Slavery & Racism
The View’s Sonny Hostin claims that the USA is a “country based on racism and slavery” and that “systemic racism” still exists.
IN FACT, the USA was born in an era when slavery was common throughout the world for thousands of years, but many U.S. founders and citizens fervently opposed it, and in the wake of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776:
- within 10 years, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont legally abolished slavery, although some of the states passed gradual emancipations.
- within 30 years, New Jersey and New York legally abolished slavery through gradual emancipations, and the last slaves in New York were freed in 1827.
- within 32 years, the U.S. enacted a law barring the entire nation from participating in the international slave trade in 1808.
- within 90 years, the U.S. Constitution was amended to abolish slavery in 1865.
Widespread racism and discrimination continued for another 100 years but has since diminished to the point where the social ills that afflict a greater portion of black people than whites are unassociated with racism and strongly associated with leftist public policies and mindsets.
