In this brilliant foray into the hidden dimensions of the chronicle of black servitude, Tony Martin, professor of African History at Wellesley College, lectures on the role of Judaics in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the impact of racist rabbinic texts on the formation of the contemptuous view of Africans which led to the justification of their enslavement. Dr. Martin's speech is introduced by Michael A. Hoffman II who provides insight on recent scholarly developments concerning the "Curse of Ham." Brief concluding remarks are offered by historian David Irving.
20 comments:
DV,
Interesting kwestin. My kneejerk reaction is to say something deeper than either of those principles/systems, (I haven't watched the video yet) because of the rather unique way in which rabbinical praxis has served as a source of framework(s) for social organization.
The concept of the egregor, the spirit/principle of organization underlying corporations - is plainly evident in Kabbalistic doctrine. (though its origins may lie elsewhere) e.g., I've been working with a Spanish gentleman for a couple of weeks to find an original image or instance of a "zairja" - which a google search will plainly show you to be profoundly mis-attributed historically.
So interesting and relevant rabbinical blueprints for social organization predate both dopamine hegemony and its locally delimited epiphenomenon SR/WS.
Let me get back to you on this one. (after I watch the video and mull it over some) My daughter has a snow day from school and wants me to take her weightlifting at the gym.
More later....,
Bofe-of-em...,
Dopamine Hegemony - International Worldwide - and - SR/WS as a local epiphenomenon related to the coercive social mores involved with servicing the former.
46 minutes into the lecture - Prof. Martin answers your question and makes my case.
The Dutch West India Company
First instance of globalization.
Privatized colonization with the sanction of european governments.
Chartered companies and the pioneer in the globalized prosecution of the slave trade.
Many Spanish and Portuguese jews who had been expelled settled in Holland.
Strong influence in Holland.
Many jewish shareholders in the Dutch West India Company.
Rum distilleries and ancillary industries in the American colonies owned by Jews.
Curacao and Surinam Jewish colonists important to the slave trade.
Also prominent in non-Dutch part of the Carribean.
Without that sugar and rum bidnis - and the mass market in sugar and sugar distillates created in europe - would there have been a mass market for slave labor?
Without the corporate framework allowing for risk dilution and risk taking, would these ventures have occurred at all?
Lastly, how is the mass market in sugar and the coercive force projected to service it in the 16th and 17th centuries different than the mass market in petroleum RIGHT NOW and the coercive force projected to service it?
Dopamine hegemony or GS/WS?
Astute observations CNu, and one hell of a question.
I would venture to say that the 17th Century mass market for sugar fueled the demand for slaves EXACTLY the same way as the 21st Century demand for oil fuels the demand for taxable complacent conformists, as indentured to corporations as their 17th Century counterparts were indentured to private plantations.
What I don't see in this historical review is the phenomena of "whiteness".
Where does whiteness come into play?
I see less organized people taken advantage of by more organized people.
I see gun hegemony.
I see the triumph of technology.
I see man's inhumanity to man.
No particular color seems immune to tragedy or suffering.
No particular color seems to monopolize the causing of suffering.
Is the implication that European colonists and Jewish financiers would have refrained from developing the African slave trade - if the Africans had only been 'white skinned' like other Europeans?
Question.
Had Africans built sea bearing vessels, used guns and developed the capacity to finance capital intensive ventures before the Europeans - would there ever have been a European slave trade?
Didn't the African Almohades do precisely that in 1148 and present the Jewish community in Cordoba with some hard choices - thereby endearing themselves in perpetuity to one Moses Maimonides?
Short of guns, but they had some fine damascened steel blades, supreme military organization, were highly motivated, and had sufficient naval power to get to europe and sufficient capital to finance the undertaking - I believe there may have been some trade in european chattels, and, a lot of seignurial privilege assumed with european women - the latter of which might have absolutely infuriated the jewish communities in Spain and Portugal given the premium placed on matrilineage within Judaica.
I'm just sayin....,
I see less organized people taken advantage of by more organized people.
But DV,
Isn't it that they were organized to pursue the establishment of a global system of jewish supremacy in keeping with their anti-Black rabbinical tradition?
or,
Were they themselves refugees organized according to a novel scheme in order to pursue wealth, power, and security by manufacturing and catering to a crazy new addictive appetite for which they could charge an incredible premium?
Oh, and about that novel new scheme of organization;
Question #1: What would you call beings which (a) don't have physical bodies, (b) seem relatively crafty, and (c) appear to be immortal?
