Sunday, November 9, 2014

Semi-Open Thread: Have You Read Edward Baptist's Brilliant Observation About Whiteness, Slavery, and America's Original Sin?

I enjoyed chatting with Janice Graham about race, the color line, Ferguson, and the midterm elections on her BlogTalkRadio show Our Common Grounds last evening. Her show is almost two hours long. My segment begins at about the 20 minute mark. If you are curious, it can be listened to here.

Historian Edward Baptist's book The Half Has Never Been Told has received a great deal of deserved praise for its masterful demonstration of how slavery and capitalism were intertwined in America, and how the institution of white on black slave labor and violence were the driving engines behind the growth of the country's global economic empire

Baptist's claims are not unique or new. 

However, the clarity of his writing and ability to use the "voices" of the enslaved to present a rigorous argument about the relationship between white supremacy, black chattel slavery, and America's economic growth expose the White lies of American exceptionalism and innocence--lies that too many white folks still cling to in the present.

One would also be remiss if they did not highlight how Dr. Baptist's position as a historian at an Ivy league institution gives his work on the political economy of slavery a level of visibility and credibility that other researchers--many of them black, independent scholars, or at other types of academic institutions--are not afforded. This does not lessen the importance or veracity of The Half Has Never Been Told. It is a plain statement of fact, one with which Baptist would likely agree.

His interview at Salon.com is a quick read. It is a teaser and in no way a substitute for The Half Has Never Been Told.

At the conclusion of the interview, Baptist offers up a beautiful and direct observation about the relationship between whiteness, white supremacy, and America's original sin of black chattel slavery.

He observes:
As a historian, do you feel that slavery is an original sin that the United States will never be able to overcome? Or is there some seed of hope in what you’re writing?

Let’s think about original sin. Original sin is something that, theologically, we can never escape, because we’re not angels, right? We can’t stop being human beings and start being angels. But we can stop being white. By that I mean, not that we can change our pigmentation, but that we can stop consciously and unconsciously demanding the privileges of whiteness, and we can act in affirmative ways to undermine the privileges of whiteness. And that’s the way that the country will get past it, by abandoning white supremacy as a constitutive way in which our politics and our economics and our culture were ordered.
This is not something that’s going to happen tomorrow; it’s not going to happen, obviously, because we elected Barack Obama, or something like that. It’s a far, far deeper set of transformations. That’s how we can move to the point where we can see that the country has redeemed itself in some ways from this legacy.
Black and brown folks possess an almost preternatural understanding of whiteness and the dynamics of white racial identity because those are required skills for successfully negotiating life in a society structured around the maintenance and furthering of white supremacy. However, our truth-telling is usually ignored by most white folks because the bubble of Whiteness, by definition, is almost wholly immune to interventions made by those outside of it.

Ultimately, as I told Janice Graham on Our Common Grounds, I am of the belief that white Americans need to clean up their own house of white privilege and white supremacy from within. It is white people who need to do some truth-telling to their white brothers and sisters about the social evils of white supremacy and white privilege if those forces are ever to be fully purged from American life, culture, and society. 

While black and brown people may suffer from and under white racism and white supremacy, it is White America that possesses the philosophical and moral problem that is white racism.

In thinking about the existential conundrum that is the color line's relationship to black Americans, the brilliant W.E.B. Du Bois asked, "how does it feel to be a problem?" 

White folks are rarely asked, "what does it feel like to be The problem?"

Baptist's closing observations in his interview at Salon about American slavery and whiteness are a good start from which to formulate an answer to that question. Noel Ignatiev's incisive claim that "treason to Whiteness is loyalty to humanity" is more than a slogan. Rather, it is a life mantra. 

Perhaps Baptist's soft, yet piercing like a dagger comments should be a footnote or auxiliary guide to helping white folks come to terms with their relationship to how the past lives in the present in an American society that is still structured around maintaining white supremacy.

What issues of public or private concern would you like share? Any interesting reading suggestions or other discoveries?

10 comments:

Sandy Young (Corkingiron) said...

