‘Black lack Matter’: Slavery and
racism in the historical context
ISH MISHRA
Racism, like communalism, Brahmanism (casteism) and the
gender, is not an attribute of biology but an ideology that is constructed,
reconstructed, nurtured and perpetuated in the day-to-day life and intellectual
discourses, says Ish Mishra
A sense of
superiority or supremacy is one of the key elements of the hegemony. In the
colonial era, the European colonizers harbored the sense of civilizational
superiority over the colonized and responsible for civilizing them, giving the
rise to the proverb, “the burden of civilization”. Eventually, he feels entitled to lord over
them. The genesis of racism lies in the feeling of superiority. Needless to
say, the same factors and the same thinking inform Indian society as well. Ish
Mishra endeavours to analyze these factors, beliefs and ideologies from the
sociological perspective. This is the first article in a series. - Editor
A sociological analysis of
ideologies of racism and slavery
A fierce anti-racism movement swept the world following the
brutal murder of George Floyd, an African American accused of using a forged
bill, in the custody of a white policeman in the city of Minneapolis, in
Minnesota, USA, on 29 May 2020. This movement seeks to challenge the very idea
that legitimized the system of slavery in the colonial era. The symbols of that
era are being attacked and destroyed. In Boston, a statue of Christopher
Columbus was uprooted and dumped in a lake. In other US cities, too, busts and
statues of Columbus and other apologists of slavery were vandalized. In
Bristol, England, the bust of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave
trader, was torn down and thrown into a river. Several statues of Queen
Victoria were defaced in Britain. The mayors of many British towns are mulling
over whether the symbols and statues of the colonial era should be pulled down.
This is a defining moment for the white supremacists who boast of having
civilized the world. Tearing down the statues of colonialists, advocates of
slavery and slave traders won’t change history but it can lead to a
re-interpretation of the chronicles of past which describe how certain people
civilized the others and that re-interpretation, in turn, can teach us valuable
lessons. Many states and cities in the US have begun considering new laws to
change the way the police function.
Even as the “Black Lives Matter” movement was spreading like
wildfire in America and Europe and the people were seething with anger over
police brutalities, a Dalit youth was done to death by upper-caste men in a
village in Amroha district of Uttar Pradesh, India, on 6 June 2020. The murder
followed a dispute over performing puja in a temple. Over the past three years,
the Uttar Pradesh police have killed many people in cold blood on the pretext
of eliminating crime. In different parts of the country, blood-thirsty mobs of
communalists and religious fanatics have lynched members of the minority
community. But these incidents have evoked only muted protests.
Be that as it may, comparing the reaction of the common man
to almost identical developments in India and the West is not the subject
matter of this article. It warrants an article of its own. Though popular
resistance to the injustice rooted in racism is as old as racism itself and has
been evolving with time, the wide canvas and the geographical expanse of the
ongoing movement seems to indicate that it may strike a decisive blow against
the ideology of racism.
A reference to communal, casteist discrimination and
violence in India in the context of the global movement against racism is meant
just to underline the commonalities – that all three are rooted in historical
factors and that their elimination is not only possible, but also inevitable.
The Varnashramvad (casteism or Brahmanism) – an ideology constructed to
perpetuate the hegemony of the parasitic (upper-caste) class – is thousands of
years old. The history of racism goes as far back as the ancient Greek
philosopher Aristotle, who pioneered the idea that humans are unequal. In the
modern era, its genesis can be traced to the 18th century, when
slaves became the engine of growth of the American economy.
Aristotle considered slavery indispensable and natural and
believed that the “barbarians” (non-Greeks) were born slaves. The ideology of
communalism in India is a little more than 150 years old. It was created by the
British colonial rulers to further their policy of divide and rule. Shaken to
the core by the peasant revolution of 1857, the British concluded that they can
perpetuate their rule only by dividing Indians along communal lines. After
their exit from the Indian subcontinent, the communal forces, both in India and
in Pakistan, used it as a rallying point. The theory of dialectical materialism
tells us that the death of every existent ideology is a certainty and the
aforementioned ideologies are not exceptions. A comparative study of racism –
an ideology crafted in America and Europe for enslaving the people of African
origin; Varnashramvad (Brahmanism) – an ideology of upper-caste supremacism;
and communalism – an ideology used by religious fanatics for political mobilization
and which is a political version of Brahmanism – is eminently desirable. But
there is little scope for it here.
