American History

[madupont]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/l26slavery.html?scp=3&sq=Henry%20Louis%20Gates,Jr.&st=cse

Letters in reply.  Eric Foner, Columbia Univ.

Herb Boyd,CUNY
                       Lolita Buckner Innis, Cleveland Marshall College of Law

[nytempsperdu]

created in the South the largest, most powerful slave system the modern world has known, a system whose profits accrued not only to slaveholders but also to factory owners and merchants in the North.

Probably not powerful since primarily female, but according to numbers cited by Isabel Allende, there are currently more slaves in the world than ever in the days o' yore.  Some of her remarks are within this interview/call-in: http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201004271000

Here are a couple of estimates per wikipedia:  

"The organization Anti-Slavery International defines slavery as "forced labour." By this definition there are approximately 27 million slaves in the world today, more than at any point in history and more than twice as many as all African slaves who survived being taken to the Americas in the Atlantic slave trade.

The International Labour Organisation, however, does not equate forced labour with slavery. According to ILO, there are estimated 12 million people around the world still working under coercion in forced labour, slavery and slavery-like practices.

Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, some for generations. Human trafficking is mostly for prostituting women and children into the sex trade. It is described as "the largest slave trade in history", is the fastest growing organized crime industry and according to predictions is set to outgrow drug trafficking."

So, the historians can play the blame game all they like.  It butters no parsnips, as they say.

[madupont]

nytempsperdu
"Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia", became a way of life in the US as soon as Pres.Bush called a conference for everybody else to solve the Wall street crisis; John McCain stood up Late Night Tv's Dave "the Confessor" Letterman to get there before Obama did.  Paulson of Goldman Sachs pulled a dramatic act and everybody fell for it. Meanwhile the average citizens owe the no longer sleeping giant of Asia a low estimate of 3 Trillion dollars while "primarily female" refers only to the male dominance that Henry Paulson so thoroughly represents.
 
The responding historians to the Henry Louis Gates,jr. position are merely the academic response to Gates
appearing in The New York Times; if there was any criticism from a less academic usual milieu to the nytimes.com public responses, I must have hit the wrong page.  He is very criticised by a young Nigerian woman who has relocated to the States and while born in London assumes that the Harvard scholar doesn't know the differing cultures of African tribes.  Not knowing exactly how young she is, I told her the experience of the nytimes.com Book Forums, if you recall a poster named Red and another poster who seemed very brilliant about law who called herself Hegemony, they had an experience exchanging words about Edward Gibbon's,The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in the reading of which Hegemony misread. Red, who had to re-register in the forum as Blue, nicely replied that he had been reading the current best seller on Hannibal.
 
But the Nigerian in fact was talking about the fact of Reparations at this time in history, so I told her that I much prefer Nathalie Dupont's dissertation about her research at Nice in regard to Roman Slavery in which there was no racial animus nor preferential sexual inequity where the slave from a very extensive multiracial Empire could work off his bond or buy her freedom. We acknowledge this in Literature all of the time.
 
Les Trois Mousquetaires      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alexandre_Dumas_Nadar.jpg
 
 
"Mon père était un mulâtre, mon grand-père était un nègre et mon arrière grand-père un singe. Vous voyez, Monsieur: ma famille commence où la vôtre finit."  
 
Then there is of course that other African-Russian, the other Alexandre,Pushkin.

[madupont]

European Countries Pushed to Consider Reparations for Slavery
By Lawrence Watkins on May 11th 2010

Historians are fighting to get countries to recognize the benefits to large nations from the slave trade. They are asking that the trade be recognized as a crime against humanity, which would open the door to reparations. Activists are set to send letters to a long list of countries, including Britain, Denmark, Portugal, Spain and The Netherlands, asking to them to acknowledge the debt they owe to the descendants of slaves. France has already agreed to acknowledge the evils of slavery as a social and political crime.



The European Memorial Foundation for the Slave Trade is planning to appeal to the French Senate on May 10. The appeal is backed by the French historian Louis Sala-Molins and John Franklin, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.

"There are several reasons for this, including its symbolic value, to restore the memory of this crime against humanity," said Karfa Diallo, chairman of the foundation told news service AFP. "There's also a question, shall we say, of justice.

Given that France has stepped forward to acknowledge the evils and long-term consequences of the slave trade, the group is working to get other European countries to follow-suit. The group argues that the slave trade has had tragic consequences in Africa, the Caribbean and Europe. In 2001, France passed a law stating that slavery was a crime against humanity and then president Jacques Chirac declared May 10 to be the national day of remembrance for slavery victims.

"If we accept that it was a crime, then there should be reparations. All crimes deserve compensation for victims and punishment for perpetrators," Diallo also related to the news service. "We'd like to see the creation of an international memorial fund, that would support a School of Memory. A fund managed by the United Nations."

Some feel that the discussion of slavery reparations in Europe can convince the United States to get on board. The US Congress has been hesitant to bring up the topic of slavery, because acknowledging slavery too much might cause critics to begin conversations about reparations. African American family wealthy is about 1/10 that of white families, with many of these differentials rooted in slavery and Jim Crow laws that remained in place after slavery was abolished. A recent study showed that the median net worth of a single African American woman is only $5 dollars, and some say that this is also an artifact of the slave trade in America.

The economic benefit of slavery to its perpetrators is clear, as is the long-term financial harm caused to the descendants of its victims. Do you think that that black community world-wide should push for reparations? How important is this possible boon to the economic development of the African diaspora?

Lawrence Watkins is the CEO of the Great Gospel Speakers Bureau. For more information, please visit LawrenceWatkins.com.

