"The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation"

[My Name Is Kate]

There is a difference between making assumptions and allowing for the possibility of something.

Eva, if you were referring to me, please show me where I made an assumption.

No one on this forum has lived through the Civil War era or slavery, and so all any of us can do, whether one is a descendant of slaves or not, is speculate on what went on in the minds of the people who did.

My ancestors had nothing to do with the Civil War or slavery and were not in this country. But I have lived for 20 years in poor, unfriendly, unsafe neighborhoods because that was all I could afford. I minded my own business and wanted (then, as now) nothing more than to be left alone. But I was not, and am still not left alone. I have seen and heard and experienced firsthand, probably more than the average white American, racism in reverse. More of this racism comes from white people than black people, though it comes from all sides. These white people seem to think that black people are incapable of taking care of themselves, so they have to do it for them. Or maybe they are trying to redirect (black) anger away from themselves and on to some other target, who they see as powerless to fight back. In any case, I have had more than enough of it. If people want to be respected, they need to start acting like respectable human beings.

That is an interesting comment in one of the above posts, that black Africans who sold other black Africans into slavery, were just conducting business without any hatred for the human chattel they were selling off. But white Southerners who bought those slaves must be held accountable for their sins and they alone are responsible for black self-hatred.

Slavery was practiced by other races too and no one is arguing about that. Nor is anyone denying that hatred exists between certain groups within other races. But we (or I) was discussing racial self-hatred, people who hate themselves because of their race and project that hatred outward onto others in an attempt to make them pay for it.

Nothing I have said is an assumption. This is all based on what I have observed with my own eyes and ears.