Response to a Presentation by Dr. Ronald W. Bailey November 7, 2015
Part One
Ronald W. Bailey, who chairs African American
studies at the U. of Illinois, recently presented at a local college on African
“slav(ery) trade” (the term is Dr. Bailey's). The copious amount of information
he surveyed highlighted key phases, events, and concepts of slav(ery) trade
history. Avoiding definitions,
interpretation, and conclusions, except in question and answer, he provoked
students to think deeply, critically. I like such provocation; so, here is my
thinking. First, from a handout accompanying his talk, “Slave Trade”
written by Dr. Bailey for the International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, 2nd ed., I give this extremely condensed understanding of
the scope of the tragedy that was the Trans-Atlantic slave trade: Europeans
merchants, mainly, shipped 11,062,000 African slaves, with 9.6 million of them
landing in the Americas. Half this number were brought from the West African
coast. Half this number were destined for what is now Brazil, with other slaves
destined variously for British, French, and Spanish America. The Transatlantic
Slave Trade Database (TSTD) holds data from some
34,000 slave trade voyages made from 1519 to 1867.
This gives the term big business a new level of horrific
meaning. As Dr. Bailey explains, “slave(ry) trade” produced wealth not only
through slave ownership and forced labor in agricultural production but by
generating profits in related businesses, including finance, transport,
insurance, and manufacturing. That is, slav(ery) trade and slave labor built
America, and England and other European nations profited, too.
Part Two
In his presentation Dr. Bailey
pointed to the following historical phases of slavery, which I take the liberty
of listing in paraphrase here: slave trade and Middle Passage; slave labor;
passage of law to abolish slavery; struggle to bring abolition law to bear on
social reality; the U.S. Civil War with its 620,000 fatalities; the freeing of
slaves and restoration of their human and civil rights; the Civil Rights
movement; and afterward an era, in my words,
in which African Americans disproportionately face problems not limited to
inequitable distribution of wealth and privilege resulting in un- and
underemployment, poverty and marginalization, barriers to education, especially
higher education; violent crime, not limited to homicide and violence against
women; high rates of incarceration, often over drug involvement; and the
incalculable deleterious effects, compounded over time, of institutionalized
racism. The suffering and consequential loss of personal and collective agency
(my words) has relatively recently been described by educators and
psychologists as post-traumatic slave syndrome.
I think some of the audience to Dr.
Bailey’s presentation may have understood he rejected the concept
post-traumatic slave syndrome, but I understood he approaches African studies
scholarship and teaching from a different perspective. There is really no
disputing that slavery was traumatizing, its history is complex, and its legacy
still haunts the collective conscience. I think Dr. Bailey was suggesting the
following:
Let us revisit our social memory in
a way that helps us move forward.
Let us consider with care the
abundance of detail in slave narratives and in records and artifacts recovered
from slav(ery) trade and slavery.
Let us analyze and interpret the
historical data reasonably and with care, considering its historical context.
Let us likewise consider the
multiple perspectives at work here. Slav(ery) trade and slavery, then and now,
as viewed through the lenses of color, class, nationality, morality, academic
disciplinary paradigms, and ideological orientations (Dr. Bailey’s list) take
on added complexity.
Let us reach into narratives,
records, and artifacts of slav(ery) trade and slavery and see there the
strength, inventiveness, and resiliency of the African slave ancestors, whose
lives, labor, and value are the foundation of American prosperity and power.
(The working title of Dr. Bailey's current book project: Those Valuable People,
The Africans.)
Part Three
I grasp onto this thinking with
hope. I need this hope to be able to revisit this part of social memory in a
way that moves me forward with others. Because in this story, this true story,
collective and personal, the African ancestors suffered the worst kinds of
human indignities, including captivity, brutality, and death; in life were
forced to labor under duress, intimidation, terror. I choose now to see that
the story survives, and the story is one of amazing survival. How is that even
possible? For it was a virulent massive violence that was wielded; yet, it did
not destroy the spiritual power of the African ancestors nor of descendants in
whose memory they survive.
I stand at the river of blood and
wonder. I see something there I have not seen before—the mingling of blood. I
feel grateful. I have known anger, and I will know it again. But today I feel
grateful. For the legacy of spiritual strength in the African story of
survival.
