I'm really not sure what you're arguing for here. As you probably know, the amendment was called the "three-fifths compromise", and it was a compromise that was necessary because millions of Americans refused to recognise slaves as full human beings with all the rights that should have been afforded to them by the constitution.
I'm really not sure what you're arguing for here. As you probably know, the amendment was called the "three-fifths compromise", and it was a compromise that was necessary because millions of Americans refused to recognise slaves as full human beings with all the rights that should have been afforded to them by the constitution.
You're splitting hairs about black people vs slaves while ignoring the part of my reply when I asked you to consider how meaningful a difference there actually was at that point in history. If you had to go back to live in that time as a free white person or a free black person, which would you choose? It's kind of a no-brainer, right?
You're also accusing me of misrepresenting the constitution when I'm not. I'm happy to admit it was "inaccurate" to fail to distinguish between black people and slaves. I am, however, questioning why you think that's a particularly meaningful inaccuracy given the gravity of what is actually being discussed.
You seem to be arguing that the three-fifths compromise was a good thing because it gave less power to southern states that wanted to maintain slavery. I guess you could take that position. But my position is that any compromise that didn't end the enforced slavery of human beings was a crappy compromise.
You can't compromise on an issue that's so fundamental. The civil war was what happened when the north was finally willing to do whatever was *necessary* (though of course it would be generous to claim the the entire motivation was abolishing slavery and it certainly wasn't ending racism as Michael claimed).
I think to understand history appropriately we have to split hairs, and understand the constitution, the Constitution talks about free people and other persons (euphemism for enslaved people), not race, if we want to undo race, and racism on any level we need to understand well, how these terms came to be, when, why and by whom. (See Racecraft page 118)
No, as much as I'm in favour of "colour-blindness" in general, this is the version of it that I actually agree is a problem. This language obscures the nature of the problem rather than clarifying it. It's like pretending that there was some reason, other than the fact that they were female and considered inferior, that prevented women from getting the right to vote until 1920.
Slavery targeted black people. Enslaved people were black people. Racism was invented to justify enslaving black people. There is no more appropriate understanding of this history. It wan't about ancestry per se (that's why I don't like Racecraft's definition of slavery), or about legal status, or anything else, it was about the colour of black people's skin. Which is also why the oppression of black people continued long after slavery was over.
I'm all for being precise (splitting hairs is something else), but again, language that obscures the reason why these particular people, out of all the other people in America, were enslaved, is *less* precise. The fact that the people who wrote the constitution (75 years before the end of slavery) obscured this fact with the language they used, doesn't mean we should do the same. We can absolutely undo racism without pretending it never existed.
There were not "black people" at the time Africans were enslaved. The Fields sisters are historians/sociologists and for that reason, very much in favor of historicity...
Sure, I'm sure very few people if anybody referred to them as "black people" back then. There was a word beginning with "n" that was preferred at the time.😅
Here's the thing. It's not that I don't appreciate your desire to be precise. I really do. I share it. But surely precision is supposed to clarify, not obscure.
To say there were no "black people" at the time isn't technically wrong, it could even be argued to be accurate, but it muddies the waters when trying to understand why these people were enslaved, no?
If, in a thousand years, people were trying to understand why some people were enslaved and others weren't, would it be more accurate to say ancestry? Or to simply say that there were free people and "others"? Or to say that they were all, every last one of them, what we would refer to today as black people? Would it be more accurate to acknowledge that the prejudice that justified racism was based on the colour of people's skin, regardless of any other factors?
I don't understand what's to be gained by talking around this simple fact. What am I missing?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to denigrate the whole book. As you say, I haven't read it. But the definition just seems to be obviously incomplete. I've elaborated a little in my reply below.
