Tag: #slavery

Friday Musing_8-14-2020

Published by mhelbert on August 14, 2020

Indigenous rendering of Battle of Greasy Grass

I’ve often heard folks say, “the writing of history belongs to the victor.”
There are few people who would disagree with that. After all, how many white people in the U.S. were aware of “Juneteenth” before 2020? Does anyone know what the Lakota People call the Battle of the Little Big Horn? (ans.: Battle at the Greasy Grass. You can Google it yourself.)
The inherent danger in the victor producing the main accounts of history, is that there is only One Side accounted for.
We get to see all of the honor and courage of those on the winning side. While, at the same time, the cowardice and shame of the defeated is illuminated.
In every event, whether armed conflict, economic systems, religion, or you insert the name, those whose effectiveness in arms or wealth or prestige are the ones who tell the story.
A case in point are the recent post that I shared on the Civil War. In school we were taught that the war was fought over the issue of slavery. That’s one part of the story. That’s the part of the story that raises the honor of the White government and army so that they are considered “liberators.” The blood shed on the battlefield won a great victory for the benevolent people who had all of the power. See? We’re not all vicious slavers. Not All White People Are Like That!
Yet, while it’s absolutely true that many White Americans had purely altruistic motives, the actual Powers-That-Be were those who controlled the economy. These folks’ sole interest was in expanding their own wealth and influence. Hardly praise-worthy.
But, that’s a part of the story we don’t hear. It places the integrity of the Victors in a negative light. They all want to be known as Lovers of Liberty. Not, the lovers of money that they actually were.
So, that leads me to another saying that has been tossed around by folks.
“Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”
First, just let me go on record of calling Bullshit on that.
What?
Well, it is!
Again, I would like to throw out the possibility that even this saying is the product of the imagination of the victors.
Of course, they desire that people remember what has gone on before! They, themselves, know all about the circumstances that led to their own acquisition of power and honor. They know all too well about how they had to fight to gain, or retain, the economic and political power they now hold. And, they don’t want their own to forget that struggle. For if they do, they realize that someone else might step into the role that they had and fight for their own power and honor. That would, somehow, diminish them.
The main reason that I call Bullshit on that saying, though, is because it simply isn’t true. History doesn’t repeat. History is literally just part of the continuum of time that has led the World to this point. It only seems repetitive because human nature is always the same. So, we continue to see the same concerns and struggles that have been part of humanity ever since our forebears climbed out of the trees of Africa and built community on the ground. It only seems to repeat because the victors are always fighting the same battles over and over again and recording their victories.
Reality, though, tells a far different story. A story that the victors don’t even realize is alive and well. It is a story that is not only ignored, but in many cases violently subdued.
It is the story that we see embroiling cultures and societies around the globe.
I call it an Affective History.
This is the long, term lived history of people.
An example:
Chattel slavery in the U.S. is a historic fact. It happened during a finite period of time from the first African slaves that were sold in Jamestown 1619 until the 13th amendment to the constitution was ratified in 1865.
What we were never taught in school, and which has only recently appeared on people’s radar, is how almost 250 years of bondage Affected the humanity of African slaves. We heard about Reconstruction, Carpet Baggers and others like them. Most of us probably heard in passing that ex-slaves were promised “40 acres and a mule” upon emancipation. What we didn’t hear was how that promise, like so many others the U.S. government made, never happened. No one ever explained how the Southern states began in 1878 to dismantle Reconstruction and resurrected their power over African Americans through Jim Crow. Yeah, we heard about those things. But, we were never privy to how this Affected those who felt the effects of racial hatred.
The Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s certainly resulted in more legal rights for African Americans. White folks grudgingly gave in to many of the demands of the oppressed. That is until they could find ways to get around them. Jerry Falwell, Sr. is just one example of many who began private schools for whites only in order to exclude people of color. This lasted until 1983 when the Supreme Court upheld IRS rules that removed tax exemptions for those donating to private schools that were segregated by race.
Even that little bit of history, while it appears to put White racism in its place, doesn’t tell how this Magnanimous offering to racial minorities actually Affects those minorities.
I’m sure that if we put our heads together we could add countless examples of how events in history currently Affect people.
Women, Indigenous, African, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslims, and on and on and on.
How have people been Affected by the stories that the victors are privileged to tell?
It’s past time to hear history, and life, as told by these.

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Liberty for Some?