The Black Lives Matter protests are a continuation of the
movement that began with the American civil war of the 1860s. This movement
seeks to assert the identity of the non-whites. The Civil Rights Movement of
the 1950-60, which began with Rosa Parks, a black woman, refusing to vacate her
seat on a bus for a white man, was a major milestone of this movement.
Other
milestones of this movement include the protests that followed the acquittal of
the policemen who had tortured black American citizen Rodney King in 1992, the
500th year of the arrival of Columbus in America, and the release,
in 2013, of George Zimmerman, a policeman responsible for the murder of a black
minor boy Trayvon Martin
in 2012. The movement was reignited in Ferguson and New York with the hashtag
#BlackLivesMatter and by 2014, had assumed the form of a nationwide campaign on
social media.
Racism
is not a biological tendency, nor is it an eternal truth like “Satyamev Jayate”
(Truth alone triumphs) that has been passed on from one generation to another.
Racism, like communalism, Brahmanism (casteism) or male chauvinism, is not a
belief; it is an ideology which is constructed, reconstructed and nurtured both
in day-to-day life and intellectual discourse. An ideology represents a false
consciousness in the sense that it presents and portrays a certain historical
construct as the final or the obvious truth. In America, the ideology of racism
can be seen as a legacy of Columbus.
Driven
by his desire for gold and silver, Columbus, a Spanish trader, set out for
India. But he lost his way and, in October 1492, landed in America and
“discovered” the “New World”. This “discovery” inaugurated a new historical era
– an era of imperialistic exploitation, loot and pogrom, which is yet to see
its end. The “discovery” of the New World by Columbus is itself a myth. America
had been discovered thousands of years before Columbus stepped on its shores
and boasted of a flourishing and advanced civilization. What was “new” about
Columbus’ discovery was that it led to an unprecedented mass slaughter of the
indigenous inhabitants of America and the destruction of the majestic Aztec
Civilization. Transporting and enslavement of Africans followed and the
fashioning of the ideology of racism to legitimize it.
Following
worldwide protests, Derek Chauvin, the policeman who murdered George Floyd, was
charged with second-degree murder, a crime punishable with a minimum sentence
of 12 years in jail. However, in 1992, when Europe and America were celebrating
500 years of Columbus’ “discovery”, the white policemen who had assaulted a
black American, Rodney King, were acquitted by the white judges of Los Angeles.
The judgment not only underscored the racist bias of the American justice
system but also proved that the judgments of American courts are not based on
evidence but on the white supremacist ideology of the judges. However, the way
people rose in their millions to protest the murder of George Floyd at the
hands of the racist police shows that we are well past the era when the people
of African origin could be enslaved and driven like animals. The humanistic
consciousness against racism has gained so much strength that denial of justice
to victims of racial barbarism such as a Floyd or a King is bound to be met
with stiff resistance.
Also read: Why India’s
deprived fail to unite like the African Americans
In 1992, when the custodians of
justice turned a deaf ear to the plaintive cries of Rodney King, the simmering
anger against racism spilt onto the streets of American cities, though its
intensity and spread was much less than the ongoing Black Lives Matter
movement.
Starting at Minneapolis, this
movement has engulfed vast parts of the world and is posing a tough challenge
to the legacy of Columbus. It would be a digression to discuss how Columbus’
so-called discovery was followed by the destruction of advanced civilizations
like Aztec and Inca and the barbaric massacre of the indigenous inhabitants of
America. Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at
Wounded Knee provides a moving description of the lofty moral principles
and valour of the indigenous inhabitants and the unspeakable monstrosities
perpetrated on them by the barbaric Europeans.
The white supremacists of European
origin believe that the blacks are racially prone to criminality and hold them
responsible for the crimes in America. Over the past couple of decades, the
anti-racism sentiment has grown so strong that editors of many publications
have had to pay with their jobs for making adverse comments about the
anti-racism movement. In 1992, Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Telegraph, while shedding copious tears on the deleterious
fallouts of the anti-racism protests, tried to obliquely justify the merciless
thrashing of Rodney King. Baring his racist mindset, he wrote that the judgment
of the Los Angeles court should be seen in the wider context of “who commits
more crimes” and, employing statistical jugglery, tried to prove that the
people of African origin are “born criminals”.
In January 1988, Jimmy “The Greek”, a sports commentator for an American TV network, claimed
that the whites wouldn’t get any place in basketball teams if the coaches were non-whites. He also said
that the blacks are better basketball players
because they have bigger thighs. He went on to
flaunt his knowledge of biological evolution by claiming that “during
the slave trading, the owner, the slave owner, would breed his big woman so
that he would have a big black kid”.
