Forum: Was Kanye West Correct In Saying 400 Years of Slavery Sounds Like a Choice?

Tags

Black America, Democratic Party, history of slavery, Kanye West, Progressive plantation

 

Every Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week’s question:Was Kanye West Correct In Saying 400 years of Slavery Sounds Like a Choice?

Don Surber:Hahaha.

No.

Rob Miller: For once, I and the always scintillating Mr. Surber disagree!

I actually dealt with this issue here and anyone who questions the following statements is welcome to read the article itself.

First of all, slavery in America was primarily white slavery until the mid to late 1700’s for reasons I clearly explain. Importing slaves to America from Africa was prohibited and essentially over in 1804. And black slaves in America were freed at the end of the civil war in 1865, so that makes the period of black slavery at most 100 years or less, not ‘400 years.’

Second, !865 to 2018 works out to 153 years, but blacks were not subject to slavery during those years. And I utterly reject the stance that bigotry or even segregation constitutes ‘slavery.’ Most ethnic groups have gone through similar challenges and overcome them, just as many blacks have.

Physical slavery is obviously not a choice. But embracing a slave mentality, where the mind embraces certain concepts that keep people dependent and unfree certainly is a choice. That’s exactly what Kanye West was talking about. He wasn’t wrong.

Laura Rambeau Lee: After his initial Tweet Kanye West clarified his comments, saying he knows “slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will.” His greater point is why are blacks still talking about slavery in America today? And why do so many blame their problems on the suffering of their ancestors? Sadly we know they have been manipulated by progressives and Marxists, mostly in the Democrat Party, to feel victimized over this American “shame”. Our public education system does not permit slavery to be taught in a proper context; in American history or in the global history of humankind. Many of our ancestors have been slaves, or serfs, or indentured servants, whether Black, White or Asian; Christian, Jewish or Muslim. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they understood that the intention of the Founding Fathers was to end slavery in America within a generation of winning its independence from England? Wouldn’t it be eye opening to realize that America is the only country in human history that engaged in a Civil War for the purpose of ending slavery? And wouldn’t it be enlightening if African Americans saw the Democrat Party for what it is; the party of the Ku Klux Klan and Woodrow Wilson’s segregation laws in 1914; the party of Lyndon B. Johnson whose Great Society created so much of the misery we see in black communities today; and the party that fought every civil rights act our country passed.

READ:  Kanye West tweets show blacks the road off the Democrat plantation

If West’s words caused one fan to open their eyes and really try to understand the history of slavery in America, how it began and encompassed all races of slave and slave owners, then good for him. It is going to take African Americans to reach other African Americans. Today we are seeing many more speak out and challenge the narrative of those who seek to keep African Americans from knowing the truth and giving them a chance to reach their full potential as free individuals. So many people on the left, in government and in the media, are calling him derogatory names and saying he is mentally ill. These personal attacks are straight out of the progressive playbook and should be called out as such. Although I am not a fan of Kanye West, this conversation will hopefully continue and for that he deserves our support.

Well, there it is!

Make sure to drop by every Monday for the WoW! Magazine Forum. And enjoy WoW! Magazine 24-7 with some of the best stuff written in the ‘net. Take from me, you won’t want to miss it

“More slaves TODAY than at any point in human history.”- TIME Magazine, Jan. 18, 2010

Tags

history of slavery, human trafficking, international slave trade, slave trade

 

There are more slaves today than at any time in human history, reported Benjamin Skinner, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

An estimated 27 million people in the world are forced to work, held through fraud, under threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence, in forced marriages, in sex-trafficking and prostitution.

Though mostly illegal and called by different names, slavery nevertheless exists today in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Southeast Asia, Romania, Sudan, Haiti, Brazil, Latin America, and even in the United States.

It was reported in TIME Magazine, Jan. 18, 2010:

“Despite more than a dozen international conventions banning slavery in the past 150 years, there are more slaves today than at any point in human history.”

Ancient cultures made slaves of those captured during wars in Babylon, Persia, Greece, China, India, Africa, and Rome. Israelites were slaves in Egypt for four hundred years.

Julius Caesar conquered in Gaul and brought so many captured “slavic” peoples into to Rome that the term ‘slav’ took the connotation of permanent servant – “slave.”

Over half of Rome’s population were slaves.

Another form of slavery was generational indebtedness, spread by Roman Emperor Diocletian.

The Roman economy was so bad that people who were unable to pay their mortgages would abandon their properties, renounce their Roman citizenship, and go off to live with the barbarians.

Diocletian made it a law that people could never run away from their debts, tying them and their children to the land in perpetuity, creating the feudal system.

When Muslims conquered areas of Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean, over a million Europeans were carried off into Islamic slavery.

