Leadership and the Humanities Class Blog Posts

This week’s reading brought a breath of fresh air. In contrast to our previous readings, Michael Twitty gives us a personal account of his childhood and adult life as a black, Jewish, homosexual man.  Although Michael didn’t live during the period of time we were previously reading about, I still found his dialogue extremely interesting and thought-provoking.

Like Twitty, I have a similar experience to growing up in a certain culture. My mother’s side of the family is from New Orleans, Louisianna since her ancestors immigrated here 4 generations ago. I grew up in the rich culinary tradition that many people from the Bayou possess.  Whether it’s Jambalaya, crawfish boils, or king cake during Marti Gras, our culture is one I have a ton of respect for.

Unlike Michael, however, I never went through the hardships he went through. I am very grateful to be able to find where my ancestors came from, something Michael was not able to do. I did not have to deal with rejection as he did when he came out to his mother. And of course, I never had to face any kind of prejudice or racial stereotypes that he had to throughout his life. Despite all of this, it is remarkable how Michael embraces his culture and has a deep reverence to those who have gone before him, even though he may never know who they are.

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I am from New Orleans and many of the southern foods that Twiddy mentioned are all foods I eat quite regularly. At least once a week my school would have okra in some form either in fried, cooked or in a gumbo. However, I have never really taken the time to examine the history and culture behind the foods. Twiddy said, “The connection between and heritage of both southern and soul cuisines is hotly debated and arouses old racial stereotypes, prejudices, and cultural attitudes and intercultural misunderstandings.” He is right and when I stop to think about the many foods and products I use have racial stereotypes attached to them. I think it is somewhat unavoidable in the south.

 

Another thing I found quite interesting about the readings was how different they seemed. Even though they were all by the same author I thought that they sometimes sounded like they were different people’s stories. I felt like he focused more heavily on different parts of his identity in different pieces. In Hating My Soul he focused more on being gay and how that effected his childhood and relationship with his family. Whereas in No More Whistling Walk for Me, I thought he focused on his African heritage and cooking styles.

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Personally, I have always been a huge foodie- I love trying new foods, going to restaurants, cooking, family meals and just about everything about food in general. My family enjoys having meals together and we have some favorite recipes, but we don’t really have significant meals/recipes that have been passed down through generations that are basically part of our DNA.

After these readings, I have a completely new perspective on what the concept of food means to some people. With Twitty, it is his whole life, and the backbone of who he is as a person. I found it extremely interesting how he described the connection between food and understanding where someone comes from, his ancestors, and his story, specifically for African Americans in the time period. Food is the link that helps them find their way home, as they have lost so much and attempt to piece their stories back together. I loved when describing this seemingly painful concept, he compared it to the Japanese art of kintsugi, saying “the scars of the object are not concealed, but highlighted and embraced, thus giving them their own dignity and power” (Twitty, 21). I think this idea is very inspiring and one that I will always keep in the back of my mind- that we must overcome and use our adversities to make us stronger.

I cannot imagine the pain, anger, and frustration felt by many as they try to find their ancestors and trace their lineage to a “nonexistent” family tree. I feel disappointed in myself as well as in my past history classes for not learning about this idea at all- that many African Americans do not know who their ancestors are because their records were simply not recorded, names were changed, or they were not even considered people. It has definitely made me feel gratitude as well as guilt for never thinking twice about knowing exactly where my European great-grandparents came from and how I became the person I am today.

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This week’s readings were surprisingly unique in style when compared to our previous readings. I like how we were able to read a first-person perspective because it introduced a more casual style of conversation. As a result, I was able to delve deeper into his stories along with feeling a stronger sense of emotion. 

 

In the reading “Hating my Soul” by Twitty, he connected his love for food with the culture that he struggled to accept. Despite his efforts to avoid his culture, it was constantly surrounding him, as the walls of his dining room were covered with African pictures that he was convinced were staring at him. Below the African paintings was a record player with a variety of albums that played different styles of music depending upon who was cooking in the kitchen at that moment. One day, Twitty found an album by Steve Curry that was filled with racist assumptions and stereotypes regarding the types of food that black people supposedly ate. Twitty explained that not only were these stereotypes incorrect, but also extremely disrespectful and disgusting. 

