I know I'm not going to win the argument. I also understand why. I understand the anthropological argument, though I would still argue that the owners didn't have a concept of humanity similar to ours. Frankly, they've already judged me as guilty of racism for simply saying that owning slaves did not make a person inherently evil. The reason I'm arguing it is a) because it's a serious historical misperception no matter the anthropological basis for it (which IMO is somewhat weak, anyway) and b) because I don't like being called a racist, however indirectly.