[Renatus]

Originally Posted by Saya

Africa isn't a monolith, its a huge continent with tons of different ethnicities and cultures. Slavery to many Africans wasn't slavery as it was in the states, you weren't expected to be a slave for the rest of your life and it had no basis on the colour of your skin. Slavery in America was based on race, to the point where as soon as slavery was banned, vagrancy laws meant that many black people quickly became imprisoned and their labour controlled by prison work. I doubt the Africans who sold Africans into slavery knew what would become of them and their descendants, plus Africa was then largely colonized by European powers who took what they wanted anyway, gosh darn the customs.

Hmm interesting. I would say I think the usage of slaves in America contributed to the duration of the slavery, and created the racism, rather than the racism existing beforehand. It used to be much of the time that slaves were a luxury item that helped out around the house, or business, or provided entertainment somehow. You interacted with them on a regular basis, and were generally associated with better things, contributing to their better treatment and likely hood of being freed.

Then you have the American usage of slaves, thanks to the industrial revolution and colonization you found them used as simple laborers, and interacted with them very little and as a result you disassociated from them , and would be more likely to look down upon them.

Two examples supporting this are how house slaves actually got freed a lot more often compared to the field slaves, and the Egyptian slaves who were used in an even more extreme fashion as a far more expendable workforce you barely interacted with, and slavery there lasted far longer than it did here.

This leaves me with the question of, was slavery and racism in the south a result of the people themselves, or the necessity that the slaves served towards profit making.

Originally Posted by Saya

Many African cultures did indeed have a writing system, and for a very long time. The more you know!

But how many of those cultures were the ones that participated in the slave trade is something I'd like to know, especially since as cultures with writing they would be better educated.

Originally Posted by Saya

From what I hear in the news, lynching is still a thing.

Well they're not the sort of thing you have whole towns having picnics for anymore. Hell picnic has often incorrectly been thought of as a shortened version of pick-a-******, though it was used in that context often at the time.

Two questions I've never thought about before in one post, I like where this is going.