 

Oftentimes, people make assumptions about individuals without even thinking. We associate individuals to certain things in an attempt to understand them better. These assumptions are usually extremely general and do not take into account the individuals specific likes and dislikes. Last semester, I took a course where we learned about Business in Imperialistic colonies. In the course we learned about the introduction of multiculturalism into British society, specifically curry houses. The Chinese individuals living in British society struggled with racist stereotypes and assumptions tied to the “stank of curry” that was associated with their culture. The Chinese were treated less than everyone else as a result of these harmful stereotypes. This created an uneven playing field for these individuals living in British Society. Instead of creating bias’s about an individual, we should disrupt these judgements and try to learn about the individual and their culture. It is through this process of learning that we will be able to appreciate one another. Not only was this reading interesting, but also highlighted the effects that stereotyping can have on an individual and their perception of their culture.

 

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Within the first moments of starting to read, “Hating My Soul” by Twitty I felt guilt. I never really thought about the reason I liked the movies and celebrities that I did as a kid. Twitty states, “Blame it on a world that taught me early on that the only people who actually mattered were pretty white people getting laid and living large, and their cute children living without want” (twitty, 26). I watched movies and thought “I want to be like her” not “I could never be like her”, because of the color of my skin. The impact of this never truly occurred to me.

 

I also found it interesting and sad that the way Twitty saw (or didn’t see for that matter) black culture in popular culture is the reason he didn’t have the appreciation for “soul food” that his family did. Chain and fast food restaurant take over is something that is damaging to all cultural foods and appetites. “I remember all these soul food horror stories and shudder. They came from a cultural disconnect… a grandson who lived in a world taken over by Pizza Hut and McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and this could have been the end of my soul” (Twitty, 35). While it is impressive to me that Twitty was able to re gain an appreciation for the food of his culture, it is sad to think that this was probably not the case for many people/families, and is the reason that there is a die out in culture. To many, food is a key part in culture, tradition, and heritage, and the “white washing” of food is something that is ruining this for many. I can see this causing some sort of internal conflict in people, especially children, when part of them wants to embrace their culture, but the other part of them wants to fit in and go with what is popular, which is sad. 

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One thing I kept thinking about throughout these readings is the unfairness of what is recorded and what isn’t in our textbooks. What is upsetting is that once Africans were kidnapped into slavery in America, they became apart of our history. Yet, despite them being a crucial part of the United States, their experience and perspective are almost completely ignored. They matter very much to the foundations of this country because of this nation’s actions to bring them here, but yet, there is little to nothing in our curriculum that would defend that.

After reading these stories from Michael Twitty, I feel like I learned more about the experiences of those who are descendants from slaves than I ever have before because it is a perspective that was left out in all of my years of schooling. Just from these three readings, it made me think about the magnitude of things that were lost to slavery that is never talked about or acknowledged. At this point, because it was so long ago, and there is no way to replace things that weren’t remembered in the first place, there are so many things that we will never know about. For example, one of the things he talked about a lot was food. This is something that is important in a lot of people’s families because of generational ties. Not only did he explain how it was important to his family, but southern cuisine as a whole. Southern food is a big thing for people but where it comes from is never thought about, which I didn’t know about either. There are other little things like songs and stories, like the one’s he was able to tell, that actually means a lot because these are the type of things that can connect people to their ancestral line. 

One thing I thought was important to note was the internal conflict Twitty talks about a little bit. Apart of him wanted to get to know and understand more about his roots. This can be different for everyone whether they just want to know more about their ancestors in America or if they want to go even further down the line to Africa. At the same time, he wanted to escape the past which is very understandable. His family was all over the place because they each tried to get away from it in their own way.

 

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After listening to the podcast, then immediately reading No More Whistle Walking For Me, i immediately understood the use of food as a means of culture described in the podcast. While i have always viewed food as a way to be culturally affluent, i never put the true significance and importance it has to groups of people until i read this first chapter. While there was a wide variety of content in this chapter, i want to focus on a quote from the beginning, as well as the conclusion as i feel like those two moments best displayed the importance of food to culture and sense of self.

