[Rancid]

I voted no.

Sure, everything in the life is technically a choice, but from a practical stand point, no, they didn't have a choice. It's kind of hard to make a decision with the threat of violence constantly hanging over you. The physical and psychological pain must have been insane.

To basically brush this all off by saying "Well, they had a choice" is fucking stupid.

[One Degree]

I voted no.

Sure, everything in the life is technically a choice, but from a practical stand point, no, they didn't have a choice. It's kind of hard to make a decision with the threat of violence constantly hanging over you. The physical and psychological pain must have been insane.

To basically brush this all off by saying "Well, they had a choice" is fucking stupid.

That is the catch. If the pain was as bad as you indicate, it gives more reason why they should have rebelled no matter the cost. Either most did not find the suffering worse than their view of freedom, or they were cowards.
The more pain you imagine for them, the more cowardly for not rebelling. Sensationalized history creates choices that are different from what they saw. Slavery was accepted. Most slaves were not tortured. The same people who used whips on their slaves probably used whips on their kids. We have to get rid of our view before we can even begin to understand their choice.

[Wellsy]

There might be some clarity in distinguishing choice from agency in that choices themselves aren't inherently free.

Edit: Are to aren't

[One Degree]

There might be some clarity in distinguishing choice from agency in that choices themselves are inherently free.

Yes, increasing agency can be viewed as what I called the individuals choices being influenced by cultural standards.

[Rancid]

Yes, increasing agency can be viewed as what I called the individuals choices being influenced by cultural standards.

Under these rules, agency is what's important and choice is largely irrelevant.

[Unperson-K]

Sensationalized history creates choices that are different from what they saw. Slavery was accepted. Most slaves were not tortured. The same people who used whips on their slaves probably used whips on their kids.

Source?

Slaves did rebel, frequently. A list of rebellions in North and Central America (so not counting South America, the Haitian revolution, or the 485 recorded instances of slave revolts on ships).

San Miguel de Guadalupe (1526)
Gaspar Yanga's Revolt (c. 1570)
Gloucester County, Virginia Revolt (1663)
New York Slave Revolt of 1712
Samba Rebellion (1731)
Stono Rebellion (1739)
New York Slave Insurrection of 1741
1791 Mina conspiracy
Pointe Coupée conspiracy (1794)
Gabriel's conspiracy (1800)
Igbo Landing slave escape (1803)
Chatham Manor Rebellion (1805)
1811 German Coast Uprising (1811)
Aponte Conspiracy (1812)
George Boxley Rebellion (1815)
Denmark Vesey's conspiracy (1822)
Nat Turner's slave rebellion (1831)
Black Seminole Slave Rebellion (1835–1838)
Amistad seizure (1839)
Creole case (1841)
1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (1859)

So it would appear that slavery was sufficiently painful to provoke revolt rather than just 'acceptance'. Many did not revolt, of course, because the chances of rebellion being successful were practically non-existent: note that the overwhelming majority of the above rebellions were crushed and did not break the system of slavery (in the US, it took the Union army and Lincoln's political pragmatism to do that). That is what happens when an impoverished group of people raise banners against organised, disciplined, funded, and well-equipped armies, backed by the organisational might of state and legal bureaucracies.

But here I am buying into your silly dichotomy between passive acceptance and open rebellion. Studies of the slave society with which I am most familiar (the serfs of imperial Russia) reveal a whole host of means by which slaves opposed their masters, like deliberately slow and inefficient work, the evasion of duties, direct insubordination, theft, sabotage, etc. Resistance does not necessarily mean rebelling and thereby bringing death and destruction on the entire community: it can also mean obstruction. Some might argue the latter is more effective: one reason serfdom was ended in Russia was because it was increasingly recognised as being economically unproductive. The serfs made it so by refusing to be as productive for their landlords as they were for themselves.

So, if slaves did choose to rebel and resist on numerous occasions and through numerous methods but were generally crushed by the overwhelming forces ranged against them, this does not leave your (or Kanye's) argument that slavery was a choice in a very good place, does it? Or, to quote a wise man:

To basically brush this all off by saying "Well, they had a choice" is fucking stupid.

[One Degree]

@Kirillov
There were 4 million slaves in the US. How many involved in your rebellions? You are deliberately misleading to make a point.
If you can show 2 million of these slaves refused to cooperate with their owners, then you would have a point.
@Rancid
Agency is also irrelevant without making choices. It is part of choice, not separate.

