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Who Sold Whom

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Clarissa

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My friend from Africa discovered anti-racism. Started reading Ibram Kendi, watching videos and listening to podcasts. She tried to share her finds with me but I said it makes me feel like a prostitute who found a boyfriend. It’s exactly like at work but nobody’s paying me to do it.

Eventually, my friend decided to hang out with African Americans. But that didn’t go well. They said, “we like you even less than white people. They bought us as slaves but you sold us to them in the first place.”

“You are a college professor,” the friend told me. “Help me come up with what I should have told them.”

I said that while all that selling and buying was happening in Africa, my own ancestors were being bought and sold, too, so we were definitely uninvolved.

The friend said it’s OK to share this story online if I don’t use any names. Maybe somebody knows what to respond in this situation.

6 responses to “Who Sold Whom”

  1. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    Not good with the snap responses.

    But it doesn’t work because it’s not about who sold whom and when. It’s just about saying whatever you need to say to keep being the crowing kid on the top of the dysfunctional sand heap. Exactly the same as the old “my dad can beat up your dad” game(equally unrealistic, too), except more pathetic.

    They hate your friend because her very existence gives the lie to everything they’re claiming makes them kings of the victimhood hierarchy. No, African-americans aren’t primarily underperforming in the US because of racism. They’re underperforming because they cling to a sh*tty culture that’s dragging them down, much like the meth-addled rednecks on the outskirts of my hometown (with the key difference that those same rednecks *own* their sh*tty trailers). Yes, there are government actions that exacerbated that, and were probably rooted in some kind of racism, decades ago. But any time you suggest changing those remaining bad policies that, you know, discourage employment and family formation among the poor, the result from the victims of those policies is panicked shrieking. The only reasonable conclusion is that those people-of-color who’ve cracked into the middle class and academia and public policy, are very keen on making sure nobody from the ghetto follows them to success.

    Yes, I am also grumpy because I am ill.

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  2. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “Maybe somebody knows what to respond in this situation”

    Me… resisting the urge to release the Kraken…..

    Me…. giving up and letting my inner Snarkzilla roar.

    Answers to “you sold us to them in the first place” (nb do not use any of these or tell your friend to).

    “Now I know why.”

    “And you got to grow up as American citizens because of it… You’re Welcome!”

    “And the intervening years have not made you any more tolerable.”

    “It’s all a misunderstanding… we were offering to pay them to take you.”

    “You’re the ones who said ‘You can mail us our commission!”

    “Well…. exxxxCUUUUUUUUUSSSSEEEE ….. MEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!”

    “Can’t we just let buy -gones be buy gones! get it? get it Buy B-U-Y gones?”

    “Yeah, well now I’m gonna buyyour asses…. (turns around and leaves) BYE, asses!!!”

    “What can I say… the Jews made us do it!”

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  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    An elegant way is to talk about the intersection btw race and social class in the domination dynamic. Intersection and domination are key words here.

    Also, your friend may decide not to give it a second thought and not engage with them instead. Conversation happens when there is a minimal level of agreement.

    Ol.

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  4. random reader Avatar
    random reader

    Is your friend looking for a rational argument? There is none. Engaging in this kind of a conversation leads nowhere. My best suggestion is, “Look at the time. I really need to be going. See you later!”

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  5. Avatar
    Anonymous

    I’m not sure that what you’re describing has actually happened, but if it did, the reasonable response is that a person has no control over what their ancestors may have done, so that shouldn’t be held against them. An exception would be if there was substantial wealth created in Africa by selling slaves that was passed down over generations that your friend had benefitted from, which I doubt is the case.

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      This is absolutely the attitude that some African-Americans have against African immigrants.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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