Note: This post is about US slavery, though I suspect the conclusions would be roughly the same in other countries.
In 2011 Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, who were then running for US president, signed The Family Value’s pro-marriage pledge. It said in part:
“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President [in 2008].”
The Oreo Experience noted other employee benefits:
- Fitness plan – and therefore lower rates of obesity
- Better names
- Zero percent unemployment
- Travel benefits (from Africa to the US)
- Easier investment portfolios
- Lots of time outdoors
- Low-sugar diet – and therefore lower rates of diabetes
- Gated community living
God agreed: In 1856 Robert E. Lee noted:
“The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.”
Medical science agreed: In 1851 Dr Samuel Cartwright, one of the country’s foremost experts on the diseases and peculiarities of the Negro race, said that the urge for slaves to run away came from a mental disorder called drapetomania.
Even 50% of Black people agreed: According to Harriet Tubman:
“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”
But not everyone agreed.
Jack and Jill Politics said of The Family Value pledge:
“Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive.”
In general, there was no movement to repeal the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, the one that outlawed slavery in 1865. Compare that to the 18th Amendment (Prohibition of intoxicating liquors), which was repealed.
Whites did put in place “slavery by another name” by way of sharecropping, peonage (debt servitude) and prison labour (still a thing). This was held in place by massive voter suppression and Klan terror.
But among Blacks there was no large movement to return to slavery, by whatever name, as bad as Jim Crow times (1877-1967) were. Instead the four main movements were:
- Fight for equal rights (W.E.B. Du Bois)
- Pulling up bootstraps (Booker T. Washington)
- Going back to Africa (Marcus Garvey)
- Moving up North (the Great Migration)
By 1970, the first and last had proved the most successful, though now we live in New Jim Crow times (1969- ).
The Time Machine Test: As of rule of thumb, when I find myself stuck in a time machine on a one-way trip to the past in the US, I pick the highest number possible. If the dial goes from 1820 to 1920, I pick 1920. If it goes up to 1921, I pick 1921 – and either avoid Tulsa or make a beeline there. And avoid grandfather paradoxes.
– Abagond, 2019.
Sources: The Telegraph, The Oreo Experience.
See also:
- Black Americans
- US slavery
- Jim Crow
- Slavery by Another Name
- Ku Klux Klan
- W.E.B. Du Bois
- Booker T. Washington
- Marcus Garvey
- Great Migration
- Tulsa race riot
- The New Jim Crow
- white paternalism
- The Oreo Experience
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This is kind of like a parody. Probably to show how ridiculous the “ Slavery wasn’t that bad” argument was. Not sure if tongue in cheek is the right phrase to use describing this post.
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It’s kind of funny mixed in with serious. Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum mushed in the face. The two of them are too stupid to walk and chew gum.
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE and commented:
Was the US Slave Trade profitable for White America?
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No, of course, we were held against our will to do what the slave master wanted us to do. No, that is why Lincoln allowed the Civil War. You know why we had the Civil War, white Americans in the Confederate South got too under beneath themselves in Economic Hegemony. We need another New Civil War to eradicate Financial Hegemony in all 50 states, because Economic Hegemony holds blacks from living free on a livable wage, according to the U.S. Constitution
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Absolutely not nor afterwards either
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As i stated on the Betsy Ross thread. Even though the slaves were emancipated and entering the Jim Crow era, black people were still entering into another system of nightmarish oppression that was equally abhorrent.
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Low key snickering at the bullet point The Oreo Experience. Laughing But Serious.
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I thought I would flesh out the word “drapetomania” a little. So I looked it up. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
Southern physician Samuel Cartwright believed he had found a rational explanation for this disturbing desire escape servitude. He dubbed this disease of the mind “drapetomania” (with Greek roots roughly translating to “runaway slave” and “crazy”) and reassured slaveowners that it was entirely curable by “whipping the devil” out of the slaves who suffered from it.
Cartwright was convinced drapetomania was a psychological disorder because “the Creator’s will in regard to the negro [declares] him to be a submissive knee-bender;” in other words, black people were put on this earth to be slaves, and servitude was ingrained in their nature.
Oddly, Cartwright blamed indulgent masters for the onset of this disorder, for if “the white man attempts to oppose the Deity’s will” by treating his slaves even close to equals, this will disrupt the natural order and cause the fragile slaves to develop this mental illness.
Cartwright does generously concede that excessive cruelty on the part of the masters will also play a role in the cases of some runaway slaves. Of course, his article does not contain anything that comes close to scientific evidence; Cartwright offers nothing to back up his outrageous claims besides his own personal observations.
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@ August Noone
“Cartwright offers nothing to back up his outrageous claims besides his own personal observations.”
Hmm. Sounds familiar.
Seems like the true psychological disorder was not drapetomania, but slave owners (and by extension, American society’s) distorted view of Black people.
The same people who built pyramids and universities, made use of the abacus 5,000 years ago and developed an intercontinental trade in gold, ivory and textiles were way beyond “submissive knee-bender[s];”… put on this earth to be slaves”.
It’s amazing the mental contortions people will go through to justify an unjust system.
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“The blacks are immeasurably better off here…” I can’t wrap my head around the insanity that are in white people’s heads.
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My grandfather often told the story of how unhappy were his slaves when he was forced free them. I’m sorry boys, that’s the law now that the war is over. But Massah Grampa, where’s we gwine go? I know, I know. Here’s a silver dollar for each of you, now you must leave.” Sadly, tearfully, they shuffle off.
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