Yeah, I'm not talking color blindness, obviously we all see color, I'm saying what we see is ancestry, not race. Race was invented and reinfied to justify the racism of chattel slavery and Jim Crow, those things didn't happen because of race. Saying things happened because of race places the onus on the concept of race and the person being raced, instead of racism (racism creates race). Its a broader conceptualization that helps us understand much more about the current moment. For example, how the holocaust was racist
Yeah, absolutely. As you may have noticed, I try to avoid using the word "race" wherever possible. Racism is the word we've inherited, and as my aim is to be understood, I use it rather than inventing a new term. But I tend to talk about the colour of people's skin rather than race, as I have done here.
So my issue isn't with avoiding the word "race", I think that's a good idea. It's with any attempt (however well intentioned) to obscure the fact that all the enslaved people had one particular characteristic, and if they didn't have that characteristic, they wouldn't have been slaves.
Talking about "ancestry" obscures that, because no black person could have improved their lot in life at that time by pulling out their family tree. "Free vs other" obscures that, because freed black people were still treated like subhuman, and, as I said, in some cases sold "illegally" into slavery.
The only way I can see to give an honest accounting of what happened is to recognise the actual reason why these people were slaves, and later, why they were discriminated against in the form of Jim Crow, segregation, etc.
Thank you. This is an accurate summary of the points I was trying to make.
And one of the reasons I object to the characterization (and the implication that it was abolitionists who wanted slaves to be counted as whole people and slaveowners who wanted slaves not to be counted as human) is that it wipes away or buries a critical debate going on among those who opposed slavery: do we strengthen the union and slowly weaken the institution of slavery or do we jeopardize the infant union because we can't compromise on an issue that's so fundamental.
Maybe the north should have gone to war with the south on the heels of the revolutionary war. That's a valid argument and if there's any issue for which an absolutist position should be taken, it would be slavery. But the consequences could have been disastrous. More disastrous than deferring on the issue and having another 100 years of slavery and the civil war? That's hard to believe as well.
I think this pragmatic vs. absolutist discussion is important and relevant but I think it disappears when we lose the context of the 3/5 compromise.
"one of the reasons I object to the characterization (and the implication that it was abolitionists who wanted slaves to be counted as whole people and slaveowners who wanted slaves not to be counted as human"
I wasn't making this characterisation though. Nor was I implying this. I was simply stating the fact that slaves (who just so happened to all be black), were considered 3/5ths of a person by the constitution. And this was because the alternative, aka recognising their humanity, was considered unacceptable.
You argue that the consequences of doing so could have been disastrous. But slavery *was* disastrous. Not only for black people (including many black people today), but for the soul of America. We're having this conversation now because America made, what I'd have hoped everybody could agree, was the wrong choice. Over 150 years after the end of slavery, we're seeing all this division precisely because of that choice.
So I'd argue that I'm not the one missing the context of the 3/5ths compromise. The context is that rather than do what was necessary to live up to the founding ideals of this still young country, a compromise was made that America has been struggling to heal from ever since, and sadly will for some time to come. This compromise temporarily fixed a few problems for the white people of America, and did absolutely nothing for the problems of the black people.
Glossing over the fact that it was the slaveowners who wanted slaves to be considered whole people (no small part of "recognizing their humanity") does mischaracterize the situation. Substituting "black" for "slave" further confuses the abolitionist arguments against slavery. You can disagree with the results of their strategy, but they're the people who were trying to free slaves. Taking it at is worst, it still leans to freedom, not slavery.
"a compromise was made that America has been struggling to heal from ever since"
America has been struggling to heal from slavery, not the compromise. America would still be struggling to heal from slavery if a civil war had been fought in 1790 instead of 1860. The compromise ended up deferring a conflict, and allowing a repugnant practice to continue, for far too long. In that regard, the strategy of the compromising abolitionists may very well have been wrong and they probably would have admitted as much in hindsight.
Slavery was disastrous. Deferring on the issue a single day is a day too long. The abolitionists would agree with us on that. But attributing to them the qualities of selfishness, greed and evil does a disservice to them.
"America has been struggling to heal from slavery, not the compromise"
Also I'd argue that this isn't true. Imagine if America had abolished slavery in 1787, just over a decade after its founding (we'll ignore the 1619 lot shall we?) instead of 1868. Do you think we'd still be talking about slavery today? Do you think, if America had lived up to those founding ideals, Jim Crow and segregation would have happened?
