The myth Africans were eager to be sold into slavery arose because those inspected by European slave traders often pleaded to be purchased. However, the reason was most of those rejected as unfit were executed by their African capturers. Africans sold people captured during intertribal warfare into slavery as a sort of ethnic cleansing. In America, slaves longed desperately for freedom, but some were happier than others. People who saw “12 Years a Slave” are disappointed to discover parts of Solomon Northup’s memoir sound as if they are torn from the pages of “Gone With the Wind.” The book portrays the cruelties inflicted on Solomon as beyond the norm, the result of his being sold to a degenerate master when his first master, William Ford, faces bankruptcy. Northup fondly recalls Ford’s plantation: “That little paradise in the Great Pine Woods was the oasis in the desert towards which my heart turned lovingly during many years of bondage.” Of Ford, he says, “It is but simple justice to him when I say, in my opinion, there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford. The influence and association that had always surrounded him blinded him to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of slavery. He was a model master, walking uprightly, according to the light of his understanding, and fortunate was the slave who came to his possession. Were all men such he, slavery would be deprived of more than half of its bitterness.”
4
Professor Baptist’s putdown of the white student who asked “with a smirk” whether Africans sold other Africans to European dealers reveals that he is in denial about the role Africans and African Americans played in the Atlantic Slave Trade. The black tribal people of Sub-Sahara Africa ran the supply side of the slave trade. Africans enslaved prisoners captured during intertribal warfare in the African interior and sold surplus slaves to black slave traders, who march the slaves to the coast and resold them to the captains of European and American slave ships. The Africans also enslaved people convicted of crimes or indebtedness and sold them to the Europeans. About four-fifths of the slaves transported to the Americas went to Latin America, not to the United States. (The Latino students in Professor Baptist’s classroom are as likely as white students to be descended from slave owners.) In the United States, people of all races and ethnic groups, including free blacks and Native Americans, owned slaves. A slightly smaller percent of free blacks than free whites owned slaves. The percent of slave owners among tribes like the Cherokee, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws was higher than among the white population. The “burden of guilt” for slavery, if such a thing exist, weighs equally heavily on all Americans; however, the burden of U.S. slavery fell heaviest on African Americans, since virtually all slaves were black.
13
It should be pointed out that slavery is not unique to America, its just that we have a vision of America being to great, we fail to see its real flaws. Its not just slaves but also Indians, Chinese laborers, coal miners, the first factory workers, and other groups who were oppressed and denied their freedom through economic means.
Black slavery is America's original sin. Elite Ivy students should know that given the "superior" education they are supposed to have. The idea that any slave could be "happy" is an example of how this country's autocratic bias. I have known people who were slaves in Nazi Germany. I can tell you that not one had a happy day while a prisoner.
When a government takes away a person's right to be themselves, it commits the most serious of crimes. America is no greater then the people who run things, and in general, America, for all its promise and resources, is more a dream then a reality for many.
Black slavery is America's original sin. Elite Ivy students should know that given the "superior" education they are supposed to have. The idea that any slave could be "happy" is an example of how this country's autocratic bias. I have known people who were slaves in Nazi Germany. I can tell you that not one had a happy day while a prisoner.
When a government takes away a person's right to be themselves, it commits the most serious of crimes. America is no greater then the people who run things, and in general, America, for all its promise and resources, is more a dream then a reality for many.
3
It is an irrefutable fact that the wealth of America and the inequality between Blacks And Whites are the result of the enslavement for hundreds of years of kidnapped Africans
America was built on violence and exploitation by Whites.
The denial of this construct by those who enjoy white skin privilege because of it is self serving.. That this hypocrisy has been ingrained in young whites is disheartening but not unexpected. The benefits of White supremacy, it seems, out weighs any admission of accountability.
America was built on violence and exploitation by Whites.
The denial of this construct by those who enjoy white skin privilege because of it is self serving.. That this hypocrisy has been ingrained in young whites is disheartening but not unexpected. The benefits of White supremacy, it seems, out weighs any admission of accountability.
7
This is being overplayed. Marking the decline of the Civil Rights movement. This is from an article in 2001,
National Geographic Magazine September 2001 "Changing America", By Joel L. Swerdlow
American High School Class:
"I don't want to be white," says a white student from Poland. I'm in the
library with a cross section of students who volunteered to speak with me.
Others agree with the Polish-born youth, but I'm confused.
They explain. To call someone "white" is an insult, as are synonymous
terms like Wonder bread. "I don't consider myself white," says a young
woman from Russia. She has white skin. "Whites act white and do white stuff."
"What's 'white stuff?'" I ask.
"White kids act different. They hang out differently. Whites are privileged. They're
smart, do homework on time, run the student government, participate in
plays and musicals, sell stuff, have parents who are involved in the
school."
"When you go to apply for a job," says one boy, "you have to act white."
Most white students remain silent during these discussions. "I won't apologize for being white," says one.
If achievement—or at least too much achievement—is
unfashionable and achievement, as they have defined it, is "white," then
"white" is not cool."
National Geographic Magazine September 2001 "Changing America", By Joel L. Swerdlow
American High School Class:
"I don't want to be white," says a white student from Poland. I'm in the
library with a cross section of students who volunteered to speak with me.
Others agree with the Polish-born youth, but I'm confused.
They explain. To call someone "white" is an insult, as are synonymous
terms like Wonder bread. "I don't consider myself white," says a young
woman from Russia. She has white skin. "Whites act white and do white stuff."
"What's 'white stuff?'" I ask.
"White kids act different. They hang out differently. Whites are privileged. They're
smart, do homework on time, run the student government, participate in
plays and musicals, sell stuff, have parents who are involved in the
school."
"When you go to apply for a job," says one boy, "you have to act white."
Most white students remain silent during these discussions. "I won't apologize for being white," says one.
If achievement—or at least too much achievement—is
unfashionable and achievement, as they have defined it, is "white," then
"white" is not cool."
4
I teach a graduate course on racial discrimination. We examine racial discrimination conceptually and empirically. My strategy is simple - present the material and let it speak for itself. The discussions are insightful and sometimes painful as many students, particularly White students, confront the depth of inequality and privilege saturating our society. When students let me know that my class changed their thinking for the better, I realize it is worth it.
7
I am surprised by this. In my white-majority, but rapidly desegregating urban high school in the 70s, slavery was part of the history curriculum and it was received with the same humdrum reaction as WWII, the massacre of native Americans and pretty much everything else that the students thought was ancient. Jim Crow got some traction because the images were more recent and therefore, perhaps, relatable. From a racial relations perspective, there was far more value in the fact that an increasing number of my classmates were black, than anything a history class might've taught us. In college, a state university, slavery was part of the curriculum and the discussion, and was not at all treated with impatience, as an annoyance or reluctantly by white students. Not in the least. Did something change in the 90s or was my experience the exception?
3
African King Gezo said in the 1840's he would do anything the British wanted him to do apart from giving up slave trade:
"The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…"
"The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…"
6
Interesting article. However is not surprising the final jab that we Africans are responsible of selling our own. In part, Yes! Reading 'King Leopard's Ghost' you can appreciate the internal and external relations between and within powers at the time. In Africa, we don't focus only on the transatlantic salve trade, we also look at slavery that extended to Arabia, India and the far East. We only discovered our relatives in India 5 years ago. Mwalimu (Teacher), perhaps what is more powerful is the International Political Economy of the time we should focus on and why Modern-day slavery continues to be an international commodity!
3
----------- and there's still slavery, today: chinese, saudi arabia, russia, viet nam, laos, honduras , all over africa and so on. some are prostitutes, some are indentured with no hope of repatriation, and some are children .
a superficial article is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery
a superficial article is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery
3
There's a good book on the subject available: The Atlantic Slave Trade by Herbert S. Klein published in 1999 by the Cambridge University Press.
2
College was where I stopped feeling defensive about the history of slavery in the United States, and started to view it as one of the essential tenets of understanding this country and its global significance.
The trick to changing my perspective was large quantities of accurate detail. As long as "the horrors of slavery" were just an abstract rhetorical cudgel, they rang hollow. But when the horrors were discrete, enumerated, and extensively documented, the picture started to feel very different.
One aspect of the legacy of slavery that still feels poorly defined to me is the subtle difference between accountability, responsibility, and culpability that modern white Americans are asked to navigate. Can we take appropriate responsibility even while justly denying blame? It's a tricky proposition, and being a maximalist when it comes to self-recrimination is usually not a productive approach.
The trick to changing my perspective was large quantities of accurate detail. As long as "the horrors of slavery" were just an abstract rhetorical cudgel, they rang hollow. But when the horrors were discrete, enumerated, and extensively documented, the picture started to feel very different.
One aspect of the legacy of slavery that still feels poorly defined to me is the subtle difference between accountability, responsibility, and culpability that modern white Americans are asked to navigate. Can we take appropriate responsibility even while justly denying blame? It's a tricky proposition, and being a maximalist when it comes to self-recrimination is usually not a productive approach.
Very interesting, I almost took his course this semester. I'll have to sit through his lecture tomorrow and get a taste of his teaching style, and hopefully learn about some of the implications of slavery on the early American economy
My guess is this guy's difficulties in teaching his subject lie more in his effort to blame his students for our past than in their inability to understand historical facts. He seems to have such a problem that we are not all equal in results as well as abilities. Those students who descend from parents that pass along their wealth will quite naturally have advantages over those that do not. This is the essence of a property based society.
But let us consider the consequences of a most profound counterfactual situation. Suppose white slave traders had never brought any Africans to this continent. Would today's African-Americans prefer to have been left in Africa? My guess is they would not. No matter how high a price their ancestors had to pay to obtain their passage here, and whatever disadvantages they still face vis a vis their white neighbors, it was better than being left behind in Africa.
As the Economist said about this teacher, he is more an advocate than a researcher. I am surprised these schools keep him on.
But let us consider the consequences of a most profound counterfactual situation. Suppose white slave traders had never brought any Africans to this continent. Would today's African-Americans prefer to have been left in Africa? My guess is they would not. No matter how high a price their ancestors had to pay to obtain their passage here, and whatever disadvantages they still face vis a vis their white neighbors, it was better than being left behind in Africa.
As the Economist said about this teacher, he is more an advocate than a researcher. I am surprised these schools keep him on.
6
I looked up Dr. Baptist on ratemyprofessor.com The students at Cornell who take the time to rate him call him tough on writing, a good lecturer and a great professor. Not one critized him for an over emphasis on slavery. While i don't have a basis to doubt his story about students grumbling in class about the workload, in 24 years of working in higher education, I have never had students do it in public - in private, yes - and look like slackers in front of their peers.
More interesting to me is that Dr. Baptist has taught at two Ivy League schools. These are universities that pride themselves on exclusivity. The students at Penn and Cornell certainly were aware of the impact of slavery - it was on their AP exams.
If he really wanted to raise awareness where it counted, Dr. Baptist would be teaching at a college where the sutdents might have missed out on the lessons of slavery in high school but still feel its impact. Any first generation oriented college or community college. There he would have the opportunity to really impart some lessons to students eager to learn, not just checking off a diversity class for their gen eds.
More interesting to me is that Dr. Baptist has taught at two Ivy League schools. These are universities that pride themselves on exclusivity. The students at Penn and Cornell certainly were aware of the impact of slavery - it was on their AP exams.
If he really wanted to raise awareness where it counted, Dr. Baptist would be teaching at a college where the sutdents might have missed out on the lessons of slavery in high school but still feel its impact. Any first generation oriented college or community college. There he would have the opportunity to really impart some lessons to students eager to learn, not just checking off a diversity class for their gen eds.
3
It all depends on how you approach the subject, and from what perspective. I would suggest that students take World History before they take American History, and that they learn about Egyptian slavery, Greek and Roman slavery, slavery in the Islamic world, slavery in Southeast Asia and other manifestations of this all-too-common historical phenomenon before embarking on the study of (North) American slavery. In that way, they will come to see that "our" history of slavery is not necessarily unique, and that "people of color" have been as historically responsible for the cruelties of slavery as "white people." Studying history with a measure of objectivity may prevent it from being hijacked by people with a - however sympathetic or understandable - political agenda.
14
Yes, I absolutely agree. If one is facing slavery as if it is a uniquely white problem then white students have a definite beef and plus the idea and problems of slavery are being taught wrong anyway.
When you put the onus there, then statements like the white student smugly asking if Africans enslaved other Africans seems relevant. But of course, it doesn't really matter if other people enslaved some Africans as well, nobody had a right to enslave anybody. It was morally reprehensible either way. It is not ok to murder someone if someone else helped you, after all.
When you put the onus there, then statements like the white student smugly asking if Africans enslaved other Africans seems relevant. But of course, it doesn't really matter if other people enslaved some Africans as well, nobody had a right to enslave anybody. It was morally reprehensible either way. It is not ok to murder someone if someone else helped you, after all.
1
Yes, but a particularly troubling permutation of worldwide slavery took place in much of the New World (including here) where the enslaver-enslaved relationship was generally codified as white-black. The tragic consequences of slavery continue to haunt us largely in terms of the racism that justified and was fed by this culturally constructed dichotomy.
I suspect that most US historians do the work of contextualizing North American slavery. You're right that students would find slavery has existed in many forms, in many places, and many time periods. You're also right that the cast of actors would be what we today consider diverse. But students also have to confront what made US slavery unique in the modern world:
*The south was a slave society and not a society with slaves. That is, economics, politics, and thought -- in short the ideology of the antebellum South -- was predicated on the defense and extension of slavery
*Americans, southerners and northerners alike, increasingly justified the mass enslavement of people of African descent as natural. By the 19th century this justification relied on scientific explanations, creating what we today call race.
*Slavery was fundamental to US westward expansion, the growth of capitalism, and of industry
*Finally, US Southerners were one of the few groups of slaveholders to argue that slavery was a positive good, an argument they continued to advance as wide swaths of the world embraced liberal free labor
Making students aware of these differences, especially the entrenchment of slavery, is not advancing a political agenda. It's just good history, the cost of which is making students uncomfortable.
*The south was a slave society and not a society with slaves. That is, economics, politics, and thought -- in short the ideology of the antebellum South -- was predicated on the defense and extension of slavery
*Americans, southerners and northerners alike, increasingly justified the mass enslavement of people of African descent as natural. By the 19th century this justification relied on scientific explanations, creating what we today call race.
