But omission of the word lets enslavers off the hook, is akin to averting
our eyes from victims of Nazi Germany or the Khmer Rouge.  Truth &
accuracy are not well-served by squeamishness, by an overly-fastidious
freshening-up of the facts.

Carolyn Breedlove
[log in to unmask]

On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Bill Mulligan wrote:

> At 04:41 PM 2/20/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >But isn't that distorting history?  The Africans who worked on the
> >plantation were most definitely slaves.  Some of them had it real good,
> >living better than poor, free whites and some of them were treated worse
> >than abused animals.
>
> No matter how "good" they may appear to have had it, they were still
> enslaved.  That cannot have been "good" in any meaningful sense.
>
>
> >Why is the use of the word "slave" such a bad thing?
>
> Because it represents one group of humans systematically degrading another
> for profit.
>
> >
> >Deb
> >
>
>
> William H. Mulligan, Jr. [[log in to unmask]]
> Associate Professor of History
> Director - Forrest C. Pogue Public History Institute
> Murray State University - Murray, KY 42071-0009
> Phone:(502) 762-6571 Fax:(502) 762-6587
> Home Phone:(502)753-9033
> Pogue Institute web site:
> http://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/Bill.Mulligan/Index.htm
>