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 f…
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.
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.