Reparations, Leveling the Playing Field

The idea of reparations to blacks whose ancestors were slaves is once again in the air.  This month, for the first time ever, and after having been introduced in every Congress since 1989, HR 40 cleared the committee and headed towards the House floor for consideration.  HR 40 is titled “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act”.  Its purpose is to do just as the title suggested – set up a commission to study reparations proposals for African Americans. 

“This bill establishes the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. The commission shall examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.

The commission shall identify (1) the role of the federal and state governments in supporting the institution of slavery, (2) forms of discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed slaves and their descendants, and (3) lingering negative effects of slavery on living African Americans and society.”

Note, it does not set up reparations but, instead, looks at this many stranded Gordian knot and recommend possible solutions.  But, although not action yet, this is a significant step forwards on this issue, and on the issue of actually achieving racial justice and equity.  

A note here on my opinion on this topic – I am strongly sympathetic to this idea. Whether I support it or not though will depend on the details. But I strongly support this commission. 

Predictably, there is a great deal of resistance to the whole idea of reparations.  Especially from conservatives (but not all).  There are several arguments used against it.  Although as I type these words, I realize that there are not several arguments, but only two. 

The first is that they did not own slaves and no blacks living today were slaves.  It is done and over with, and this is nothing more than creating victims (blacks) when none exist. This goes nicely hand in hand with the denial of systemic racism, and the belief that the present is virgin and has no parentage, a Venus arising from the foam of the present only.

The second, and is the one I will focus on in this blog, is illustrated by the above meme. Whites freed the slaves and should be lauded for doing so.  Their actions and deaths cleanses whites of any responsibility for all the further trials and tribulations experienced by blacks in America.  I just came across this a couple of days ago and was appalled at the remarkable ignorance, an ignorance tainted with a whiff of white saviorhood, of those who argue this.

However, more importantly for me in this blog, is that it highlights a communication failure on the part of us who think HR 40 a good idea and reparations an idea well worth considering.  The communications failure lies in allowing people to think that this is solely about slavery.  While slavery is the start of this issue, it is not the end of it. 

Consider the wording in HR 40:

“The commission shall examine slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States from 1619 to the present …”

“…identify (1) the role of the federal and state governments in supporting the institution of slavery, (2) forms of discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed slaves and their descendants, and (3) lingering negative effects of slavery on living African Americans and society.”

This goes beyond just whether someone had an ancestor who was a slave.  It involves looking at how blacks were treated throughout our history, even after they were freed. 

In my original response to this meme I asked the poster the following questions: 

Did the descendants of those whites who died “freeing the slaves” on average own more property and have more money the the blacks they freed?

Were they able to more freely vote than blacks?

Were they better able to obtain better loans for business and homes than blacks?

Were their schools better and could they more easily obtain a good education than blacks?

Could they buy lands and homes in good areas, areas that did not allow blacks?

Were their water fountains and bathrooms better than blacks?

Were they lynched, beaten, and burned as often as blacks?

As a result of all of the above, and more, were they able to then accumulate and then pass on to their descendants more money and land than blacks could?

And the list goes on. This is not just about whether a particular black person is the descendant of slaves or not.  It is about a massive injustice committed against people based on the color of their skin. One that continued well past slavery and from which we still suffer from despite the passage of the Civil and Voting rights laws in the 60s.    

Consider this – how would the status of blacks today have been different if each slave had been given land of his own and some money to start his new freed life instead of just their clothes and a few possessions?  

What if after being freed the laws that were rapidly created to limit the jobs they could take, where they could live, how they could live, were struck down and their rights had been protected from those who would do them harm?  Instead, governments ignored and even supported the efforts of those who sought to limit black voting, black economic success, black movements, black freedoms.  This included most of those descendants of the men who “died to free slaves”. 

What if instead of seeking to push them back into a state as close to slavery as was possible after the passage of the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments, we had, as we should have, and as we actually had started to do after the Civil War, protected these new rights and given blacks a chance to actually live as freely as whites?  Imagine then what the economic, political, educations status of the blacks would have been today.

That is what is being looked at, and that is what the reparations would be about. An attempt to not only make amends for injustices committed during the time of slavery but for over a hundred years afterwards.  Injustices that gave birth to the current economic, educational, and judicial disparities blacks are experiencing today. Injustices that cannot be repaired until we not only acknowledge their source and parentage, but also make attempts to fix it.  Reparations are one such idea that is well worth consideration. 

As conservative columnist Gary Abernathy recognized in his column:

“It is a tenet of conservatism that a level playing field is all we should guarantee. But that’s meaningless if one team starts with an unsurmountable lead before play even begins.”  

While liberals may disagree with Mr. Abernathy on how much that level playing field encompasses, they do fully agree that a level playing field is necessary And that is what we lack in America.

Read Full Post »

The Longest War of the United States

Since the United States was created in 1776 it has been at war. I am not referring to the many short wars that have punctuated its existence: the war of 1812, the Civil War, WW 1 & 2, Vietnam, and all the other named wars. Instead, the war I am referring to has been one long continuous war, one whose existence was foreshadowed by the ideals that created the Revolutionary War and were then given form in the Declaration of Independence. This foreshadowed war flamed into existence by the creation, ratification, and implementation of our flawed Constitution.

The ideals? Ones that most people already know, at least by word.

• All men are created equal.
• All men have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• That the power of government derive their powers from the consent of the governed.

The ideals expressed within our Declaration were given flesh and substance by our Constitution.  As is usual when ideals are translated into reality, a great deal was lost in translation.  Not all men were treated equal, even under the law. In fact, inequality of the most brutal kind was actually protected by the Constitution.  And, despite Abigail Adam’s words to her husband to not forget the women, women were forgotten.

The war I am referring to is the one to close the gap between the ideals and the reality of our Constitution, our government, and our society.  The two sides are those who believe that the gap between ideal and reality should be closed, and those who are fighting for the status quo, for the way things are, for a world of gaps. It is one that we are still very much engaged in and, indeed, are in the middle of a reversal, something I will discuss more later on in this blog.

Like all wars, there have been successful battles and lost ones, advances followed by reversals.  It seems that human society acts much like Newton’s universe, for every action an equal and opposite reaction.

In regards to slavery, some of the advances include the founding of the world’s first abolition society in Pennsylvania in 1775,  the Gradual Emancipation Act passed in Pennsylvania in 1780,  the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the creation in Philadelphia of the first independent black organization/mutual aid society, the joining of several state and regional antislavery societies into a national organization in 1794, the first independent black churches in 1794, the passage of the federal Slave Trade Act of 1794, several attempts by both blacks and whites to organize a slave insurrection, Congress outlawing participation in the African Slave Trade in 1808, the creation of the Underground Railroad, and much more.

But, there were reversals and defeats too, starting with the creation of the Constitution which allowed the institution of slavery to continue and flourish, enshrining the idea that not all men are equal.  Other reversals include such things as the 1793 passage of the fugitive slave law, the passage in several slave states of laws that made organizations and speech promoting abolition illegal and punishable by expulsion or prison, anti-black and anti-abolitionist violence against blacks and abolitionists in free states such as Pennsylvania,  the taking away the right to vote from blacks in the revised Pennsylvania state Constitution in 1838, the Compromise of 1850, the repeal in 1852 of the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott decision, and others.

As most know, this battle on this front resulted in the Civil War and ended in bloody victory with the passage of the 13^th Amendment abolishing slavery, the passage of the first Civil Rights Act in 1876, the passage of the 14^th amendment granting blacks citizenship and the passage of the 15^th amendment granting black men the right to vote,

The problem with all such victories is that they are never complete and become the impetus of an opposite and, at times, equal reactions.  In this case, the reactions were the creation of the KKK, the numerous Jim Crow laws, the lack of protections for blacks across the country as well as the lack of help for those who were freed from slavery with no possessions, no money, and limited opportunities, the separate but equal ruling and much more.  This front of the war continued on, with the side of regression holding the upper hand for the most part, through both laws and terror, for almost 100 years. And, although great strides were taken with the Civil Rights movement of the 50s, 60s and 70s and the Civil Rights laws passed then, victory has still not been achieved.  The nature of the battle and the front has changed, but the battle to view and treat blacks equally as whites is still on-going.  In fact, it is an ironic truth that the very success of the Civil Rights movement has led to a new tactic by those against full equality – the belief that victory has been achieved and nothing further need be done.

