How the end of slavery led to starvation and death for millions of black Americans

[financeguy]

How the end of slavery led to starvation and death for millions of black Americans | World news | The Observer

[maycocksean]

Interesting. Care to comment?

[financeguy]

Not really, no. I don't know much about the subject. Others are more qualified to comment.

[maycocksean]

There's not really much to say. It's not surprising really. One would hardly expect a smooth transition from slavery to freedom.

In the scope of history, slavery and the institutionalized racism that followed is practically yesterday.

I do find it interesting that this topic hasn't been explored more.

Perhaps, others will have more to add, but that's about all I have to say on it.

[Moonlit_Angel]

many people did not want to investigate the tragedy befalling the freed slaves. Many northerners were little more sympathetic than their southern opponents when it came to the health of the freed slaves

Exactly. Just because they weren't seen as slaves anymore didn't mean they were automatically seen as equals. Jim Crow soon followed, which wasn't a step up, to put it mildly. They were still segregated, and so if anything happened to them, well, some people may have thought it was sad, but the law was the law and so what could they do?

And white people that were sympathetic and wanted to help were probably afraid of fellow, bigoted whites (the KKK, for instance) attacking them the way they attacked black people.

Not that those are justifiable reasons for turning on one's fellow man, though.

The headline for that link is pretty misleading and off, too, I would also say. It makes it sound like if they were still enslaved, they wouldn't have had these problems. But, you know, lesser of two horrific evils, and whatnot.

[IWasBored]

I've always been of the mind that however sympathetic you might claim to be, human beings are normally quite indifferent toward problems that don't actually affect them. Hide behind fear of being targeted, either a legitimate concern nor not, but most people aren't going to actually get off their asses and change something that does not directly affect them. Hell, most people who are directly affected don't necessarily do anything about it.

I'm tired and have a terrible grammatical mental block here. That is affect rather than effect here, no?

[maycocksean]

Originally Posted by IWasBored

I'm tired and have a terrible grammatical mental block here. That is affect rather than effect here, no?

What do I care? It doesn't affect me. . .

[Dfit00]

Originally Posted by IWasBored

I've always been of the mind that however sympathetic you might claim to be, human beings are normally quite indifferent toward problems that don't actually affect them. Hide behind fear of being targeted, either a legitimate concern nor not, but most people aren't going to actually get off their asses and change something that does not directly affect them.

That's the essential negative characteristics about problems that face humanity.
Until the people who are in a good position don't contribute to the nature of the problem, it will keep being the same.