Should the State of Washington be renamed?

[Cekoviu]

Anti-racism was a thing back then, but slavery wouldn't be justified if there wasn't a single person on the face of the earth who opposed it.

Yes.

Once again your stunning lack of knowledge of history shows. The Romans had slaves were they racists too?

yeah, the romans were pretty racist (not using our current conception of race because they didn't have it but based on their conception they absolutely were)

[Washington Resistance Army]

The reason western Europe speaks romance languages and is Catholic is cuz the Romans destroyed native languages and faiths lol, they were absolutley racist for their time. Really the great majority of pre-modern nations or empires were, turns out modern views are just that.

[Neanderthaland]

Anti-racism was a thing back then, but slavery wouldn't be justified if there wasn't a single person on the face of the earth who opposed it.

Yes.

Once again your stunning lack of knowledge of history shows. The Romans had slaves were they racists too?

Umm... yeah. A cursory glance at Roman history shows that thy were often very racist.

Not necessarily about slavery, but also not not about slavery.

[Cordel One]

Anti-racism was a thing back then, but slavery wouldn't be justified if there wasn't a single person on the face of the earth who opposed it.

Yes.

Once again your stunning lack of knowledge of history shows. The Romans had slaves were they racists too?

Yes, the Romans were racists. Aren't you a self-described historian?

[San Lumen]

Once again your stunning lack of knowledge of history shows. The Romans had slaves were they racists too?

Yeah, it was a different sort of slavery but they were still racists. Aren't you a self-described historian?

Yes I am and to call the founding fathers racist scum shows a stunning ignorance on your part. There was no other way to get the constitution passed without the three fifths compromise. If your going to label everyone who owned slaves or held racist beliefs by todays standards you might as well remove every statue erected before 1950.

[Cordel One]

Yeah, it was a different sort of slavery but they were still racists. Aren't you a self-described historian?

Yes I am and to call the founding fathers racist scum shows a stunning ignorance on your part. There was no other way to get the constitution passed without the three fifths compromise. If your going to label everyone who owned slaves or held racist beliefs by todays standards you might as well remove every statue erected before 1950.

Owning slaves does not stop being racist because the vast majority of the colonists were also racist.

[San Lumen]

Yes I am and to call the founding fathers racist scum shows a stunning ignorance on your part. There was no other way to get the constitution passed without the three fifths compromise. If your going to label everyone who owned slaves or held racist beliefs by todays standards you might as well remove every statue erected before 1950.

Owning slaves does not stop being racist because the vast majority of the colonists were also racist.

How can you call a majority of the colonists racist when that was widely held belief at the time? Its real easy to take current standard and say that person from the past is a racist. Have you ever read the Lincoln-Douglas debates? Lincoln said some things that would be considered quite racist by today's standards.

[The Federal Government of Iowa]

I just stumbled upon this thread and I'm dying over here!
Man, NS is alright sometimes. Sometimes...

[Heloin]

Yeah, it was a different sort of slavery but they were still racists. Aren't you a self-described historian?

Yes I am and to call the founding fathers racist scum shows a stunning ignorance on your part. There was no other way to get the constitution passed without the three fifths compromise.

It's ignorant to say people who held racist beliefs, where racist?

If your going to label everyone who owned slaves or held racist beliefs by todays standards you might as well remove every statue erected before 1950.

Every person before the civil rights act was a slave owning racist apparently.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Every person before the civil rights act was a slave owning racist apparently.

Not everyone and not slave owning but probably a really huge amount were racist, yeah. Before we beat Nazi Germany iirc there's some Pew polling showing nearly half the country supported anti-Jewish laws as one example.

[San Lumen]

Yes I am and to call the founding fathers racist scum shows a stunning ignorance on your part. There was no other way to get the constitution passed without the three fifths compromise.

It's ignorant to say people who held racist beliefs, where racist?

If your going to label everyone who owned slaves or held racist beliefs by todays standards you might as well remove every statue erected before 1950.

Every person before the civil rights act was a slave owning racist apparently.

Thats not what I said.

[Cordel One]

Owning slaves does not stop being racist because the vast majority of the colonists were also racist.

How can you call a majority of the colonists racist when that was widely held belief at the time? Its real easy to take current standard and say that person from the past is a racist.

Racism doesn't stop being racist just because most people are racist.

