I debated writing this. It can feel tempting, upon encountering yet another instance of this administration’s racism, to let it be. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over again? And yet we have to write it down, if for nothing else, so those who come after us know we were against it.
Thank you for writing it. Very important!
water is wet
Every single one of those people in the Dump regime should be made to live one day as a slave in the Deep South of old.
I like 5 years better.
The human & horrifying aspects of racism & slavery need to be remembered. I work on global dimensions of racism. Some on the right dismiss it as woke. Those on the left because I don't critique capitalism. Racism to them is about class relations. There're blindspots on racism on the left and right.
Thank you for your service
Yes. If we have to make the case again, so this handful of People who don't appreciate history would understand the issue, then we should make the case. Thank you for writing it.
This is essential reading. Beautifully done. And important.
Thank you for gifting this article. Very powerful writing. So very important for all of us to read.
With all this talk of PEDO's by trump's MAGA, do all these white people believe that enslaved CHILDREN weren't being RAPED by white men for HUNDREDS OF YEARS? These are the most delusional people in the most delusional country this earth has possibly seen. This was a country of MASS PEDOPHILIA.
Thank you for writing this. Solidarity! ✊️
Per "Caste" by Wilkinson, the NAZIs wanted to LEGALLY kill minorities & Jews (& take their wealth), so they instituted Jim Crow laws. They found laws for legal oppression & murder in the US South! NAZIs=White Supremacists=US South Jim Crow! The seeds of Hitler's genocide germinated in the USA.
Write it every day
Thank you. It’s essential. A motto I have now is ‘don’t assume most people know what you know even when there’s SO MUCH out there to tell them.’ Confusing! But they don’t know or forgot. So you have to say the same thing over and over again if you don’t want what’s essential to slip from the frame.
It’s not veiled, it’s blatant.
However bad one may imagine American slavery, it was a lot worse. It's hard to read some of the horrible things that happened, with complete impunity.
I am endlessly angered and saddened
Only those who benefit from slavery, from exploiting others for their own gain, would think slavery is "not so bad".
The people coming after will absolutely know more thanks to you. My very first ever college course linked two of your very wonderful works as readings, and we have discussions planned on them. You’re helping immensely! Though, I am mad at you for making me cry. Twice. 😒
Amen, good brother, amen
Thank you for writing this.
So good. Great read thank you.
Thank you. It also helps extend the reach of the information for people now. Slowly maybe, but in the right direction.
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Yes. We must leave it for history that we weren't silent.
Thank you.
Stunning that you still have to remind people that slavery is bad. It was bad, it is bad, it will ALWAYS BE BAD!
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Thanks for writing it, but too bad you chose such a laughably incompetent outfit like The Atlantic to publish it in.
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Time and again, history and literature have been erased from a culture. The fact that there were multiple copies in other hands is the only reason some of it has survived. Keep telling the truth. Some of it will survive the purge.
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the deeply controversial take that owning people is wrong
Equally disgusting as the violent and unjust ways that white Americans treated enslaved Black people are the actions they took, and sometimes continue to take, against their Black fellow citizens in service of maintaining white supremacy.
The legacy of those injustices is clear here in New Orleans and beyond. It permeates our school systems, our neighborhoods, and even our churches. History is and always will be at once harsh and uplifting, our chief instructor on who and why we are, and who we can be.
He’ll (Trump) never take that away. Thank you for your scholarship and your voice. Huge fan here.
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I'm glad you did. We have horrors in Australia some would prefer to deny but I think public opinion is mostly in favour of telling the truth no matter how bad we whitefellas look in the process.
Be great for teachers in high school or even college to a assign this article for discussion....young people have not been exposed to basic facts. First person stories are powerful.
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This is an excellent and important article, @clintsmithiii.bsky.social. Also, your book, "How the Word is Passed," was very enlightening to me. I read it after I heard you on a podcast with @timmiller.bsky.social and it taught me a lot that I should have learned in history classes but didn't.
Thank you
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slavery was not bad for the slave owners. That is who Donald represents and thinks like.