*Slavery was fundamental to US westward expansion, the growth of capitalism, and of industry
*Finally, US Southerners were one of the few groups of slaveholders to argue that slavery was a positive good, an argument they continued to advance as wide swaths of the world embraced liberal free labor
Making students aware of these differences, especially the entrenchment of slavery, is not advancing a political agenda. It's just good history, the cost of which is making students uncomfortable.
6
" . . . one white woman’s sole contribution to the discussion last year was to ask with a smirk whether Africans sold other Africans to European dealers."
She may have smirked, but in fact the sale of Africans by Africans to whites took place on a very large scale. By challenging "white privilege," historians should not ignore the fact that all races have been oppressively brutal to people who were weaker than themselves.
She may have smirked, but in fact the sale of Africans by Africans to whites took place on a very large scale. By challenging "white privilege," historians should not ignore the fact that all races have been oppressively brutal to people who were weaker than themselves.
15
But it isn't relevant to the discussion at hand. Facing slavery in America does not require us to say that whites are unusual in comparison to other human beings. It only requires us to say what actually happened here. That the creation of race in order to enslave and the brutality that occurred and the caste system with all its oppressions it created. And that great evil was done.
That's it. That other people do it to is irrelevant to the point. It is like teaching the Holocaust and saying but lots of people commit genocide (even against the Jews).Yes, but that doesn't change a single fact about the Holocaust.
The process that was done to make enslaved Africans socially dead so that it seemed ok to enslave them has been done many times before (See Orlando Patterson's Slavery and Social Death) but that doesn't change the fact that it was done here, and done thoroughly and the consequences of that process are still being felt by African-Americans today.
This really isn't as hard to cope with as my fellow white Americans are making it out to be.
That's it. That other people do it to is irrelevant to the point. It is like teaching the Holocaust and saying but lots of people commit genocide (even against the Jews).Yes, but that doesn't change a single fact about the Holocaust.
The process that was done to make enslaved Africans socially dead so that it seemed ok to enslave them has been done many times before (See Orlando Patterson's Slavery and Social Death) but that doesn't change the fact that it was done here, and done thoroughly and the consequences of that process are still being felt by African-Americans today.
This really isn't as hard to cope with as my fellow white Americans are making it out to be.
10
To Donald Seekins: That Africans sold other Africans into slavery does not absolve Europeans and European Americans of permanently linking race with slavery. In no other culture was it assumed that the color of ones skin determined ones freedom. I don't believe there's another culture in which slaves were bred, and the offspring of any slave was determined to be the property of the slaveholder. When you have a culture where people are forbidden under pain of death not to learn to read (or to teach a slave to read), where the most defiant members of a group were punished and often put to death, where physical strength was prized above all, you have created a situation whose legacy will linger for centuries. It's time for white people (I am one) to stop smirking and blaming others for what our ancestors created and from whose values we still benefit.
6
In retrospect, it is easy to see that I was a beneficiary of white privilege. It is especially easy when I return to Texas where I grew up. My relatives there do not think of themselves as racists although most people from more enlightened areas would disagree.
My history education through high school was heavily based upon denial of slavery being an issue for the Civil War. State's Rights and Agrarian vs Industrial economies were always the issues taught in spite of the obvious fact that the Agrarian economy was based upon unpaid labor who only required minimal food and shelter.
By the time my children were in the public school system that problem was even worse as the Christian Right had begun to assert itself in the state's school boards and interfered in numerous ways with classroom text books. Professor Baptist has surely been waging an uphill battle during his career and I commend him for it.
My history education through high school was heavily based upon denial of slavery being an issue for the Civil War. State's Rights and Agrarian vs Industrial economies were always the issues taught in spite of the obvious fact that the Agrarian economy was based upon unpaid labor who only required minimal food and shelter.
By the time my children were in the public school system that problem was even worse as the Christian Right had begun to assert itself in the state's school boards and interfered in numerous ways with classroom text books. Professor Baptist has surely been waging an uphill battle during his career and I commend him for it.
83
For anyone seeking to understand viscerally the toll that slavery has taken on American society, and to explore its toll on you, consider taking a course given by the Racial Equity Institute. Each course is given over a two-day period. If you can handle brutal honesty, it doesn't come any more painful and unvarnished than this. Check here to see whether it is offered in your area. If not, I testify that it's worth the airfare to attend. http://rei.racialequityinstitute.org/wpsite/training-schedule/
11
Wonderful essay, please keep writing here. There is an architecture of white privilege. It's quintessence is male, white privilege. By architecture I am trying to convey that it begins underground, deep in the earth of those who benefit. Every component of its edifice is ruled by its survival from the gravel beneath the foundation, to the cement slab, to the light exiting the skylight is racist and sexist.You can't skim the detritus from the surface, you can't just repaint the exterior.
Deeply engrained patterns of belittlement, of not hearing and not seeing, of genocide, infanticide, rape, create a hermetic seal. People in the upper floors are incapable of comprehending the experience of those outside. So they just don't believe, like a nautical gimbel, they keep righting themselves to their own horizon.
When you're older, sometimes the scales can fall away. In a breath taking gasp you see all that you assumed, and all the cards that were stacked against you.
Deeply engrained patterns of belittlement, of not hearing and not seeing, of genocide, infanticide, rape, create a hermetic seal. People in the upper floors are incapable of comprehending the experience of those outside. So they just don't believe, like a nautical gimbel, they keep righting themselves to their own horizon.
When you're older, sometimes the scales can fall away. In a breath taking gasp you see all that you assumed, and all the cards that were stacked against you.
21
The dynamic in the classroom reminds me of the Reconstruction dynamic among farm laborers, black and white, after the Civil War. Populism did a fine job of pulling in tenant farmers of both races, offering an economic alliance that in places like the cane fields of Louisiana had to be destroyed by force of arms at the hands of the state militia.
When the Redeemers got their feet back under themselves, they did a fine job splitting the populists and bringing "home" the populist leaders.
Forced to change and accommodate their own interests within the new group, those with status to hang onto will get "religion" quick. Take the heat off, and they'll slink right back.
It's quite a feat to admit your group's guilt, understand its extent, and relinquish control, or share it all at the same time.
Funny to hear the very faint echo of the class theme in the classmates.
When the Redeemers got their feet back under themselves, they did a fine job splitting the populists and bringing "home" the populist leaders.
Forced to change and accommodate their own interests within the new group, those with status to hang onto will get "religion" quick. Take the heat off, and they'll slink right back.
It's quite a feat to admit your group's guilt, understand its extent, and relinquish control, or share it all at the same time.
Funny to hear the very faint echo of the class theme in the classmates.
4
Several points:
First, clarify whether the topic is high school vs. college.
Second, clarify whether the topic is required courses or elective courses.
For high school, one year is plenty for a required course in ALL of U.S. history combined, including slavery, along with all of the rest of U.S. history.
If college, clarify whether ANY course in U.S. history ought to be required, and the reasons why.
If slavery is proposed to be "taught" in any course that is not a history course, explain why such a course should be a required course.
For any required course in U.S. history, slavery ought definitely to be "taught", but only in proportion (in terms of hours of class, hours of homework and points for grades) in proportion to all the many other aspects of U.S. history.
In addition, all things taught in any history class -- U.S. history or otherwise -- need to take account of all the things that were going on at the relevant time, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.
True, when it comes to slavery, no serious argument can be made that any slaves at any time anywhere were "happy" to be slaves, or even that they somehow "benefited" from being slaves. But is is also true that slavery (along with with many other human practices that did not benefit the participants) has existed throughout human history, and that it is only in modern times (the past 200 years) that it has come under widespread condemnation, and even then, the change in general acceptability took many years.
First, clarify whether the topic is high school vs. college.
Second, clarify whether the topic is required courses or elective courses.
For high school, one year is plenty for a required course in ALL of U.S. history combined, including slavery, along with all of the rest of U.S. history.
If college, clarify whether ANY course in U.S. history ought to be required, and the reasons why.
If slavery is proposed to be "taught" in any course that is not a history course, explain why such a course should be a required course.
For any required course in U.S. history, slavery ought definitely to be "taught", but only in proportion (in terms of hours of class, hours of homework and points for grades) in proportion to all the many other aspects of U.S. history.
In addition, all things taught in any history class -- U.S. history or otherwise -- need to take account of all the things that were going on at the relevant time, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.
True, when it comes to slavery, no serious argument can be made that any slaves at any time anywhere were "happy" to be slaves, or even that they somehow "benefited" from being slaves. But is is also true that slavery (along with with many other human practices that did not benefit the participants) has existed throughout human history, and that it is only in modern times (the past 200 years) that it has come under widespread condemnation, and even then, the change in general acceptability took many years.
8
Wow - touch a nerve? Maybe find out about the nature of American vs. other forms and why ours was so peculiar. I think most of your requested info is already in the article. Try unclenching your teeth.
Clearly, since slavery is nothing new and only recently has any white American given it a second thought - even that shift has taken years to come about - there is simply no reason whatsoever to be bothering white Americans about it.
So what is your point exactly? That white students who are in a class in which slavery is the subject being taught (for whatever reason) may avoid making a diligent effort to study it because, for example, you seem to be saying, slavery is not unique to the U.S.? What difference would any answer to any of your questions make since students don't make decisions on curriculum or course content (this is why we have teachers, professors, administrators, deans, etc.) their job is to seriously undertake the study of the subjects being taught, no?
2
Um, maybe it's you, and not the topic?
I say this because I teach high school students, and the two topics that all students (Black, White and Latino - I have no Asians or Native Americans) find absolutely fascinating are slavery and the civil rights movement.
My students, who have grown up in southern New York, can't imagine some of the things I describe and show. They have no problem making connections about economics and slavery. They have no problem relating the past to the present. None of the white students cheer for the slave owners. None of the black students expect them to.
In listening to the tone of your essay, I sense that you don't want students to think and learn. You want your black students to "shut the white students down." You want your white students to have to apologize for a world they didn't create. You see asking a question- "is it true that Africans sold other Africans"- a question I've been asked numerous times by both black and white students- as a racial ploy.
Honestly, I'm not surprised that neither T. nor "a white woman" didn't want to participate in your class. Maybe it's not that you only talk about slavery. Maybe it's that deep down, you'd rather write pious self-serving essays than help your students.
I say this because I teach high school students, and the two topics that all students (Black, White and Latino - I have no Asians or Native Americans) find absolutely fascinating are slavery and the civil rights movement.
My students, who have grown up in southern New York, can't imagine some of the things I describe and show. They have no problem making connections about economics and slavery. They have no problem relating the past to the present. None of the white students cheer for the slave owners. None of the black students expect them to.
In listening to the tone of your essay, I sense that you don't want students to think and learn. You want your black students to "shut the white students down." You want your white students to have to apologize for a world they didn't create. You see asking a question- "is it true that Africans sold other Africans"- a question I've been asked numerous times by both black and white students- as a racial ploy.
Honestly, I'm not surprised that neither T. nor "a white woman" didn't want to participate in your class. Maybe it's not that you only talk about slavery. Maybe it's that deep down, you'd rather write pious self-serving essays than help your students.
38
So white people have no discomfort in discussing the horrible things they did as a group to Blacks. That sure does not sound like the NY or America I know. Its a touchy topic because in this country we often say Blacks got and get what they deserve. When we actually think that Black people endured every crime that one can think of against them and it was so widespread that if a white person spoke against it THEY were in danger we see the evil for what it was and is. Lets hope you were not one of those college students throwing Blackface parties or Song of the South Screenings and then complainig about slavery in a US History class.
2
"My students, who have grown up in southern New York, can't imagine some of the things I describe and show."
Do white students who have grown up elsewhere in the United States have things about American history that they can't imagine described and shown to them, I wonder? In my experience, white students - and white people, in general - simply dismiss it: "Nobody had to live like that in this country. The slaves weren't paid, but they got free food, clothing, and shelter. What else did they want? I wish my grandparents had had it so good, when they came to this country in steerage. They had to *work* for what they got! Nobody gave them anything!"
Do white students who have grown up elsewhere in the United States have things about American history that they can't imagine described and shown to them, I wonder? In my experience, white students - and white people, in general - simply dismiss it: "Nobody had to live like that in this country. The slaves weren't paid, but they got free food, clothing, and shelter. What else did they want? I wish my grandparents had had it so good, when they came to this country in steerage. They had to *work* for what they got! Nobody gave them anything!"
1
Recently I've been told more than once that no one told American students anything approaching the truth about slavery in the past.
It doesn't jive with my memory. I started elementary school in 1958 in Brooklyn; the school was run by nuns, and can hardly be thought of as leftist-oriented. This was followed by four years of private high school in Brooklyn, run by Catholic brothers.
The topic of slavery was not ignored, downplayed, or distorted in the ways you mention in this column. No one told us slaves enjoyed their lives. We learned exactly what the Dred Scott decision meant, and its exact bearing on civil war. it was explained just what failures were involved in the making of the US Constitution, and in the "Reconstruction" period.
I went on to an Ivy college in the early 70s. Though I took no history courses, I did my own reading then and since. I'm well aware that the economic primacy of the US in the last two centuries - and the cultural dominance of Europe in preceding centuries - was built on mass murder, overseas exploitation, and slave labor. The big lie that you claim was sold to all Americans by the education system was never offered to me, and I find it hard to believe that you aren't conjuring it up out of political zeal.
One other thing: those commenters waiting for the descendants of racial criminals to "make amends" for their guilt should re-examine their claims to be guilt-free. You are, after all, living comfortably in the First World.
It doesn't jive with my memory. I started elementary school in 1958 in Brooklyn; the school was run by nuns, and can hardly be thought of as leftist-oriented. This was followed by four years of private high school in Brooklyn, run by Catholic brothers.
The topic of slavery was not ignored, downplayed, or distorted in the ways you mention in this column. No one told us slaves enjoyed their lives. We learned exactly what the Dred Scott decision meant, and its exact bearing on civil war. it was explained just what failures were involved in the making of the US Constitution, and in the "Reconstruction" period.
I went on to an Ivy college in the early 70s. Though I took no history courses, I did my own reading then and since. I'm well aware that the economic primacy of the US in the last two centuries - and the cultural dominance of Europe in preceding centuries - was built on mass murder, overseas exploitation, and slave labor. The big lie that you claim was sold to all Americans by the education system was never offered to me, and I find it hard to believe that you aren't conjuring it up out of political zeal.
