Remember this incident?

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/000746.html

I think that what emerges is a clear pattern of persecution of cheese steakerys. Might it stem from Kerry's famous cheese steak faux pas which was said to hurt him in the election?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51517-2003Aug12?language=printer

As FDR said, there are no coincidences in politics. . .

Hey Eric,

This is in response to one of your old posts that i saw just now:

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/002502.html

You're fukking dumbass and complete idiot. It's these self-righteous people like you who claim to be proponents of education only to use it divisively to your advantage. You disseminate misleading information and then argue that the people that want to change the way history is taught are misstating history.

The truth is slaves were brought to the British North American colonies (later known as the United States of America) as early as the 1520's to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony who was founded by Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón.

1865 (the year slavery abolished) - 1520 (around the time slavery was first established) = 345 years. But who's counting?

"The United States inherited slavery." You make it seem as if the same people including the founding fathers who were enslaving people weren't the people who were responsible for it. As if the colonies were a different people than the people who founded America in 1776.

You a dumb mothefukker. Giving out misleading information and using it to support your views. And you got these people following, looks like the blind leading the blind. Either that or the ignorant leading the ignorant.

"If you don't like it fuk you," you said. Well, i'm not feeling you so i'm feeling mutual so fukk you too and all the fascists, racists and bigots on this site.

Uh oh ... somebody's on to us! I feel as though a mirror has been help up to my evil soul, and the sight of metaphysical pus and shit has me reconsidering my fascist ways.

"The truth is slaves were brought to the British North American colonies (later known as the United States of America)"

You just confirmed his point. He stated specifically the United States. Before 1776, there was no United States.

Its called reading comprehension. Or dont they teach that at the afrocentric skoolz?

I saw the guy's sign and it says nothing about any language or ethnicity beyond 'speak English'.

And the self-appointed Latino activists labeling Geno as a 'racist'? Wow- automatically assuming a white man is a racist is, well, racist.

Once again . . .

Neez Buck, the IP numbers from your comment indicate you're posting from the University of Pennsylvania system.

If you're a student, the accuracy of the historical information you provide doesn't speak very highly about the quality of a Penn education.

Regarding "the San Miguel de Gualdape colony who was founded by Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón" it was NOT a "British North American colony" but a Spanish colony abandoned soon after it was founded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Colonial_America

Historians don't agree on its exact location, but think it was in what is now the state of Georgia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Miguel_de_Gualdape

Even without the gratuitous insults, your argument is simply unpersuasive.

In future, please don't leave the same comment on multiple posts, as it's distracting to other commenters' threads. Thanks.

Eric,

It is quite easy to get caught up in who brought slaves over to what is now known as the Americas. The truth of the matter is that many different peoples were engaged in the slave trade. However, this is far from the point. Africans were being enslaved as early as the 1520's and we're never liberated until the 13th ammendment in 1865. Whether you want to limit the scope and reduce the years of slavery to one group of peoples is up to you, but that fails to take the bigger picture into account.

In terms of your previous post that I was responding to, I can easily see why people are concerned about teaching their own history in their own schools. Of course, I see the need for historical accuracy, but there are plenty of factual historical events that are omitted from US History textbooks in public schools across the nation, and these things are not ommitted accidently. If they are not ommitted, they are reduced to a couple sentences or described in a way that is misleading.

Complete objectivity is not always assumable in education. Of course if one is reading about one historical event here in the States in a US history textbook and reading about the same event in a Russian, German or Iranian classroom, they may not get the same views on the same story. It's sad but true that public school education is subject to subjectivity. One can easily find traces of government propaganda in various forms of media, whether it's from movies, commercials, television ads, billboards, newspapers or textbooks.

Neez Buck
University of Pennsylvania

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
We are in America...we speak English here. If I went to Greece I would expect to speak Greek. If I lived closer to Philadelpia I would order a Cheese Stake every day just to show my suppport. Thank you for having the courage to stand up America and our native language.

Neez,

I don't like to get hung up on details, but it's hard to discuss slavery from a historic perspective without a timeline.

Slavery (including African slavery) has existed all over the world since ancient times in various places. It didn't begin in the 16th century, but it was in that that period that Europe "began to outpace the Arab world":

From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

During the 16th century, Europe began to outpace the Arab world in the export traffic, with its slave traffic from Africa to the Americas. The Dutch imported slaves from Asia into their colony in South Africa. Later, The United Kingdom, which held vast colonial territories on the African continent (including South Africa), made the practice of slavery illegal in these regions. Ironically, the end of the slave trade and the decline of slavery was imposed upon Africa by its European conquerors. This action is what today may be called an instance of cultural imperialism.

What was different about New World slavery was the development of racist components and justifications for it. (Until then, slavery had included members of all races.)

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=5

Slavery was officially abolished in the entire United States in 1865, but in the British colonies, it had been abolished before that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism

On August 23, 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act outlawed slavery in the British colonies. On August 1, 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was finally abolished in 1838. £20 million was paid in compensation to plantation owners in the Caribbean.

However, in the period of 1777-1804 "abolition laws [we]re passed" in the northern states of Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey.

http://www.nps.gov/boaf/timeline.htm

While slavery -- and the racist justification for it -- predated the United States and continued after the revolution, I don't think slavery can be attributed to the United States before its existence. The British colonies included the land which became the U.S. as well as the West Indies, Canada, and parts of South America. The French owned slaves in the Louisiana Territory, which was sold to the United States in 1805. Had the United States annexed Cuba, would it have been responsible for what went on there previously? I don't see how -- any more than the Soviet Union was responsible for what the Nazis had done in lands it gained after World War II.

Interestingly, slavery was abolished in Mexico in 1829:

http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/feature/ethnic/bv/spec0303.html

In 1848 the U.S. annexed land which had previously belonged to Mexico. Does that mean that the U.S. was responsible for previous Mexican and Spanish conduct there? Again, I don't see how.

Anyway, I see your point and agree with much of what you said this time. Thanks.