I found the first video to contain familiar information. I knew a lot of it from history classes and reading. I did notice in almost all of the pictures of slaves/African Americans, the eyes had been altered. Did anyone else notice the eyes of the slaves were like “goat eyes?” The pupils weren’t round, but instead were vertical slits. It made the people look sinister… I wonder if that was done recently or at the time the photo was taken? What was the purpose?
The second video contained information that was all new to me. I had no idea any of that prejudicial treatment had taken place. I am astounded that the US government behaved in such a way! I have a different prospective about the government and minorities. I knew about the Native Americans and slavery. I thought our government had made a mistake and had tried correct it. The definition of “white” and the housing loans were blatantly wrong!
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) said, “There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.”
I suppose that at some point, people will look at our views and knowledge of science and think that we are foolish just as we look at some of the early phrenologists and think that attributing personality traits to the shape and size of one’s skull is outrageous, as well. In the future, it will become common knowledge that all races began from the same people. Our definition on race will certainly have to change. As will our treatment of one another.
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Last night on PBS Bill Moyers' Journal, Moyers
Journalist Douglas Blackmon tells another tale of freedom postponed and denied in SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME. Blackmon's book tells the unfamiliar story of "neo-slavery" that reached beyond the de-facto slavery of tenant farming and debt peonage. Blackmon first became intrigued by this episode of U.S. history while researching a story for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL which documented how U.S. Steel Corp. relied on forced black laborers in Alabama coal mines. He discovered:
Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible "debts," prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude.
It was a system that Blackmon found carried on in some areas until the early days of World War II.
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