Rapper Kanye West made some ill-advised offhand remarks about slavery, suggesting that it was a choice. That kicked up a brief firestorm, which may have been his goal.
Yohuru Williams, scholar of African-American history and dean of arts and sciences at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis, used the occasion to offer a history lesson about slavery.
Please read this concise response to the uninformed.
“Were U.S. slaves in any way responsible for their own misery? Were there any silver linings to forced bondage? These questions surface from time to time in the American cultural conversation, rekindling a longstanding debate over whether the nation’s “peculiar institution” may have been something less than a horrific crime against humanity.
”When rapper and clothing designer Kanye West commented on TMZ.com that slavery was a “choice,” and later attempted to clarify by tweeting that African Americans remained subservient for centuries because they were “mentally enslaved,” he set off a social-media firestorm of anger and incredulity. And after a charter-school teacher in San Antonio, Texas asked her 8th-grade American history students to provide a “balanced view” of slavery by listing both its pros and cons, a wide public outcry ensued. The homework assignment was drawn from a nationally distributed textbook.
“Such controversies underscore a profound lack of understanding of slavery, the institution that, more than any other in the formation of the American republic, undergirded its very economic, social and political fabric. They overlook that slavery, which affected millions of blacks in America, was enforced by a system of sustained brutality, including acts—and constant threats—of torture, rape and murder. They ignore countless historic examples of resistance, rebellion and escape. And they disregard the long-tail legacy of slavery, where oppressive laws, overincarceration and violent acts of terrorism were all designed to keep people of color “in their place.””
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Brilliant article. I did send this article to a person who I think is worth educating.
This person was offended by “Black Lives Matter.” I finally convinced this person that “BLACK LIVES” need to MATTER or OUR LIVES won’t matter much to the oligarchy as well. This person FINALLY got it. Took forever and forever. This person is now sorry about voting for DUMP.
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Wow, I hadn’t realized that Texas-charter hw assnt came from a ‘regular’ (?!) textbook. (Prentice Hall Classics: A History of the United States… publisher not Prentice Hall [had they already relegated it to the dung heap?] but… Pearson). Wonder what elements of the chapter kids were supposed to regurgitate as “pro” factors?
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If anyone holds the position that chattel slavery were in any way benign, I challenge such a person taking this viewpoint to live as a slave did, in say 1861, for one month. I volunteer to wield the whip.
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As long as I get to buy their spouse and kids, eh!
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Dear Kanye,
Slavery was not a choice, nor was the subservience that ensued even after slaves were emancipated. Low levels of education and opportunity and discrimination motivated many blacks to maintain their own mindsets. If they were caught being taught to read during slavery, both and they and their owners would be executed by the local sheriff.
Slavery, Kanye, was not a choice.
Stupidity and narcissism are a choice.
You have made it more than clear about the choice you have made and continue to make.
I have to wonder what the rest of your talent-less wife and in-laws think about you.
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West is married to Kim Kardashian, whose step-dad/mom Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, is well-known as a staunch Republican, and Kim is, too, so her family is probably on board with Kanye’s politics. They’re Country Club Republicans, aka socially liberal and economically conservative. That usually means they’re tolerant of gays but adore unregulated free markets and don’t support funding safety nets for poor and other vulnerable populations –much like many mainstream Democrats who co-opted the misnomer of Progressive.
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You have perfectly summed up a huge part of the core of modern day America. Stupid, stupider, stupidest . . . .
Yet, I still have faith in more and more Americans shedding their labels and perceived differences and waking up to what’s really important in life. I can’t see that collectivist movement ever stopping or shrinking at this pivotal point.
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While laws were on the books keeping slaves from being legally taught to read, I doubt that there was much success at enforcement. The much more effective mehod to keep slaves from learning was the pervasive belief that a European was smarter than other different looking people. Africans often even bought in and accepted the diagnosis, just as modern kidnappers sometimes persuade their captives in perverse ways to identify with their cause. This is why chattel slavery came to an end without any closure. It was not so much the institution of slavery but the belief in superiority of Europeans that drove the African down.
