“Racism in our countries is a fact in that the indian is not allowed to be a politician or aspire to being head of state. It has reached the point that 99% of the indigenous women have not gone to school. The indigenous are condemned to live in a situation designed to exterminate them. They receive a pittance of a salary, they neither speak nor write the language, politics dictates their situation. Is this slavery? I don't know what it's called. It is not the same as before because we are in modern times.” KnowsWritingCountryStatesFactsSchoolSpeakLanguageSituationGoneModernPoliticianRacismSlaveryOur CountryIndianAspireIndigenousSalaryModern TimesHead Of State Author:Rigoberta Menchu
“The flag that was the symbol of slavery on the high seas for a long time was not the Confederate battle flag, it was sadly the Stars and Stripes.” LongStarsSeaBattleLong TimeSlaverySymbolsFlagsStripesConfederateAmerican FlagSlave TradeHigh Seas Author:Alan Keyes
“With a few exceptions like Kraftwerk, most great 20th century Western music is in some way American-based. And the great paradox of America, the paradox that distills America, is that this greatest of American contributions to humanity, this American contribution that probably has influenced more people around the world for the good, that probably has brought more people around the world unqualified joy, was born of America's greatest evil, slavery. Or one of the two great evils anyway, counting the European extinction of those who were on the continent first.” PeopleWorldWayFirstsTwoAmericaJoyHumanityEvilBornCenturyMusic IsSlaveryWesternAround The WorldContributionExceptionParadoxContinents20th CenturyExtinctionCountingUnqualifiedWestern Music Author:Steve Erickson
“In terms of America, I think any profound consideration is bound to return us to the notion of twins because, though you certainly can contend there are many Americas, our history has been binary from the beginning, with its hairline fracture down the country's center between what American has wanted to be and what America has been. That fracture is slavery, of course. To some extent it's still slavery, in that collectively we refuse to come to grips with the American fact of slavery.” ThinkingHas BeensStillsCountryFactsWantedAmericaCoursesTermReturnSlaveryProfoundNotionBoundsRefuseConsiderationTwinsBinaryFracture Author:Steve Erickson
“There are millions of white Americans today who still can barely bring themselves to acknowledge that the Civil War, with its twin Americas locked in a death match, was about slavery. They'll argue it was about economics, and they're right only because one of those economies was a slave economy. They'll argue it was about culture, and they're right only because one of those cultures was a slave culture.” StillsWarTodayCultureWhiteMillionsEconomyEconomicsSlaverySlaveArguingAcknowledgeCivil WarLockedTwins Author:Steve Erickson
“Half the country seceded from the other half when Abraham Lincoln was elected because half the country couldn't abide his position on slavery. You would think 150 years later this had all become pretty historically incontestable. Yet millions continue to contest it in the face of history. Rather the denial of slavery and all its monstrous repercussions defines to one twin America what the country is and means, and therein is the DNA of those "alternative facts" that people believe when they can't stand to believe the truth.” PeopleThinkingYearsBelieveMeanCountryFactsAmericaFacesHalfMillionsPositionSlaveryAlternativesDenialTwinsContestsDnaMonstrousAbrahamOther HalfRepercussions Author:Steve Erickson
“We've always had the blame-America crowd. We've always had the hate-America crowd. But we've now had at least two generations of education where this has been indoctrinated into the young skulls full of mush of young people. They've heard how horrible America was back in the days of slavery. They've heard how horrible America treated women. They've heard how horrible every minority group was treated. They've heard how mean-spirited the founders were. They've heard all kinds of literal lies.” PeopleKindMeanHas BeensTwoAmericaYoungLyingHateGenerationsHeardGroupsBlameSlaveryCrowdsHorribleTreatedAll KindsMinoritiesFoundersLiteralSkullsSpiritedMean SpiritedMinority Groups Author:Rush Limbaugh
“To take on the question of race in America and believe that you could transform this country so that it would actually be a place that was welcoming for everyone that was here, including dealing with the history of slavery and the kind of oppression this country is based on, that's an amazing moment to begin to find your own political ideals.” BelieveKindCountryMomentsAmericaPoliticalRaceIdealsSlaveryIncludingWelcomeOppressionRace In America Author:Amber Hollibaugh
