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Where would black Americans be if their ancestors had never been enslaved?

Where would black Americans be if their ancestors had never been enslaved?

  • Total voters
    51
spangledbanner said:
Really. The Irish overachieve do they? I thought they were a bunch of retards. What is so great about Ireland. What is it with Americans and the Irish? In British and Aussie/New Zealand culture there is none of this 'Boston Strong' nonsense. Irish are a bunch of retards. You dont know Irish jokes? The thrust is that the Irish are stupid. And where did you get the idea that the Irish are strong anyway? You Americans are really impressed by the little Irish? How about when the Normans invaded Ireland. The Normans were insulted if the little Irish even dared try to attack them.

Why do Americans love the Irish? And what exactly is so great about the Irish again?
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Ah, if you could only have the pleasure of telling all that crap to this Irish-American.

 
ThePlayDrive said:
Where would black Americans be if their ancestors had never been enslaved? Assume that all black Americans in the country today were the descendants of people who willingly immigrated to the United States under various conditions (some came b/c of war back home, others wanted a new experiences, etc.).

We obviously cannot answer this question definitively, but I would like people's thoughts on the matter regardless. Responding with "we can never really know", "there's just too many factors to come up with an answer" or similarly defeatist answers is not welcomed in this thread. This is a thought experiment, not a dissertation defense.

So, again, given the narratives you use to explain racial inequality, your perceptions of black Americans and other factors, where do you think that the black population in the United States would be if their ancestors had never been enslaved?* Would they have the same employment, education, crime and other rates as White Americans? Would they be in the same position they are in now?

*Note : I realize that not every black American in the United States is a descendant of slaves. This question addresses the ones that are. I hope that takes care of all the red herrings.
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Well, we really can't answer this question and many people's answers are based off the assumption that history would have been the same had there been no Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
Well, we really can't answer this question and many people's answers are based off the assumption that history would have been the same had there been no Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
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Which was depressingly predictable.
 
Mr. Invisible said:
Well, we really can't answer this question...
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True, it was a Preposterous Premise/poll.
Like so many, Framed to try and make a point.


Mr Invisible said:
and Many people's answers are based off the assumption that history would have been the Same had there been no Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
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By far the SMALLEST position, 2 votes/2%, said things would be the 'Same' for blacks.
What a Bizarre take/Mischaracterization on your part!
Then you go even a bit further/Broader by suggesting that people here feel "History would be same without the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade."
Huh?


Cardinal to/agreeing with Mr Invisible said:
Which was depressingly predictable
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Except, of course, his take is Obviously and Utterly Untrue: not only baseless, but Opposite of what the votes show.
But hey, once Again, agree away if it suits your PC Politics.
 
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I guess we here have to start enslaving people before they could be somewhere.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Granted, the Arab World, India, and the Far East probably could have advanced on their own, if they'd had the right factors to work with.

Unfortunately, however, they didn't. Their cultures were also too mired in anti-progressive world views to even think to try.

The West changed their thinking in this regard by tearing down the existing status quo.

SubSaharan Africa and South America, however, were a bit farther behind than even that. They were basically stuck at Bronze and Iron Age levels of technology and development, with little hope of moving beyond those limitations at any point in the foreseeable future.
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Colonialism was not just about slaves but about huge exploitation of resources which helped Europe and the Americas develop. Leopold of Belgium is a great example of how some European nations enriched themselves for a very important period of time. The benefits of the modern world we live in now are at the cost of someone else - and as I have shown on this thread already, most Europeans had a very good reason to discredit any developments or technological advances in Africa.

At the end of the day though - the history of Europe in Africa means most African nations are turning to alliances with China. China has invested heavily in Africa and developments are coming faster in the last 20 years than they ever did under white history or influence. Most westerners are still heavily influenced by the "Bell Curve" fallacy and pretty soon that will be an insignificant moment in African history as viewed by Westerners.

mbig said:
What?
Numbers may have started in Egypt, a mixed, not sub-saharan culture --
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And which continent is Egypt in? The general slant of what I said was writing and numbers developed in (guess where?) ..............
 
Lursa said:
Much of 'the mess' in Africa is due to European, Asian (Arab and Indian primarily), and American colonialism.
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The counter of that is the much lauded developments and advances where funded by the wealth produced by colonialism which simply means the exploitation of someone else's resources, workers and land for as little cost as possible.

Give any culture a massive induction of free money and labour and you will see advances in all areas.
 
