"You Ain't Black"
Just in time for Thanksgiving, crazy Uncle Joe said it, so let's argue about it.
The call of liberty is universal; the yearning for freedom is personal.
Ric Leczel
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, whose very concept is under attack as a vestige of Colonialism, its history is explained in this well-researched piece about the cultural divisions of our beloved national holiday. The fact that it’s in a food mag called Delish makes me proud to fly the Compass Star banner on this word ship. It’s all about the Elements, and this day of thanks has them all!
The Dark Truth Behind The Origins Of Thanksgiving
The fact that a recipe rag does a deep dive into some uncomfortable truths about The Major Food Holiday in America is precisely the type of civilizational analysis that we need. While I may or may not agree with each or every point and roll my eyes at some of the buzz-wordy jargon, its idea-sparring and memory-jarring approach is food for thought. Chew on that! Ok I quit.
One myth debunked is that the settlers concept of thanksgiving was of a feast in celebration of an event. Actually, they report, it was a fast, most often after an act of violence, as described in the piece
From then on, Pilgrims celebrated "thanksgivings" in their traditional way of fasting and praying, according to the The New Yorker. Several times this happened because of the massacres of Native people, including in 1637 when Massachusetts Colony Governor John Winthrop declared a day of thanksgiving after volunteers murdered 700 Pequot people. This incident is also often cited as the first official mention of a "thanksgiving" ceremony, and is another commonly cited origin story for the Thanksgiving we know today.
Happy Thanksgiving Everybody, I’m most thankful for all the natives we slaughtered this week. Pass the turkey, please. Wow, talk about a Debbie-Downer at the table.
In keeping with the theme of death and destruction as a prerequisite of thanksgiving, Abe Lincoln issued the following proclamation after the loss of 50,000 men at Gettysburg, ironically declared a victory for the Union
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, …to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving... And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him …, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
Happy Thanksgiving then, I guess, is apropos during this current crop of death and destruction we’re harvesting this season. Wear your Fat Pants and fill your plate with slow-cooked Western Guilt, simmering Civilization Shaming, and a big ole helping of Race Baiting. Save room in the ovens for babies.
Is this a Fast or a Feast? Depends on where you stand, I contend. Some say it’s easy to tell who’s who here - Oppressed = Black || Oppressor = White.
What’s getting harder and harder to determine is who is Black and who is White. Maybe skin color is not so reliable in determining character after all. Have we heard that somewhere before? I’d love to hear your take.
What do the words Freedom and Liberty mean to you? I found an essay that provides a thought-provoking opinion. Check out this Time piece from 2020 which argues that each concept has a double meaning in America. More so now than ever before I say.
As for most revolutionaries, myself included, the desire to be “free” is the goal of “liberty”. The difference in revolutionaries is the side of the fence you fight for. Too often, your Freedom encroaches on my Liberty. And my Liberty steps all over your Freedom.
The Founding Fathers belief in Liberty - at the expense of death - was based in the security of property. In this case, slaves. For the humans in bondage, however, their cries for Freedom bear little resemblance to the former’s concept of Liberty.
The protestors in the streets today chanting Freedom are channeling one version of Liberty - freedom from oppression. Overthrowing monarchs, emancipation of the slaves, universal suffrage, Black civil rights, Occupy Wall Street, and similar movements share this philosophical branch of the Freedom Tree.
For those around the other side of the tree, defined by the left as Populists and The 1% (strange bedfellows to begin with) mainly, the concept is rather blunt
In their view, true freedom is not about collective control over government; it consists in the private enjoyment of one’s life and goods.
This sets up a power struggle within a power struggle - the oppressed against oppressor battles VERSUS the elite populists(?) warring against the government - for the very ideas of Freedom & Liberty. That’s a caustic soup of hate, yum!
The participants in the latter battle are easily identified - FILL IN THE BLANK vs. The Government (or King, etc.). The fighters in the former fracas fancy fluidity. Once upon a time, the Jews were the Oppressed. Now they’re the Oppressors. Did they change race or color?