This biological interpretation of race was not
limited to sports commentators like “The Greek”. Those claiming
to be educated and living off the claim weren’t far behind. Richard Cohen, a well-known liberal journalist of Washington Post, came out in support of “The Greek” and mocking anthropologists and biologists propounded the theory of “white genes”. Journalists
like Sullivan and Cohen sought to define physical features in terms of race and
used convoluted logic to prove that one race was superior to another.
This “biological understanding”
of race was by no means the exclusive preserve of half-baked journalists. In
May 1987, a group of Arabic and Jewish citizens of America filed a petition in
the Supreme Court of the country seeking protection under the Civil Rights Act,
1888. Instead of disposing of the plea on the basis of the well-established
democratic principle of the State not discriminating against anyone, the
Supreme Court sought to know how the Arabs and the Jews were racially different
from the Caucasians and said that they would be entitled to protection under
the act only
if they were different. It went on to say that
Arabs, Jews and many other nationalities were considered racial groups till the
19th century, so they could be
considered the same even 100 years later.
The American Supreme Court probably did not have
an option.
After all, it is also a part of the American legacy, the foundation of which has been plastered with the blood
of innumerable Red Indians, indentured servants and slaves. Most of the white Americans consciously or subconsciously believe in the
crooked theory that the people of African origin are a different class of human
beings, whose actions, words and thoughts are all
dictated by their race. The white
intellectuals find the word “European Americans” contrived but “African Americans” natural. Just as the application forms for many secular
educational institutions in India have boxes
for the religion and the caste of the applicants, similarly application forms
for American educational institutions also ask for the applicant’s race. That is why America has “Miss
America” and “Miss
Black America” contests. That is why some are
simply “poets”
while others are “black poets”. That is why John Updike
is a “writer”
while Toni Morrison is a “black writer”. That is why George Bush is a “presidential candidate” and
Barack Obama, a “black presidential candidate”. However, thanks to the
evolution of collective social consciousness in the five decades since the 1950s, Obama was elected president. And mind you, he got issue-based support from all
sections of American society. It was not that only the African Americans backed him.
The absence of the words like white and black in the American Constitution, which came into being in
1789 after the anti-colonialism revolution, should not be a cause for any surprise. The Constitution used the words “free
persons” and “other
persons” (a euphemism
for slaves). However, the Constitution did say that three fifths of all “other
persons” (ie slaves)
will be counted for both taxation and representation. The problem with the
American Constitution-makers was that they
held the Statue of Liberty in one hand and the profits from the slave trade in
the other. In 1776, some colonies in North America had attained freedom but not
the slaves in these colonies. Even during the civil war, both the opponents and
the supporters of the slavery system did not consider it a legacy of Columbus. Both
considered slavery as natural and racism as axiomatic.
Also read: ‘Gulamgiri’: The
‘seed text’ for an anti-brahmanical consciousness
Many American
historians interpret slavery as a system that defined racial relations and also
that its objective was not the production of tobacco, rice[1] , tea, cotton and sugar but the
establishment of white supremacy. The complexion of the Irish people was no
different from that of the English. But still, the English used the same
barbaric arguments to justify their oppression as they used to justify the oppression
of the people of African, Asian and American origin. In ancient Greece and
Rome, masters and slaves were not distinguishable by the colour of their skin
or their physical features. Those who met a horrific end in Hitler’s gas
chambers included not only the Jews and the gypsies but also the Communists and
other political opponents of the Fuehrer, who were of the German (Aryan) race.
Racism is not about colour of skin or facial features. It is an ideology of
capitalism, which came into existence in a particular epoch of history to serve
economic and political interests, and that makes its obliteration possible.
At the beginning of the 17th
century, when the British colonialists discovered that Virginia’s land was
suitable for cultivation of tobacco and had the potential of fetching untold
riches to them, they brought indentured servants from England to work the
fields. And these serfs – who could be sold, bought, stolen, abducted, gifted
and gambled away – were white-skinned like them. They were subjected to the
same brutalities as slaves. However, they were somewhat better off than the
African slaves who came later in the sense that their future generations were
not condemned to slavery and some of the fortunate ones among them could hope
to get away alive after the expiry of their contract. Some particularly
rapacious landowners doctored the indentures to deny freedom and freedom money
to them. Others served them poisoned food, thrashed them mercilessly and even
killed them.
