Juneteenth is a BIG LIE

This may be more legend, than reality as my previous post pointed out.

The big one: Granger may not have read the proclamation.

Longstanding urban legend places a historic reading of General Order No. 3 at Ashton Villa; but no historical evidence supports this claim.^[41] There is no evidence that Granger or any of his troops proclaimed the Ordinance by reading it aloud. All indications are that copies of the Ordinance were posted in public places, including the Negro Church on Broadway, since renamed Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church. 

Secondly, despite the Union victory, Slaves were not freed, as this points out. And to recap this from yesterday:

Although this event commemorates the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved population in two Union border states, Delaware and Kentucky, would not come until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.^[44][c][e] The federal amendment also put a definitive end to chattel slavery and indentured servitude in New Jersey, freeing approximately 16 elderly individuals.^[f][47][48] Furthermore, thousands of black slaves were not freed until after the Reconstruction Treaties of late 1866, when the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes were forced to sign new treaties that required them to free their slaves.^[49][50]

The freedom of formerly enslaved people in Texas was given state law status in a series of Texas Supreme Court decisions between 1868 and 1874.

OK, the video isn't totally accurate since it doesn't get into the fact that the Emancipation Proclaimation only freed slaves in most of the Confederate Territory, not all of it. That's an important point, which is being left out of this. The video also continues the nonsense about Grainger's General Order. It only gets good when it gets to the truth of the matter: the General Order didn't do a lot for the slaves of Texas.

I would start watching at 4 minutes in.

If the point of this is to commemorate the end of slavery, then there is probably a much better date for that. But has slavery ended if prison labour can be used in a similar way?

Emancipation Proclamation:
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/emancipation-proclamation

from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. 

Grainger's General Order:
https://ironbrigader.com/2020/06/18/general-gordon-grangers-general-order-number-3-announced-the-end-of-slavery-in-texas/ 

SCRAP JUNETEENTH. IT WASN'T THE END OF SLAVERY IN US TERRITORY!

This woman is RIGHT!!!

Ever wonder where this came from? I mean unless you were listening, this event came out of the blue. OK, I'm going to be lazy and quote Wikipedia, and not even bother to remove the footnotes, just because this whole thing isn't really worth my time.

Texas was the first state to recognize the date by enacted law, in 1980. By 2002, eight states officially recognized Juneteenth^[97] and four years later 15 states recognized the holiday.^[54] By 2008, just over half of the states recognized Juneteenth in some way.^[98] By 2019, 47 states and the District of Columbia recognized Juneteenth,^[99] although as of 2020 only Texas had adopted the holiday as a paid holiday for state employees.^[100]

In June 2019, Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Wolf recognized Juneteenth as a holiday in the state.^[101] In the yearlong aftermath of the murder of George Floyd that occurred on May 25, 2020, nine states designated Juneteenth a paid holiday,^[102] including New York, Washington, and Virginia.^[103] In 2020, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker issued a proclamation that the day would be marked as "Juneteenth Independence Day". This followed the filing of bills by both the House and Senate to make Juneteenth a state holiday. Baker did not comment on these bills specifically but promised to grant the observance of Juneteenth greater importance.^[104] On June 16, 2021, Illinois adopted a law changing its ceremonial holiday to a paid state holiday.

Spurred on by Opal Lee, the racial justice movement and the Congressional Black Caucus, on June 15, 2021, the Senate unanimously passed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act,^[132] establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. It passed through the House of Representatives by a 415–14 vote on June 16.^[133][134] President Joe Biden signed the bill (Pub. L. 117–17 (text) (PDF))^[135][136] on June 17, 2021, making Juneteenth the eleventh American federal holiday and the first to obtain legal observance as a federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was designated in 1983.

So, if you're like me, you didn't notice this "holiday" this year, but I have various reasons which make that an easy thing to do. I can say "Juneteenth Quoi ?" or more like "Juneteenth, quoi c'est bordel?" And most people should be doing that since the 1980s and 1990s, the holiday has been more widely celebrated among African-American communities and has seen increasing mainstream attention in the US. In other words, it popped into the consciousness around 120 years after the fact. And it may be more fiction than fact since.