This war though has several fronts, two old and one new.  The other older front is the battle for women’s rights. As with the battle for racial justice and equality, it too had its victories and defeats, its advances and retreats. In fact,  in the beginning there was a tight alliance between those organizations promoting the rights of women to vote and the anti-abolition movement, with women and men often active in both.  Both Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were two such individuals.  However, the split between the two occurred early, when in 1840 the American Anti-Slavery Society split over the issue of public involvement of women, with one group against having women involved and saying they should have no formal role.  And, after passage of the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments, the abolitionist societies disbanded and their members no longer actively supported the women’s suffrage movement.   The women were on their own.

Many today do not realize how hard fought that battle was. It officially started in 1848 with the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention.  For the next 100 years these women tried to educate the public of the need for women to have the vote. Petitions were created and given and Congress was lobbied for the passage of a Constitutional Amendment; most of which were largely ignored. After all, why should these male politicians pay attention?  Women couldn’t vote, and their place was in the bedroom creating a baby, and in the kitchen feeding the children and her husband.  Some women tried to vote, or even run for office, in the hopes of forcing a Supreme Court ruling. They successfully forced a Supreme Court ruling in 1872. However, the court ruled against them.

Around the turn of the 20^th century, more active measures were taken – mass protest and demonstrations, with a great many women being arrested and jailed.  And, when those women then went on hunger strikes, they were force fed.  Eventually, they succeeded in getting the vote with the passage of the 19^th amendment in 1920.  However, just as gaining the right to vote was not the end of the war for blacks, so too gaining the right to vote did not end the war for women.  Having the vote was not the same as being equal, and just as with blacks, women were still considered inferior.

Laws and standards and mores existed which served to enforce women’s inferior status.  They could not go into certain jobs and what jobs they could get paid less than men’s.  Even doing the same work, women were paid less than men. Women were considered the ward of their husband or other male relative and usually could not enter into financial agreements by themselves.  Husbands were allowed and often expected to beat their wives if they got out of hand (think of the many movies in the 1950s and 1960s in which the women were spanked with the message she deserved it, or the commercials of that same time).   College was a rarity and taking science and engineering and other such masculine courses discouraged.  Women, like blacks, learned that being able to vote did not make them equals in the eyes of government or whites or men. Further, sexual harassment as well as rape was usually considered the fault of the woman.  And thus was created the Feminist movement.

Recently, there has been a third front on the war to live up to the ideals of our founding.  This one is attacking the restriction of the rights of those who do not follow the norms established for heterosexual desire, identity, and attraction, the LGBTQ.  Although the conflict and laws and debates have been around for millennia, in the US the push for equal rights for the LGBTQ could be said  to have started in 1924 with the founding of the Society for Human Rights, the first gay rights organization.  In 1950 another gay rights group, the Mattachine Society was formed.   In 1955 the first lesbian rights organization in the US was formed, the Daughters of Bilitis.

Laws against homosexuality have existed since its founding in the US. However, as gays started speaking out more and worked to gain societal acceptance new laws and actions were taken in reaction.  In 1952 the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual listed homosexuality as a “sociopathic personality disturbance”.  In 1953 President Eisenhower signed an executive order banning homosexuals from working in the federal government. However, in 1969 the one event that most people have heard of in regards to gay rights, the police raid of Stonewall Inn in New York City  launched the gay civil rights movement in the US.

After years of strife – Matthew Shephard, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, California’s Proposition 8 – a series of important victories in this war occurred. In 2003 the Supreme Court struck down homosexual conduct law, in 2004 the first legal same sex marriage in the US took place in Massachusetts, in 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that legally married same sex couples are entitled to federal benefits, and in 2015 the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot ban same  sex marriage.

However, as with women and blacks, this was not the same as being considered and treated equally.  In fact, this was still in the process of being worked out amid much opposition before being derailed in 2016.  And the work to just protect the lives of transsexuals, never mind protect their rights, was just beginning before 2016.

The year 2016, the year that the forces of the status quo, of inequality, of regression struck back. And did so supporting a most unlikely champion – a man of limited intellect and ability, rich and spoiled, abrasive and abusive.  A man of towering inflated ego. trump.  At first glance trump seems an unlikely champion for a group that wants a return to “traditional values”, since he has never exhibited any such thing in his personal life, nor has he demonstrated any commitment to a belief outside of pure self-interest.  However, he knows how to condemn and demean, to attack and push and tear down.  He knows how to harness the emotions of anger and fear. He knows how to destroy.  The fact that trump has no idea how to build matters not, because those supporting him do not want something built, they want something destroyed.

From eight years of a black president, of significant gains in regards to LGBTQ rights, continuing gains in regards to minorities and women, we are now going backwards.

I started this by stating that this war has been about making this country meet the ideals of its founding. However, I freely admit that many, probably most, and possibly all, of the founders and creators of the Constitution and the US would be horrified at where this push to live up to the ideals they espoused has led. Many would be against women voting, against blacks being equal, and feel disgust at the thoughts of LGBTQ equality.  However, they are the product of their times, no matter how great and visionary.  And they were visionary, visionary beyond their ability to accept. Although I do think some might have accepted all of this, whether they would have or not though doesn’t really matter.  The ideal of equality for all humans has an existence separate from them.  One that it is up to us to continue to form and create.

After such a long war, and after having made such significant gains, it is no wonder many of us are fatigued and stressed, seeing hard won victories for our fellow citizens and humanity in general being torn down and destroyed; seeing the pain and the suffering engendered by this reversal.   However, I agree with Martin Luther King Jr. that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

I agree because of what I see in history, both of the world and of the United States. Even with the reverses since 2016, we are still further towards the realization of our nation’s ideals than we were during its founding, than at the dawning of the 20^th century, and even than during the turn of the 21^st century.  I also realize from history that progress is most often three steps forward and two steps back, each step labored and often bloody.  Although frustrating and depressing at times, there is some comfort to have that we are doing better than the universe with our reaction being slightly less.

A final thing I know. Just because I see this in our history does not mean that there is some mechanism that will ensure this journey will continue onward, that we will not fall back and back and back and not move forward again.  Whether it does or not depends on us, on our individual actions.  I know that many are tired, I know that I am tired of what I see going on, that there are times I have to take some time to turn away from what is happening or else despair. For so many to support this man, and these actions….  I had thought us at least slightly better than this.

At the same time, I know that I also have to come back and move forward to change things, to help us take those three steps forwards before the next two steps back are upon us. All  in all, a good New Year’s resolution.

Read Full Post »

The Myth of the Irish Slave and Racism

Many people, too many, deny that slavery and the history of discrimination and Jim Crow since slavery have an impact on the current challenges facing blacks.

Let me rephrase that, most white people deny that slavery and the history of discrimination and Jim Crow afterwards are an important part of the challenges facing blacks today.  Most blacks, though, are very well aware of this.

In this blog I am not going to go into the hows and whys of this.  Instead, I am going to focus on one of the “facts” used by those who deny this reality to defend their denial of reality.  It is just one of several arguments used to show that slavery was not nearly as bad and as impactful as is being made out.  The argument is that the Irish were slaves too, and treated horribly in the US and faced discrimination, yet look at those Irish now!  These good old white boys rose above their troubles.  Their slave past does not impact them today. So should the blacks rise above their troubles, and their slave past does not impact them today.  Although not usually expressed so baldly, that is, in essence, the argument.  Which, of course, says something about those making it.

This myth starts something like this, from  “Irish: The Forgotten White Slaves” by Ronald Dwyer.

They came as slaves: human cargo transported on British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children.

Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. Some were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.

……

King James VI and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor.

The Irish slave trade began when James VI sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies.

By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

…….

They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.

As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.

African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (£50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than £5 Sterling). If a planter whipped, branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive Africans.

The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce.

Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish mothers, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their children and would remain in servitude.

In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls (many as young as 12) with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves.

 

Wowza. That’s quite a story.  And those white guys came bouncing back after all of this.  So, what are you whining about blacks? it is obvious that slavery then has no effect on how things are today.  Look at the Irish.

The picture on the left is actually that of breaker boys working for a Pennsylvania coal company in 1911.  The picture on the right is of a black man being beaten in the 1920s.

However, while this makes a nice story, it is more story than fact.  What is more, even if every word of this were true, it still overlooks a great many important differences.  So, to start, let me just go over those differences first before discussing what this narrative gets wrong.

First, blacks were slaves for a much longer period of time than the Irish were indentured servants.

Second, after they became free, blacks still faced severe persecution and discrimination – from voting to where they could live, to how they lived, to their education.  Irish, some, for a short period of time. But, when you look at the extent of it, and the time, not so much.  Even the most blatant forms of legal discrimination against blacks continued up until the 1960s and 70s.  The Irish, not even close.

Third, it is fairly easy to tell who is black, even after four or five generations.  The Irish, well, not really.  So, if you can’t identify the Irish from the rest of the white folks, how are you going to discriminate against them?  Blacks, well, that is relatively easy.

Now, let me deal with the article itself. First, here is the historical basis from which Dwyer then uses to pervert history.

Those fleeing Ireland due to extreme poverty did come over in great numbers and did so as indentured servants.  Something many poverty stricken Europeans did.  In fact, half of those immigrating to the colonies from Europe were indentured servants, not just the Irish.  This indentured servitude of many of the Irish in America is the truth at the base of the lies.

Now, I love the neat little verbal trick Dwyer did by mentioning indentured servitude and then implying and dismissing it as nothing more than an excuse for a horrible reality.  However, he does not deny that it is true.  Instead, Dwyer he just says that they were treated like human cattle.  Which is both true and not true.  They were treated horribly, most indentured servants were.  However, they were not treated totally like cattle.  The people who were, were black.

Let me go over some of the differences between indentured servitude and chattel slavery, which is what the blacks experienced.  Chattel slavery is when a person is a slave is a slave forever, as are their children, their children’s children and so on forever and ever, amen.  It is an inherited condition, inherited along with that person’s skin color. Chattel slaves have the status of property, not people.  In fact, when lists of property were done up, those lists included slaves along with cattle, chairs, and so forth.  Slaves have no rights, not even the right to life.

Indentured servitude occurs when a person signs a contract to provide work to a person or company for a certain set period of time. During that time they were in a condition very similar to slavery, but one that had limits and in which they still had some rights.  Also, the servitude only applied to them, and not to their children.  Servitude was not inherited. After their period of service was done, they were free, and were often given plots of land too.  Although, during the time of their servitude, they could own no property and were not paid, afterwards they were free but impoverished.

This is a nice article about indentured servitude in the colony of Virginia to provide a bit more information about the history and use of indentured servitude in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

Let me also note that at the time the indentured servants were sometimes referred to as slaves. However, not all forms of slavery are alike. That of the indentured servant was of limited duration, not inheritable, and did not reduce them totally to the status of property.

As for the specific differences between indentured servitude and chattel slavery;

First, the great majority of indentured servants entered into their contracts voluntarily.  Some were forced into their servitude as punishment for crimes, but those were very much the exception and not the rule.   Blacks had no such contracts. They were all forcibly taken.

Second, the contracts the Irish signed usually lasted from two to seven years.  In other words, there was a limit to their servitude.  It also did not apply to their children.  Blacks were slaves forever, as were their children.

Third, indentured servants had the legal status of human being.  Blacks did not.  They were considered to be nothing more than property, on a par with cattle. Blacks had no rights and could be killed without consequences.  The Irish indentured servants had legal rights, and could even take their masters to the courts if mistreated.  Not so the blacks.

Now, let me state that indentured servants were mistreated. They could not move or live anywhere without their master’s permission. They could not marry without their master’s permission. And the work they did was often long, hard and, occasionally, dangerous, and one often carried out by slaves too.  Here is an interesting thought to think upon. Dwyer said that the Irish indentured servants were cheaper than blacks and so were used more often.  And yet, despite this claimed fact, indentured servitude died out.  Chattel slavery based on skin color did not. Hmmm.

Moving on to the factual errors in this narrative, they abound.  There are more factual errors, in fact, than factual accuracies.

Dwyer states that the Irish slave trade began when King James VI sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to America, and that his Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners to be sent overseas and sold to the English in the West Indies.

• There is no Proclamation of 1625. There is a Proclamation by James I in 1603 that problem people were to be deported beyond the seas. But, it does not specify just the Irish and applies to all people.  This proclamation, though, was used during the English Civil Wars to deport thousands of Irish men, women, and children to America.

The numbers Dwyer provides do not add up.  In the above, he states that King James VI sold 30,000 Irish prisoners.  He also states that between 1641 to 1652 the English sold 300,000 Irish people as slaves.

• During the whole 100 years of the 17^th century number of Irish immigrants to the West Indies is estimated to be around 50,000 people. The number of Irish immigrants to both North American and the West Indies between 1630 and 1775 is estimated at 165,000.  There is no basis at all for the 300,000 number over just a ten year period.  Even during Cromwell’s time, forced deportations from Ireland to the West Indies are estimated to be between 10,000 – 12,000 people.  Dwyer’s numbers are a mystery, and are very much off from the reality.

Dwyer claims that there were more Irish slaves than blacks were sold than blacks during the 17^th century.

• This one is, as you should be expecting by now, wildly wrong. During this time there were an estimated 10 to 12 thousand Irish indentured servants. According to the Slave Voyages Database, there were over 1.8 million – repeat, million – blacks sold as slaves by European during the same time period.

Dwyer claims that a 1637 census showed the 69% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

• If you look at the actual census you will find that 69% of Montserrat’s population were indeed Irish. Or rather, 69 % of the white population.  And of that Irish population, the vast majority were not indentured servants.  What, you thought the only Irish in American were indentured?  Nope, many had the resources to immigrate to American without having to indenture themselves.

I am not going to bother going through each and every claim.  That would fill several blogs, as Dwyer’s article, and the claims of those who believe in the Irish Slave myth, contains more errors and lies than truth.  Suffice it to say most of these claims are either made up of whole cloth, or have ignored certain facts – such as the one about Montserrat’s population.   In other words, this claim is bogus and is done to deny the real effects that slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination have on our society and government today, and to also protect the feelings of those whites who feel threatened by this reality.

Final Thoughts on the Forms of Racism

Racist is a descriptor that most do not believe applies to them, even those who are actually racist.  One of the many ways in which those who are racist can honestly believe they are not is due to the many meanings racist can assume.  Some racists are out and out white supremacists who believe all other races are inferior, advocate for limitations on blacks, and often will not associate with blacks. Most Americans are not that type of racist.

However, other types of racists exist; more subtle (in comparison with the KKK and the Aryan Nation) and better able to blend in and disguise themselves as being enlightened.  Yet still damaging to people and society. One such variety has black friends, Jewish friends, Hispanic friends, and strongly believes all people should be treated equally regardless of race.  Which sounds fine, until they go on and say that racism is not a real problem today and then deny its many real world effects.

To better be able to deny the on-going problem with racism we have in the United States, these people often try to downplay the effects of slavery, to minimize its impact on today – they do this too because they feel that they are being personally attacked when racism and slavery are brought up.   This Irish slave myth one such way such people protect their views, and avoid considering the possibility that they actually may be racist.

I once had a discussion with such a person who put the problems that blacks have that I attributed in large part to our racist past and slavery to being a problem with black culture.  When I pressed this person on how did black culture become this destructive, as he saw it, to blacks?  I asked what forces shaped it, what forces maintain it?  I received no answer.  To him, it was all about personal responsibility and had nothing to do with society, government, and history.  And, I would assume, since on average whites do better than blacks, blacks just aren’t very good at assuming responsibility for their actions; whites are better about manning up and moving up.

Yeah. Right.

