[Ads-l] Enslavement of Native Americans [was: wench

Z Rice zrice3714 at GMAIL.COM
Wed Apr 6 18:29:45 UTC 2016


Mr. Barrett, thank you for your reply. I prefer to avoid these exchanges; I
already know that they're useless. However, I DO recognize the perversity
and psychological violence inflicted on the descendants of that enslaved
population when they are exposed to that sort of violent, perverse
rhetoric. Those inflicting that perverse, psychological violence do not
have the luxury of telling those on the receiving end of that violent
rhetoric how to react to it.

As I stated earlier, Jews are not routinely ("ROUTINELY", I said this the
first time) referred to in discussions on history as "slaves". I am not
interested in whether or not someone finds an example in which they were
referred to as such. It does NOT negate my earlier statement. When we speak
of Germany, it is not often that we refer to Jews as being "owned" or as
"slaves". They remain "Jewish", are overwhelmingly referred to as "Jews" in
our history books, etc, and this implicitly acknowledges their humanity.
And it darn sure isn't often that we hear Germans or Nazis (or whatever)
referred to as their "owners" or "masters".

The exact opposite occurs when that enslaved population is Black -
especially the Black population enslaved in the US.

Mr. Berson, in regard to your comment, you can read my first paragraph
addressing Mr. Barrett on what my motive is for not wanting to reduce
myself to going back and forth on this. Trust that you have absolutely no
insight on my reasoning.

On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 7:18 PM, Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Enslavement of Native Americans [was: wench
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Z,
>
> These are certainly interesting points in terms of use of language. Can =
> you, in a straight-forward manner and without attacking people, lay out =
> how you think the words slave, servant and enslaved should be used?=20
>
> And can you describe how you think people should refer to the term slave =
> when that is the term used in the lect they are discussing? I think =
> it=E2=80=99s pretty standard to use the term in the lect under =
> discussion, but perhaps there is another way of handling it.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
> > On 1 Apr 2016, at 09:43, Z Rice <zrice3714 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >=20
> > As I said earlier, they were ENSLAVED. They were not "slaves", and =
> they
> > damn sure weren't servants. They were Africans/human beings who were
> > ENSLAVED. Again, call it what it was.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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