This article seems to be jumping through all kinds of hoops and playing with word definitions just so that it can “fact check” and prove that all white people are super bad.
It’s interesting to look at Snopes’ methodology. This article does not “fact-check” the subject meme, it hi-jacks it to push its alternative narrative. Snopes demonstrates that the cited statistic is mathematically correct within an insignificant margin of error (only 1.4% of Americans owned slaves in 1860, not 1.6%).
We can probably all agree that people should consume internet content critically: even mathematically true statistics yield different implications depending on context, and are often manipulative. Whodathunkit?
But the meme being true does not tie whitey to the whippin’ post and justify reparations, so Snopes changes the frame of reference. It’s not “percentage of slaveowners in the US” that matters; it’s “percentage of people owned, borrowed, rented, etc., slaves in the states with the most slaves”. Why, Mississippi and South Carolina score 50%! I guess we are supposed to get emotionally caught up in the higher number and forget that most Americans were never part of that world.
Pretty much.