 

 

Read Full Post »

On the Necessity of Evil Compromises

So often I hear people say to stand firm on your principles.  As I have gotten older and thought about this, and had my thinking influenced by several conversations with several people and by watching current events and reading of past events, I have come to the belief that principles are not for standing upon.  They are for pointing a direction.

Too often when a person takes a firm stand on principle they wind up building a wall instead. And the problem with walls is that they actually can keep you from going anywhere, especially forward. They fence you in.

 

In fact, I think most of the times, the great majority of the times, that standing firmly on your principles can be the worst thing that can be done; that there are instead many times when a compromise, even an evil one, can be the right thing to do.

 

For a grand example of this, let me use something from the history of the United States, the creation of our Constitution.  The compromise was called the three – fifths compromise. This compromise  not only allowed slavery to continue to exist, but gave the southern slave states more power in the House and in Presidential elections.

 

The three –fifths compromise came about due to a heated disagreement on who to count for the census. This was important because the population of a state determined how many representatives it would have, and also how many electors a state has for presidential elections.   The Southern States wanted to count their slaves as part of the census.  Those opposed to slavery, and the northern states, did not want to count the slaves as they felt that would make the slave states too powerful (and I note the irony here that those against slavery wanted to have slaves not even count as being a person).  The compromise that was agreed to was that slaves would count as three-fifths of a free citizen.  Which still gave the southern slave states a great deal of power within the federal government.  Because of this the southern slave states were dominant for most of the pre-Civil War United State.   Something that can be seen in the fact that ten of the first 16 Presidents (all the Presidents before Lincoln) were from Southern States.

 

Now consider the principle of “All men are created equal”. No one at our Constitutional Convention stood up firmly for that principle. In fact, they gave way and made what I would characterize as an evil compromise (I will note that those opposed to slavery argued for slaves not being counted for the census in order to reduce the power of the Southern states).  They agreed to continue the belief and practice of treating some people as nothing more than property and, even worse, gave those with the greatest interest in promoting this belief and practice the means to continue it.

 

 

Why did those who opposed slavery agree to this compromise?  They did so because they hoped that a United States would one day be able to resolve the issue of slavery, and end it.  In other words, they hoped that more good would result from a United States than from there not being one. Because without this compromise the United States would not have existed.

 

 

And I would say that history proved them right in making this compromise, in not standing firmly on principle.  Why?  Because if they had not, if they had not made this evil compromise, I do not think slavery would have been abolished in North America until the 20^th century at best. And once abolished those states that did abolish it in the 20^th century instead of the middle 19^th would still be going through their version of Jim Crow or worse.

 

Before going further let me acknowledge the complexities and difficulties in predicting what might have been. Let me also say that I am giving a very simplified version of what could have happened in order to try to keep this blog as close to 1000 words as possible.  Just to give some of those complexities, the United States could have broken down into three, four or more separate countries each going their own way and pursuing their own interests, with all the resulting conflicts, alliances, rivalries and wars attached to doing so. Some may have even become part of the British Empire again.  That’s not even considering the effect of several individual countries trying to expand westward.

 

But, in order to keep this short, I am not going to try to cover all of those aspects. Instead, I want to focus on just one simple part of this that illustrates what I am saying  about principle and compromise.

 

Consider this: if the United States had not formed there would have been at least two separate countries formed – the Northern States that would have abolished slavery and the Southern States that had already made slavery an integral part of their society and economy.

 

Consider also that the Northern States and President Lincoln did not go to war with the Southern States to abolish slavery, but to preserve the Union.  If there were no union to preserve, there would have been no war.  There would have been no war that resulted in abolishing slavery in North America in the 1860s.

 

 

There are two reasons to make evil compromises.  One is because all the other options are even more evil.  The other is that that compromise has the potential to lead to a good, a potential that the other options do not have.   In this example, I think most of the founders who were strongly against slavery – such as Alexander Hamilton – made this compromise not only because they believed that a United States with slavery was better than numerous countries in conflict, many of which would also have slavery as an institution, but because they believed that a United States would be better poised to eventually eliminate slavery – although they did not know how.

 

So, they made their evil compromise instead of firmly standing on principles. And then they hoped, they prayed, and they worked to make that hope come true.  Something that would not have been as possible, or as quickly possible, had they stood firmly on principle.

Read Full Post »

Of Ferguson and Charleston, Of Confederate Flags and N—–…and Conservatives. Or Kum Ba Yah Bullshit.

Soon after the vicious and brutal murder of nine blacks at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church by Dylann Roof I started to hear conservative commentators commenting on how different the reaction of the Charleston community to this killing of blacks by a white than that of Ferguson; about how the Charleston community, both black and white, pulled together in unity while that of Ferguson erupted in violence.

The clear inference (one often made explicit by some conservative commentators) was that there really is no underlying race problem in America and that those who say that there is are race baiters intent upon stirring up racial conflict and hatred for their own personal and/or political benefit. The reality, according to these commentators, is that our society and its institutions are largely free of racial bias. That, contrary to the stated experiences of many millions of blacks, that our police departments are enforcing laws and reacting to citizens without regards to their color, that our justice system dispenses justice to black and whites alike largely without regards to color, that our educational system treats all students alike regardless of color, and that job opportunities for black and white are such that skin color plays no role the vast majority of times. In other words, that our society has achieved racial equality.

I call this Kum Ba Yah bullshit.

The danger of conservative’s kum ba yah bullshit is that It puts the responsibility for all change firmly on the backs of blacks. They are responsible for creating better families, for better educating their children, for better following the law and the police, for doing better on finding jobs. They are responsible for their culture and it is the black culture that is the problem. Blacks, according to this “logic” just need to work and try harder. No need for whites to change anything.

Now, in a discussion on this with a conservative a few weeks ago, he used a baseball analogy to try to bring home his point. He said that my position was akin to defeatism, that if we tell blacks that they cannot do it, that their problems are the result of institutional racism and unconscious biases and prejudices instead of them, then we are like the coach of a team telling his team that they are losers. And that by so doing that team, and blacks, do lose.

I applauded his analogy. And I agree, blacks do need to work hard at changing things, at trying to achieve goals and change their culture. However, I pointed out that a better analogy would be that of two teams playing a game of baseball. One team has the standard three outs in order to get hits. The other team though only has two outs before they are retired. No matter how good the coaching, no matter how much that team works at it, no matter how motivated they are, they are going to lose most of the time. Not because of talent or ability, not because of motivation and persistence, but because the rules of the game are rigged against them. And until those rules are changed to be fair and just no matter who is playing the game then members of that team are, justifiably, going to feel anger, are going to feel frustrated. So much so that they may take out their anger on the other team or on the umpires of the game. Or even those of the spectators watching the game.

Yes, the black community needs to continue to work hard to improve their culture and lot, but at the same time they are operating under a handicap even more severe than that of a baseball team playing with only two outs in hand. They are operating within a society that still has institutional racism as part of its fabric and in which largely unconscious biases and prejudices still hold sway in determining the actions of those in power. What makes it worse, so many do not even acknowledge that such problems exist and deny them totally.

Black culture. That is the favorite response of the conservative when asked what is at the root of the disparities in education, economic status, and justice between whites and blacks. And to an extent they are right. However, they never ask the more important question of how black culture was formed and what maintains it today. Instead, they seem to see black culture as something of a virgin birth or as something coming fully formed from the foam.

Conservatives ignore the fact that black culture was formed from the brutality that was slavery, modified by them chains of Jim Crow laws and lynchings, formed by government policies and industry actions, and reinforced by the media.

Black culture was formed by the broken families of the slave era, by the repression of the Jim Crow laws and actions of the KKK and others. It was formed by practices such as redlining which from 1934 – 1962 kept blacks form getting any of the 120 billion dollars handed out by the government for home loans which thus forced segregation by forcing blacks into living in ghettos. This has the ripple effect in that blacks, unlike the whites who received these loans, did not have property they could pass own to their children and use as a basis for creating wealth for themselves and their family.

Or consider the effect this had on education. Schools are funded by property taxes. Since the vast majority of blacks could not afford to live in good homes and could not get the loans to attain good homes, they did not have the tax base to create good schools. Combine this with the segregation effects and you have the basis for the educational disparities we see today. All of which then lead to less opportunities for getting better jobs.

