Frederick Douglass Abhorred Slavery

American Slavery was evil.

Whenever I hear Gov. Ron DeSantis try to justify his racist statements about American history and African Americans, I think of the song by Public Enemy called “Can’t Truss It.”

The lyric that sticks out for me goes like this:

“Years ago he woulda been a ship’s captain…”

Chuck D and Public Enemy are talking about the depravity of chattel slavery in the song. Chuck is denouncing it as evil. Any other description of one of the most inhumane periods in human history and American history is nonsense and

Ron DeSantis, and others, even an African American educator named William B. Allen from Florida, who also contends that Black Americans benefited from slavery, are talking crazy. DeSantis would be a ship’s captain if chattel slavery were real today in America. Allen, a hardcore right-wing conservative first hired during the Reagan administration, likely would be his Black overseer stopping the African slaves from jumping overboard or taking over the ship.

Frederick Douglass

Yet, for the sake of argument, let us attack the foolish assertions of DeSantis from writers and scholars who have studied chattel slavery. And let’s focus on Frederick Douglass because William Allen, an African American who worked on the new curriculum, invoked Douglass to justify the racist curriculum in Florida.

Mr. Allen’s take was that Douglass learned how to read from his master’s wife when he was enslaved, proving he benefited from being enslaved. Yes, he said this.

I was astonished: CLIP

Somehow Mr. Allen, before he spoke, forgot how much Douglass despised slavery, how he risked his life to escape, and then how he became the nation’s leading voice calling for the institution to be abolished. Douglass even called for war to smash slavery. But let’s use Douglass’ words to break this down better.

“The practice, from week to week, of openly robbing me of all my earnings, kept the nature and character of slavery constantly before me. I could be robbed by indirection, but this was too open and barefaced to be endured. I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each week, pour the reward of my honest toil into the purse of any man.” (Douglass)

Does this sound like a person who benefited from being made property of another person and forced to work for free under threat of violence? And why is this minute part of chattel slavery worth being taught?

Here’s Douglass again on slavery from his July 4th 1852 speech, perhaps his most famous:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim…your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless…your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings…are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

If Douglass felt so rewarded by the experience, why did he attack the institution that did him so badly 14 years after he escaped? Why not have more Douglass in the curriculum, not to mention the history revolt, opposition, activism, and resistance against American slavery? Instead, the children are going to be taught foolishness. Michael Harriot, the writer, wrote very well of the lies Florida is about to unleash — (take a peek here).

Economics

The late political scientist Ron Walters describes what the U.S. did to African Americans during slavery as economic exploitation, with the benefits going to the privileged whites in America. This is what is likely never going to be even mentioned in those Florida classrooms. We know who benefited from slavery in other words.

According to Walters, “the United States…was able to exploit the unpaid labor of people of African descent to achieve leadership in the industrial world.” This program created a “racial dichotomy utilized by governmental agencies to distribute the economic benefits to the social sector” that “guaranteed that race, and the lowest income class would be synonymous.” (Walters)

Yes. This is what the curriculum does not say.

The beneficiaries of chattel slavery were the affluent White people who owned slaves. They could use their African slaves as collateral to borrow money from banks and buy more land, equipment, and African slaves to increase their profits. African slaves also built roads, bridges, and buildings (for free), and the rest of the population benefited from their daily labor. The Africans got nothing. The American population traveled over these roads and bridges, went to work or school, or learned a trade. There is a benefit.

Oppose white supremacist education always.

Who benefited from slavery? The capitalists. The business people, almost all of whom were White men. Florida under DeSantis, with a Black man William B. Allen carrying his water in this fraudulent education, is the highest of insults. Mr. Allen, a so-called educator, should be ashamed for being part of this educational clown show.

For this reason, all of us must continue to speak out against all efforts to miseducate the children no matter where it happens. The truth should be told. History must not be distorted for political gain and to divide. DeSantis’ agenda is white supremacy; he has made that clear. William B. Allen is doing the country and humanity a disservice. a little research, I have learned that Mr. Allen has always done such things, in the service of conservatism and white supremacy, even though he is Black.

Sources

The Impact Of Slavery On 20th and 21st Century Black Progress, Ronald W. Walters, The Journal of African American History, Vol. 97, №1–2, Special Issue: “African Americans and Movements for Reparations: Past, Present, and Future” (Winter–Spring 2012), pp. 110–130

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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