One other thing: those commenters waiting for the descendants of racial criminals to "make amends" for their guilt should re-examine their claims to be guilt-free. You are, after all, living comfortably in the First World.
17
If what you say is true why do so many people have such ignorance of US history .Why are people constantly saying that slavery eneded in 1865 and Blacks should get over it. The average white American is either a liar or totally ignorant of Reconstruction,Black Codes, Race Riots, Jim Crow, Lynching and the KKK. I think they are lying. The basic premise I have is that Black people have a had a very unique experience in this country but anytime anything is done to rectify that EVERYONE complains and charges racism.
2
Tony, My experience in Catholic elementary and high schools in Mass. in the 1960s was EXACTLY like yours. We learned about the fatal flaw in the Constitution, the influence of the cotton gin on the Southern economy, the Missouri Compromise, and the Dred Scott decision. We were also taught that Roget B. Taney, the Chief Justice of the S.Ct., who wrote the Dred Scott decision, was a disgrace to all Catholics.
Either knowledge and attitudes about slavery is moving backwards in time or Ivy League colleges are backward.
Either knowledge and attitudes about slavery is moving backwards in time or Ivy League colleges are backward.
1
I do not understand resistance to learning about slavery since forced unpaid labor was the foundation of the economy of the United States for a majority of it's existence. Without the raw materials being produced in the South many aspects of our nation's development would have been hindered, and a lot less wealth produced in the North and the South.
When something is so integral to the development of a nation, to the point that it is debated from the inception of the nation and throughout its history, in any discussion of an aspect of the nation slavery should be introduced without hesitation. For instance, the industrial revolution without forced upaid labor would have been a lot less revolutionary. There were special insurance products marketed to protect the human assets. The factories in the North depended on the raw materials produced in the South by forced unpaid labor, and generated wealth that needed to be housed in a banking system that produced Wall Street.
And let's not forget all those wars were dependent on wealth and raw materials produced through forced unpaid labor. We developed a race based caste system in law and practice that lives with us to today to maintain an economic system dependent on unpaid forced labor.
Call me messianic, but we need to talk more about slavery!
When something is so integral to the development of a nation, to the point that it is debated from the inception of the nation and throughout its history, in any discussion of an aspect of the nation slavery should be introduced without hesitation. For instance, the industrial revolution without forced upaid labor would have been a lot less revolutionary. There were special insurance products marketed to protect the human assets. The factories in the North depended on the raw materials produced in the South by forced unpaid labor, and generated wealth that needed to be housed in a banking system that produced Wall Street.
And let's not forget all those wars were dependent on wealth and raw materials produced through forced unpaid labor. We developed a race based caste system in law and practice that lives with us to today to maintain an economic system dependent on unpaid forced labor.
Call me messianic, but we need to talk more about slavery!
14
Slavery challenges the white constructed mythological narratives whites tell themselves and others of how this country was founded.
Before kids enter pre-K, they are indoctrinated with heroic narratives of white conquest, superiority, wining the West, hard work, achievement, and Columbus discovering America despite the presence of a thriving civilization that had been existence for at least one-thousand years.
White Americans have long tried to sanitize this country’s collective memories and to downplay or eliminate accurate understandings of its extraordinarily racist history. The genocide committed against Native Americans populations and the enslavement and segregation of African Americans has included much collective forgetting and mythmaking and are often only footnotes in American history books read by these students long before they enter college..
When such a momentous and bloody past is suppressed, downplayed, or mythologized whites have difficulties in seeing or assessing accurately the present-day realities of unjust enrichment and impoverishment along racial lines.
Before kids enter pre-K, they are indoctrinated with heroic narratives of white conquest, superiority, wining the West, hard work, achievement, and Columbus discovering America despite the presence of a thriving civilization that had been existence for at least one-thousand years.
White Americans have long tried to sanitize this country’s collective memories and to downplay or eliminate accurate understandings of its extraordinarily racist history. The genocide committed against Native Americans populations and the enslavement and segregation of African Americans has included much collective forgetting and mythmaking and are often only footnotes in American history books read by these students long before they enter college..
When such a momentous and bloody past is suppressed, downplayed, or mythologized whites have difficulties in seeing or assessing accurately the present-day realities of unjust enrichment and impoverishment along racial lines.
35
If judging slave holders is wrong is "modern day moralizing", how were millions of enslaved persons able to figure out that it was an injustice?
1
By teaching a agonizingly narrow view of slavery, by only focusing on whites enslaving blacks, you are teaching young minds that whites were a exceptionally evil group of people compared to the others. Again, lets say we agree that white slavery was the worst. But we can agree there are degrees to it. For example its not that whites were the only ones who had slaves but the Chinese had them and the Arabs had them. So that's important context, context that I bet you dont and I know many others dont. And that's not getting into the general public's historically illiterate knowledge of slavery where they really think only whites had slaves.
And even if you, like Howard Zinn gives some fleeting mention of "yes others had slaves" they NEVER EVER give the kind of heart wrenching detailed anecdotal description that you did about black slaves in your book. Ironically because the black slaves arabs kept died quickly and had no time to put pen to paper about their experiences like Solomon Northrup.
Everyone had slaves. Tell students that. Then let them know about the gruesome details of ALL OF THEM, then let them make up their minds about who was worse than who. What you do and other academics do is not just intellectually dishonest anymore, it is outright dangerous like lighting a fire in dry grass. People like you Mr. Baptist are helping to balkanize the United States and leading to the kind of racial hatred that has destroyed many past civilizations.
And even if you, like Howard Zinn gives some fleeting mention of "yes others had slaves" they NEVER EVER give the kind of heart wrenching detailed anecdotal description that you did about black slaves in your book. Ironically because the black slaves arabs kept died quickly and had no time to put pen to paper about their experiences like Solomon Northrup.
Everyone had slaves. Tell students that. Then let them know about the gruesome details of ALL OF THEM, then let them make up their minds about who was worse than who. What you do and other academics do is not just intellectually dishonest anymore, it is outright dangerous like lighting a fire in dry grass. People like you Mr. Baptist are helping to balkanize the United States and leading to the kind of racial hatred that has destroyed many past civilizations.
11
You have some good points here. During his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar once sold 56,000 Gauls to slave dealers and made a huge fortune, which must have helped his political career back in Rome. Caesar, of course, was "white," but so were the Gauls.
1
"Everyone had slaves."
So, the fact that the "peculiar institution" according to which white people living in the American South held black people as slaves was not really peculiar makes it all right to ignore that aspect of American history, because the white folks were just doing what non-white folks were doing in not-America and that makes it all right.
So, the fact that the "peculiar institution" according to which white people living in the American South held black people as slaves was not really peculiar makes it all right to ignore that aspect of American history, because the white folks were just doing what non-white folks were doing in not-America and that makes it all right.
Thank you Prof. Baptist. Not because I myself know the history of slavery - or, maybe because I do not know it (well, I do not "know" most dimensions of world or local history at any level of depth) - nevertheless, I believe what you say - that all of us need to know more about this particular dimension of American history; and, that for white students (I am among them), we need to know for being knowledgeable members of society AND for helping us understand what our black neighbors/colleagues/friends' families and ancestors knew. Maybe analogies between psychic pain on an individual level vs. psychic pain on an institutional level, would help drive white folks including students to understand how learning about stuff can help with our own self-identities. I love your story about T. - poignant.
It is not that anyone (or group) deserves more attention than anyone else but if your ancestry (or childhood) included abuse, your story needs to be told and those to whom you relate it need to give it consideration. Anything to do to make it not feel personal - to the white students - might help them be open to it. I know, for me, in my work where racism learning has become a big focus (city health dep't.), once I got over the defensiveness, I was more open to learning. (I already was interested because of my interest in society, and anthropology/culture.)
It is not that anyone (or group) deserves more attention than anyone else but if your ancestry (or childhood) included abuse, your story needs to be told and those to whom you relate it need to give it consideration. Anything to do to make it not feel personal - to the white students - might help them be open to it. I know, for me, in my work where racism learning has become a big focus (city health dep't.), once I got over the defensiveness, I was more open to learning. (I already was interested because of my interest in society, and anthropology/culture.)
3
Let's be absolutely American about this, which is to say, lets view this with capitalist-tinged glasses: The United States government enacted laws that promulgated slavery and was thereby complicit in the expansion/perpetuation of slavery. As a result of slavery vast personal fortunes were created and vast amoumts of taxes were collected. The slaves were paid nothing. Recompense the slaves' descendants. It's called back pay. It's a universal concept. And that's about as good as it'll ever get.
9
When I was at Penn in the 70s it felt like it was under siege from the crime in West Philly. Slavery is a key element in American history. However, the de-emphasis of New England by Baby Boom historians was a means to make slavery the center of the teaching of American history. It is not clear that it deserve that and in any event it ignores the continuing impact that Calvinism has on the United States.
3
"de-emphasis of New England"
Is it your thought, then, that there was no slavery in New England? No supposed "de-emphasis of New England" can affect the history of slavery in the United States.
Is it your thought, then, that there was no slavery in New England? No supposed "de-emphasis of New England" can affect the history of slavery in the United States.
Systems of white privilege are woven into every aspect of modern day American life. It is so pervasive that according to one Malcolm Gladwell book, just asking an African-American SAT test taker to mark their race on the scoring sheet lowers their score by a statistically significant amount. White students want to believe that they are in the University of their choice because of their own merit. That's a natural ego response, especially at age 18. Perhaps it's too much to expect of a college freshman to admit the darker side of American history that suggests any notion of meritocracy is a convenient white myth. Perhaps their summer reading should include Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" to begin softening up any assumptions they may have of their rights to the privilege they enjoy.
7
Prof. Landis has an article in History News Network, a publication for which I also write. The Smithsonian reprinted his article, “A Proposal to Change the Words We Use When Talking About the Civil War.” It highlights words that describe sensitive history.
So many people, including students and other readers and discussion participants are desensitized to the word slave, because the word has lost the emotional meaning, or had no emotional meaning, given how someone was first introduced to the word and its history. A few think and feel that being a “slave” means the person had something to do with his or her enslavement, and is indirectly responsible. When I give speeches at colleges where I discuss my specific ancestors, some who were slaveowners and others who were enslaved people, invariably, a young person stands up in the audience and asks, “Why didn’t these ancestors do more not to be a slave?” The student asking this and similar questions is usually a black student. The discussion about my Maroon ancestors who rebelled and resisted, and about others who used many different forms of resistance is always very enlightening.
I suggest anyone, including Prof. Baptist, who has written fantastic books on the subject, continue to find the words that have the emotional resonance with students and readers who are not familiar with the history. The Maroons, my ancestors enslaved in Ghana and transported to Jamaica and Virginia, described their experience as prisoners-of-war.
So many people, including students and other readers and discussion participants are desensitized to the word slave, because the word has lost the emotional meaning, or had no emotional meaning, given how someone was first introduced to the word and its history. A few think and feel that being a “slave” means the person had something to do with his or her enslavement, and is indirectly responsible. When I give speeches at colleges where I discuss my specific ancestors, some who were slaveowners and others who were enslaved people, invariably, a young person stands up in the audience and asks, “Why didn’t these ancestors do more not to be a slave?” The student asking this and similar questions is usually a black student. The discussion about my Maroon ancestors who rebelled and resisted, and about others who used many different forms of resistance is always very enlightening.
I suggest anyone, including Prof. Baptist, who has written fantastic books on the subject, continue to find the words that have the emotional resonance with students and readers who are not familiar with the history. The Maroons, my ancestors enslaved in Ghana and transported to Jamaica and Virginia, described their experience as prisoners-of-war.
4
Why would a class “push its white members to take on the burden of explaining slavery?” Most U.S. slave-owners were non-Hispanic white, or Anglos, because most of the population was white. In antebellum America, people of all racial and ethnic groups, including Hispanics, Latinos, Native Americans and free blacks, owned slaves. The Cherokee, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles carried slaves with them on the Trail of Tears. The 1860 Census shows America had a population of 31,183,582. Of these, 27,233,198 were free while 3,950,528, or 13 percent, were slaves. There were 393,975 slave owners. So, about 1.5 percent of Americans owned slaves. Well-known black Harvard historian Louis Gates Jr. cites an 1830 study that showed 3,766 blacks out of a free black population of 319,599 owned slaves. So, about 1.2 percent of free blacks owned slaves compared to 1.5 percent of whites. About 54 free blacks owned between 20 and 84 slaves, 172 owned 10 to 19 slaves and 3,550 owned 1 to 9 slaves. It’s true some black slave owners had purchased relatives out of slavery. Gates points out that 49 percent of black slave owners owned just one slave, but he also points out that it would be mistake to assume that all free blacks who owned only one slave did so for benevolent purposes. Why fault a student who asked “with a smirk” if Africans sold slaves to Europeans? The answer to this reveals why virtually all slaves were black.
14
So, "free" blacks "owned" slaves. People do what they have to do, in order to survive. Native Americans took up agriculture based on slavery in the forlorn hope that, if they successfully showed the white man that they were just as "civilized" as he was, then they wouldn't be driven off their ancestral lands.
The fact that 393,975 people held 3,950,528 as slaves is merely a random stat, with nothing to say about slavery in the United States. And why haven't you noted that these 393,975 slave-owning Southerners should be distinguished from the rest of white America? Why do you write as though 1.2% of 319,599 in 1830 is somehow equivalent to 1.5% of 27,233,198 in 1860? "There are three kinds of lies: plain lies, damned lies, and statistics."
The fact that 393,975 people held 3,950,528 as slaves is merely a random stat, with nothing to say about slavery in the United States. And why haven't you noted that these 393,975 slave-owning Southerners should be distinguished from the rest of white America? Why do you write as though 1.2% of 319,599 in 1830 is somehow equivalent to 1.5% of 27,233,198 in 1860? "There are three kinds of lies: plain lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Professor Baptist may also want to consider the ethnicity and backgrounds of his white students to better understand their attitudes. Not everyone is of ante-bellum American ancestry.
4
That's true, but *all* white people in the United States benefit from slavery, regardless of their ethnicity and backgrounds, since it was slavery that enabled the United States to become what it is.
1
We'll never solve our race problem that originated with slavery when early schooling teaches history full of denial, excuses or fairy tales (happy slaves).
White Americans have invested heavily since day one in believing we're superior, indoctrination beginning early & reinforced in everyday life, leaving us pretty much unconscious of how obnoxious we can be to other races.
