#Constance Sublette

[leftistfeminista]

What are the driving forces behind this development, and what does it tell us about the transformations that are taking place in the global economy and in the social position of women? Answers to these questions have varied, but it is my objective to demonstrate that, while this new surge of violence takes different forms, a common denominator is the devaluation of women’s lives and labor that globalization promotes. In other words, the new violence against women is rooted in structural trends that are constitutive of capitalist development and state power as such, in all time periods.

Capitalist development begins with a war on women. The witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe and the New World led to the deaths of thousands. As I wrote in my 2004 book Caliban and the Witch, this historically unprecedented phenomenon was a central element of the process that Marx defined as primitive accumulation, for it destroyed a universe of female subjects and practices that stood in the way of the nascent system’s main requirements: the accumulation of a massive workforce and the imposition of a more constraining discipline of labor. The naming of women as witches and the persecution of them for their witchcraft paved the way for the confinement of women in Europe to unpaid domestic labor. It legitimated their subordination to men in and beyond the family. It gave the state control over their reproductive capacity, guaranteeing the creation of generations of new workers. In this way, the witch hunts constructed a specifically capitalist, patriarchal order that has continued into the present, though it has been constantly adjusted in response to women’s resistance and the changing needs of the labor market.

From the tortures and executions to which women accused of witchcraft were subjected, other women soon learned that they would have to be obedient and silent, and would have to accept hard labor and men’s abuses, in order to be socially accepted. Until the eighteenth century, those who fought back might be condemned to the “scold’s bridle,” a metal and leather contraption, also used to muzzle slaves, that enclosed the wearer’s head and, if she attempted to speak, lacerated her tongue. Gender-specific forms of violence were also perpetrated on American plantations where by the eighteenth century (per Ned Sublette and Constance Sublette’s 2015 study The American Slave Coast) masters’ sexual assaults on female slaves had turned into a systematic politics of rape, as planters attempted to replace the importation of slaves from Africa with a local breeding industry centered in Virginia.

Violence against women did not, of course, disappear with the end of the witch hunts or with the abolition of slavery. On the contrary: It was normalized. The sterilization of women of color, poor women, and women who practiced their sexuality outside marriage continued into the 1960s. Similarly, until feminists forced its recognition, rape in the family did not exist, as far as the state was concerned. As Giovanna Franca Dalla Costa pointed out in Un lavoro d’amore (The Work of Love, 1978), violence has always been present as a subtext, a possibility, in the nuclear family, because men, through their wages, have been given the power to supervise women’s unpaid domestic labor, to use women as their servants, and to punish their refusal of this work. This is why domestic violence perpetrated by men was, until recently, not considered a crime. In parallel with the state’s legitimation of parents’ right to punish their children, who must be trained in obedience so that they’ll be tractable workers, domestic violence against women was tolerated by the courts and the police as a legitimate response to women’s noncompliance in their domestic duties.

It’s essential to emphasize that violence against women is a key element in this new global war not only because of the horror it evokes or the messages it sends, but also because of what women represent in their capacity to keep their communities together and, equally importantly, to defend noncommercial conceptions of security and wealth. In Africa and India, for instance, until recently, women had access to communal land and devoted a good part of their workday to subsistence farming. But both communal land tenure and subsistence agriculture have come under heavy institutional attack, criticized by the World Bank as one of the causes of global poverty, the argument being that land is a “dead asset” unless it is legally registered and used as collateral to obtain bank loans with which to start some entrepreneurial activity.

[nathanalbright151]

Book Review: The American Slave Coast: A History Of The Slave-Breeding Industry

The American Slave Coast: A History Of The Slave-Breeding Industry, by Ned and Constance Sublette There seems to be a mistaken assumption among many writers about slavery that the historically minded contemporary person looks with horror at the thought that slaveowners, particularly those in areas where soil had been declining, engaged in slave-breeding. Considering, though, that the United…

[fairest]

The Architect of the Vagina

The “father” of modern gynecology, generally portrayed in medical historiography as an innovative figure, was the South Carolina surgeon J. Marion Sims, whom one historian refers to as “the Architect of the Vagina.” Sims refined his innovations by operating experimentally on the genitals of enslaved women he kept for that purpose. In this way, he developed a surgical repair for vesico-vaginal fistulas, using an infection-resistant silver suture, and more generally he popularized the use of surgery for gynecological problems, becoming quite wealthy in the process. 

