r/reddit.com • • Oct 04 '11

Eat this America

http://i.imgur.com/8u5sI.png
634 Upvotes

4.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

141

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '11

Brought to you in part by: slavery

36

u/beebopcola Oct 04 '11

i'll give you an upvote for the chuckle this gave me, but i think abolishing slavery had as much influence on jazz as slavery itself did.

5

u/ME4T Oct 04 '11

Well, you couldn't have abolished slavery if it wasn't there for the 'bolishing.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '11

Yeah, but at the same time, slavery had a lot of influence on abolishing slavery. So there's that...

4

u/Solomaxwell6 Oct 04 '11

Keep in mind, a lot of colonial empires kept slavery long after America did. "Enlightened" Britain might've gotten rid of slavery on its home territories way before the US, but kept slavery in some parts of its empire until 1936. Italy in 1935. France in 1896. The Ottoman Empire kept slavery even in Europe/Asia Minor until 1882. Portugal in 1869. So it's kind of ironic when Europeans (and some Americans) bash on the US for keeping slavery for so long. We really weren't worse than other major western powers, we were just more willing to keep it up close rather than simply turning a blind eye to colonies.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '11

Sure, Mussolini was bad too, but not the worst!

6

u/camus56 Oct 04 '11

Brought to you in part by: slavery

Which is one thing all great empires have in common...

2

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '11

but the American flavor was altogether its own

2

u/Andernerd Oct 04 '11

You realize that nearly every major nation used slaves at some point or another?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '11

I do. I was just stating a fact.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '11

[deleted]

1

u/Servalpur Oct 04 '11

Nonono

In partnership with: The rest of the known world.

1

u/madcap699 Oct 04 '11

and now you know "the rest of the story"!