Published by mhelbert on August 11, 2020

The year was 1865. The Civil War had just ended at Appomattox. Slavery was officially dead in the U.S. Finally!
Now, came the hard work of Reconstruction. The South was completely destroyed during the war. Not only was it physically bruised and burned, but all of the institutions that had grounded the entire culture had been crushed.
As I look back on that time I can’t help but wonder, how did things after the war turn out like they did? How is it that African Americans are, in so many ways, still in bondage?
The official Reconstruction period lasted a mere 12 years. During that time from 1865 to 1877 Blacks were elected to public office. Ex-slaves became bankers and lawyers and farmers. The future really was beginning to look up.
Then, form 1878 until, well, it’s not really over yet, Jim Crow was born and has lived as a shadow on the land blotting out the sunlight and bring death and hatred in its wake.
What happened that caused the nation to turn its back on those whose backs the country had been built upon?
Last week I mentioned an essay written by Matthew Karp and published in Catalyst. (Except where indicated, all quotes are from Karp’s essay.) In it he provided some insights into how the anti-slavery movement in the North became a political movement that enabled it to gain the power of State that ultimately led to the War.
In order to do that a political party was formed in the middle of the 19th century: The Republican Party. The party was formed in order to end slavery in the U.S. be wresting Washington from the rich landowners from the South. Those landed few were painted as oligarchs who wanted to expand their holdings across the country.
And, in many ways, it appears that they weren’t far from the mark. Frederick Douglass wrote in a memoir about the place where he was held in servitude. It was a large plantation in eastern Maryland. The owner, Col. Edward Lloyd, sat as the royal head of his domain. His holdings included at least 20 outlying farms with all of the necessary masters and overseers for his, according to Douglass, 1,000 slaves. By all accounts, Col. Lloyd was extremely wealthy. There was no law other than that uttered by Lloyd. He was a member of that undisputed aristocracy that ruled over what amounted to a feudal system in America.
These landed few desired nothing more than to retain all that they had and to expand it.
In the North, however, the Industrial Revolution was at full steam. Capitalists were flexing their muscles and gazing about looking for their own ways to expand. In order to do this, though, they needed labor. And, in the North, that was a substantial expense. Workers needed to paid for their efforts. While, south of the Mason-Dixon Live, labor was free.
As I wrote earlier, it seems that aside from a vocal minority, anti-slavery sentiment in the North was not wide spread. Most people simply weren’t affected by it. So, they paid little attention to what happened ‘away down South.’
The Republicans needed a way to get the majority population in the North on board a political program that could sweep away the powerful minority of the South who controlled the government. So, they developed a strategy that would pit Freedom against Slavery.
Karp wrote,

“Above all, Republicans depicted the battle against slavery as a species of class struggle — a social war not simply between slaves and masters, but between the overwhelming majority of Americans and a tiny aristocracy of slave lords who controlled the federal government.”
William Seward described the battle lines succinctly. He “lambasted slaveholders as a ‘privileged class,’ which he later refined into a ‘property class,’ akin to the patricians of Rome and the landlords of Europe.”

By framing the issue this way, the Republicans were able to turn the apathy of many in the North into a political advantage to unite Northern voters behind their party.
Seward stated that the divide was not between North and South, but

“between ‘labor states,’ subject to democratic self-government, and ‘capital states,’ where master-class barons monopolized political and economic power, quashed free speech, and organized all society around ‘the system of capital in slaves.’”

I considered all of these statements and began to see that, while there were many in the North who considered slavery a moral stain of evil on the whole country, many more were simply concerned with the economy and their own well-being. Concern for the welfare of the Black slave was secondary to the security of white labor.
Newspapers at the time captured the prevailing sentiment of many Northerners.

“Southern masters, declared a Cleveland newspaper, ‘enslave the blacks, not because they are black, but because they are laborers — and they contend that the highest civilization demands that the laboring class should be subjected and owned by the ‘higher class.’”

“The election of 1856, argued a Republican editor in Pittsburgh, was ‘not a contest of races, but a contest of institutions.’ It was a fight ‘between the Slave-holding Oligarchy, on one hand, who desire to introduce slave labor and slave institutions into Kansas, and the laboring white people of the country opposed to slavery … who wish to introduce Free Labor.’”

