From: johnhall@microsoft.com (John Hall)
Subject: Re: I'm Still Waiting
Date: 17 Dec 92 18:46:01 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation
Distribution: usa,local

In article ohall@milori.ccit.arizona.edu writes:
|   Your creative writing is to be commended, yet not decieving.

Mr. OHall

Perhaps you believe I have an agenda, and therefore a need to
be decieving.  It would be more accurate to state I like debate.

You state the following:

|   Did you see my posting on the brutality my parents experienced 
|   by the cops????  This, IMO, is an evidence of brutality today 
|   in the U.S.A. Big deal if there is more brutality in hell 
|   than on earth.  Where are we now?

I wouldn't have joined an arguement that began 
    'America is a brutal society ...' or
    'Blacks suffer from discrimination ...' or
    'Blacks get beat up by cops when they shouldn't ...' or
    any number of statements.  I grant them all.

I joined a narrowly focused claim relating to *relative* brutality
of the slave system practiced in the US.  Even that is a bit vague,
since the slave system was not homgenous -- and considerably different
in different regions of the south.

From my viewpoint, it appears that you have [not deliberately]
pulled a bait and switch.  You have accused me of defending
'A is good' when I questioned your position that 'A is worse
than B'.

| > All the wealth derived from slavery in the US was wiped out
| > in the Civil War, plus some.  The Jim Crow laws hurt total
| > american wealth, they didn't increase it.
| >
|   Are you speaking of financial wealth.  Well guess who was getting educated
|   while black slaves were plowing fields and laboring?  Without those slaves
|   Master would not have had the time to spend buying and selling goods and
|   educating himself and his family.  

The educational level of the Southern family was appalling.  In fact, 
I remember reading that 'jive' was derived from the exceptionally
poor education of the plantation wives.

Nevertheless, you have a point.  I believe other policies (like
Jim Crow) were far more damaging than the effect you mention.
You didn't answer the part about Jim Crow (and racism in general)
leading to misallocation of labor / resources and therefore a
decrease in all wealth.

Finally, note that it has only been since WWII that more than a fraction
of the US population has attended college.  Most baby boomer college
grads were the first in their family.

|   Weren't there banks in those days? 
|   Certainly some of that wealth was distributed throughout the nation.

And eaten up by the civil war.  The war was *very* expensive.

| > Enuchs were used by the Chinese as late as the early 20th century.
| > I believe the sultans were using them until well into the late
| > 19th century but I don't know.
| > 
|   Aren't enuchs used to watch female virgins or something?  This is more of
|   a cultural practice rather than slavery.

They were slaves, and they were watching harems, guarding royals,
and attending them.

Further, slavery *is* a cultural practice.  On a historical scale,
one of the more common.

-- 
-------------------------
My comments are my own.  They are independent and unrelated to the
views of my company , relatives or elected representatives.

Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american