When I was a kid (late 80's, early 90's) I remember most women at the beach, a lot who had grown up in the 70's, being topless. Now when I do it, I'm often the only one and looked at like I'm a paria. Sucks really, seems like we're going backwards.

This. I once had a discussion with someone who thought the pyramids could only be built by aliens because the people in the past were too stupid to build them.

Africans did a roaring trade. It was the perfect way to get rid of an inconvenient rival or family member

White people also enslaved white people

And in fact black slave owners still proliferate throughout Africa today. War lords enslave armies of kidnapped children to fight their drug wars for them. Gangs of African Muslims attack entire Christian villages where they kill the adults and forcibly convert a hundred adolescent girls at a time in order to "marry" them. Pirates roam the waters off the coast of eastern Africa, looting boats and taking prisoners to work or to sell. There are many more examples. Africans have been enslaving each other for millennia. And they are still doing so, quite brutally. Sorry the facts don't fit into the blame-whitey narrative.

Barbary pirates (I didn't choose that "Barbary" word) kidnapped thousands of people from the coasts of England and Ireland and forced them in to slavery. This is always forgotten about.

People forget Europeans were introduced to Africans as cheap slaves by the Arabs, who treated them much worse. Also when the European Powers outlawed the slave trade, it was various African Kingdoms that sent lobbyists to London, Paris, and other places to argue in favor of continuing slavery, as that wa s a major source of their income.

The history of slavery and slavery in the American colonies is complex

Slavery has been a part of "life" since forever.

I'm fairly sure that the majority of Americans (every race color, cred, serially) agree that slavery was and is a horrible plight and a failureI of all evil persons. I guess my only concern is when it crosses into take some responsibility, they were your ancestors. And may be I'm being really thin skinned but that always sounds like I was the one at the ship's rail or auction block. I agree that something needs to be addressed for both the Afro-American and Native American racl

the transatlantic slave trade of Africans is considerably harsher that most other examples of slavery, on scope and extent. slavery has been common since people have lived in more complex societies, but it has not looked the same everywhere all the time. if we take the slave trade of Africans, it begun internally, prisoners of war or people that sold themselves to pay debt. in the middle ages Islamic traders started to buy them and brought them to many countries as servants. BUT, we are talking about rather small numbers...the atlantic slave trade, was a lot harder, and the numbers of people capture and sold was much bigger than anything done at the time anywhere. the treatment of this slaves was worse too. many cultures had rules that protected slaves from excessive abuse. the had some humanity left...African slaves in the new world, had non! they where treated as objects and herd like cattle...something that hadn't being seen since ancient times

So were Hungarians, Bulgarians, Greeks, pretty much anyone from a country that has been overrun by the Ottoman Empire.

Indians (from India) didp retty well at this, too, IIRC. And Slavic peopls were regularly sold into slavery by Western Europeans or each other, to caliphates in Spain or wherever.

Black people sold black people into slavery back in the day. I guess this little tidbit is too inconvenient to be included in the conversation.

The Germans forced my Ukrainian Nanna from her home at 13 years old to be a slave for a German family. She never saw hers again.

And that slavery isn’t still going on.

the word 'slave' was fromed fom the name of a nation 'slavic' wich is centra-east europian nation- white as snow....

I didn't know this was a concept that's ever been taught. I'm surprised because I come from a very rural, very red area (that fits all the worst stereotypes) where racism still reigns supreme. But I was taught that in the history of the world all different types of people were traded as slaves/ran the slave trade.

There were free blacks in the US South that owned slaves. While many of them were simply buying back their family, a lot of others were proof of just how greedy humans are.

I root for any enslaved nation or race. Yet nobody protests why Slavs are called that...including Slavs :) it's our legacy, it's history. The name stuck. Live with it

Slavery is human embellishment, not a racial one.

Even free blacks in the south owned slaves. Read The Known World by Edward P. Jones.

selling someone else isn’t a color specific act, it’s universal in the fact that it’s evil. Doesn’t matter who’s doing it.

Conversely, I hate when people try to justify slavery in the U.S. by saying things like, "Africans practiced slavery too." I mean, it's probably safe to say that slavery has existed in some form or fashion, at one time or another, in nearly every culture. The difference is that it was a white dude (English) who first came up with the idea that Africans in particular should be slaves *solely because of the color of their skin*, claiming they were subhuman savages.

I cannot believe how hard some of the posts try to downplay the role of white people in the enslavement of African-descent people. What white America did to black enslaved people has consequences in the lives of African Americans and in the construction of a society that still carries the wounds of racist paradigms. Own up to the facts that historically shape your own country instead of trying to minimize the role of the slave trade in the West. No wonder things still are the way they are.

Ssshhhhh. There's a lot of power to be seized in propagating this myth.

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Redheads were especially valuable slaves.

This doesn't excuse anyone. Two wrongs do not make a right.