Planters and other slaveholders from eastern states had migrated into Texas to escape the fighting, and many brought enslaved people with them, increasing by the thousands the enslaved population in the state at the end of the Civil War.^[9] Although most lived in rural areas, more than 1,000 resided in Galveston or Houston by 1860, with several hundred in other large towns.^[37] By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas.^[9][8]

Despite the surrender of Confederate General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, the western Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not formally surrender until June 2.^[9] On the morning of June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston^[38] to take command of the more than 2,000 federal troops recently landed in the department of Texas to enforce the emancipation of its enslaved population and oversee Reconstruction, nullifying all laws passed within Texas during the war by Confederate lawmakers.^[38][39] The order informed all Texans that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all enslaved people were free:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.^[40]

Longstanding urban legend places a historic reading of General Order No. 3 at Ashton Villa; but no historical evidence supports this claim.^[41] There is no evidence that Granger or any of his troops proclaimed the Ordinance by reading it aloud. All indications are that copies of the Ordinance were posted in public places, including the Negro Church on Broadway, since renamed Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church.^[42]

On June 21, 2014, the Galveston Historical Foundation and Texas Historical Commission erected a Juneteenth plaque where the Osterman Building once stood signifying the location of Major General Granger's Union Headquarters believed to be where he issued his general orders.^[43]

Although this event commemorates the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved population in two Union border states, Delaware and Kentucky, would not come until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.^[44][c][e] The federal amendment also put a definitive end to chattel slavery and indentured servitude in New Jersey, freeing approximately 16 elderly individuals.^[f][47][48] Furthermore, thousands of black slaves were not freed until after the Reconstruction Treaties of late 1866, when the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes were forced to sign new treaties that required them to free their slaves.^[49][50]

The freedom of formerly enslaved people in Texas was given state law status in a series of Texas Supreme Court decisions between 1868 and 1874.

So, this make be the biggest commemoration of a non-event that ever happened because it wasn't the actual end of slavery in Texas and the General may never have made a speech telling the slaves of a plantation in Galveston that they were free!

And for that matter, there was still slavery despite the Emancipation proclamation!  

I did a post about Juneteenth being relatively unknown until recently. Google Trends analysis of searches on "Juneteenth" only show a massive interest starting from the end of May 2020 to around the 23rd of June.  There was minimal interest in this "holiday" prior to that date.

You weren't crazy if you were wondering why you had never heard of it before 2020,

And you were among a very small group of people if you DID know about this prior to this year.

While the media tried to make this sound like something which had been around for a long time, the reality is that the Juneteenth this was steamrollered over us. Wired points it out in their Why Juneteenth Went Viral. Wired's piece tends toward this being something contemplative, but I do question the interest in Juneteenth, as opposed to Odunde, as being virtue signalling.

It's no coincidence that the movement to celebrate Juneteenth came during the Black Lives Matter riots (sorry, but more than one city was trashed and these were counterproductive as fuck. So, fuck you, I'll call them as I see them). It's more of the meaningless virtue signalling to try and calm the rioters.

But it was a small group of people who made this a thing as Protocol's How a Group of Creatives made Juneteenth 'spread like wildfire'. Yeah, "creatives" as in advertising types. Not just any advertising types, but ones connected to the social media industry.

I am trying to break from the surveillance economy,. Not only do they keep tabs on you, but they try and influence your opinion.

I cried "bullshit" about Russiagate.

I'm crying "bullshit" about the virtue signalling relating to Black Lives Matter. Nothing significant will come from the past few months. If anything, those events will make matters worse. I know they increased gun sales.

I am already certain that Trump will be reelected. Even if he isn't, the Democratic candidate isn't onside.

So, what was the point of it all?

I prefer substance to Bullshit, but the bullshit is piling up like the trash on the streets of Philadelphia and NYC.

{OK, Given that Juneteenth isn't really that meaningfull, this was pulled from Wikipedia and a couple of my previous post on the issue. This is a "holiday" that needs to GO AWAY because it's BS].

The Constitution Wasn’t Sacred—It Was a Battle of Revolution. And It’s Failing again.

I've always thought "We the people" was propaganda: especially since the Constitution was pretty much drafted in secret. This is an interesting take on the document.

#AngryVeteran Rants About Cheering The Burning Plantation

 I don't totally agree with what he says, but I agree for the most part of what he says.

And not having the plantation around makes it a whole lot easier to deny what happened.

Yes, they do have weddings in concentration camps

I mentioned in my last post that getting married in a plantation would be the perfect form of revenge given marriage and family life was not allowed.  Actually, this is a subject for debate, but I don't want to get into it.

I object to any comparison of plantations to concentration camps since I see a lot of ignorance even from historians in the US about this topic. 