[One Degree]

No one is ‘brushing it off’. No one is even placing blame. The only point is to destroy the ‘victim mentality’ produced by sensationalized history.

[Rancid]

The only point is to destroy the ‘victim mentality’ produced by sensationalized history.

Holyshit.

[Unperson-K]

You are deliberately misleading to make a point.

Unlike you and your claims that slaves accepted slavery, which means it wasn't all that bad (sources?). Obviously many did find slavery objectionable enough to take the hugely risky option of open rebellion

And I've already stated why many slaves did not rebel. It was almost certainly doomed to failure while also bringing enormous death and destruction to slave communities.

Edit: you might want to consult Junius P. Rodriguez's two-volume Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion (2006), which focuses mostly on North America, to understand how widespread resistance to slavery, ranging from rebellion to escape to day-to-day insubordination, was.

[One Degree]

Unlike you and your claims that slaves accepted slavery, which means it wasn't all that bad (sources?). Obviously many did find slavery objectionable enough to take the hugely risky option of open rebellion

And I've already stated why many slaves did not rebel. It was almost certainly doomed to failure while also bringing enormous death and destruction to slave communities.

Edit: you might want to consult Junius P. Rodriguez's two-volume Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion (2006), which focuses mostly on North America, to understand how widespread resistance to slavery, ranging from rebellion to escape to day-to-day insubordination, was.

What you are saying is not related to the issue being discussed. You can not use a few people revolting as proof of a cultural standard of refusal to cooperate.
The source is in the logic provided by several posters. I have read a lot of the winner’s history. One more will not change my mind.
You are trying to change our discussion to me saying slavery was not bad. That misses the whole point. The point is trying to understand the slaves view of their choices. Your view has nothing to do with it.

[Unperson-K]

I have read a lot of the winner’s history. One more will not change my mind.

Then we have reached the end of our discussion, as it is futile to continue. I will note, though, that I've provided more evidence of slave rebellion than you have to ground your opinion that slaves did not have a 'culture of resistance'. And I am discussing 'the slaves [sic] view of their choices'. Hence:

Obviously many did find slavery objectionable enough to take the hugely risky option of open rebellion

And I've already stated why many slaves did not rebel. It was almost certainly doomed to failure while also bringing enormous death and destruction to slave communities.

Also:

You are trying to change our discussion to me saying slavery was not bad.

Slavery was accepted. Most slaves were not tortured. The same people who used whips on their slaves probably used whips on their kids.

Almost too easy. How did you intend the latter to be taken other than as an effort to lessen the awfulness of slavery?

[skinster]

I saw somewhere that there were over 200 recorded rebellions by those enslaved, I'll try to find it, although at this stage I don't feel any particular need to provide evidence for these since some jackasses on here feel like their opinions are evidence for anything.

Anyway, this thread is beyond moronic. Motion to place OD and VS into white slavery!

[One Degree]

Then we have reached the end of our discussion, as it is futile to continue. I will note, though, that I've provided more evidence of slave rebellion than you have to ground your opinion that slaves did not have a 'culture of resistance'. And I am discussing 'the slaves [sic] view of their choices'. Hence:



Also:




Almost too easy. How did you intend the latter to be taken other than as an effort to lessen the awfulness of slavery?

First, I never said they did not have a culture of rebellion. I said if they did it was either not communicated to individuals or the individuals refused to carry it out. I said clearly in one post that I have no way of knowing. Logically, it would appear they did not or things were not considered bad enough by enough to do so.
This is a reasonable conclusion, not a statement of the actual conditions.
Second, The only way I am lessening the awfulness of slavery is by asking people to view it from the view of the slaves based upon the times. It is automatically sensationalized when you insist upon judging it based upon current morality. Getting a whipping was viewed very differently than today. Living in a shack with a dirt floor is not so horrible when so many others are living the same way. Etc. Our current morality blinds us to the reality.
Third, once again your examples of rebellion are not proof of anything.

[Suntzu]

Take a look at the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that were the sources for most of the slaves. Do you think it possible that they could organize anything?

[Rugoz]

There were 4 million slaves in the US. How many involved in your rebellions? You are deliberately misleading to make a point. If you can show 2 million of these slaves refused to cooperate with their owners, then you would have a point.

