People have been evil since practically the dawn of mankind, but that seems no excuse to act that way ourselves? Also, many people from that continent may be shitty human beings (especially a hundred or so years ago, though also in modern times), yet I can think of a few shitty people from my own continent… past and present, and all of the other ones too? (in fact, several people that Donald Trump seems to be quoting from lately top the list)

Also, I never said that white people invented slavery - I only implied that slavery was bad, and tried to imply further that it doesn’t matter who started it, only that we chose to do it, and that in that decision, we were wrong. More importantly, since some people are unironically suggesting that we return to allowing slaves to exist, that we would be wrong if we were to start up the practice of slavery anew.

And no, your entire last paragraph I must vehemently deny: the likes of petty crime come NOWHERE CLOSE to the evils of slavery, ffs. Violence is likewise a form of evil, but the magnitude and the differing psychological impacts on the brain are nowhere close.

As for making progress, remember that time does nothing to change things, only effort does, e.g. the first law of thermodynamics: an object at rest will sit there for all of eternity, unless acted upon by a force strong enough to get it to shift. An analogy: imagine a car driving for 1,000 miles over the course of a very very long day’s drive… (I’ve done almost that actually - it’s exhausting!:-D) except now imagine that the car is up on cinder blocks, or like held up in a car lift in sth like a mechanic’s shop. You can run the engine at the same intensity for the same duration of time, point the car in the same direction, maybe use up a similar amount of gas, but until that rubber of the tire hits the asphalt of the road, that car is not going anywhere, not even 1 mile much less 1000.

The slaves were uprooted from their homeland(s, plural), brought to a new country with an entirely different ecosystem - different plants, different trees, different animals - and then further, children were ripped from their mothers’ arms ASAP, and often forbidden to be taught any knowledge whatsoever, except what their masters wanted them to know. They did not know how to hunt, fish, trap, or anything anymore - even if that knowledge would have transferred from Africa to the new place (somewhere in the Americas or whatever), it is not genetic and would have needed to have been taught, but largely b/c of concerns that the children be taught a particular subset of Christianity without being tainted by the old religions of their homeland, any kind of teaching of old knowledge was expressly forbidden. Those multi-generational slaves certainly did not know how to read, write, balance finances, perform maintenance/upkeep of a home or farm - except those activities that they used to perform as slaves, and even those were often so highly narrow & specialized as to be almost useless on their own - e.g. if you knew how to hammer nails into wood, then how would you learn where do you get the nails from in the first place? (or the hammer? and why/when would you even do it in the first place?). It is no wonder that starving people turned to crime, in order to eat! And yes, depression, and even drug use (though “drug addiction” is by no means in the sole purview of former slaves: one look at how many middle-class white people who have fallen prey to it in recent years is enough to show us that!).

Especially since slavery was only one, admittedly large, part of the overall problem. Driving while black, walking while black, running while black, buying while black, selling while black - it’s almost like doing ANYTHING while being black is enough to get someone killed! - and not just by a criminal, BY THE POLICE, WHO HAVE LEGALLY GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT, for centuries now!! (the number of black people who manage to shoot themselves in the back, then subsequently also in the head, is staggering…; and just so we do not gloss over that too quickly, keep in mind that it is medically, physically impossible for someone to shoot themselves in the back, and then also the head - i.e., it is 100% more likely that the policeman shot the person in the back, and then the head, but then the friendly coroner ruled it as a “suicide” for…reasons) The persecution of black people, often for no reason whatsoever but yes, sometimes b/c they did not act conciliatory enough (though again I direct your attention to sometimes it happening for no reason whatsoever, so even being 100% conciliatory, 100% of the time is insufficient to avoid incurring the wrath of an angry young white person who just felt like raping/killing/stealing from a former slave, AT ANY TIME), has continued ever since slavery ended.

But I have hit the word limit. :-|

Thank you! It was https://youtu.be/hsxukOPEdgg?si=bHZrY9n2qSygpBPf, especially starting about 6-7 minutes in but really the whole episode talks about the topic of the OP. The sandwiches comment is at ~7:45. Enjoy!:-)

Absolutely. Though as we were discussing elsewhere in this post, humans can be evil, and selfish, and greedy, and people can literally help bring back slavery rather than force themselves to truly look at it, call it out as “bad”, and do something about it.

I somewhat understand the other side of the argument as well - like, if someone was old and just wanted to lie back and enjoy life for awhile (as we all will be someday, unless we die first), then who am I to take action or even desire to stop such a one from doing exactly that? On the other hand, someone who ACTUALLY does that causes little to no harm, whereas someone who does the OPPOSITE of that, e.g. by taking the action to vote - whether at a local school board, or on the state or especially federal level - that is when such a person’s rights end, the very moment that they begin to infringe upon the rights of others.

And like, if a child were to take a book out of the library and burn it, wouldn’t that child get in trouble? Maybe they would have to pay a fine, perhaps have disciplinary action taken against them such as being suspended, or if mitigating circumstances coexist then at least be sent to counseling? So how much more in trouble should an adult get into, if they likewise burn a book, or maybe… oh… let’s say that they lead a violent attempt to overthrow the democratically-elected government, shitting on the constitution and in the process, cause at least one police officer to be killed, brutally, with his screams of agony caught on video - how much should such a person be punished? (That is a trick question obviously, b/c it presumes that “justice” is what is dispensed at all.) Let us call this “individual 1”, but moving past that, how much responsibility would a new person hold, let’s call them “individual 2” if even AFTER all of that occurred, and I mean it is not secret but rather came to light and was publicly condemned by people in positions of authority everywhere (Democrats, Republicans, Independents, in the Executive, Legislative - both House and Senate - Judicial, as in Supreme Court, DOJ, federal lower courts, etc.), this person (individual 2) actually votes for individual 1?

When we step up to become leaders, then we take on additional responsibility beyond the common man. Voting is similarly a position of responsibility, in determining what will be done in the USA. As people vote - again, whether in small, local matters such as school board issues, or even more so at the larger levels that affect so many more people besides one’s own self + family + even neighbors - I would hope that they would remember the lessons of history, so that we do not have to repeat them. However, since that turns out not to be true, it seems that slavery will be coming back… it is here already in fact, in many areas in the south where there are more incarcerated black people than there ever were as slaves, and I am not entirely convinced that everyone in there is fully a “criminal” (maybe, but the systems that push for convictions based on quotas, in those for-profit institutions, lends credence to the thought that not ALL of them are that way…); plus in any case employment seems to be becoming more slave-like all the time, as the “American dream” of potentially owning a home and thereby becoming financially independent is increasingly being taken away from so very many. We are already re-walking those paths, that so long ago we turned away from in disgust, but like a dog returning to its vomit… we cannot seem to help ourselves. Finally, I want to add that many people, e.g. in WWI and WWII both, literally gave their lives to fight against fascism spreading in other countries - however, fast-forward to today and a goodly fraction of people in America are indicating that they want to fight on the side for fascism, rather than against it. We are moving backwards, and not slowly either, but practically at a run:-( (though precisely how fast nobody seems to know, and I for one do not trust any media source anymore, nor do I see that changing anytime soon, which in itself should be an extremely troubling warning sign of things yet to come).

I know they spent years planning it and testing it all, so I’m not saying it wasn’t possible. I just thought it was a little too “smooth” and predictable, the way it all went without much of a hitch. But - I’m hoping that will be how it goes the next time we make a landing there.

Hmm good point. I think with today’s technology there CAN be more they can do in terms of making it multi-purpose, and hopefully they can work out all the kinks. I would love see us back on the moon in the next decade or so.