Twitty says on page 7, “Many of our most pungent memories are carried through food, just as connections to our ancestors are reaffirmed by cooking the dishes handed down to us.” This quote displays the perfect example of what was illustrated in the podcast and throughout the chapter. Twitty clearly states that the memories passed along through generations are passed through food, and he feels more closely connected to his ancestors through it. While this does not surprise me as many cultures share past experiences through food, i am amazed by the sheer importance of food as a means of connecting to one’s self and lineage that is demonstrated throughout the chapter. Personally, i have thought of myself as connected to food, but after reading this, i found myself thinking of all of the foods that drew memories of family and my past, and was shocked to see the vast amount of them.

The second point i want to focus on is in the conclusion. The last two paragraphs are extremely powerful as Twitty looks back on all of the times he cooked with his mother, grandmother, father, and other important figures in his life. He reflects on the lectures, the scoldings, the pride, the shame, the failure, and the excitement of it all, and finished the masterpiece off with a quote, “It is not enough to know the past of the people you interpret. You must know your own past.” He found his past through cooking and food, and that to me shows the true power of food that i never knew existed.

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Reading Zinn’s second chapter, “Drawing the Color Line” was really interesting and offered me another viewpoint about American Slavery. In this chapter, Zinn sheds light on the “importance” of racism in the United States and tackles this issue from different angles. He explains the history of slavery and links it to the present-day issue of racism; which makes you wonder whether racism is actually natural or not. The racial feeling of hatred or pity or inferiority as Zinn mentioned were developed from when slavery became a normal labor relation between blacks and whites thus it made the feeling of one race being superior over the other present until today which creates racist thoughts.

By looking back at the very start, when blacks first arrived in Virginia, it was believed that they were servants which were not accurate because they were treated differently than the white servants and denied basic human rights. I was amazed at how brutal and different American slaves were treated in comparison to slaves in West Africa. In the chapter, it was mentioned that “African slavery is hard to be praised. But it was far different from plantation or mining slavery in the Americas, which was lifelong, morally crippling, destructive of family ties, without hope of any future”. The reason behind it is so bad is the fact that the American system was a capitalist agricultural system which made it necessary to enslave people and the fact that they did not consider slaves only a labor force but also used racial hatred to show their superiority. Even the word “black” was defined in the “Oxford English Dictionary” as “…soiled, dirty, foul. Having dark or deadly purposes, malignant; pertaining to or involving death, deadly..”. This led to the bigger inhuman issue of racism where whites believed that they are better than other people just because of their color. The definition of the word “black” had a bigger purpose which benefited the whites by making them automatically associate the idea of blackness to something that is bad.

Understanding these actions that were intentionally created by white people proves the idea that racism was not a result of a natural deep-seated feeling of dislike, but rather an intentional series of acts that whitewashes history and favors the conditions to develop oppression, discrimination, and racism.

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Zinn’s second chapter, Drawing the Color Line gave me a new perspective on slavery in America. Zinn’s exploration of the question if racism is “natural” or not through the history of slavery is eye opening. In the chapter we learn that before the slave trade, in England the color black was associated with dirt, death, wickedness, foul, etc. So does this existing European view of the color black have anything to do with the histories of racism? Throughout the chapter Zinn explores different events throughout the beginnings of slavery that tie to this idea of racism being natural or not.

At the very beginning of slavery, before any of the inhuman laws were passed and a disgusting racist culture was set, there were white servants as well as African slaves. These servants and slaves, ” behaved towards one another as equals… remarkably unconcerned about the visible physical differences” (31). The servants and slaves would collaborate to create escape plans. They would run away in the hopes of finding freedom. They would start new lives together. The difference in the color of their skin had no meaning. They had a commonality. They were being oppressed by a common enemy. They struggled with the same common oppressions and work. The bond between slaves and servants was strong. Together they were powerful enough to create concern among the slave owners. The friendships made created hope. Hope inspired rebellion and defiance. So in Virginia they had to pass laws prohibiting relations between white servants and slaves. In Virginia they they decreed that, “all white men were superior to black” (37).

Zinn also offers the idea that, “The presence of another human being is a powerful fact, and the conditions of that presence are crucial in deterring where an initial prejudice, against a mere color, divorced from humankind is turned into brutality and hatred” (31). I think this is an interesting point. One has to question if the servants and slaves not had the same common enemy would they have had relationships the way they did?

