Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
I'm sorry that you are getting angry. But - and I don't mean this disrespectfully - the fact that your great grandmother was alive in the 1800's, and the fact that her mother and grandmother were slaves - does not make you an expert on the meaning or connotation of terms from the middle of the 19th century. It's a non-falsifiable statement that precludes anyone else from participating in the discussion.
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Whenever someone says "I don't mean any disrespect..." someone is about to be disrespected.
It is obvious that all you did is go google "nigger" - you have NOT done your research. Just because you found it online does not make it true. You are reading the words only of the seller of men, not the men being sold. You obviously have never read the words of the people who were being called “nigger.”
I don’t have time to pull out too many texts, but I’ll give you some homework. All the emphasis to follow is mine. Let’s start easy:
Frederick Douglass’
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.
“It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that is was worth a half-cent to kill a ‘
nigger,’ and a half-cent to bury one.”
Frederick Douglass, 1818-1895
David Walker’s Appeal:
“Compare the above, with the American institutions. Do they not institute laws to prohibit us from marrying among the whites? I would wish, candidly, however, before the Lord, to be understood, that I would not give a pinch of snuff to be married to any white person I ever saw in all the days of my life. And I do say it, that the black man, or man of colour, who will leave his own colour and marry a white woman, to be a double slave to her, just because she is white, ought to be treated by her as he surely will be, viz: as a
NIGGER!!!! It is not, indeed, what I care about inter-marriages with the whites, which induced me to pass this subject in review; for the Lord knows, that there is a day coming when they will be glad enough to get into the company of the blacks, notwithstanding, we are, in this generation, leveled by them, almost on a level with the brute creation: and some of us they treat even worse than they do the brutes that perish. I only made this extract to show how much lower we are held, and how much more cruel we are treated by the Americans, than were the children of Jacob, by the Egyptians.”
David Walker, 1785-1830
But I’m sure I’m
You will believe whatever you want.