?????
Way too much to sort out there. By today's standards, owning slaves did make you a racist, and they didn't have the word "racist" back then, so today's standard will have to do.
Otherwise we'll be arguing forever about whether the "nice" slave owners were really "racist" or not. We all have more important things to do with our time.
It's all a pointless discussion anyway. Obviously there were more racist presidents than Obama. The author's snark doesn't really add anything to the discussion.
And 0bama exists in today's world so how racist does that make him?
Completely different error back then so today’s standards don’t apply. Times change.. What about white slavery? We white slave owners of white slaves racist?
The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.
From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.
source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076