"People were not slaves, they were enslaved" - Ta-Nehisi Coates

[8WON6]

nah you a lame nikka that doesn't understand linguistics

nikkas rather be referred to as slaves than African

i'd rather we stop worrying about making shyt sound nicer and worry about getting reparations. This semantics is time wasting and an intellectual dunk contest.



And since you say linguistics matter, it's crazy that you all hate the terms "ADOS" and "FBA", yet those are necessary to pinpoint specific justice claim. When ADOS define ourselves all of a sudden OUR linguistics don't matter.

 

[8WON6]

and you got fukk boys like @8WON6 that look at the above and go " no thanks"

First of all, I wasn’t black until I came to America. I became black in America.

Growing up in Nigeria, I didn’t think about race because I didn’t need to think about race. Nigeria is a country with many problems and many identity divisions, but those identity divisions are mainly religion and ethnicity.

So my identity growing up was Christian, Catholic, and Igbo. And sometimes I felt Nigerian in sort of a healthy way, especially when Nigeria was playing in the World Cup. Then I would think about my nationality as a Nigerian. But, when I came to the U.S., it just changed. I think that America, and obviously because of its history, it’s the one country where, in some ways, identity is forced on you, because you have to check a box. You have to be something. And, I came here and very quickly realized to Americans I was just black. And for a little while, I resisted it, because it didn’t take me very long when I came here to realize how many negative stereotypes were attached to blackness.

For me, the story that I hold onto as my defining moment of realizing what blackness meant was when I was in college and I had written this essay and it was the best essay in the class, so the professor wanted to know who had written it. I raised my hand and he looked surprised when he found out that it was me.

I remember realizing then that, “Oh, so this is what it means.” This professor doesn’t expect the best essay in class to be written by a black person. And I had come from a country where black achievement is absolutely normal. It wasn’t remarkable to me the idea that black people are academically superior because, you know, everybody in Nigeria was black. So the people who were bright were black. So I resisted it. I didn’t want to be black. I would say to people, “I’m not black, I’m Nigerian.” Or, another identity that America gives me was African, so that in college people just wanted me to explain Africa. I knew nothing about anywhere else, apart from Nigeria, really.

these are the people you need to lecture.

 

[8WON6]

People still worried about what we call ourselves, instead of moving on to focusing on reparations. No progress at all because people worried about the team name.

 

[xoxodede]

I agree with "enslaved" -- I know some think it really doesn't matter - but for me it does.

They were people who were sold/kidnapped into slavery -- and were enslaved.

Enslaved means to "make someone a slave" and/or "cause (someone) to lose their freedom of choice or action."

I also feel like it ties into the reparations and changing the narrative on the story/experience of our ancestors.

By referencing them as "enslaved" -- we are making those who don't think to personalize those who everyone calls "slaves" -- as someone's relatives aka 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc Great Grandparents and family members. And not some random people.

The enslaved were loved, wanted and cherished by their loved ones -- and deserved to be honored and remembered as people who weren't just "slaves." And because they were enslaved - the understanding that their descendants wanting reparations should be understood if they aren't already.

Slave = anyone

Enslaved = someone's family who was made a "slave" by the loss of their freedom of choice or action.

 

[DropTopDoc]

Meaningless semantics to the rescue

When you enslaved guess what? you a slave

What is the damn point of downplaying shyt?

nikkas self-esteem that fukking low?

If I was a slave right now somebody telling me "you know kicko you ain't a slave you just enslaved"
nikka I don't give a fukk what you call it I'm property right now get me the fukk free!

That’s how i feel, it doesn’t matter how you change the name, we were still that, and putting it under a new name does nothing for us because the ones who went through it are not here, and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want you down playing it, i hate to stir the hornets nest but you see the Jewish community didn’t go for a more relaxed name for the nazi death camps, it was the holocaust, period they aren’t concerned with other Jews throwing the narrative into some new mindset, it was what it was and there is no getting around it. It’s about to be a whole bunch of “deep” hotepery up in here, but It doesn’t matter if we were slaves or enslaved we got fukked and still to this day continue to be fukked and re-branding our experience as a people doesn’t mean a damn thing

 

[Black Lightning]

That's like saying someone who's been kidnapped is not a hostage their just being held against their will.

