Given the keys to the manor, although dazed at first, would they still choose to remain slaves?
It's interesting that you posed this as a hypothetical question, given that America's history constitutes a practical test of it. That part of society which takes its familial, economic, and cultual inheritance from the slaves are, after all this time, still not doing so well. Conservatives are usually really keen to attribute this to Individual Responsibility and insinuate that it's their own darned faults for remaining poor generations later. In an individual sense, this is clearly a very callous and uncaring way to think about your fellow human beings and it leaves out a huge system of influence and privilege from the explanation.
But maybe what they think they're seeing - a people who "used" to be oppressed and now "aren't", and yet who can't seem to bring themselves up to the socioeconomic station of a non-oppressed people - maybe that's just evidence that "dazed at first" was an incredible understatement. I wouldn't balk at the idea that this has partly to do with having internalized a 'victim' role generations ago, and that role having persisted as a cultural identity. Is it possible for self-esteem problems to exist collectively, as opposed to individually? I think so.
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Re: Or should I say
Date: 17/2/11 18:59 (UTC)It's interesting that you posed this as a hypothetical question, given that America's history constitutes a practical test of it.
That part of society which takes its familial, economic, and cultual inheritance from the slaves are, after all this time, still not doing so well. Conservatives are usually really keen to attribute this to Individual Responsibility and insinuate that it's their own darned faults for remaining poor generations later. In an individual sense, this is clearly a very callous and uncaring way to think about your fellow human beings and it leaves out a huge system of influence and privilege from the explanation.
But maybe what they think they're seeing - a people who "used" to be oppressed and now "aren't", and yet who can't seem to bring themselves up to the socioeconomic station of a non-oppressed people - maybe that's just evidence that "dazed at first" was an incredible understatement. I wouldn't balk at the idea that this has partly to do with having internalized a 'victim' role generations ago, and that role having persisted as a cultural identity. Is it possible for self-esteem problems to exist collectively, as opposed to individually? I think so.