To African Americans we have never stopped being the oppressor, just the means.
We've never wanted to reckon with slavery as a society, and every couple of decades the lid blows off an impovershed spot and we are shocked, shocked.
And I'm too old to read the same old excuses that were used against blacks in the Watts riots, as if "they" were another species.
We have to confront our national white supremacy.
And confront our individual biases as they surface, not deny or defend, because biases are there - we all learned it in this society.
Kudos to Professor Baptist. Many whites resent slavery ever being brought up.
You're teaching a generation that seems to have a better handle on our endemic racial problems and is standing up against injustice. Maybe there's hope for our country of freedom and equality to live up to it.
White Americans have invested heavily since day one in believing we're superior, indoctrination beginning early & reinforced in everyday life, leaving us pretty much unconscious of how obnoxious we can be to other races.
To African Americans we have never stopped being the oppressor, just the means.
We've never wanted to reckon with slavery as a society, and every couple of decades the lid blows off an impovershed spot and we are shocked, shocked.
And I'm too old to read the same old excuses that were used against blacks in the Watts riots, as if "they" were another species.
We have to confront our national white supremacy.
And confront our individual biases as they surface, not deny or defend, because biases are there - we all learned it in this society.
Kudos to Professor Baptist. Many whites resent slavery ever being brought up.
You're teaching a generation that seems to have a better handle on our endemic racial problems and is standing up against injustice. Maybe there's hope for our country of freedom and equality to live up to it.
9
I think the good professor sees everyone who disagrees with him as "reluctant" slavery deniers and fails to understand that it's he who misperceives the importance of slavery, dreadful as it was, to America as it is today.
10
"misperceives the importance of slavery ... to America as it is today."
Not at all, mtpfarm. It's people like you, who know nothing of slavery and deny the fact that it was the economic engine that drove the development of this country who "misperceive the importance of slavery ... to America as it is today."
Not at all, mtpfarm. It's people like you, who know nothing of slavery and deny the fact that it was the economic engine that drove the development of this country who "misperceive the importance of slavery ... to America as it is today."
1
As I recall, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's book "The Bell Curve" didn't argue that "I.Q. tests proved Afro-Americans were intellectually inferior." Their book stated factually that the I.Q. bell curves of African-Americans and caucasians overlapped, with more white I.Q.s to the right, but a very substantial percentage of black I.Q.s higher than white I.Q.s on the left of the white bell curve. This struck me as credible, given the repressive social burden and limited western history of African-Americans. Why would a university professor conflate nuanced statistics to support his oversimplified racial argument? My guess is that he's into grievance politics that views Africa-Americans as a group instead of individuals.
7
"Their book stated factually that the I.Q. bell curves of African-Americans and caucasians overlapped, with more white I.Q.s to the right, but a very substantial percentage of black I.Q.s higher than white I.Q.s on the left of the white bell curve. This struck me as credible."
Indeed. In fact, the book isn't even racist, since it states that lower-class whites are just as intellectually challenged as blacks are. It's all economics. The rich are naturally intellectually superior to the poor, irrespective of race.
Or didn't you read that part of the book?
Indeed. In fact, the book isn't even racist, since it states that lower-class whites are just as intellectually challenged as blacks are. It's all economics. The rich are naturally intellectually superior to the poor, irrespective of race.
Or didn't you read that part of the book?
Why focusing so much on the past? In countries like Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Mauritania slavery was only abolished very recently and in reality it still is present to a certain extent. It should be possible to get video's from such countries with testimonies from both sides of the fence.
4
Well, you see, WimR, countries like Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Mauritania do not present themselves to the world as the land of the free and the home of the brave, with liberty and justice for all, all the while armed and ready, at a moment's notice, to bring "peace and freedom" to the rest of the earth with the most powerful armed forces in the history of mankind, while Americans are starving in the streets.
Do you see the difference? Or do you think that the United States should attack these countries and free their slaves, just as it attacked itself to free its own slaves?
Do you see the difference? Or do you think that the United States should attack these countries and free their slaves, just as it attacked itself to free its own slaves?
1
As an autodidact, I am presently reading and learning everything I can about American slavery. Antebellum slavery is a horrifying tale of greed and betrayal. I have the freedom to take a break from the overwhelming topic, when I choose, returning to it when I feel sufficiently reconstituted.
It would be very difficult for me to complete a U.S History course where ‘‘Professor Baptist only talks about slavery.’’ That would be exhausting. Give the kids a break, don't make them recoil from the subject by torturing them with it.
It would be very difficult for me to complete a U.S History course where ‘‘Professor Baptist only talks about slavery.’’ That would be exhausting. Give the kids a break, don't make them recoil from the subject by torturing them with it.
3
The article says that the "kids" deny that there is any justification for concerning themselves with the history of slavery, not that they're being "tortured" with that history. Mr. Breaker. If German kids don't feel "tortured" by the history of the Holocaust, why should American "kids" feel tortured by the history of slavery?
I am having trouble with an aspect of the Professor's presentation & that is with 'S'. It seems that 'S' is the Professor's alter-ego. 'S' is permitted to say to her peers, the white students what the Professor may not -to stop whining. I say that one peer may NOT speak this way to another. Is the Professor advocating a new age of stratification ? & just what did the Professor say to 'S' & the white male students in those post 'stop whining' moments? I believe absolutely nothing & therefore condoning new power relations.
1
The professor's condescension toward his students is blatant. And why students would want to be in a class where the professor shames them as representatives of their race is beyond me. Why it is permitted is unfathomable.
16
The writer's condescension toward toward any attempt to expose the lies and cover-ups that pass for "American history" is (stereo)typical of white America.
Great article with much to offer those walking into classrooms this week. I would want this author as a teacher.
One thing though, the article cited is available only through academic library systems. It's not a publication available through Academic Premier. This is a serious loss for teachers who want to bump up their high school and even middle school classrooms who may not have access or the time to get permission through their local university.
This in itself is a result and legacy of slavery in our country. Elites who learned how to gate information from African-Americans and immigrants are now using what they have learned and exercising it against the new minority: those with out the money to pay.
One thing though, the article cited is available only through academic library systems. It's not a publication available through Academic Premier. This is a serious loss for teachers who want to bump up their high school and even middle school classrooms who may not have access or the time to get permission through their local university.
This in itself is a result and legacy of slavery in our country. Elites who learned how to gate information from African-Americans and immigrants are now using what they have learned and exercising it against the new minority: those with out the money to pay.
2
Why would a class “push its white members to take on the burden of explaining slavery?” The white student who asked “with a smirk” if Africans sold slaves to Europeans also should have pointed out that people of all racial and ethnic groups owned slaves in antebellum America. This includes free blacks as well as Hispanics and Native Americans. Most U.S. slave-owners were non-Hispanic white, or Anglo, only because most of the population was white. About the same percent of free blacks as whites owned slaves. Hispanics were the first to bring African slaves to the present-day United States. (Nearly four-fights of slaves transported from Africa to the Americas went to Latin America.) The Cherokee carried their slaves with them on the Trail of Tears. The 1860 Census shows America had a population of 31,183,582. Of these, 27,233,198 were free while 3,950,528, or 13 percent, were slaves. There were 393,975 slave owners. So, about 1.5 percent of Americans owned slaves. Well-known black Harvard historian Louis Gates Jr. cites an 1830 study that showed 3,766 blacks out of a free black population of 319,599 owned slaves. So, about 1.2 percent of free blacks owned slaves compared to 1.5 percent of whites. About 54 free blacks owned between 20 and 84 slaves, 172 owned 10 to 19 slaves and 3,550 owned 1 to 9 slaves. It’s true some black slave owners had purchased relatives out of slavery, but most purchased slaves for the same reason Americans of other races purchased slaves.
8
@WC: "... Louis Gates Jr. cites an 1830 study ..."
Please tell us where Gates cited this "study". We are not mind readers.
Please tell us where Gates cited this "study". We are not mind readers.
Focusing on stimulating white guilt is not education; it's propagandizing.
And dissing the white woman who asked whether Afircans sold Africans to Europeans shows just how defensive anti-white racist professors can be. The truth is that for most of human history EVERYBODY sold slaves of all colors to others. Kudos for the white woman for pointing that out, though facts seem lost on the author of this piece.
Is slavery a good economic and moral system? Absolutely not. But whining about slavery and how bad white folks are a hundred and fifty years after slavery was abolished (well, in the White-dominated, for now anyway, West, as opposed to Africa and the Middle East) is a waste of time, unless your objective is to guilt-trip whites into supporting "reparations" for things that happened hundreds of years ago.
And the obligatory swipe at the Bell Curve, which simply reported facts, is politically correct, anti-science know-nothingism. The slight differences in intelligence noted in the Bell Curve really don't amount to anything when you're dealing with a given individual (yes, yes, I know lefites hate to deal with individuals, favoring group rights rather than individual rights, but non-racists deal with individuals) -- and it is useful to keep in mind that there are different types of intelligence, not all of which the Bell Curve could evaluate.
And dissing the white woman who asked whether Afircans sold Africans to Europeans shows just how defensive anti-white racist professors can be. The truth is that for most of human history EVERYBODY sold slaves of all colors to others. Kudos for the white woman for pointing that out, though facts seem lost on the author of this piece.
Is slavery a good economic and moral system? Absolutely not. But whining about slavery and how bad white folks are a hundred and fifty years after slavery was abolished (well, in the White-dominated, for now anyway, West, as opposed to Africa and the Middle East) is a waste of time, unless your objective is to guilt-trip whites into supporting "reparations" for things that happened hundreds of years ago.
And the obligatory swipe at the Bell Curve, which simply reported facts, is politically correct, anti-science know-nothingism. The slight differences in intelligence noted in the Bell Curve really don't amount to anything when you're dealing with a given individual (yes, yes, I know lefites hate to deal with individuals, favoring group rights rather than individual rights, but non-racists deal with individuals) -- and it is useful to keep in mind that there are different types of intelligence, not all of which the Bell Curve could evaluate.
8
"Focusing on stimulating white guilt is not education; it's propagandizing."
What "white guilt" are you talking about, James? Can you provide any random examples of this supposed "white guilt" that you clearly don't feel?
What "white guilt" are you talking about, James? Can you provide any random examples of this supposed "white guilt" that you clearly don't feel?
1
Dear Professor, i grew up white and privileged in the south. My first work was chores at home, then gathering, preparing and selling kindling. My first job for a company included a black boss. My second job was in at the lowest end in a weave room, cotton we wove into cloth for uniforms. Segregated schools of course, but then the Korean War, so like most southerners, I enlisted...when the nation calls we served. Blacks and whites by this time served side by side.
In college, history professor, a black man, was teaching that in the South the poor whites and poor blacks were pitted against one another to keep the power structure intact.
I was lucky. But it was not by being white, it was by having gotten a real boost in education and training in the military that got me a real start in life. And it was not white privilege, not everyone got the full measure of that. But on the other hand, our black brothers and sisters had it in equal and often worse terms than did I. My now mixed race (we are all mixed race!) grandchildren are not facing the slavery mentality, indeed those of mixed race are favored in many ways over those nominally of one race.
History is but a snapshot of past processes. We move on.
In college, history professor, a black man, was teaching that in the South the poor whites and poor blacks were pitted against one another to keep the power structure intact.
I was lucky. But it was not by being white, it was by having gotten a real boost in education and training in the military that got me a real start in life. And it was not white privilege, not everyone got the full measure of that. But on the other hand, our black brothers and sisters had it in equal and often worse terms than did I. My now mixed race (we are all mixed race!) grandchildren are not facing the slavery mentality, indeed those of mixed race are favored in many ways over those nominally of one race.
History is but a snapshot of past processes. We move on.
4
"Blacks and whites by this time served side by side."
Because President Truman, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, *ordered* the desegregation of the military. Had he not done that, then the military would have still been as segregated as it had always been. It's not something that just naturally happened because the military changed its way of looking at race.
Because President Truman, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, *ordered* the desegregation of the military. Had he not done that, then the military would have still been as segregated as it had always been. It's not something that just naturally happened because the military changed its way of looking at race.
1
I'm shocked (although I guess I shouldn't be) by some of the comments putting down Professor Baptist's teaching of slavery by noting the prevalence of slavery throughout the world. The point is we in the United States do not realize or acknowledge the extent to which the country's prosperity was (is?) dependent on slavery. And to those white commentators who decry the lack of "objectivity," allow me to note how blind you are to the white privilege that has allowed us (yes, I'm white) to be born on third base thinking we hit a triple.
7
Not nearly so clear as you assert is the extent to which America's "prosperity was ...dependent on slavery", and still less clear is the extent to which it still "(is?)".
The fact that it was cruel and the fact that slave owners benefited from it does not prove that everybody else benefited from it. Nor does it prove that America would not have become prosperous without it.
The fact that it was cruel and the fact that slave owners benefited from it does not prove that everybody else benefited from it. Nor does it prove that America would not have become prosperous without it.
College professors have a broad latitude to focus on whatever they desire in the process of presenting course material. I had one prof, circa 1965, who taught that the entire history of the US between 1787 and 1946 could be explained as a consequence of the developments of battleships. I had another who taught the War between the states by a week to week analysis of Stonewall Jackson's strategy and tactics - implying that his accidental death was the cause of the South's loss.
I note that this professor has had several teaching jobs over his career - could it be that as his obsession becomes known on campus, the demand for his class dwindles - leading him to move on. Or does he see himself as the Johnny Appleseed of his particular doctrine.
I note that this professor has had several teaching jobs over his career - could it be that as his obsession becomes known on campus, the demand for his class dwindles - leading him to move on. Or does he see himself as the Johnny Appleseed of his particular doctrine.
2
I found it helpful to remove the words that disguise the situation. "Labor camp" and not "plantation." "Slavers" rather than just "slave-owners." And so on.
I got the idea from the History News Network, here:
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/160266
It removes the romanticized view of the South and slavery. Shows that it was enslavement and ownership of black people in order to profit white people. And the system had to be built up to rationalize it, disguise it, smooth it, and beautify it.
I got the idea from the History News Network, here:
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/160266
It removes the romanticized view of the South and slavery. Shows that it was enslavement and ownership of black people in order to profit white people. And the system had to be built up to rationalize it, disguise it, smooth it, and beautify it.
