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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]People who romanticize that time period (myself included) do it because we enjoy the ambiance and aesthetics of it.  The fate of slaves is usually the last thing on my mind. Actually, it’s not on my mind at all.
I just wish i was born back then into a wealthy family. [/quote]

And this is what makes this attitude racist, ignorant and callous.

You are glamorizing the ambiance and aesthetics of a period of time that included great cruelty and horrific abuse.  You are appreciating the style and culture of those who inflicted great injustice and abuses on a large population and you callously ignore the effect that your reverence has on those around you.  You realize that dressing up in antebellum clothes makes those who are descended from slaves feel horrible and yet you don't even care.  When pointed out, you are not apologetic, you just keep reiterating how indifferent you are to how your actions and romanticizing the period incense and aggravate others.

That's racist.  The fact that you don't care about the effect on others and how you don't think at all about the slaves and how wearing those clothes affects those around you, is racist.  And you perfectly echo the people you are dressing up as.  They also didn't care about the slaves.  In fact, they didn't even consider them people, they considered them property, and were as indifferent to their feelings as they were to the feelings of cows or sheep. [/quote]

If the slaves were white, would it still be racist or just ignorant?[/quote]

Well, racism is when you use race as an artificial means to systemically segregate and differentiate a group of people.  So the only way white slavery would be racism would be if the majority in the society were non-white and the society, government of system was designed to favor the non-whites over the whites.  If you are talking about white slaves in a white society, then no, that would only be slavery and would be horrific, immoral and ignorant but would not be racist.

But the American society has a long racist past.  Although the black slavery was the more horrific, the mistreatment of Asians through the late 20th century was also racist.  Until the early-20th century, the majority of Asians were indentured servants brought over to work on the railway system.  Until the mid-20th century Asians were not allowed to own real estate in many jurisdictions in the US.  Asians were not allowed to marry non-Asians until Loving.  In the 1930's and 1940's, the Chinese Exclusion Act barred Asians from legally emigrating to the US.  And then there was the Internment Camp.

As an American-born Chinese, I can say that despite law changes it the 1960's, it took a long time for the systemic issues in the government to truly get modified.  It didn't matter that we were natural-born citizens as opposed to naturalized citizens, the racism inherent in the system still deprived us of many basic rights and services.

White Americans have a history of building white privilege into the system and society and trying to glamorize any part of that is just offensive and disgusting.  You can do what you want and fantasize about the plantations and the clothing and the privileged white society of the period, but don't complain when it is called racism.  Because that is what it is.  [/quote]

This will be called trolling, but I'm trying to add to the conversation here.  I grew up in CA and remember driving past the former internment camps in the 80s and wondering why they were ever "necessary" because I didn't see how the Asians around me could be harmful.  They were (and continue to be) high achieving and hard working despite this history.  What is it about Black culture still wears slavery as a mark of worthiness and value?  That history only has relevance to an individual if they allow it to have relevance to who they are as a human today.  It is a terrible period in history, but why does it continue to define individuals today in a way that Asians (or Irish, or Jewish or Egyptian or Greek...) don't?[/quote]

Vast majority of Americans who identify as Asian-American today are not descended from those who were interned at the camps during WW2. Their ancestors came after the war. Also, the internment camps largely only affected those of Japanese descent. The large Chinese and Korean populations the West Coast did not end up in the camps.

In contrast, the vast majority African-Americans today are descended from slaves. Asians were not redlined, excluded from the GI Bill, Social Security, home loans, business loans, overly policed and jailed. Jim Crow was not applied to Asians in the United States. It's just a way different experience for African-Americans. They did NOT have the "immigrant experience." [/quote]

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