-
Notes to self on the argument that “white ppl freed Black People from slavery”/ “white ppl ended slavery”.
1. From the very beginning and throughout the entire duration of chattel slavery, our people fought to free themselves and each other. On the continent, we fought. On the slave ships, we fought. On the plantations, we fought to end slavery, we escaped from slavery, freeing ourselves and raided plantations, freeing others of our people as well. There is no generation, throughout the centuries of our enslavement, that failed to do this.
****************************************
****************************************
2. The problem is that there was also no generation of white racists who acknowledged and respected our people’s right to self-determination and freedom from oppression. So, no matter how many times we escaped from slavery, whites would hunt us down, recapture us and drag us kicking and screaming back into enslavement.Over and over and over again.
****************************************
****************************************
3. This basic point of whites not acknowledging nor respecting Black People’s right to freedom, even after Black People themselves have fought to attain it, is true all over the diaspora. whites would work in concert with each other across international boundaries to make life a living hell for Black People who had freed themselves from slavery. Our people in Haiti fought against the armies of the french, the english and the spanish combined in order to end slavery. And they were successful in 1804.****************************************
****************************************However, predominantly white countries worked together to economically strangle Haiti thereafter, with the use of warships. They isolated them from the rest of the world and refused to recognize Haiti as a state. The united states, for example, didn’t recognize Haiti as a state until 1862, 58 years after Black People in Haiti freed themselves, and after whites in other colonial countries had FINALLY decided to pass legislation banning slavery and on the eve of the u.s. also FINALLY banning slavery in its own territory.
****************************************
****************************************4. These are the points to keep in mind when confronted with the argument that “whites freed Black People”/ “whites ended slavery”. They, in fact, did not. They willfully failed to recognize the numerous times that Black People ended slavery. And even in these conversations TODAY, they continue to REPEAT the injustice by willfully failing to recognize that Black People were freeing themselves, freeing each other and ending slavery for hundreds of years prior/ leading up to white laws finally, at long last, being updated, though still not to the standards of Black Freedom Fighters.****************************************
*******************************************And more specifically as it concerns the “civil war” in the u.s. and the argument that whites DIED to end slavery, which of course is an argument “they” attempt to put forth as being altruistic/ moral in nature.
Firstly: The irony is that the people who tend to make this argument, 9 times out of 10, are those who identify with and honor the confederacy i.e. the side that was fighting to maintain chattel slavery.
****************************************
****************************************Secondly: The whites in the union were following orders. What soldiers think of their orders has never mattered in any war in the history of the nation. And among the union, there were all kinds. There were white union soldiers who were not against slavery, but they followed orders. There were white union soldiers who were against slavery, but not against the racial oppression of Black People and they followed orders. This point is often made about white confederate soldiers i.e. that even though they fought to maintain slavery, it doesn’t mean that they all owned slaves or even that their “hearts” were in it. They were just following orders. Well, that works both ways.
****************************************
****************************************Thirdly: If all of the union soldiers were fighting because their hearts were in it as “abolitionists”, which is what the advocates of the white savior argument would have us believe, then this wouldn’t be their first time fighting to end slavery. All of these white union soldiers would’ve already been known as famous/ notorious abolitionists. They’d have a track record of freeing Black People before u.s. military orders were ever given. Whoever makes the argument that the white members of the union army did this out of the goodness of their hearts should be burdened with the task of naming at least some of these individuals among the HORDES of white abolitionists who fought on the side of the union. It shouldn’t be difficult to either name a few or cite some sources that show there were all these LEGIONS of white abolitionists in the union army.
****************************************
****************************************And I specify WHITE union soldiers here because that’s what “white savior” advocates specify. It’s not a regional argument for them. It’s a racial argument wherein they claim that whites are the ones who freed Black People/ whites are the ones who ended slavery/ whites are the ones who died in the civil war specifically to end slavery out of the goodness of their hearts and not just because they were following orders. And these white savior advocates make no bones about the fact that they’re making this argument because they want to be thanked/ appreciated for these things they attribute to themselves.
You don’t hear much about the Black People in the union army, but there were many who had already escaped slavery and already had a history of fighting to end slavery before any u.s. military orders were handed down; Harriet Tubman probably being the most famous example. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Black People in the union army were escapees and were already freedom fighters before the civil war began.
****************************************
****************************************To sum up:
The most important point of all is the original point, however. Had whites acknowledged/ respected, to begin with, Black People’s right to self-determination, chattel slavery would’ve never gotten off the ground. Even if the first generation of whites didn’t acknowledge and respect Black People’s right to self-determination, literally ANY GENERATION of whites after that one that simply acknowledged and respected Black People’s right to self-determination would’ve been the generation acknowledged, timewise, in history books as the one wherein chattel slavery ended because EVERY SINGLE GENERATION of enslaved Black People were freeing themselves, and ending slavery for other Black People as well.
whites, as it turns out, were far, far, far behind Black People in their moral development and it shows in the modern day spectacle of them wanting a pat on the back for “ending slavery” while STILL following in the footsteps of their racist, dead relatives who refused to acknowledge all of the times Black People ended slavery first.
Adjoa Malaika Gathoni9 Comments-
78,058
Abibisika (Black Gold) Points
Welcome Black. It’s been like a decade!