Number one and most importantly, the only people who wanted to see these destroyed were the people who committed the crimes. Everyone else is aware that the destruction of concentration camps will erase their memory. I used the example of Belzec. It was one of the operation Reinhard camps where between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews (I would say more but cannot prove it) are believed to have been murdered by the SS at Bełżec . It was the third-deadliest extermination camp, exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only seven members of the Sonderkommando Survived.

Not many people have heard about it because it was destroyed. But that is an aside.

The second reason is that like under slavery, Jews were discouraged from getting married in the camps. Marriage was an act of resistance:

“They got married in the ghetto and gave birth there. The “Death Machine” didn’t break the main thing – the human spirit and the will to live. After all, they wouldn’t let them die, otherwise, it was the ultimate surrender”, – says Alexander Boroda, the President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.

After the war, people found themselves in Displaced Persons camps, some of which were on the site of former concentration camps. They got married in those camps.

But to answer the question:

Historic military compound the Seventh Fort in Vilnius, Lithuania has become a popular site for weeding parties and children summer camps, but, according to Israeli press, a Nazi German concentration camp had once stood there.

Belgian new portal New Europe reports citing The Jerusalem Post that the 18-acre red-brick bunker complex built in 1880s was also the site of a concentration camp in 1941. The Israeli newspaper wrote that thousands of Jews were imprisoned, treated inhumanely, killed and buried at the Seventh Fort.

from https://bnn-news.com/weddings-in-vilnius-held-near-wwii-concentration-camp-148244 

The weddings are not held on the area where the Holocaust victims are buried, which is only 2% of the camp area.

So, if you are going to use the concentration camp example, then the descendants of formerly enslaved people should be "jumping" at the chance to get married on a plantation since it was something denied to their ancestors.

And descendants of people killed in concentration camps show their defiance and love for life by doing exactly that.

Jumping the broom

James Catnach - The Marriage Act Displayed in Cuts and Verse (British Library)

I'm not going to go into the history of this tradition other than to repeat something said in one article about it:

Parry writes that despite the racial animus which characterized the US South during the nineteenth century, poor white Southerners (many of whom were descendants of people who had irregular forms of matrimony in Britain) and enslaved African Americans had more cultural exchange than is commonly acknowledged.

But the reason I bring it up is that one of the institutions which was prohibited to slaves was marriage and a stable family life. A lot of the criticism about Nottoway is that it was used for weddings, which was something prohibited to slaves. On the other hand, no one has mentioned if blacks were prohibited from celebrating their marriages there in recent times. I'm not going to get into a discussion of "jumping the broom" or the institution of marriage during slavery since it would take a lot more than a blog post.

On the other hand, what would be a better form of revenge than for black people to get married on a place where it was prohibited to their ancestors?

I see way too much boohooing and handwringing that "slavery was bad" without too much introspection on what has been lost to future generations. The concentration camps have been kept as memorials. The only people who wanted them destroyed were the people who committed the crimes to hide the evidence. 

Have you ever heard of Belzec? No, it was destroyed to hide the evidence. If you are going to mention concentration camps--then you should mention that.

This place was up for sale not too long ago: why didn't people buy it to turn it into another Whitney Plantation where slavery is addressed honestly?

To be honest if reparations are going to happen, they probably won't monetary, or just focused on one race: they will only come from an honest and open discussion of race in America.

And destroying the places which are painful really isn't the answer.

Nottoway Plantation--Those who forget the past may repeat its mistakes

I'm rather surprised by black people rejoicing at the destruction of this plantation since it seems to me that they would want to preserve this. They seem to ignore that the destruction of this historic structure erases it from the collective memory. It's like destroying native American heritage wipes it from the mental landscape.

While blacks know about it, I thought I would try to find an unbiased account of this place. The US media is sharply divided on the issue with blacks being disgusted by the house being used for weddings. This is despite areas where the slaves were kept being present. Also, this plantation was a sugar plantation, which made far more money than cotton did.

I am one who believes in trying to stay historically accurate. I agree with this comment by Redacted on the Independent.co.uk website. Perhaps more deference should have been given to the slaves, but I didn't hear anyone who has commented about how happy they are to see the destruction of this plantation say that the current owners discriminated in anyway.

And it would be ironic if black people had weddings and visited the plantation, which they can't do for the time being.

Anyway, I tried to find some coverage about Nottoway in the French media and only found articles about it as a tourist destination.

So, maybe the joy is merited.

On the other hand, one of the youtube posts rejoicing in the destruction was followed by a very complimentary post about Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The French have a saying, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."

