Slavery and History

Mr. Carson talks about how white people used black people as objects for labor and pleasure. He highlights how white Americans would use black men and women without thinking about their health by saying that their “physical health was never taken care of by this idea of whiteness.” Hearing him say that reminded me of a part of my ancestors history: the Egyptian enslavement of Jews. Something I found interesting about that is through current technology and DNA analysis, scientists have found that these ancient Egyptians were actually black. The premise slavery, and thee use of other human beings for physical labor, was not a new concept created by Europeans to gain free labor from black men and women. There has been documentation of African tribes enslaving members of a rival tribe. All throughout history, humans have treated each other as objects. Today, when people think of slavery, they think of white people using black as slaves, which is not the only presence of slavery in human history. My point is that the oppressor was not always white and the slave was not always black. I do, however, feel the need to make this clear: I am, in no way, diminishing the horrors of the enslavement of African Americans. I merely felt the need to highlight a fact that is often overlooked when speaking about this topic. I’m not justifying it in anyway for the treatment of African Americans during slavery, with the prejudices resulting from it, and afterwards, is so clearly immoral and unjustifiable.