I am sure there are some things around today built by slaves......but not much. Most of America as we know it was built within the last 120 years......maybe much less and not by anyone enslaved.
This isn’t at all meant to disregard the enormity of slavery in the US.
Other than a few cars, nothing I own is more than 10 years old, other than my home which is less than 30 years old.
There is a good chance some of the stuff I own which was made in China could have been made by slaves.......
Thanks for the comments.
No, and I’m not here to undersell the terrible effects of
slavery. As I said in comments I made yesterday, I wish
the people of the day had never brought slavery to our
shores. The British did it, but by the time our nation
was founded, it was just too late to put the brakes on
and found a cohesive nation.
The concept of owning another human being is unfathomable
to me. I grew up a mile from the George Washington Carver
plantation in southwestern Missouri. I went over there a
number of times and realized the treachery of slaver as
a young kid.
Wealth does linger, and whatever wealth from the south
associated with slavery, that did help our nation grow is
fair game.
As an example, I’ll use a car company that probably was
not impacted by wealth from slavery.
If say Ford was started with funds associated with slavery,
it could still be considered to be benefiting today from
it’s founding using those funds.
Should that company be taken to task now, and forced to
make a payout? I think it’s a relevant concept, but
anything that impacts the company’s bottom line, is
going to drive up costs for the very people that are
supposedly being helped.
At some point we have to move on.
Others may disagree with me, and I’m willing to accept
that there may be good arguments from another vantage
point.