1
For my part, Professor Baptist taught me more about America and slavery in his book than any I have read in decades. One of the most important lessons I took from that book was that we cannot understand white America, native America, or modern American society without comprehending slavery. Kudos, Professor Baptist!
3
Slavery was the biggest curse that the US inherited. It led to civil war. Though no longer bought and sold as personalty, ex-slaves and descendants were kept in peonage until the mid-1960s. They have legal equality on paper. Social equality and full social integration will take another 80 years, if the government never lets up.
I don't know why the whites mentioned complained of non-stop hearing about slavery, but offer my own.
Normal people tire of all roads leading to the same past horror.
Showing US slavery's role in detail is necessary and helpful, but presentation demands more skill. Becoming a thuddy, never-ending drip-drip on one's forehead does harm, not good.
Factual knowledge of blacks' and Indians' mistreatment SHOULD make me uneasy and disgusted. Recalling my introduction to those facts should restir that unease and disgust.
But normal life includes other things. Forever picking a scab is not normal.
Profs, who tend to bore in endlessly on data, esp of ills, never ask 'So what now?' Instead of just stirring up white-guilt, why not periodically stop lecturing and ask ONE student 'Mr. Smith, how would you fix this and why?' 'If you were Lincoln and not assassinated, what would you have done for freed slaves and why?. 'As a Quaker leader in 1781, what would you have done about slavery and why would your specific measures have worked?'
Pretty good discussion should follow.
I don't know why the whites mentioned complained of non-stop hearing about slavery, but offer my own.
Normal people tire of all roads leading to the same past horror.
Showing US slavery's role in detail is necessary and helpful, but presentation demands more skill. Becoming a thuddy, never-ending drip-drip on one's forehead does harm, not good.
Factual knowledge of blacks' and Indians' mistreatment SHOULD make me uneasy and disgusted. Recalling my introduction to those facts should restir that unease and disgust.
But normal life includes other things. Forever picking a scab is not normal.
Profs, who tend to bore in endlessly on data, esp of ills, never ask 'So what now?' Instead of just stirring up white-guilt, why not periodically stop lecturing and ask ONE student 'Mr. Smith, how would you fix this and why?' 'If you were Lincoln and not assassinated, what would you have done for freed slaves and why?. 'As a Quaker leader in 1781, what would you have done about slavery and why would your specific measures have worked?'
Pretty good discussion should follow.
3
Prof. Baptist might find his white students less resistant to his teaching if he didn't present the history of slavery in such a binary way. I understand that his scholarly focus is on how American chattel slavery laid the groundwork for American capitalism and today's divisions of wealth. But he is missing a huge opportunity to include white students in the learning if they enter his class only to find themselves cast in the role of "the bad guys." They are young. Young people are idealistic and want to identify with good guys. Why not show them some, white as well as black?
Professor, you are in upstate New York, which was home to many abolitionists, black and white -- e.g., Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Susan B. Anthony -- and the location of Underground Railroad stations to help fugitive slaves get to Canada. Do you ever teach about them? Explain that Syracuse was as much a hotbed of abolitionism as Boston? Talk about how the Christian evangelism of the "burned-over district" in New York State inspired many white abolitionists?
What about white students whose immigrant forebears feared the prospect of free black labor coming North, during and after the Civil War? New York City had notorious draft riots, often by Irish workers who lived in tenement slums and did not think it was their duty to fight to end slavery. Do you help your students understand their grievances, which are also rooted in capitalism and how it treats labor? You could do so much more.
Professor, you are in upstate New York, which was home to many abolitionists, black and white -- e.g., Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Susan B. Anthony -- and the location of Underground Railroad stations to help fugitive slaves get to Canada. Do you ever teach about them? Explain that Syracuse was as much a hotbed of abolitionism as Boston? Talk about how the Christian evangelism of the "burned-over district" in New York State inspired many white abolitionists?
What about white students whose immigrant forebears feared the prospect of free black labor coming North, during and after the Civil War? New York City had notorious draft riots, often by Irish workers who lived in tenement slums and did not think it was their duty to fight to end slavery. Do you help your students understand their grievances, which are also rooted in capitalism and how it treats labor? You could do so much more.
6
Where does Mr. Baptist describe the methodology of his teaching so clearly and thoroughly that you think that you are in a position to critique it, Mr. Dean? What makes you think that he doesn't present the material in the manner that you suggest? Why do you think that it would matter, if he did? He writes that, in his experience, white students have no interest in hearing anything about slavery. On the basis of that simple claim, how have been able to blame the victim?
"It's his own fault, because he doesn't teach the history of slavery so as to make it fun for white kids."
"It's his own fault, because he doesn't teach the history of slavery so as to make it fun for white kids."
1
I hear these thoughts in my own home. "Slavery's over and done with. Let's move on." Call me weird. My ancestors weren't even on this continent when slavery was legal. But as an American, I own it and seek to learn about it, talk about it, fix it, heal it, and begin to build a country where all citizens are equal and all visitors deserve a warm welcome. Books are written about the few who rise above their fate. But for the majority, America remains impaired by the stench of "man's inhumanity to man" that clings to its victims -- owner and owned alike.
4
You wonder why nobody is interested? You are beating a dead horse. These kids have been hearing this stuff since third grade. Tiresome, old, predictable blathering indroctrination from Penn to Miami to Cornell and every other college in the country! Nothing new since I took history, sociology and economics courses in the 70's - aimed at helping white children find the right level of guilt to burden themselves with. YAWN!!
7
Are there any white children burdened with guilt? Can you cite an instance of a white child burdened with any level of guilt at all? A random anecdote that you heard somewhere will do.
1
I shared a comment Saturday morning, which has not ben posted, so I suppose the comment was skipped over because I mention a related author on a related subject. I say this, because I cannot think of another reason why the comment was not posted. Prof. Baptist is right; some object to how the subject is discussed -- even some who are not students.
I wonder if the topic of slavery in the U.S. was introduced to students as a continuum of this deplorable practice throughout human history (it still exists!) if students could be more open to learning about the practice in the U.S.
2
"It's his own fault, because he doesn't teach the history of slavery so as to make it fun for white kids by showing that the 'peculiar institution" wasn't at all peculiar. Everyone around the world is or was into slavery. There's nothing at all 'peculiar' about the fact that there was slavery in the land of the free and the home of the brave, too."
It amazes me that we have a museum dedicated to the holocaust in our nation's capital but none to slavery. As a nation, we are still too uncomfortable to tear back the mask and really acknowledge who we were as a nation and how that past continues to influence and shape the present social, political and economic dynamics of our country.
41
The issue appears to be funding, not motivation. The Times recently reported about is a relatively modest ($8 million) museum of slavery that opened on a former plantation in Louisiana. Also, former VA governor Douglas Wilder sought to build a slavery museum in Fredericksburg, VA, but the effort has failed to raise sufficient funds. Neither project, however, is on the scale of the Holocaust Museum, which cost $168 million.
I am a white person who is interested in African American history. As I read articles like this or go to Wikipedia there are many things I don't know. February is Black History Month and I would like there to be more history in the papers, on television and in the arts that informs.
2
Slavery still exists in other parts of the world and right here in america today itself with undocumented aliens, kidnapped peoples, etc. Perhaps if the author included the concepts and facts that slavery was not invented in the Southern United States but dates back to the dawn of history and is present now, and then circles back to colonial and pre emancipation proclamation america (The Slavery Period) the students might be more capitivted or interested. I'm sure they aren't aware that when Rome was in Britain and slaves were sent to Africa and Rome, the British slaves weren't considered good workers.
3
Exactly! Slavery wasn't an American invention, so why are we supposed to care anything about it? We didn't start the fire. It just coincidentally kept us warm.
Lovely essay that nicely captures what the enterprise of education is all about - unsettling students intellectually and insisting they think.
3
This brings to mind a discussion I had last year with a young (mid-20's) man (white) who had recently completed his MBA. I asked him if he'd seen 12 Years A Slave and his reply was that "people in my generation have sort of gotten over all that". I was gobsmacked. The current news was all about Ferguson and Black Lives Matter!! This young person needs a class like the one in this article so he doesn't go around sounding like a complete idiot!!! I think if you don't know something of the real history, then your interpretation of current events is completely warped OR you just don't even notice.
8
Many people who follow up seeing “12 Years a Slave” by reading the book are disappointed to discover the some parts of Solomon Northup’s memoir sound as its they are torn from the pages of “Gone With the Wind.” Although the memoir is consistent in its condemnation of the institution of slavery, it portrays the cruelties inflicted on Solomon Northup as beyond the norm, the result of his being sold to a degenerate master when his first master, William Ford, faces bankruptcy. After his redemption, Northup fondly recalls Ford’s plantation: “That little paradise in the Great Pine Woods was the oasis in the desert towards which my heart turned lovingly during many years of bondage.” Of Ford, he says, “It is but simple justice to him when I say, in my opinion, there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford. The influence and association that had always surrounded him blinded him to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of slavery. . . he was a model master, walking uprightly, according to the light of his understanding, and fortunate was the slave who came to his possession. Were all men such he, slavery would be deprived of more than half of its bitterness. “ At another point, Northrup rhapsodizes: “If ye wish to look upon the celerity, if not the ‘poetry of motion’—upon genuine happiness, rampant and unrestrained—go down to Louisiana and see the slaves dancing in the starlight of a Christmas night.”
Al the more reason to erect a National Museum dedicated to the History of Slavery in the U.S.
6
Charleston is planning a museum of African-American history with an emphasis on slavery; the exhibits are being designed by the same person who did the exhibits for the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington DC.
1
Thank you for this perceptive article. I consult in local college classrooms, teaching writing and talking about Seventies Feminism. I've been saddened by the degree to which the young women students aren't interested in hearing about how the women of those times fought and educated to create better conditions for women in the future. I find it disturbing that these young women don't see the ways in which they have bought into a woman-as-object view of themselves. I suspect that most of us don't want to let in information that makes us uncomfortable - and, even more so, information that would cause us to know we had to take action or feel shame.
7
Unless the topic of slavery in America is discussed in a larger context, the discussion of slavery does not accomplish much, if it indeed accomplished anything, and it does not go very far, if it goes any distance whatsoever.
What, then, is the larger context? the larger context, in which slavery ought to be discussed, is this: human beings have been exploiting each other since the beginning of our existence as a species. Slavery, regrettably, is alive and well throughout the world- witness the terrible exploitation and brutality visited on people in the Middle East- not just those enslaved by ISIS, but also the foreign workers in Abu Dhabi and Qatar and the UAE. Look at the domestics brought to the USA by Indian diplomats and their families. Look at the countless invasions of sovereign territories across the world, including the ones in which the USA was the main aggressor. Look at the treatment of native peoples everywhere- not only here in the USA, but in Canada, Australia, New Zealand. And look at the treatment of war refugees trying to get out of Syria and Iraq.
Look at the wholesale enslavement of the population of North Korea, which is not a country at all, but rather a criminal enterprise dominated by one criminal family and their henchmen.
What is surprising, given humanity's propensity to brutalize our brethren, is that the history of slavery in America is being discussed at all. What is painfully clear is that slavery in America was not abnormal at all.
What, then, is the larger context? the larger context, in which slavery ought to be discussed, is this: human beings have been exploiting each other since the beginning of our existence as a species. Slavery, regrettably, is alive and well throughout the world- witness the terrible exploitation and brutality visited on people in the Middle East- not just those enslaved by ISIS, but also the foreign workers in Abu Dhabi and Qatar and the UAE. Look at the domestics brought to the USA by Indian diplomats and their families. Look at the countless invasions of sovereign territories across the world, including the ones in which the USA was the main aggressor. Look at the treatment of native peoples everywhere- not only here in the USA, but in Canada, Australia, New Zealand. And look at the treatment of war refugees trying to get out of Syria and Iraq.
Look at the wholesale enslavement of the population of North Korea, which is not a country at all, but rather a criminal enterprise dominated by one criminal family and their henchmen.
What is surprising, given humanity's propensity to brutalize our brethren, is that the history of slavery in America is being discussed at all. What is painfully clear is that slavery in America was not abnormal at all.
9
@JR: "What, then, is the larger context? ..."
Mr. Baptist has a different answer: capitalism. See the title of his book: "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism".
Mr. Baptist has a different answer: capitalism. See the title of his book: "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism".
1
I have to say that every year I have students who complain, on the semester-end evaluation to my Film History & Culture course on Settler Cinema: The International Western, that "She didn't warn us that she would only talk about Westerns." While I agree that many US college students don't actually want to hear a whole class, let alone a whole semester, on slavery, I also suspect that such complaints often come from students who were casting about for those last 3 credits. In my case, they thought, "Cowboys & Indians - how hard could that be?" Well, the Western too offers a rude awakening to some of their cheery nostalgic notions.
3
@NKR: "... let alone a whole semester, on slavery, ..."
The author says that he teaches general US history courses, not courses on American slavery:
"One thing is certain as I prepare to teach another course on U.S. history."
"The course was pre-1865 American history — before emancipation, in other words."
Yet he has his own agenda: "I’ve been trying to teach the history of slavery for two decades in American classrooms".
That's called bait-and-switch.
@NKR quoting a student: "She didn't warn us that she would only talk about Westerns."
You are supposed explain on the first day of class and in the syllabus what the class is about and what work will be required. If you aren't doing that, then the problem is yours, not your students'.
The author says that he teaches general US history courses, not courses on American slavery:
"One thing is certain as I prepare to teach another course on U.S. history."
"The course was pre-1865 American history — before emancipation, in other words."
Yet he has his own agenda: "I’ve been trying to teach the history of slavery for two decades in American classrooms".
That's called bait-and-switch.
@NKR quoting a student: "She didn't warn us that she would only talk about Westerns."
You are supposed explain on the first day of class and in the syllabus what the class is about and what work will be required. If you aren't doing that, then the problem is yours, not your students'.
Perhaps assigning John Hershey's "White Lotus" as part of the required reading (there is required reading in this class?) might help people of European heritage (as opposed to "white" since those of us from Mediterranean Africa and the Middle East seem to understand this better) slavery better.
2
I have said this over and over and I will continue to do so until people listen:
Every civilization is born with the sin that will end it. America's Pandora's Box is its history of slavery and racism. The fallout of that history changes from generation to generation but it remains. Failure to deal with it and its modern consequences will end democracy and its future.
Does America have to fight another war against Fascism so soon after their grandparents did so (this time on its own soil)?