And that is just one example of what is called institutional racism. Another is how blacks are portrayed in the media – tv, radio, newspapers, magazines. White skin and standards are held up as beautiful, blacks are not. Blacks are shown as criminals much more often than they are in real life, and whites much less than they are in real life.

Such practices as these and more effect all areas of society – medicine, justice, and family. They are what helped form black culture. And without efforts on the parts of whites to acknowledge this and change it, then blacks can only go go far, can only do so much. Individuals can overcome it – after all there are great people of all races, but most people of all races are average, and it is those people who are going to continue to suffer the most from this unresolved racism.
And then there is the very real effects of unconscious bias within our society. It affects whose resume will result in a call for an interview and whose will not, it affects how police and judges and jury react and dispense justice., it effects teachers and educators expectations.

The only way true racial justice and equality is going to be achieved is if all or most whites will recognize this problem. Many already do. However, this is a blind spot of most conservatives. They refuse to see this and thus make huge mistakes in judgements and in recommendations on what needs to be done. Mistakes that not only do nothing to solve the problems, but often actually make the problem worse.

For example, comparing Ferguson with Charleston. Yes, in both cases a white person killed a black person or people. However, that is as far as the comparison goes. In Ferguson, a white police officer and member of a police force that was found to be engaged in racist practices, shot and killed an unarmed black man. In Charleston nine blacks were killed by a lone racist gunman who belonged to no government organization or private one apparently. That lack of government affiliation makes a huge difference. Ferguson experienced riots not because a white had killed a black person, but because a white representative of a government agency which had been engaged in racist practices killed an unarmed black person. Charleston did not erupt into violent protests because the gunman was working on his own and did not represent a government with power over the black community.

A clear and easily seen difference. And yet, one that so many conservatives seem to be blind to.

Just as they seem to be blind to the problems inherent in the government flying the Confederate battle flag. Conservatives insist on defending this as just an exhibition of pride in their heritage. Pride in a heritage that included the attempted dissolution of the United States in order to protect their right to treat people as property, of no more worth than a hog or a cabinet. Yes, many like to phrase this in terms of state’s rights, but it was the state’s right to allow whites to own blacks to do with as they wish. It was a state right to refuse freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly to those who advocated for abolition; to confiscate abolitionist literature and burn it, to break the presses of those publications advocating for the abolition of slavery, it was the fining, imprisonment, flogging, and tar and feathering of those who advocated for treating blacks as free people.

Those are the heritage that conservatives want to remember and honor? Yes, many brave and good men fought and died for the south. But so too did good and brave men die fighting for Nazi Germany. I wonder, if the conservatives would make the same argument for those who would honor the Nazi flag.

And finally, one last area of racial blindness conservatives seem to suffer from. Today, a podcast came out, an interview with President Obama by Marc Maron in which President Obama used the word “nigger”. Conservatives are jumping all over President Obama’s use of this word. However, just as in their comparison of Ferguson with Charleston, and defense of the Confederate flag, their blindness to context and meaning is apparent. Here is the full quote:

“The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. We’re not cured of it. And it’s not just a matter of it not being polite to say ‘nigger’ in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It’s not just a matter of overt discrimination… Societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.”

And this actually does a good job of summing up the problem with most conservatives. They believe that since we have made the use of nigger in public a thing to be ashamed of, since we have gotten rid of most of the overt discrimination that discrimination does not exist at all. And that is foolish of them. As President Obama said, “societies don’t, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior”. In fact, I would amend that statement to say even as recently as the 1960s and 1970s this overt racism was still prevalent. And that past still lingers and impacts us today.

And this is something most conservatives do not see. They point to the very real gains that have been made in civil rights since the 1960s and declare victory. However, it is not. That was only the start of the victory. It is as if General Eisenhower had declared victory the day after the D Day invasion of Normandy and stopped all further actions since victory had been achieved. Blindness.

The greater struggle is with us now, the struggle to deal with those aspects of racism that are not so easily seen by those not on the receiving end of it. Change the institutional racism that still exists and make clear the hidden biases and prejudices that effect our decisions and then victory will be achieved. . And the first step that is needed to deal with this is to acknowledge that it exists.

Read Full Post »

Inerrant Scripture Changing

So many people believe that religion cannot change – most especially the sacred scripture of their religion. To use Christianity as an example, the words of the Bible do not change and therefor our understanding of it is timeless – all that needs to be done is to read its words plain and simply. That is what I see repeatedly from both conservative literalists Christians and from many atheists. I find it amazing that such a wrong idea can be so strongly promoted by those at the opposite ends of belief. I imagine that this is probably the only area of agreement that literalists Christians and many atheists have. And it is ironic that it is so very wrong.

I wrote a paper for one of my graduate classes a couple of years ago that illustrate very nicely some of the reasons why it is wrong. It doesn’t hit at all the reasons, but gives an idea about how religious believers understanding of their sacred scripture can and does change over time. Although this paper focuses exclusively upon slavery and the Bible in the pre-civil war United States, the idea behind it applies to any and all scriptures – such as the Qur’an for example – and even such documents as the United States Constitution.

The Bible Wars: It’s Use For and Against Slavery

Slavery still exists today, not only in other countries but even here in the United States. However, today slavery is almost universally condemned instead of almost universally accepted as it once was. Governments have made slavery illegal. Religion and Christianity almost universally condemn it now. Not so very long ago this was not true.

In colonial America and in pre-Civil War United States slavery was a flourishing institution, one that was supported by many arguments ranging from the economic to the supposed nature of blacks. One argument of special importance and interest was the one based upon the Bible. Both the proslavery people and the abolitionists claimed Biblical support for their beliefs and positions. In this paper I plan to look at how the Bible was used to both justify and argue against slavery.

1. Pro-slavery arguments

The pro-slavery side had the initial advantage in using the Bible to support their views. The reason for this is that no special interpretation or treatment of the Bible was needed to justify the institution of slavery. Nowhere within the Bible does anyone condemn slavery, not even Jesus. It was an accepted institution, one that seemingly was considered both normal and moral. Because of this, the proslavery groups could rely on a literal reading of the Bible and upon Christian history to make their case.

Most Christians throughout history did not see the practice of slavery as conflicting with the Bible. Many church leaders from the first days of Christianity had slaves. Church policy since its earliest days supported the institution of slavery and the rights of slaveholders. Several early Christian writings include codes of household management; how husbands, wives, children, slaves, and slaveholders should behave. In these codes, slaves “were told to subordinate their wills to the wills of their master” (Glancy 55). Christian teachings often seemed to reinforce “the power of the slaveholder, even as they affirmed the dignity of the slave in God’s eyes.” (Glancy 53).

In fact, although there are some hints that some early Christians might have questioned slavery, real and unambiguous writings against slavery as being un-Christian did not come until medieval times when people such as Gregory of Nissa, Saint Patrick, and Saint Eligus started to write and speak out against slavery. However, other church leaders, such as Saint Augustine, Saint Aquinas, Calvin, and Martin Luther wrote that slavery was not un-Christianity. Although slavery eventually disappeared in Christian Europe it was still not widely condemned or considered un-Christian by most.

Due to this weight of history, and to a literal interpretation of the Bible, the development of a Christian defense of slavery in the United States did not come about until the early 19th century. In the years before this in America there had been no need for one. It was not until the rise of a larger abolitionist movement and a radical form of antislavery during the 1830’s that proslavery literature began to become significant.

The fact that the proslavery side had a plain reading of the Bible on their side can be readily seen in one of the first conflicts with the abolitionists. Initially the abolitionists had argued that the word translated as “slave” in the Bible actually meant “servant” and thus there was no slavery in the Bible. The proslavery side quickly pointed out that this was not only not how it had been historically translated but that the best and newest methods of biblical scholarship showed that the word in question meant slave and not servant. What is ironic is that those who used and understood the Bible literally to argue for slavery were able to use the new biblical criticism of the Bible, a methodology that would show the problems inherent in a literal understanding of the Bible, to support their position.