“Social rules are susceptible to moral analysis. This is, again, relatively familiar in the domestic case, where we now condemn slavery as unjust. And when we affirm this judgment, we're not merely saying that all those people who owned slaves were unethical people; they shouldn't have done that. We do believe this, but that's only part of the point. We also believe that the fugitive slave laws were unjust.” PeopleBelieveDoneLawSocialMoralCasesJudgmentSlaverySlaveFamiliarAnalysisUnjustSusceptibleFugitiveUnethical Author:Thomas Pogge
“Think of US slavery in 1850, or the subjection of women. Both of these injustices could have been - and were! - defended by pointing out, quite correctly, that this situation of slaves and women had been improving throughout the preceding century. Slaves, in particular, were worked less hard, beaten and raped less frequently, better fed, and less often ripped apart from their families. So would a celebration of moral progress have been appropriate in 1850? Surely not. Slavery could have been and should have been abolished - then, if not before.” IfsThinkingShouldHas BeensHardSituationMoralProgressCenturyParticularShould HaveSlaverySlaveInjusticeAppropriateFedsCelebrationBeatenImprovingPointingCould Have BeenShould Have BeenRippedSubjection Author:Thomas Pogge
“I think we live in slavery to fear. Most people don't have an answer to the death question and really don't even have a philosophy. That is a puzzle to me. I think even if I was not a Christian, I would want to at least have a personal solution to the death question. Otherwise, death is just a frightening thing.” PeopleIfsThinkingWantPhilosophyChristianAnswersSolutionsSlaveryFrighteningPuzzles Author:Max Lucado
“The process of creating art allows me to learn about the subject I'm illustrating. So, if I want to learn more about plantation life and slavery, I try to find clients that will give me an opportunity to work on projects that will visualize those experiences of the enslaved African and people of color. I get to learn about my roots, and my artwork allows the reader into that world by creating images that are accessible.” PeopleIfsWorldWantGivingTryingArtOpportunityProcessSubjectsColorReaderProjectsCreatingRootsGive MeSlaveryClientsArtworkPlantationsCreating ArtIllustrating Author:Jerry Pinkney
“Even when I became cognizant of this societal problem in this country, I asked my father and my mother if they knew anything that had been passed on to them, about slavery, and my father was very reticent about it. He often said, "No, I don't know anything about it, and it was bad, it was awful and it's over and we want to get on with our lives."” IfsKnowsWantSaidCountryProblemMotherFatherOur LivesSlaveryAwfulCognizant Author:David C. Driskell
“We forget the conditions - not only in slavery - but after slavery, when there was this purposeful locking out of African Americans from economic opportunity. Or we forget today's incarceration rates, and educational and housing discrimination; all of these things. We pretend that everything that has happened happened long ago, and then we act as if we all now just treat each other equally, everything will be fine.” LongOpportunityForgetEconomicSlaveryRateEducationalDiscriminationAfrican AmericanIncarceration Author:Ben H. Winters
“There is no shortage of ways that people profit indirectly from the misery and cruelty in other places. Even now, the shirts we wear and the tomatoes we eat. There are unfortunately unfair and inhumane conditions - including literal slavery - all over the world.” PeopleWorldSlaveryMiseryCrueltyShirtsUnfair Author:Ben H. Winters
“When you talk about "white privilege", you're talking about something systemic. When you're talking about "black privilege" it's something spiritual because we as black people tap into a divine system that a lot of other cultures and races can't tap into and that system allows us to prosper in spite of everything that's been thrown our way from slavery to segregation to mass incarceration. We have a privilege pre-ordained by God that nothing and no one can stop.” PeopleSpiritualCultureBlackDivineSlaverySpiteBlack PeopleSegregationIncarceration Author:Charlamagne Tha God