In a “hospital” he built in his backyard in Montgomery, Alabama, he operated on a woman named Anarcha thirty times, sewing her insides without anesthesia and giving her opium afterward. He also kept women named Lucy and Betsy for this purpose, describing the expense of their maintenance as a research cost. After perfecting his treatment, he subsequently moved to New York, where he founded the Women’s Hospital and continued experimenting surgically; since there was no slavery in New York, he practiced on poor Irish women, performing thirty surgeries on one Mary Smith.

--Quoted in The American Slave Coast, Ned and Constance Sublette (2016) 

[treethymes]

When a “founding father’s” remarks about “liberty” don’t seem to make sense, substitute the word “property” and they do. Taking over Havana would have created an empire of liberty, all right---for slaveowners. Jefferson wasn’t fantasizing about freeing the two hundred thousand or so slaves who were being systematically worked to death on Cuba’s sugar plantations and replaced by new arrivals from Africa. Cuba was at that time a fantastically productive sugar machine that was still in the early phase of its multi-decade peak of importation of kidnapped Africans. Acquiring Cuba would have been a windfall for Virginia slave breeders and would have added two reliably pro-slavery senators.

In 1861, slaveowners went to war with the North over slavery, as South Carolina’s planter class had been inciting them to do for decades. The idea that the South fought a war so that it could be left in peace to have slavery merely within its settled boundaries is sometimes voiced as a cherished myth today, but it does not fit the facts on the ground, nor did anyone think so at the time. Quite the contrary: the war was fought over the expansion of slavery. Southern rulers feared being restricted to the boundaries they then occupied. The dysfunctional-from-the-beginning Confederate States of America was set to have an aggressively annexationist foreign policy.

Premised on infinite reproduction into an ever-expanding market, the slave-breeding economy was like a chain letter or a Ponzi scheme: sooner or later someone would be left holding the bag. [...]

The clash between slave labor and free-soil---the “irrepressible conflict” to use William Seward’s phrase of 1858---resulted in the overthrow of slavery. But it was not merely a clash between labor systems; it was a clash between monetary systems.

When slavery was abolished and the on-paper value of flesh-and-blood capital disappeared from the balance sheet, the wealth of the South evaporated. Since the South’s economy had been built entirely on a foundation of slavery, there was nothing to substitute it for. There were as many laborers as before, but they could no longer be coerced. There was nothing to pay labor with, because the labor had been the money. The security for hundreds of millions of dollars in debt walked away, leaving the obligations valueless, the credit structure imploded, the hundred-dollar Confederate notes trampled in the mud, and the planters owning worthless land.

Emancipation destroyed an entirely legal form of property, which is why it was a revolution.

Ned and Constance Sublette, The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry

[bimlenugna657678-blog]

history of audiobooks : The American Slave Coast by Constance Sublette, Ned Sublette | Non-Fiction

Listen to The American Slave Coast new releases history of audiobooks on your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Get any BOOKS by Constance Sublette, Ned Sublette Non-Fiction FREE during your Free Trial

Written By: Constance Sublette, Ned Sublette Narrated By: Robin Eller Publisher: Tantor Media Date: June 2016 Duration: 30 hours 41 minutes

[benaquiagua]

Listen to The American Slave Coast by Ned Sublette, Constance Sublette on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd/B01H7S4MGU?source_code=ASSORAP0511160007

[protoslackeranon]

A Few More Links in re the Civil War

This thoughtful lesson plan about Sojourner’s Truth ‘s  Ain’t I a Woman speech references references A Patterned Way of Reading and Talking. I was unfamiliar with the  approach but it seems really useful. 

Here is a link about the Kumbaya song and a deeper dive from the LOC.

There’s a photo of a historical marker about Kumbaya. I rather like the idea of studying history from historical markers. Here’s a link to Civil War Women’s Riot marker.ncle 

I think Uncle Tom’s Cabin is essential to a Civil War as literature unit. But I don’t think it’s worth the time for the class to read the book. Kathleen Lant’s article in American Studies , “the unsung hero of uncle tom’s cabin” JUSTOR or download at KU provides a feminist perspective on the book. 

