it count as "intent" when this was the predictable result? Idk, but I won't dispute the semantics when people say that it does. It's an ongoing dispute: Was slavery genocide?

The key term continues to be "intent." The slavers did not intend to destroy slaves as a group any more than people of the time intended to destroy the horses they abused and worked to death. They were simply considered working livestock who had value as long as they could work. I agree with billy.p - why say "slavery is this...slavery is that"? Isn't it bad enough as it was to stand alone?

Is it possible to kill millions of humans and remove millions more without the intent to utterly destroy what existed before? That's a pretty big 'Opps'.

[O Really]

Some Indians were victims of genocide; they killed them off because they were Indians. Some Jews were victims of genocide; they killed them off because they were Jews. Wolves were killed off because they were wolves. Buffalos were killed off, too, but not because they were buffalo.

[Vrede too]

Some Indians were victims of genocide; they killed them off because they were Indians. Some Jews were victims of genocide; they killed them off because they were Jews. Wolves were killed off because they were wolves. Buffalos were killed off, too, but not because they were buffalo.

As you know in labor law, abhorrent behavior can be decided by the results without ever attempting any mind reading.



If some folks wish to call massive extermination "genocide" it seems defensible to me and I don't see a point to arguing with them.

[O Really]

Some Indians were victims of genocide; they killed them off because they were Indians. Some Jews were victims of genocide; they killed them off because they were Jews. Wolves were killed off because they were wolves. Buffalos were killed off, too, but not because they were buffalo.

As you know in labor law, abhorrent behavior can be decided by the results without ever attempting any mind reading.



If some folks wish to call massive extermination "genocide" it seems defensible to me and I don't see a point to arguing with them.

Thanks for supporting my point; those Indians were victims of genocide - they tried to starve them by killing off the buffalo. But the buffalo weren't killed for being buffalo - they were killed for being food.

And in labor law, too, intent matters. If you don't know how to calculate overtime and you don't pay your people correctly, the penalty is two years of back pay. If you intentionally short your employees, the penalty goes back three years and is double the amount shorted.

[Vrede too]

As you know in labor law, abhorrent behavior can be decided by the results without ever attempting any mind reading.

If some folks wish to call massive extermination "genocide" it seems defensible to me and I don't see a point to arguing with them.

Thanks for supporting my point; those Indians were victims of genocide - they tried to starve them by killing off the buffalo. But the buffalo weren't killed for being buffalo - they were killed for being food.

Did I? Sounds like you're saying that you have to accept the exterminators' perspective on the matter in order to define "genocide". Ewww. Indians weren't massacred for being Indian, they were massacred for being on the "wrong" land. Thus, no genocide, right?

And in labor law, too, intent matters. If you don't know how to calculate overtime and you don't pay your people correctly, the penalty is two years of back pay. If you intentionally short your employees, the penalty goes back three years and is double the amount shorted.

If a workforce is entirely White it's deemed discrimination without examining the validity of "more qualified" claims with each hire. Same with an entirely male management.

[Ulysses]

Now now, there's genocide, and then there's Lenocide.

Lenocide

What is Lenocide?

The absolute destruction of modern mainstream comedy as we know it.

Jay Leno exhibited tendencies of Lenocide when he tore The Tonight Show out of the deserving hands of his vastly superior and irrefutably funnier successor, Conan O'Brien.

[O Really]

IMNVHO, you guys are chasing the wrong rabbit. Many, if not most, slave owners and traders were cruel inhumane people, but clearly they didn't try to kill off their merchandise for being merchandise. But you can make a very good case for Black genocide during Jim Crow and the eugenics experiments.

[billy.pilgrim]

IMNVHO, you guys are chasing the wrong rabbit. Many, if not most, slave owners and traders were cruel inhumane people, but clearly they didn't try to kill off their merchandise for being merchandise. But you can make a very good case for Black genocide during Jim Crow and the eugenics experiments.

Eugenics for sure was about eliminating the undesirable traits in humans (traits mostly found in undesirable non-white races), but Jim Crow was mainly about keeping a race subservient - or a slave in fact only.

[O Really]

IMNVHO, you guys are chasing the wrong rabbit. Many, if not most, slave owners and traders were cruel inhumane people, but clearly they didn't try to kill off their merchandise for being merchandise. But you can make a very good case for Black genocide during Jim Crow and the eugenics experiments.

Eugenics for sure was about eliminating the undesirable traits in humans (traits mostly found in undesirable non-white races), but Jim Crow was mainly about keeping a race subservient - or a slave in fact only.

True, but one could make an argument that during the Jim Crow era, there were quite a few efforts made to eradicate Black people entirely. I just think the argument that slavery was genocide is like saying pickleball is like tennis. Yes, it's played on a court, using raquet-type things and a ball, but that doesn't make it tennis.

[billy.pilgrim]

IMNVHO, you guys are chasing the wrong rabbit. Many, if not most, slave owners and traders were cruel inhumane people, but clearly they didn't try to kill off their merchandise for being merchandise. But you can make a very good case for Black genocide during Jim Crow and the eugenics experiments.

