[Discussion] Requesting help on replying to racist aunt

Below is an email I got from my aunt yesterday and I am looking for help in replying. I thought about doing research on the Internet but I was hoping the hive mind here could be more helpful.

Things to keep in mind - I love this aunt (although I really can't say I like her) and I don't want to just say "your a racist idiot who falls for anything you read forwarded without any research."

What I really would want is a way to perhaps get her to look more deeply at these things rather than just copy and paste rants.

I am just not sure of a good way to do that. And I am not honestly trying to change her mind so much as formulate rational discussion points. I think she is far to deep down the rabbit hole of trumpism to actually climb out again.

Anyway please help me if you have thoughts about what to say.

Text of email.

I know yo u prob won't read this however I felt it wouldn't hurt if you did, reading all sides of issues we feel is always a good thing . Your wife made a very bold statement on facebook with her blm tee shirt.....that's her side, our side is that this is the true history of salvery in the world , and so America is not the blame. I'm sure that you are aware that in 2019 twice as many unarmed white people were killed in police action than black people so the police are not as racist as blm acclaims. Many of your close family are offened, however that may not be of importance to the two of you, and I guess it really isn't any of my business, just feel bad about it that your wife has so much anger for the good life you have been afforded. From: XXXXXX
To: XXXXXX
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2020 7:40:49 PM
Subject: Fw: FW: True History of Slavery

True History of Slavery......

This is so informative & interesting! Whoever did all the research did an amazing job!

True history of slavery, and reminders of how easy it is to "revise" it. And the last comment says it all.

As maniacal as it is, it’s hard to ignore this latest leftist drool about statues and monuments.

They do not have, and do not want any perspective because it is all just political for them.

Blacks were not enslaved because they were black, but because they were available.

Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years.

Whites enslaved whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere

Asians enslaved Europeans.

Asians enslaved other Asians.

Africans enslaved other Africans and even today, in North Africa blacks continue to enslave other blacks. Slavery has existed since the Old Testament Biblical times.

A bit of history that is conveniently ignored; between 1500 and the 1860s at least 12 million Africans were brought to the ‘New World’ of the Americas.

Of these 12 million forced into slavery, less than 500,000 were brought to North America. The remaining 2,500,000 Africans went to South America and the Caribbean. By the mid-1600s Europeans were outnumbered by Africans in cities such as Mexico City, Havana and Lima.

A few more historical facts:

1. The first legal slave owner in American history was a black tobacco farmer named Anthony Johnson; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthon...(colonist)

2. South Carolina’s largest slave holder in 1860 was a black plantation owner named William Ellison; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willia...

3. American Indians owned thousands of black slaves; http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...

4. In 1830 there were 3,775 free black people who owned 12,740 black slaves; http://www.ironbarkresources.com/sla...

5. Many black slaves were allowed to hold jobs, own businesses and own real estate;

6. Brutal black on black slavery was common in Africa for thousands of years; https://townhall.com/columnists/mich...

7. Most slaves brought from Africa to America were purchased from black slave owners; http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/dis...

8. White people ended legal chattel slavery; This is a useless fact. Since black slaves couldn’t vote and had no rights, it would have been impossible for them to end slavery.

And turning to the present:

1. Barack Obama, who has stoked the fires of racial hatred for the last eight years, is the direct paternal descendant of slave owners;https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/ba...

2. You certainly won't hear CNN's Anderson Cooper mentioning Obama's sordid family history, lest Obama might remind Cooper, the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, that his family also was slave owners;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders....

3. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who found some Lee and Jackson statues to remove from the Empire State, seems to have forgotten New York is named for one of the most notorious slave traders in history, the Duke of York. Better tear down that Big Apple, Andy.

4. Before defacing and tearing down statues became the latest Leftist fad, Virginia's carpet-bagging Clintonista, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, characterized the Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues on Richmond's Monument Avenue as "parts of our heritage." After Charlottesville, McAuliffe re-characterized them as "flash points for hatred, division and violence."

5. "Blacks who were never slaves are fighting whites who were never Nazis over a Confederate statue erected by southern Democrats because now Democrats can't stand their own history anymore......yet somehow, it's Trump’s fault!"

6. Recently the brilliant Democrat leaders all took an eight minute knee to honor George Floyd wearing an African scarf. The idiots apparently were not aware that the scarfs that they had draped around their necks were the colors and design of the African Ashanti tribe one of the largest marketers of slavery ever.

Thank you for the email.

