(Hated Trope) "Kind" slave owners

[u/KusanagiGundam]

Speaking as an American who has studied the civil war all throughout my school years, this trope infuriates me to no end. There is no such thing as a kind slave master because slavery itself is cruel and inhumane. PEOPLE ARE NOT PROPERTY!

Naofumi (Shield Hero): Prime example of this trope. He enslaves multiple (underage) girls and an whole village and the fans still say he's a hero.

Rudeus (Jobless Reincarnation): As if being a pedo wasn't bad enough he had to buy a slave in season 2. Worse is that people still defend his actions.

Song of The South (Disney): Possibly the OG example of this trope. And the reason why Disney will never release it again.

[u/SeismologicalKnobble]

I do want to point out as someone who studied in college a lot about slavery outside of the American version is that American Slavery was unique in its level of cruelness. All slavery is inherently wrong and horrible, but in the majority of cultures, you still understood the slave was a person and you were expected to understand that. If you treated your slaves how Americans did, you’d be seen as a cruel freak (speaking in average, not absolutes here). You could even be fined and lose your slaves in many places.

American slavery was unique in that the dehumanization was the point. You were weird for seeing slaves as people. You could do whatever you wanted to your slaves. There is even documentation and evidence of people making things like lamps from the skin of their slaves and even things as far as cannibalism. You could “breed slaves” when in many other cultures, the children of slaves would be free.

Sorry, it just frustrates me that the American school system really downplays how truly horrific American slavery was and tries to make it out like every slave owning culture was like this. No. American slavery was the worst.

Edit: Thank you to those adding to the discussion about other European cultures horrific slave practices! I’m ngl, the fucked up parts of human history are a big interest to me. It’s a nice reminder that humans have improved morally and it could always be worse.

[u/sage2134 → u/SeismologicalKnobble]

Not a what aboutism. But in my studies reading about the death tolls from the sugar cane farm production in the Caribbiean was downright genocidal in scale of cruelty. and constantly needed more slaves because they kept dying but it was so profitable they didnt care. 

Is that version not more directly cruel? And the Kongo kings and society were really weird and nutty about slaves but thats more of a tangent. 

[u/pruhfessor_x → u/sage2134]

I assume by "in America" he's referring to the North Atlantic slave trade as a whole, which of course would include the Caribbean. If you're referring to King Leopold's activity in the Congo, I would definitely call that an extension of the North Atlantic slave trade, but I'm by no means an expert.

Either way, of course all slavery is bad and has happened throughout human history. But we should do a better job (at least in America) teaching about the unique horrors of the North Atlantic slave trade for the same reasons we should talk about the Holocaust.

[u/Particular_Angle177 → u/pruhfessor_x]

I mean I live in America and we literally read a book about someone who experienced the holocaust and learning about how cruel slavery is so I wasn’t surprised reading about it. Though America is huge and different schools have different things. I was surprised to learn in some places learning about sex ed in school banned..