pull down to refresh
It has zero influence on current society because so much has changed since 1865.
It serves as an anchor for grievance and identity politics.
Like @Undisciplined said, preposterous.
The thing is, even if all it did is serve "as an anchor for grievance and identity politics" that's still an influence on our society.
An obvious, if benign, influence is the demography of the country. I don't know that there's any moral significance to there being far more black people in the Old South, but it is to some extent a legacy of slavery.
A pernicious influence
Regarding demography and geography, what about the great black migration after 1945?
Many blacks left the south and moved north and west
How many cities have MLK Blvd or street? Is that a legacy of slavery?
Obviously, black people have moved all over the country. I don't even see what that has to do with anything. The rural deep south has lots of black people, in part because that's where their ancestors were brought as slaves.
Are MLK Blvd's a legacy of slavery? Maybe. That's the sort of thing I meant when I said the prompt is overly vague.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)
One effect of the Great Migration was that blacks moved away from rural to urban areas including the South. Where do most blacks in Alabama live? Cities (not rural) such as Birmingham
Urban life is not a legacy of slavery
That's all well and good, but county slave population 200 years ago has predictive power on black population in a county today. The only interpretation of that (that makes sense) is legacy of slavery.
You are exhibit A!
I rest my case
I forgot about the race card.
The racist says what?
You mean the influence still exists but the narratives have changed?
People still talk about reparations which is extortion
How is it possible that in developed countries there is still slavery, perhaps there is the influence of customs from our ancestors.
That's more what I mean. There is still slavery in America, but that's not what anyone is thinking of when asked about this.
Maybe only ordinary people still feel the existence of slavery, and only a certain part, because of this custom.
Slavery in modern day America is very much out-of-sight out-of-mind.
The two forms that come to mind are prison labor and sex slavery. I don't know the extent of the later, but it's not zero and there are people who claim it's quite high.
Prisoners are often allowed to work, but sometimes they are forced to. In some cases, you could probably argue that this is not unjust, but for those incarcerated for victimless crimes it's indistinguishable from slavery.
In my opinion, if there are crimes that are imprisoned but there are no victims, it might not be fair if there are acts of coercion and sexual slavery in prison, this is harassment, everyone will not accept being treated like that.
It would be preposterous to think it has no influence on society, but it’s a vaguely worded prompt that people will interpret very differently.