Those arguing that slavery was Biblical used a variety of arguments based on quotes from the Bible. They used the story of the Centurion’s Servant (Luke 7:1 – 10; Matt 8:5 – 13) to show that Jesus had not only met slaves but also had commended the slave’s owner, a Roman soldier, as a faithful man such as he had not seen even in Israel.

Taking the argument even further, they argued, on the basis of the example of the Roman soldier above and Jesus’ praise of him, as well as other verses, that not only was slavery not immoral, but that the proper Christian stance towards the world was hierarchical and patriarchical. “Importantly, Jesus praised the centurion’s use of commands to order military and domestic subordinates….The plain sense of this language means that military hierarchy and other forms of patriarchy ought to order human relations, especially between master and slave.” (Harrill, 183).

When the abolitionists used the Golden Rule to argue against slavery, the proslavery groups responded by referring to the above verses, saying that Jesus was not teaching egalitarianism, but rather patriarchical love. Such love does not make men social equals, but instead means that “the master should treat his slave as if the master, imagining himself a slave and aware of his own good, would like to be treated.” (Harrill, 185).

Using a plain reading of the Bible with the understanding that passages were to be understood in light of patriarchalism, and with a selective use of the new biblical criticisms, the proslavery groups defended the institution of slavery as being Biblical and Christian.

2. Abolitionist Arguments.

As I mentioned above, the proslavery groups had the easier argument to make in regards to the Bible and slavery. This was something the abolitionists recognized from the beginning. Because of this, instead of a literalist approach they used an interpretive approach.

Of course the proslavery groups interpreted passages too, as seen by their interpretation of the meaning of the Golden Rule. And the proslavery groups were influenced in their interpretations by outside sources such as their economic and political views and their prejudices. However, the difference was that while the proslavery groups found their key to interpreting biblical texts within the Bible (patriarchy), the abolitionists found their key from outside the Bible.

First and foremost of these outside keys was the outrage that slavery inflicted on their sense of morality. Regardless of the source of this feeling, morally they knew that slavery was wrong and that therefore any interpretation of the Bible that defended slavery was flawed. They had only to be perceptive and knowledgeable enough to discover the flaw. Or, failing that, some counseled rejecting the Bible altogether as a moral guide to slavery. “Garrison concluded that slavery, like just war and woman’s suffrage, ‘was not a bible question’, since nothing in regards to controversial matters had ever been settled by the Bible.” (Harrill, 176). While most did not go as far as Garrison, some did. All though were motivated by the same sense of moral outrage.

A large reason why this attempt to use outside sources to aide in interpreting the Bible was possible was due to the Enlightenment. It was an age of questioning everything, including Christianity and the Bible. It was an age of discoveries that made old understandings of the Bible questionable. The age of the earth, the orbiting earth and central sun, evolution, and other discoveries of science showed that the Bible could not be understood literally in regards to matters of how the physical universe worked.

The new higher criticism coming out of Germany was becoming increasingly influential among American scholars. It demonstrated that Moses did not write the Torah, that the Bible had multiple authors and did not always agree with known history and, most importantly, that the Bible might not always be the best guide in understanding itself.

At the same time a new religious movement had developed and was expanding, that of evangelism with an emphasis on a personal experience of God and not necessarily to adherence to old doctrine. Quakers were the earliest evangelical group to start to criticize and work for abolition. However they were joined by other such new evangelical religions as Methodists and Baptists.

It took some trial and error for abolitionists to find their way to their final arguments. One of their first attempts was to deny that Jesus had ever met any slaves, saying that the word translated as slave could also and more probably did mean servant. However, as noted above, that argument did not hold up to the new scholarship.

From there, they looked for another key by which to understand the Bible and its verses about slavery, one that would hold up to the new biblical criticism and would also align with their moral understanding of the Bible. Part of the key consisted of viewing the Bible as a work in progress instead of a static work with a finished understanding.

Taking their cues from their times, a time when progress was not only much talked about but actually being seen in the industrial and scientific revolutions, they argued that the Bible had “seeds” planted within it that would blossom and bear fruit as societies grew in knowledge and moral sensibilities. They argued that Jesus knew any condemnation of slavery would not take root in the culture and society of his age. Instead he planted a seed that would grow and blossom in the fullness of time. History, and our understanding of the Bible, were not static but were instead dynamic, growing, and progressive.
With this understanding of the Bible and how to read it the abolitionists then argued that the Golden Rule, as related in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31, was the seed that Jesus planted and that now was the time for its blossoming. “True Christianity, through ‘fair application’ of the Golden Rule and related immutable principles such as charity and love of neighbor, is a Christianity against slavery.” (Harrill, 171)

The below quote of Dr. Thornton’s, taken from a report about slavery given to the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina highlights this difference between the abolitionists and the proslavery groups.

“Opposition to Slavery has never been the offspring of the Bible. It has sprung from visionary theories of human nature and society. It has sprung from the misguided reason of man. It comes as natural, not as revealed truth; and when it is seen that the Word of God stands in the way of it, the lovely oracles will be stripped of their authority, and reduced to the level of mere human utterances.” (National Era).

Where the abolitionists would disagree with Dr. Thornton, is that this scheme amounted to “mere human utterances”. Instead they would say that, along with the Bible, God also created the natural world and the mind of man with its ability to reason.

Further, God had implanted within humanity a sense of morality. They would argue that theirs was taking the whole of what God had given them, whereas the literalist views of Dr. Thornton and the proslavery groups had rejected part of God’s revelations and gifts.

One final fact to note is that just because a white person was an abolitionist does not mean that they were not prejudiced. An argument that was used in conjunction with the early claim that Jesus had never met a slave was that if Jesus Christ had met slaves and condoned the institution, then it would have been the slavery of his time, a slavery involving whites. “This reductio ad absurdum disproof…. reveals the racism present in some abolitionist arguments: surely Jesus Christ agreed with the American beliefs that white people should not be enslaved.” (Harrill, 169).

While this was not an argument that was used as much after the abolitionists lost the argument on whether Jesus had met slaves, it does show that a white view of abolitionism might, and did, differ from that of an African American of the times.

3. Free Blacks and Slaves

“Dark and Dismal was the day
When slavery began
All humble thoughts were put away
Then slaves were made by man.”

The above words are part of a poem by Jupiter Hammon, the first black poet in America and a slave since birth. The 25 stanza poem was titled: “An Essay on Slavery with Submission to Divine Providence Knowing that God Rules Over All Things” and, unlike his other poems and essays, it was never published; most likely due to its controversial nature.

In the beginning, blacks resisted Christianity. They feared that their master’s religion was meant as a means of control and oppression. At the time, the Christianity being preached was. As taught to the slaves, Christianity was strongly Calvinistic and taught that everyone had been put in their place by God, and that given this instead of questioning their God ordained station they should do their best within that station. Most African Americans were not attracted to this message.

Some blacks though did accept the religion of their masters; for example, Jupiter Hammon. Born a slave in Lloyd Harbor, NY in 1711, property of the Lloyd family of Queens, NY, he was fortunate enough to have owners who insisted that he attend school and learn to read and write. He was born and became Christian before the Great Awakening and the arrival of the evangelical Christianities that did not preach a religion of acquiescence to oppression, and so had a foot in both worlds.

The Christianity taught and accepted by Jupiter at his birth, and rejected by many blacks, was of a Calvinism that “did not believe that Christians, and even less so slaves, should do anything that distracted from a contemplation of a heavenly afterlife.” (Day, 2) This version of Calvinism, and not the one that “emphasized participation in the world with a view toward transforming it” (Day, 2) that many of the whites followed , was what the blacks were taught, when any were taught at all to become Christians. From the same poem:

“When God doth please for to permit
That slavery should be
It is our duty to submit
Till Christ shall set us free.”

But, while Christianity was taught as a means of oppression, it did not stay such. Instead it changed and became a means of resisting oppression; sometimes actively, sometimes more quietly. It did so by giving blacks “a sense of common identity and purpose that created the conditions for organization and collective action.” (Day, 3).

