Sauce for the goose

[nancylebov]

It occurs to me that if it's reasonable to talk about the legacy of slavery (218,000 google hits) in some black communities (if you think there's "the black community" you aren't paying attention to plausibility), it's equally reasonable to talk about the legacy of slave-holding (6 google hits) in some white communities.

Addendum: Slavery by Another Name is a book about the continuation of slavery through the legal system until the beginning of WWII-- black men (few black women and very few white men) were convicted under trumped up laws (frex, leaving an employer without permission) or just arrested without charge and handed over to deadly industrial slavery. This happened to some tens of thousands, and had a chilling effect on those who weren't taken.

(I've heard interviews with the author, but haven't read the book.)

Comments

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Now that I've seen this comment, I think I get where you are coming from. It would indeed be an interesting and challenging topic -- particularly top do it in a way that recognizes that "yes, being a slave holding society did influence slave holders (and non-slave holders but non-slaves) in complex ways" but does not come off like a corruption of blood ("your great-grandparents had slaves and so you are tainted forever").