0 Abibisika (Black Gold) Points

Rank: Unranked Obibini

Originally written: June 7, 2022

I conducted a thought experiment with Black People online a few years back. It was on the heels of a rash of whites online who were upset about a video game that explored the idea of a world where chattel slavery never happened. The main character in the video game, a Black Man, went back in time and somehow stopped chattel slavery from taking place. A lot of whites were making youtube videos expressing great sorrow at the idea. Some were angry about it. Some even cried.

So, I decided, among a group of Black People online, to ask a question. That question was simply “Have you ever wished chattel slavery never happened?”. If so, why? If not, why not?

That was all.

And most of the answers I got were an expression of fear, one way or another, centered around the idea that they wouldn’t exist without chattel slavery. And no matter how many times I told them that this is just wishing, just a thought, It won’t actually happen just because you wish it/ think it, they still expressed this same fear.

So, then I also said ok, let’s say somehow WISHING chattel slavery never happened did actually affect your existence as though it really didn’t happen.

Who are YOU?

Who is the YOU that you think wouldn’t exist?

They’d respond talking about how they’re comprised of a specific collection of genes, including genes from whites, and basically that chattel slavery is responsible for the circumstances that brought those particular genes together and so on and so forth. So, I said that they basically look at the erasure of chattel slavery as a losing of themselves in a sense. They confirmed that this is how they saw it. That chattel slavery made them who they are. <— Their words, verbatim. They’re afraid that a whole bunch of Black People, themselves included, would have never been born if chattel slavery never happened.

Some tried to make it seem as though they were into self-preservation of the group by taking this stance. And even though I sat completely and utterly flabbergasted that once again, Black People were abysmally failing what was basically a “are you pro-slavery or anti-slavery” question, I labored on and asked “but isn’t erasure or a losing of ourselves exactly what chattel slavery accomplished?”.

And what do you think of your ancestors and ancestresses on those plantations who were fighting to end chattel slavery the whole time it was going on? Were they wrong or evil for fighting against it, then? Were they “trying to make it so that we would never exist”?

They didn’t want to tackle those questions, but they maintained their positions.

So, then I stated that with or without chattel slavery, the argument can be made that certain people wouldn’t exist, but the argument is MUCH STRONGER in that regard WITH the existence of chattel slavery because a HUGE FEATURE of chattel slavery was the excessive amount of Black People who died unnaturally during that whole, entire event. All of our people who died in the coffle lines, being marched from the interior to the coast. What of the ones who died before they got to reproduce? All of our people who died being tortured in the dungeons on the coast. What of all the people who don’t exist because that bunch also never got to reproduce? What about all those who died in the middle passage transport across the water? What about those among them who never got to reproduce?

In “Transoceanic Mortality: The Slave Trade in Comparative Perspective” by Herbert S. Klein, Stanley L. Engerman, Robin Haines, and Ralph Shlomowitz, it is estimated that in the process of seizure, march(coffle lines) and detention(in the dungeons on the coasts), 50% of our people died. They haven’t even touched the ships yet and half of them are gone, many never to have reproduced so a bunch of people who would’ve otherwise existed, don’t.

So far, that’s 50% gone and 50% left. Now, it’s time for the journey on the ships. Estimates of the death rates there range from 15 to 25% and then once they reached the americas, anywhere from 20 to 33% died in the process of acclimating, both to the environment and the seasoning process. What that means is that from the original amounts captured, NEARLY EVERYBODY DIED by the time they reached over here. How many Black People NEVER came to exist because of that?

In america, the death rates of enslaved Africans was lower on average than elsewhere in the diaspora, but in certain regions where it was known to be more brutal than others, such as Louisiana for example, the death rates were still high. In Jamaica, we also had the following:

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“In these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that enslaved women in the Caribbean had, on average, an unusually small number of children and that of those children they did have, a very high proportion died young. The diaries of the Jamaican planter Thomas Thistlewood, to take one example, record 153 pregnancies over thirty-seven years, resulting in 121 live births. (The thirty-two miscarriages and abortions must be an underestimate, since Thistlewood would not have known about all pregnancies.) At least fifty-one of these children – more than one in three – died before the age of seven. Only fifteen definitely reached the age of seven. (5) Enslaved women’s experience of pregnancy, birth and motherhood was marked by ill-health and death, pain and grief; ‘rooted in loss’ as Jennifer Morgan writes. (6) The everyday loss of children was one of the hidden traumas of slavery.”

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Since we’re talking about folks who never got to exist, take abortion for example. In the u.s. alone, abortions since 1973 has accounted for nearly 20 million deaths of Black People. That’s more than every other cause of death for Black People in america COMBINED. When you look at the overall rate, it comes down to about 40% of all Black babies are aborted. Nearly 20 million abortions from a population of 40 million. How many more Black People would be here now were this not the case? Wouldn’t just be 60 million because some of those 20 million would have also had children by now. We’re talking over 40 years since 1973. The average age bracket where Black Women have the most children is 20-24 yrs old. The Black Population in the u.s. would likely be DOUBLE what it is now.

Horrible right? A 40% abortion rate? Absolutely horrible!

Well, keep it in mind. The quote above about pregnancies during slavery in Jamaica notes that of 153 pregnancies, only 15 of the offspring end up making it to the age of 7. We don’t know how much longer those 15 lived after that, but what we do know is that only 15 remaining alive after 153 pregnancies means that 90% of our offspring died. So, much like the whole process described before of getting from the interior of Africa, going through the coffle lines, the slave ships etc., where nearly EVERYONE died, it’s the same with births on the plantation after that. A 90% death rate means that nearly everyone is DYING before having a chance to reproduce only to have a 10% rate of survival for your offspring. This, including the fact of the lifespan of enslaved Africans on plantations only being about 10 years, is why in places like Jamaica, the African born population always outnumbered the Jamaican born ones. Breeding wasn’t sufficient to replenish the labor force. They had to keep on importing us from Africa in order to maintain slavery. Even in america, by the “end” of slavery around 1865, the amount of formerly enslaved Black People who were over the age of 50 was about 5%. Most Black People did not grow to be old during those times.

Whose mind here can calculate that kind of loss as it concerns how many Black People never came to exist BECAUSE of chattel slavery? It’s clear that WITHOUT chattel slavery, even with all of the other atrocities that SOME OF US seem to think would still be happening without any white racists’ involvement, there would be FAR MORE OF US who would have existed alongside those of us here.

In all likelihood, we represent a TINY MINORITY of those who SHOULD’VE existed, but never got to BECAUSE of chattel slavery.

They didn’t touch any of that^^^. Some either never came back to the discussion while others chose to delve even further into a more sci-fi aspect of the topic(time travelling and what not).