The founding of America and the writing of the constitution was an opportunity. One that was sadly squandered. One that told black Americans very clearly that "our laws and our values ardour bill of rights weren't written for you". African Americans continued to be told that until less than 60 years ago.
So I'd say that to focus on slavery is to miss the point. What really did the damage was compromising on those founding ideals.
Ideally, yes. But I can also imagine a cleaving of the union at its inception and the founding of two separate countries on this continent, one for which slavery was quickly abolished and in the other, an entrenchment of slavery that no war could undo. Could it have been better? Oh yes. Unquestionably so. And I hope that none of my comments suggested otherwise. Could it have been worse? I guess I'm just cautious in stating unequivocally that it couldn't have been, as hard as that position may be to defend.
" But I can also imagine a cleaving of the union at its inception and the founding of two separate countries on this continent"
Yeah, that's true, but it's worth pointing out that this is basically what happened anyway. The north became increasingly hostile to slavery, the south formed the confederacy so they they could maintain it, and to preserve the union, there was a civil war. Given the fact that the south *was* so entrenched regarding slavery, this was pretty much inevitable.
Perhaps the divide simply comes down to whether you believe the preservation of the union was more important than the abolition of slavery. Or, perhaps more accurately, whether you think the dissolution of the union could have been worse than 90 more years of slavery (and the 100+ years of oppression that followed). And I guess one's position on that is down to where their empathy lies.
So sure, there's no situation that couldn't conceivably be worse. I'm sure there are even worse options (if I took the time to dream them up) than continuing slavery right into the present day. But we'd be weighing imaginary harms against the very real, well-documented, still divisive harms that affected and affect black people in America.
As you say, this is a hard position to defend. Which makes me think you should consider why you're defending it. I'm all for being accurate. And also for being cautious about absolutism. But losing track of the humanity of these situations while doing so will inevitably make you come off in a way that I don't think you intend to.
"But attributing to them the qualities of selfishness, greed and evil does a disservice to them."
Maybe this is where we're getting our wires crossed. I'm not doing this at all. In fact, if you notice, I haven't referred to the abolitionists a single time.
The abolitionists wanted to abolish slavery, not strike compromises. But they weren't able to do this because they were *opposed* by those who were too selfish, greedy, and in some cases, evil to consider it. I wasn't calling the abolitionists any of these things.
I'm not really criticising the people who made the compromise, at least not those who did it to weaken the power of those who supported slavery. I'm criticising the compromise itself. I'm criticising the fact that more wasn't done. I'm criticising the fact that a compromise was necessary on an issue that should have been so simple and fundamental.
I'm reminded of a talk James Baldwin gave about the Little Rock Nine. He mentioned how some Americans were proud that the national guard had been brought in to make sure those black kids could attend their school in accordance with Brown vs Board.
"No other country in the world would have gone so far", said one proud white liberal at the time. "True," said James, "but you don't seem to have realised that no other country would have *had* to."
I agree on all counts (with the caveat mentioned above). And I guess that this ended up being the dialogue that I think is critical but typically gets sidelined in any discussion of the compromise (in my experience).
I honestly did intend it to be a "small point" as I originally wrote and not as thorough a discussion as this ended up being (and probably not warranted by a single line in an exchange between you and Michael) but I appreciate it.
its crucial we are extra specific, especially for those of us on the left, because then we can see how non-specific things have become...and if we are to fight against injustice, to be truly anti-racist (not just SJW/Woke versions of anti racist) we have to know our terms, what we want, how it came to be, in order to forge a path to do something else
Again, I couldn't agree more with the importance of being specific, the reason I described a distinction between "black people" and "slaves" in 1780s America as "splitting hairs" is because, as I hope I've made clear, the distinction was both small and fragile. Many freed black people *were* sold into slavery because, again, slavery was predicated on skin colour.
