Memes

I get that a lot of this linked article is written to (correctly) change the narrative around slavery erasure but some of it delves into baseless hyperbole that can't be anything but counter productive.

For example:

Evidence suggests that sexual abuse of slaves was so fundamental to chattel slavery that it’s reasonable to assume any histories of “kind” slave owners are complete fabrications designed to preserve the legacy of the masters.

That is either playing fast and loose with wording or an absolutely incredible claim requiring incredible proof.

On one hand, the "kind" slave owner is always a fabrication because the act of owning slaves is inherently immoral and reprehensible. This view makes the claim a borderline platitude; perpetuating an institution that enables rapists is very obviously unkind.

On the latter interpretation, you're claiming that rape was so universal that any slave owner was almost certainly a rapist (especially if they claimed they weren't). This would require some sweeping evidence, think studies on the demographics of mixed race slaves or on medical records tied to sexual assaults.

So what evidence follows? Excerpts from Frederick Douglas giving second hand accounts of rape and of Harriet Jacobs giving her first hand account. Nothing that incriminates slave owners broadly beyond Douglas's phrasing "...in [rape] cases not a few,...".

I don't even deny that the evidence might exist, and I would love to see it brought to light if it does. But the thing about slavery, and specifically the USA's commercial cotton slavery: it's fucking awful enough if you just list verifiable facts without aggrandizing. Even if everything in this article were true, it doesn't move the needle much farther beyond the baseline of American slave ownership.

If you're going to broadly claim "America's founding fathers were sex traffickers that raped children" then please, name names! Bring receipts! You can't open with...

These facts are not debatable. [Child sex trafficking] happened.

...and then lay out a single link rehashing that Thomas Jefferson was a massive piece of shit. What do we know about the other 54+ Founding Fathers?