4 million slaves distributed all over the US facing an overwhelming majority of whites with the state apparatus behind them. I couldn't think of worse conditions for rebellion. As for "refusal to cooperate", passive resistance doesn't make the history books, hard to tell how widespread it was. No doubt the alt-righters would attribute it to "black laziness" anyway.

[Albert]

I voted No: technically yes slaves if larger in numbers can rebel against their masters but that is narrow way of looking at it. There are so many other factors involved, that is why there are only few rare example of slave revolts succeeding.

Also choice in slavery is an oxymoron.

[Rancid]

@One Degree,

What's your point though? Is this some backhanded way of you saying that Africans deserved to be slaves? Is that what you're getting at here?

[Pants-of-dog]

Whether they were allowed to or not is irrelevant (no one is denying that they forbidden to organize lol).

No, it is entirely relevant.

West was trolling. He was not making a simplistic logic dilemma. He was just trying to piss people off as a way of getting more famous. But let’s pretend that he was saying something serious worth thinking about.

First of all, slavery and its legacy are not a simplistic logic game where people choose either A or B. West’s massive over-simplification is obviously reductionist and ignores all sorts of historical facts. Slavery and its legacy was a long term, complex, human rights abuse that had economic, educational, and political factors.

I can see why many white conservatives want to see it as simple little logic game, but it is not. It is a lived reality for millions of people who are still trying to rectify the wrongs caused by slavery. But many white conservatives see these issues through some idealised level playing field paradigm that ignores things like historical facts and modern material conditions.

So, if you want to know why blacks had to continue struggling for centuries in order to achieve justice, you would have to look at economic and historical conditions.

First of all, the issue of whether or not there was a possibility of collective behaviour itself needs to be analysed from a historical perspective. When they were first brought over the Atlantic, they were all from different cultures. They did not see themselves as a collective because they had different religions, cultures, ethnicities, languages, etc. The only thing they had in common was the experience of slavery.

And organising in a collective manner is more than just a weird focus of mine in order to nitpick. Without collective action, a slave had no chance of ending slavery. At best, they could escape or kill themselves and end their own slavery. Many did. But a single slave has no leverage in society in order to effect change. The slavers hold all the cards. The only advantage slaves had were their numbers, but in order to leverage this advantage, slaves need to organise collectively.

And even when slaves found ways to organise collectively (such as creating the Underground Railroad), they had to contend with material conditions that made it difficult to enact social change. Like the fact that slavery was an international business at the time, and that was weakened by the US war for independence, when the US cut off the Trans-Atlantic slave trade as a way of cutting economic ties with Britain.

Or we could reduce it to a simplistic dilemma about personal choice.

Either they accepted their condition (including not being allowed to organized) or they were incapable of choosing either way.

That is Kanye's argument, he is assuming the premise that if black slaves, as a group, wanted to rise up, they would have and would have easily won their freedom in less that 400 years. So, in his argument, they must have chosen to accept their condition (what he called psychological slavery), the other alternative he is intentionally foregoing (because he likely views it as actually racist), is the view that blacks were incapable of choosing to stay or not stay in bondage (thus implying that they needed the white man). This alternative conclusion is the one he is trying to be rid of, he wants to be rid of the idea that blacks needed white governments, whether in the form of Republican emancipators or Democrat food-stamps.

That is his argument not mine; nonetheless, the intentional misreading of his point is quite amazing to me.

I have no idea why you repeated all of this.

I actually thought there would be an argument in there unpacking and critiquing Kanye.....NOPE, just angry condemnations and a bunch of unhinged claptrap about how Kanye is basically an alt. right troll-feeding uncle tom.

the essence of sophistication.

West was trolling. Why make it seem more important than it was?

[Albert]

I think people forget the main root of slavery when having discussion about slavery. Slavery is extremely profitable, you basically have free labour. Your only payment is necessities of life to your slaves. I believe in America because most slaves were from Africa a racial aspect to the issue had developed, but there needs to be separation of these two issues.

I'm thinking back to Malcolm X life where his father was killed for advocating and organizing a movement that prompted African Americans to migrate back to Africa. I found that perplexing when reading his autobiography why would Malcolm's father be killed for that if many European Americans wanted segregation with Africans diaspora and not to live with them.

Then if you think about, the fact that blacks could be used as cheap labour in America it makes sense to keep an underclass of people in your society.