White Slavery & Oppression: Forgotten by Time....

In America, slavery exclusively is the domain of Africans.  Even my friends who are from the Caribbean are told in school to tell everyone they are "african american" - never mind they are from a completely different hemisphere....only on account of their color.

At any rate, during my doctoral interview I got asked what I thought about diversity.  I told the interviewers I thought it was a cliche and we overly focus on race. But that's my point exactly - we live in a world where minority leaders like the Reverend JACKsonnnnnnn insist that we explore the TRUTH!   And expose the lies of the past - but at the same time people like him cover up the truth - blacks aren't the only ones who were ever enslaved - aren't the only ones who ever experienced oppression.

Go through history - the Irish were enslaved (Disturbing article) - the U.S. Navy was dispatched right after the war of 1812 to the Mediterranean with the U.S. Marines to halt the flow of white slaves off American ships to the Barbary States - go back even further - the Hebrews - also white - were slaves to the Egyptians - and are the ones that built those pointy piles of rocks.  The Occitanie of southern France (Si vous comprendez la langue d'Oc) who are still discriminated against today - millions of protestants burned to death under the reign of the Popes in Europe - or tortured into confession before suffering a cruel death anyways....yesssss, oppression has worn many masks over the centuries and it has never been confined to only one race, neither has the white race been exempt.  Even the holocaust was a crime against people who were white....but not Aryan.

Myself?  I've experienced racial discrimination in other countries and even in my own where my life was threatened because I was the "wrong color."

But my point is simply - it's politically incorrect to talk about  these things - but unfortunately, I feel like our country, our children, our history and education systems and even our national discourse is held hostage by the political correctness of racial history and people like Reverend Jackson.   Somehow in it all, by bringing up what I've done here - in a classroom - is somehow the same as saying that none of what happened to blacks in this country ever happened or doesn't matter.  That's not at all true...but that's how people interpret it. 

I might remind readers how the orientals were treated in the American West - or even the Native Americans - and yet...the Orientals seem to do quite well and I don't see a whole lot on the subject about them by them or their ancestors....

I just hate feeling conversationally paralyzed in our society to not be able to have an open discourse or even an honest discussion on a topic this hot - which is why I talk about it as much as I do....I gotta blurt it out!