Henry Louis Gates' article "Ending the Slavery Blame-Game"
This opinion piece appeared in the NY Times on April 22, 2010.
http://nyti.ms/aILrJCMy initial reaction:
My after thoughts:What does an 'unlikely' confluence of history and genetics have to do with reparations? And, is reshaping a debate - just because you're the president - necessarily a good idea? How about you're a professor at Harvard sharing a similar confluence; you reshape the debate! I'll be there to count the brothers and sisters at your rally. 'Parcel out blame to those directly involved in the capture and sale of human beings for immense economic gain'? Come on, bro. First, parcel is not a word I would choose. Second, it's a little too late in the game to point fingers. Besides, we already know who had their hands in the slavery game. We're not ignorant or uneducated. Let's assume that if we read the article, we also read a book or two on slavery; its origins, dealings, and effects. Nobody on the planet is letting Africa and Africans off the hook. Pulease! "... which is why Henry Morton Stanley’s pursuit of Dr. David Livingstone in 1871 made for such compelling press: he was going where no (white) man had gone before."
What?!? Compelling press?!? Gates, who are you talking to? Try and run that sentence down at the barber shop or the basketball court or at the next local NAACP meeting. How about racist and manipulative press? You buyin'? American Slavery began where the Middle Passages ended; on American soil. That's what the advocates of reparations are focused on. It's what happened to Africans- ONCE THEY GOT HERE - that's the issue. Those that survived the transport were in (relatively) good shape. The physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and cultural trauma didn't really set in until they were PLACED ON THE AMERICAN PLANTATIONS. Give me a break, Henry. "... For many African-Americans, these facts can be difficult to accept." Now, you're pissing me off! Do you think we are stupid? How about you, professor; do you find these FACTS difficult to accept? You seem to embrace them with the fervor that a non-African (I imagine) would. "Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader who is uniquely positioned to bridge the great reparations divide." That's the lamest notion in the whole article. And how dare you use the word 'child' to define my president! You could have said the 'SON' of an African and an American. How dare you!Folks, please click the link above and read the article for yourselves. And please talk me down, share your comments, vent (I just did, lol).
Tell me, as genealogists, family historians and 'keen observers of the human condition' whether this article is good or evil.
http://nyti.ms/aILrJCMy initial reaction:
"Dear folks, Keep Your Eyes On The Prize! Look at North America's history.
My African Ancestored peoples endured slavery - and its cruelties - on this soil before 1619 and Jamestown. As such, this is the legacy we are talking about when we speak of reparations. Slaveowners could care less about where their slaves came from or their circumstances. THEY WANTED SLAVES AND THEY SUBJECTED THEM TO ATROCITIES IN ORDER TO PROFIT FROM THEM.
If they wanted to they could have - as a forming nation - decided that slavery was wrong, the Europeans were wrong, and the African elites were wrong on this issue of human bondage. They didn't. What they decided was that these captured peoples MUST be stripped of their identity and culture in whatever brutal fashion necessary in order to make money. They made enormous amounts of money; here in North America. That is what reparations is addressing. Gates seems to be addressing DNA analysis which will reveal what region of Africa our ancestors come from so we can place credit or blame away from the Americas and on to the continent of Africa. However, that's a ploy to have us think politically rather than culturally. DNA is about science - not ancestry or history. Gates has a stake in a DNA research company. Keep Your Eyes On The Prize; that NY Times article was designed to blow smoke!"
My African Ancestored peoples endured slavery - and its cruelties - on this soil before 1619 and Jamestown. As such, this is the legacy we are talking about when we speak of reparations. Slaveowners could care less about where their slaves came from or their circumstances. THEY WANTED SLAVES AND THEY SUBJECTED THEM TO ATROCITIES IN ORDER TO PROFIT FROM THEM.
If they wanted to they could have - as a forming nation - decided that slavery was wrong, the Europeans were wrong, and the African elites were wrong on this issue of human bondage. They didn't. What they decided was that these captured peoples MUST be stripped of their identity and culture in whatever brutal fashion necessary in order to make money. They made enormous amounts of money; here in North America. That is what reparations is addressing. Gates seems to be addressing DNA analysis which will reveal what region of Africa our ancestors come from so we can place credit or blame away from the Americas and on to the continent of Africa. However, that's a ploy to have us think politically rather than culturally. DNA is about science - not ancestry or history. Gates has a stake in a DNA research company. Keep Your Eyes On The Prize; that NY Times article was designed to blow smoke!"
