Submitted by Yardroom
“The first step, advised those who wrote discourses on the management of slaves, was to establish and maintain strict discipline…they – slaves – must obey at all times, and under all circumstances, cheerfully and with alacrity, affirmed a Virginia slaveholder…
The second step was to implant in the bondsmen [slaves] themselves a consciousness of personal inferiority. They had to know and keep their places, to feel the difference between master and slave, to understand that bondage [slavery] was their natural status. They had to feel that African ancestry tainted them, that their colour was a badge of degradation.” [Plantation and Frontier, pp108-11, De Bow’s Review V11, 1849]
The third step…”We have to rely more and more on the power of fear…we are determined to continue masters, and to do so we have to draw the rein tighter and tighter day by day to be assured that we hold them in complete check”. [The Pecular Institution, Kenneth M. Stampp p146]
Some may think these words are the mouthings of a deranged “individual” they are not; these are the words and beliefs of those who enslaved people and sought to disseminate information to farmers and planters, through publications such as the Southern Cultivator and other material of the day read by slave owners. This was a systemic way of controlling and changing behaviour by slave owners. Note this is contemporaneous information, not opinion, plain simple unadorned “facts” of the times at the time.
As Kenneth M. Stampp wrote: ” A wise master did not take seriously the belief that Negroes were natural-born slaves. He knew better. He knew that Negroes freshly imported from Africa had to be broken in to bondage; that each succeeding generation had to be carefully trained. This was no easy task, for the bondsman [slave] rarely submitted willingly. Moreover, he rarely submitted completely. In most cases there was no end to the need for control – at least not until old age reduced the slave to a condition of helplessness”. [The Peculiar Institution, p144]
The belief through this period implanted the notion that the blacker one was meant being closer to Africa and therefore less intelligent, this took years of social conditioning to achieve. It was constantly reinforced by showing favour to those of lighter complexion by slave owners, until its acceptance by slaves. A belief sanctioned and practised until a few decades ago, when only those of a light complexion were seen in the offices of Bridgetown stores [Barbados] and other such places.
If you say what appertains to America is not germane to Barbados, I will contest that, because this behavioural conditioning was systematic to slavery and, if you are still not convinced.
“Col. Henry Drax, the second-wealthiest planter in Barbados, set down his philosophy regarding the punishment of slaves in a list to his head overseer…”The end punishment of slaves was either to “reclaim the malefactor or to terrify others from committing like fault” [Little England p79] …”many of them [Negroes] being of the humor for avoiding punishment when threatened to hang themselves. The propensity for slaves to commit suicide was related to the torture and mutilation they were sometimes subjected to.”
The situation these proud black people found themselves in justified in their minds, death by their own hand as a solution to their plight…but, even that was denied them. The behavioural conditioning was so pervasive that parents sometimes loved one of their children more than another for no other reason than that they were fairer complexioned. This abnormal behaviour by constant reinforcement over generations of the worthlessness of blackness, was considered normal.
The “crux” of the matter is, should we hate anyone because of the foregoing? NO! hate involves a waste of emotional energy. What we should endeavour to do is help our brothers, there are many ways. Be prudent where and with whom you spend your hard earned cash, encouragement in business, support their businesses, emotional support, it is with these activities and positive interactions help can be offered. Do not expect reciprocity just remember you are dealing with hundreds of years of conditioning.
The easy phrase ” that is what black people are like” should be abandoned, left to those who used it first to denigrate a people, it should not be part of “our” vocabulary.
Of course there are those who will counter what I have written, not with facts but with the pious, I only know the “human race” not black or white, what a pity they are so late to the party, now that all the goodies have been distributed…very convenient…the slave masters never had the difficulty they now profess. Some say why go on about it, it was in the past lets move on…true? The Jews lost people between 1939-1945 in the “Holocaust” they never let you forget it…quite right too. Blacks suffered “hundreds” of years of slavery knowing facts from the past the behavioural conditioning and the ways of overcoming existing problems should not be avoided. If does not matter if some people are uncomfortable…they are not as uncomfortable as the slaves were, and hey! it is their history too.
Why mention this period at all, it does not matter some say, yet they will talk of stories that happened thousands of years ago. A lion in a room covered with a black sheet is still a lion, the sheet does not remove its presence.
We must go back to the proud people we were, before it was necessary by force to break us to become bondsmen [slaves]. It is here a few will ask “proud” what about killings in Africa, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and other such places…however Africa and Africans are not the the only ones to have killed in wars or internecine fighting…Bosnia springs to mind. The 1st and 2nd World Wars saw the slaughter of millions in Europe not to mention the “Holocaust” but that is often forgotten in the race to denigrate Africa at the sight of blood there.
We must understand where we are, and why we are here and what was done in the process, it is by understanding the behavioural conditioning involved, we can regain what we have lost and not see “blackness” as a negative condition but a reason to help others of like kind.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.