I'm with Michael Twitty, the person who wrote the screencapped article at the top of this page:

Coming to terms with what these plantations have meant is a process that takes time and generational commitment. Plantations and sites related to slavery have to have foot traffic and human and financial investment to preserve the evidence of African and African American labor, craft and resistance. Still, they shouldn’t exist as mere resorts.

If no person is illegal...

Does this mean that you believe that slaves should legal?

After all, slaves are people.

But the issue isn't the person, but their status. Whether it is a slave or an unlawfully present person.

Yes, the person isn't "illegal", but their presence in the country is not legal. 

The right to enter one’s country, to stay in a country which one has legally entered, and to leave any country including one’s own, have been perceived as basic since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. When individuals claim human rights relating to freedom of movement, they are referring to the same facts and situations that states are concerned with when they assert jurisdiction over their own nationals and over resident aliens. The international law of jurisdiction is the means by which states allocate competence, between themselves, for the prescription and application of authority over events inside and outside their national boundaries.

The only people who have a right to come and go freely into a country are the citizens of that country. It's discretionary otherwise.

And people who haven't complied with the law are not lawfully present in the country.

I don't think it's the best idea to allow people who are not willing to comply with immigration laws to become citizens.

Let's stop playing games with Immigration and get serious about it.

"It's high time we move from the coloniser's language."

And these people want to speak Swahili...

OK, I have to laugh as someone who speaks the two most common languages spoken in Africa: English and French. Portugese is the third.

Swahili, which takes around 40% of its vocabulary directly from Arabic, was initially spread by Arab traders along East Africa's coast.

It was then formalised under the German and British colonial regimes in the region in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, as a language of administration and education.

And though it has been spoken about before as an alternative on the continent to English, French or Portuguese as a lingua franca, or as a commonly understood language, there is now a renewed impetus.

What is getting lost here is that Swahili is also a "coloniser's language". The Swahili helped inland Africans trade ivory, grain, and even slaves, for the foreign merchants' knives, farming tools, fabrics, and porcelain.

Slave Trade and Slavery on the Swahili Coast, 1500-1750: Arab traders captured Zanj to enslave them, but generally speaking, medieval geographers rarely mentioned the slave trade on the Swahili coast, although they often did so for other regions, particularly western Africa. 

In other words, Swahili, even though it is a Bantu language is also culpable if we are going to talk about the slave trade. But the common link between Swahili, English, French, and Portugese is that they allowed diverse linguistic groups to get along. 

Africa has something in common with Europe and some other places: that is multiple small cultures speaking mutually incomprehensible languages (there's a post about that coming up). So, having a standard common language helps make things run smoothly. It's fun listening to ignorant people talk about language since:

Various colonial powers that ruled on the coast of East Africa played a role in the growth and spread of Swahili. With the arrival of the Arabs in East Africa, they used Swahili as a language of trade as well as for teaching Islam to the local Bantu peoples. This resulted in Swahili first being written in the Arabic alphabet. The later contact with the Portuguese resulted in the increase of vocabulary of the Swahili language. The language was formalised in an institutional level when the Germans took over after the Berlin conference. After seeing there was already a widespread language, the Germans formalised it as the official language to be used in schools. Thus schools in Swahili are called Shule (from German Schule) in government, trade and the court system. With the Germans controlling the major Swahili-speaking region in East Africa, they changed the alphabet system from Arabic to Latin.

I think I've mentioned how many different native languages exist in Africa, but it is a major shitload. And let's add this in for good measure:

But Ms Lankai's classroom at the University of Ghana in the capital, Accra, is some 4,500km (2,800 miles) west of Swahili's birthplace - coastal Kenya and Tanzania.

Dig deeply enough and you will find the major languages owe a lot to colonisation and trade.

And that includes Swahili.

Sources: 

• BBC: Swahili's bid to become a language for all of Africa
• Wikipedia: Swahili language

Could Carnival over take the Mummers?

 Serious question since the Philadelphia Mummer tradition owes a lot to Carnival. Carnival being:

Carnival is a Western Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent.

This question is something I've been asking myself for a while since I heard the Mummer's Parade in Philadelphia was having economic problems.  Carnival It's a big thing in the Caribbean and is called Mardi Gras in the US:

Carnival celebrations, usually referred to as Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday" in French), were first celebrated in the Gulf Coast area, but now occur in many states. Customs originated in the onetime French colonial capitals of Mobile (now in Alabama), New Orleans (Louisiana), and Biloxi (Mississippi), all of which have celebrated for many years with street parades and masked balls.