I agree that global history is complex and nuanced, but I can only impact the state of the American society I find myself in, and to me it is clear that our current inequity is heavily drawn along racial lines. I believe it is reasonable and fair to trace those lines back to the manner in which race-based slavery and the century of legal inequality that persisted after it was abolished, which led to the inequities we see today.
I feel that it is my moral obligation as a beneficiary of that inequity to recognize it and try to break down those lines. It is not about anger at ourselves for having opportunity - it is about empathy for others who have been denied the same through cultural inertia and passivity on our parts.

Best,
farley3k

Analysis: There is no benefit in trying to counter everything point by point. You'll simply cede ground as you endlessly drill down into minutiae. State your purpose clearly and succinctly and move on, and use the time you saved to do more activism.

The central thrust of the forwarded email (which is a hodgepodge of copypasta BS, some of which has been circulating for years) is that there's been slavery throughout the world and throughout history so (white) America shouldn't be blamed for slavery. Generally, that's true. Slavery has long been a thing.

But, as imbiginjapan noted, America was a slavery innovator in that we codified it based on race which, in turn, was based on the deeply racist view that black people were inherently inferior to white people. And, ironically, some of the links your aunt forwarded detail exactly how--and how quickly--that happened.

Take Anthony Johnson. He was one of the first legal slave owners in America--not the first--and he was black. He was enslaved in Portuguese Angola, transported to the colony of Virginia, and sold into indentured servitude to a white tobacco farmer in 1620.

Indentured servitude was what "whites enslaved whites in Europe for centuries" really was. It was a legal contract that bound someone to a term of labor, typically four to seven years. After that they were free.

But even when people were indentured servants they still had legal rights. For example, contract holders didn't own the children of indentured servants and, while servants could be treated harshly, masters couldn't viciously beat or kill them without consequences.

Johnson earned his freedom sometime after 1635. In 1651 he acquired 250 acres of land under the headright system which awarded 50 acres of land to anyone who brought an indentured servant to Virginia. Johnson brought five indentured servants, one of which was his son (more on this phenomenon later).

In 1653 Johnson became embroiled in a lawsuit with John Castor, a black indentured servant who Johnson had bought the contract for sometime in the 1640s. Castor claimed he had fulfilled his contract with Johnson and wanted to be set free. A white neighbor of Johnson, Robert Parker, persuaded him to release Castor, and offered Castor another indentured servitude contract.

Johnson, fearing the loss of the headright land, sued Parker claiming that Castor's contract with him was for life. Johnson lost in court, but he appealed. And in 1655 Virginia courts reversed their decision and found that Johnson still owned Castor and codified that Castor's indentured servitude was for life.

That ruling built on a 1640 court case involving John Punch, another black indentured servant in Virginia. Punch and two white indentured servants ran away from their contract holder. They were caught in Maryland and returned. The Virginia courts ruled that, as punishment, the two white servants would have the term of their contracts extended four years. Punch's contract was extended to "the time of his natural Life here or elsewhere."

So within a few decades of existing, America's nascent legal system had already firmly established that black indentured servants were very different from white indentured servants and that black indentured servants could be enslaved for life. The legal reasoning was literally "Insofar as Negroes were heathens, they could never become Englishmen; insofar as they were not Englishmen, they could not be entitled to the protections of the common law."

And quickly after that Virginia passed several laws codified slavery as being something that was entirely race-based and vastly different than indentured servitude.

In 1662 the Virginia legislature dealt the with thorny problem of "whether children got by any Englishman upon a Negro woman should be slave or free" and declared "that all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother." Now slavery was a condition that could be passed on black children when masters raped their slaves. And those children could be separated from their parents and sold, as they often were, because they were merely property.

In 1667 the Virginia legislature, being good Christians, made sure to codify that "the conferring of baptism does not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom." Nothing like getting God in the act of sanctifying slavery.

In 1668 the Virginia legislature dealt with the problem of what to do with slaves who ran away because it wasn't like runaways could be punished by extending their term of servitude. They decided that runaway slaves could be beaten as punishment so as to "not deprive the master of the satisfaction allowed by the law," and to "repair the damages sustained by the master" by them running away.

The use of violence against black slaves was further codified in 1669 when the Virginia legislature declared that, should a slave be killed by their master, that the death shouldn't be counted as a felony and the master should automatically be acquitted from any other charges because he's already suffered by having some of his property destroyed.

So within 50 years of the first black person setting foot in what would become America white people had already decided that black people--and only black people--were slaves, that they were slaves for life, that their children would also be slaves, and that their masters could pretty much do whatever the hell they wanted to do with them because they legally considered property and not people. And the core racist justification for this was that black people were considered brute savages who were inherently inferior to civilized white men.