Before reading this chapter I never really thought about the question if racism is natural or not. I just assumed it wasn’t natural because I know it’s wrong. But after reading this chapter I feel more solidified in the belief  that racism is not natural. The relationships between the white servants and the slaves is a testimony to that. Even if it was their commonalities that brought them together it still gives me faith in the fact that racism is not a natural human behavior. I wonder why I never learned about the slaves relationships with white servants in school? Or why I never learned about the details of Jamestown and the beginning of the slave trade? Why is most of what is studied in middle or high school slavery during the civil war? Why we don’t  study the origins of slavery in America?

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One of the most striking things I read in Zinn’s second chapter, Drawing the Color Line, was a particular combination of statistics. I was shocked that two out of five people captured died on the death marches to the coast, and only two out of three of those who survived the marches survived the travel to the west. Usually, the slave trade is talked about in more general terms like Atlantic slave trade, labor shortages, and the “slave coast”, but this was the first time I have heard concrete numbers associated with the brutality of the slave trade. These statistics highlighted the unspoken horror and severity of what the slave trade really was in a new way I was never taught. It was not only upsetting to realize how large of an impact the West had on an entire region, but how it was “glossed over” or excluded by historians. 

 

As said in class, all history is written with a specific intention, but how does one go about repairing long-lasting racist intentions, whether calculated or unintentional? In order to answer this, I think what needs to be examined is what was once considered “fact”. When Zinn quoted what was defined as Black in 1600 England, it made me question the foundation upon which people make assumptions. As Black is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “dirty”, “death”, “sinister”, ect, people perpetuated what they considered “fact”, therefore created one of many causes that maintained and enabled racism and slavery. This definition has a clear historical intention: to dehumanize those who are black in order to elevate white people and justify systematically killing people for personal and regional utilization. Although this definition is just part of the complex web that enabled slavery, it confirms that the root of many issues are historical, and not naturally generated as facts are written by people. Only through questioning what is fact and what is a historical interpretation can one move forward earnestly, and only with time could questioning and holding analysts accountable help change the effects of historical racism.

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In Drawing the Color Line I found it interesting how from the very first settlement in Jamestown there was a feeling of racial superiority. White servants were treated differently from the black servants. In order to fight the Indians, “A law passed in 1639 decreed that ‘all persons except Negroes’ were to get arms and ammunition.” Slavery wasn’t technically legalized yet, but it was evident how the white settlers felt a superiority to the slaves. Another example of the superiority is shown in punishments, “The court ruled ‘that the negro women shall be whipt at the whipping post and the said Sweat shall tomorrow in the forenoon do public penance for his offense at James citychurch…”  While the white man barely gets any punishment the black servant is whipped. The power structure is made so that the white ruling class is able to keep its power. 

The way that the slave trade is vividly described is deeply frightening. From capture to the boats to the plantations Zinn is able to show the life of a slave starting from Africa. The trans-Atlantic slave trade is horrifying, and I already knew that. However, the sheer amount of profit from the slave trade was crazy. For example James Madison, “Shortly after the American Revolution that he could make $257 on every Negro in a year, and spend only $12 or $13 on his keep.” That’s a crazy amount of money while adjusting for inflation.  Also, only spending 12 or 13 dollars on keeping a human being is craziness. Meanwhile, James Madison, one of our founding fathers boasts about the terrible conditions in which he holds his slaves. Just a reminder of the horrifying reality of our history. 

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In the “Drawing the Color Line” section of A People’s History of the United States, Zinn describes the inhumane actions of early white Americans as the institution of slavery became instilled into society. Through my years of schooling, I have been taught how horribly we treated black people during the slave trade (and how America still fails to treat members of the black community as equal), but it still makes me sick to my stomach hearing how these innocent African Americans were taken from their homeland and tortured just for the white man’s economic gain and insecure need for power. 

The commodification of African people during this time is portrayed through the description of how enslaved people were packed onto slave ships and sold into slavery. They were viewed as something to be traded for money and a resource for economic prosperity; they were not viewed as humans. In one of my previous history classes, I learned the slave ships could not leave the African coast until their ships were at absolute capacity, similar to how cargo ships pack goods tightly onto the ships. This illustrates that American’s dehumanized these enslaved people so they could be seen as a good to be traded, allowing all regard for their human needs to dissipate. 