Every civilization is born with the sin that will end it. America's Pandora's Box is its history of slavery and racism. The fallout of that history changes from generation to generation but it remains. Failure to deal with it and its modern consequences will end democracy and its future.
Does America have to fight another war against Fascism so soon after their grandparents did so (this time on its own soil)?
3
Would professor Baptist explain to me why, after what the bible states about slavery, blacks ignore all that and continue being christians? How come if I say anything not very kosher about blacks they immediately jump, but they don't react with whatever the bible tells them to observe? I've had at my door black people preaching from different christian sects, and they didn't even want to talk about slavery in the bible. Go figure...
2
It because people of all races owned slaves and were slaves in biblical times, just as they did in antebellum America.
1
Dear Prof Baptist, I think your students should be challenged to end slavery today! Slavery is very much with us in America today, in the form of sexual enslavement in prostitution. There is an active underground railroad, but now it serves to shuttle women into such slavery.
The students should become activists - end slavery now!
The students should become activists - end slavery now!
5
"I learned that if you want to have conversations that transcend intractable arguments about race, you can’t reproduce the historical structures of power that created those problems in the first place."
Excellent point, and applicable to other past and present social inequities (gender and income as well). In the context of discussions about college rankings and "good, better, best" education outcomes, Baptist's insight suggests that all students benefit, and intellectual inquiry deepens, when institutions foster true diversity.
Excellent point, and applicable to other past and present social inequities (gender and income as well). In the context of discussions about college rankings and "good, better, best" education outcomes, Baptist's insight suggests that all students benefit, and intellectual inquiry deepens, when institutions foster true diversity.
2
You want to talk about slavery? Lets REALLY talk about slavery. Dan Carlin f Hardcore History touched on this in his podcast though he's too PC to make the point real clear. I'm not. EVERYONE HAD SLAVES. EVERY CIVILIZATION HAD SLAVERY. And if they didn't have slaves its because they were the slaves. I remember watching HBO's Rome and they were bringing in the germanic slaves on carts and they were being queued to be sold later. There's the infamous Arab slave trade which in reading "Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History" by Matthew White was on the same level as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. There's slavery in China.
Now I know what you are going to say. I would imagine you're going to make the same point Howard Zinn did. That there was something especially wicked about the chattel white slavery that the White Europeans later White Americans practiced. I don't trust Howard Zinn or the white guilt liberal academics to believe them but lets for the sake of argument say that was true. Fine white european slavery was bad. Arabs cut off the testicles of their black male slaves but chattel slavery was the worst. Would it still make sense to teach students about the arab slave trade regardless of whether it was benign compared to european white slavery? Because the problem is Mr. Baptist, that you are creating a distortion.
Now I know what you are going to say. I would imagine you're going to make the same point Howard Zinn did. That there was something especially wicked about the chattel white slavery that the White Europeans later White Americans practiced. I don't trust Howard Zinn or the white guilt liberal academics to believe them but lets for the sake of argument say that was true. Fine white european slavery was bad. Arabs cut off the testicles of their black male slaves but chattel slavery was the worst. Would it still make sense to teach students about the arab slave trade regardless of whether it was benign compared to european white slavery? Because the problem is Mr. Baptist, that you are creating a distortion.
4
"Avoidance of the topic is deeply ingrained."
No its not. In fact its the opposite. How often do Japanese students hear about the slavery of koreans during the Imjin War? Comfort Women? Rape of Nanking? Very little from what I've read. So in fact if we had a category we call "national shame studies" then America and Europe lead the pack. The problem is Mr. Baptist that people like you and others fight this strawman idea that "white" America is in denial and not doing enough when you look around the world like Japan the amount of "shame studies" they do is almost non-existent. And I am not a "America rah-rah rah" type of guy. I think America has done a lot of bad in the world, but people like Mr. Baptist and Howard Zinn take it to a fetish-istic level.
I have read your book. While I cannot accurately say whether the facts of the book are true or whether they have been distorted to back up your thesis (SJWS always lie after all) the tone of the book is pretty representative of what I have a problem with the social justice left. "White people" this and "white people" that. Take it as a compliment that I did try to read the book despite such a tone because I found your thesis on slavery and I was despite my cynicism moved by the in-depth description of the slaves who learned to use both hands. But that part of the book is ruined by the tone that reminds me of the average Tumblr user.
No its not. In fact its the opposite. How often do Japanese students hear about the slavery of koreans during the Imjin War? Comfort Women? Rape of Nanking? Very little from what I've read. So in fact if we had a category we call "national shame studies" then America and Europe lead the pack. The problem is Mr. Baptist that people like you and others fight this strawman idea that "white" America is in denial and not doing enough when you look around the world like Japan the amount of "shame studies" they do is almost non-existent. And I am not a "America rah-rah rah" type of guy. I think America has done a lot of bad in the world, but people like Mr. Baptist and Howard Zinn take it to a fetish-istic level.
I have read your book. While I cannot accurately say whether the facts of the book are true or whether they have been distorted to back up your thesis (SJWS always lie after all) the tone of the book is pretty representative of what I have a problem with the social justice left. "White people" this and "white people" that. Take it as a compliment that I did try to read the book despite such a tone because I found your thesis on slavery and I was despite my cynicism moved by the in-depth description of the slaves who learned to use both hands. But that part of the book is ruined by the tone that reminds me of the average Tumblr user.
5
If you are feeling uncomfortable with a subject, there's a good chance you should listen -- do you think there is a truth there you want to deny or ignore? College professors teach their students to think, even when it's not appreciated at the time. The history of Native American genocide, and slavery, are especially important to teach at this time as it seems there is a great impetus to prevent that education in our current political climate.
5
I suppose if Prof. Baptist's passion is slavery, it should come as no surprise that he wants to focus on it. It is an interesting topic, but really a sideshow to everything else going on in every civilization in recorded history.
When studying the Hellenic period in Greece, ancient Rome, the Mongol Horde, the Vikings, the Spanish conquest of the New World, the English colonies on the American east coast, etc., slavery is present throughout, but its presence is not remarkable.
Jared Diamond argues that 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' advanced Western civilization more than anything else. Prof. Baptist is free to argue that slavery is the most significant factor to the development of the US. However, he should also be open to the possibility that he may be wrong.
When studying the Hellenic period in Greece, ancient Rome, the Mongol Horde, the Vikings, the Spanish conquest of the New World, the English colonies on the American east coast, etc., slavery is present throughout, but its presence is not remarkable.
Jared Diamond argues that 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' advanced Western civilization more than anything else. Prof. Baptist is free to argue that slavery is the most significant factor to the development of the US. However, he should also be open to the possibility that he may be wrong.
32
Sideshow? Not for those who were subjected to it. Nor to their descendants.
I grew up and took all my history classes before 1970. We lived in the North, so slavery was acknowledged as one cause of the Civil War and one reason for the Civil Rights struggle that had just unfolded, but clearly, there is much more to know. Personally, I wish this article had included titles of one or two solid, well-documented and supported, un-fringe books on the topic for those of us who, unlike some of your college students, want to know more.
20
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
Book by Edward E. Baptist
Book by Edward E. Baptist
As a Southern contemporary of yours, let's just say that my exposure to history and the causes of the Civil War was, as an understatement, somewhat different than yours. I agree that there are those of us who truly want to know more.
@nfknapp: "... I wish this article had included titles of one or two solid, well-documented and supported, un-fringe books on the topic ..."
Have you tried your public library? Reference librarians live to recommend books. :-)
More to your point, I would recommend:
* "Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776" by Betty Wood.
* "Slave Narratives" by William L. Andrews, Henry Louis Gates.
* "A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons" by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor.
Have you tried your public library? Reference librarians live to recommend books. :-)
More to your point, I would recommend:
* "Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776" by Betty Wood.
* "Slave Narratives" by William L. Andrews, Henry Louis Gates.
* "A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons" by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor.
Maybe if the Professor just taught the facts instead of trying to lead a particular group of students to share or explain some sort of "burden", he would find students to be less defensive. These are college students after all, a part of this level of education is putting them into position to connect the dots on their own.
20
The difficulty with teaching "just the facts" is that so many of the "facts" we have been taught turn out to be little more than myths. Or they have been selectively chosen to support a particular point of view. Facts out of context are like points on a map with no coordinate system to provide context.
25
Adding to Don A: this is not about memorizing a list of terms. It is about how to go about getting students to think, to overcome the resistance to seeing history from different perspectives and to give them the chance to develop a reasoned explanation for whatever attitudes they end up holding.
7
Perhaps it's the "facts" that untether them.
2
The educational context matters. If the course is "The History of Slavery" or even more focused (say, "The History of Slavery in the U.S., 1789=1865"), then students are misguided indeed to object. But if the course is "Survey of U.S. History Before 1865," and all the instructor talks about is slavery, then the students are indeed being given only part of the story--an important part, for sure, but not the whole story. Indeed, this might well be an important interpretive argument for students to consider: given the economic, political, social, cultural, religious, and intellectual developments of the period, just how important is slavery to understanding those developments? If they can be made to think about that, rather than just be expected to nod in agreement with their instructor's viewpoint, then they'll be more engaged, and actually be getting an education.
22
Slavery, the free labor and the acquisition/(mis)treatment of said free labor, was a major economic fact in American success. You can't ignore an underlying issue that was REQUIRED for the nation to succeed.
Slavery and its products have underwritten the economy of the United States for centuries. It is an appropriate institution to study during the whole of pre and post-Civil War American history. That is one of the points of Professor Baptist's book.
Slavery may have been a "major economic fact",
but far from clear is that it "was REQUIRED for the nation to succeed."
but far from clear is that it "was REQUIRED for the nation to succeed."
I applaud Mr. Baptist for his energy and commitment to teaching his students about slavery. I've read ‘‘The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism’’ and kept being amazed at how my initial understanding of slavery and the impact it had on building our country had been so superficial. I'm now convinced there wasn't much done in this country, especially in the halls of government that wasn't done with slavery in mind. Such as the 3/5 compromise that insured the South kept control of congress and the presidency (due to how the voting was done then). Another area of history that is not well known is why the Seminole Wars were fought, which was primarily for the plantation owners to recover the run-away slaves. Another disturbing part of our history.
57
Thank you. Then, of course, there is the white colonizers treatment of the native peoples - then and now.
2
Instead of daily reminders and guilt trips how evil America was, ie with slavery, genocide against native Americans, child labor, lynching etc., we should celebrate the fact we overcame them in a relative short period of time in relation to history.
The are countries all over the world that have still not found the "cure" for the above evils after thousands of yrs..
Now it is better for us to work on current evils....like.....33,000 gun deaths a yr, an aberration re our peer countries, or our de facto criminal health care system, a national disgrace compared to our peer countries.
The are countries all over the world that have still not found the "cure" for the above evils after thousands of yrs..
Now it is better for us to work on current evils....like.....33,000 gun deaths a yr, an aberration re our peer countries, or our de facto criminal health care system, a national disgrace compared to our peer countries.
20
We overcame them? Yes, things are much better. But we've got a long, long, way to go before we can say that.
2
We overcame "slavery, genocide against native Americans, child labor, lynching, etc."? I must have missed it.
2
I agree with your point about current issues, but....its all tied together in so many ways, some subtle others no so much. The immediate violence of slavery may be gone, but the coercion by the 1% is not.
Think about he phrase "human capital" in relationship to employees and then remember that the big IT companies in California conspired to keep very well educated people from changing jobs. Think about our immigration policy, if immigrants were actually allowed to work they wouldn't be forced to under cut our wages. Think about losing health insurance (by changing jobs or getting fired for speaking up). Think about the attack on "class action law suits".
Those in power do not want the rest of us to get together on anything, its too much like a slave revolt
We live in a country filled with fear,
Think about he phrase "human capital" in relationship to employees and then remember that the big IT companies in California conspired to keep very well educated people from changing jobs. Think about our immigration policy, if immigrants were actually allowed to work they wouldn't be forced to under cut our wages. Think about losing health insurance (by changing jobs or getting fired for speaking up). Think about the attack on "class action law suits".
Those in power do not want the rest of us to get together on anything, its too much like a slave revolt
We live in a country filled with fear,
1
For the sake of shaking up the expected paradigm, why not experiment with reversing the slaveholders as black, and the slaves as white, with graphics to go with it? Walk that walk, & imagine identifying with your white slaves for 325 years; change the historical documents to reflect how whites are intellectually inferior, to include legal documents & code language. Have a black or non-white student defend the status quo, & see what reaction you get from lackadaisical whites. Bring in some actors to illustrate what white slaves looked like, mistreated by black slaveholders, verbally & physically. Suddenly, & emotionally, you'll have every white student's undivided attention, I can assure you.
45
Why not experiment with black students posing as free blacks who own slaves, Hispanic students posing as Hispanics who owned slaves, Native American students posing as Native Americans who owned slaves, and Anglo students posing as Anglos who owned slaves. People of all racial and ethnic groups owned slaves in antebellum America, so this would present a true picture of slavery.
2
Instead of reversing roles, why not have black students portray free blacks who owned slaves. Latino students portray Latinos who owned slaves, and Anglos students portray Anglos who owned slaves. In antebellum America, people of all racial and ethnic groups owned slaves. Not just non-Hispanic whites.
3
It is a remarkable country. And it has changed. But Howard Zinn’s history of America offers a lot of reality that has never been dealt with, particularly in schools, until just recently. It all comes down to, do you recognize that this whole thing is an ongoing experiment born out of Enlightenment thinking about the capacity of people to self-govern, that doesn’t always do things right, or even in the best manner, (as other, US-inspired-historically speaking, self-governing nations have appeared in the past two centuries, with their own , occasionally superior ideas about how to do things), or do you adhere to a quasi-theological view that this country burst forth from the forehead of god to be given to English religious extremists who saw their “Shining City on The Hill”.
If you want to improve the future, you have to understand what was problematic about the past. An optimist would teach about how such problems were overcome, in a system that in its theory has allowed for the potential for such change, even if that “overcoming” is still an ongoing problem.
If you want to improve the future, you have to understand what was problematic about the past. An optimist would teach about how such problems were overcome, in a system that in its theory has allowed for the potential for such change, even if that “overcoming” is still an ongoing problem.
this is fascinating subject . I will go out and get a copy of dr. baptist's book. thank you for working on this very important topic.
12
I hope you enjoy the book as much I did.
1
Funny - I always though good teaching at the university level was more nuanced than this binary.
