After all they enslaved us, beat us, raped us, dehumanized us, etc. for hundreds of years, so the hate is justified and there’s not a damn thing any white person can do about it!

And so it goes…

enslaved Africans picking cotton

Over a 100 years after the official end of American slavery, most black Americans are still so attached to the subject, it’s as if we “own” the very concept of being enslaved — like we’re the only race of people who’ve ever been bought and sold.

It’s even to the point that, when most African-Americans even think of the word “slave”, we automatically picture a black person in our minds, as if black person = slave.

But I think perhaps its time for black people to get over it. Yes, I said it. Get.Over.It.

Not forget about slavery, but just not concentrate on it so much as something that only happens to black people.

Because while we’re running around blaming white people for every ill that’s ever happened to us, we are wasting a lot of precious time not contributing to the ending of this most heinous institution.

Slavery still exist today in many parts of the world. And yes, even right here, today, in the United States of America!

I just watched an hour long Frontline documentary about sex slavery in Europe that really helped expand my view of how foul and wide-reaching slavery really is, and I encourage you to watch it too.

enslaved Africans in Cumberland Landing, Virginia 1862

Watching it helped me, as a black person, “disown” slavery for lack of a better word, in that it taught me that mourning for what my ancestors went through, while it does give me a feeling of connection to modern day slaves, does not necessarily help me contribute today to the ending of slavery all over the world.

It’s time for black people to stop framing our whole existence in the context of being the descendants of slaves, because there are soooooo many people in this world who have it much worse than any black person in this country will EVER have it. And watching this documentary will help you see that.

As a side note, I find it interesting that most of the evil and destruction in the world is caused by the wants of men. If men didn’t want to stick their dicks into everything moving from 18 month old babies to 100 year old women and everything in between, there would be no need for sex slavery, because in that business, like in most other businesses, demand drives supply.

But as I said that’s just a side note and I’ll be sure to do a full post at a later date discussing how men, their evil appendages, their machismo and their weak bitch-ass female sidekicks are on the verge of destroying the world.

Anyway, the film is only an hour. Take some time and open your eyes to how bad some ofter people have it, then get off your ass and do something, even if you don’t do anything but share this on Facebook using one of my share links below, because just by doing that you will help enlighten others about this very serious issue. Check out the film below:

Apparently, the HMS Daphne was an anti-slaving ship that rescued these boys from Indian Ocean slave traders who captured people from “mainland East Africa and sold [them] in markets in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf.” In the photo at the top of this post you can see people who are probably the slave traders in the left part of the photo, but this info is unconfirmed.

Here are some sketches of slave ships and anti-slaving ships capturing them.

It is my guess that when the HMS Daphne captured the slaving ships they destroyed them and took everyone – slaves and slavers — on board. Read more about the photos at CarlaGirl’s blog. Indeed a very interesting look at another system of African slave trading (besides the trans-atlantic slave trade).

Here’s an article about what it was like to be human cargo.

Son of the South is collecting, and has a very interesting collection of, slave photos. Or photos of ex-slaves and some still in slavery at the time the picture was taken. I am a little put off however by the captions under the pictures. They say stuff like “slave with his dog” and “slave sitting on steps” as if “enslaved man” etc. would be so hard to write? A subtle difference, but an important one I think in terms of the perceived dignity of the subjects in the photos.

About a week ago, the man kneeling in the photo, Andrew Hawkins — “a descendant of Sir John Hawkins, an Elizabethan sea captain who began centuries of British involvement in the slave trade” — left England with a group of White folks and went to The Gambia in West Africa to apologize for slavery in front of the country’s vice-pres, Isatou Njie Saidy, and 25,000 Africans.

The group Mr. Hawkins is down with is called the Lifeline Expedition, a group ”aimed at achieving reconciliation between Europeans and Africans”. Here’s another of their projects, Yokes & Chains, which is basically their program of doing public marches while shackled together to bring attention to the cause of reconciliation.

This is touching. I think it would have been better if they had not been told the date of their departure, snatched unexpectedly in the midst of their daily routines, then made to strip naked and lie in each others’ shit, piss and vomit for several months. That would have added that special touch of magic. Oh well, can’t have it all!

I applaud Mr. Hawkins’ and his comrades’ actions, but let’s not let the racial reconciliation fun end there! Some of that money you guys made from using, selling, killing-at-will, degrading, talking to like a dog, experimenting on, raping, making work for free from sun-up to sun-fuckin-down, dehumanizing and mentally controlling (even today!) us would be nice too.

Thanx BlackHacker and Professor Kim!

del.icio.us: slavery, reconciliation, race, andrew hawkins, john hawkins, lifeline expedition, reparations

I tried to find some photos of it on the net but I could only find this one photo of some slave quarters taken by Chad Carraway for an elementary school photo contest.

I look at it and see my folks living in that after slaving from sun up to down, and I get chills.

Next time I go home I’ll have to go out to this place and take some proper pics of the main house, grounds, etc. The home is privately owned, I presume by his descendants, and is occasionally used for events. I want to buy this place one day. Everything has a price, after all. If I had Oprah money it would be so mine right now. I would sit on the porch and drink mint juleps, served to me by my all White staff…LOL!

Most folks can’t imagine this now, but there are several small towns in America that are either all Black or more than ninety-five percent so. On Tuesday, Feb. 28, a documentary, This Side of the River, will premiere at Durham’s Hayti Heritage Center about one such town.

Princeville, North Carolina was the first town in America to be chartered by Blacks and is still a Black town. Princeville was founded by freed slaves and built off what was once swamp land. The film tells the story of Princeville’s beginnings, and how the town has had to struggle against racism, economic hard times, and a devastating flood in 1999 (caused by Hurricane Floyd) followed by an attempted FEMA buyout which would have erased Princeville from the map.

My family is from the area, and everyone in the town, including several of my family members, lost everything. Old family photos from the late 1800′s, family documents, everything. An uncle nearly had a nervous breakdown, and several townsfolk eventually passed from grief. I contributed music research and some let’s say “logistical support” for the film, and I appear in the film briefly with my mother and grandmother and my 80 something year old cousin (unless that was edited out). In one of my interviews with my cousin when I was gathering research for the film she told me all about my great-great-great-grandfather Cage Carney, a slave to a rich doctor.

She told me that Cage was also the doctor’s driver, and that when the doctor would do house calls in the winter he would bring a blanket. Upon arriving to his patient’s home he’d put the blanket on the horse and instruct Cage to go get under the house and lie with the dogs to keep warm. This was of course in the old times in the South where a lot of the plantation homes and other homes were wooden structures with spaces under them. This cousin also told me about other members in my family who had been owned by one of NC’s governers, Elias Carr.

Before I started working with the producers of this film, I had been working on and am still working on documenting my family history for my children, and this is certainly important stuff to me and very close to my heart. I am using some of Elias Carr’s papers to continue my family research. I believe his home still stands, and I plan to go there, soon. The director is giving me copies of all the footage with me and my family members, and I can’t tell you how much that means.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE working on projects like the Princeville movie, and my second book, which I have been working on side by side with the “Fear” book — I have trouble concentrating on one project at a time — is a historical novel about Princeville with Black heroes and heroines…and a lot of intrigue. Like “Roots” mixed with “Patriot Games”. I look forward to doing more score and soundtrack consulting type work too. That was fun.

I highly encourage everyone in the Triangle and surrounding areas to support this film! The producer told me that the owner of Tribes Magazine, a teacher is encouraging her North Carolina history class to go see it for extra credit. Wow, what great support! And if you are a Black person I encourage you to find out more about your family history. If you need help just ask me how to get started. It’s infinitely enriching.