Hearing this joke in 1845

Eyyyyyyyyyyy

I heard that joke in middleschool in the us. It was written on my friends bullet proof vest 🙃

You're on the board

I don't think anyone is arguing that on a global scale though colonial/Western powers did decimate Africa and continue to actively prevent its advancement via neocolonialism there.

But if we're talking about American history then we need to be transparent about the fact that this was an apartheid state until about half a century ago and the consequences of that reverberate to the present day.

You probably mean well, but this rings of "all lives matter." There's nothing wrong with pointing out injustice and oppression, in isolation. The issue lies in using it as a rebuttal to the suffering of others. "The Irish were enslaved" is fine, but "white people were slaves, too," is minimizing the vast industry of oppression that was the slave trade.

No one is claiming a patent on suffering, but you are minimizing theirs. You can acknowledge suffering without trying to draw comparisons, and especially without the strawman argument. The phrase "black people don't own the patent on suffering, sorry" rings of resentment and snark, and isn't at all representative of most black people's view of human suffering. Oppressed people support each other and prop each other up. We aren't measuring each other's suffering or keeping score. Some of my greatest allies are people that don't share my own personal struggle, but relate with their own, and I likewise support them (I am a queer white woman).

Not to just fall for the meme but…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Ireland

You might want do a little more research.
If I punch you in the nose and call it a kiss, the blood runs the same.

You're absolutely right, the scale of the transatlantic slave trade was greater than ever before seen in human history.

Somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 6 died on the journey alone.

One needs to also be aware that slavery as practiced by modern Western colonial empires was even more cruel than how slavery was practiced traditionally even dating back to antiquity.

In most of the world slavery was often contingent and there were several pathways to manumission (freedom). It was not an inherited status by default (partus sequiter ventrum).

The Western colonial empires very much perceived the entire world according to a race based caste system where Europeans were the highest caste and those of African descent were the lowest. Complexion defined your worth as a person. They spread this worldview globally, which has poisoned so many minds over centuries, and the world is still recovering from it to this day.

America adopted and upheld this race based caste system until the civil rights act passed in the 1960s (within the lifetimes of many of parents/grandparents). During the American era of slavery, slaves had no legal rights. They did not have personhood. Children of slaves were automatically also slaves from birth. Slaves could be grieviously injured or killed with impunity. They were seen as property, or livestock.

This is not how slavery was practiced historically around the world.

In fact, even ancient Greece and Rome (both of which thrived on slavery) had more legal protections and pathways to freedom. Slavery was not race based. In many cases, they had earnings and could eventually buy their freedom. In Rome they could be set free by an owner and become Roman citizens.

None of this is taught in American history likely because the ruling class worries it would hurt the average person's national pride and the ability to exert control over them. But the truth is no society can improve without honestly reflecting on their past so I hope there will be some that read this and learn.

does anyone remember how the Koreans had enslavement for 2000 years that resulted in an entire caste system being developed to just maintain control of their property.

oh..just me? ok...

Fuck you one was to many.

Who is he?