THE STUPIDEST DAMN THING ON THE INTERNET

 

From time to time I'll choose to post something mind-numbingly dumb that I find in surfing the intertubz.

This one is a doozy: 

" Something else that’s never brought up. During the slavery years of the 1800’s life was a whole lot tougher for EVERYONE, not just slaves. They didn’t have electricity, much less cars and roads to travel on. Homes were mostly cabins heated with a fireplace, no A/C, no plumbing, pipes, running water, super markets or malls. I’m old enough to remember when refrigerators first came in, then freezers. Before that, we had ice boxes with the ice man delivering big blocks of ice he’s carry on his shoulder, which was covered with a leather blanket so he wouldn’t get cold or wet. Tough. Crude. However, we didn’t think so ’cause it was an improvement over what preceded it. Folks have too much time on their hands today so they come up with crazy notions instead of having to take care of themselves because they have it too easy. Maybe what is needed is another Great Depression to bring everyone back to reality."

This group was discussing slavery and how, well golldern it!, slavery was practiced by Black people too! And slaves on American plantations DID learn skills that helped them when they were no longer slaves. 

However, if these people had read any history, they'd have understood that freed slaves were giving NOTHING to start their freed lives -- a majority of them had no reading or writing skills, no money, no land, no families, since their children had been stolen from them. But other than that, they were free to use the few skills they learned from being a beaten and tortured slave. 

But...but, according to the person who's quoted in the text above, EVERYONE had it bad in the 1800s, not just the beaten, tortured, landless, homeless, moneyless, familyless, orphaned, recently freed slaves!

NOTE TO THE UNINFORMED GROUP ABOVE:

Enslaved Africans were already skilled!

"Here are some simple, historical facts: Africans already were skilled before they were enslaved. And, in many cases, enslavers sought and purchased people coming from specific African societies based on skills common in those societies. 

Decades of research — slave ship manifests, plantation ledgers, newspaper articles, letters, journals and archaeological digs — by dozens of scholars supports this, much of it compiled in the 2022 book “African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Freedom,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer.

[SKIP]

"Transatlantic slavery was an economic model proposing that skilled laborers, who were benefiting themselves and their communities, be abducted, transported and forced to use those skills to benefit others. Other skills such as literacy, ministry and music-making were often banned, because they did not benefit — and even threatened — the enslaver."