No, I'm not reacting to the notion of Africans participating in the Atlantic slave trade. I know they did. I'm reacting to the idea that there's any kind of parity in culpability. I'm reacting to the fact that every time I mention the slave trade in an article, no matter how tangentially, somebody feels the need to rush into the comments to inform me that "AfRiCaNs SoLd OtHeR aFrIcAnS tOo!11".
You're the third person I'm having some variation of this conversation with in this article alone, simply because I mentioned the Atlantic slave trade once, without mentioning white people, in a single sentence of a 1200+ word article.
It's incredibly sad how many white people have subconsciously bought into this ridiculous idea of collective white guilt that they feel the need to make this point, so let's talk about it without talking about colour at all (though it's worth noting that I didn't talk about colour in the article either).
Around the fifteenth century, Portuguese colonisers travelled to Africa in search of riches. They found slavery already there, though slavery that was quite different to that which ensued in America. They used their vastly superior weaponry to steal resources and riches from the African people (who they viewed as savages) and also...persuaded them to capture members of other tribes for them. These Africans couldn't possibly have known what was waiting for the people they captured, but even if they did, they didn't exactly have a lot of options.
The Africans who were captured, many of them children, were then shipped off to various nations, including the US, for a lifetime of servitude that included their children and their children's children. that is, if they survived the trip. Who do you think is more culpable here? The Portuguese or the Africans?
Let's try some other examples.
Some Native American chiefs sold their lands (whilst barely understanding what "selling" meant), for beads and trinkets. Do you feel the need to explain that those Native chiefs were complicit in the massacre of the Native Americans and the steaing of their lands whenever somebody mentions it? I mean, technically it wasn't even stealing. They got paid after all...
Some Jews fought alongside the Nazis in WWII. Do you feel the need to mention this every time somebody mentions the Holocaust? After all, those Jews aided a war machine that killed millions of their fellow Jews and displaced God knows how many more. It wasn't just the Nazis who were at fault, right?
Hopefully you can see why I get frustrated with this when applied to the slave trade. And especially when, as I said, I mentioned it as a one line aside in an article that had nothing to do with slavery. What the hell are you defending? You are not responsible because you have a similar complexion to those who did these things. Don't buy into that nonsense.
