history

The Revolution Will Not Only Not Be Televised… It Will Never End

Black citizens know that American democracy is not a destination. Rather, it is a constant struggle. Point of fact, America has never been a democratic state. At our inception, women and non-landowning men could not vote and though slavery is never mentioned in the Constitution, it was provisioned for in the Three Fifth’s Compromise and the Second Amendment to name a couple of examples.

To paraphrase Sherrilyn Ifill, America only approached democracy in 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act that finally provided government protection for the voting rights of Black citizens, less than 4 years after I was born. Unfortunately, the Roberts Court has all but unravelled it.

Wednesday night, my daughter and I watched a Livestream from the University of Michigan that featured Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dr. Angela Davis where Dr. Davis surprised everyone in attendance in stating that she was actually “optimistic” about America’s prospects. Sure we’re in grave danger. But historically speaking we are moving in the right direction. She likened it to the “3 steps forward, 2 back” analogy. We’re obviously in a “2 back” phase, but to her mind we are making progress, else the party in power would not be taking such extreme measures.

She also reminded everyone that we need to see ourselves from a historical perspective. That we are a part of history rather than living separate from it. I wrote down a quote without attribution and I cannot remember whether Coates or Dr. Davis actually said it but it struck me like a bolt of lightning:

“You are here because people who could not see you fought for you.”

I’m fond of saying that “I know where I am.” I cannot afford the delusions of traditional American propaganda or patriotism. But I also have to remember that the survival of my people is not an accident. That those who went before me had even less reason to believe that America would make a place for them, yet they fought for me.

I can do no less for those who I cannot see.

It’s Not “Fragility”, It’s Just Cruelty

On February 21st, 1862 Nathaniel Gordon became the only American slave trader to executed by the government for engaging in chattel slavery. He was unrepentant to the end. Declaring that he’d done nothing wrong which is what it is given where he was, and frankly, where we still are.

But this part right here, though:

“… saying he would rather die alone than suffer the humiliation of being publicly executed. He said he’d “suffered the agony of a dozen deaths.””

Look, I’m on record with my opposition to capital punishment, for any crime, without reservation. But he’s tied up in knots over his “humiliation”? Never once considering his personal responsibility for the misery he’d profited from?

It makes me think of the white parents who dither over the “embarrassment” their children might face over learning the history of chattel slavery, never once thinking of the legacy that Black children have to live with.

Some have labeled this “fragility.” Let’s call a thing a thing.

It’s just cruelty.

When you value your emotional comfort over the humanity of your fellow human beings, you have a serious problem.

“Early the morning before the execution, Gordon unsuccessfully attempted suicide with strychnine poison.[23] Three doctors worked four hours to keep him alive by pumping his stomach, catheterizing him, and force-feeding him brandy and whiskey. After regaining consciousness, he cried out “I’ve cheated you! I’ve cheated you!” Gordon then begged the doctors assist his suicide, saying he would rather die alone than suffer the humiliation of being publicly executed. He said he’d “suffered the agony of a dozen deaths.”[23][24][25] He was sufficiently revived to be fit enough for execution.”

Full entry here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Gordon

Words Are Important (and so is owning the means of production)

Okay, so the term “truck farm” has nothing intrinsically to do with trucks. “Truck” is taken from the old north French word “troquer” which means “to barter” or “trade.” And here I’ve been wrong all of this time.

Fact is, many of the roadside farms that I’ve referred to as “Truck Farms” are actually “Market Gardens” in that they provide fresh produce for sale to a local market – usually a city – rather than to feed the farmer’s family.

Evidently, what distinguishes a “market” from a “farm” is the implement used. The former, a hoe, the latter, a plough.

Also, selling wholesale will earn a farmer 10% – 20% of the retail price while selling directly will earn 100% or $120/acre – $1200/acre vs $8k/acre – $20k/acre.

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_garden#:~:text=Truck%20farms%20produce%20vegetables%20for,barter%22%20or%20%22exchange%22.