It's possible to be aware of all this, to admit all of this, and focus on a path to something else. I'm not trying to wrap myself in these people's oppression, but I absolutely won't overlook it either. As far as I can see, this is what being specific is.
I'm really not sure what you're arguing for here. As you probably know, the amendment was called the "three-fifths compromise", and it was a compromise that was necessary because millions of Americans refused to recognise slaves as full human beings with all the rights that should have been afforded to them by the constitution.
You're splitting hairs about black people vs slaves while ignoring the part of my reply when I asked you to consider how meaningful a difference there actually was at that point in history. If you had to go back to live in that time as a free white person or a free black person, which would you choose? It's kind of a no-brainer, right?
You're also accusing me of misrepresenting the constitution when I'm not. I'm happy to admit it was "inaccurate" to fail to distinguish between black people and slaves. I am, however, questioning why you think that's a particularly meaningful inaccuracy given the gravity of what is actually being discussed.
You seem to be arguing that the three-fifths compromise was a good thing because it gave less power to southern states that wanted to maintain slavery. I guess you could take that position. But my position is that any compromise that didn't end the enforced slavery of human beings was a crappy compromise.
You can't compromise on an issue that's so fundamental. The civil war was what happened when the north was finally willing to do whatever was *necessary* (though of course it would be generous to claim the the entire motivation was abolishing slavery and it certainly wasn't ending racism as Michael claimed).
I think to understand history appropriately we have to split hairs, and understand the constitution, the Constitution talks about free people and other persons (euphemism for enslaved people), not race, if we want to undo race, and racism on any level we need to understand well, how these terms came to be, when, why and by whom. (See Racecraft page 118)
No, as much as I'm in favour of "colour-blindness" in general, this is the version of it that I actually agree is a problem. This language obscures the nature of the problem rather than clarifying it. It's like pretending that there was some reason, other than the fact that they were female and considered inferior, that prevented women from getting the right to vote until 1920.
Slavery targeted black people. Enslaved people were black people. Racism was invented to justify enslaving black people. There is no more appropriate understanding of this history. It wan't about ancestry per se (that's why I don't like Racecraft's definition of slavery), or about legal status, or anything else, it was about the colour of black people's skin. Which is also why the oppression of black people continued long after slavery was over.
I'm all for being precise (splitting hairs is something else), but again, language that obscures the reason why these particular people, out of all the other people in America, were enslaved, is *less* precise. The fact that the people who wrote the constitution (75 years before the end of slavery) obscured this fact with the language they used, doesn't mean we should do the same. We can absolutely undo racism without pretending it never existed.
There were not "black people" at the time Africans were enslaved. The Fields sisters are historians/sociologists and for that reason, very much in favor of historicity...
Sure, I'm sure very few people if anybody referred to them as "black people" back then. There was a word beginning with "n" that was preferred at the time.😅
Here's the thing. It's not that I don't appreciate your desire to be precise. I really do. I share it. But surely precision is supposed to clarify, not obscure.
To say there were no "black people" at the time isn't technically wrong, it could even be argued to be accurate, but it muddies the waters when trying to understand why these people were enslaved, no?
If, in a thousand years, people were trying to understand why some people were enslaved and others weren't, would it be more accurate to say ancestry? Or to simply say that there were free people and "others"? Or to say that they were all, every last one of them, what we would refer to today as black people? Would it be more accurate to acknowledge that the prejudice that justified racism was based on the colour of people's skin, regardless of any other factors?
I don't understand what's to be gained by talking around this simple fact. What am I missing?
Read the book...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to denigrate the whole book. As you say, I haven't read it. But the definition just seems to be obviously incomplete. I've elaborated a little in my reply below.
Yeah, I'm not talking color blindness, obviously we all see color, I'm saying what we see is ancestry, not race. Race was invented and reinfied to justify the racism of chattel slavery and Jim Crow, those things didn't happen because of race. Saying things happened because of race places the onus on the concept of race and the person being raced, instead of racism (racism creates race). Its a broader conceptualization that helps us understand much more about the current moment. For example, how the holocaust was racist
Yeah, absolutely. As you may have noticed, I try to avoid using the word "race" wherever possible. Racism is the word we've inherited, and as my aim is to be understood, I use it rather than inventing a new term. But I tend to talk about the colour of people's skin rather than race, as I have done here.
