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Comment by lkrubner | Hacker News Reader

By this chain of logic, no article is complete unless it mentions all of the other related topics that it could have mentioned, if it didn't mind being infinitely long. When writing a book about the Holocaust, one could also mention genocide in the USSR, or in Turkey, against the Armenians, or the Italian brutality in Ethiopia, or the mistreatment of Africans under British rule, or the widespread massacres that occurred in the Philippines when it was initially conquered by the USA. One could go on and on, mentioning more and more genocides.

Or one could simply stick to the subject that one is writing about.

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The unfortunate souls shipped to the New World as slaves were directly bought from Benin slavers, though, not taken in some kind of hostile pirate-like raid, which is the mental picture that the word "ripped" conjures to mind.

When writing, there is always a question of where the related references stop. There is no clear criterion. But the word "ripped" here indicates a certain unwillingness to address the fact that slavery was, until fairly recently, a rather widespread phenomenon in Africa.

Ignoring this fact does not make European slavery worse and acknowledging it does not make European slavery better. The only thing it would do would be a certain refinement of currently politically popular stereotypes.

History should be told as it was, not as we want it to look like. And slavery existed because it was immensely profitable to all sorts of people, from native kings in Africa to the white (and sometimes Native American) slavers in America.

Only by understanding this can you prevent reemergence of slavery in the future. Arguably, sexual slavery works on a similar background.

>The unfortunate souls shipped to the New World as slaves were directly bought from Benin slavers, though, not taken in some kind of hostile pirate-like raid, which is the mental picture that the word "ripped" conjures to mind.

Agreed.

I estimate that 90% of Americans/Europeans would, if asked "how slaves were caught", would describe some variant of "white people sail to Africa, catch unwary Africans in giant nets, and sail away when the ship is full".

Ironically, that would be fairly close to the reality of the North African Barbary Pirate raids on European shores as far as Iceland, which resulted in more than a million Europeans being enslaved. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade

Good point.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the average American SJW/Redditor sincerely believes that slavery has existed in only one country in the world's history: in the United States, involving Africans. The etymology of the word "slav"? Brazil? Haiti? Guadeloupe? North Africans (as you note) enslaving Europeans? Vikings taking thralls? Feudalism? Never heard of 'em.

I do not know a single person who thinks that, but I know a very large number of people who like emphasize that most slave catching was done by Africans. When I lived in North Carolina and Virginia this fact was offered by someone in the group every time the subject came up.

If you had a bit more self awareness you might realize how you look when invent imaginary statistics like “90% of Americans”.

I see the reasoning you have and I mostly agree. Actually, scratch that, let me say I agree entirely. You are right. If an author decides on a particular subject, he should guard against scope creep least he produces a rambling screed that tries to touch on everything but fails at being meaningful even for one idea.

But, to play a bit of devils advocate here. In the case of the USSR, it did paint it’s self as a liberator, claiming left right and centre how they’re freeing the prisoners. But, at the same time, they had their own camps where they were sending their own prisoners. I feel this by it’s self warrants some mention at least in a treatment of the holocaust. We’re not talking about a separate genocide in another time and place. We’re talking about a genocide perpetrated at the same time by a county that was beating it’s chest about stopping a genocide.

Just my two cents. But, yeah, I agree with you on the scope creep issue.

Would you then agree that such an article should include Churchill’s role in the Bengal famine of 1943, or the internment of Japanese-Americans, or the Italian Empire’s massacres in conquered Ethiopia, not to mention all of Japan’s policies in Asia at the time?

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