My bad - I guess there is right history and wrong history
My bad - I guess there is right history and wrong history
16
Actually Steve,
This class sounds pretty exciting. Dr. Baptist doesn't preach, he asks his students to think critically about issues crucial to our shared history, and seems sensitive to his students and their defensiveness. Would it make me, as a white person, uncomfortable initially to be in such a class? Yes...initially. Thanks Dr. Baptist for giving all of your students an opportunity to think and grow.
This class sounds pretty exciting. Dr. Baptist doesn't preach, he asks his students to think critically about issues crucial to our shared history, and seems sensitive to his students and their defensiveness. Would it make me, as a white person, uncomfortable initially to be in such a class? Yes...initially. Thanks Dr. Baptist for giving all of your students an opportunity to think and grow.
3
SteveRR - "I guess there is right history and wrong history."
No, it just depends on who is telling it and at what venue.
No, it just depends on who is telling it and at what venue.
No, there is the history of the perceived winner, and distortion of the history of the desired loser. In the steer of American slavery, the perceived winner is the Antebellum Southern mythological culture (ASMC) and the desired loser are all the slaves made inhuman by the ASMC and the co-conspiring corporate industrial investors throughout American history seeking cheep labor elsewhere in America. From slavery to Jim Crow the pedagogue osuppirting slavery is still with us.
If you really want to find out how ignorant most young people are, the next time you are in a bar, at a restaurant or at a retail establishment make friend with a young worker and ask them who our Vice President is, who our Secretary of State is, who our Secretary of Defense is, How many states are in the union, what is the structure of our government, how many senators are there and how many serve for each or better yet who are your senators and what party they belong to? The answers will shock you as to the level of ignorance in our society and how truly our educational system is failing the youngsters in the society. However maybe it's designed that way. A truly ignorant society is susceptible to those that pull the chains and could easily elect a demagogue like a Donald Trump or a D student who drank his way true Yale college aka George W Bush. Professor your story does not surprise me in the least.
61
Just young people? Try asking most Americans...you'll be disappointed.
4
I try to remember not to ask anybody anything about history, government, politics. Recently, a senior citizen asked me who Elizabeth Warren is, and if she is black. I don't expect anybody to be a political junkie like me but if you have tv/internet how could you escape knowing about Elizabeth Warren? Do people selectively turn off their hearing, seeing, and thinking?
Since I love a good conspiracy theory, I agree the attacks on public education seem to have an agenda that's about more than money.
Since I love a good conspiracy theory, I agree the attacks on public education seem to have an agenda that's about more than money.
1
I agree that most people aren't informed on the subject (the same is true about France). I don't attribute that to stupidity or lack of education, but to the fact that most people believe they aren't represented by our politicians, and that their point of view doesn't count anyway. I don't blame them. Would you find an interest in the political structure of, say, Uzbekistan, other than for the heck of it? I think most people believe their concerns are as much addressed by local and national politicians as they are by Uzbek politicians: not at all.
1
Their behavior is morally repugnant, but my question is this: are they too immature to handle all the emotions that come up when dealing with this issue? Is this a defensive strategy against the pain and guilt of slavery?
The students did "man-up" when challenged, so maybe they need courage to study slavery and race in American, both then and now. It's a very ugly and scary place, with the evil side of humanity in full display.
Do you ask them how they feel about studying this topic? Digging that out first, early in the semester, may help break down their defenses.
Thanks for teaching this difficult subject and best wishes to you, Professor B.
The students did "man-up" when challenged, so maybe they need courage to study slavery and race in American, both then and now. It's a very ugly and scary place, with the evil side of humanity in full display.
Do you ask them how they feel about studying this topic? Digging that out first, early in the semester, may help break down their defenses.
Thanks for teaching this difficult subject and best wishes to you, Professor B.
43
Students meet challenges very well -- a good professor knows that and respects their young minds.
Let's be absolutely American about this, which is to say, let's look at this with capitalist-tinged glasses: By enacting law is that promulgated slavery the United States government was complicit in the expansion/perpetuation of slavery. Vast tracts of land will clear the trenches and ditches with Doug
6
I love this piece. I hope S. is a teacher or a lawyer somewhere.
On a recent trip to Charleston South Carolina no one talked about slavery much. We were hoping to learn more about it. The homes are lovely (many owned by whites from the Northern states) and we whispered to one another what excellent craftsmen the slaves must have been.
As a white southerner, I've been curious about it all my life and have read much, but feel there is SO much missing. As a young person I had many discussions with my black co-workers about their experiences. There's a lot of guilt and there's a lot of shame, on both sides.
I imagine that those who were enslaved wanted to forget the past and move on. But you have to remember the past in order to move forward successfully. Its the biggest issue that faced our country and we are still dealing with it, yet no one talks about it.
On a recent trip to Charleston South Carolina no one talked about slavery much. We were hoping to learn more about it. The homes are lovely (many owned by whites from the Northern states) and we whispered to one another what excellent craftsmen the slaves must have been.
As a white southerner, I've been curious about it all my life and have read much, but feel there is SO much missing. As a young person I had many discussions with my black co-workers about their experiences. There's a lot of guilt and there's a lot of shame, on both sides.
I imagine that those who were enslaved wanted to forget the past and move on. But you have to remember the past in order to move forward successfully. Its the biggest issue that faced our country and we are still dealing with it, yet no one talks about it.
35
Wondering if the professor roots his discussion in the overall history of slavery. It's broad use through history (for example, some of his white students might have descended from serfs in Russia). Or, the current widespread use in Asian fisheries or even here at home via prostitution. What about ISIS?
Relativity isn't there to excuse analysis of how we got to the world we live in, but to allow a real conversation about human nature and power, and the benefits each of us (differently) receives from that dynamic.
Relativity isn't there to excuse analysis of how we got to the world we live in, but to allow a real conversation about human nature and power, and the benefits each of us (differently) receives from that dynamic.
19
Yes! I totally agree-look at ALL cultures throughout history-who had slaves-who didn't and why? Where does it still exist? Why? It may help students be more open about discussing slavery as part of U.S. history and why skavery still exists today in our own back yard-migrant workers, sex industry etc...
1
So the good professor can look at someone, and because of the color of skin they were born with can see unearned privilege, unacknowledged responsibility for ills of minorities, and responsibility for slavery....all "sins" which can never be cleansed by those "cursed" with white skin.
He hopes his black students will "shut down" any comments made by white students that don't acknowledge their sins and set aside their own cognitive abilities in favor of the "politics of personal testimony".
This is horrific, anti-intellectual, unfair, and frankly there's more than a whiff of anti-white racism here.
Since when did it become fashionable to judge and indict people based on the color of their skin? I though that was the definition of racism?
He hopes his black students will "shut down" any comments made by white students that don't acknowledge their sins and set aside their own cognitive abilities in favor of the "politics of personal testimony".
This is horrific, anti-intellectual, unfair, and frankly there's more than a whiff of anti-white racism here.
Since when did it become fashionable to judge and indict people based on the color of their skin? I though that was the definition of racism?
43
did we read the same article?
3
I don't think this comment is fair--the professor just wanted all of the students to engage with the course, and couldn't help noticing that white students seemed to complain the most about having to study slavery. This was an empirical observation on his part, something he saw and tries in the article to understand--he's not assuming that white students would think or act in a particular kind of way based on his stereotypes or preconceptions about white people, but rather trying to understand things that actually happened in his classroom...
4
Not sure why you deride the white girl who, "Ask[ed] with a smirk whether Africans sold other Africans to European dealers".
She is right. Africans have enslaved Africans for centuries and continue to do so today. Muslems also enslave women today. It is strange how African Americans assume that only white people owned slaves, they are wrong. In fact, it is whites who were the first to challenge the practice of slavery and to put their own sons in harms way to free the enslaved. Many of our families lost loved ones in the Civil War. Why are these noble lives forgotten?
She is right. Africans have enslaved Africans for centuries and continue to do so today. Muslems also enslave women today. It is strange how African Americans assume that only white people owned slaves, they are wrong. In fact, it is whites who were the first to challenge the practice of slavery and to put their own sons in harms way to free the enslaved. Many of our families lost loved ones in the Civil War. Why are these noble lives forgotten?
41
The reality is that slavery was race-based in this country, to the point that Roger Taney, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme court ruled in Dred Scott v Sanford that the black man had no rights the white man was bound to respect (basically eviscerating the rights of free blacks as well as slaves). Trying to ignore that fact or paper it over with declarations of the virtues of individual whites addresses neither the actual historical experience of blacks in this country or the on-going impact of race-based slavery that finds it modern expression in institutionalized racism. We need to pull our heads out of the sand and finally take this on, and it seems this professor's course is a good place to start. Hopefully, it will filter down into High Schools and lower grades as wll.
5
Actually, by custom, servitude (for a period of time, or for a full generation, but not beyond) was far more common in Africa (as in other parts of the world, including Europe). Endless, multi-generational slavery was not at all common. Under that system (which included wage servitude and penal servitude) Africans of one ethnicity sold Africans of another ethnicity. But so, too, did English, Irish and Americans buy and sell the indentured service of their own poor (and their convicts).
It's an open question what proportion of Africans understood that the people they sold would not be freed, in their new land, after a period of service--and that the children of the slaves would also be enslaved, for generations to come.
Remember, too, that in the African colonies, the fact that money was paid does not mean the transactions were voluntary. Be glad you've never been faced with the business proposition, "bring me your enemies and I'll pay you for them, or I'll pay your enemies to bring your people to me."
It's an open question what proportion of Africans understood that the people they sold would not be freed, in their new land, after a period of service--and that the children of the slaves would also be enslaved, for generations to come.
Remember, too, that in the African colonies, the fact that money was paid does not mean the transactions were voluntary. Be glad you've never been faced with the business proposition, "bring me your enemies and I'll pay you for them, or I'll pay your enemies to bring your people to me."
6
As long as educated adults -- the parents of your students, never mind the students themselves -- say things like "I'm from the North; Slavery was a Southern problem," we will struggle to come to grips with the impact of slavery.
I grew up as a history buff. I read widely about the Civil War. Yet it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I discovered slavery was legal in all 13 original colonies, and that slaves were present in New England as well as the Old South.
Of course, it was only a few months ago that we witnessed a burning debate about whether the Civil War was sparked by states rights or slavery -- a debate conducted on social and in traditional media largely without recourse the the actual words of the actual authors of succession.
It's hard to achieve that level of ignorance without conscious effort. Once again, we're outdone ourselves.
I grew up as a history buff. I read widely about the Civil War. Yet it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I discovered slavery was legal in all 13 original colonies, and that slaves were present in New England as well as the Old South.
Of course, it was only a few months ago that we witnessed a burning debate about whether the Civil War was sparked by states rights or slavery -- a debate conducted on social and in traditional media largely without recourse the the actual words of the actual authors of succession.
It's hard to achieve that level of ignorance without conscious effort. Once again, we're outdone ourselves.
31
Like the professor says, we've whitewashed history. We did it even as we were creating history--witness his statement that the original American documents were edited to remove references to American slavery. Witness how daintily the Constitution ennables slavery without ever mentioning the words "slavery," "slaves," or "enslavement"--and protected it from any changes until 1808.
It is simply history. We can't go back and change it. We can, however, choose to talk about it rationally and without emotional clouds of denial.
It is simply history. We can't go back and change it. We can, however, choose to talk about it rationally and without emotional clouds of denial.
1
The specificity of the audience should be taken into account during any educational process, but history is history, and facts are facts, so I see no necessity in changing the structure of the course. If they want to study, they will, if not - they won't, and it doesn't matter what color you decide to dye them.
4
I am looking forward to hearing what the Cornell Prof has to say about the slavery unfolding in Syria, today. How can he continue to pontificate while these atrocities are still going on?
8
Springtime - "I am looking forward to hearing what the Cornell Prof has to say about the slavery unfolding in Syria, today."
You obviously don't understand, only "white Americans" are indelibly stained with the sin of slavery, for ever!
You obviously don't understand, only "white Americans" are indelibly stained with the sin of slavery, for ever!
2
Because there is slavery going on elsewhere in the world today, we should ignore our own history? I don't understand the point here.
5
He can teach while atrocities happen the same way you can eat breakfast while atrocities happen (or while children are starving). Atrocities and starvation won't go away if you skip breakfast, and ISIS won't crumble if professors abandon their teaching and instead…do what, exactly, about slavery in Syria?
2
"But I didn’t fully experience the effects of a minority-white classroom until the day a class pushed its white members to take on the burden of explaining slavery."
Isn't this the professor's job? The meme of asking modern-day whites to assume guilt over 19th century slavery seems like typical university political correctness.
Isn't this the professor's job? The meme of asking modern-day whites to assume guilt over 19th century slavery seems like typical university political correctness.
13
In the modern classroom, it is far from unusual for the professor to be a "guide on the side" rather than a "sage on the stage." Professors who use the lecture format to explain a subject to students, who take notes and study those notes to pass tests on content, are becoming less and less common.
Regardless of the content or skills being taught, expecting students to participate actively in their education is very much the current norm.
Regardless of the content or skills being taught, expecting students to participate actively in their education is very much the current norm.
2
I have some idea why the white students might be uncomfortable in the classes described.
A student with an entirely reasonable question is described as asking it with a "smirk". It is understandable that she had nothing further to contribute to the discussion.
A student with an entirely reasonable question is described as asking it with a "smirk". It is understandable that she had nothing further to contribute to the discussion.
36
Maybe your white students, none of whom had been born within a century of slavery, were tired of being blamed for something that they in fact had nothing to do with. I'm wondering how you're doing this teaching.
As important as slavery is, there actually are a lot of other things that have happened in the history of this country. The history of the union movement, for example, which challenges a lot of the economic assumptions the wealthy are making currently, might be a lot more controversial. Teaching everyone that white people did bad things is currently politically correct, so while your students might argue, the people funding this activity will not.
As important as slavery is, there actually are a lot of other things that have happened in the history of this country. The history of the union movement, for example, which challenges a lot of the economic assumptions the wealthy are making currently, might be a lot more controversial. Teaching everyone that white people did bad things is currently politically correct, so while your students might argue, the people funding this activity will not.
18
I'm not sure how we will ever move forward in this world with compassion for all people if we can't learn about the past and face our atrocities.
2
Why is a discussion about slavery something that anyone needs to feel defensive about?