I mentioned that I’ve been reading Colin Woodward’s American Nations book.  I was rather amazed that patriotic feelings arose when thinking about the Civil War. I’m really not sure where that comes from, but it seems pretty deep. Woodward’s book is good, but the rival cultures are all European so Indigenous and African cultures aren’t much addressed. And that alludes to something else that has amazed me in thinking about the Civil War, how embedded racism is. That makes for real challenges for teaching!

Here is a clip from a 1971 movie Farewell Uncle Tom on Youtube with the title,  boy wants black sex slave. Wait: you may not want to open the link as it’s disturbing. And if you were to show it in a classroom almost certainly you’d be fired. Here’s Roger Ebert’s one star review of the film. The really unsettling thing is, there’s an important historical truth. Ned and Constance Sublette’s book The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry show’s how breeding slaves was central to  capital creation.

On one hand I feel passion for an American Ideal and on the other disgust with the empire. Lyle Jeremy Rubin in The Nation. The Left’s Embrace of Empire The history of the left in the United States is a history of betrayal is sort of a link explosion of the latter theme. The article is based on Nikhil Pal Singh’s scholarship, especially Race  and America’s Long War. Singh observes that the interior and external wars are continuous.  I think he’s right and find that very disturbing.

 Literature can put a reader in someone else’s shoes. Youtube makes some old movie’s available. A student who might not make it through A Red Badge of Courage the book might be moved by the movie. I think an interior perspective like that novel is really important for understanding those colonized. But I don’t have a good bibliography.  

I do think that children’s picture books on Civil War themes are an excellent resource even for 8th graders. Many excellent bibliographies can be found, like this one. I have a sense that a group of reluctant readers could engage in learning if given a task to select some books to teach 5th-graders about the Civil war!

[protoslacker]

The Sublettes have managed to coin the brutal economic system that kept the institution of slavery alive as the “capitalized womb” (p. 24). They argue that the “capitalized womb” illustrates how enslaved women’s bodies served as the engine of the slave breeding industry and powered a global economy for cotton consumption. Their new book ties the violent experiences of enslaved women directly to the market. It tells the brutal story of how the slave industry made the reproductive labor of the people it referred to as “breeding women” essential to the country’s expansion. They contend: “In a land without silver, gold, or trustworthy paper money, enslaved women’s children and their children’s children into perpetuity were used as human savings accounts that functioned as the basis of money and credit.” In short, slaves were money.

Kelly Carter Jackson in Black Perspectives. The ‘Capitalized Womb’: A Review of Ned and Constance Sublette’s The American Slave Coast

The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry

[lodelss]

ACLU: Why have a forum on reparations in Charleston and why now?

Why have a forum on reparations in Charleston and why now?

This year marks 400 years since enslaved, kidnapped people were purchased by the forefathers and – mothers of America. Are the events that began 400 years ago connected to today? William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” 

On June 19, 2019, the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a forum on H.R. 40 in the historic Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. As a follow up to that event, NAARC and the ACLU are joining with the ACLU of South Carolina and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream to sponsor a second forum on H.R. 40 and reparations entitled: From Enslavement to Reparations: A 400-Year Journey for Justice.  

The event will be held on Saturday, November 2nd at 1 pm at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina.

Why Charleston?

The first step to any successful reparations program is a reckoning – acknowledging and addressing the effects of past mistakes. When you attempt to understand America’s 246-year history of enslaving Black people, it is critical to understand that the Civil War didn’t end white supremacy in America. Rather, it heralded in a new era of white supremacy in different forms – Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes, “separate but equal” being affirmed by the Supreme Court, redlining to prevent Blacks from becoming homeowners and the war on drugs ushering in mass incarceration. When trying to understand how these legacies of white supremacy have impacted America in 2019, there is no better place to begin than Charleston.

The American Slave Coast by Ned and Constance Sublette explains how Charleston played a key role in the two primary phases of the slave trade. Charleston’s location was an ideal landing place for ships carrying human cargo during the importation phase, which lasted until around 1808. The domestic breeding stage, which began after America outlawed the importation of enslaved people, helped maintain the slave populations through the mass rape of Black women to produce new slaves. . The American Slave Coast reminds us that many white plantation owners used the term “natural increase” to describe this horrific practice. The International African American Museum estimates that 80 percent of African Americans can trace their roots back to Charleston. 