And so, we are still working that part of things out.
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I read “12 Years a Slave.” Solomon Northrup was beaten nearly to death for showing that he could read. He didn’t dare show it again, for the fear of being killed.
The ban on allowing slaves to learn to read and write was HEAVILY enforced. If not by the law, then certainly by the human traffickers.
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Like Trump Kanye West garners lots of attention for being provocative. West managed to get lots of people to talk and write about him so he has accomplished his goal of trying to remain relevant. Slavery was no more a choice than the Holocaust was.
What is worse is that slavery still exists behind the scenes in this country in the form of human trafficking. This is really the issue that needs more attention.
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Downright silly to call involuntary servitude voluntary. And without citizenship, suffrage, and education, it is impossible to choose slavery, physical or mental. That said, there is some fundamental sentiment in Kanye’s nonsense with which I would like to believe, as Bob Marley sang, “None but ourselves can free our minds.”
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Betsy Devos claimed that historically black colleges and universities were pioneers of choice. Yes. She did. http://time.com/4685456/betsy-devos-black-colleges-school-choice/
See also this. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/opinion/the-historian-behind-slavery-apologists-like-kanye-west.html
and this study of the treatment of slavery in textbooks, beginning on page 35 The study is from the Southern Poverty Law Center (undergoing attacks from conservatives for being biased) https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/tt_hard_history_american_slavery.pdf
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a VERY important connection in this conversation
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Slavery is a choice, the earth is flat, climate change is a hoax, evolution is a myth and Donald Trump is president, oh wait. Of course slavery was not a choice, why would they put slaves in chains on the long deadly passage from Africa to the US. The slaves constantly tried to escape their bondage at every opportunity and there were slave rebellions which were viciously put down. The slaves were terrorized by beatings, torture, mutilation, shootings and lynchings. We really do need some kind of truth and reconciliation convocation in this country, not only for the crimes committed against African Americans but also for the genocide committed against the original peoples of this country.
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Joe,
So pleased you wrote: “…the original peoples of this country.”
Go to YouTube and type: Hawaii’s Last Queen. This is a PBS special in 9 parts. It’s excellent. Won’t find this kind of infor in American textbooks.
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Speaking of snappy [ and vacuous] catchphrases…
Ah, the hypocrisy behind those that complain about “chain migration” [while they make exceptions for great numbers of peoples that they feel are superior and entitled]. I propose we remember all those that did not have a choice about going to the Americas because—
They were subjected to “chained migration.”
Just sayin’…
😡
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Melania’s parents are a perfect example of chain migration. They both have green cards because Melania married Trump. Hypocrisy !https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/politics/melania-trumps-parents-immigration-status/index.html
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And here is a different balanced view of the aftermath of slavery and the resultant failure that has us still living the nightmare. And if we ever escape the nightmare we are currently in, serious thought has to be given to what happens when we fail to punish people for their personal abuse of power and criminality. As well as our willingness to tolerate armed sedition, another thing we fail to deal with properly. We deal more harshly with peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience than armed sedition.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/11/23/the-failure-of-reconstruction-and-its-consequences/
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Thank you, Joel.
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There was an important part of the equation left out of the article. No European descended person in 1865 believed in the equality of Africans. That concept would wait until the beginning of the twentieth century and WEB DuBois and company. The union was preserved, but no one thought African American was really human. Not southerners or northerners. So we are still working on it.
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“No European descended person in 1865 believed in the equality of Africans.”
Can’t agree with that statement, Roy. In order for that to be true one would have to have been able to get inside the head of every single “European descended person” to determine their beliefs, which would have been an impossibility. To assume as you have is or that one has to wait until the beginning of the twentieth century before a “European descended person” could have believed in the equality of Africans is ludicrous.
Considering the fluidity of racial classifications to begin with, many a supposed “European descended person” could easily have had “African blood/heritage” just as an African could have been of European descent.