Please tell me what you think
For instance, supporters of the British crown before the American Revolution argued that security of property was, in fact, an expression of liberty, and the colonies were indeed secure, so therefore, free. So pipe down, colonialists.
That argument is as old as time and was defined afresh in 1831 by powerful politician (Democrat, of course) William Marcy when he coined the phrase “To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.” That age-old war axiom is now being contested in the name of “Freedom” and “Liberty”.
Colonialism, the new term for Imperialism, is at the root of all struggles for Liberty, this theory posits. Demands are now being made of victors of wars fought generations ago to return the spoils they won to the losers. What kind of definition of “Freedom” and “Liberty” is that? Visiting the sin of the father on the son? Bind those wounds with the blood of new victims, I guess.
In the never-ending race to claim ultimate victimhood, a self destructing act in and of itself, another battle front has been opened in the Identity War. Actual African Americans, those descended from African slaves brought to the original Colonies, are pitting themselves against new Blacks. Especially in academia, where the newbies are over-represented in the Black tribe at the expense of the multi-generational.
A debate brews among Black Ivy League students over representation on campus
Why some Black students on Ivy League campuses say they feel like “a minority within a minority.”
Ok, let’s listen to a white dude talk about black experience. That’s a ballsy move in a charged atmosphere, but hey, it’s me we’re talking about, right? This post started when I read the piece above. I agree with it’s unintended conclusion, which is that it’s not skin color that keeps Blacks down, it’s Class. Or what was called back in the day The Caste System.
Chattel Slavery was different from prior forms of slavery in that it created a Caste System in America. And this author taps into that truth almost without realizing it. I could’ve titled this post “Shades of White” and maybe that will lead the follow-up, if there is one. I’ve asked it before and I’ll ask it again: Why just Black and White and not Brown and Red and Yellow?
Care to comment about your ideas on that?
From the piece
When Shannon Brooks, a junior at Penn, meets other Black students on campus for the first time, she’s often asked about her ethnic background. When she tells people she is African American, there’s a follow-up question: “Where are you really from?”
“I don’t have another flag or ethnicity to represent,” Brooks said. “My family has just always been here.”
Christopher Butcher, a junior at Princeton, said he did not notice many spaces dedicated solely to African American culture on campus.
While Butcher enjoys experiencing the cuisine and music tied to Black diasporic cultures when he attends their student events, these cultural celebrations reminded him of how isolated he can feel from the Black social landscape on campus.
“Me, as someone who isn’t Nigerian American or wasn’t Ethiopian or Eritrean, I didn’t want to take up too much space in an organization that was curated for people with those identities,” Butcher said.
And the next few paragraphs explain why this club for Blacks decided to limit leadership positions to multi-generational members over other Blacks, a form of discrimination.
Ali, the Penn student, said all Black students are eligible for membership to their affinity group. But, the club’s constitution places higher priority for leadership positions on students who have at least one multigenerational Black parent. She said there was pushback from some members in the Black community about the clause being potentially exclusionary.
“That should be self-explanatory for why we did that,” Ali said. “If it’s a club for African Americans, it should be run by us, for us.”
Ultimately, the club was approved, but the process of obtaining their status made her feel that there was ignorance around the importance of their affinity space.
Revisiting the quote above from a different perspective shines new light on the meaning of Freedom
In their view, true freedom is not about collective control over government; it consists in the private enjoyment of one’s life and goods.
So in a racial context, with no Whites around in the Black Tribe, one sub-set of the tribe is claiming a mantle of higher authority than another sub-set of the tribe. Would that be called supremacy of any kind? Do those not allowed to leadership roles occupy a second-class position? Jus askin . . .
Again, for emphasis
She said there was pushback from some members in the Black community about the clause being potentially exclusionary.
Well, no shit! Because it is exclusionary. Black is Black, right? The Black Vote. The Black Caucus. The HBCU. Uh. Uhm. No. It’s not. It never was. Slavery is ancient, but varied. The Big Three Religions all practiced slavery. Human bondage and servitude performed many functions, and slaves were secured from many sources.