Founded in 1670, Charleston was the 5th largest city in the country just 30 years later in 1700. By 1708, a census found that South Carolina was 42.5 percent white, 42.5 percent Black, and 15 percent enslaved Native American.

While the existence of slavery was never a question to the new American nation, who was going to profit from slavery was a matter of great concern. The newly ratified United States Constitution guaranteed that the “Migration or Importation of such persons” (enslaved human beings) could not be prohibited by Congress until 1808.

South Carolina was concerned that although a state could not pass a law prohibiting the trade until 1808, the Constitution itself could be amended before then South Carolina was concerned that because a state could not pass a law prohibiting the trade until 1808, the Constitution would be amended before then. South Carolina doubled down to protect its interests and found its answer in Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution which prevented any amendment of Article 1 Section 9 until 1808.  Not surprisingly, in 1807, South Carolina merchants imported the highest volume of enslaved people in any one-year period in the history of the North American slave trade. 

The trade routes and contacts that were used during the international trade continued to create wealth and privilege for white people in Charleston even after the international slave trade ended, via the domestic slave trade.

Charleston’s recent apology for the role it played in the buying and selling of enslaved people in America is a start, but not enough.  If Charleston – and America – is to truly have a reckoning with our past, action must follow the apology. For example, Charleston’s segregated schools and neighborhoods withstood the test of civil rights laws and the Fair Housing Act, and Charleston is still one of the most segregated cities in America. A jury in North Charleston refused to convict the police officer who murdered Walter Scott. Most recently, the murder of nine innocent African American churchgoers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston are still painfully fresh in our collective consciousness.

Charleston continues to be proud of John C. Calhoun, who was a prominent South Carolina politician for almost three decades. Calhoun also was a proud racist who made it clear that he saw a major difference between white people and Black people being quoted as saying, “with us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious; and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.”” Calhoun also believed that the freedom of one race depended on the bondage of the other. “I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions.” 

The Gaillard Center in downtown Charleston, where this forum will be hosted, shares a disturbing commonality with Mother Emanuel AME Church – they are both located on Calhoun Street. The remains of enslaved people were also found in the 2013 structural renovations of the Gaillard Center. It’s clear that in Charleston, the past is not dead – it’s alive and well.

Why Now?

The arguments in favor of reparations have been known and recognized for decades. Individual efforts began immediately following the Civil War. Members of the National African American Reparations Commission have fought for reparations since before Representative John Conyers introduced H.R. 40 for the first time in 1988. This is not a new struggle, so what is different now?

The advocacy of those who have been engaged in the struggle for reparations for decades have worked like water on stone, never letting the potential promise of reparations die. Additionally, new voices have added to the movement for America’s reckoning with its past. Ta-Nehisi Coates article “The Case for Reparations” continues to impact people. Groups like Movement for Black Lives and efforts like The 1619 Project from the New York Times have brought new ideas to the table. H.R. 40 now has 118 cosponsors – before this year it never had more than 52.

Much of the critique of the renewed light shone on the history of enslaved people by projects like the New York Times 1619 Project can be put into two broad categories: 1) Why do you hate America? 2) Reparations would unfairly hold people accountable for something they never did or benefitted from.  Here is why both are wrong.

Some people confuse critiquing America with hating America. True love allows for and encourages criticism, especially when it relates to an issue like racial justice. The refusal to look at our history and our present circumstance in order to find the unvarnished truth is a betrayal of the principles our country claims to hold dear. At the end of the day, you cannot support reparations unless you truly love America. Not a superficial love, but rather the kind of love that demands that we face the truth because we will be better for it.

What about the complaint that the Civil War ended 154 years ago and Blacks in America need to get over it?  Our history is full of proof that demonstrates the legacy of slavery has had a continual impact on criminal law, economic and educational opportunity, access to quality health care, and housing in America. This objection is countered by the provisions of H.R. 40. Before there can be any recommendations about reparations, a committee will have to investigate our history to see if the facts justify a system of reparations and let the truth come out.

In We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke to the true reason why a caricature has been made of the movement for reparations. He said, “Mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter”. It’s time for our country to quit hiding behind that mask of fear and finally reckon with our past.

Published November 1, 2019 at 01:27AM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2BWnHmm from Blogger https://ift.tt/2N7ogjH via IFTTT

[nancydhooper]

Why have a forum on reparations in Charleston and why now?

