A press release from group states, "This fall in schools across America, students will be watching PragerU videos in their classrooms as states officially make PragerU an approved educational resource."

Despite its name, PragerU is not an accredited academic institution, nor does it issue degrees.

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    slaves were sometimes paid

    Slaves did (very rarely) get paid (typically the equivalent of pocket change). Manumission did exist on the "charity" of a small number of slavers in the cases of a small number of slaves who they had "mercy" on, though typically I think how it went in the rare cases it was allowed was that a slave did work for their slaver and was permitted on their free time to have a job in town (where, because they were a slave, their options were both artificially and practically limited and they were paid much less than a white person or even a freed slave).

    But to use this non-legalized ritual that describes a tiny minority of cases within a paradigm of industrialized exploitation as though it was a saving grace or even a mitigating consideration would be truly unhinged. Manumission did exist in the legal framework of Ancient Rome* as something of a right of a slave, so there it could be called a mitigation because it was actually a codified part of the system and not a quirk of the whims of some masters.

    *I think there have also been similar practices elsewhere but I am not specifically aware of them and I don't think it existed in any form of Ancient Greece beyond the cases of "mercy".

    • UlyssesT
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      edit-2
      27 days ago

      deleted by creator

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Oh definitely, though I remember receiving emphatic stories also about some holiday in the Aztec Empire where slaves could free themselves via foot race for some reason.

        • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
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          edit-2
          1 year ago

          This is just a guess, but on a continent without horses a guy who can run really fast is really useful to have around, and hard to keep as a slave if you want to make use of that skill