 So, the two traditions. Carnival and Mummers, have a lot in common. I found this article in Al Dia about another tradition, the San Mateo Carnavalero, linking up with the Mummers

 Up until recently the suggestion that masqueraders of "San Mateo Carnavalero" should  join the long standing and massive parade of the "Mummers" had been nothing more than our suggestion. However recently there was a real rapprochement between multiple local cultural carnivals, all of which had, until then, remained mostly disconnected.

 My opinion, here's a tradition which exists that could join up with other ethnic groups. The Al Dia Article pretty much sums up how I think the Mummers Parade should evolve to become more inclusive. The issue is whether blacks are willing to join their tradition with that from other cultures.

What you miss by being monolingual.

 The US really doesn't have much in the way of a balanced media.

So, it was really refreshing to see this interview with John McWhorter in L'Express: https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/idees-et-debats/john-mcwhorter-avec-sa-croyance-inebranlable-et-son-peche-originel-le-wokisme-est-une-religion_2165058.html

You can find English versions, but the French one is much more cutting about this movement.

You touch on a crucial point. There is certainly a form of theatricality in the way some blacks claim a place, and that can be traced back to simplistic attitudes already in the early 1960s. But I really think that the black American leadership doesn't think about black people as elected officials: it's not part of the black tradition. I think that Black America thinks of itself through a very troubled history, still in the present, and that this idea that Black people should have a certain place is not an egocentric idea, but rather a fear. It comes from the fact that it can be difficult, as a black person, why you exist in the world. The relationship with Africa, it goes back centuries, it doesn't make sense anymore. We are not Africans. What do we have? It is very difficult to think collectively in such a situation. For me, it's very important that we understand this because indeed, this aspect of black activism can be very irritating. But it comes from a deep insecurity. 

I find it interesting that Prof. McWhorter is a professor of Creole Studies and isn't offering the Western Alternative to Africa: Creole culture. The slaves made their own traditions in the Western Hemisphere.

While the narrative is that blacks "were stolen from Africa", the reality is that they were sold into bondage by other Africans (e.g., Mali Empire and Benin). Slavery has been part of African culture from Ancient times. Blaming white people won't change that.

US black culture is also not monolithic as is seen by examples like Prof. McWhorter.

Kwanzaa, Odunde, and what's that other one. Oh, yeah, Juneteenth: Reprise

 I'm sure that people are saying I am a racist because of these posts since they go against what we are told about how race relations SHOULD be in the US.

On the other hand, remember I am a francophone, which has been officially certified by the French government.

I wonder how many of the people calling me a racist listen to Radio France International (RFI)? They might want to since RFI broadcasts in one of the two most commonly spoken languages in Africa: FRENCH! 

TO AFRICA

And the other one is English.

As I said in the previous post:

The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each population generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan populations.

So, having a common language is very helpful, even if those langauges happen to be the "imperialistic" ones, Arabic, Portugese, French, or English.

But another thing which is missing (or things that are missing) when I listen to news by and about Africans? Kwanzaa, Odunde, and what's that other one. Oh, yeah, Juneteenth...

There's a bit of local difficulty and the powers that be toss blacks a bone.

Unfortunately, like the ethnic groups in Africa, US blacks are not a monolithic identity.

I wonder how long it will take for the blacks to realise that maybe the people making the ctiticism might be their best friends. Although, they are probably smart enough to realise they are being pandered to.

Ann Coulter on Kwanzaa

This "holiday" would probably have blown by me except one e-mail  came with "What Kwanzaa Means to Black Americans—Now & Always" in its contents. I said "Kwanzaa has been built up, but I have yet to meet someone who seriously celebrates it other than my ultra liberal Jewish cousin. Get me somebody who is black who celebrates it! I don't know about "African-Americans", but this set of holidays leaves me dry." in a previous post on the topic.

On the other hand, the one e-mail did make me curious as to if this was a popular holiday.

Or just something being foisted on people as a distraction? (annoyance?)

I think I found one authentic site about a couple of black people in the Lehigh Valley trying to promote the "holiday". The rest were from MSM and business pushing it.

On the right, it was pretty much what Ann Coulter says:

Kwanzaa was the result of a ’60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural gibberish that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga’s United Slaves — the violence, the Marxism, the insanity.

I don't think the issue is that people have forgotten anything, the whole story has never been discussed. It's like "Black Lives Matter", which started out as a good thing countering the "stand your groud laws". Now, its become a meaingless slogan to get people to work against their interests.