Zinn also brings up the point that racism was not a natural idea, but that there was “a complex web of historical threads to ensnare blacks for slavery”. One aspect of this “web” that angered me was the fact that there were laws put in place to disable the collaboration of white and black people. The white Americans in power knew what they were doing was morally wrong and that rebellions would occur, therefore they had to do everything they could to prevent it. With these laws, the divide between whites and blacks worsened. Thankfully, laws like those do not exist anymore, but systematic racism still does. It is our job as a society to disassemble the racist institutions early America has created. 

 

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Zinn’s chapter “The Color Line,” begins describing the first slave ship to the colonies in 1619. This slave ship, the White Lion, was technically a ship bringing over “servants” from Africa. Rather quickly however, these “servants” became known as slaves instead. I find it very interesting that when these Africans were brought over on the ship, the captain and other colonizers onboard, and waiting on land called these even began by calling them servants. This is interesting to me because Zinn specifically states that the Africans were treated differently and much more harshly than the actual indentured servants from Europe, or the white servants from the moment they arrived. Thus, why even try to consider them servants? The colonizers knew exactly why they were bringing over Africans, but lied to themselves, but why?

Another point Zinn brings up that I never considered is that even though the Europeans were much more technologically advanced than the indigenous people and the Africans they brought over; they could not do the simple tasks needed to survive. They needed the Africans to do their work for them or they would all die, but why then did they treat them so poorly? I believe some of the maltreat came because the colonizers were scared and intimidated by not only the indigenous people (very apparent), but by the Africans as well. The Africans were knowledgeable in agriculture, but also had a great sense of community and grit, this is what the colonizers feared most.

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I can’t remember ever distinctly learning when the first Africans arrived in America. I learned about Columbus (if you can even call it that), then colonialism and the Thirteen Colonies, then the American Revolution and then the Civil War. The specific details of when and how slavery came to what would become the United States was never directly taught, or at least not at my tiny K-8 school.

Thanks to Smith’s article “Point Comfort: where slavery in America began 400 years ago,” I can now say that I know when slavery started in the Americas. Twenty captives (not willing participants) arrived on the shores of Virginia in late August of 1619. As the title of this article points out, that is (now more than) 400 years ago. That is roughly 127 years after Columbus landed in the Bahamas, about twelve years after the founding of the Thirteen Colonies, 156 years before the American Revolution and 246 years before slavery would be abolished in the United States. 

In school, you learn about these major events, but you don’t learn about every group of people they affected. You don’t get the full story. It was a dark and violent world back then, and it still is today, it just presents itself differently. Smith’s article shows how understanding the beginning of this especially dark time in our history has helped people connect better with their ancestors, and has inspired people to dig deeper into the foundations our country was built on.  Knowing all the details one possibly can does not justify what happened in the past, but it helps garner respect and a willingness to not let the woes of the past repeat themselves.

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Today’s reading in “A People’s History of the United States” shocked me by the way it seemed like the African Americans helped the Americans when they needed help the most, yet were then subjected to increasingly brutal conditions, regulations, laws, and oppression. Not that I was unaware of it, but reading about how the blacks taught the whites how to cultivate crops (pg. 24) and showed them ways to survive on their own without relying on cannibalism or other barbaric actions, then were still massacred was eye opening to say the least. I then thought about a point brought up later in the chapter: what would American be like without the hundreds of years spent in slave labor by blacks? Furthermore, if the initial African Americans hadn’t taught the Americans how to survive on their own, would the blacks have potentially taken over control?

This reading reminded me that early America was not only exploitation of labor of blacks, but also a robbery of their relationships, a stealing of their culture and resources, and a thievery of the African American’s pride, esteem, and self worth. However, the most thought provoking aspect of this reading was the inequality in punishment for crimes that, in my mind, was the beginning of systematic racism in the early Americas. For example, if a slave were to steal something they realistically probably needed to survive, they were commonly killed. However, if a white man stole from the slave nobody would bat an eye. Even if the white stole from another white, such an intense punishment as execution would never enter the debate.

Lastly, I wanted to highlight a very important point in the “Cape Comfort” reading. It highlights the fact that African Americans are more interested in connecting to their “roots”, showing that history is interconnected throughout time, and the relationships between people and families lead to beliefs, culture, and customs which form the identity of the individual. Without an understanding of this history we lose connection to our past, and in turn lose connection to the present.