A tulpa, a djinn, or a familiar? Ghosts? Spirits? Gods? Demons?
How about corporations?
Question #2: When was the first corporation established?
Granted a charter by Queen Elizabeth I of England on 31 Dec 1600, the East India Company seems to have been the first corporation. Its origins arose out of an Elizabethan shopping mall for international trade called the Royal Exchange of London. After the fall of Iberian sea power, the Dutch had scrambled to monopolize former Portuguese trade with the East, so the English sought to beat the Dutch at colonizing the East Indies.
Seems I recall the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal and that some of them regrouped in Holland and became deeply involved in that Dutch East India Trading Company...., according to Prof. Tony Martin.
Question #3: Can anyone here define the essence of a corporation in ten words or less?
Here's my shot at it, in seven words actually: "Externalize risk and perpetuate wealth for shareholders." For the purposes of this discussion, we'll focus on transnationals, mostly firms attempting to become monopolies, generally following the Anglo-American model — not the "ma & pa" liquor store on the corner that has a "Chapter S" corporate charter.
"Externalize risk and perpetuate wealth for shareholders."
Those seven dirty words are just fine for describing the essence and purpose of a corporation.
So now we have in place the over riding power structure extant in our world - and we can chart the history of its development and proliferation from that definite date forward. Hmm.....,
Oh yeah, all this preceded Bacon's Rebellion by several decades and is discernably structurally involved in that historical incident. hmmm..,
But DV,
Isn't it that they were organized to pursue the establishment of a global system of jewish supremacy in keeping with their anti-Black rabbinical tradition?
Actually, Nah. Not exactly.
The Jews who happen to finance the Transatlantic slave trade no more represent all Jews than the mafia represents all Italians.
Jewish slave traders no more represent all Jews than 19 hijackers represent all Muslims.
Were these men working like evil little bees to build a system of supremacy?
Yes indeed.
Was that system "white"?
Too base.
Was it Jewish?
Head fake.
I suspect the proper characterization of this wicked phenomena of human exploitation transcends the limits of popular Group Identity labels (black, white, hispanic, woman, gay, atheist, Jew, Christian, European, Western, them, us ...) and demands an explanation that incorporates the spiritual variable.
The Murabtis (Almoravides as the Spanish misnamed them) did not define themselves as "black" though they might have looked like such by our standards today.
That's because on balance "white" is a political concept.
Fact is, the Arabs by that time had already developed the rudiments of the modern System of White Supremacy which, in turn they taught to the Spanish and Portuguese, who in turn taught the rest of Europe.
The idea of Black Africans as slaves was, in these post Roman Empire times, essentially an Arab idea.
As to the Jews.
Jewish merchants most certainly did not define themselves as "black", but as "white" even in those times.
The participation of whites who classified themselves as "Jews" in the "black" African slave trade was widespread and pernicious.
They participated in the crime for all these centuries just as virtually all other European nationalities did.
"They participated in the crime for all these centuries just as virtually all other European nationalities did." MF
"They" participated?
Who is they?
"The Jews" participated in the crime for all these centuries or did some men who happen to identify themselves as Jews participate in the crime for all these centuries?
At what point do the actions of a handful of people officially become "the actions" of the entire group?
Less than .001 of whites ever owned African slaves.
Did "whites" enslave blacks?
Or did some whites enslave some blacks?
I would venture to say that the 17th Century mass market for sugar fueled the demand for slaves EXACTLY the same way as the 21st Century demand for oil fuels the demand for taxable complacent conformists, as indentured to corporations as their 17th Century counterparts were indentured to private plantations.
What I don't see in this historical review is the phenomena of "whiteness".
Where does whiteness come into play?
I think "Whiteness" should be understood as only one aspect of the slave trade and racism in general. Under the logic of European intellectuals in the 1700s, each type of "people" was assigned different levels of "humanity" as determined by the anthropology of the time.
Tony Martin, professor of African History at Wellesley College, lectures on the role of Judaics in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the impact of racist rabbinic texts on the formation of the contemptuous view of Africans which led to the justification of their enslavement.
I'm not so sure. I think that it's much more likely that the justification for the enslavement was given after, and not as a pretext for enslavement. In terms of locating the contemptuous views of Africans which led to (or, more accurately, which were eventually cited as) the justification of their enslavement, I think we can learn more about the logic of the slave trade from Roger Taney than we can learn from analyzing rabbinical texts.
Roger Taney in Scott v. Sanford
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration, for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted, and instead of the sympathy of mankind to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.
Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men -- high in literary acquirements, high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others, and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.