He does an excellent job of tearing down many of the "silos" that have been created to account for slavery. For example, he makes the important distinctions between slavery in the southeastern states, and slavery in the newer southwestern ones.
One of the points he made that re-ordered my thinking was his claim that Britain did not really abandon slavery in the 1830's. British investors still invested in and profited from black bodies - by lending money to slave traders, investing in mortgages, investing in insurance schemes, capitalizing southern banks and state loans, etc.
But I think the book's greatest contribution is to put to rest the idea that slavery would have died out under its own weight. In light of what Baptist has written, that idea seems almost romantic to me now.

chauncey devega said...

I am surprised by how his thesis could even be met with any controversy by smart and supposedly serious people. I remain surprised by how folks who should know better show umbrage towards the fact that the U.S. Constitution is a pro slavery document written to protect the interests of the planter class. Likewise, what serious and supposedly smart people still believe that slavery would have died out under its own weight?


Is it just ideology interfering w. the evidence and data?

Sandy Young (Corkingiron) said...

When History encounters a Foundation Myth, it rarely comes out the winner. Or I guess another way of saying that is that in order to deny the present, you need to deny the past.

Miles_Ellison said...

In the immortal words of Rage Against The Machine: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

DanF said...

So true. Just look at the push-back from the proposed changes to the AP history course framework because some morons think it focuses too much on negative aspects of our history.


Of course, if you raise your children to believe their country can do no wrong, it makes it a lot easier to manipulate and abuse their rights. How many Americans still believe our country does not torture? Or spy on our own without a search warrant? Or do not illegally seize private assets without a trial? We do all these things and much more, but the myth that we don't is a powerful drug.

chauncey devega said...

When these subjects come up in my classes through either reading assignments or conversation the students are either indifferent, numb to it, could care less because they are petit authoritarians, or are self-medicating via social media and telephones. Sad really. A few who are upset and disgusted already know about these issues to begin with. Seems like a good snapshot of the general public.

chauncey devega said...

If you were putting together a ten song soundtrack to describe this moment what would it be?

SW said...

As an off-shoot of Southern slavery, a book I would
recommend to anyone interested in a social narrative from a black voice is "All
God’s Dangers: The life of Nate Shaw." This book was “written” by Theodore
Rosengarten. I use quotes because he essentially took dictation from Nate Shaw,
whom in his mid-80’s recounted his life as a sharecropper in Alabama. His life’s
story is captivating, and gives one a first-hand account of life as black
person in the South between 1885 and 1973. For me it was fascinating how the
lives of white and black folks in the South were so intimate, yet the social
order as dictated by white supremacy
created such a significant gulf.


At the very least, look it up on Amazon, or whatever your source for book reviews is. It's a good read.

Miles_Ellison said...

1) Wall Of Denial - Stevie Ray Vaughn

2) Evil In The Air - Michael Hill's Blues Mob

3) Know Your Enemy - Rage Against The Machine

4) Killing In The Name - Rage Against The Machine

5) Wake Up - Rage Against The Machine

6) Bluestime In America - Michael Hill's Blues Mob

7) Auslander - Living Colour

8) Maggot Brain - Funkadelic

9) Super Stupid - Funkadelic

10) Wall - Living Colour

SteveBiko said...

11) ...And Justice For All - Metallica.

Lyrics:

Halls of justice, painted green
Money talking
Power wolves beset your door
Hear them stalking

Soon you'll please their appetite
They devour
Hammer of justice crushes you
Overpower

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can't believe the things you say
I can't believe, I can't believe the price! You pay!

Nothing can save you
Justice is lost
Justice is raped
Justice is gone

Pulling your strings
Justice is done

Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true, so real

Apathy their stepping stone
So unfeeling
Hidden deep animosity
So deceiving

Through your eyes their light burns
Hoping to find
Inquisition sinking you
With prying minds

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can't believe the things you say
I can't believe, I can't believe the price! You pay!

Nothing can save you
Justice is lost
Justice is raped
Justice is gone

Pulling your strings
Justice is done

Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true, so real

Lady justice has been raped
Truth assassin
Rolls of red tape seal your lips
Now you're done in

Their money tips her scales again
Make your deal
Just what is truth? I cannot tell
Cannot feel

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can't believe the things you say
I can't believe, I can't believe the price! We pay!

Nothing can save us
Justice is lost
Justice is raped
Justice is gone

Pulling your strings
Justice is done

Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true, so real

Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true, so real

Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfg0_FbIqqw