Medieval Catholic religious orders of Trinitarians or Mathurins would collect donations to ransom people from Muslim slavery.

Muslim raiders enslaved an estimated 180 million Africans over its 1,400 year expansion.

There has never been an abolitionist movement in Islam, as Mohammed himself owned slaves.

In pre-Columbian America, the Inca Empire had a system of mandatory public service known as mita, similar to the Aztec’s tlacotin.

When Spain conquered the New World in the early 1500’s, conquistadors deposed Indian government leaders and ruled in their stead.

In the Inca Empire, where Indian populations had been trained to obey government orders, they willingly obeyed their new Spanish leaders, even though it often meant dying in forced labor such as in the Potosi silver mines.

Spaniards set up a system called encomienda or repartimiento, which was similar to feudal France’s Corvée “unfree labour.”

Priests like Bartolomé de las Casas and the Franciscan Friars, together with Papal Bulls, ended the enslavement of native Americans.

Those wanting slaves to replace the freed Indians purchased Africans from the Muslim slave markets.

Slavery began in Cuba earlier and lasted longer than most anywhere in the Americas.

A notorious trade triangle developed with Havana, Cuba, at its center: SLAVES from Africa to SUGAR from the Caribbean to RUM in England.

In North America, Christian missionaries and movements, especially Quakers, Moravians, and Methodists, were a voice of conscience against slavery.

King James I, followed by Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, sold over 500,000 Irish Catholics into slavery throughout the 1600’s onto plantations in the West Indies Islands of Antigua, Montserrat, Jamaica, Barbados, as well as Virginia and New England.

Many poor Europeans sold themselves as ‘indentured servants’, a temporary slavery for seven years, in exchange for transportation to America.

During the years 1714-1756, persecution and oppression of the Irish grew so intense that thousands sought to escape British control by selling themselves as “indentured slaves” in exchanged for passage to the New World, usually Pennsylvania, hoping to take advantage of William Penn’s promise of toleration.

Historian Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization:

“The Irish scene was one of the most shameful in history.”

Some North American Indians were sold into slavery in the West Indies.

The first African slaves were brought to North America on a Dutch ship to Virginia in 1619.

Haiti had several slave revolts against the French government. The fear the revolts would spread were a factor in Napoleon selling the Louisiana Territory

Importation of slaves to the United States ended in 1807, but in 1839, an international incident occurred.

A Portuguese ship from Sierra Leone sold 53 slaves to Spanish Planters on the Cuban ship Amistad.

On July 1, 1839, the African slaves broke free of their shackles and seized control of the ship, demanding to be sailed back to Africa.

The captain misdirected the ship, sailing slowly east during the day, but quickly west at night, landing at Long Island, New York, where the slaves were arrested.

The Amistad case went to the Supreme Court. Former President John Quincy Adams, now 74-year-old, defended the jailed Africans.

Adams stated, “By the blessing of God, I will argue the case before the Supreme Court.” He wrote in his journal, October 1840:

“I implore the mercy of God to control my temper, to enlighten my soul, and to give me utterance, that I may prove myself in every respect equal to the task.”

Francis Scott Key offered John Quincy Adams legal advice.

Adams shook hands with Africans Cinque and Grabeau, saying: “God willing, we will make you free.”

John Quincy Adams, known as “Old Man Eloquent,” argued in court:

“The moment you come to the Declaration of Independence, that every man has a right to life and liberty, an inalienable right, this case is decided. I ask nothing more in behalf of these unfortunate men than this Declaration.”

Against all odds, John Quincy Adams won freedom for the Africans.

President James Buchanan wrote December 19, 1859:

“When a market for African slaves shall no longer be furnished in Cuba…Christianity and civilizaion may gradually penetrate the existing gloom.”

After the Civil War was fought in the United States to end slavery, a revolt began in Cuba in 1868 by a farmer of Spanish descent crying out for racial equality, freedom of speech and freedom of association.

Spain put down the Cuban revolt in the Ten Years War, killing thousands.
A Spanish Royal decree finally ended slavery in Cuba in 1886.

In 1895, another rebellion began in Cuba and Spain sent 200,000 soldiers to put it down.

Thousands were put into concentration camps where they suffered from starvation, disease and exposure.

Yellow Press journalism excited the American public, who demanded President William McKinley intervene.

The U.S.S. Maine was sent to Havana, and on FEBRUARY 15, 1898, it blew up in the harbor under suspicious conditions, beginning the Spanish-American War.

President McKinley approved the Resolution of Congress:

“Whereas the abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civilization,

culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United States battle ship, with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer be endured…

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives…that the people of the island of Cuba are and of right ought to be free.”

Permission is granted to forward, reprint or duplicate with acknowledgement to American Minute.