1-
Thanks! Been longer than that. I last saw you in Chicago around 2006 or 2007 at Kwesi’s place. Kwasi Konadu was there too. I don’t remember when I was last on the original Abibitumikasa site, maybe 09 or 10 or something. But yeah, it’s actually been like 15 years or more.
-
-
If all this white soldiers and white abolitionist were fighting to end slavery for enslaved Afrikans, then it shouldn’t have taken the civil war for them to abolished slavery and proclaimed emancipation for the enslaved Afrikans.
There should have been hundreds if not thousands of so-called white abolitionists in the history books fighting brutality and notoriously to end slavery before the civil war; but you don’t even have one white abolitionist mentioned of putting his or her life on line for enslaved Afikans before the civil war started.
All we keep hearing is the fake so-called John Brown myth story out of thousands of so-called white abolitionists.
And I believe most of the white savior myth story written about John Brown is a mostly fabricated fairytale so that Black=Afrikan people can have a pale white man to put on the same pedestal with our true Black=Afrikan Warriors and Warrioress who with bravery and courage truly fought against enslavement and oppression against Afrikan people.
1 -
“White savior” advocates like to throw John Brown in Black=Afrikan peoples face, saying “See, not all white people are bad. John Brown, a white man, was willing to risk his life to free black peoples from slavery.”
Out of all the billions of white peoples, there is only, just one, white person, John Brown, who is put on a pedestal to let Black=Afrikan people know that “not all white people are bad. Not all white people are evil. We have John Brown, a white man was willing to die for the freedom of Black people.”
Out of a billion white people, there is only one white person, John Brown, who was willing to put his life on the line to end enslavement for Black=Afrikan people.
Most of John Brown abolitionist work are mostly fabricated fairytales to make him into a ‘white savior’ in the eyes of Black=Afrikan people. -
Out of all the of so-called white abolitionists, who they say helped to end slavery, there was only one white abolitionist, John Brown, who they say put his life on the line to help in the abolition of enslavement of Afrikan people.
If the so-called pale white abolitionists were sincere and genuine about ending slavery, there should have been thousands if not millions of John Browns going around who was willing to lay their life on the line to completely abolish the enslavement of Afrikan people and bring emancipation to the enslaved Afrikans.
But no, out of all the thousands of the so-called pale white abolitionists, we only have one John Brown who was freely willing to lay his life down for the ending of slavery.
I believe the story that has been told about John Brown abolitionist work are mostly fabricated literary work.
John Brown story is written by pale white people, so they are going to add historical misinformation about his life that may not have happened just to make Black people believe there are white peoples who will sacrifice their life for Black=Afrikan people liberation, emancipation and freedom; which is a lie. Because out of all the billions of white people, there is only one pale white person that is put on a pedestal, so that white people can say “See, not all white people are evil. We have John Brown, a white man who was willing put his life on the line for blacks people freedom and liberation.”
And we have Black people=Afrikan people within our midst who believe this fabricated propaganda pale white lie.
1-
78,058
Abibisika (Black Gold) Points
The wolf vs the fox. john brown also worked for the survival of the”white” collective by confusing Black people into thinking that he was different. That works in their interests more than the one who comes out straightforward with “white” survival. Some of us are not confused.
1 -
john brown did not give a damn about the freedom of Black People or about justice or an end to racism or anything of the sort. His stance was against the spread of slavery to where he lived because he was a farmer who didn’t use enslaved Black People to cultivate the land he stole from the natives. It was a competition thing. He couldn’t out produce the competition. In his lil’ constitution he drew up in his fairytale about going to war with america with an army of 19 guys and taking over as its new leader, when it came to the part about taking the land and the wealth from the former enslavers, all that he planned was to divide the spoils among whites. And in fact, if the enslavers didn’t resist, they could keep those “spoils”. Black People were to get nothing, which is what ended up happening anyway.
-
-
I hate that this Juneteenth celebration came out. I wished Black=Afrikan people would have kept the celebration underground.
Now, we have white politicians using Juneteenth as a political ploy for votes from Black people.
I see Juneteenth in commercials, with one commercial only showing mostly white people laughing and enjoying themselves with a sprinkle of Black people in their midst.
Black people has lost the true authentic meaning of Juneteenth to white people within the short span of only three years.
In the short span of three years, Juneteenth has now become a celebration of Black people and white people holding hands and singing, “We are free. Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya.”
In the short span of three years, Black=Afrikan people has given the celebration of Juneteenth to white people and the white corporate media; so now they can do whatever they want to do with Juneteenth and no Black person will have any say in it.
-
“Juneteenth” is just another embarrassment. It’s a very small scale version of “the Emancipation Proclamation” in a lot of ways. A way to redirect and control the narrative and cause further confusion. It is yet another hijacking similar to how “the BLM movement” is a hijacking. A show of “concession” by our enemies to further distract from what we really trying to go after.
All they doing is trying to manage their losses.
The main reason there even was a “Emancipation Proclamation” is because we were already on the cusp of freeing ourselves with our own hands, like we been doing since this war started, once and for all in the land known as “the USA”. All they did was swoop in to hijack and misdirect our victory with a solution to their problem already in place – “The 14th Amendment”.
And recently they gave us a “holiday” that once again attempts to start our history with them enslaving our people.
If a movie about “juneteenth” was made with straight facts, it would arguably be a comedy.
When Nat Turner went off is more of my idea of a holiday if we are talking the last 250 years and the territory known as “the USA”.
-
