Minisode: The Trivialization of Transatlantic Slavery

12/06/23 • 16 min

Those of you who've been listening to the podcast know that I often caution against the pitfalls of drawing parallels between various forms of slavery, especially when such comparisons are rooted in misleading or deceptive reasoning.

In this episode, I'm spotlighting a recent instance of this very issue. It's a striking example of a comparison that seeks to downplay the sheer scale and catastrophic impact of transatlantic slavery. It's whataboutism to an extraordinary degree.

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Previous Episode

#4: Transatlantic Slave Trade, Part 2: The Golden Age of the Slave Trade

In the second and final part of the series on transatlantic slavery, we take a closer look at the golden age of the slave trade. We examine what allowed the trade to become so lucrative and extensive and how slavery differed from place to place, establishing that the U.S. wasn't representative of the rest of America. We also explore how the slave trade institutionalized racism against Black people. Get bonus content on Patreon

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Next Episode

#5: Aksum – One of the Four Great Powers of Antiquity

Today's episode is about an East African kingdom that, in the 2nd century CE, was described as one of the world's foremost powers, along with Rome, Persia, and China. A kingdom that erected grand monuments and whose coinage spread throughout the world. It was not only among the first in history to convert to Christianity – a couple of hundred years later, it may have played a decisive role in the survival of Islam as a religion.

Today's episode is about Aksum.

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