These are things that we were never taught in school. We were told that the North went to war to free the slaves. We heard about abolitionists who risked their lives to rescue enslaved Blacks and conduct them safely into the Promised Land where the Freedom Bell Rang.
No, not really. As with so much in our lives, it all came down to the almighty dollar.
All of this revealed to me the reasons that Reconstruction failed and Jim Crow was allowed to live and breathe in BOTH the South and the North. It explained this quote that is on the wall beneath the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. written by the Great Emancipator himself. In response to an 1862 op-ed written by Horace Greeley, Lincoln wrote,

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
Charles, Mark and Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths:The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, IVP, 2019, p.144

Africans stolen from their homeland and dragged across the Middle Passage where they were sold as if they were cattle or hogs; who were bred and traded as chattel; who were beaten and abused; who were broken and despised. They were eventually freed, not for the sake of their personhood nor their standing before God. But, because it appeared to be for Lincoln, a necessary concession and politically expedient.
Is it any wonder that African Americans are still treated as secondary? Greater still, is it any wonder that the African American community is, to this day, a place where hope is dimmed by the lived reality of human beings who live in fear and want? I am beginning to see why these communities erupt in violence. Places where not even their own community members are secure against the frustrations that a life of hopelessness can create. When your people have lived for over 400 years under the yokes of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and derision how are you supposed to live?
Yet, these people, people who bear the Light and Likeness of God within them, continue to love God and, like Jesus before them, love those who persecute them and treat them like second class citizens.
These questions I’ve held in my heart and mind since I was young. The history that we were taught didn’t add up to the reality that I saw outside of my front door. Matthew Karp’s piece helped to illuminate the dark corners where those questions have laid all these years.
It’s not too late for the U.S. to do the right thing and finally free those who have had a white boot on their necks for far, far too long.

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Musing on a Thursday Morning-Slavery Edition

Published by mhelbert on August 6, 2020

Since I retired from active employment a few months ago, I have found myself with more time to read, study, and think about a great many things. One topic that has truly taken up residence within a deep crevasse in my mind is Racism. White folks like me usually shy away from this. We don’t like confrontation with a violent and oppressive past that none of us ever experienced. For many of us, our forebears didn’t even emigrate to the U.S. until well after the Civil War had decided the fate of chattel slavery once and for all. How, then, can we be held accountable for any of that foul history that still rises as a stench, like the gases that seep upward from a long ignored landfill, over this land?
For those of you who know me can attest, I am not afraid to ask questions. Nor, am I afraid to confront the answers that I find.
With that in mind, I’m going to share a few thoughts. Take them for what they are, simply my musings.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about something called systemic racism. For many of us that’s simply stating the obvious. While I don’t endorse everything that was stated in the NYT “1619 Project,” one thing stands out. The United States owes a great deal of its economic wealth and strength to the fact that it enjoyed over 200 years of free labor through the institution of African slavery. There is no doubt about that. We enjoy what we have as a direct result of the economic structures that were erected, particularly during the early 19th century, that have allowed the U.S. to become one of the two most powerful economies that the world has ever known.
So, it’s no wonder that many states in the South fought tooth and nail to preserve that institution.
However, while the institution of chattel slavery was the most publicly voiced reason for the South to challenge the U.S. government. It was not the only one.
To be clear, the South was clearly pissed off that the North was trying to tell them what to do. That’s where the claim that the war was simply about the rights of States to govern their own affairs. Yet, as I read through some of the Articles of Secession from those states, I found one common theme. That theme can best be shown by a quote from Mississippi’s Articles:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

Please note how slaves are spoken of in this quote. They are “products” and “material interest.” Nowhere are they considered human beings who share in the inalienable rights of all people. No. They are property and objects over whom white landowners have complete control.
PLEASE NOTE THIS!
From the position of the Southern states the so called “War Between the States” was all about slavery.
That may seem obvious to most of us who took high school history. There were chapters in our books that at least mentioned that slavery was the primary issue that sparked the fire that burned half of the nation.
However, there are other concerns and forces that were in play at the time that we were not taught. These are the kinds of things that the publishers of history books conveniently tend to overlook. (Like how the Indigenous People of the continent were abused and killed and dislocated for the benefit of white expansion. But, that’s a topic for another time.)
I owe much of the insight for the next part of this post to an article written by Dr. Matthew Karp, Ph.D. in the Catalyst titled “The Mass Politics of Antislavery.” Dr. Karp is teacher at Princeton University. His area of study and expertise is the U.S. Civil War era and it’s place in the world of the Nineteenth Century.
Humans really like to simplify things. Keep It Simple Stupid is our mantra for pretty much anything and everything we think or do. Evolution may have helped us in this. I can imagine our ancient ancestors in Africa saying, “Ok. You run straight out there and grab the fruit. Then come straight back. Maybe that tiger won’t eat you.”
Simple; straightforward; easy-peasy.
As with all things, we like to think of complex issues like the Civil War in simple terms.
It was all about slavery.
Dr. Karp presents another take on things, though. A take that we may be able to relate to over 150 years later.
(Note: All quotes are from that article by Dr. Karp in the Catalyst.)
Like so many, many other things, we can be encouraged to Follow the Money.
William Seward, yes THAT Seward, was also a staunch abolitionist. But, his reasons were not all about the human cost of slavery. He seemed to be more concerned about politics and economics. In an 1850 speech he stated,