Up until the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, slavery was not based on race. There were degrees of slavery, as it were, and in the piece below, the author sounds like a modern-day moral-equivalizer as she describes slaves in ancient Africa thusly
People with limited freedom were found throughout African societies for thousands of years prior to the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
So you’re not, like, a slave slave, your freedom is JUST LIMITED. Oh, way better, thanks. Unintentionally, these authors are making the point I’ve been making since I was released from prison - It’s TRIBAL - NOT RACIAL.
Enslaved Peoples In African Societies Before The Transatlantic Slave Trade
In discussing the African responsibility for the Slave Trade, it excuses their behavior in this paragraph, which is indicative of the tenor of the entire piece
Did Some Africans Participate In The European Slave Trade?
Slavers came from Europe with the promise of foreign goods in exchange for people. At first several African empires, kingdoms, and nations helped the European traders. They traded away captured enemies for European and Asian supplies. However, as the Europeans’ demands grew in number, African leaders began to refuse sending away their people. European traders bullied the local people into helping them maintain the slave trade by threat of violence.
I mean, yeah, there was no incentive for one tribe to sell off its own captured slaves for gold and guns, it was because they were bullied by white people. Puh-Lease! This excuse of human nature based on skin color is prima facie racism.
Meanwhile, back at college, this writer taps into the same vein of moral relativity with this candid admission about immigrant Blacks
Data from the U.S. Census shows that, in 2019, 30% of Black immigrants above the age of 25 had a college degree, in comparison with 21% of U.S.-born Black residents. The gap increased for certain subgroups of Black immigrants. For example, 64% of Nigerian-born immigrants had a college degree in 2019.
Specifically, African American descendants of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade have a multitude of multi-generational problems. Agreed. It’s easy to find common ground on problems. It’s harder to create mutual solutions.
So instead of inviting first and second generation Blacks that may be experiencing the same type of skin-color-based discrimination at an Ivy League school to find common cause, they set out and strive to find differences in same-colored peoples. And bar them from leadership roles. And defend that tribalism.
This discriminatory action appears to be based on the realization that the foreign-born Blacks are more successful academically than home-grown Blacks, most likely due to socieo-economics, not skin color. Tribal shit is deep, huh?
The quest for Freedom & Liberty lives inside every Human Being. It’s inherent, or what the Founding Fathers labeled God-given. Whatever those concepts mean to you, they’re are not the same to everyone else. And whether that’s OK with you or not, it’s the fact of the universe.
Your Freedom impedes my Liberty. My Liberty tramples your Freedom. Huh! How about this new adage: To ALL OF the participants go the spoils? Just maybe for once. Gen X again leading the way, again.
Wikipedia is generally recognized as informative, so take my links to it as just that: a reference. It’s one of many sources, not my final opinion or conclusion. Information to be gathered, processed, contemplated, and, ultimately, formative to create a working hypothesis. Of anything. It’s called learning, and our higher institutions don’t seem to be into that sort of thing.
The Bibliography below might be of interest to you. If you ever had questions in your head like I do.
What does hearing the word “SLAVE” do to you? What image does it conjure up in your head? Could you define the word? Would you be able to pick out a slave in a police lineup? Should all slavery be considered evil?
Big questions for Thanksgiving, but they’re now upon us. Is there Good and Evil? Is there Right and Wrong? Are those Universal Concepts? Do we control our own Freedom? Are we in charge of our own Liberty?
Are we slaves to anything in our own lives? And if we are, do we control the power to change that station in life that we find ourselves in? What do we, as Americans, owe to this moment in history? Do we control the power to chart a new and different course for America?
I’m thankful this holiday to have the opportunity to ask those questions. How many more holidays will have that much Freedom and Liberty?
Enjoy your meal and think of how many natives died for this day of celebration,
Ric
Transatlantic Slave Trade
The Transatlantic Slave Trade
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade · African Passages ...
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - Database
Trans-Saharan slave trade
Slavery in medieval Europe
Africans Before the Atlantic Slave Trade
I’m totally obsessed with Sinead O’Connor’s Drink Before the War. It’s so hauntingly melodic and upliftingly melancholic.