This year marks 400 years since enslaved, kidnapped people were purchased by the forefathers and – mothers of America. Are the events that began 400 years ago connected to today? William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” 

On June 19, 2019, the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a forum on H.R. 40 in the historic Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. As a follow up to that event, NAARC and the ACLU are joining with the ACLU of South Carolina and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream to sponsor a second forum on H.R. 40 and reparations entitled: From Enslavement to Reparations: A 400-Year Journey for Justice.  

The event will be held on Saturday, November 2nd at 1 pm at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina.

Why Charleston?

The first step to any successful reparations program is a reckoning – acknowledging and addressing the effects of past mistakes. When you attempt to understand America’s 246-year history of enslaving Black people, it is critical to understand that the Civil War didn’t end white supremacy in America. Rather, it heralded in a new era of white supremacy in different forms – Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes, “separate but equal” being affirmed by the Supreme Court, redlining to prevent Blacks from becoming homeowners and the war on drugs ushering in mass incarceration. When trying to understand how these legacies of white supremacy have impacted America in 2019, there is no better place to begin than Charleston.

The American Slave Coast by Ned and Constance Sublette explains how Charleston played a key role in the two primary phases of the slave trade. Charleston’s location was an ideal landing place for ships carrying human cargo during the importation phase, which lasted until around 1808. The domestic breeding stage, which began after America outlawed the importation of enslaved people, helped maintain the slave populations through the mass rape of Black women to produce new slaves. . The American Slave Coast reminds us that many white plantation owners used the term “natural increase” to describe this horrific practice. The International African American Museum estimates that 80 percent of African Americans can trace their roots back to Charleston. 

Founded in 1670, Charleston was the 5th largest city in the country just 30 years later in 1700. By 1708, a census found that South Carolina was 42.5 percent white, 42.5 percent Black, and 15 percent enslaved Native American.

While the existence of slavery was never a question to the new American nation, who was going to profit from slavery was a matter of great concern. The newly ratified United States Constitution guaranteed that the “Migration or Importation of such persons” (enslaved human beings) could not be prohibited by Congress until 1808.

South Carolina was concerned that although a state could not pass a law prohibiting the trade until 1808, the Constitution itself could be amended before then South Carolina was concerned that because a state could not pass a law prohibiting the trade until 1808, the Constitution would be amended before then. South Carolina doubled down to protect its interests and found its answer in Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution which prevented any amendment of Article 1 Section 9 until 1808.  Not surprisingly, in 1807, South Carolina merchants imported the highest volume of enslaved people in any one-year period in the history of the North American slave trade. 

The trade routes and contacts that were used during the international trade continued to create wealth and privilege for white people in Charleston even after the international slave trade ended, via the domestic slave trade.

Charleston’s recent apology for the role it played in the buying and selling of enslaved people in America is a start, but not enough.  If Charleston – and America – is to truly have a reckoning with our past, action must follow the apology. For example, Charleston’s segregated schools and neighborhoods withstood the test of civil rights laws and the Fair Housing Act, and Charleston is still one of the most segregated cities in America. A jury in North Charleston refused to convict the police officer who murdered Walter Scott. Most recently, the murder of nine innocent African American churchgoers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston are still painfully fresh in our collective consciousness.

Charleston continues to be proud of John C. Calhoun, who was a prominent South Carolina politician for almost three decades. Calhoun also was a proud racist who made it clear that he saw a major difference between white people and Black people being quoted as saying, “with us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious; and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.”” Calhoun also believed that the freedom of one race depended on the bondage of the other. “I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions.” 

The Gaillard Center in downtown Charleston, where this forum will be hosted, shares a disturbing commonality with Mother Emanuel AME Church – they are both located on Calhoun Street. The remains of enslaved people were also found in the 2013 structural renovations of the Gaillard Center. It’s clear that in Charleston, the past is not dead – it’s alive and well.

Why Now?

The arguments in favor of reparations have been known and recognized for decades. Individual efforts began immediately following the Civil War. Members of the National African American Reparations Commission have fought for reparations since before Representative John Conyers introduced H.R. 40 for the first time in 1988. This is not a new struggle, so what is different now?