“The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were all written by affluent white males, but to discuss them in any meaningful way, you have to bring in the roles of African Americans - the enslaved blacks - and the roles of women, who were scarcely acknowledged by those documents. You have to discuss why slavery wasn't outlawed by the Constitution, why women weren't given the votes. The Bill of Rights isn't about dead white males anymore, and it's not just about live white males either; it's about every minority group that exists.” VoteConstitutionIndependenceSlaveryMeaningfulAfrican AmericanDeclarationDeclaration Of IndependenceBill Of Rights Author:Russell Freedman
“I don't think that Donald Trump represents the traditional Republican values and heritage of my party. That's one reason that I don't support him. The Republican Party has always revered the individual. We led the way in abolishing slavery, for example, and we recognize the dignity and worth of every human being. it is clear that Donald Trump, by his derogatory comments, by his mocking of the most vulnerable people in our society, by his marginalization of ethnic and religious minorities, doesn't reflect the traditional Republican values.” PeopleThinkingReasonValuesIndividualReligiousPartySupportRepublicanDignitySlaveryVulnerableCommentRepublican Party Author:Gwen Ifill
“My definition of slavery is the deprivation of human volition, any form of relationship between two peoples which is based on the deprivation of volition of one side.” Slavery Author:Wole Soyinka
“I didn't know enough about the Civil War or its lingering effects as we all should. It's really easy to think that the Civil War was the end of slavery, and the triumph of our collective conscience and humanity over oppression. Sadly, the oppression and systemic subjugation of people of color in this country still exists.” PeopleThinkingWarCountryEnoughHumanityEasyConscienceSlaveryOppressionCivil War Author:Bryce Pinkham
“Racism is a way to gain economic advantage at the expense of others. Slavery and plantations may be gone, but racism still allows us to regard those who may keep us from financial gain as less than equals.” WayMayStillsGoneEconomicRacismGainsAdvantageRegardSlaveryFinancialExpensesPlantations Author:Alveda King
“Do you realize how many people of this country have been educated, have grown up, who have been taught that, yeah, we're at risk and there's a lot of people that want to blow us up and don't like us. But we are to blame. That's what they've been taught. We are to blame, 'cause there was slavery, because we've stolen all these goods and resources from other countries. We have imposed our way of life on them! We've sent our military around, and we've conducted wars on their territory and so forth.” PeopleWarCountryRealizingRiskMilitaryBlameSlaveryBlowEducated Author:Rush Limbaugh
“I think all Americans need to recognize that, as tragic and horrible as slavery was, as big an economic shadow as it cast, the one thing it didn't do was strip people of their humanity. And I wish that all of us were as strong as the people that walked down those steps and got on those boats.” PeopleThinkingHumanityStrongWishEconomicShadowSlaveryHorribleBoatTragic Author:Lonnie Bunch
“The story of slavery is everybody's story. It is the story about how we're all shaped by, regardless of race, regardless of how long we've been in this country. We hope that we can be a factor to both educate America around this subject but maybe more importantly help Americans finally wrestle with this, talk about it, debate it, because only through that conversation can we ever find the reconciliation healing that I think we all want.” ThinkingLongCountryHelpingHealingSlaveryDebateEducateReconciliation Author:Lonnie Bunch
“Housing in New York City has become too expensive for many average wage earners, let alone people with marginal incomes, who find themselves displaced to far-flung neighborhoods or to the streets. Racist discrimination in housing, which has been around for decades and follows centuries of slavery, has exacerbated the housing affordability crisis for people of color.” PeopleCrisisSlaveryDiscriminationNeighborhoodRacist Author:Solly Granatstein
“Before slavery, Africa had a culture. We had medicine and our cure for malaria. Slavery brought diseases that we were not used to; slavery brought industry and people were criticizing industry way back as 2,000 years ago, that it was going to pollute the air, sea. Industry is not the way. We must deal with nature.” PeopleCultureSlaveryCriticize Author:Femi Kuti
“Now we have to understand that slavery would not have ended if it was left to the Africans alone, Now, Europe understood that what they were doing then was unjust, but imagine the propaganda from kings and queens of Europe to convince their people that we were cannibals, idol worshipers, horrible people, bastards, godless monkeys.” PeopleImagineSlaveryHorriblePropagandaConvinceCannibal Author:Femi Kuti