“So long as slavery shall possess the cotton-fields, the sugar-fields, and the rice-fields of the world,so long will Commerce and Capital yield it toleration and sympathy.”

Linking Northern economic concerns to slavery in the South alone would make doing away with slavery, at best, difficult. We all know how hard it is today to ask people to give up anything in order to benefit the “Other.”
Seward saw the need to build a political consensus that would necessitate the erasure of slavery. He stated how developing that consensus might look and how it could be employed in that same speech,

“Emancipation is a democratic revolution.”

Dr. Karp explained that by

“Likening the struggle against American slavery to the struggle against European aristocracy, Seward argued that any challenge to the power of the slaveholding class must come through mass democratic politics.”

Seward, and others, would need to show that the Economy of Slavery was incompatible with, and hostile to, our American democracy.
As I reflected on this, I began to see how Seward’s attempt to spin the story about slavery was both politically expedient and wise. While slavery had been debated ever since the Continental Congress sat down to consider the future of the American colonies, it had always been pretty much a local issue. There were states, like Massachusetts, where Black folks fleeing the horrors of slavery could go without much fear of being sent back into that dark world of the lash. Other states chose to abide by the Fugitive Slave Act that required runaway slaves be returned to their “rightful owner.” There was a degree of ambivalence among much of the population of the U.S. concerning slavery.
Too many people benefited by the institution of slavery for Emancipation to be a ‘slam-dunk.’
The complexity of the issue was a threat to the very Democracy that was still trying to find its way in the world.
The questions that I have revolve around “How was this a threat?”
And, even if it was a threat, why should I think about that today?
Are there issues from this period of the 19th century that are even relevant in the 21st?
I will chase some of these questions in another post.
Stay tuned!

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A Week in the Life of a Slave-review

Published by mhelbert on July 23, 2020

Everyone loves a good story.
Stories create worlds where everything is possible. They allow us to visit places and times that are far beyond our experiences of everyday life. Stories can also reveal hidden treasures that enrich our understanding of the world in which we live.
The Bible is such a source that allows our creativity to imagine the lives of people who may only appear as a name in a verse or two. What was the lived experience of that person? What did they think about the world? What did they hear and taste and smell? What did they fear?
Dr. John Byron, Dean of Ashland Theological Seminary, recently published a book that opens our imaginations to consider these questions.
“A Week in the Life of a Slave,” published by IVP Academic, tells the story of one of the Bible’s most famous slaves. A man known to us as Onesimus.
I must admit that as I began reading this book I was reminded of nature shows on television narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Attenborough is famous for his story telling style of narration. He takes viewers inside of the thoughts of various critters as they forage for food or search for a mate. Sprinkled within those stories he educates us on the reality of that world.
In a like fashion, Dr. Byron uses his creativity to weave a tale of the ancient world of the Bible. We meet the Apostle Paul as he sits in an Ephesian jail. Philemon, the person who owned the slave, Onesimus, comes to life as a person aggrieved by a slave who “committed the crime of stealing himself.” And, of course, Onesimus the runaway slave.
While most of us in the U.S. think about our own history regarding slavery, very few people consider the practice of ‘human ownership’ in the first century. If we do, like many in the Church today, even consider slavery, we tend to downplay the horrors that were part of everyday life for a slave at the time that St. Paul wrote. Byron, however, paints a very different picture. He does illuminate many differences between the ancient, Roman practice and our own antebellum chattel slavery. The similarities are also revealed to be all too real. Slaves were non-humans. Byron notes that the ancient philosopher, Aristotle, wrote that “a slave is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave.” No, slavery within the Roman Empire was no walk in the park.
There is another story told, as well. That of the early Church as it fumbled and grasped to find its place in the world. Byron’s story shows the struggle that owners faced in that culture as they tried to reconcile the Love of Jesus with the pain of their slaves. How could Paul say that there was neither slave nor free when the reality of that world stated otherwise? And, how could free people think of themselves as ‘slaves for all’? These questions are ones that we today seldom discuss. We are conveniently ignorant of the labor pains that were present at the birth of our Church. Dr. Byron provides a snapshot of that delivery framed in the form of this book.
Dr. Byron is a well-known scholar who has specialized in studying Graeco-Roman slavery. There is no one better suited to write about this topic, and to present it in this way than Dr. Byron. Students, pastors, and lay people can all benefit from this book. I recommend it for anyone who desires to understand the 1st Century Church and the world it inhabited.