Have you ever read the Lincoln-Douglas debates? Lincoln said some things that would be considered quite racist by today's standards.

Yeah, I know.

[Heloin]

Every person before the civil rights act was a slave owning racist apparently.

Not everyone and not slave owning but probably a really huge amount were racist, yeah. Before we beat Nazi Germany iirc there's some Pew polling showing nearly half the country supported anti-Jewish laws as one example.

I'm not arguing with the historical prevalence of racism throughout America and the World, I'm disagreeing with how San is making his points which have been made awfully throughout this thread.

[Heloin]

It's ignorant to say people who held racist beliefs, where racist?


Every person before the civil rights act was a slave owning racist apparently.

Thats not what I said.

It's what you just said.

[San Lumen]

How can you call a majority of the colonists racist when that was widely held belief at the time? Its real easy to take current standard and say that person from the past is a racist.

Racism doesn't stop being racist just because most people are racist.

Have you ever read the Lincoln-Douglas debates? Lincoln said some things that would be considered quite racist by today's standards.

Yeah, I know.

Are you listening at all or would you rather push your far left ideology? Racist by todays standards back that it was not. Its not fair to apply todays standards to people from the 18th century.

Do you consider Lincoln to be a racist?

[Heloin]

Racism doesn't stop being racist just because most people are racist.

Yeah, I know.

Are you listening at all or would you rather push your far left ideology? Racist by todays standards back that it was not. Its not fair to apply todays standards to people from the 18th century.

Something isn't not racist because people accepted it at one point. Someone who held racist views in a different time in history is still racist.

Do you consider Lincoln to be a racist?

He may have been, he probably wasn't but we can't really tell. He was an abolitionist and while most abolitionists where fairly egalitarian there was a sizable minority who where racists.

[Cordel One]

Racism doesn't stop being racist just because most people are racist.

Yeah, I know.

Are you listening at all or would you rather push your far left ideology? Racist by todays standards back that it was not. Its not fair to apply todays standards to people from the 18th century.

What's racist doesn't change over time, it's always had the same meaning:

rac·ism
/ˈrāˌsizəm/
noun
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

Most people being racist does not make them not racist.

Do you consider Lincoln to be a racist?

Uh yeah

[Ethel mermania]

Yes I am and to call the founding fathers racist scum shows a stunning ignorance on your part. There was no other way to get the constitution passed without the three fifths compromise. If your going to label everyone who owned slaves or held racist beliefs by todays standards you might as well remove every statue erected before 1950.

Owning slaves does not stop being racist because the vast majority of the colonists were also racist.

Vast majority of everyone was pretty racist.

[Ethel mermania]

Are you listening at all or would you rather push your far left ideology? Racist by todays standards back that it was not. Its not fair to apply todays standards to people from the 18th century.

What's racist doesn't change over time, it's always had the same meaning:

rac·ism
/ˈrāˌsizəm/
noun
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

Most people being racist does not make them not racist.

Do you consider Lincoln to be a racist?

Uh yeah

by the time he died, he wasn't.

[US-SSR]

Works for me. Whatever the people who live there want to call it, call it that. You can't go back to Constantinople.

[Ifreann]

I don't care about imagining a way to both abolish slavery and create America as you know it. Why would I do that? What would be the point? This isn't an alt-history thread.

because that was the topic. You claimed I was trying to justify a atrocity to create my so called "normal world. Whatever that means.

And the fact that you think that it was good, or at least the right course of action, for slavery to be tolerated since it lead to America being founded does not create an obligation on me to imagine an alternate history where slavery was not tolerated and also America was still founded.

---

I've already explained why that's irrelevant to the fact that the Founding Fathers were horrible people.

By today's standards.What part of such beliefs were not consisted racist then and were widespread don't you get?

They were widespread, though. Northern states had abolitionist laws. The fact that those laws did not cover the whole nation doesn't mean that abolitionism was some fringe ideology. Were gay rights a fringe ideology ten years ago? Marriage equality was only the law in a few states back then, just like abolitionism. The fact that it took a lot longer for abolitionism to become the law across the nation than it took for marriage equality doesn't mean that abolitionism was not a widespread belief before Lincoln proclaimed emancipation.

where they sexist too because they didnt include women's suffrage?

Yes. That they didn't think there was anything wrong with being sexist doesn't mean they weren't sexist.