Rather than personal opinion: here are some more papers on the reversals inflicted on Africa and South America.

colonial powers arrested the natural development of the African economic system. ... indigenous Afiican economy was subordinated to the interests of Europe. Link - University of Tennessee.
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This paper documents a reversal in relative incomes among the former European colonies. For example, the Mughals in India and the Aztecs and Incas in the Americas were among the richest civilizations in 1500, while the civilizations in North America, New Zealand, and Australia were less developed.
Today the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia are an order of magnitude richer than the countries now occupying the territories of the Mughal, Aztec, and Inca Empires. Economics, MIT Press.
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According to the geography view, societies that were relatively rich in 1500 should also be relatively rich today. In contrast, the reversal is consistent with the role of institutions in economic development. The expansion of European overseas empires starting in the 15th century led to a major change in the institutions of the societies they colonized. In fact, the European intervention appears to have created an 'institutional reversal' among these societies, in the sense that Europeans were more likely to introduce institutions encouraging investment in regions that were previously poor. This institutional reversal accounts for the reversal in relative incomes. Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson.
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spangledbanner said:
Really. The Irish overachieve do they? I thought they were a bunch of retards. What is so great about Ireland. What is it with Americans and the Irish? In British and Aussie/New Zealand culture there is none of this 'Boston Strong' nonsense. Irish are a bunch of retards. You dont know Irish jokes? The thrust is that the Irish are stupid. And where did you get the idea that the Irish are strong anyway? You Americans are really impressed by the little Irish? How about when the Normans invaded Ireland. The Normans were insulted if the little Irish even dared try to attack them.

Why do Americans love the Irish?
And what exactly is so great about the Irish again?
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One thing that's great about them is that they're not you. :roll:
 
mbig said:
I have often used Indians myself, especially when some PCer says "Arabs invented numbers/Algebra/Zero/etc."
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Good

mbig said:
However, Egyptians/Mesopotamians easily PRE-Date those you mention on the Overall question.
5000+ years ago.
About Twice as old as the Upanishads.
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Here your use of the word "easily" displays a lack of understanding. You don't know how old the Upanishads are and the age you are trying to assign to them is based on pure conjecture. This type of conjecture was started by an ignorant European, a German by the name of Max Mueller. You see Mueller was a Christian, and although he was somewhat sincere, he ignorantly believed that the Earth was created about 4000 years before the birth of Christ. As a result, he simply could not accept the Vedic scholars assertion concerning the age of Vedic knowledge and his dating was influenced by his ignorant belief. Since he was respected European scholar, his ideas influenced subsequent thinking in modern times. According to Vedic scholars, the great Vyasa compiled the Vedic knowledge that had been preserved in an oral tradition for thousands of years before that. He taught the Puranas and the Upanishads to students, who commented and expanded on them. As a crude analogy consider

2x + 3x = 5x

Now I can comment on that and say x's are like apples, oranges, or anything else in that two apples plus three apples equals five apples. So that is a comment on a core algebraic statement.

Going further, consider the fundamental distributive property

a * (b + c) = (a * b) + (a * c)

Accepting this as true, someone could come along and say, guess what, then

(a + d) * (b + c) = (a * b) + (a * c) + (d * b) + (d * c)

Because if you let

a = u + v

then

u * (b + c) = (u * b) + (u * c)

and

v * (b + c) = (v * b) + (v * c)

Which most certainly implies that

(a + d) * (b + c) = (a * b) + (a * c) + (d * b) + (d * c)

So from the core statement a * (b + c), an expanded statement was derived.

Similarly, the core knowledge of the Upanishads came from Vyasa and was commented and expanded on by his students and their subsequent students. But all of them, without exception, credit the understanding to Vyasa who himself said that he was stating what had been preserved in oral tradition extending back thousands of years. European scholars simply cannot accept this and as a result they try to base their dating of the Upanishads on conjecture and get confused when they see references to chronological events mentioned in the different Upanishads. What you have done here is merely regurgitate their confused statements.

You see Indian mathematicians were doing far more than counting on bones for a long, long time. Way before people like Newton and Leibniz were doing calculus, Madhava had already done extensive research on such advanced mathematical topics as the behavior of infinite series

For years, English scientist Isaac Newton and German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz both claimed credit for inventing the mathematical system sometime around the end of the seventeenth century.

Now, a team from the universities of Manchester and Exeter says it knows where the true credit lies — and it's with someone else completely.

The "Kerala school," a little-known group of scholars and mathematicians in fourteenth century India, identified the "infinite series" — one of the basic components of calculus — around 1350.
.....