The specific way in which the curse on "Ham" relates to all of this is ambiguous to me; whereas Taney is straightforward.
I approach the issue in terms of a broad philosophy rather than positing any particular historical account that seeks to establish which color-people dominated who. I think of it less in terms of a dopamine hegemony or a global system of WS and more in terms of being bracketed by the concept of the "family of nations" as articulated by Taney. And I think of the concept of the "family of nations" as it relates to Kants anthropology and aesthetic philosophy.
I operate under an very literal interpretation of the ethos of the slave trade in my reflections on the underlying philosophy of cnulans global "corporations". Although he cites the year 1600 as the start-date, I consider the philosophy and language of the 1700s as the full articulation of the essentialist component of the phenomenon. The raw justification.
I think a reading of Taney and Kant is more helpful in determining the character of European hegemony in the form of the slave trade (specifically the American slave trade) than any specific close reading of rabbinical text. Kant provides the underlying logic for Taney's "family of nations" and his observations are rooted in European anthropology (specifically Kant's anthropology) and Kant's aesthetic philosophy:
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen) is a 1764 book by Immanuel Kant.
Of National Characteristics, so far as They Depend upon the Distinct Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
Here Kant describes the different ways that various people have finer feelings. He qualifies his remarks by stating, "[W]hether these national differences are contingent and depend upon the times and the type of government, or are bound by a certain necessity to the climate, I do not here inquire."
The Italians have a strong feeling for the beautiful with some mixture of the thoughtful sublime. The French have mostly a feeling for the beautiful, but with the addition of the joyful sublime. The feeling of the Germans is an almost equal blend of both the beautiful and the splendid sublime in that they are much concerned with outward appearances. The feeling of the noble sublime predominates with the English, whose actions are guided by principles rather than impulses. With their cruel auto da fés and harsh conquests, the Spaniards have feeling for the terrifying sublime. Dutch people in Holland have no finer taste and are concerned only with what is useful. Arabs are like the Spaniards. Persians resemble the French. The Japanese are the Englishmen of the Orient. West India displays its love of the grotesque sublime, as also do the Chinese. African Negroes possess no finer feelings. North American Indians, however, have a feeling for the sublime in that they are adventurous, honorable, truthful, proud, brave, and valorous.
In antiquity, the ancient Greeks and Romans had remarkable feelings for both the beautiful and the sublime. However, with the Caesars, this decayed into a love of false glitter. The subsequent barbarian Gothic civilization had an overpowering feeling for the grotesque. Kant claimed that his time witnessed "the sound taste of the beautiful and noble blossoming forth both in the arts and sciences and in respect to morals." He declared that it is necessary to educate the younger generation so that they will have noble simplicity, high morals, and finer feelings.
Each "people" gets a fair amount of props from Kant - save for the "African Negro". This ranking of "peoples" and nations by Kant (1799) is fairly consistent with Taney's words in the Scott v. Sanford decision (1856). I don't think Kant needed to read about "Ham's" curse to make those statements. In my interpretation, "Ham" had little to do with it.
I stated, DV:
"The participation of whites who classified themselves as "Jews" in the "black" African slave trade was widespread and pernicious.
They participated in the crime for all these centuries just as virtually all other European nationalities did."
Can't make it any clearer.
However, to answer your other question:
"Did "whites" enslave blacks?
Or did some whites enslave some blacks?"
Of course not "all whites" owned blacks. However, "all whites" operated within a System of Racism/White Supremacy.
racism/White Supremacy is a social order, a social construct.
Take the social construct most recently mentioned here. "The Corporation". Not all employees in a corporation are "senior management". Plenty are Janitors, clerks, or even just pensioners. However they are all members of the corporate system which that Corporation is set up as.
Brother Conservative,
That was absolutely splendid.
"Of course not "all whites" owned blacks. However, "all whites" operated within a System of Racism/White Supremacy." MF
Michael,
Probably 90% of "white" people born between 1600 and 1900 never saw a black person in their lives.
Did the millions of white peasants bound to the land, struggling between plagues, famine and centuries of constant war also operate within "a System of Racism/White Supremacy."?
Slavery existed all over the world in every nation since recorded time.
What system of "supremacy" was in place when Dane's enslaved Saxons or when Mongols enslaved Tanguts or Ashanti enslaved Fanti?
DV...
"Did the millions of white peasants bound to the land, struggling between plagues, famine and centuries of constant war also operate within 'a System of Racism/White Supremacy.'?"
