Most of what you’ve learned about slavery is wrong; some wishful thinking, some outright lies. The nation’s history books have conspired to create a myth that justifies heinous behavior, making heroes of the men that perpetuated it. When confronted with their past, those who believe they have something to lose, turn to their only remaining path, denial, because to acknowledge the truth leads to the single remaining step: What to do about it?
Denial takes a few different forms, replacing the truth with a more convenient story where rapists, murderers, and abusers, are the protagonists and look good in the end. One of those myths is that slavery in America is no worse than what went on in the rest of the world; Africans enslaved other Africans and sold some to white slave traders. Africa is a continent, more massive than North America, and second only to Asia in size. Within its borders existed several forms of slavery including Pawnship where a person was used for a limited period to secure a debt, military slavery which is conscription into military service, domestic service, which included many freedoms and the form most comparable to what was practiced in the United States, chattel slavery. Chattel slavery was practiced in Africa on a much lower scale than what was seen in America, with slaves likely to be freed within their lifetime, not permanently separated from their families nor removed from their landscapes.
In America, besides the labor requirements which were much more severe than the norm in Africa, the American colonies made legal changes to indemnify white men from charges of rape of slaves, absolved them of any responsibility for the children of rape, and ensured that any child of a Black enslaved woman was also enslaved. These laws, partus sequitur ventrem, broke from European tradition to support the American view of slavery, a permanent labor force with no rights whatsoever.
A second myth is that white people were enslaved too in America, that there was no difference between African enslaved people and white indentured servants. The first Black “workers” in America were indentured servants, theoretically equal to the white indentured servants who, in most cases, signed contracts agreeing to servitude for a fixed term, typically seven years. One difference was that the Black workers were mostly forbidden to read or write and unable to enforce those contracts. Any alleged transgressions could lead to an extension of their term to the rest of their natural lives. At one time, the percentage of white indentured servants was relatively high, and they often worked alongside Black indentured servants and enslaved African, which was an even cheaper source of labor.
That changed immediately after Bacon’s Rebellion, where Nathan Bacon revolted against the Governor of Virginia, using the combination of Black and white indentured servants and Black enslaved people. The thought of servants of all kinds, joining forces against landowners of much fewer numbers was a shock to the system. The transition began away from indentured servitude to chattel slavery as the primary labor force for the nation. The concern of revolt still existed, but being able to single people out by color made it easier to quell the resistance.
My pet peeve is the notion of “natural increase” to explain the huge numbers of enslaved people born in America, during a time when their infant mortality rate ranged from 30–35%. There are numerous papers by academians and historians that describe how the slaves were more fertile and sexually active in explanation of the high number of births. The truth was too insidious to be printed. The truth is that there was nothing natural about it, the increase was highly orchestrated and involved a twenty-year plan and the nation’s third President, Thomas Jefferson.
Though the Constitution of the United States doesn’t explicitly mention slavery until the Thirteenth Amendment, much of the document was about slavery. The Electoral College was a mechanism to protect slave states; the three-fifths clause was about giving slave states enough voting strength to prevent slavery from being abolished. The agreements sufficiently able to please both slave and non-slave states were the results of agreements worked out between states with differing objectives, each seeking to protect their interests.
One such agreement was Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 of the Constitution. Among the fictions we’re told about this clause is that it showed the Founders hope and intent that we would one-day end slavery. It stated that Congress could not end the international slave trade for at least twenty years. Specifically, it protected South Carolina, whose port of Charleston was the largest recipient of African enslaved peoples. Jefferson’s Virginia, and Maryland would have liked to have seen the international slave trade end earlier as they had excess enslaved people due to problems growing tobacco, related to a failure to rotate crops. Between the ratification of the Constitution and the date, international slave-trading could be eliminated. Virginia slave-holder Thomas Jefferson became president and finalized the implementation of the twenty-year plan to jack up domestic prices at the expense of imported slavery, which was now illegal. The part that no one says out loud was that “natural increase” was often the result of rape by slave masters, or forced pairings with those slaves considered the best stock.
Racism in America is a constant. Some claim that it ended after slavery, but the Black Codes instantly replaced it. When the Black Codes were nullified, Jim Crow took their place. Racism never went away; it merely mutates, changing form to meet the current times. And when it is pointed out, it is met with denial, as if saying it no longer exists makes it so.
Voter suppression is mostly racist, not entirely because young people are targeted as well. Point out voter suppression, even with the examples of those who’ve admitted it, and its existence is denied. There are still segregated schools in America, not all in the South, many New York City schools meet the definition; they too cannot be acknowledged.
Mass incarceration of Black and Brown people is ever increasing. Sentencing disparities are known but not addressed. Overpolicing of minority communities is commonplace and is only recently being discussed. However, the reality of it is denied by the highest offices in law enforcement and all of the land.
Despite the history of racism throughout the entire history of this nation, it is a solvable problem. It will call for changing of well-entrenched institutions, up to and including the Supreme Court, which has weakened or thrown out every Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act (of which there have been many) and brought us back to a racist status quo.
It will take not only those who have been on the front lines fighting racism but also some of those deluding themselves that it doesn’t exist. Some of the deniers are merely ignorant, having led sheltered lives and living in a media bubble that reassures them that racism is a thing of the past. Others have evil intent, fighting to keep the ill-gotten gains that racism provides and fearful of the prospect of reparations.
Racism cannot end while ignored; the first step is to reject denial, which is the primary reason it still exists.
Writer, poet, wannabe philosopher. I write about politics, history, race and social justice. Support me at https://ko-fi.com/williamfspivey0680
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Previously Published on medium
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