1) Mainstream media have shown video footage of protesters carry signs with "white people need to pay for their ancestors crimes". Several politicians have supported a study to see what kind of reparations are appropriate. Most, if not all, state have a crime victim compensation fund. For the actual victim.
I'm unclear what point it is that you're trying to make in response to what I said in my post. The fact that you've seen video footage of white people with signs demanding reparations has nothing to do with the comparison I made between institutional slavery and contemporary human trafficking. I specifically said in the beginning of my post that I was disregarding the issue of reparations, because any proposed issue about reparations has nothing to do with the historical impact that government sponsored slavery had on this country.
2) Comparing historical slavery to contemporary slavery is appropriate. Slavery is slavery. I consider contemporary slavery the greater evil. We are supposed to be civilized, and educated.
No, it's not an appropriate comparison. You're comparing the outlawed organized crime activities of individuals with the historical legally sanctioned and government supported enslavement of human beings. If a victim of human trafficking escapes her captors and goes to a law enforcement agency, they can intervene and help. Under the Dred Scott decision, the government held that slaves weren't even citizens of the US, and could claim no rights under the Constitution, and had to be returned as property to their captors, where they could be tortured as punishment for the escape, which the government supported. Claiming that those two scenarios of human trafficking vs government sponsored slavery are coequal requires an Olympic degree of historical myopia.
3) Comparing historical slavery to reprehensible treatment 60-70 years ago is incorrect. They're both wrong, but different animals.
Where do I make the comparison and say that the two things were coequal? I said that following the Reconstruction, the government continued the process of enacting laws designed to disenfranchise black Americans and deny them their rights as full citizens. They may not have been legally owned anymore, but their movements, where they lived, who they could marry, whether they could vote, were very much legally controlled by governments solely for the purpose of disenfranchising them. All of those post Reconstruction laws regarding the rights of black Americans were a response to the now illegal institution of slavery: "we can't own you any more, but we sure as hell aren't going to let you participate in the same rights that every other American has by birthright".
4) I'm in my upper 50s, and have never seen a sign of "whites only". . . . anywhere. . . . except in historical pictures. And, I've lived in numerous states across the country. The fact that you have seen these sign, may explain the disparity in our views.
The fact that you've never seen a "whites only " sign except in historical photos may shape your ideas, but your personal experiences have zero effect on the reality of those signs for millions of Americans who saw them every day and who had to live under the laws that created them. Whether or not you've personally experienced them, if you were born sometime prior to July 2, 1964, you were alive at the same time that they existed, and anyone who drove across the southern US from Louisiana to North Carolina in the early 1960s would have seen them in abundance. There are plenty of people still alive right now who experienced that first hand, regardless of your experiences.
5) Mainstream media, and that's what most people watch, rarely speaks about human trafficking. The only time is shows up in the news, is when they find a semi-trailer full of deceased victims. Yet, on a daily basis, the news presents articles on racial inequality.
Well, I can't argue this point, since I haven't done the research to determine how many stories on human trafficking were produced on mainstream media throughout the entire US in, say, the past year, and since I don't want to throw around vague terms like "rare" or "many", we're just going to both have to wallow in our own confirmation bias.
6) "It wasn't "155 years ago", it was yesterday." That's being a little dramatic. Yes, there are still ignorant people that judge people by the color of their skin. But, the fact that America elected a black man as it's president speaks volumes. If it had been a "race thing", he would not have been elected. Less then 14% of the US population is "black". In 2008, Barrack Obama received just under 53%; in 2012, just over 51%.
Nowhere in my post did I touch on the issue of racism; you're creating a strawman to argue against. You made the point that these events happened 155 years ago, with the statement "Why are we, society in general, worrying about slavery that occurred 155+/- years ago. . . . when we have slavery occurring in the here & now?" It's certainly not a leap to infer from that you consider the events of 155 years ago to be less relevant because they happened in the dim dark past; I pointed out that those same attitudes that allowed slavery to flourish in this country didn't end 155 years ago; they were still being codified as law in the United States as late as your lifetime. 1964 is most decidedly not the dim dark irrelevant past, it's 55 years ago. There are still people alive NOW that experienced the reality that they could be arrested for drinking water from a fountain meant for white people. If you think it's "dramatic" that up until the recent past an American citizen could be charged with the specific crime of being a black person where he shouldn't be, then ok, I'll accept your labeling, as long as you're willing to accept that same "dramatic" label next time you're upset because you feel that your Second Amendment rights are being infringed on.
Obviously you and I will never see eye-to-eye on this subject. That's fine, we'll keep our conversations on the T7 & T12; or any other topic.
That works for me.