Eugenics for sure was about eliminating the undesirable traits in humans (traits mostly found in undesirable non-white races), but Jim Crow was mainly about keeping a race subservient - or a slave in fact only.

True, but one could make an argument that during the Jim Crow era, there were quite a few efforts made to eradicate Black people entirely. I just think the argument that slavery was genocide is like saying pickleball is like tennis. Yes, it's played on a court, using raquet-type things and a ball, but that doesn't make it tennis.

The pickleball vs tennis is perfect. We have gotten so sloppy with words and history in this effort to make everything into everything else in order to make things only black and white, or good and evil.

I once heard that it took a 100 years for the truth of history to sort itself out, but I'm not seeing it.

Ask around:
The Civil War ended all slavery in the US.
The North fought to end slavery.
The Underground Railroad moved slaves out of the South into the Northern states.
And the Trail of Tears included all the NAs who accepted the price offered for their land and relocated themselves to Oklahoma is now all conflated with the murderous forced march at military pace that killed thousands in 1838.
How can history be understood if we're always looking for a bad guy, or these one size fits all descriptions?

[O Really]

How can history be understood if we're always looking for a bad guy, or these one size fits all descriptions?

Almost all history is written by blind men with elephants.

https://medium.com/betterism/the-blind- ... 6ec8a72a7d

[Vrede too]

Thanks for supporting my point; those Indians were victims of genocide - they tried to starve them by killing off the buffalo. But the buffalo weren't killed for being buffalo - they were killed for being food.

Did I? Sounds like you're saying that you have to accept the exterminators' perspective on the matter in order to define "genocide". Ewww. Indians weren't massacred for being Indian, they were massacred for being on the "wrong" land. Thus, no genocide, right?

And in labor law, too, intent matters. If you don't know how to calculate overtime and you don't pay your people correctly, the penalty is two years of back pay. If you intentionally short your employees, the penalty goes back three years and is double the amount shorted.

If a workforce is entirely White it's deemed discrimination without examining the validity of "more qualified" claims with each hire. Same with an entirely male management.

IMNVHO, you guys are chasing the wrong rabbit. Many, if not most, slave owners and traders were cruel inhumane people, but clearly they didn't try to kill off their merchandise for being merchandise. But you can make a very good case for Black genocide during Jim Crow and the eugenics experiments.

So, if the willing participants in a massive system that knowingly and intentionally slaughtered millions and destroyed entire cultures don't FEEL like it's their fault we should cut them some slack, right? I guess I'm just not as sympathetic as y'all are.

In other words, I reject your insistence that we get into the heads of the slave owners and traders and try to UNDERSTAND where their vile acts were coming from. To me, it's sufficient to look at the results in Africa, the Caribbean and Brasil. And even here it's not like slavers allowed African religion and culture, even the slaves' actual names, to continue to exist - that's genocide.

[Vrede too]

... slaves in this country worked seasonal crops and were needed year after year. They lived a lifespan not that dissimilar to whites.

https://geriatrics.stanford.edu/ethnome ... evity.html

"Despite the harsh living conditions of slavery, reconstruction and twentieth century separatism, Black older adults in the United States have continued to grow stronger and live longer. Some estimates placed the average longevity of Blacks at 21.4 years of age in 1850, with the average longevity for Whites at age 25.5. The combination of lower living standards, greater exposure, heavier labor, and poorer medical care gave slaves a higher mortality rate than whites. In 1860, 3.5 percent of the slaves and 4.4 percent of the Whites were over sixty. The death rate was 1.8 percent for the slaves and 1.2 percent for Whites (Stamp, 1965, p. 77).

These conclusions should not be accepted uncritically. The findings are based upon comparisons of aggregate data collected at the national level by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1850. Mortality data at the state level, for example in Virginia, for the same year did not show the same results. Savitt (1978, p. 201) found evidence that “more slaves than whites died of old age” between 1853 and 1860 in four Virginia counties. This suggests that some Black older adultslived longer than older Whites, at least in those counties. It was also reported that there were more centenarians among Blacks than Whites in 1850 (Savitt)."

I find it hard to believe that slavers were reporting slave death rates accurately, especially things like infant deaths, accidental deaths, and the results of slaver or escaped slave chaser brutality. And, I'll bet that the cruelest of masters never reported any data at all. It's not like slaves were in a position to do their own reporting or were being surveyed directly in 1850.

http://www.csun.edu/~sjs25580/history.h ... for%20them....

You're citing a "History Paper" by a frosh at California State, Northridge.
http://www.csun.edu/%7Esjs25580/index.html

[O Really]

So, if the willing participants in a massive system that knowingly and intentionally slaughtered millions and destroyed entire cultures don't FEEL like it's their fault we should cut them some slack, right? I guess I'm just not as sympathetic as y'all are.

I missed the reference cite about the "...knowingly and intentionally slaughtered millions and destroyed entire cultures..."