George_Meany

What do you think about the proliferation of hate within online communities? Here on Reddit, hate groups from all over the world are able to gather, rhetorically and materially support one another, and provide comparative tactics and strategies for how to better escape prosecution. How do you think this expanded access to like minded people, and supportive places to gather, have influenced the global hate movement? Are there any comparisons that can be drawn with people like Dylan Roof?

Because, as we all know, nobody in Jefferson's time thought that holding and raping slaves was in any way wrong. /eyeroll

To pretend as though Jefferson's slaveholding was accepted by "almost everyone" at the time is a view that continues to dehumanize and disregard the voices of slaves themselves - who absolutely would not have believed that their treatment was fair and acceptable. Rather, millions of slaves in the US viewed their enslavement at the hands of men like Jefferson as a brutal, violent, and degrading institution. To ignore that in favour of only accounting for white, slaveholding voices that spoke in favour of slavery is . . . something else entirely.

But, of course, this isn't a pat, just-so answer that appeals to Reddit's white, male userbase who continue to think that taking any historical voices into account aside from people like themselves is "decontextualizing" history. The more I think of it, the more disgusting that comment is, actually.