[elpachuco]

>>Based on what you interpret as an implicit acceptance of slavery in comments on HN, which I guess you just sort of assume must be made by mostly white Americans?<<

Occam's razor says that it probably is white Americans.

I'm guessing here but maybe one of the reasons why white Americans gets so defensive and angry when this comes up could be that they feel they are being attacked and so they respond by trying to point to other instances where this happened. I grant you, that does not mean that people believe that slavery was OK but if so you should not try to excuse it.

Slavery existed in my own country, Mexico, and it was wrong. It was wrong then and it is wrong now. No excuses. To believe otherwise means that you should not object if other people try to enslave you or people you love. If I'm wrong then correct the error in my logic. I'm willing to learn.

I'm not sure if this is too simplistic or not but whenever you are unsure about whether something is OK or not simply imagine you are the one on the receiving end. If without lying to yourself you still think it is OK then maybe it is OK.

I seriously doubt anybody would make excuses for slavery with a straight face if they were the slaves, regardless of the era.

And now I feel like I'm being patronizing; sorry for that, not my intention.

[ta_8UgB54G]

Occam's razor suggests that your sample size is too small to make any generalizations about what a typical white American would think about anything. Occam's razor also suggests that the nationality of posters depends a great deal on where in the world it happens to be working hours.

Slavery doesn't come up that often on HN. Responses in those threads are biased towards users who care enough about the subject to want to engage in conversation about them. And I would be willing to bet the comments you're describing don't account for the bulk of thread contents. So you're making an assertion about white people and Americans based on a sample size of, what? Maybe a dozen posters, if that? Bear in mind that posting on HN at all is atypical.

I've got no issues with your plea for empathy but you're not making a strong argument that the comments you're talking about (whatever they are) necessarily defend slavery, or that the people making them necessarily believe that slavery is acceptable, or that they're evidence of what what white Americans believe about slavery as an institution, in general. You're literally arguing from the premise that the racism of white Americans can be taken as a constant.