So my issue isn't with avoiding the word "race", I think that's a good idea. It's with any attempt (however well intentioned) to obscure the fact that all the enslaved people had one particular characteristic, and if they didn't have that characteristic, they wouldn't have been slaves.
Talking about "ancestry" obscures that, because no black person could have improved their lot in life at that time by pulling out their family tree. "Free vs other" obscures that, because freed black people were still treated like subhuman, and, as I said, in some cases sold "illegally" into slavery.
The only way I can see to give an honest accounting of what happened is to recognise the actual reason why these people were slaves, and later, why they were discriminated against in the form of Jim Crow, segregation, etc.
Thank you. This is an accurate summary of the points I was trying to make.
And one of the reasons I object to the characterization (and the implication that it was abolitionists who wanted slaves to be counted as whole people and slaveowners who wanted slaves not to be counted as human) is that it wipes away or buries a critical debate going on among those who opposed slavery: do we strengthen the union and slowly weaken the institution of slavery or do we jeopardize the infant union because we can't compromise on an issue that's so fundamental.
Maybe the north should have gone to war with the south on the heels of the revolutionary war. That's a valid argument and if there's any issue for which an absolutist position should be taken, it would be slavery. But the consequences could have been disastrous. More disastrous than deferring on the issue and having another 100 years of slavery and the civil war? That's hard to believe as well.
I think this pragmatic vs. absolutist discussion is important and relevant but I think it disappears when we lose the context of the 3/5 compromise.
"one of the reasons I object to the characterization (and the implication that it was abolitionists who wanted slaves to be counted as whole people and slaveowners who wanted slaves not to be counted as human"
I wasn't making this characterisation though. Nor was I implying this. I was simply stating the fact that slaves (who just so happened to all be black), were considered 3/5ths of a person by the constitution. And this was because the alternative, aka recognising their humanity, was considered unacceptable.
You argue that the consequences of doing so could have been disastrous. But slavery *was* disastrous. Not only for black people (including many black people today), but for the soul of America. We're having this conversation now because America made, what I'd have hoped everybody could agree, was the wrong choice. Over 150 years after the end of slavery, we're seeing all this division precisely because of that choice.
So I'd argue that I'm not the one missing the context of the 3/5ths compromise. The context is that rather than do what was necessary to live up to the founding ideals of this still young country, a compromise was made that America has been struggling to heal from ever since, and sadly will for some time to come. This compromise temporarily fixed a few problems for the white people of America, and did absolutely nothing for the problems of the black people.
Glossing over the fact that it was the slaveowners who wanted slaves to be considered whole people (no small part of "recognizing their humanity") does mischaracterize the situation. Substituting "black" for "slave" further confuses the abolitionist arguments against slavery. You can disagree with the results of their strategy, but they're the people who were trying to free slaves. Taking it at is worst, it still leans to freedom, not slavery.
"a compromise was made that America has been struggling to heal from ever since"
America has been struggling to heal from slavery, not the compromise. America would still be struggling to heal from slavery if a civil war had been fought in 1790 instead of 1860. The compromise ended up deferring a conflict, and allowing a repugnant practice to continue, for far too long. In that regard, the strategy of the compromising abolitionists may very well have been wrong and they probably would have admitted as much in hindsight.
Slavery was disastrous. Deferring on the issue a single day is a day too long. The abolitionists would agree with us on that. But attributing to them the qualities of selfishness, greed and evil does a disservice to them.
"America has been struggling to heal from slavery, not the compromise"
Also I'd argue that this isn't true. Imagine if America had abolished slavery in 1787, just over a decade after its founding (we'll ignore the 1619 lot shall we?) instead of 1868. Do you think we'd still be talking about slavery today? Do you think, if America had lived up to those founding ideals, Jim Crow and segregation would have happened?