"The beginnings of modern math is usually seen as a European achievement but the discoveries in medieval India between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries have been ignored or forgotten," he said. "The brilliance of Newton's work at the end of the seventeenth century stands undiminished — especially when it came to the algorithms of calculus.

"But other names from the Kerala School, notably Madhava and Nilakantha, should stand shoulder to shoulder with him as they discovered the other great component of calculus — infinite series."

He argues that imperialist attitudes are to blame for suppressing the true story behind the discovery of calculus.

"There were many reasons why the contribution of the Kerala school has not been acknowledged," he said. "A prime reason is neglect of scientific ideas emanating from the Non-European world, a legacy of European colonialism and beyond."
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Calculus created in India 250 years before Newton: study - Technology & Science - CBC News

According to these early mathematicians they have merely commented and expanded on what was passed down in oral tradition for thousands of years. But Europeans can't accept that because of their egocentric arrogance.
 
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Goshin said:
Perhaps, but there are two kinds of assumptions: reasonable ones, and badly flawed ones. This is the latter...
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The Mark said:
Yet important information is lacking from that hypothetical, such as:
The reason for their immigration to the USA (War in home area? Better prospects in USA?)
How they were treated after immigrating to the USA (was there still racism and bigotry? Discrimination, legal or illegal? Was there a civil rights movement? If so, or if not, was it necessary?).
What culture they brought with them, how it affected US culture, if at all, how they integrated into the US culture, etc. Does this hypothetical USA even resemble our current USA?

It's in no way a simple "well what if the people enslaved and brought to the USA voluntarily immigrated" question.
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Fair enough points.
 
Well, first there wouldn't nearly be as many. Figure around the same level as Asians, what is that, five percent? Second, they'd remain segregated much like all ethnic groups are with outliers here and there which have been anglicized but by and far they'd be set up in little enclaves catering to their own populations and their best and brightest contributing to the greater society. Third, they'd have far less political sway as their would be no liberal, guilt-ridden "do-gooders" handing them the farm in welfare and other subsidies. They'd have a "communidad" type outlook, much like Africans have today, where the children are the village's responsibility and the family unit, and extended tribe are an innate part of their being.

Race relations would be better as no one could remind the other of "Who owned who" and there would be no righteous indignation that comes from having your identity and culture torn from you. There'd be no race pimps screaming about what the White Man did to them (which wasn't actually done to them) because they'd understand that each person is responsible for their own actions and that what men who were white did to black people 150 or so years ago is not indicative of the White Man. Just as gang banging drug-dealers who are black men in no way are indicative of who the Black Man is.


Who is the Black Man is the question the black men and women need to figure out. As I said before their identity, heritage, culture was taken away from them.

Slavery, inequality, and discrimination is their identity, heritage, and culture. It's all they know, it's all they have. That's why so many of them can't let it go. Those that do, those that decided for themselves that they will be the authors of their destiny, that they will be the creators of their culture, of their identity, those are the one's who have become and will become successful. Unfortunately many of them don't feel it necessary to be pillars of their community, figuring they've pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and others should as well.
 
MildSteel said:
Good

...
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Excuse me, I deleted most of your Mindblowing/Self-conscious, IRRELEVANT, Baffle-em-with-BS, "a + b = c" foot-long reply.

The First use of Numbers was by Mesopotamians and Egyptians. Simply Cited and Linked in my last response to you.
http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls...ad-never-been-enslaved-20.html#post1064402957
"Calculus" (250 BC) Is NOT "First use of Numbers" Either. It POST-dates that use/my source by 3000 Years.
Bad try.


Infinite Chaos said:
mbig said:
What?
Numbers may have started in Egypt, a mixed, not sub-saharan culture --
Click to expand...
And which continent is Egypt in? The general slant of what I said was writing and numbers developed in (guess where?) ..............
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The CONTEXT of this string is "BLACK", "Slave-Taken", Subsaharan, Africa, which does Not include Egypt. That's how/why I Qualified my answer, while Conceding the obvious, Egypt was in Africa. No need to repeat what we agreed on, but which I Contexted/Qualified for This string.

You also 'Short-quoted' me leaving Off your now Missing/Lost claim for "writing".
OOOPS!
 
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shrubnose said:
One thing that's great about them is that they're not you. :roll:
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I have Irish blood actually. Tyson is a name on my family tree. So I can say whatever I want about the Irish.
 
mbig said:
Excuse me, I deleted most of your Mindblowing/Self-conscious, IRRELEVANT, Baffle-em-with-BS, "a + b = c" foot-long reply.