The African American was treated as and had the status of property, not person. Even Hammon’s owners, who by all accounts were good masters who treated him well, lists Hammon, along with their other slaves, as property in their ledgers, along with cattle and other goods. To resist this reduction to being nothing more than property, African Americans had to form a new identity as well as a new community. A large part of that new identity came with the arrival of the Great

Awakening. The Great Awakening created a number of new voices within religion, ones that were not part of the established religions with their political and economic ties, which allowed them to “reevaluate the old theologies and speak out against slavery as an organizational endeavor.” (Day, 15).

As a result of increasing literacy among the African Americans and the increasing numbers of itinerant ministers who were preaching a message of resistance to worldly oppression and not submission, blacks started to convert to Christianity in increasing numbers. They also started to assume leadership roles as preachers and ministers as well as organizing churches.

As they did so their understanding and ways of interpreting the Bible differed from that of not only their white masters and white society in general, but even from that of the white abolitionists. In fact, blacks often found themselves at loggerheads with their white abolitionist allies.

For example, the slave narrative became popular means by which the abolitionist movement pressed their cause. However, most of these narratives that had the approval of the white abolitionists were those that “focused on the ‘objective facts’ of slavery rather than on individuals’ ideas and interpretations.” (Day, 88).

This control of the narratives allowed the white abolitionists to control the content and priorities of the anti-slavery movement, resulting in an anti-slavery movement that was against slavery but not necessarily for equality. Even though sympathetic to the troubles of the blacks, most whites were not willing to give up power nor to examine with a critical eye their own views and thoughts about black.

Blacks agreed with and used the argument used by the white abolitionists of the Golden Rule being the key to understanding and interpreting the Bible. However, they also identified both themselves and their plight with biblical figures, most especially Moses and the Exodus narrative, although the figure of Christ as the “Suffering Servant” was also important. Blacks found much support and strength through such imagery and identification; and especially in the knowledge that both the Jews and Jesus were triumphant at the end of their sufferings.

And just like the earliest Christian groups, many blacks found the book of Revelation meaningful. It pointed to a time when slavery and prejudice would end, a time of the Apocalypse when “an abolitionist Warrior Jesus” (Harrill, 179) would come in wrath and retribution to end slavery and establish justice for the blacks.

Not only did the Bible provide support and comfort, but many blacks found within it the sense of group identity and organization necessary for an active resistance to slavery. Those times of unrest among the blacks that led into actual revolt against their masters were most often preceded by a rise in religious activity.

While the black community did have much in common with the white abolitionists, their goals and views were not identical. There were significant differences in how they understood and used the Bible. Given their differing social standings and needs this was inevitable.

4. Final Notes

These changes to Christian understanding of the Bible have now become ingrained and are considered the orthodox understanding today. Except for some small groups, even those Christians who claim to believe the Bible literally use this new interpretation of the Bible, this interpretation that takes into account ideas from outside the Bible to understand it, when they claim that the Bible is against slavery. This is a far cry from the literalists of the pre-Civil War era, and a change that has continued to create social changes up to today.

Read Full Post »

How Christianity Benefited African Americans in Pre-Civil War America

Let me start this blog by talking about identity.  Many will see this as a rather strange place to start a discussion on the role of Christianity among African Americans during a time of slavery.   However, to understand this you have to understand the importance and necessity of identity for us as highly social animals, and the many roles it plays in our lives.

By identity I mean forming associations with other people of similar interests and concerns and then identifying yourself with that group.  As a social species it is in our nature to form identities.  It is impossible for us not to.

For myself I have formed several identities – atheist, Humanist, American, liberal, TCU student, etc.  In all of these I identify myself with a certain group and interact with them.  I will also have a definite tendency to defend these groups against attacks from other groups and to also promote their cause.  How much so varies for each group, but these tendencies exist to a greater or larger extent for all of these groups.

This need to form groups and to protect and promote them has often been decried as harming the progress of humanity or of promoting wars and injustices.  And to an extent this is true.  However, it is also true that without the formation of such identities we would not exist.  At least not as we do now with our extensive scientific knowledge and technology.

Before the advent of agriculture and during most of our species history, our identity was our family group, both the immediate family and the extended family.   Outsiders, members of other families, were looked upon with suspicion unless linked to our family through marriage.  Or if not suspicion then certainly considered less important than our own family and so expendable when it comes down to a conflict.

This was a problem when we developed agriculture with its ability to support greater numbers of people.  Suddenly we had several family groups working in close proximity.    Being human, conflicts and disagreements would arise.   With each family siding with its own family the creation and maintenance of the larger social groups that agriculture made possible was impossible.  They would split up into groups of feuding family groups – a sort of Hatfield and McCoy situation.

What made the formation of larger groups than family possible was the formation of a larger identity, one that superseded that of the family.  The first ones were the cities.  I should mention here that religion was absolutely essential to the formation of these larger groups.  They took the superstitious rituals that were probably practiced by many family groups and combined them into a larger, more formal, and more ritualized religion.  One that was merged with and inseparable from the city.

This larger identification allowed the city to resolve disputes between family groups and to have their resolutions stand.  It allowed the city to tax and allocate money for larger public works.  It allowed these disparate family groups to form together for a common defense against other cities.  It formed a new identity that allowed these smaller social groups, the families, to grow and expand and do more than they could ever have before.

This process continued with city giving way to the city state and then empires and nations.   Currently we seem to be in the process of forming multinational groupings.  And all of this is only possible if the individuals within these larger social and societal groups identify themselves as being members of that larger group.  With such identification great things can be accomplished (and of course great evils can be too).  Without such identifications then only small things and evils can be accomplished.

 

 

So, having spent this long on the nature and importance of identification (and despite its length it is really only a preface to an introduction to the topic), how does this relate to slavery?

Consider the African American who had been ripped from his home, his family, his society, his religion in Africa and taken over to a new land.  One with a different language, different society, different culture, and different religion.   And then that person is defined as and treated as property.

A desk, a chair, a plow, a property cannot resist, cannot fight back.  It can only be and be used.   Which was fine with the slave owners.  Not so much though for the African Americans.  Their old identities did not and could not exist in their new place.  To resist and fight back, they needed a new identity.

    “Dark and Dismal was the day

When slavery began

All humble thoughts were put away

Then slaves were made by man.”

 

The above words are part of a poem by Jupiter Hammon, the first black poet in America and a slave since birth.  The 25 stanza poem was titled:  “An Essay on Slavery with Submission to Divine Providence Knowing that God Rules Over All Things”[i] and, unlike his other poems and essays, it was never published; most likely due to its controversial nature.

In the beginning, blacks resisted Christianity.   They feared that their master’s religion was meant as a means of control and oppression.   At the time, the Christianity being preached was.  As taught to the slaves, Christianity was strongly Calvinistic and taught that everyone had been put in their place by God, and that, given this, instead of questioning their God ordained station they should do their best within that station.   Most African Americans were not attracted to this message.

Some blacks though did accept the religion of their masters; for example, Jupiter Hammon.  Born a slave in Lloyd Harbor, NY in 1711, property of the Lloyd family of Queens, NY, he was fortunate enough to have owners who insisted that he attend school and learn to read and write.      He was born and became Christian before the Great Awakening and the arrival of the evangelical Christianities that did not preach a religion of acquiescence to oppression, and so had a foot in both worlds.

The Christianity taught and accepted by Jupiter at his birth, and rejected by most blacks, was of a Calvinism that “did not believe that Christians, and even less so slaves, should do anything that distracted from a contemplation of a heavenly afterlife.” (Day)  This version of Calvinism, and not the one that “emphasized participation in the world with a view toward transforming it” (Day) that many of the whites followed , was what the blacks were taught, when any were taught at all to become Christians.

But, while Christianity was taught as a means of oppression, it did not stay such.  Instead it changed and became a means of resisting oppression; sometimes actively, sometimes more quietly.  It did so by giving blacks “a sense of common identity and purpose that created the conditions for organization and collective action.” (Day).

The African American was treated as and had the status of property, not person.  Even Hammon’s owners, who by all accounts were good masters who treated him well, lists Hammon, along with their other slaves, as property in their ledgers, along with cattle and other goods.

