African slavery in the Americas
Who benefitted?
Thought for the day
If you want to punish those who benefitted from African slavery in the Americas, you would have to punish all humanity, including the descendants of the slaves. Why? Because the sugar and cotton that the slaves produced stimulated a great commercial expansion of the world-economy, enabling the further modernization of production, which was the foundation for the great human achievements in science, technology, literature, the arts, and sport. “Race,” we should understand, is a fictitious division of the human species, created to legitimate African slavery. We also should understand that slavery was one of several forms of forced labor that drove the development of the modern world-economy. These various forms of forced labor were imposed everywhere beyond Western Europe, including Ireland, Eastern Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa.
If you want justice, look beyond superficiality. Do not look for statutes to topple or appreciated historic figure…