[madupont]

"The Vegetable Garden at Monticello

     When Thomas Jefferson referred to his "garden" during his lifetime at Monticello, he, like most early Americans, was speaking of his vegetable or
kitchen garden. The garden functioned as both a source of food for the family table and as a kind of laboratory where he experimented with more than seventy different species of vegetables.
     The garden evolved over many hears, beginning in 1770 when crops were grown along the contours of the slope. Terracing was introduced in 1806, and by 1812, gardening activity was at its peak.
     The 1000-foot-long terrace was literally hewed from the side of the mountain with slave labor. The site and situation of the garden on the mountain's southern slope enabled Jefferson to extend the growing season into the winter months and provided an agreeable microclimate for more tender vegetables.
     Jefferson was an acute observer of the natural world. 'Curious to select
one or two of the best species of variety of every garden vegetable,' he recorded  his daily observations in his "Garden Kalendar", a part of his famous Garden Book."

"Your patronage helps assure the continued preservation of the house and grounds."

On that note, I will leave off and go arrange my  "Willow Plant Pyramids"
-- from Monticello, over my tomato plants that are big enough to pot up and take their stand as I begin building my second garden wall.

[weezo]

Working on a story about Louis Armstrong, and found the following in his autobiography about his childhood in New Orleans ::::

"Sachmo  - My Life in New Orleans,  by Louis Armstrong, Ch 5, p82

My whole family had always been poor, and when Clarence was born I was the only one making a pretty decent salary. That was no fortune, but I was doing
lots better than the rest of us. I was selling papers and playing a little music on the side. When things got rough I would go out to Front o' Town where there
were a lot of produce houses. They sorted lots of potatoes, onions, cabbage, chickens, turkeys in fact, all kinds of food to be sold to the big hotels and restaurants.

The spoiled products were thrown into big barrels which were left on the sidewalk for the garbage wagons to take away. Before they came I dug into the barrels and pulled out the best things I could find, such as halfspoiled chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and so on. At home we would cut out the bad parts, boil the good parts thoroughly, dress them nicely and put them in a basket. They looked very tasty and we sold them to the fine restaurants for whatever the proprietor wanted to pay. Usually we were given a good price with a few sandwiches and a good meal thrown in. We did the same thing with potatoes, cutting out the bad parts and selling the good parts for six-bits a sack. Naturally
they paid more for the fowls.
"

Interesting what you could get served at a fine restaurant ....

[nytempsperdu]

As mentioned in NonFiction, I have just acquired Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a tale that has gripped me since I first heard about it on NPR and heard interviews of Skloot on NPR and BookTV.  I know there are few participants and little likelihood of an Elba discussion, but would love to discuss it here, or elsewhere.

[weezo]

As mentioned in NonFiction, I have just acquired Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a tale that has gripped me since I first heard about it on NPR and heard interviews of Skloot on NPR and BookTV.  I know there are few participants and little likelihood of an Elba discussion, but would love to discuss it here, or elsewhere.

Interesting intersections of kharma. I just finished posting a note about Henrietta Lacks on Facebook. I read the book a few months ago.  I have a Famous American page for her http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/famamer/HLacks.html

Henrietta grew up in the small community of Clover, Va which is a county or two away from me. There is contact information if you would like to get in touch with what is left of her descendants. She is buried in Clover.

We could discuss the book here, or on Facebook. 

[nytempsperdu]

Facebook is entirely the province of youngster in household--the very idea is anathema to this privacy freak who won't even get a cell phone.  What did you think of the book? 

[weezo]

Facebook is entirely the province of youngster in household--the very idea is anathema to this privacy freak who won't even get a cell phone.  What did you think of the book? 

I enjoyed the book very much and when finished it, got online and searched for as much information as I could find. One day, I hope to take a drive to Clover and see if they ever got that headstone for Henrietta. In the meantime, I made a Famous Americans page for Henrietta Lacks, and keep an eye out for news.

Just thought of exercise for students. Take the contributions of your favorite founding fathers or mothers, and compare them to the contributions of this poor black woman and decide which we could have done without.

[nytempsperdu]

That's a pretty sophisticated exercise--what grade do you teach again?  Depending, some might write what they think you want them to say.  I'd have trouble with such an assignment due to the apples and oranges element, the fields (political/public life/acts vs contribution, involuntary), being so divergent.

Am progressing, pausing to consider implications historical, sociological, "ethnic studies"  (not in Arizona).  Skloot's not exactly subtle, and her writing can be a bit klunky, but that's easily forgiven given how fascinating the tale, the big picture and the details. 

[weezo]

NYTemp, over my teaching years, I taught all levels. That exercise would be interesting maybe with 5th graders, probably go over better at 7th grade, and would make a nice set of topics for 12th graders in debate or persuasive writing. Nice thing with doing the website I can throw out ideas, and teachers choose if they like them or not.

I am also thinking that if the topic were discussed in a local classroom, we would have the possibility of somone finding out they are "kin" to the Lacks'. I had a white student who was a Lacks, but of course didn't know about Henrietta Lacks back then to ask him if there was a connection.

Interesting experience with that boy in my first year teaching. Had the class working with state highway maps and getting a feel for directions and reading a map and writing out the directions. The Lacks boy argued that you had to go west to get to Richmond from Nottoway. The map was wrong, he knew how to get to Richmond. So, I mentioned it to his parents, and the father figured out the problem. When the family went to Richmond, they always  started going west to pick up grandma before heading east to the city. Clover is west of Nottoway, if indeed they are related Lacks.

[nytempsperdu]

Another example of the importance of context.

I found myself fooling around on google maps today, checking out the route/distance from Clover to Charlottesville, in response to what unconscious impulse I really couldn't say.

[weezo]

NYTemp,

Do you live in the Charlottesville area? Perhaps we could set a date to meet and explore what is there to see in Clover.

[Lhoffman]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100610/ap_on_re_us/us_slavery_photo