Kwanzaa, Odunde, and what's that other one. Oh, yeah, Juneteenth

The problem with people who have slave ancestors is that they have no real idea of where they came from short of getting their DNA sequenced: and I'm sure the results would be shocking. That's because the places the slave ships originated were ports where the slaves were brought from the interior for trans-shipment. I'm a Euro-Mutt according to my DNA so pretty much everywhere in Europe, except the Iberian peninsula can be considered my "roots".  In fact, I can't really name a country for a good part of my continental ancestors: only my maternal grandmother's ancestors came from countries (France and Germany). The maternal grandfather were from before the US became independent, so it would be something like Holy Roman Empire or Hanseatic League for the ones who weren't British.

Now, the problem with Africa is that there are lots of different cultures and most blacks who came as slaves came from the West of Africa. So, what to do: create a holiday based on what you believe might be your traditions.

Kwanzaa comes from Swahili, which is an East African language. Swahili is a combination of Bantu, Arabic, and Portugese. These people are too infatuated with Julius Nyerere to realise that Swahili is pretty much a creation of the Arabic Slave trade...

Odunde is probably the better choice if you gotta choose since it is based upon the Yoruba traditions. [1] Yorubas may be one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa, but.

The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each population generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan populations.

That's about like me saying I feel most European when I identify as Kosovan (not to denigrate Kosovars, but that was what came to mind. And I don't particularly feel Kosovan. For that matter, I don't feel particularly German or Eastern European either). I'm a Euro-mutt, but some traditions I have a connection to leave me cold, but since I'm pretty much everything from East of the Iberian Peninsula to West of sort of a line through the Scandanavia, Baltic States, and Poland down to Turkey: I've got a lot of Latitude.,..

But when you don't feel a heritage: go for it.

Then comes JUNETEENTH which is pretty much an obscure event that received a huge build up in 2020 to become forgotten again. While having to do with former American Slaves, it would probably be a good candidate for a holiday. The unfortunate thing is that it only deals with a small population of slaves in Galveston, TX who were told not only had the Civil War ended, but they had supposedly been free for a few years. But celebrating like is like celebrating the end of World War II on the date the Last Japanese soldier holing up waiting for the glorious troops to return makes contact with the rest of the world..

Then again, the US does have this habit of making events that happened after the war ended into a big thing, such as the Battle of New Orleans.

The big issue here is that these events are small things even though there is a rich set of traditions for whatever you want to call this heritage.[2] Kwanzaa has been built up, but I have yet to meet someone who seriously celebrates it other than my ultra liberal Jewish cousin. Get me somebody who is black who celebrates it! I don't know about "African-Americans", but this set of holidays leaves me dry.

I'm pretty sure there must be something out there that could form a holiday and unify black people, but these three aren't great candidates. The problem is that like Europeans, Africans are pretty diverse. Actually, they've got us European beat by a lot in the ethnic diversity department. It's just that the colonisers changed the map to make the nations that now make up Africa. It's like me trying to classify my ancestors who came from what is now a diverse set of European countries.[3]

Footnotes:

[1] Toss in we have moved from East Coast Slave Trade to West Coast Slave Trade.

[2] There is a lot of European in the former slave population gene pool, plus not all people of African descent have slave heritage, and so on.

[3] It's slightly easier for me to choose ethnicity since there are a few "centres of gravity", although at least one of them (Rhineland) has been up for grabs for ages. But even British is up for grabs with not only English, but Welsh, Scots, and Cornish...And that's just a start.

The Ultimate Slam Dunk argument against reparations

I am not a fan of reparations. And I have had enough "black history" to know that the "four hundred years of slavery" is sheer bullshit. Let's start with 1619 as being the beginning date and end with "Juneteenth" in 1865, even though those slaves had been legally free since the Emancipation Declaration in 1863. That's 246 years.

And 155 years ago. And no one is that old.

The years after emancipation saw blacks move from the South in the Great Migration. Blacks had businesses and did well. And some blacks moved west. Some of them even joined the US military.

Which is where this is going to.

Ever hear of the Buffalo Soldiers?

Several African-American regiments were raised during the Civil War as part of the Union Army (including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the many United States Colored Troops Regiments), the "Buffalo Soldiers" were established by Congress as the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army. Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The Buffalo Soldiers were a fairly significant part of the post-Civil War US Army. Buffalo Soldiers comprised 12% of the U.S. Army infantry force and 20% of the cavalry force during the time of the Indian Wars f(1866 to 1891).

And one that engaged in the ethnic cleansing of the first nations during the "Indian Wars".

Now, if you are going to call me racist because of one cop in a place I have never been, then I have to tell you that you are guilty of the ethnic cleansing of the US Native American from their land. You also engaged in the Imperialist Spanish American War and Pancho Villa's rebellion.