That's the oddest thing--that any white student would feel defensive. What are they being defensive about?
That's the oddest thing--that any white student would feel defensive. What are they being defensive about?
1
No one is blaming them for slavery. They're being blamed for being ignorant about it.
2
I appreciate see this article because it feels so surprising to me. It's hard to imagine any number of college students in 2015 pushing back against learning about slavery, especially at a fairly cosmopolitan place like Cornell. Thanks to the writer for educating me.
14
I'm not so surprised that students who are smart enough to have made it to Cornell, push back against being taught an agenda (the good professor seems to have) rather than History.
Anyone who wants a one-sided, obviously biased version of History can get a free lecture at many activist organizations. Given the tuition in Ivy league universities today, I don't blame the students for insisting on getting the real thing.
Anyone who wants a one-sided, obviously biased version of History can get a free lecture at many activist organizations. Given the tuition in Ivy league universities today, I don't blame the students for insisting on getting the real thing.
2
Perhaps Professor Baptist does this already, but one way to reduce defensiveness from white Americans is to study slavery across the Americas. The history of the African diaspora was not the same everywhere there was slavery, and the present forms of ideas of race and of racism are different in different countries. Sometimes if white Americans can consider racial realities in Brazil, for example, they can be induced to make comparisons and connections to the United States, allowing them to come more to their own conclusions and reduce their perception of perceived attacks.
12
Did you answer the question of the woman with the smirk?
25
It doesn't seem that confirming what she said would have been a welcome challenge to his agenda. I also doubt he addressed the misconception that Islam was the original black man's faith (as professed by The Nation of Islam), because that would spread the responsibility from just the White slavemasters to the Arabs who imposed Islam on African animists and sold slaves with the help of African tribe chiefs.
2
The slavery of Africans in the southern United States, Brazil, Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, etc. is certainly a horrible period in the history of mankind.
Just as students should study and better understand the atrociousness of slavery, schools and universities need to do significantly more to educate students about the abject systematic murder of Native Americans.
Just as students should study and better understand the atrociousness of slavery, schools and universities need to do significantly more to educate students about the abject systematic murder of Native Americans.
22
Are you suggesting slavery in the northern United States wasn't a horrible period?
Very timely article, for me at least, since I am currently reading a biography of Jefferson and only just learned about the deletion of his criticism of slavery from the Declaration. I definitely agree that Americans, by and large, would prefer not to think about slavery or acknowledge its enormous impact on the history of this country. Will certainly be looking for Professor Baptist's book.
6
Two points - the single comment that's been approved so far is someone complaining that the good professor is passionate about his topic. Let's get it out of the way, research professors research things, and teach about them, that's what they do. They should be "messianic" (read enthusiastic) about those topics.
That this grumbling reaction was the first knee-jerk impulse of the NYT commentariat is probably not surprising, but it is instructive. This "why are we talking about this subject, I'd rather not hear it at all, or at least wrap it in euphemism, or soften it to make it seem like less of a problem for me and my world" attitude is the precise subject of the essay.
I love the episode in the middle when the white students are challenged, and change their perspective. Those of us who have the luxury of taking for granted the fairness and goodness of the prevailing state of the world resent it when those assumptions are shaken, but are better off for it.
That this grumbling reaction was the first knee-jerk impulse of the NYT commentariat is probably not surprising, but it is instructive. This "why are we talking about this subject, I'd rather not hear it at all, or at least wrap it in euphemism, or soften it to make it seem like less of a problem for me and my world" attitude is the precise subject of the essay.
I love the episode in the middle when the white students are challenged, and change their perspective. Those of us who have the luxury of taking for granted the fairness and goodness of the prevailing state of the world resent it when those assumptions are shaken, but are better off for it.
105
I'm sorry you saw my response as a knee-jerk impulse of the commentariat. It would have been easy to not write anything.
It would have been easy to write something about how this kind of thinking will become even more important as we move to becoming a nation where non-whites form the majority.
Or to write something about how the legacy of slavery is still with us, today, and it behooves us all to think about that.
Those are the easy, "lots of recommend" responses. But I'm honestly still thinking about this. About whether kids from families who became incredibly wealthy by destroying companies, or shipping jobs overseas, need to meet those whose families, jobs, towns were destroyed. And I thought--would this apply to a family that made a lot of money selling drugs, for example. And whether the difference is skin color, or today, whether wealth and class mean more. When I said I was thinking about this, I was serious. I still am.
It would have been easy to write something about how this kind of thinking will become even more important as we move to becoming a nation where non-whites form the majority.
Or to write something about how the legacy of slavery is still with us, today, and it behooves us all to think about that.
Those are the easy, "lots of recommend" responses. But I'm honestly still thinking about this. About whether kids from families who became incredibly wealthy by destroying companies, or shipping jobs overseas, need to meet those whose families, jobs, towns were destroyed. And I thought--would this apply to a family that made a lot of money selling drugs, for example. And whether the difference is skin color, or today, whether wealth and class mean more. When I said I was thinking about this, I was serious. I still am.
6
The challenge is that slavery has not been adequately taught in high school, let alone at the college level.
That challenge necessitates that the students set aside their preconceived ideas, so as to be open to learning (a challenge for many topics). Part of this involves empathy, something in short supply amongst high school & college aged students.
Simply start off by placing them in the types of chains & shackles slaves were forced to wear. Then, ask them to imagine never seeing their parents or loved ones again.
Slavery is a critical topic that all Americans need to learn about, and understand. Unfortunately, such an effort has not been undertaken.
That challenge necessitates that the students set aside their preconceived ideas, so as to be open to learning (a challenge for many topics). Part of this involves empathy, something in short supply amongst high school & college aged students.
Simply start off by placing them in the types of chains & shackles slaves were forced to wear. Then, ask them to imagine never seeing their parents or loved ones again.
Slavery is a critical topic that all Americans need to learn about, and understand. Unfortunately, such an effort has not been undertaken.
59
absolutely . this is what makes the reacting to the past pedaegogy so effective.
Slavery and the civil rights movement were perhaps the most fought history subjects in my high school.
1
What needs to be taught, as an adjunct to the history of slavery, is the need for the ancestors of the slave holders (i.e., Euro-Americans) to seek redemption. This they can do through a more vigorous affirmative action program. Greater housing subsidies that will permit inner city familites of color to move into middle and upper middle class neighborhods (and gain the advantages of living there). This needs to be taught alongside the suffering of slavery. Reducing racism today is as important as the study of it in the past.
30
What needs to be taught, as an adjunct to the history of slavery, is the need for the ancestors of the slave holders (i.e., Euro-Americans) to seek redemption
================
All of the slave holders are long dead - as are their ancestors.
================
All of the slave holders are long dead - as are their ancestors.
6
As guilty as "Euro-Americans" might be at perpetuating slavery, they did not invent it, or even introduce it to the western hemisphere. And they deserve at least some credit for working to end it.
As for relocating inner city families to better neighborhoods, the advantages of living there come from certain human behaviors. So transplanting people without requiring behavior change will not reap the benefits you are looking for.
As for relocating inner city families to better neighborhoods, the advantages of living there come from certain human behaviors. So transplanting people without requiring behavior change will not reap the benefits you are looking for.
15
As a Euro-American, I agree with everything you say with one exception.
As far as I know, I am not the descendant of a slave holder. As far as I know, I did not benefit from slavery. Therefore, I don't think I, individually, need redeeming.
That said, I do believe that the nation, which permitted the institution of slavery, owes a duty to African Americans to address and correct all of the negative impacts that flow from America's history of slavery and Jim Crow, which continue to permeate this society in 2015. Is that a high bar? Yes, it certainly is, given our nation's history. But our nation should accept that as its obligation.
As far as I know, I am not the descendant of a slave holder. As far as I know, I did not benefit from slavery. Therefore, I don't think I, individually, need redeeming.
That said, I do believe that the nation, which permitted the institution of slavery, owes a duty to African Americans to address and correct all of the negative impacts that flow from America's history of slavery and Jim Crow, which continue to permeate this society in 2015. Is that a high bar? Yes, it certainly is, given our nation's history. But our nation should accept that as its obligation.
7
I've seen that smirk - there is a very common sense that the only important thing about the history of slavery is to demonstrate that you personally don't bear any moral blame for it - you weren't even there! So why should you be expected to talk about it? And for the slightly more sophisticated, you can point out that there were Black people who shared the blame. But the study of History or Civics or Economics - or any other area where the slave labor system is an important element - all these studies should be about more than just pointing the definitive finger of guilt, then closing the book.
This is where Lincoln showed real moral depth, because while he totally condemned the system of slavery, he refused to let Northerners claim to be better people than the slave-owners - freedom was a better system, but the people were the same human beings. In a way, that was the point.
This is where Lincoln showed real moral depth, because while he totally condemned the system of slavery, he refused to let Northerners claim to be better people than the slave-owners - freedom was a better system, but the people were the same human beings. In a way, that was the point.
90
Thank you for your work, Professor Baptist.
53
Thanks for this. Over the last decade I have become increasingly frustrated (and outraged) by all of the real US history that I wasn't taught in the 60s and 70s and have had to discover on my own. I realize now that most of what I worked to memorize and regurgitate for exams was simply propaganda.
72
Yes, this is true, so true. History is sanitized (and made so boring as well) in schools today, and for me as well as a student in the 1980s and 1990s.
We learn the real story as adults. I don't plan to have that happen to my children.
We learn the real story as adults. I don't plan to have that happen to my children.
4
Are you sure what you learned outside of school wasn't just propaganda from the other side?
2
Marjorie:
I was in high school in the late 50s. Can you imagine what we were taught? (Even) in Los Angeles? My visiting Kentucky grandmother made us giggle when she talked about Black people. She was so out-of-date: a Black man has a right in a line at a drugstore, not just you, Mamaw. I was 9 in 1951 when she visited and it seemed everything was OK.
It was decades later that I realized every Black in our high school was a custodian or cafeteria worker -- except for the fewer than 10 students among whom one became student body president in 1958. What a mix of privilege and oppression: emphasis on oppression.
An understanding of slavery, the abolitionist movement, slavery, secession, slavery, the war, slaves demanding freedom, the subsequent constitutional amendments, Reconstruction -- and slavery under different names -- only came much later. I credit C-SPAN with its various viewpoints among other media.
Many still don't have any understanding of how all that could influence what's going on today. I know I'm still grappling.
I was in high school in the late 50s. Can you imagine what we were taught? (Even) in Los Angeles? My visiting Kentucky grandmother made us giggle when she talked about Black people. She was so out-of-date: a Black man has a right in a line at a drugstore, not just you, Mamaw. I was 9 in 1951 when she visited and it seemed everything was OK.
It was decades later that I realized every Black in our high school was a custodian or cafeteria worker -- except for the fewer than 10 students among whom one became student body president in 1958. What a mix of privilege and oppression: emphasis on oppression.
An understanding of slavery, the abolitionist movement, slavery, secession, slavery, the war, slaves demanding freedom, the subsequent constitutional amendments, Reconstruction -- and slavery under different names -- only came much later. I credit C-SPAN with its various viewpoints among other media.
Many still don't have any understanding of how all that could influence what's going on today. I know I'm still grappling.
2
Excellent article, thank you for a very interesting point of view. In my very white corporate setting I make the same observation: Very few people have thought through how slavery shaped the early US economy, and therefore US history. I live in a northern city with a flourishing financial services sector -- the direct descendant of a flourishing trade in financing slavery. Yet everyone here thinks of slavery as something that happened somewhere else, in the South or wherever. The truth is that Slavery 'R Us. Awareness and honesty about slavery won't by itself re-set the contemporary dialogue about race. But it would be a good place to start. And we will need honesty to also talk about crime, criminal justice, education, job readiness and the availability of jobs. Honesty is colorblind, so it makes nearly everyone uncomfortable, but it's the best hope we have.
113
For a number of years I taught introductory anthropology classes on power and resistance at the University of Rochester. Beyond my central competences, this was part of the University's response to the shootings at Kent State. I well remember a year in which the white students and their white professor were in the minority. Not infrequently students of color from different parts of the world argued among themselves about the differences in and meanings of their experiences while the rest of us sat with out mouths open in wonder. It was revelatory.
22
It might be better if you offered a course called "The history of slavery in the US." That way you would have a class comprising students who were interested in a particular focus on that topic. Did you ever consider that maybe your students have a legitimate point, that your interest in the important topic of slavery leads you to overemphasize it in what they expect to be a broader survey?
37
I would agree. If I took an "American History Before 1865" course and 80% of it was about slavery I would complain, too
7
A history of the U.S. before the Civil War is necessarily going to be, to a great extent, a history of slavery in the U.S. The ever-increasing conflict between northern and southern states drove so much of the history of the era that, unless you're studying some specialized aspect of history, that narrative has to dominate. It's not Professor Baptist who's obsessed with slavery, it's the time he's discussing.
16
I don't know; as a (white) public high school teacher who's taught U.S. History for many years, regular through AP level, I must say that to me, de-emphasizing slavery (and the whole African-American experience) in the teaching of U.S. History would be akin to de-emphasizing Germany in teaching 20th century Europe. What I mean is that one is so inextricably tied to the other in both cases that you'd end up leaving out (or focusing less on) critical elements of what made each what they ultimately were.
19
If the class is US history pre-1865 what are the students expecting? To learn abut Kim and Caitlyn? College work should be hard and force examination of issues, especially the foundation of our nation - both good and bad. Slavery was the norm around the world in the 18th century.
57
This particular Nation was settled by individuals "yearning to breathe free," wasn't it?
If there are any areas on Earth without heirarchical religions and forms of government, it would pleasure me greatly to hear all about that wonderful bit of News!
Women and Children everywhere are still treated as though they have no personal rights.
If there are any areas on Earth without heirarchical religions and forms of government, it would pleasure me greatly to hear all about that wonderful bit of News!
Women and Children everywhere are still treated as though they have no personal rights.
16
To Kate.....Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, and that's just off the top of my head.
1
I have no problem with kids being taught about slavery, or asked to confront uncomfortable truths.
But there is an almost messianic zeal here that disturbs me. Not sure why.
But there is an almost messianic zeal here that disturbs me. Not sure why.
37
Probably because you're uncomfortable with the legacy of slavery.
59
It might be that--you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But I think it's more complex than that. I'm still thinking about it.
7
Which statements indicate--or even hint at--"almost messianic zeal"?
6