In a rambling letter published August 12, an old white man wrote, “If the slaves in the 1700s knew about America and had a choice, would they get on that ship willingly? I say, yes.”
As an old white man myself, I’m disgusted. Why is this a question? And who is he to answer it?
Africans (12.75 million of them) were kidnapped, chained, and loaded onto slave ships for sale in America from 1619 to 1807 according to English insurance companies that profited from the slave trade. Strangers were chained to each other and crammed below decks where they vomited, bled, cried, urinated, defecated, and died on each other. Others escaped the horrors of captivity by jumping overboard into an unforgiving ocean. Many drowned in terror when their ships sank.
It’s believed that nearly 2 million Africans died involuntarily crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
“If the slaves in the 1700s knew about America and had a choice, would they get on that ship willingly? I say, yes,” mused the old white Trumper.
Upon forced arrival in America, formerly free men and women were brutally sequestered in “seasoning camps.” The purpose was to wipe out African cultures and identities, especially of those who were African tribal royalty. The slaves were assigned condescending new names and forced to learn rudimentary English, basic colonial customs, and obedience to their new masters to increase their value on the auction blocks. They were stripped on platforms, physically probed as if they were animals, and sold to the highest bidder. Slaves who did not conform, or were not sold, were killed.
Welcome to America!
The slave mortality rate was nearly 50 percent and fertility rates were low. Therefore, more human beings were stolen from Africa. When the importation of slaves was mostly banned in America in 1807 slave-owners bred their female slaves to increase the number of field workers. Male slaves were hired out to neighboring plantations to impregnate enslaved women. Slavers raped their owned slaves and then sold their resulting children to increase plantation cash flow.
“If the Slaves in the 1700s knew about America and had a choice, would they get on that ship willingly? I say, yes,” mused the old white man.
Captured runaway slaves were tied to the whipping post and lashed within an inch of their lives. The KKK violently enforced post-Civil War white supremacy. The National Lynching Memorial documents the illegal hangings of nearly 4,500 men and women in 805 American counties. Other Americans of color were dragged to death behind cars, burned alive, or thrown from bridges.
Schools, lunch counters, water fountains, and public transportation were segregated: “Whites Only.” The federal government denied federal mortgage insurance to neighborhoods populated by people of color, a practice called “red lining.” Black American travelers carried a copy of the “Negro Motorist Green Book” to find hotels and restaurants that would serve “Colored People.”
And our highest court recently gutted the voting rights of Black Americans as the Trump administration illegally deports thousands of innocent people of color to be violently imprisoned in an Africa unknown to them. “If the Slaves in the 1700s knew about America and had a choice, would they get on that ship willingly? I say, yes,” mused the old white man.
Metaphorical blackface, rationalizations and whitewash are not tools of the American dream. They are the chains of American ignorance. And since the past is always present, our future requires us to honestly learn from our mistakes, diligently change our attitudes, and work together in good faith to establish equality for all. I’m willing. Are you?
— Chuck Wieland,
Madera