The founding of America and the writing of the constitution was an opportunity. One that was sadly squandered. One that told black Americans very clearly that "our laws and our values ardour bill of rights weren't written for you". African Americans continued to be told that until less than 60 years ago.
So I'd say that to focus on slavery is to miss the point. What really did the damage was compromising on those founding ideals.
Ideally, yes. But I can also imagine a cleaving of the union at its inception and the founding of two separate countries on this continent, one for which slavery was quickly abolished and in the other, an entrenchment of slavery that no war could undo. Could it have been better? Oh yes. Unquestionably so. And I hope that none of my comments suggested otherwise. Could it have been worse? I guess I'm just cautious in stating unequivocally that it couldn't have been, as hard as that position may be to defend.
" But I can also imagine a cleaving of the union at its inception and the founding of two separate countries on this continent"
Yeah, that's true, but it's worth pointing out that this is basically what happened anyway. The north became increasingly hostile to slavery, the south formed the confederacy so they they could maintain it, and to preserve the union, there was a civil war. Given the fact that the south *was* so entrenched regarding slavery, this was pretty much inevitable.
Perhaps the divide simply comes down to whether you believe the preservation of the union was more important than the abolition of slavery. Or, perhaps more accurately, whether you think the dissolution of the union could have been worse than 90 more years of slavery (and the 100+ years of oppression that followed). And I guess one's position on that is down to where their empathy lies.
So sure, there's no situation that couldn't conceivably be worse. I'm sure there are even worse options (if I took the time to dream them up) than continuing slavery right into the present day. But we'd be weighing imaginary harms against the very real, well-documented, still divisive harms that affected and affect black people in America.
As you say, this is a hard position to defend. Which makes me think you should consider why you're defending it. I'm all for being accurate. And also for being cautious about absolutism. But losing track of the humanity of these situations while doing so will inevitably make you come off in a way that I don't think you intend to.
"But attributing to them the qualities of selfishness, greed and evil does a disservice to them."
Maybe this is where we're getting our wires crossed. I'm not doing this at all. In fact, if you notice, I haven't referred to the abolitionists a single time.
The abolitionists wanted to abolish slavery, not strike compromises. But they weren't able to do this because they were *opposed* by those who were too selfish, greedy, and in some cases, evil to consider it. I wasn't calling the abolitionists any of these things.
I'm not really criticising the people who made the compromise, at least not those who did it to weaken the power of those who supported slavery. I'm criticising the compromise itself. I'm criticising the fact that more wasn't done. I'm criticising the fact that a compromise was necessary on an issue that should have been so simple and fundamental.
I'm reminded of a talk James Baldwin gave about the Little Rock Nine. He mentioned how some Americans were proud that the national guard had been brought in to make sure those black kids could attend their school in accordance with Brown vs Board.
"No other country in the world would have gone so far", said one proud white liberal at the time. "True," said James, "but you don't seem to have realised that no other country would have *had* to."
I agree on all counts (with the caveat mentioned above). And I guess that this ended up being the dialogue that I think is critical but typically gets sidelined in any discussion of the compromise (in my experience).
I honestly did intend it to be a "small point" as I originally wrote and not as thorough a discussion as this ended up being (and probably not warranted by a single line in an exchange between you and Michael) but I appreciate it.
its crucial we are extra specific, especially for those of us on the left, because then we can see how non-specific things have become...and if we are to fight against injustice, to be truly anti-racist (not just SJW/Woke versions of anti racist) we have to know our terms, what we want, how it came to be, in order to forge a path to do something else
Again, I couldn't agree more with the importance of being specific, the reason I described a distinction between "black people" and "slaves" in 1780s America as "splitting hairs" is because, as I hope I've made clear, the distinction was both small and fragile. Many freed black people *were* sold into slavery because, again, slavery was predicated on skin colour.
It's possible to be aware of all this, to admit all of this, and focus on a path to something else. I'm not trying to wrap myself in these people's oppression, but I absolutely won't overlook it either. As far as I can see, this is what being specific is.