“In 1855, a former American slave remarked: "Tisn't he who has stood and looked on, that can tell you what slavery is - tis he who has endured."I think the same holds true for women's rights. The incredulity in the question, "What rights don't women have presently that they are marching about?" reflects a troubling disconnect that comes from power and privilege.” ThinkingSlaverySlave Author:Carolyn Custis James
“Historically, the argument is we stole the country from the Indians. America stole the labor of African Americans for over 200 years under slavery. America took half of Mexico by force in the Mexican War. American foreign policy, the progressives say it's based on theft. Why? Because look, America is very active in the Middle East. Why? The Middle East has oil. Notice that America doesn't get involved in Haiti or Rwanda because they don't have any oil.” WarCountryPolicyArgumentLaborSlaveryAfrican AmericanForeign PolicyMexicanGet InvolvedRwanda Author:Dinesh D'Souza
“We certainly did take the country from the Indians. Right. So, but what's going on here, as I would call it a, sort of, morality tale. What the progressives do is, they take a few nuggets of American history, Columbus' arrival, then the founder's compromise with slavery, and what they do is they fast forward to their favorite episode, so to speak, and they create a story out of that leaving a whole bunch of facts out.” CountrySpeakMoralitySlaveryLeavingCompromiseAmerican History Author:Dinesh D'Souza
“There are places and spaces for black writers to write about race as a central thing. It's important. We're still dealing with the remnants of slavery. We're still dealing with racism on a daily basis. For me, I choose to write books about black people where we are normal. I was raised to believe that I deserve to be in a room just like anybody else. I try to write books like that.” PeopleWritingTryingBelieveImportantBookBlackRacismDeserveSlaveryBlack People Author:Kwame Alexander
“The fallout from slavery is ongoing. I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved.” SlaveryNot Sure Author:Colson Whitehead
“For years I felt that I wasn't ready to take on slavery. It's a huge topic, and I didn't want to mess it up.” SlaveryMess Author:Colson Whitehead
“We started America with the sin of slavery that led right into the post-reconstruction period which was the greatest period of domestic terrorism in our country's history. Then after that, we had Jim Crow emerge and just when the Jim Crow laws were ending came the onslaught of the drug war. Well, the drug war has so perniciously effected, insidiously infected communities of color that in some ways it has come full circle, and we now have more African Americans under criminal supervision than all of the slaves in 1865. This is a profoundly unjust war.” WarCommunitySinDrugSlaverySlaveTerrorismAfrican AmericanCrowWar On DrugsJim CrowSupervision Author:Cory Booker
“People speaking into handheld devices while they walk down the street and saying to the device, "I'm walking down the street now." People are enslaved. I was just up in the country for a few days last week and it was great: no television, no telephone, no nothing. I walked through the woods, sat around, smoked. And it was lovely. I think the desire to be free has mutated, and we now live in an era when the slaves celebrate their slavery - this whole corporate concept of being part of a "team" at work.” PeopleThinkingCountryDesireWeekTeamWalkingSlaverySlaveLovelyCelebrateSat Author:Nick Tosches
“Marriage is an institution fits in perfect harmony with the laws of nature; whereas systems of slavery and segregation were designed to brutally oppress people and thereby violated the laws of nature.” PeopleLawPerfectMarriageFitHarmonyInstitutionsSlaverySegregationLaws Of NaturePerfect Harmony Author:Jack Kingston
“I don't want to give too much lugubrious thought to the gravitas of a coherent album. I don't want to develop a life of slavery to a large topic. I want to throw out some singles and that's what I'm doing, and they're not to be done in any other way.” GivingDoneSlavery Author:Van Dyke Parks
“I think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital "H," and as one word. It's the name of the culture, and it's the name of the identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that's slavery, because you're talking about people's souls.” ThinkingSoulCultureConsciousnessIdentitySlaveryRap Author:KRS-One