The advocacy of those who have been engaged in the struggle for reparations for decades have worked like water on stone, never letting the potential promise of reparations die. Additionally, new voices have added to the movement for America’s reckoning with its past. Ta-Nehisi Coates article “The Case for Reparations” continues to impact people. Groups like Movement for Black Lives and efforts like The 1619 Project from the New York Times have brought new ideas to the table. H.R. 40 now has 118 cosponsors – before this year it never had more than 52.

Much of the critique of the renewed light shone on the history of enslaved people by projects like the New York Times 1619 Project can be put into two broad categories: 1) Why do you hate America? 2) Reparations would unfairly hold people accountable for something they never did or benefitted from.  Here is why both are wrong.

Some people confuse critiquing America with hating America. True love allows for and encourages criticism, especially when it relates to an issue like racial justice. The refusal to look at our history and our present circumstance in order to find the unvarnished truth is a betrayal of the principles our country claims to hold dear. At the end of the day, you cannot support reparations unless you truly love America. Not a superficial love, but rather the kind of love that demands that we face the truth because we will be better for it.

What about the complaint that the Civil War ended 154 years ago and Blacks in America need to get over it?  Our history is full of proof that demonstrates the legacy of slavery has had a continual impact on criminal law, economic and educational opportunity, access to quality health care, and housing in America. This objection is countered by the provisions of H.R. 40. Before there can be any recommendations about reparations, a committee will have to investigate our history to see if the facts justify a system of reparations and let the truth come out.

In We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke to the true reason why a caricature has been made of the movement for reparations. He said, “Mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter”. It’s time for our country to quit hiding behind that mask of fear and finally reckon with our past.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/why-have-a-forum-on-reparations-in-charleston-and-why-now via http://www.rssmix.com/

[aresidentalien]

But That Was Then, This Is Now : Part 3 A Little Property History

But That Was Then, This Is Now : Part 3 A Little Property History

(For this post I rely heavily on Ned and Constance Sublette’s eye-opeing book: The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry.)

In America, one of the main ways to build assets is through home ownership. In the previous post I already laid out the many ways government on every level, together with the housing industry, kept African Americans segregated from whites, how they…

[treethymes]

tagged by @nietp

last song: naan yaar

last movie: ponyo. my seething hot take? it’s navy propaganda

currently watching: don’t trust the b---- in apartment 23 (i love it)

currently reading: the american slave coast by ned and constance sublette (it’s taking a while but i will finish it this time. it’s blowing my mind)

currently craving: loacker wafers

[lodelss]

ACLU: Why have a forum on reparations in Charleston and why now?

Why have a forum on reparations in Charleston and why now?

This year marks 400 years since enslaved, kidnapped people were purchased by the forefathers and – mothers of America. Are the events that began 400 years ago connected to today? William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” 

On June 19, 2019, the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a forum on H.R. 40 in the historic Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. As a follow up to that event, NAARC and the ACLU are joining with the ACLU of South Carolina and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream to sponsor a second forum on H.R. 40 and reparations entitled: From Enslavement to Reparations: A 400-Year Journey for Justice.  

The event will be held on Saturday, November 2nd at 1 pm at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, South Carolina.

Why Charleston?

The first step to any successful reparations program is a reckoning – acknowledging and addressing the effects of past mistakes. When you attempt to understand America’s 246-year history of enslaving Black people, it is critical to understand that the Civil War didn’t end white supremacy in America. Rather, it heralded in a new era of white supremacy in different forms – Jim Crow Laws and Black Codes, “separate but equal” being affirmed by the Supreme Court, redlining to prevent Blacks from becoming homeowners and the war on drugs ushering in mass incarceration. When trying to understand how these legacies of white supremacy have impacted America in 2019, there is no better place to begin than Charleston.

The American Slave Coast by Ned and Constance Sublette explains how Charleston played a key role in the two primary phases of the slave trade. Charleston’s location was an ideal landing place for ships carrying human cargo during the importation phase, which lasted until around 1808. The domestic breeding stage, which began after America outlawed the importation of enslaved people, helped maintain the slave populations through the mass rape of Black women to produce new slaves. . The American Slave Coast reminds us that many white plantation owners used the term “natural increase” to describe this horrific practice. The International African American Museum estimates that 80 percent of African Americans can trace their roots back to Charleston. 

