Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Black People Can't Mess With No Time Machines and a U.S. Constitution That is a Pro-Slavery, Pro-Southern, Document


I have been having an exchange with one of the good folks over at the Daily Kos regarding the United States Constitution and how it was (or not) a pro-slavery, pro-Southern document at the time of its creation.

I try to approach people fairly and with hands open. I have also come to realize over the years that people hold onto their fantasies, dreams, delusions, and personal mythologies quite closely and tightly.

As such, there is little one can do to separate them from such fictions. I am not surprised when Conservatives cling to lies and self-delusions as their brain structures and political personality types are dictated by a binary world view and intolerance of ambiguity and difference.

I am more surprised when self-described Liberals and Progressives do much the same given how open minded they are supposed to be in comparison to their ideological rivals.

My conversation about how the Constitution was a product of political compromise, protected and supported slavery, and created a set of conditions which founded the United States of America as a White Republic, reminded me, once more, that liberal racism is real.

White Liberals and Conservatives are both invested in the white racial frame and white privilege: they articulate it using different language, and often navigate the religion of American Exceptionalism to the same destination, albeit by a slightly different route.

To argue that the United States was not founded as a White Republic involves both a dishonest reading of history, as well as a rejection of the current scholarship on the topic.

How does one explain the clauses demanding that runaway human property must be returned to their owners, setting a date before which a nebulous "trade" in human beings could not be ended before, and a 14th Amendment that gave citizenship rights to those black Americans uniquely disenfranchised as human property by American law?

A defense of a race neutral Constitution also involves leaps of faith and the cultivation of denial that only the privileged can entertain.

As the comedian Louis CK observed, "black people can't fuck with no time machines." Talking with liberal racists reminds me of the truth of said observation. To play fast and loose with history is a luxury reserved for the lucky, the privileged, and those others who will not have to deal with the human consequences of such fantastical and myopic readings of the past and their consequences in the present.

19 comments:

Wavenstein said...

The Bible supports white supremacy as well. Bring it on, I know I'm gonna catch hell for this one.

chauncey devega said...

Especially given how it was used by Europeans. Mythological texts w. a bit of history mixed in can be used for many purposes.

Joyce M said...

Which translation of the bible? We have at least 4 including the Catholic version in my home. We consider it literature and philosophy, not some divine text. But, for those that do.........

What does love thy neighbor as thy self mean?

Matthew 22:36-40

New International Version (NIV)

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" should be required reading in all high schools. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/paine/thomas/p147a/contents.html

Wavenstein said...

The one that says black people are marked as being cursed descendants of Ham. The one that has a chapter that operates as a how to guide for slavery. The one that was used to justify the kidnapping and centuries long exploitation, terrorizing, rape, and murder of black people. Forgive me if I don't have warm and fuzzy feelings about that book

grumpy rumblings said...

Only tangentially related (but nerdy): The time machine thing is a plot point in Connie Willis's To say nothing of the dog.

chauncey devega said...

Cool. Learned something new.

Joyce M said...

I know the passage.
[18-27] This story seems to be a composite of two earlier accounts; in the one, Ham was guilty, whereas, in the other, it was Canaan. One purpose of the story is to justify the Israelites' enslavement of the Canaanites because of certain indecent sexual practices in the Canaanite religion. Obviously the story offers no justification for enslaving African Negroes, even though Canaan is presented as a "son" of Ham because the land of Canaan belonged to Hamitic Egypt at the time of the Israelite invasion.

Cavoyo said...

If the Bible supports white supremacy, then why is God's human form wooly-haired, and why does he love Jews so much?

Cavoyo said...

Have you considered that, with the emphasis on constitutional originalism in this country and the near-impossibility of amending the Constitution, that the liberal's revisionist history has a decent goal? For instance, if many Americans believe that the Constitution is infallible, and that it also supports slavery and racism in its original form, then those Americans might end up supporting slavery and racism instead of changing their mind about the Constitution.

chauncey devega said...

Can you explain that one a little more if you would? So are you supposing the lie is better than the truth, i.e. a perfect document, and the idea of the Constitution as a living changing document that has been properly amended?

chauncey devega said...

That is what happens when you watch your pops either 1) masturbate or 2) have sex with your brother. Damn curses and stuff.

chauncey devega said...

I thought soul brother JC was a heavy metal god?

Ben Grim said...

That is somewhat problematic; since the Mediterranean tribe that wrote the Bible could hardly be described as white. The white Ashkenazim phenotype we commonly think of as Jewish is much lighter in skin tone than the original Israelites, who easily traveled and blended in with the people of Egypt, No white converts to the Judaic religious mere adopted those aspects of the Bible they liked in engineering white supremacy. They particularly liked the more radically ethnocentric books. Deuteronomy provided a nice model for manifest destiny.

Ben Grim said...

Wait...what?

chauncey devega said...

Curse of Ham, Nakedness of Noah, all that fun sin in the tent.

When I took religious studies courses that came up. Was there some Leviticus violating fun afoot that night? Why did Ham then go into that freaky tent and invite his kin to go too?



The Bible esp. that Old Testament is full of sex scandals and violence. Tarantino should tackle his version of the Bible next.

Ben Grim said...

yeah. knew about the curse. what's this about masturbation and sex with brothers?

Miles_Ellison said...

Ham Unchained?

CBid13 said...

Sorry to be so late chiming in, CDV, but I've been slacking on just about everything lately and I'm playing a bit of catch-up whenever and wherever I can. So, here goes (as soon as I stop chuckling about anyone actually believing that our Constitution was some sort of race neutral document, that is):

Race neutral they claim, eh? Kinda easy to dismiss that whole notion, really. How could anything that specifically PROTECTED (and thus even directly encouraged) the widespread and lucrative practice of brutal chattel slavery by way of the slave trade clause, the fugitive slave clause, and the three-fifths clause be considered an example of race neutrality when the aforementioned clauses hinge entirely upon the race of individuals to whom they apply?

Even the Second Amendment rights were only granted to White males at the Bill of Rights inception and implementation. And, even though the right wing and some of its more radical elements like the Libertarians and the Tea Partiers would like for us to believe that the Second Amendment was added to somehow allow them to protect their "legal right (some would say 'Duty')" to form an armed resistance against whatever they claim is "tyranny" by an over-reaching Federal Government (some apparently believe it also grants them the "right" to kill anyone associated with the government or anyone who does not agree with their ideological views), it was never designed to extend any of those kind of "rights" whatsoever -but, instead, to guarantee support to the overwhelming security of the Country at large in times of need. It also allowed "state militias" to be formed for the purpose of quelling various uprisings which, throughout much of the South, meant the very much feared slave revolts... Hardly a race neutral reasoning in the Second Amendment.

Robert Parry, over at the Consortium News site, has a good article on this particular part of Constitutional history and puts it into good context here:

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/19/racism-and-the-american-right/

chauncey devega said...

Funny how one can spend a good amount of time discussing those self-evident facts as these supposed "experts" come up with some type of deflection and denial.