---

The odd, self loathing tendency to hate one’s own country of birth - and all its traditions, notes, and history - seems to be limited to Western Anglophobe countries like the US, Canada, and UK. I find it all the more peculiar because the majority of the people ascribed to such beliefs - exempting displaced indigenous folk - are upper middle class whites who really have no reason to hate a country where everything under the sun is handed to them on a plate. It’s very puzzling. These are the same people who tell me “America was never great” despite the fact I moved here precisely because I believed it was the greatest country in the world, the people who tore down a US Flag I put up in our dorm - as if trying to erase the pride I take in being part of this country’s multicultural fabric despite their having been born and raised here - and the people who presumed to give me a long humorless lecture on native genocide when I made an innocuous remark about Thanksgiving.

I don’t understand it, and after watching this kind of sentiment grow over the past ten years of my life I’m not sure I really want to. Yes, every country has problems. Yes, every country’s government has done some disreputable things in its past. That doesn’t mean we should show our spite for every country and its traditions at every opportunity.

So strange to see someone agree on the facts, accept all the terrible things that America has done and is doing, but object to people not ignoring them.

[The Reformed American Republic]

It's an attempt to destroy our culture.

Careful there, that's some real Lost Causer energy

You think you're going to scare me by effectively calling me a racist.

[-Astoria-]

Careful there, that's some real Lost Causer energy

You think you're going to scare me by effectively calling me a racist.

...you said "racism", not them.

[Ethel mermania]

because that was the topic. You claimed I was trying to justify a atrocity to create my so called "normal world. Whatever that means.

And the fact that you think that it was good, or at least the right course of action, for slavery to be tolerated since it lead to America being founded does not create an obligation on me to imagine an alternate history where slavery was not tolerated and also America was still founded.

---

By today's standards.What part of such beliefs were not consisted racist then and were widespread don't you get?

They were widespread, though. Northern states had abolitionist laws. The fact that those laws did not cover the whole nation doesn't mean that abolitionism was some fringe ideology. Were gay rights a fringe ideology ten years ago? Marriage equality was only the law in a few states back then, just like abolitionism. The fact that it took a lot longer for abolitionism to become the law across the nation than it took for marriage equality doesn't mean that abolitionism was not a widespread belief before Lincoln proclaimed emancipation.

where they sexist too because they didnt include women's suffrage?

Yes. That they didn't think there was anything wrong with being sexist doesn't mean they weren't sexist.

---

The odd, self loathing tendency to hate one’s own country of birth - and all its traditions, notes, and history - seems to be limited to Western Anglophobe countries like the US, Canada, and UK. I find it all the more peculiar because the majority of the people ascribed to such beliefs - exempting displaced indigenous folk - are upper middle class whites who really have no reason to hate a country where everything under the sun is handed to them on a plate. It’s very puzzling. These are the same people who tell me “America was never great” despite the fact I moved here precisely because I believed it was the greatest country in the world, the people who tore down a US Flag I put up in our dorm - as if trying to erase the pride I take in being part of this country’s multicultural fabric despite their having been born and raised here - and the people who presumed to give me a long humorless lecture on native genocide when I made an innocuous remark about Thanksgiving.

I don’t understand it, and after watching this kind of sentiment grow over the past ten years of my life I’m not sure I really want to. Yes, every country has problems. Yes, every country’s government has done some disreputable things in its past. That doesn’t mean we should show our spite for every country and its traditions at every opportunity.

So strange to see someone agree on the facts, accept all the terrible things that America has done and is doing, but object to people not ignoring them.

He never said slavery was good or OK. accepting slavery was a precondition of the south for replacing the articles of confederation with the constitution. The condition of slavery already existed prior to the constitution, without the guarantee of 20 years of no action on slavery written into it, we would have stayed under the articles of confederation.

[Minskiev]

Owning slaves does not stop being racist because the vast majority of the colonists were also racist.

How can you call a majority of the colonists racist when that was widely held belief at the time? Its real easy to take current standard and say that person from the past is a racist. Have you ever read the Lincoln-Douglas debates? Lincoln said some things that would be considered quite racist by today's standards.

You’re a little delusional. Owning slaves just because it was centuries ago doesn’t make it not racist, but it makes it less...criticizable. Being a racist now? Bad, and stuff. Being a racist then? Still bad, but you can’t entirely blame them.