The racial classifications that we in the USA use are very, very suspect.
Or all one would have to do is find a writing from a “European descended person” that states that the equality of Africans with Europeans and it would nullify your statement. I’m sure one can find such a statement.
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Roy Turrentine
I would think the radical abolitionists saw it different than you describe. Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner …….
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Obviously my hyperbole is logically fallacious if considered literally. I certainly did not intend it that way. I would also agree that characterization of racial differences used during the nineteenth century were suspect. Evidence of their wrestling with the definition of African can be seen in laws that passed during that period defining a person as Negro if he was a eighth of African ancestry.
Still, my point was that failure to punish southerners who led the confederacy was less to blame for the failure of reconstruction than was the general attitude that people of African descent were not really people. This attitude permeated nineteenth century thought not just in the American southeast, but across a wide part of the population.
Evidence for this is found in the relative lack of support for the abolition of slavery until the free soil movement began to argue that the institution of slavery had to go to fight the power of slave owners, who would take land from free holders because of their slaves. More evidence is obvious from the Supreme Court, which ruled in Plessy that separate but equal was OK. Finally, it was Truman’s integration of the army that loosed a torrent of criticism from across the country in 1948.
I am not an apologist for southerners. Still, I would accuse modern journalists of ignoring other atrocities that suggest a wider pool of guilty humans in history where race is concerned.
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Roy Turrentine
The author actually points to that thinking in explaining why the landed gentry of the South were not punished. He points to the reluctance of Lincoln to move on emancipation earlier. To some degree support for the war about slavery was built on objection to the rebellion not objection to slavery.
His point is that by not confiscating their wealth, built on slavery and punishing them for the “Rebellion”; you set the stage for what followed; by leaving the hierarchy in place .He was not talking about punishing the South .Nor was he talking punishing every slave holder. The parallel to Germany is spot on. The hierarchy of the Nazi party was disassembled jailed and punished, down to all those who committed war crimes. The German soldier, the German people were not, at least in the West.
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So……Kim Kardashian, do you feel the same way as Kanye? And if you don’t, you need to speak up and say so.
Plus, since you have Armenian blood in you, you should ask him how he feels about the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Turks. 1.5 million Armenians exterminated by the Ottoman Empire.
Does Kanye think that the Armenians had a choice?
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That question could be shortened without any loss of meaning.
Does Kanye think?
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No kidding!
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Kanye has good musical sense and taste which has led to a handful of very inspired recordings (in my opinion). He’s also not particularly smart. Unfortunately he’s famous and as a consequence we’re forced to hear the unintelligent things he says. Most stupid people say stupid things all the time and barely anyone notices.
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“Gipperish”
It used to be that gibber
Got not a second’s note
But ever since the Gipper
It’s really all she wrote
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Well, there were definitely benefits to slavery – for those who were not enslaved!
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Ultimately no. Oppression harms the oppressors as much as the oppressed, it’s just harder to see. The oppressors lose their humanity and dignity, which at least the oppressed retain because they have no choice but to suffer. I think that’s what Frederick Douglass was talking about when he said he had more respect for brutal master than kind ones. At least the brutal ones recognized the bargain they had made – the loss of their humanity for economic gain. Ultimately the economic gain is not worth the price.
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It would do all of us (including Kanye) to reread Frederick Douglass’ letter to his brutal master. https://www.watchtheyard.com/history/fredrick-douglas-letter-to-slave-master-auld/
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steigem: I hope everyone that is for a “better education for all” clicks on the link you have provided.
😎
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The Saturday Night Live “news” had the best take on this story.
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& just heard that D.T.. is repealing temporary Protective Status for Hondurans living here, stating it’s safe, now, for them to return to Honduras (it’s not).
But he likes Norway, so Norwegians can come here (no offense, Norwegian Filmmaker; I think we all appreciate you).
Sarcasm alert: WVA–vote for Don Blankenship–he likes “Chinapeople!”
(Can you tell I’m typing this while watching “Democracy Now?”)
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