These laws and colonial America's rapidly changing views on race caught up to Anthony Johnson who had moved to Maryland and leased 300 acres for 99 years. When he died in 1670 his property was given to a white colonist because a Maryland judge had ruled that Johnson was "not a citizen of the colony" because he was black. By 1730 all traces of his family were gone.

The email's claim that "South Carolina’s largest slave holder in 1860 was a black plantation owner named William Ellison" is complete bullsh*t. The largest slaveholder in South Carolina in 1860 was Joshua John Ward, a white man, who owned nearly 1,100 slaves.

Ellison did own 63 slaves in 1860, which made him one of the largest black slaveholders in the state. There were 171 free black slaveholders in South Carolina at the time along with more than 27,000 white slaveholders.

The idea that black slaveholders were commonplace or accounted for a significant portion of American slavery is also bullsh*t.

Additionally, free black people often bought slaves because that was the only way that they could legally protect their family members. Many southern states implemented laws that required a freed slave to leave the state. If that person had family members the only way they could be reunited is if they purchased them from their master.

Which leads to the claim that "In 1830 there were 3,775 free black people who owned 12,740 black slaves," which, I suppose is supposed to prove that slavery is a natural condition or that white slaveholders weren't bad because black slaveholders existed. I'm going to ignore the fact that out of all the websites that contained that tidbit of information the one linked to was chock full of white identity and white supremacist links.

Instead, I'll point to analysis done by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Did Black People Own Slaves? wrote:

So what do the actual numbers of black slave owners and their slaves tell us? In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States, so the numbers of slaves owned by black people over all was quite small by comparison with the number owned by white people. In his essay, " 'The Known World' of Free Black Slaveholders," Thomas J. Pressly, using Woodson's statistics, calculated that 54 (or about 1 percent) of these black slave owners in 1830 owned between 20 and 84 slaves; 172 (about 4 percent) owned between 10 to 19 slaves; and 3,550 (about 94 percent) each owned between 1 and 9 slaves. Crucially, 42 percent owned just one slave.

Pressly also shows that the percentage of free black slave owners as the total number of free black heads of families was quite high in several states, namely 43 percent in South Carolina, 40 percent in Louisiana, 26 percent in Mississippi, 25 percent in Alabama and 20 percent in Georgia. So why did these free black people own these slaves?

It is reasonable to assume that the 42 percent of the free black slave owners who owned just one slave probably owned a family member to protect that person, as did many of the other black slave owners who owned only slightly larger numbers of slaves. As Woodson put it in 1924's Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, "The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."

Moreover, Woodson explains, "Benevolent Negroes often purchased slaves to make their lot easier by granting them their freedom for a nominal sum, or by permitting them to work it out on liberal terms." In other words, these black slave-owners, the clear majority, cleverly used the system of slavery to protect their loved ones.

Every other claim in the email is based on--or copied directly from--conservative and white supremacists sources.

Had your aunt read the Baltimore Sun article about Obama being descended from slave owners she would have realized it wasn't the gotcha she thinks it was. One of the genealogy experts interviewed for the article didn't find Obama's slave-holding family history "particularly unusual," saying "If you have a white Southern mother, or a mother from the middle states who has ancestry in the South, it doesn't strike me that that should be very surprising."

As for CNN's Anderson Cooper your aunt probably missed where he participated in a PBS history show where he not only found out his family had slave owners, but found out one of his ancestors was beaten to death with a hoe by one of their slaves. When asked "Do you think he deserved it?" Anderson laughed and said "Yeah, I have no doubt."

Again, slavery is--unfortunately--a massive part of America's history. Having your ancestors being connected to it isn't the permanent stain that this email is trying to make it. The real issue is that we still have people who are still trying to defend the inherent racist views that made American slavery what it was.

Obama and Anderson aren't bad people because their ancestors owned slaves because they themselves aren't racist. The people who are trying to whitewash American slavery by purposefully ignoring how it was based on race--and also completely ignoring the century and a half of race-based laws and social rules that followed the Civil War--are being racist. Whether they're being racist through their abject ignorance of American history or because they're just sh*tty people (or a combination of the two) is up for grabs.

The African Ashanti bit is historically true: the Ashanti Empire was a major source of slaves. However it completely ignores that the reason it became a major source of slaves was because of the insatiable demand for slaves by America as well as the English, Dutch, and French. It doesn't justify it happening, but it's not like the Ashanti were forcing Europeans to buy black slaves.

farley3k wrote:

What I really would want is a way to perhaps get her to look more deeply at these things rather than just copy and paste rants.