My after thoughts:What does an 'unlikely' confluence of history and genetics have to do with reparations? And, is reshaping a debate - just because you're the president - necessarily a good idea? How about you're a professor at Harvard sharing a similar confluence; you reshape the debate! I'll be there to count the brothers and sisters at your rally. 'Parcel out blame to those directly involved in the capture and sale of human beings for immense economic gain'? Come on, bro. First, parcel is not a word I would choose. Second, it's a little too late in the game to point fingers. Besides, we already know who had their hands in the slavery game. We're not ignorant or uneducated. Let's assume that if we read the article, we also read a book or two on slavery; its origins, dealings, and effects. Nobody on the planet is letting Africa and Africans off the hook. Pulease! "... which is why Henry Morton Stanley’s pursuit of Dr. David Livingstone in 1871 made for such compelling press: he was going where no (white) man had gone before."
What?!? Compelling press?!? Gates, who are you talking to? Try and run that sentence down at the barber shop or the basketball court or at the next local NAACP meeting. How about racist and manipulative press? You buyin'? American Slavery began where the Middle Passages ended; on American soil. That's what the advocates of reparations are focused on. It's what happened to Africans- ONCE THEY GOT HERE - that's the issue. Those that survived the transport were in (relatively) good shape. The physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and cultural trauma didn't really set in until they were PLACED ON THE AMERICAN PLANTATIONS. Give me a break, Henry. "... For many African-Americans, these facts can be difficult to accept." Now, you're pissing me off! Do you think we are stupid? How about you, professor; do you find these FACTS difficult to accept? You seem to embrace them with the fervor that a non-African (I imagine) would. "Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader who is uniquely positioned to bridge the great reparations divide." That's the lamest notion in the whole article. And how dare you use the word 'child' to define my president! You could have said the 'SON' of an African and an American. How dare you!Folks, please click the link above and read the article for yourselves. And please talk me down, share your comments, vent (I just did, lol).
Tell me, as genealogists, family historians and 'keen observers of the human condition' whether this article is good or evil.
Comments 3 Comments
It's easiest when looked at in simplest form.
Yes - Africans played a role in the slave trade and as time, technology and research affords, we're able to gauge just how significant that involvement was.
No - I feel no need to justify and/or minimize this fact. Slavery's history is ugly and shared, that is not to be disputed.
However, my 4th Grandfather, James WINGFIELD was lynched in Wilkes County, GA in 1885, robbing his pregnant wife Catie, and their small children of its primary provider. The crops he'd worked for 30 years as a slave for Susan WINGFIELD yielded a bounty that neither he or his descendants benefited from.
His labor and loss, and that of my other Georgia and Alabama Ancestors, was endured here -- on American soil.
The lives that were taken, the land that was stolen, the deeds destroyed -- all happened right here.
I think of the black families who were run off their property in Forsyth County, Georgia. Are their descendants entitled to nothing?
I think of the Ancestors who were illiterate (by no fault of their own) who sometimes signed their lives away with an "X" -- is there no entitlement for their descendants?
The U.S. Chattel System robbed our families in EVERY possible way -- well beyond Slavery -- and there is accountability that should be answered to.
The issue of African involvement, for me, is a separate one altogether that should not be rolled-up into this one.
While I don't define trying to find a tangible means of addressing reparations as a "blame game", I'd be curious to see analyzed what role European (and others) hunger for and exploitation of Africa's resources played in setting the stage for this historical tragedy.
If we are going to paint the picture -- it should be complete in its rendering.
Luckie.
What happened to our Ancestors on American soil was no less than horrific.
To suggest that our current president is the one to lead us in some sort of mediation on reparations - just because he is bi-racial - is unforgivable. There are many Blacks & Whites that can handle that role.
Gates fails to highlight the subsequent colonial period in Africa post-transatlantic slave trade. Although it seems obvious that there were Africans themselves that participated in the slave trade (how could there not be?) slavery did not operate as a societal institution such as it did in the United States and other parts of the Americas, where pervasive racist discourses made a particularly brutal kind of labor exploitation able to gain traction among large segments of the population.
Also, he says that the “Asante Empire in Ghana exported slaves and used the profits to import gold.” This statement is categorically FALSE. The very region of modern Ghana where the Asante Empire existed is rich in gold resources to this day – I have been to the gold mines. Why would the Asante import what they possess in abundance? Answer: they would not and did not.
While I do not condemn Gates seeking to discuss slavery in a more informed, more nuanced, and more holistic way, his deciding to link the discussion to the issues of reparations (with an implicit undercurrent that certain African states should pay some of those reparations to African-Americans) seems rather counterproductive. What he fails to realize is the exportation of human cargo from the Continent had a negative effect on the societies left behind (and their descendants) as well as on the descendants of those transported. The European colonial powers that participated in the trade suffered few tangible human losses in their engagement in the slave trade. Insofar as modern day Africans are responsible for the actions of their ancestors, so too then are African-Americans all of whose ancestors were both victims and perpetrators of the slave trade.
For Gates to selectively choose which Africans to associate African-Americans with (i.e. those Africans sold into slavery), he fails to consider that some of those sold left suffering families behind and that some of those captured very well may have been part of the slave trade themselves before their seizure.