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[Darth Wong]

I never really hear anyone around here voicing opposition to interracial marriage, but Toronto is absolutely chock-full of interracial couples so I think we're generally used to it. All of the black, Indian, and Asian guys who are dating white women have no problem with all of the white guys who are dating black, Indian, and Asian women, and all combinations in between.

Black/white relations in the US, of course, have a particular strain because of the history of slavery, and in the South, a lot of the whites basically thumb their noses at blacks every day by flying confederate flags, acting as if the South should have won the civil war, etc. Every time they do that, they're basically saying "fuck you" to all blacks, and then they act shocked and offended when blacks dislike them in return.

[Glocksman]

True.
I sometimes wonder just how different things would have turned out if the colonies that make up present day Canada had revolted with the New England colonies during the Revolution, while the southern ones remained loyalist and stayed with the British Empire.

Would race relations in the south have turned out better or worse in the long run?
Either way, the face of North America would be dramatically different.

[docfrance]

If Britain still had the South's agricultural slave economy under its belt going into the 19th Century, they would probably be less inclined to abolish slavery as early as they did. Why give up a source of cheap tobacco, cotton, and sugar?

[SirNitram]

If Britain still had the South's agricultural slave economy under its belt going into the 19th Century, they would probably be less inclined to abolish slavery as early as they did. Why give up a source of cheap tobacco, cotton, and sugar?

Cotton? You haven't actually read history of the British Empire, have you? They had far more than the South produced, and the system used was not growth-neutral.

Slavery, regardless of what the simple think, is expensive, because it's all tied up in real assets which don't improve. You buy a plantation and a bunch of slaves to work it, your money will be forever tied into them, because there's such a hard upper limit in output, and thus profit. Compared with industry of the age, which leapt forward enough to recoup loans and then acheive more growth, this is a bad, bad joke.

[Imperial Overlord]

The British gave up a profitable share in the slave trade, expended more more economically and politically pressuring other countries to abandon it, and expended yet more money on anti-slavery patrols by the Navy. Britain outlawed slavery and acted to suppress it against its own economic interests. Retaining the South wouldn't much change that.