In the history of human beings on
the planet, there has never been such an atrocity as that of the Trans-Atlantic
slave trade. In sheer numbers alone, it decimated the continent of Africa of its
strong, child-bearing, healthy citizens. Think about the impact that had on the
people left. SIXTY million Africans were stolen, not six million, not sixteen
million, but SIXTY million Africans were kidnapped, slaughtered, left to die,
murdered, and enslaved. There has been no other example of slavery BASED ON
RACE that has destroyed a people's history, culture, identity, and religion.
Slavery, based on race, does not have the same detrimental effects as slavery
based on class.
You CAN NOT objectify someone for
their hair texture, facial features, skin color, or other inherent differences
if they are the same race as the enslaver. You can't inflict psychological
damage on someone because you tell them how inferior they are to you because of
their skin color, eye color, or hair texture, if they look exactly like you.
Additionally generational enslavement of Africans erased our history of self.
No other enslaved people have had their history annihilated by enslavement,
certainly not to the extent of Africans who were enslaved and their
descendents. Every other enslaved people have been able to keep their names,
their religion, their sense of who they are, they've been able to pass on
stories that belong to them and them alone about their history prior to
enslavement.
So with all that being said,
there is no other example of enslavement that exists in Earth's history that
even comes close to the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Sure, there
have been horrific examples of human atrocities against one another, but none
share the collective of circumstances that make up the horrors of Africans who
were enslaved. What the Natives endured as the hands of heinous white people is
unspeakable and horrific, but they were not transported 1000s of miles from
their homeland, they were not forced to assume different identities and
relinquish the stories of their past. They still have the traditions and rites
of passage that existed long before hateful white men every landed on these
shores. Sure, a lot were lost, and it's tragic to be sure but it's not the same
cultural annihilation as Africans who were enslaved.
Jews were enslaved for seven
years. Their Holocaust was horrible but it was not generational. Jews were not
born in concentration camps, never to have known freedom a day in their lives,
they were not socialized from birth to believe themselves inferior. After their
ordeal, they retained their names, their sense of belonging in the world, their
God, their art, their songs, their traditions. Jews have an identity that
belongs to them from the beginning of time (or so they rather arrogantly claim)
but slaves born in this country have NO such history to hold on to.
If you steal a person's identity,
their sense of belonging in the universe, if you take their traditions and
practices and force yours upon them, you have destroyed the very thing that
makes human beings have an identity. I REPEAT, NO OTHER FORM OF SLAVERY HAS
DONE THAT TO ANY OTHER PEOPLE. We do not have a language we can speak, we were forced
to adopt a God who did not look like us, who we had no relationship to other
than that which the slave master gave us. The long term effects of that make
the Trans-Atlantic slave trade exponentially worse than any other example of
slavery in the history of the world.
So, all you people who say that
the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was not the worse in history, ask yourself these
questions: Were the people kidnapped and transported to another country where
they did not speak the language, where they did not share the same history or
culture, where they could be readily identified by their physical
characteristics? Were they able to secretly practice their religion, recite
tales of their history to their children? Were they forced to take on different
names, worship a different God, to the point that the have NO clue what
religion or history they possessed prior to enslavement. Was their enslavement
generational, meaning were they born into a system of slavery that was
dehumanizing and race based that taught their children, infants, babies, and
toddlers from birth to death, that they were inferior simply because of their
color. If a person were to escape in another form of slavery, would they be
able to integrate into society seamlessly, create a new identity and fit in
without being recognized? Ask yourself if ALL of those conditions exist in any
other form of slavery. Ask yourself about the sheer numbers. Ask if the numbers
of people kidnapped and enslaved would leave nothing but the sick and the
elderly and the very small children in villages to survive, what impact that
had on them.
So in closing, I'll state again,
that no matter how hard arrogant white men want to insist that the
Trans-Atlantic slave trade was not the worst example of slavery in history, they
are WRONG. It is their need to deny the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic slave
trade that is racist and ignorant. IF the slave trade wasn't in fact as
horrible as I claim, descendents of slaves wouldn't be at the bottom of the
socio-economic ladder, we wouldn't be incarcerated in outrageous percentages,
we wouldn't be as psychologically damaged as we are. Those who want to claim
that the Irish had it just as bad simply can't because the evidence is not
there to substantiate it. If their treatment had been as bad, they would be
suffering in the same ways that African Americans now suffer. They are not a better
people, able to endure more hardships, they are not more resilient or
inherently superior to African Americans and able to rebound and excel because
they are smarter, have more integrity, etc.
It’s because they are white and they can fit in without being denigrated
for their hair and skin. Their treatment
wasn't as bad thus their ability to rebound is much easier. They were not
denigrated for their stringy hair and pale, pink skin, flat butts, and little
dicks that looked exactly like that of their enslavers; they were not singled
out because they worshiped a God their captors didn't understand.
Africans who were enslaved were
not truly inferior, as racist white men would have you believe. We are not
inherently criminal, we are not genetically predetermined to be lazy or stupid.
Those are all things that were the cumulative effects of our enslavement. We
were socialized to believe ourselves to be inferior and yet we still excel
despite being subjected to the worst example of slavery in the history of the
planet.
Scottie Lowe 2012
