How Does Slavery Benefit White People Today?

[randys1]

http://www.diversityinc.com/ask-the-white-guy/how-does-slavery-benefit-white-people-today/

The legacy of slavery has benefited every white person in this country–directly and personally. In a very gross analogy, if you run a series of foot races over 300 years but prevent 13 percent of the participants from learning how to run for 180 years and then give them concrete sneakers for another 80 years–but allow them full access for 40 years, it will take the 13 percent quite a few races to be competitive because the other 87 percent advanced their skills by practice and repetition.

and

Before somebody e-mails me with the old canard of “Nobody in my family ever owned a slave,” I’d like to retire that excuse with a personal example: Generations ago, my ancestors fled the horrible conditions in their home countries to establish families in the United States. It was never much of a question as to whether or not we could pick wherever we wanted to live, have access to college or get a mortgage. If my family suffered under generations of knowing that those doors were closed, it would take generations more to overcome that lack of family know-how. In essence, my family zipped right past people whose families were here long before mine. I never even questioned that Rutgers would be open to accepting my application, that the Navy would send me to flight school or that McGraw-Hill or Time Warner would hire me–and that when I was there I would be in the vast majority (there were less than 3 percent people of color in both publications I worked for). I never doubted my ability to start a company and had plenty of friends to mentor me along the way.

and if you are not tired reading yet

Unfortunately, this has hurt our country dramatically. If you caught black households up to white household wealth, it would be the equivalent of injecting the entire GDP of Japan into our economy. Who would benefit? Mostly white people, as the majority would manufacture the goods and services purchased with the “new” wealth

and then finally

The good news is that many white people remembered and unremembered have done their duty and fought for freedom. White guys can take pride in fellow white guys like Washington, Franklin, Garrison, Lincoln and Lyndon B. Johnson (among others). Our country may be imperfect, but our human rights are still the guiding beacon of opportunity for most of the rest of the planet..

[bravenak]

1. I liked this part right here.

The legacy of slavery has benefited every white person in this country–directly and personally. In a very gross analogy, if you run a series of foot races over 300 years but prevent 13 percent of the participants from learning how to run for 180 years and then give them concrete sneakers for another 80 years–but allow them full access for 40 years, it will take the 13 percent quite a few races to be competitive because the other 87 percent advanced their skills by practice and repetition.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. I co-sign this like!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. great analogy, yes.

[JI7]

7. cultural issues also

The reasons people have to justify slavery dont just go away when you end slavery. Same goes for Jim crow and other discrimination.

People continue to hold negative views towards groups and it is carried into later generations also.

Things can get better but it takes time.

[bravenak]

8. There's no way to get away from it either.

Black no matter what. No wonder people are bleaching their skin till they look like creeps.

[cyberswede]

3. Giving this a kick

...good read.

[KingCharlemagne]

5. The 19th-century French writer Balzac opined that "behind every great fortune

lies a great crime."

America was founded upon at least two such great crimes: the theft of land from its indigenous inhabitants and the theft of labor and life from Africans kidnapped and forcibly brought here against their will.

There has yet to be a reckoning, imo, for either of these two great crimes but that there were and are fortunes that derive from them there can be absolutely no doubt.

[Cyrano]

6. Yes, dead on. n/t