Founded in 1670, Charleston was the 5th largest city in the country just 30 years later in 1700. By 1708, a census found that South Carolina was 42.5 percent white, 42.5 percent Black, and 15 percent enslaved Native American.

While the existence of slavery was never a question to the new American nation, who was going to profit from slavery was a matter of great concern. The newly ratified United States Constitution guaranteed that the “Migration or Importation of such persons” (enslaved human beings) could not be prohibited by Congress until 1808.

South Carolina was concerned that although a state could not pass a law prohibiting the trade until 1808, the Constitution itself could be amended before then South Carolina was concerned that because a state could not pass a law prohibiting the trade until 1808, the Constitution would be amended before then. South Carolina doubled down to protect its interests and found its answer in Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution which prevented any amendment of Article 1 Section 9 until 1808.  Not surprisingly, in 1807, South Carolina merchants imported the highest volume of enslaved people in any one-year period in the history of the North American slave trade. 

The trade routes and contacts that were used during the international trade continued to create wealth and privilege for white people in Charleston even after the international slave trade ended, via the domestic slave trade.

Charleston’s recent apology for the role it played in the buying and selling of enslaved people in America is a start, but not enough.  If Charleston – and America – is to truly have a reckoning with our past, action must follow the apology. For example, Charleston’s segregated schools and neighborhoods withstood the test of civil rights laws and the Fair Housing Act, and Charleston is still one of the most segregated cities in America. A jury in North Charleston refused to convict the police officer who murdered Walter Scott. Most recently, the murder of nine innocent African American churchgoers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston are still painfully fresh in our collective consciousness.

Charleston continues to be proud of John C. Calhoun, who was a prominent South Carolina politician for almost three decades. Calhoun also was a proud racist who made it clear that he saw a major difference between white people and Black people being quoted as saying, “with us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and the poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious; and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.”” Calhoun also believed that the freedom of one race depended on the bondage of the other. “I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions.” 

The Gaillard Center in downtown Charleston, where this forum will be hosted, shares a disturbing commonality with Mother Emanuel AME Church – they are both located on Calhoun Street. The remains of enslaved people were also found in the 2013 structural renovations of the Gaillard Center. It’s clear that in Charleston, the past is not dead – it’s alive and well.

Why Now?

The arguments in favor of reparations have been known and recognized for decades. Individual efforts began immediately following the Civil War. Members of the National African American Reparations Commission have fought for reparations since before Representative John Conyers introduced H.R. 40 for the first time in 1988. This is not a new struggle, so what is different now?

The advocacy of those who have been engaged in the struggle for reparations for decades have worked like water on stone, never letting the potential promise of reparations die. Additionally, new voices have added to the movement for America’s reckoning with its past. Ta-Nehisi Coates article “The Case for Reparations” continues to impact people. Groups like Movement for Black Lives and efforts like The 1619 Project from the New York Times have brought new ideas to the table. H.R. 40 now has 118 cosponsors – before this year it never had more than 52.

Much of the critique of the renewed light shone on the history of enslaved people by projects like the New York Times 1619 Project can be put into two broad categories: 1) Why do you hate America? 2) Reparations would unfairly hold people accountable for something they never did or benefitted from.  Here is why both are wrong.

Some people confuse critiquing America with hating America. True love allows for and encourages criticism, especially when it relates to an issue like racial justice. The refusal to look at our history and our present circumstance in order to find the unvarnished truth is a betrayal of the principles our country claims to hold dear. At the end of the day, you cannot support reparations unless you truly love America. Not a superficial love, but rather the kind of love that demands that we face the truth because we will be better for it.

What about the complaint that the Civil War ended 154 years ago and Blacks in America need to get over it?  Our history is full of proof that demonstrates the legacy of slavery has had a continual impact on criminal law, economic and educational opportunity, access to quality health care, and housing in America. This objection is countered by the provisions of H.R. 40. Before there can be any recommendations about reparations, a committee will have to investigate our history to see if the facts justify a system of reparations and let the truth come out.

In We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke to the true reason why a caricature has been made of the movement for reparations. He said, “Mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter”. It’s time for our country to quit hiding behind that mask of fear and finally reckon with our past.

Published October 31, 2019 at 07:57PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2BWnHmm from Blogger https://ift.tt/2WwY5WC via IFTTT