Photos of Escaped Slave Gordon at a Medical Examination, Louisiana, 1863

https://www.vintag.es/2022/05/scourged-back.html

by dredmorbius • 4 years ago

25 18 4 years ago

Title shortened from "Shocking Photos of Escaped Slave Gordon Showing His Scarred Back at a Medical Examination, Louisiana, 1863"

schleck8• 4 years ago

Unbelievable how someone can be this cruel

throwaway15908• 4 years ago

Its easy and it starts with language.

cglee• 4 years ago

For me it's not shocking that any one person can be this cruel. What's difficult to process is how entire social structures and institutions can be this cruel.

steve_adams_86• 4 years ago

Agreed. People do cruel things all the time.

But how was this perpetrated broadly by multiple societies?

I try to remind myself that the part of humans that makes this possible is in all of us. I don’t think it’s anything special – there needs to be constant vigilance to ensure we don’t allow things like this over and over.

It could be illogical, but it seems true to me if this can occur for generations at such broad scale. It’s a feature of humanity, and to an unknown degree even me as a result.

wittycardio• 4 years ago

Societies are commonly cruel without knowing it. Even modern Western society which ostensibly tries to minimise cruelty depends heavily on animal cruelty and horrific work conditions in the third world. Individual people being truly horrible is rarer

trh0awayman• 4 years ago

We'll look back on homelessness the same way in 100 years

khaledh• 4 years ago

dupe from yesterday https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31369847

mistrial93• 4 years ago

let's talk about 1000 years of Central European slavery, indentured military conscripts, and Middle East markets. Why not? unless you have a specific, current political villification purpose with specifically chosen awful examples, which history is very full of..

My ancestors fought and died to end slavery in the USA.

edit these pictures are upsetting to me. Modern politics is full of emotional drivers chosen for a response, as has been noted here and elsewhere about "outrage clicks" .. this difficult, true history, out of context, appears to be an "outrage driver" why? to fix wrongs from 160 years ago? or to advance a topic of discussion today..

As an urban dweller in a Blue state, I get sideways accosted by accusations of racism, personally, because of my skin color, pretty regularly.. as the social situation is more difficult recently, this has happened less, but with more intensity. I am defensive about this, and these are my opinions here.

greymalik• 4 years ago

I’m missing where in this thread or in the linked article that someone is blaming you or your ancestors for anything. Can you point it out to me please?

foogazi2• 4 years ago

I fail to understand what your ancestors and what they did has to do with you today

Why make this about yourself and your feelings?

number6• 4 years ago

This argument cuts both ways

alphabettsy2• 4 years ago

As an urban dweller in a Blue state, I get sideways accosted by accusations of racism, personally, because of my skin color, pretty regularly..

Just basing my opinion on your comment here. I doubt it’s solely because of your skin color.

You can’t even handle a post with no apparent agenda about the slavery of Africans in America without a rant.

So either this comment is a bad day or it’s indicative of your real life reactions, responses maybe even just body language and microaggressions that generate the responses you’ve received.

mixmastamyk• 4 years ago

I find when folks react this way they typically have spent a lot of time in front of the television and/or more recently twitter. They definitely promote this type of constant crisis mentality.

mistrial93• 4 years ago

ok - I was walking my dog around the urban block in a city you have heard of, past some low-income apartments, and a three or four year old boy walks out of the door and says in loud voice "f* you white boy" .. I was upset by this, since my parents went to great lengths to teach us that racist name calling is always wrong. I did nothing to those people in that apartment.

So how did I handle it? I walked away.. much later, more than a month, a old African American man was walking and appeared to be headed into that apartment complex, in the daytime. I stopped him and told him just about exactly what I just said to you. I pointed to the door the boy came from.. he nodded knowingly, as if it was not a complete shock. He looked me in the eye and said he would try to have a word with them. I have never approached that place, and few people know this story.

edit: your sig says you live "Remote SWE in Midwest US" and you "doubt" my story ?

Photos of Escaped Slave Gordon at a Medical Examination, Louisiana, 1863

Related Stories