If I am guilty, then you are guilty.

So, get in line because you ain't getting your payout until the Native Americans get their more than well deserved reparations. Native American women are disappearing while you are chanting "Black Lives Matter". Their sacred water is being polluted. Yet no one is bending a knee for the Native Americans.

Can't stop thinking about reparations

Let's start with:

A 2016 Marist poll found 58% of black Americans were in favour of reparations, while 81% of white Americans opposed the idea. A 2018 Data for Progress survey also found reparations to be unpopular among the general public, and especially so among white Americans.

Being opposed to a cash payout reparations tends to push the number up even higher.

Bayard Rustin, who organised the March on Washington and was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr, called reparations a "ridiculous idea".Mr Rustin told the New York Times in 1969, "If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he's dead and gone and nobody owes me anything".He later expanded on the views, writing that a payout would demean "the integrity of blacks" and exploit white guilt.

The issue here being time at least five generations of US blacks have been free (i.e. were slaves). Sure we can talk about the discrimination in the South, but what do you do with a Kay Coles James or a Madam C.J. Walker? The name Pat McGrath came up during this search.

You don't need a white person to debate this issue since I know that blacks have opinions on the topics, but Ta-Nehisi Coates found a great topic to grab some attention. Unfortunately most of the talk is divided by race. It would be nice if some conservative blacks weighed in on the topic.

Coates mentioned debt, which is one thing which started me thinking about this topic. The Western Countries wrote off Africa's debt back in 2005, but the countries are now worse than they were BEFORE the write offs. While the reasons are different, the bottom line is the same:

Unless something is changed the debt will return worse than before. 

In other words, people can throw as much money as they want at a problem, but fuck all will happen unless the underlying causes are addressed.

On problem with the US is the myth of abundance, in particular and abundance of land so that rich people can move out of the cities. That means the cities are left to decay (I blame most of Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw's problems on the industry the built those cities: the automobile).

Mr. Coates needs to integrate himself since there are poor whites living in those places. Of familiarise himself with Fred Hampton who understood the issue 50 years ago.

I wouldn't say that whites are better off economically by looking at a graph. I am no where near a Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or other 1% than Ta-Nehisi Coates is to Pat McGrath. And Pat McGrath still doesn't raise the income of poor blacks. On the other hand, those people skew the numbers when you look at averages. The average white person in Appalachia is in no way affluent.


There's a lesson in here somewhere, but I think that reparations will fail when it comes down to it.  it's something that sounds intriguing, but is doomed to failure if anyone tries to implement it.

A guess on why Slavery, Indentured Servitude, and Transportation aren't properly discussed in the US

It makes people uncomfortable to think that someone's ancestors didn't come to the US willingly. Slavery, indentured servitude, and transportation run against the narrative of people coming here for the "American Dream". Unless you mean the American Dream of someone else who receives cheap labour.

The US is far too in love with its national myth of opportunity and unlimited resources. The narrative runs that people come to the United States because they can work hard and enjoy the benefits. The reality has been that people work hard and someone else gets the benefits.

Tell someone who wants to know your ancestors immigration story that they came over in chains as a slave and they get all uncomfortable.

And Transportation is something no one is willing to talk about, but I would scream out my convict heritage like an Aussie boasts about being an ancestor of the first fleet if I found out one was in my family tree. But people also get really uncomfortable when they find out that a lot of pre-Independence immigrants were felons.

Bottom line is that unwilling immigrants aren't what people want to hear about.

I'll admit I am a confused white guy when it comes to reparations.

Another big issue with this topic is that there is also no consensus on the Black (?) or African American (?) side. Case in point, Kay Coles James is President of The Heritage Foundation. She is also a black woman, and a Republican, which can cause some people's head to explode if they wish to believe that gender or race influences their opinion.

Where this comes in is in terms of conservative black people, which sounds like a contradiction in terms (sort of like Very religious Jews siding with conservative Christians in the US).

It is also the exception which proves the rule ("prove" meaning "tests") in that she is a black woman with a highly impressive CV going by the write up here: https://www.heritage.org/staff/kay-coles-james.

I'll mention Candace Owen, but that's it.

OK, Black Conservatives are definitely NOT on the same page as Ta-Nehisi Coates, or even me. But they do raise the question is it racism or is the issue something else which reparations aren't really going to address.

Part of the reason I mention Kay Coles James is that she is a black woman from a southern, former slave state who has done well in society.  Perhaps that is due to when she grew up.