The First use of Numbers was by Mesopotamians and Egyptians. Simply Cited and Linked in my last response to you.
http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls...ad-never-been-enslaved-20.html#post1064402957
"Calculus" (250 BC) Is NOT "First use of Numbers" Either. It POST-dates that use/my source by 3000 Years.
Bad try.


The CONTEXT of this string is "BLACK", "Slave-Taken", Subsaharan, Africa, which does Not include Egypt. That's how/why I Qualified my answer, while Conceding the obvious, Egypt was in Africa. No need to repeat what we agreed on, but which I Contexted/Qualified for This string.

You also 'Short-quoted' me leaving Off your now Missing/Lost claim for "writing".
OOOPS!
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Then we have to count in the Lebombo bone, 43,000 years old or the Ishango bone 6500BC to 9000BC. Use of number dating South Africa and Congo - both sub-saharan Africa. The black ones you think belong on a bell curve.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Where would black Americans be if their ancestors had never been enslaved? Assume that all black Americans in the country today were the descendants of people who willingly immigrated to the United States under various conditions (some came b/c of war back home, others wanted a new experiences, etc.).

We obviously cannot answer this question definitively, but I would like people's thoughts on the matter regardless. Responding with "we can never really know", "there's just too many factors to come up with an answer" or similarly defeatist answers is not welcomed in this thread. This is a thought experiment, not a dissertation defense.

So, again, given the narratives you use to explain racial inequality, your perceptions of black Americans and other factors, where do you think that the black population in the United States would be if their ancestors had never been enslaved?* Would they have the same employment, education, crime and other rates as White Americans? Would they be in the same position they are in now?

*Note : I realize that not every black American in the United States is a descendant of slaves. This question addresses the ones that are. I hope that takes care of all the red herrings.
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Nowhere, because due to the butterfly effect they wouldn't exist.
 
ThePlayDrive said:
Without the influence of the slave trade, would they be worse off? Without the trade, the United States might not have fared as well since slavery gave it the free the labor it needed to acquire wealth which means it wouldn't be as dominant as it is today and, as such, Africa might not be as bad by comparison as it is today.
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I think you are wrong here. If the work needed to get done, somebody would have done it.

The world does not stop because a black person stops working.
 
Most African slaves that came to the U.S. were taken from Senegambia (now Senegal and Gambia), and Angola.

I suppose had they not been taken to the U.S., their descendants would still be inhabiting nations that are caught in the usual post-colonial sociopolitical and economic problems. It's not like those who weren't taken had such a wonderful time under English and French rule.

So the short answer is... most were screwed either way. Either they were shipped to the Americas to be slaves or they were enslaved domestically, or at the very least suffered harsh and brutal laws which reduced them to sub-humans.

If instead your question is, what would've happened had the transatlantic slave trade never happened, and Europe didn't colonize Africa... we would probably have a continent with extremely rich, diverse, unique and wise traditions that were still in tact. Much like the loss of the Mayans, Inca, Olmec, etc... we have lost unique knowledge from the ethnosphere that we will never get back, likely including some pretty profound stuff that could've shaped the destiny of humanity to be better than the deteriorating systems we now have. It's true that there were still regional conflicts and rivalries, and yes different tribes enslaved one another too, but Europe pretty much screwed over the planet because of the sheer scale of its operations. We still haven't recovered from it, and colonialism is still happening even now.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Then we have to count in the Lebombo bone, 43,000 years old or the Ishango bone 6500BC to 9000BC. Use of number dating South Africa and Congo - both sub-saharan Africa. The black ones you think belong on a bell curve.
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I note you post No link for these.
Why?
Because Wiki and other sources will tell you they are "Disputed" even as Counting devices: ie, identical Hash-marks, NOT "numbers"
So Solly!
 
spangledbanner said:
I have Irish blood actually. Tyson is a name on my family tree.
So I can say whatever I want about the Irish.
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Try going to some taverns with lots of Irish customers and repeating some of the things that you've said about the Irish on this forum. :roll:

I predict that you won't like the results.
 
Jesse Booth said:
Sigmund Freud once said the Irish were immune to psychoanalysis. Allegedly.
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:) Yeah. Have you seen The Departed. That movie is awesome.

Apparently the claim comes from Anthony Burgess.

So. You want to have sex with me now right?
 
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