I am just not sure of a good way to do that. And I am not honestly trying to change her mind so much as formulate rational discussion points. I think she is far to deep down the rabbit hole of trumpism to actually climb out again.

rational discussion points will rarely get anyone to look more deeply at anything.

trust me.

it's not her mind that needs changing, it's her heart.

people make an emotional connection to an identity, and then they make up their minds in accordance with what supports that connection.

I don't know what good rational discussion points will do for you in this situation.

+++++

all I can think to say about that wearing a BLM tee shirt is to make it about identity. That other countries certainly have terrible histories of slavery, and however little they have done to address that history, those are not my country.

This is my country.

Maybe those other countries were able to walk away from their terrible histories because those countries kept so many of their slaves out in their colonies, but the fact that Americans could not walk away from our history, that we *were* a colony, isn't something to lament.

It's an opportunity.

It's not paying for your ancestor's crimes, it's patriotism. We are all treated like Americans, or we're just a failure of a former British colony.

Which do you want to be?

I'm never quite sure what I'm supposed to respond to when presented with a list of somewhat incoherent assertions as above. Like, clearly the person is not responding to the strength of the argument, but there's no emotional appeal there either. So...how are they expecting someone to react to an e-mail like the one farley posted above?

There's a this American Life that I keep coming back to where a group of Minnesotans meet with their Congressman because of some friction between the largely white inhabitants and an influx of Somali refugees. The consituents explain that the Somalis are committing crimes and so they want them all removed from their community. The Congressman, a conservative Republican, explains that is explicitly unconstitutional, and that he cannot do that. This enrages his constituents. One of them tells the congressman that "You are not listening to us." The somewhat befuddled congressman basically says, "Well, okay, what is it you are trying to tell me?"
"We want you to do something about the Somalis."
"Well what should I do?"
"You're not listening to us."
The constituents coalesced into a confident mantra of "you're not listening to us," and it became clear that there wasn't any real action the congressman could take that would satisfy these people, even a number of fairly substantive reforms.

This is tough Farley. I think folks like OG have given some excellent answers disputing the email claims. In my mind though what you need to figure out is whether your aunt is a good person with bad racist ideas, or an overall sh*tty person whose racism is just par for the course.

If it’s the former, then I say keep working with her. As I’ve done therapy to deal with my mental health issues, I’ve come to learn that society and family structure impose a lot of f’ed up ways of thinking. That model is hard to break out of unless you put in a lot of work, and I suspect at a certain point it’s nearly impossible for an older person to get fully on board with certain concepts. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. And the idea that we constantly need to make America a more just nation and that non-White citizens deserve the same protections as CP suggested is a good one.

On the other hand, if your aunt is toxic maybe it’s best to keep contact at a minimum. You can step in as needed but I’ve personally adopted my own “no a-hole rule” which extends to family and friends. If our relationship is causing too much of a headache, then maybe it’s time to part ways.

My latest headache is trying to convince certain friends and family that some of the worst examples of some protesters acting badly is not indicative of the majority. I don’t like when I see looting or the video of some protesters heckling and borderline threatening condo owners in downtown Seattle over the weekend, but that shouldn’t be the message. And the murder of 5-year-old Cannon Hinnant at this point has nothing to do with BLM. Now, I may change my mind if there is an online group radicalizing Black folks to start shooting Whites in a similar manner to say violent incels or Neo Nazis advocate violence. But at this point we don’t even know if the murder was a hate crime or a random act by a deranged individual.

Thank you all. It does feel like a lose, lose, lose situation. I do appreciate very much the sourcing and information. I feel better educated and more able to have a discussion but cheeze_pavilion's point really hit. home. It isn't fact that need understood but a heart that needs changing and I am not sure I can do that.

Still I am way better off discussing it now that before. Thank you all.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about your situation, farley, and I realized that there's something I overlooked in your aunt's email that might help you figure out where she really stands.

She said that twice as many unarmed white people were shot and killed by police as unarmed black people and somehow that proved cops weren't as racist as BLM rightfully claims.

Going to the likely source of her claim, the Washington Post's Fatal Force Tracker, the police shot and killed 25 unarmed white people and 14 unarmed black people in 2019.

A rather large problem with those numbers are that white people make up more than 76% of the population while black people are only about 13% of the population.

Were there absolutely no racism and the police shot unarmed--and supposedly completely innocent--people at the same rate the there should only be about 4 unarmed black people shot and killed by the police. But there wasn't 4. There was more than three times that number.

