Quote:
Originally Posted by RFlushDiamonds
I don't know man, they still live in shacks on Caribbean islands. Right next to the mansions. I'm not seeing how emancipation made it all better. Maybe no slave patrols but....I wouldn't even bet on that. Likely they'd hunt ex slaves for sport if they're anything like the southerners in the US.
I think this take I am about to put out is worth exposing myself to an actually square on hit from Trolly. I didn't start noticing these distinctions from accounts of slavery in books. I was in a class in college and I saw a Black student look up at an approaching TA and smile a relaxed, inviting smile. I said to myself that dude isn't from America. It was like an Obama smile. When he spoke his accent confirmed it. I started thinking about it later, how did I know he was foreign simply from his facial expression, a normal facial expression, given that he otherwise had no indication of being foreign? The fact is, by and large, people with slave ancestors in this country don't smile like Obama, at least not when interacting with White people like the TA. Among peoples of most any other origin I have seen, including American Whites, some of them smile like Obama. But there is something about the slavery here in America that murdered a lot of smiles over a long expanse of time, even in time long after its reign.
But there are definitely more material indicators of the phenomenon. Typically American immigrant families go through a process of starting out in low level jobs with hopes, often materialized, that their children will do better than them. And the children of those children will do even better, etc. But Black immigrants actually have higher incomes than U.S. born Blacks. They are doing better than Blacks whose families have been in this country for hundreds of years going back and they just got here. Some racists say that's proof that racism doesn't exist. That's nonsense, of course. There is an institutional level explanation for it.