Free-ish

I approach all things surrounding Emancipation with footnotes. For instance:

1) The Emancipation Proclamation did not cover the slave states (Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri) that remained in the Union or were considered “border states”. Lincoln didn’t want to tip them toward the Confederacy. So the main intent couldn’t have been the complete manumission of the enslaved.

2) The announcement at Galveston on “Juneteenth” was not calibrated toward the complete freedom of the formerly enslaved. In fact, it seems to present a set up for the eventual establishment of Jim Crow. From General Order 3: “The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” Note that there are no provisos given for the former enslavers (and no mention of “back pay” for the formerly enslaved).

Tertium Quid

Black citizens have been a “problem to be solved” since the inception of this country. The Founders never intended to include black Americans as American citizens. This is not a shock to anyone paying attention. During the Constitutional Convention, the nature of the problem had nothing to do with the humanity of black citizens – the morality of which, had already been decided – but whether to classify us as “property” or include us as members of households.

Property could not be counted for the purposes of congressional representation. On the other hand, male members of households could potentially be afforded the right to vote. Southern states had a vested interest in maximizing their overall representation and in suppressing the black vote. The northern states interests were diametrically opposed to augmenting the southern vote and there were some calls among northern Abolitionists to grant full citizenship to the enslaved.

What to do?

Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution states:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

“…three fifths of all other Persons”… they couldn’t even say it with their full chest. The Three-Fifths clause simultaneously increased the representation of southern states while it reduced the corresponding tax burden. Classic having your cake and eating it too.

How did representatives from northern states agree to selling out the masses of black humanity held in bondage in the south? I think it was for the sake of unity, the same principle that continues to betray black citizens to this day, and since black people aren’t considered fully human, it’s easier to betray us.

In “The Souls of Black Folk”, W.E.B DuBois described black humanity as a “third thing” or tertium quid:

“The second thought streaming from the death-ship and the curving river is the thought of the older South,–the sincere and passionate belief that somewhere between men and cattle, God created a tertium quid, and called it a Negro,–a clownish, simple creature, at times even lovable within its limitations, but straitly foreordained to walk within the Veil. To be sure, behind the thought lurks the afterthought,–some of them with favoring chance might become men, but in sheer self-defence we dare not let them, and we build about them walls so high, and hang between them and the light a veil so thick, that they shall not even think of breaking through.“

Betrayal is very common occurrence among peers, a staple theme running through all literature. How simpler then to betray a class of people who aren’t even considered fully human? In point of fact, the purpose of the Three-Fifths compromise for the northern states was to blunt the effect of the larger populations of the southern states. However, had the north pressed to declare enslaved black Americans as “property” the south would have been allotted 33 representatives in the House of Representatives. But with the Compromise, that number rose to 47.

Ironically, Frederick Douglass defends the Three-Fifths Compromise in a speech before the Scottish Anti-Slavery Society in Glasgow, Scotland on March 26, 1860:

“A black man in a free State is worth just two-fifths more than a black man in a slave State, as a basis of political power under the Constitution. Therefore, instead of encouraging slavery, the Constitution encourages freedom by giving an increase of “two-fifths” of political power to free over slave States. So much for the three-fifths clause; taking it at is worst, it still leans to freedom, not slavery; for, be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a coloured man to vote.“

I’d note however that he implicitly acknowledges the innate humanity of black citizens and, in my view, provides an intention toward black freedom that the drafters never really intended. At first glance, a “left-handed compliment” at best, or perhaps, the ultimate expression of “finding the silver lining.” However, I believe, in fact, that it’s a brilliant use of rhetoric. Douglass plainly states that freedom is superior to slavery and “obviously” the aim of the Constitution. Furthermore, nowhere in the Constitution is there an abolition against the black vote. So, therefore…

The south hasn’t needed masses of black labor for quite some time which is increasingly the issue with labor in general.

What do you do with people you no longer need?

If said people aren’t recognized as fully human in the first place, it’s fairly easy for the institutions which have historically exploited them to dispose of them by the most expedient (and often profitable) means possible and for historical “allies” to look the other way.