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For those who want to read them, between 1936 and 1938 there was a federal writers project that took more than 2,300 first- person accounts of slavery. "Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves"
I've read about half of those. They're not as interesting as I thought they'd be - but still worth reading. One of them shed some light on the beginning of the 1861 Charleston fire.
People here in the US don't realize how short our nations history is. Both my great grandparents and even my grandparents knew people that had been slaves.
Thanks for making this a gift article. The fact that there is even a debate anywhere about the fact that slavery is devil is horrifying. You might just as well debate whether water is wet or fire is hot. Slave “owners” have always been evil.
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That’s the most insane part about slavery, as bad as you envision having been… in practice it was worse.
Thank you. It’s, absolutely, necessary.
This old white guy agrees with you.
Eye am the center of the universe aye eye yam... Wait, did popeye already do the spinach Singularity?..
I remember the insane economist review of this book that insisted “slaves are an expensive asset and thus you would not inflict this kind of violence on them if you can help it” and the response was a terse presentation of the South Carolina laws mandated the whipping of enslaved people weekly.
Wouldn't even hold true for a place like Brazil where it was cheaper to work someone to death and replace them (of the 12 million humans brought across the Atlantic, 5 million went to Brazil)
Don’t forget the Caribbean where millions went to, even though their populations were a fraction of that and still are. The original death camps, only Petosi compared.
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Thank you for writing this. Don’t let them whitewash history.
The fact that this title even needs to be written... but then again, we now have to say, "Actually, Nazis are bad people."
Conservatives never ever ever get tired of saying the same vile lies until they're blue in the face. It's so important that we're just as persistent with truth & justice.
It wasn’t anything I was taught at school that made me realise just HOW bad slavery was. It was reading Roots as a teenager. Stories are important. Imagining the reality is important.
💔 thank you for this
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It matters, every time. I don't remember who wrote this, or the exact words, but... I don't speak up to change others. I do it because, if I DON'T speak up, they will have changed me.
Never forget.
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Yes it was
Paywall.
Nope, free.
It's just another insult to reality. Like yourself, I chose which to fight. This, however, I will continue to push back upon. If slavery wasn't that bad,then let us descendants of ex slaves have all white ones today. 40 acres, a mule, and white people in bondage! ✊🏾
Exactly it's fucking ridiculous.
Yes... fucking insidious.
Sorry, no one should be writing this. People should simply reprint this photograph with an explanation of where it came from. It's one of the most powerful photos of the early days of the medium. Peter was freed by the union army in 1863 in St. Landry Parish, LA. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_(...
hello we lost our mum amidst the conflict in DRC 🇨🇩 & we're trying to survive /flee to safety. If you would kindly share my pinned we would really appreciate it.PLS🙏🏾
It’s necessary, still. 😕
We can ‘lie’ about history - but it can never be erased. Family ‘stories’ will be forever passed down. And let’s hope that doesn’t end. History is so very important. We all need to be educated - or reminded - of how we got where we are today - and frankly - it is terrifying…my heart weeps….
No doubt: slavery was horrific! And thank you for the gifted article, young man!🙏🏽
YES! Thank you - a great article.
It’s internalized racism. My husband can’t even be in the same room when I bring home a big black guy to brown bag me. He has to watch the video later.
Thank you for your essay, which I read this morning. It’s important.
I'm sorry you have to keep writing about racism, it's got to weigh so heavily on you. You're a beautiful writer and I hope in your lifetime you'll be able to write more about things that bring joy
Agree!
Thank you for sharing the struggle with your decision to write this AND the weight of understanding why it had to be written. It is a devastating and necessary history that must be reckoned with, regardless of the ugly & unending vestiges of colonialism & WS determined to erase the truth.
archive.ph/X0hEI
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Keep writing. And keep copies in a safe place.
Thank you for sharing your article!
I mean every single terrible thing that has been written about chattel slavery in the United States no matter how descriptive still pales In comparison to what it was like. Love reading you
If MAGA wants to re-normalize white supremacy, its natural that it would want to downplay its worst atrocities
Thank you.
Tremendous piece, thank you