To resist this reduction to being nothing more than property, African Americans had to form a new identity as well as a new community.   A large part of that new identity came with the arrival of the Great awakening.  The Great Awakening created a number of new voices within religion, ones that were not part of the established religions with their political and economic ties, which allowed them to “reevaluate the old theologies and speak out against slavery as an organizational endeavor.” (Day).

Among the white preachers came voices speaking out against slavery and for abolition based upon their reading of and understanding of the Bible.  The preachers reached out to the African Americans in society, both free and slaves, with this new vision of the Bible.  And the Blacks responded.

As a result of increasing literacy among the African Americans and the increasing numbers of itinerant ministers who were preaching a message of resistance to worldly oppression and not submission, blacks started to convert to Christianity in increasing numbers.  They also started to assume leadership roles as preachers and ministers as well as organizing churches.

As they did so their understanding and ways of interpreting the Bible differed from that of not only their white masters and white society in general, but even from that of the white preachers and abolitionists.   In fact, because of these changes, blacks often found themselves at loggerheads with their white abolitionist allies.

For example, the slave narrative became popular means by which the abolitionist movement pressed their cause.  However, most of these narratives that had the approval of the white abolitionists were those that “focused on the ‘objective facts’ of slavery rather than on individuals’ ideas and interpretations.” (Day).

This control of the narratives allowed the white abolitionists to control the content and priorities of the anti-slavery movement, resulting in an anti-slavery movement that was against slavery but not necessarily for equality.   Even though sympathetic to the troubles of the blacks, most whites were not willing to give up power nor to examine with a critical eye their own views and thoughts about black.

Blacks agreed with and used the argument used by the white abolitionists of the Golden Rule being the key to understanding and interpreting the Bible.  However, they also identified both themselves and their plight with biblical figures, most especially Moses and the Exodus narrative, although the figure of Christ as the “Suffering Servant” was also important.  Blacks found much support and strength through such imagery and identification; and especially in the knowledge that both the Jews and Jesus were triumphant at the end of their sufferings.

And just like the earliest Christian groups, many blacks found the book of Revelation meaningful.   It pointed to a time when slavery and prejudice would end, a time of the Apocalypse when “an abolitionist Warrior Jesus” (Harrill) would come in wrath and retribution to end slavery and establish justice for the blacks.

Not only did the Bible provide support and comfort, not only did it provide them with a greater identity than slavery, but many blacks also found within it the sense of group identity and organization necessary for an active resistance to slavery.  Those times of unrest among the blacks that led into actual revolt against their masters were most often preceded by a rise in religious activity.

Without the blacks taking on the identity of Christian and making it serve their needs and purposes any resistance to their owner’s identification of them as property would not have been possible, or effective.

This is why, on my part, I consider religion not to be totally evil as many atheists do, and in fact consider that, taken as a whole and looking throughout history, religion has done more good than harm; and that for much of our history has been essential to our progress.

Today new structures and identities have arisen that were not available or possible before which is why I do not consider religion necessary today.   As the times have changed so too has the role of religion and its value.   But today was not the past and we should not forget today how religion has helped in the past as well as how it has destroyed.

 

 

By the way, a very good book on this is Dr. Cedrick May’s book Evangelism and Resistance in the Black Atlantic, 1760 – 1835.   Also insightful was Dr. J. Albert Harrill’s book Slaves in the New Testament:  Literary. Social, and Moral Dimensions.    All quotes, with the exception of Hammon’s poem, used in this blog are from these two books.

 

NOTE:  a great deal of this blog was taken from a paper I just finished for my class on “The Bible in Historical Context” about how the Bible was used to both justify and condemn slavery in pre-Civil War America.  I hope to do a couple of more blogs whose origin were sparked by this paper and class.

---

[i] I would like to thank Dr. Cedrick May of the University of Texas at Arlington for allowing me to study this poem before its publication in June.

 

Read Full Post »

Random Thoughts

I don’t have anything to blog about.

Well, not quite true.  I do, but they are going to take time to develop and currently for my classes for the month of April I have three research papers to write, three tests to take, a timeline, and a final to take.   For some reason this is slowing me down when it comes to doing substantive posts.

So, since I am trying to do at least two blogs a week I thought I would do some free association and just post a bunch of random thoughts on random subjects.   Hey, it may not be my best blog, but I least I attained my goals – climb every mountain and so on.

Anyway, first random thought – how about them Republicans?!  Just when it seems as if their election season multiple foot in mouths moments forgotten they come along and provide new ones.

First, from the state that brought us such statesidiots as Sarah Palin comes Congressman Don Young and his use of “wetbacks” when describing how things used to be in the days of his youth on his father’s farm.

Yep, that will bring in the Hispanic vote for the Republicans.

And then there is Republican National Committee Dave Agema’s  facebook posting in which, based on an on line article (which we all know is totally reliable) “Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals,” by Frank Joseph, M.D, posted that gays were responsible for “half the murders in large cities”, were sexually promiscuous, and were riddled with sexually transmitted diseases.  Oh, let’s not forget the child molestation and their being responsible for the high costs of our healthcare.

Way to stay on the wrong side of history Dave!

Oh, should also mention that today is not only Good Friday, but more importantly, Dindy and mine’s 33^rd anniversary.  Not only have we added on a few years and a few pounds since we were married but we have also added on a lot more love during those years.   Didn’t think it was possible to do that.   Looking forwards to another 33 years, and then another, and another.

Guess I could give a preview on some the blogs that I am not working on right now due to school.

One is a blog about Paul Copan’s book “Is God a Moral Monster?” in which he defends God’s morality against the attacks of the new atheists such as Richard Dawkins.  This one is actually a critique of the book and will consist of multiple blogs.   I already have the rough draft for the first three chapters (this only takes two blogs and that because I spend most of the first one explaining what I am about to do and why).

I suppose I could go ahead with that, but then there is a good chance that there would be a long gap between parts of the critique, so I prefer to wait and finish off the book.

Spoiler alert – so far Mr. Copan does not succeed in defending the literal reading of the Old Testament’s God’s morality.

Now, my other two blog ideas are just some random notes right now.  What is fun is they grew out of the research paper I am writing for my “Bible in Historical Context Class”.   This paper is about the use of the Bible to support both the abolitionist arguments against slavery and the slave owner’s arguments for slavery prior to the Civil War.

The first blog is comparing how the Bible is used and interpreted in relation to slavery, gay rights, and abortion.   There is a relationship between how the Bible is used and viewed by the abolitionists and Christians today in regards to slavery and to how those Christians in favor of gay rights are viewing the Bible.   Conversely for the slave owners of the 17^th – 19^th centuries, those few Christians who are OK with slavery, and those, more common, Christians who are against gay rights all share a similar view of the Bible.

However, the same is not happening in regards to abortion even though of the three issues it is the one that has the least Biblical support for being anti-choice and the most Biblical support for being pro-choice.

The other blog arising from my research is how the Bible and Christianity was used by the blacks in pre-Civil War America to resist the oppression of the whites – whether the whites were slave owners, fellow citizens, or abolitionists.   It is not something I had ever considered or known about until I started reading the poems of Jupiter Hammon and followed that up with some readings about blacks during that time and followed that up with an interesting discussion with Professor Day of the University of Texas at Arlington about this.

Not only is this going to make for a better paper (although I am going to be bumping up against the length requirements, probably) but provide material for an interesting blog about how religion can and does help a people and society   Atheists are all too aware of the drawbacks and harms but too many refuse to consider the good and positive aspects that can come from religious beliefs.   Hopefully this will stir up some good discussions when I get around to writing and posting it.

OK, lets see, what else.  Sun is out and shining.  Really wonderful day out.

I have come up with some more aphorisms, but not enough to update that blog yet.

Hmmm, didlle day do re doso,  ahhh,

Ah, I see I am at 932 words and going.  Nice respectable length for a blog.  Hopefully next week someone will say something that will spark a blog that I can write fairly quickly.  Otherwise I may have to do Random Thoughts 2 and I am not sure if I have that many thoughts.

Enjoy!

Read Full Post »