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Right from the start of chapter 2 in the first paragraph, we see this idea of salves—” She came, she traded, and shortly afterwards was gone. Probably no ship in modern history has carried a more portentous freight. Her cargo? Twenty slaves” (23). From reading the first paragraph, it never occurred to me that we aren’t taught that there are slaves brought to Jamestown. While I was in elementary school, we took a field trip to Jamestown—while here, what I recall, the workers reenact what life was like during the settlement, and not one of the workers was a person of color. Jamestown and education failed to mention the idea of slaves during the early part of the English settlement.

Another interesting thought that really was never taught was the idea that Zinn states, “The Indians were on their own land. The whites were in their own European culture” (25). The Europeans did not ask, they just took and kept taking what they wanted. The natives were forced by the Europeans to move and make room. I wish that just simple phrases and ideas like this were taught in history. We are taught that natives were here, but never taught that this truly was their home and their life. Going back to the first Thanksgiving… we are taught that it was peaceful and there was no conflict at all. No mention of the natives they were basically forced to give way to the Europeans. In a way, all the Europeans thought that they were superior to everyone else. Going back to Columbus he did not care about the lives of natives. If they were in his way, oh well move them out. The Europeans in almost every case thought that they were the shit and we are taught that they are pretty much just that. History in schools needs rewriting.

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I find the relationship between the Native Americans and the Europeans to be very interesting.  The European civilization is far more advanced technologically than the Native Americans, yet they struggle with basic survival skills.  The Native Americans prove to be the superior group, in that they could easily feed their people, and attaining enough food to get through a tough winter was relatively easy, while the European group had to resort to cannibalism and other horrible methods of survival.  The incompetence of the early European settlers however had a terrible effect on the future of the world.  The ideas about race being a factor in whether or not someone should be a slave began to sprout here.  The ideology of white privilege took form among other horrible things.  The white European settlers developed a mindset that they deserved more than the Native Americans, and other people of color, so they took action on this mindset.  The European settlers laid waste to many Native Americans and their lands essentially because they were better at the game of survival.

 

The horrible mindset the European settlers grasped onto is very relevant today.  The United States of America has officially abolished slavery and almost everything connected to it, but racism has done anything but gone away with it.  The way European settlers and early Americans set a precedent that black people are lesser than white people has permanently affected the mindset of so many people even today.  I think it is very important for people to read “drawing the color line,” so people can see the horrible nature of what so many people believe.  This chapter outlines slavery rooted in race, and it provides a new perspective to the black lives matter movement today that I think people need to understand.

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Each reading from Zinn, I am not only reminded of how cruel many of our so-called “heroes” or leaders were, but am made aware of the actual extent of how harsh they really were. Reading the horrible things the settlers and whites did to the African slaves was honestly astonishing. Zinn even mentions how Catholic priests found the sickening ways in which they captured, transported, and enslaved these people to be okay and they even “[bought] these slaves for [their] service without any scruple”. Throughout the years, this unfair treatment of slaves became even more acceptable and in some instances encouraged. Laws were passed in Maryland allowing for “cutting off the ears of blacks who struck whites, and that for certain serious crimes, [they could] be hanged and the body quartered and exposed”. It’s hard for me to understand how that is how they handled things. Their first option was always violence, which now we are taught from the moment we are born is the last option. 

The second thing this reading made me realize is that a lot of the reason for this “color line” that was created was out of fear and need for wealth and superiority; settlers’ fears of starvation, fear of being poor, and fear of rebellion. The main reason settlers began shipping in African slaves was because they were afraid of the Indians, and they knew they couldn’t get them to do what they wanted. Once they realized they could make money off of slaves, they began shipping in more, and using them for profit. The beginnings of the modern Western civilization, that is known to be because of whites, is really based on the foundation of the slaves’ work. One thing that really surprised me is how the separation between black and white became much more apparent when there was this “class fear” that the poor whites would rebel with the slaves, which was even more threatening than the slaves rebelling. Because of this fear they simply proclaimed that “all white men were superior to black” and went on to give them food and land when they were freed. This chapter really opened my eye as to how un-“natural” this divide was and how it was created through the ambitions of the whites at the time.