On the other hand, this white guy, who was born in Detroit has had his own share of eating 50 cent burritos and being leveraged to the hilt with debt during periods of unemployment.

Is that my white privilege at work?

Anyway, the black conservative opinion on this topic runs like this:

Perhaps we should remember the legacy of a former slave who rose up from slavery to advise presidents – Booker T. Washington – who never asked for reparations. Washington preached dignity through work – to become so skilled that you earned respect. “Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work,” he said. That’s what pulled Washington up from slavery. It doesn’t have to work for just one man.

My point isn't that I don't think that slavery was bad or that there is no discrimination, but there is more than one opinion. Likewise, the past 160 odd years have changed the playing field to make this a very complex issue to address.

The bottom line is that any reparations may not be monetary: they may be more symbolic.  Something to make people feel good about historic events which we must acknowledge, but cannot change.

Slavery, Indentured Servitude, Transportation, and reparations

There is a reason why the topics of slavery, indentured servitude, and transportation are neglected: because one of the United States' many myths is the myth of the immigrant coming because of the American promise. People arriving against their will goes against that myth. Someone boasts how their ancestors came for the opportunities found in the US has to deal with the fact that segments of the population arrived against their will.

Slave ships and auctions are the antithesis of Ellis Island, which is probably another myth as well.

But slavery, or people as commercial objects, is an integral part of US immigration law. The US has jus soli because of slavery and Dred Scott. The Fourteenth Amendment was a result of slavery. It haunts immigration policy because anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen: no matter whether their parents were lawfully present in the country.

There is the indignation by some people about children being placed in "cages", yet those are the holding cells used by the police in the US.  Now, how would those people feel about people who arrived in this country chained together?

I am not going to get into a debate about people who are lawfully present or not, but treating migrant workers as property for the benefit of others leads to terrible consequences. Sure, there should be a process to allow workers into the country if there happens to be a lack of workers: but is there no unemployment in the US?

Bottom line, the US has a love of exploiting workers, which is a big part of the discussion. And that fact is highly uncomfortable.

See also:

• Why Schools Fail To Teach Slavery's 'Hard History'
• Indentured Servants: Stafford Hall
• Mary Sarah Bilder, Struggle over Immigration: Indentured Servants, Slaves, and Articles of Commerce, The, 61 Mo. L. Rev. (1996) Available at: http://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol61/iss4/1 
• America Cannot Bear to Bring Back Indentured Servitude

Glasgow University and its "programme of restorative justice".

The major problem with talking about reparations, besides the time factor, is what form would they take? Glasgow Univerity found that donations to the 1866-1880 campaign to build the university's current campus at Gilmorehill incluided 23 people who gave money which had some financial links to the New World slave trade. "Some financial links" is an interesting term: especially since the period in question includes the 18th and 19th Centuries.

The Abolition of Slave Trade Act, which made it illegal to trade slaves throughout the British Empire and banned British ships from involvement in the trade, was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807. Britain officially ended trading slaves on 1 March 1808 (the slave trade still went on illegally for some time). Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, with exceptions provided for the East India Company, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. Those exceptions were eliminated in 1843. Slavery was still practised in the United States until the end of the US Civil War in 1865.

While illegal, slavery is still practised in the world, which is something any serious discussion of this topic needs to include. Likewise, slavery took many different forms. Both issues are something that any realistic discussion of this topic needs to address.

Glasgow University isn't the only academic institution in United Kingdom to look into how it profited from the slave economy. Yet Glasgow University also points out that it supported abolition. So, there were two aspects of this. The University "profited" from the slave trade while condemning that trade.

On the other hand, "restorative justice" seems to be looking into the system of forced labour, which I hope includes people who went as "indentured servants" or were transported for "criminal offences".

Anyway, it sounds as if the real outcome of this will indeed be to promote discussion of the topic, which has pretty much been buried in both the US and UK. we could get into a debate about which culture has minimised the role of slavery in its development. Slavery did indeed contribute greatly to the prosperity of those countries, along with western society.

I think the bottom line is that any "reparations" or "restorative justice" is likely to come in the form of an acknowledgement of the role of slavery in Western Society, not monetary. Maybe there might be some social reforms, but I wouldn't be too hopeful about that.

 But addressing this topic in a candid and honest way might indeed be the best course of action for any 'restorative justice".

See also:

• As Glasgow University owns up to slavery wealth, others urged to follow
• Glasgow University's 'bold' move to pay back slave trade profits
• Glasgow University to pay £20m in slave trade reparations