This discrepancy bears out for other types of fatal police shooting. Fifteen white people with toy guns--something that shouldn't automatically be considered criminal--were shot and killed by the police. Were police completely racially neutral then it would be expected that about 3 black people with toy guns should be shot as well. Unfortunately, six were.

And, taken altogether, black people are shot and killed at about three times the rate as white people when they should be shot at a fraction of the rate.

So the question for your aunt is why is there such a difference?

The primary explanations of this difference is either that the police are racist and are quicker to use force--and more of it--on black people and other people of color--something that's supported by history and pretty much all research ever done--or the racist explanation that there's something inherent in black people (and other POC) that makes them more criminally disposed and, therefore, they have more run-ins (and more fatal run-ins) with the police than white people.

How your aunt answers the question of why 14 unarmed black people were killed by the police when it should have been four will probably help you decide if she's worth any effort.

I feel for ya, I got back from a visit with my family last week and there was definitely some less than stellar discussions that took place. At least they tend to forward National Review articles and not...copypasta. Well, my stepmother thinks the world is ending and loves signal boosting some awful takes on Facebook but that's for another day.

A rather large problem with those numbers are that white people make up more than 76% of the population while black people are only about 13% of the population.

Where'd you get that 76% That seems awfully high for this country. (I can't read Wapo as I don't have a sub.)

garion333 wrote:

I feel for ya, I got back from a visit with my family last week and there was definitely some less than stellar discussions that took place. At least they tend to forward National Review articles and not...copypasta. Well, my stepmother thinks the world is ending and loves signal boosting some awful takes on Facebook but that's for another day.

A rather large problem with those numbers are that white people make up more than 76% of the population while black people are only about 13% of the population.

Where'd you get that 76% That seems awfully high for this country. (I can't read Wapo as I don't have a sub.)

Wikipedia says 73%, based on 2017 data

'welcome, farley

(edit) my guess is that if there's anything that will work with someone like that, it's not going to be a head-on challenge. It's going to be something that wears away at the foundations. Or at least keeps them from thinking they only have two choices: the racist rabbit hole or the Strawman Justice Warrior caricature racists try and force on people they hit with (mis)information. Either accept all the guilt in the world for everything ever (false, obviously) or join them, with no options in between.

Jonman wrote:
garion333 wrote:

I feel for ya, I got back from a visit with my family last week and there was definitely some less than stellar discussions that took place. At least they tend to forward National Review articles and not...copypasta. Well, my stepmother thinks the world is ending and loves signal boosting some awful takes on Facebook but that's for another day.

A rather large problem with those numbers are that white people make up more than 76% of the population while black people are only about 13% of the population.

Where'd you get that 76% That seems awfully high for this country. (I can't read Wapo as I don't have a sub.)

Wikipedia says 73%, based on 2017 data

White, non-Hispanic drops it down to 61%

Hispanic or Latino (of any race) is 17.6%

Looking forward to that line of reasoning.

Q: So why do blacks get shot more than whites per capita?
A: Because they have a violent and aggressive culture.
Q: What evidence do you have for that racist horsesh*t?
A: Well, they get shot more by police.

Does she like Alex Trebek or John Cena?
http://thetruetruetruth.com/

Courtesy of John Oliver.

I periodically have to deal with this stuff from my family members, most recently with my sister pushing QAnon child trafficking nonsense, and frankly there’s not much you can do but say that you care about them but think they’ve been misled and that you disagree with the conclusions they’re drawing. If your aunt is anything like my extended family they won’t listen to your arguments, won’t accept any sources you provide them, and likely think they are doing you a favor by trying to show how you’re being fooled by evil, literally demonic propaganda.

There's usually a kernel of truth in most of those claims. I've read that finding where the kernel of truth is, and agreeing with that, but pointing out where the divergence from reality starts can occasionally help.

Of course, if it's Hillary trafficking children out of a basement that never existed, maybe there's no kernel of truth anywhere to agree with.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
Jonman wrote:
garion333 wrote:

I feel for ya, I got back from a visit with my family last week and there was definitely some less than stellar discussions that took place. At least they tend to forward National Review articles and not...copypasta. Well, my stepmother thinks the world is ending and loves signal boosting some awful takes on Facebook but that's for another day.

A rather large problem with those numbers are that white people make up more than 76% of the population while black people are only about 13% of the population.

Where'd you get that 76% That seems awfully high for this country. (I can't read Wapo as I don't have a sub.)

Wikipedia says 73%, based on 2017 data

White, non-Hispanic drops it down to 61%

Hispanic or Latino (of any race) is 17.6%

There we go. That's why I was confused.

Anyway, I'll stop derailing.