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While reading the second chapter of The People’s History of the United States, I learned many things about slavery that was not taught to me before. One of the most interesting things that Zinn talks about in this chapter is how Europeans justified their own slave trade by noticing how different African states had slavery themselves. I appreciated the contrast that Zinn made throughout this chapter between the two different forms of slavery.  Zinn does a good job bringing African slavery and how it was “better” than slavery in the Americas, but makes sure to mention that, “African slavery is hardly to be praised.” He continues to make examples of why American slavery was “the most cruel”, limitless profit from agriculture and the act of dehumanizing slaves.

The other interesting part of this chapter that really drew my eye was that slavery came from a desperate need for labor. I was always under the impression that slaves were a way for the rich to stay richer, but this chapter explains how “the Virginians of 1619 were desperate for labor, to grow enough food to stay alive.” The people were desperate for more workers and realized that black slaves were the easiest answer to help them get what they wanted. Zinn explains how obtaining these slaves was not easy, but it was easier than enslaving anyone else, so that is what the whites did. Zinn talks about how the only way in which the culture was inferior to white was in military capability. Since the whites had guns and ships, blacks were considered “inferior” even though Westerners could not get blacks to surrender “and had to come to terms with its chiefs.” Even though in some ways, the African civilizations were more admirable than their European counterparts, Westerns took the people and brutally used them for their own profits.

I find it insane that I was never taught the full story about slavery, but only the small bits and details that were mentioned in the history books that I studied in high school. Zinn does a great job of talking about the information that isn’t talked about. He brings hidden facts out so that the real stories can be written.

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In class today, Dr. Bezio mentioned an age-old saying: money is the root of all evils. While attempting to justify the application of this saying to all of history’s evils would be both beyond my abilities and result in a reaction much too long for anyone to read, the sayings application to American slavery rings true. As David Smith and Howard Zinn note in their writings, slavery — specifically the enslavement of Africans in America — was born out of the strive for profits. Many of the early European settlers in America were “skilled craftsmen, or even men of leisure” (Zinn 25), thus making them untrained in the practical skills of farming and domestic chores. Recognizing the settler’s struggles, merchants brought African slaves across the Atlantic to be sold in the Americas. Indeed, the potential for profit by both parties — that is the settlers and merchants — is what drew merchants to strip Africans of their ancestral homes, families, and cultures to work as slaves across the ocean. The merchants were not wrong. The sale and use of slaves was so profitable that James Madison once claimed that he could “make $257 one every Negro in a year, and spend only $12 or $13 on his keep” (Zinn 33). This practice started formally in America at Point Comfort in 1619, however, the institution of slavery continued to rob countless more Africans of their lives both physically and figuratively. The destruction of lives in the name of money greatly benefitted the lives of European settlers and, thus, as some argue, a debt must be repaid.

A story from the David Smith article that caught my attention was that of Terry E. Brown, a park service superintendent at Fort Monroe, which sits on the sight of Point Comfort. Brown, the descendant of slaves, did not know the genealogy of his family until recently when he discovered an ancestral link to Cameroon. Discovering his family’s history made Brown “emotionally and spiritually tied to Africa” (Smith), filling a void in ancestral pride that was missing before. Reading this reminded me of a Facebook post made by my friend back in June. Like Brown, my friend could trace his ancestry back only as far as slavery. In his post, I remember him describing the shame he felt whenever an elementary school teacher would ask him where his family originated. Embarrassed, he recalled always answering with the Bahamas, a country in which his family has zero ancestral linkage. This embarrassment and loss of pride is part of what white merchants stole from Africans when they stole them from their homelands. While money was the motivation for this sin, it is not necessarily the answer. US Representative Jim Clyburn has spoken against reparations — the idea of repaying African Americansfor the work of their ancestors — claiming that it is “impossible to monetise” (Smith) the issues associated with slavery. I agree with Representative Clyburn that, while easy, money will not solve this evil the same way it created it. The divisions that slavery inflicted on this nation and the pain it caused in the soul of slavery’s descendants cannot be reconciled with money. The loss of culture and generational trauma will not be solved by paying one generation of reparations. Healing must require change on the personal, national, and institutional level. 

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