Yep. Just like there are lowly corporate employees. In fact, many of the "white" sailors who sailed the slave trade ships during the Atlantic Triangular Slave Trade were actually pressed into service, got the shit beaten out of them by the ships officers and died by the tens of thousands. They were still part of the system.
"What system of "supremacy" was in place when Dane's enslaved Saxons or when Mongols enslaved Tanguts or Ashanti enslaved Fanti?"
I don't know, but if that took place was before the System of Racism/White Supremacy existed, it was some other system.
The fundalmental divide seems to be the following as an example:
If a mother of a son knows that he is out in the streets selling drugs and robbing elderly people in order to pay the her rent guilty just as much or yet responsible to some degree for the deeds of her son thus party to the penalties of such crimes if prosecution occurs. So in a nut shell does complicity equal guilt?!
casper...
"The fundamental divide..."
You got to ask the elderly people being victimized.
The divide being between your & DV's positions. I tend to agree with the argument that just because one is not directly involved with astrocities on fellow human's does not or should not absolve one's ability to influenece change even if in fact that person is not party directly to such affliction. Therefore, white men and women who knew of the slave trade and did nothing is not an excuse. True it's not every white person but the majority sat back and watched or maybe indirectly benefited in some fashion. Indifference is not an excuse for not vocally supporting a system.
Casper,
Independent organizations have estimated that nearly 2 million Iraqis have died since the US led embargo and the occupation of Iraq.
Are American black people less responsible for that particular 'crime against humanity' than poor 19th Century Irish peasants, fleeing the potato famine, and wallowing in Boston ghettos were "responsible" for southern slavery?
Why DV,
you madcap...,
Careful, lest you ground the good ship GSWS on the moral irreconcilability of "innocent" Black enjoyment of white imperial privilege....,
Why, by the standard you've broached, every tax paying, car driving, plasma teevee watching Kneegrow is a complicit cog in the anglo-American SR/WS worldwide?
Either they're morally and politically complicit, or they've been manipulated by a massive corporate organism that wields the power to manufacture consent and has insinuated the collective dopaminergic lust for Escalades and CL 600's - to drive (By Any Means Necessary!) the political economic behavior of a populace in thrall to manufactured desires for luxury and attractiveness (cause who could possibly abide travelling from point A. to point B. not "looking good" and "wallowing in luxury"?)
In fact, didn't you once claim that you're the only man Black enough to save Condoleeza Rice from her evil thrall to the empire? Whatever happened with that save-a-ho initiative anyway? Have you reformed the wanton wench and set in motion our collective spiritual reformation by proxy?
Be that as it may, the number of casualties, refugees, and sundry other errata involved with feeding our insatiable "needs" - why these externalities have no bearing on what's going on..., nothing to see there, move along, move along now...., ya hear.
DV...
"Are American black people less responsible for that particular 'crime against humanity' than poor 19th Century Irish peasants, fleeing the potato famine, and wallowing in Boston ghettos were" for southern slavery?"
Absolutely. White Supremacy is a System designed to victimize people on the basis of color. (This color is assigned to them by the people doing the victimizing). That odes not mean that other people, namely those assigned the ?"non-color" "white" are not victimized. They just are not victimized on the basis of color.
The system is, however, constructed to keep the vast majority of the earth's population under the control of a tiny minority the "whites" within which minority , just as in any social organization, rank exists. Otherwise the system could not function. Bottom line, the system of racism/white supremacy is akin to a business. As in any business one has to reckon and accept temporary losses in order to achieve profit. Throwing some "white" people away is part of that.
Given that the "non-white" population to be dominated is so vast, it makes only sense to employ as many collaborators as possible within that non-white population in order to keep them in check. That's akin to the Jewish "Kapo" of the Nazi concentration camps.
Non-white people who directly and consciously cooperate with the white supremacists are akin to these Kapos. That doesn't mean that they are not victims on the basis of color, it just means that they actively participate in their own and all other non-whites' victimization in order to get a few bread crumbs. maybe even a few billion dollars here or there.
In fact, didn't you once claim that you're the only man Black enough to save Condoleeza Rice from her evil thrall to the empire? Whatever happened with that save-a-ho initiative anyway? Have you reformed the wanton wench and set in motion our collective spiritual reformation by proxy?" CNu
Interestingly enough my hilarious friend, the capacity to Save-A-Ho from herself and the desire to Save-A-Ho from herself are often mutually exclusive phenomena. As Too Short and Justin Raimondo so aptly put - “Let a NeoCon Flunky Ho For evil be a NeoCon Flunky Ho For Evil.”
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