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Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

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Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#11

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

fredlindemann wrote: post #6
thegrim33 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that every civilization that has ever existed has both enslaved others and been enslaved in the past, right? Where do your reparations end? Are you going to forcefully take money from me because African Americans were enslaved generations ago, but then forcefully have money taken from them for the other Africans and other races they themselves enslaved in Africa before that? Where does it end? Do you h…

> You do realize that every civilization that has ever existed has both enslaved others and been enslaved in the past, right? Do you realize that's an extraordinary claim? You have proof for this, right?

This seems relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery

Obviously GP's claim is a dumb one, because all you have to do is say "Here is one counter example, you're wrong". But looking at that page makes it very clear that slavery is a big part of most of world history.

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#12

Post by generalizations »

thegrim33 wrote: post #5
seph-reed wrote: post #2

This seems like an absolutely indispensable technology for achieving reparations. Most black Americans have ancestors who (slavery) worked a lot of unpaid hours. Having clear metrics on how many slaves there were is a step towards having a well founded number for what the cost of reparations should be. There are some places in the US which have started, but they're just kind of pulling numbers out of a hat and I don'…

You do realize that every civilization that has ever existed has both enslaved others and been enslaved in the past, right? Where do your reparations end? Are you going to forcefully take money from me because African Americans were enslaved generations ago, but then forcefully have money taken from them for the other Africans and other races they themselves enslaved in Africa before that? Where does it end? Do you h…

I'm also curious how far back these reparations are supposed to go, and where exactly the responsibility is supposed to lie. Should the people who 'employed' the slaves be responsible, or should the people who enslaved and sold them also be considered at fault?

If the second, then note a lot of slaves were initially captured and sold to white slavers by their own kind. [1]

[1] http://www.understandingslavery.com/index.php-option=com_con...

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#14

Post by knolax »

icebr9 wrote: post #8
fredlindemann wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do realize that every civilization that has ever existed has both enslaved others and been enslaved in the past, right? Do you realize that's an extraordinary claim? You have proof for this, right?

Well.. slaves comes from slavs how have been sold by Tatars. Here in my Slavic country we even have some classical books that write about slavery of our people

Ah yes the two genders: American and Tatar.

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#15

Post by seph-reed »

generalizations wrote: post #12
thegrim33 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that every civilization that has ever existed has both enslaved others and been enslaved in the past, right? Where do your reparations end? Are you going to forcefully take money from me because African Americans were enslaved generations ago, but then forcefully have money taken from them for the other Africans and other races they themselves enslaved in Africa before that? Where does it end? Do you h…

I'm also curious how far back these reparations are supposed to go, and where exactly the responsibility is supposed to lie. Should the people who 'employed' the slaves be responsible, or should the people who enslaved and sold them also be considered at fault? If the second, then note a lot of slaves were initially captured and sold to white slavers by their own kind. [1] [1] http://www.understandingslavery.com/inde…

Well, doing something like this right would obviously be a big discussion.

But IMO, if we can figure out how much time/money was stolen and who benefitted the most from it, we can start to have some idea of what's fair.

I'm a big fan of UBI as well, and it'd make a lot of sense to have the ancestors of slaves be the first to get onto UBI. But, obviously, this is a group decision and should be based off logic and records; not feelings.

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#16

Post by Zigurd »

To all those who say it is "impossible" to right the wrongs of history: My family were refugees from a war that resulted in both the Nazis and Soviet Union expropriating property in their home country. Eventually they, and other branches of my family got their property restored or compensated. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, property in many of the former Soviet Union nations was returned to rightful owners, or compensation was issued. Expropriated property is restored in many cases. Compensation for expropriation is commonplace. American slavery was a business, and businesses keep records. There are no valid excuses.

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#17

Post by huskyr »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #4

A worthy cause. Too bad they feel the need to run their own platform instead of contributing to wikidata. They're using the same software, and the data falls squarely within Wikidata's scope. Even worse that they feel the need to stamp this with a CC license. Not only does this make it incompatible with the CC0/public domain requirement. I consider it borderline offensive to assert copyright over the basic facts of s…

I think there's something to be said for putting this data in their own Wikibase instance. There are a lot of items here, including many items like 'Inventory of person X in year Y'. Adding so many items to Wikidata would not have been without its controversy. Also, i could imagine they need a lot of properties that are not available, or aren't used in the same way on Wikidata. There is a reason why all museums and other heritage institutions use their own databases and thesauri instead of putting it all in the same database.

However, the beauty of using a linked data platform is of course that it's easy to link back to other sources, like Wikidata. I could definitely see that in the future Wikidata could do an import of many of these items, or link properly to them using a new property.

I do agree that it's unfortunate that they're licensing everything under CC-BY instead of CC-Zero.

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#18

Post by redis_mlc »

seph-reed wrote: post #2

This seems like an absolutely indispensable technology for achieving reparations. Most black Americans have ancestors who (slavery) worked a lot of unpaid hours. Having clear metrics on how many slaves there were is a step towards having a well founded number for what the cost of reparations should be. There are some places in the US which have started, but they're just kind of pulling numbers out of a hat and I don'…

> But reparations should be paid, if for nothing else, at least for the unpaid hours.

You must be young to speak with such certainty.

Post-slavery, black sharecroppers basically made nothing after expenses. So how much was their time actually worth? (An economist will ask this.)

Post-slavery, norhern states, which had no slaves, paid the cost of welfare for millions of black families. So how does that factor in?

Since there's intermarriage in America, what's a quanta of African blood? How much does one get paid per 1/32? (This is referring to the heated race arguments of the 1800s and 1900s.)

Do you have any experience with the above? My family is from the Detroit area, so I'm one of few posters on HN that actually does know something about these issues.

The US paid a heavy price during the civil war, one of the biggest issues being related to slavery. Do the northern states get reparations for freeing the slaves?

That's the problem when you drag history into modern times. One of the biggest advantages that the US has over other countries is that we don't continue to fight the same battles over and over.

Even before corona, black familiies in America struggled greatly with maintaining households and educating their children. Instead of virtue signalling, why don't you contribute to solving today's enormous problems?

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#19

Post by [deleted] »

thegrim33 wrote: post #5
seph-reed wrote: post #2

This seems like an absolutely indispensable technology for achieving reparations. Most black Americans have ancestors who (slavery) worked a lot of unpaid hours. Having clear metrics on how many slaves there were is a step towards having a well founded number for what the cost of reparations should be. There are some places in the US which have started, but they're just kind of pulling numbers out of a hat and I don'…

You do realize that every civilization that has ever existed has both enslaved others and been enslaved in the past, right? Where do your reparations end? Are you going to forcefully take money from me because African Americans were enslaved generations ago, but then forcefully have money taken from them for the other Africans and other races they themselves enslaved in Africa before that? Where does it end? Do you h…

[deleted]

Re: Who Were America’s Enslaved? New Database Humanizes the Names Behind the Numbers

#20

Post by iaHN »

Zigurd wrote: post #16

To all those who say it is "impossible" to right the wrongs of history: My family were refugees from a war that resulted in both the Nazis and Soviet Union expropriating property in their home country. Eventually they, and other branches of my family got their property restored or compensated. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, property in many of the former Soviet Union nations was returned to rightful owners, o…

There is a pervasive fear that admitting that the US owes the descendants of slaves something could potentially validate the complaints black people have about other issues in America. See the posts about Timnit Gebru for comments depicting the demands of black people as "too disruptive".
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