“I recognize the inequities certain cultures have to go through. I understand the history of slavery. I know all those things. But I'm not a victim. I can vote, I can participate, I can invest my money, I can invest my time, and that's what I'm doing. I'm not working for anybody. I'm not making any money doing what I'm doing. I'm doing it because someone did it for me.” CultureVoteVictimSlavery Author:Jim Brown
“There are realities that one needs to deal with, but very often what we are told is political reality is merely cynicism. One could equally say that slavery is a reality, and misogyny too.” RealityPoliticalSlaveryCynicismMisogyny Author:Payam Akhavan
“The Constitutional framers were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression.” MenHumanityJusticeLibertyRevolutionQuietSlaveryTyrannyOppressionPeacefulSubmissionBondage Author:Frederick Douglass
“Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.” PurposeLibertyConstitutionSlaveryGlorious Author:Frederick Douglass
“I feel like so much of what happened in the Delta over the decades since slavery was abolished seems much closer in the Delta, and maybe that's because sharecropping was a fairly recent phenomena. I feel like the past is closer and it bears even more heavily on the present there than it does in the rest of the state.” PastSlaveryDelta Author:Jesmyn Ward
“We have landowners, small growers. We have people who are holding onto land that was acquired by their families after slavery. They need to produce some of the food we eat, so they can pay the taxes and hold onto the property. Taxes keep going up. We, and by we I mean black people, are rapidly becoming a landless people. Our ancestors, coming out of slavery, acquired more than 15 million acres of land. Today, we're probably down to less than 2 million acres.” PeopleMeanTodayBlackTaxesSlaveryPropertyKeep GoingBlack PeopleAncestorHolding On Author:Shirley Sherrod
“What I hope is that this wider pattern of films about slavery that's emerging isn't just a fad but evidence that we've turned a corner as filmmakers of color and that we're moving forward in our confidence and in the film industry not being afraid of our telling these stories and in giving us the opportunity to bring our vision to the screen.” GivingFilmMovingOpportunityVisionEvidenceSlaveryMoving ForwardFilmmakerEmergingBeing Afraid Author:Amma Asante
“Republicans have reached out so much to black Republicans because it's part of our tradition. Blacks have been in this nation longer than most other Americans with the possible exception of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. The first blacks in Congress and the first black Governor were all Republicans. It was Republicans who fought the Civil War over slavery and who introduced the Civil Rights legislation over the next hundred years.” WarBlackRepublicanTraditionSlaveryCivil RightsCivil WarException Author:Ann Coulter
“My favorite Founding Fathers, Christians like John Adams, were absolutely appalled by slavery, and did not own slaves. I think we're going to have to call on God's grace not only for slavery, but for what we're doing now with abortions.” ThinkingChristianFatherGraceSlaverySlaveMy FavoriteAbortion Author:Ann Coulter
“I suspect, too, that the modern debates represent the effort of candidates with widely-varying constituencies and special interests to please to tip the hat as quickly as possible to as many of the constituencies and interests as possible. That leaves no time for big-picture issues. Contrast this with Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, where the subject was only ever slavery, and the discussion went right to the bedrock of what a democracy is all about.” InterestEffortDemocracyModernSpecialSlaveryDebateDiscussionContrast Author:Allen C. Guelzo
“Abraham Lincoln did speak about keeping the man before the dollar, but he was talking at that moment about slavery, and referring to keeping the humanity of the slave higher in view than the self-interest of the slaveholders. This does not quite make Lincoln a challenger of the corporations; in fact, he prefaced those words by saying that Republicans were for the man AND the dollar.” MenMomentsHumanitySpeakHe ManRepublicanSlaverySlave Author:Allen C. Guelzo
“One thing which Stephen A. Douglas was temperamentally incapable of doing was admitting he was wrong. He always believed that 'popular sovereignty' - the core doctrine of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill - was the right solution to the slavery controversy; and even though it had failed to solve much of anything in Kansas and Nebraska, he stubbornly insisted that this was because it had never been adequately tested.” SolutionsSlaveryControversyAlways Believe Author:Allen C. Guelzo