What's on your mind today?

[Tank]

Guilt and pride at the same time. Sounds like religion. 

Point taken, though.

I once had a Black African guy have a real go at me because I said that if he cursed me for my slaver ancestors he had to praise me for my abolitionist ancestors. It is very rarely that the word 'apoplectic' truly applies but in this case I was glad I was on a different continent. 

[Dark Lightning]

If he's on the African continent, there is a possibility that some of his ancestors were selling fellow Africans into slavery. It's things like that that make me not carry too much guilt or pride for what my forebears have done.

[Magdalena]

This conversation started to make me feel uncomfortable, I think I know why now. My grandfather was born in Spain and moved to El Salvador in 1921. I was born there, he raised me. When people find out, I get all sorts of complaints about the invasion and rape of Latin America by the Spaniards. He had nothing to do with it, I had nothing to do with it, but it's as if people get a chance to complain about it to our DNA, or the "ghosts" of our ancestors through us? --I don't know. 
They say thing like, "So...you have the blood of the conquistador running through your veins?"
--As if most of us don't, in Latin America? 
I didn't ask for this. It makes me very sad.

[jumbojak]

What was done before you doesn't matter. It's how you behave that counts. Most people are willing to see that. Some, unfortunately, are not.

[Guardian85]

Don't feel so bad, Mags.
If everybody thought like that, I couldn't be friends with Chris and his wife. 

Imagine how silly that would be...

[Magdalena]

What was done before you doesn't matter.

Well, it does if you're the victim and the wounds haven't healed yet.

It's how you behave that counts. Most people are willing to see that. Some, unfortunately, are not.

True.

[Magdalena]

Don't feel so bad, Mags.
If everybody thought like that, I couldn't be friends with Chris and his wife. 

Imagine how silly that would be...

Thanks for that, Guardian85.
Grudges, man...they can be a pain in the...

[Magdalena]

If he's on the African continent, there is a possibility that some of his ancestors were selling fellow Africans into slavery.
...

This is sad, and hard to believe.

[Icarus]

It would be a useful exercise for all of us to get our shit together.  I am referring to the great unwashed out there who are ignorant of the reality that we are all in this together.  There are meatheads out there who might hang some guilt on Magdalena for being an ancestor of  Conquistadors.  What a crock of shit that is.  My own ancestors might have been among Marie Antionette's peers who allowed that we should; Let them eat cake.

I do wish that we could put all that behind us. This is a different and more enlightened world. Well, more enlightened by some, but sadly not all of us.

I have some confidence that my HAF peers will give the middle finger to those who claim that we are to be plaimed for the behavior of generations past. here is mine....

[Dark Lightning]

If he's on the African continent, there is a possibility that some of his ancestors were selling fellow Africans into slavery.
...

This is sad, and hard to believe.

Not my tribe, screw 'em!  The things that people do to each other.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/an-african-country-reckons-with-its-history-of-selling-slaves/2018/01/29/5234f5aa-ff9a-11e7-86b9-8908743c79dd_story.html?utm_term=.3baed5e8c4c7

[Magdalena]

It would be a useful exercise for all of us to get our shit together.  I am referring to the great unwashed out there who are ignorant of the reality that we are all in this together.  There are meatheads out there who might hang some guilt on Magdalena for being an ancestor of  Conquistadors.  What a crock of shit that is.  My own ancestors might have been among Marie Antionette's peers who allowed that we should; Let them eat cake.

I do wish that we could put all that behind us. This is a different and more enlightened world. Well, more enlightened by some, but sadly not all of us.

I have some confidence that my HAF peers will give the middle finger to those who claim that we are to be plaimed for the behavior of generations past. here is mine....

I can't do that.
They/we have every right to be angry for what Spain did to a whole continent. I can't give my people who are still angry about it the middle finger.

[Magdalena]

If he's on the African continent, there is a possibility that some of his ancestors were selling fellow Africans into slavery.
...

This is sad, and hard to believe.

Not my tribe, screw 'em!  The things that people do to each other.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/an-african-country-reckons-with-its-history-of-selling-slaves/2018/01/29/5234f5aa-ff9a-11e7-86b9-8908743c79dd_story.html?utm_term=.3baed5e8c4c7

I read that Francisco Félix de Souza was a Brazilian born to Portuguese colonists and a slave trader, you said that Africans were selling Africans into slavery. 

[jumbojak]

If he's on the African continent, there is a possibility that some of his ancestors were selling fellow Africans into slavery.
...

This is sad, and hard to believe.

Why is that hard to believe? Slavery as an institution is thousands of years old. Slave traders evolved from slave takers as economies grew more sophisticated. When the goal is to make as much money as possible it doesn't matter if you're selling a person to a neighboring warlord or driving them to the coast for the white guys on boats.

That's not to say that the white guys never went inland to enslave whoever was convenient. They certainly did. But locals doing the same is almost natural in a society where slavery is morally acceptable.

[Magdalena]

If he's on the African continent, there is a possibility that some of his ancestors were selling fellow Africans into slavery.
...

This is sad, and hard to believe.

Why is that hard to believe?
...

Maybe a small group did, but not most of them.

There was slavery, and there was slavery.
CNN - Evidence of Africans' part in slavery - Oct. 20, 1995

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9510/ghana_slavery/

...
"Slavery did exist in Africa," says Irene Odotei of the University of Ghana.

In many African cultures, slavery was an accepted domestic practice, but it was slavery of a different kind. In Africa, the slave usually had rights, protection under law, and social mobility.

"Many house owners would call their slaves as their daughters or sons," says Perbi. "They became part of the kin or family or lineage of the owners."
...

But while Africans may have sold their own people into slavery, researchers say the kings and chiefs had no idea of the brutality of slavery on the other side of the ocean. If they had, they say, maybe the slave trade across the Atlantic would never have grown so huge, or lasted for so many years.
...

[Tank]

If he's on the African continent, there is a possibility that some of his ancestors were selling fellow Africans into slavery. It's things like that that make me not carry too much guilt or pride for what my forebears have done.

Quite so. Slavery existed well before it was industrialised.