Neither their white skin nor their
British nationality could save the indentured servants from extreme
exploitation and inhuman treatment. If the British colonialists did not enslave
the indentured servants it was not because they were hesitant to exploit fellow
Europeans beyond a certain limit. The indentured servants were armed and their
numbers were very large. Any attempt to enslave them could have triggered an
uprising and, taking advantage of the fissures in the colonists’ camp, the
indigenous inhabitants of America, who were lying in wait, could have mounted
an attack. Moreover, if this news reached England, there was a possibility of
the supply of indentured servants drying up. Oppression can only be countered
with resistance. The British lower classes did not owe their freedom to the
benevolence of the elite. Every little concession was obtained through fierce
struggles and it took them centuries to secure complete freedom. The slavery
system did not become history because the owners had had a change of heart or
because they had turned democrats overnight. The slaves won their freedom in
bits and pieces through a long and sustained struggle. Every new battle was meant
to preserve and protect the freedom obtained through the last one and to get
something more. The ongoing anti-racism protests in America are the latest in
the series of those long and difficult struggles.
Marx believed that economic motives
drive all men. The slavery system was born of the economic needs of colonial
America. The ideology of racism, which seeks to justify and legitimize it,
followed.
The supply of indentured servants
began drying up as the news of the hard labour and the miserable conditions in
which they had to live reached England. To make up for the shortfall and to
maintain production levels, the number of Africans and Afro-Caribbean people,
who were forcibly brought to America from the Caribbean and Africa, began
increasing. This was even better for the owners because while the British lower
class had, over the years, managed to win many concessions and facilities
through dialogues and struggles, the Africans, who were thousands of miles away
from their people, had to begin their struggle from the scratch. It was easier
to push them into slavery.
By the 1670s, the vast army of white
youth, who were free, landless, resentful and armed, had started to become a
threat to the rulers of Virginia. In 1676, these youth joined hands with indentured
servants and slaves and revolted. Though this rebellion fell short of giving
that powerful historical jolt to those in power, it did make the powerful and
the rich suspicious of the lower-class whites. Employing Europeans as servants
started being considered a risky proposition.
The changed equations of the
colonial economy led to a big jump in the number of slaves of African origin
and the need arose for an institutional framework for the slavery system. That
was also when the ideology of racism was crafted as a justification for the
slavery system. The roots of modern racism go back up to the Columbus’
“discovery” but its systematic development as an ideology that discriminates
between men on the basis of their looks, began after the slavery system assumed
an institutional form. The history of the racism that links a man’s status to
the colour of his skin is only as old as the American Constitution. The people
of African origin were made a part of society but without any liberty and
rights. It is said that those who are believed to be naturally low can be
easily oppressed.
In the 19th century, when
cotton and textile production became the vehicles of prosperity in America, the
African slaves formed the backbone of the economy, just as they did in colonial
America. This led to a situation in which the free persons (white Americans)
could do without exploiting each other. Class exploitation was given the
ideological veneer of racism. Slavery system began to be defined in terms of
racial relations and was justified in the name of “natural ineptitude and
intrinsic incompetence” of the people of African origin. The ideology of racism
became the excuse for perpetuating the slavery system in a republic that was
based on the revolutionary ideas of liberty and natural rights. It was used to
justify the denial of natural rights to a certain people, although they
continued to be natural rights for everyone else.
While the European Americans used
the ideology of racism to reconcile the inherent contradictions of liberty and
slavery, the African Americans called for an end to slavery to resolve these
contradictions and declared that liberty was their birthright, too. Slavery is
dead but racism is still alive. The murder of George Floyd is ample proof.
However, anti-racism consciousness has reached a new high and the worldwide
movement challenging Columbus’ legacy is a testament to it.
References
Kolchin, Peter.
(1987). Unfree Labour: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom. Cambridge:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Jordan,
Winthrop D. and Leon F. Litwack. (1983). The United States: Conquering a
Continent (5th Edition). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Prentice
Hall.
Jordan,
Winthrop D., Christopher Leslie Brown and Peter H. Wood. (1968). White over Black: American
Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812. Chaplin Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.
Brown, Dee. (1970). Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Morgun, Edmund. (1975). American Slavery, American
Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W.W. Norton & Company
Rose, Willie Le. (Ed) (1976). A Documentary History of
Slavery in North America. New York: Oxford University Press
(Translation: Amrish Herdenia)
Captions:
Hero-turned-villain:
Columbus’ status bites the dust
People hold a
demonstration holding pictures of George Floyd in New York.
A demonstration
seeking justice for John Floyd.
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