"The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation"

[LincolnToddFan]

Kate-

No I don't pity you at all. I actually agree with your first paragraph.Self-hatred and self rejection were probably a big part of the slave mentality.(Not for all,of course) But they did not come to this country hating themselves and I doubt they were born hating themselves. The idea that they were an inferior, debased race was bred into them over time and became an accepted way of thinking about themselves.

How can it have been otherwise? Their owners and political leaders told them so. Their pastors told them so, and backed up their statements with Scripture. This self-hatred that some AA's had for themselves has been carried over into our own time. Listen to the lyrics of contemporary rap music-if you can stand to, that is. I can't. Listen to how many of the most successful AA comedians and regular people call one another the N-word.(That word and it's use among Black people is a rather complex subject. Blacks can and do use it as a term of solidarity and affection among themselves. But that's a whole different topic. For the most part it's degrading no matter who uses it, Black or White. And it started with American slavery)

Black self-hatred is manifested in the appalling Black-on-Black crime statistics, the self-defeating victimization of out of wedlock births, and the disproportionate numbers of young AA's who perform poorly in school. (I vividly remember being bullied and harassed as a schoolgirl because I "talked White" and was too bookish.) There is a devastating comedy routine done by Chris Rock where he advises all residents of the ghetto who fear being robbed to hide their valuables in bookcases because "books are like Kryptonite to a n----r". It's not only hilarious, it's sad and it's true..

I'm bringing all this up not in a spirit of "blame the White guy...it's all his fault because of slavery!" Nothing could be further from the truth. When I remember Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, MLK, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bloody Sunday and the Edmund Pettus Bridge at Selma, and all that symbolized...and then drive down the street and see young, barely literate AA men running around with their pants around their knees I think those people must be spinning in their graves. And I want to weep.

But it didn't begin in a vacuum. It started with Blacks being conditioned to hate themselves.