 

[CoryMack]

Chattel slavery is very different than Roman slavery bruh

actually chattel slavery and roman slavery were the same. there's a manual you can buy from roman antiquity that deals with the handling of slaves that was used by white slavemasters in this country. i think it's even referred to in either the federalist or anti-federalist papers if i'm not mistaken. i actually saw it in half price books not too long ago. but the concept came from the crakkka.

it doesn't diminish what we went through; on the contrary it shows that chattel slavery has always been a part of the white man's culture, even from ancient times. it's what he's always done, and left unchecked it's what he will always seek to do.

even to his own people. that's what the industrial revolution was about: white people doing their level best to keep other whites in a permanent underclass that was just short of slavery itself.

to me that's the biggest indictment of the white man, and the best proof of who and what he is at core. a global predator.

 

[KingJay]

powerful

 

[Formerly Black Trash]

actually chattel slavery and roman slavery were the same. there's a manual you can buy from roman antiquity that deals with the handling of slaves that was used by white slavemasters in this country. i think it's even referred to in either the federalist or anti-federalist papers if i'm not mistaken. i actually saw it in half price books not too long ago. but the concept came from the crakkka.

it doesn't diminish what we went through; on the contrary it shows that chattel slavery has always been a part of the white man's culture, even from ancient times. it's what he's always done, and left unchecked it's what he will always seek to do.

even to his own people. that's what the industrial revolution was about: white people doing their level best to keep other whites in a permanent underclass that was just short of slavery itself.

to me that's the biggest indictment of the white man, and the best proof of who and what he is at core. a global predator.

Bruh im reading about it right now
You're WRONG
One big difference is that their slaves were able to be teachers
That le's you know their humanity was more respected...nikias couldnt even learn how to read

 

[CoryMack]

Bruh im reading about it right now
You're WRONG
One big difference is that their slaves were able to be teachers
That let's you know their humanity was more respected...nikias couldnt even learn how to read

i spent the last 10 years reading about it.

the concept that a slave didn't have a will comes from roman chattel slavery, and from greek slavery before that. that your master owned your life comes from then.

alotta their slaves came from lands that were conquered in warfare, so learned slaves like greeks were considered "prized" slaves and did indeed become teachers in prominent households. they were still slaves though, and could be killed at their master's will.

and we weren't all ignorant slaves over here. we came over here craftsmen and agriculturalists, etc. that's why we were taken from the regions we were taken from, because of the knowledge that we had that whites wanted to exploit.

 

[JQ Legend]

I wasn't even gone click this thread for the reason I'm bout to say

Yall really need to stop giving these people a platform and so much of yall attention

I treat them like they don't exist

 

[mbewane]

Good post. I'm not in the "they sold us" camp, and have always called out that line of thinking. I agreed with your premise about the usage of the term "transatlanticslave trade" as a smokescreen for the Christian slave trade.
TLR is not the optimal place for nuanced discussions about history and I prefer the Root.
I'm familiar with how the plantation economies in the Americas fueled the demand for enslaved people, how Euros learned, studied, and then exploited rivalries between groups to spark wars (and fuel the trade), and the difference between previous systems of P.O.W.s and servitude on the continent and the chattel slavery of the Americas.
Anybody who glanced at my last post and thought I was cosigning "they sold us""y'all sold us" , well my post went over their head.

I just disagreed with your comment about how the nightmare began when they stepped foot on the boats. I say that it began when they were captured for sale.
.

All good breh, I get where you're coming from and I think we indeed agree on the most important, especially the bolded

 

[mbewane]

Never realized that when it was right under my nose. That's it. I'm calling it the European Christian slave trade as of now. Repped.

 

[Barlow]

If you are enslaved you have been given the title of a slave. It’s as simple as that.

these dumb ass word games are like saying “I’m not cancerous, I’m someone who’s been diagnosed with cancer”

Does it really fukking matter if either way you need chemotherapy?