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Generations Lost

Published by mhelbert on February 6, 2020

Yesterday I reflected a bit about how nature and nurture can conspire to bring about dysfunction. See here. There is no doubt that we all carry baggage that was put upon us by those who came before us. Nor is there any doubt that we will pass some kind of burden to those who follow.
What is important is that we recognize that for what it is and accept our own responsibility in the process.
And, I think for most people who, like me, belong to the dominant culture there can be a real possibility that we can have a pretty good and fulfilling life.

But, what if the damage was not within a couple generations?
What if those who were hurt were not damaged by their own human frailty?
What if that hurt was imposed on them by forces well beyond their own abilities to cope?

Imagine with me that you are out on an errand. Perhaps shopping for food to feed your family.
Suddenly, men with guns walk out of the shadows and force you into a van.
They take you to some private dock by the ocean where they chain your hands and feet and force you onto a small ship.
Onboard, you find several hundred others like you. They are chained and packed together like so much cargo.
For, that’s exactly what you all are.
Cargo.
After several weeks at sea, and after much sickness, hunger, thirst, and death, you finally make landfall.
Forced from the ship you are taken to a warehouse.
There, men who look nothing like you and who speak a strange language that you cannot understand are pointing and shouting.
Some of them come up to you and force your mouth open so they can inspect your teeth. They poke and prod you in places that are private.
Humiliated, sick, hungry, and without hope, you soon find yourself in another vehicle that takes you to a large factory where you are put to work.
Long hours and little food become your life.
After some time, you find a person with whom you begin a relationship.
Those with whom you work and live celebrate as you and your new-found partner begin a life together.
Soon, children are born.
There is Joy, albeit guarded. You are still held captive. Those who lord it over you make sure that you never forget that you have no rights…no life…outside of the work.
Then, one day, your partner and children are gone.
They have been sold in order to pay a debt.
Your heart is ripped from your chest as you wail and mourn this loss.

Now, multiply that for generations over more than 200 years.

How great is the damage that has been done to generation upon generation.

And, we dare say, “That’s all in the past! Get over it!”?

Or, say you and your people have lived in a certain place for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. You have culture with deep roots in the soil, in the lakes, in the trees, and in the other creatures who share the land.
One day a group of strange people with weapons enter your village.
They tell you that the land you are living on no longer belongs to you.
You must move or be destroyed.
They force you and all of your people to travel by foot for days upon days upon weeks.
Many of your friends and family fall by the wayside. Unable to keep up they are simply jettisoned by your captors as so much refuse.
Eventually, you are released into a new land that looks nothing like where you came from. Your life, your culture, your heart is gone.
After awhile, others come along and tell you that your God is no God. That you must accept their god or you will be destroyed.
More of your life ripped from you and trampled under foot.
Soon, others come and gather the children.
They take your sons and daughters, your lifeblood; your hope; your future and take them away to boarding schools.
These are places where the dominant culture says that they will, “kill the Indian and save the man.”
Your language and culture are systematically destroyed in front of your eyes.
And, there is not a thing that you can do about it.

We DARE say to these people, “Oopsie! Sorry! But, you’ll get over it. Just get a job and start earning a living. Then you can be happy! Just like us!”

How deep are the hurts for these Generations Lost?

Can we not have empathy?
Cultures and lives were destroyed because of greed and lust for power.
And, now we wonder why there is rampant drug and alcohol use within these communities? We seem utterly surprised when some of these people rise up with guns and harm themselves and others.
How blind must we be to think that after all that these Human Beings have been through that they can simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with life?

I have no answers. My people have created this mess. So, I actually have no rights to even suggest answers.
The healing can only begin when we stop talking and start listening.
Listen to those who are hurt by generation upon generation upon generation of abuse, mistreatment, death…genocide.
Let them guide us in how we should, or even IF we should, be part of the solution.

One thing that we can do, though, is to stop trying to tell these People how they should feel and act. It is Their pain, not ours. It was their lives and cultures that were ripped from them.
Not Ours.

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