Ghana’s President John Mahama has received the African Union’s backing in pushing the United Nations to recognize transatlantic slavery as the ‘gravest crime against humanity.’
There is broad historical consensus that the transatlantic slave trade between the 15th and 19th centuries, which involved the kidnapping, enslavement and transport of millions of Africans to the Americas and the Caribbean, was one of the biggest tragedies in human history.
I’ve never seen it before, but in this context the post is about someone making a superlative claim. So it’s entirely possible and reasonable to leave a genuine reminder that there have been other atrocities that shouldn’t be swept to the wayside just to crown one as the singular worst.
I wouldn’t have picked the Arab slave trade as an example. Seems strange to mention one from a millennium ago when there are plenty to choose from in the past few centuries. Maybe the holocaust, the holodomor, or the genocide of Native Americans. But I saw other commenters calling those dogwhistles too.
I just don’t think those and the African slave trade need to compete for the title of “biggest crime against humanity.” They were all really bad, and there’s no need to pit the victims of each against each other. That’s the only thing being accomplished by making a superlative claim in this context.
Called it.
Called what, exactly? That it’s possible to have a nuanced take that doesn’t perfectly align with yours without being the most completely diabolical and unthinking shill that you can imagine?