The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Written by Himself was published in 1845. In this work, Douglass openly criticizes those who support slavery and those who idealize it, often using sharp irony.
One myth perpetuated by Southern slave owners and their advocates was that of slaves joyfully singing from dawn to dusk while working in the fields, cooking in the kitchens, or tending to the plantation's maintenance. The government of the time sanctioned heinous acts against chattel slaves, including rape, torture, child molestation, mutilation, starvation, abduction, blinding, crippling, forced incest, imprisonment, and even cannibalism. Those who brandished the Confederate flag must have experienced profound cognitive dissonance to commit the atrocities that many slaveholders were responsible for.
Currently, there are organizations that, akin to those who have previously rewritten American history, now seek to obliterate it entirely. Their aim appears to be to obscure the historical truth of African Americans' enslavement by glorifying the white individuals who committed the spiritual and moral transgressions of chattel slavery, though not through legislation. Ironically, despite the abundance of movies and entertainment narratives about slavery, the majority of Americans remain largely uninformed about the subject.
McGraw-Hill Education faced criticism when Roni Dean-Burren, a Texas high school freshman's mother, posted a photo from her son's geography textbook. The book described the slave trade as having "brought millions of workers" to the U.S. from the 1500s to the 1800s. However, equating "workers" with slaves is inaccurate; slavery is not employment, and kidnapping does not constitute job migration.
Slave rebellions and resistance served as forms of opposition to the chattel slavery system in the United States. The oppressive, barbaric, and bloody nature of slavery limited the ways in which most slaves could openly rebel or resist. Herbert Aptheker noted that "few phases of ante-bellum Southern life and history were untouched by the fear of, or the actual occurrence of, militant concerted slave action." Compared to other slave-holding societies, slave rebellions in the United States were minor and scattered, partly due to the conditions that disadvantaged southern slaves, such as their numerical inferiority in the early days of the republic. Nevertheless, the persistent dread of revolts like the Stono Rebellion, the Seminole Wars, the Haitian Revolution, the Maroons of Jamaica, and Nat Turner's rebellion escalated the cruelty and lethal responses to the enslaved's attempts at freedom.
The effects of slavery on African culture were huge. The slaves had to forsake their true nature to become servants to Anglo Americans. And yet, even though they were forbidden from practicing anything that related to their African culture and heritage, the native Africans kept it and their languages alive in America. One important way of doing this was through folk tales, which the African slaves used as a way of recording their experiences. These stories were retold in secret, with elements adapted to their enslaved situation, adding in elements of freedom, hope and guardianship of nature.
African Americans' spiritual beliefs and practices were central to the worlds they crafted within the confines of the slave plantation. Historian Colin A. Palmer notes, "Blacks who were settled in large groups on adjacent plantations or farms could engage with each other and develop a shared culture rooted in core beliefs and assumptions. This setting facilitated the emergence of a black American identity while also preserving much of their African heritage."
Slavery from an ancient African perspective then and now is in complete opposition to the Eurocentric perspective of conquering nature regardless of its fallout effects on the future of the land and its uses. Even today "If modern slaves were a country, they would be the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, after China and the United States. Concurrently, anthropogenic changes to the global ecosystem have significant impacts on human life, creating vulnerability and displacement that drive modern slavery. This circular relationship is explored through the interaction of contemporary slavery with multiple anthropogenic processes recognized as “planetary boundaries.” It is a key assertion that the study of human rights (and slavery in particular), and the study of anthropogenic impacts, have been falsely seen as distinct and separate issues." (Kevin Bales,Ben Sovacool 2021 Creative Commons)
Of the conservatively speaking sixteen million Africans who survived the voyage to the New World, more than one-third landed in Brazil and between 60 and 70 percent ended up in Brazil or the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. Only 6 percent arrived in what is now the United States. Singing folksongs was a tradition that served as entertainment or as a way to have rhythm during their work in the fields. After all, tradition is what kept the enslaved sane. Their African culture not only gave them the strength to fight for another day, but it provided solace too. African environmental philosophy renounces anthropocentrism and promotes a holistic view of the world and life. It is reflected on folk narratives like Br'er Rabbit, Fox and Bear. It is strong in the African roots that created American country music, the blues. and Appalachian Mountain music, and Yoruba influenced Hoodoo culture.
The youth of Africa and The United States are leading the charge for climate justice in the face of the unprecedented challenge of the climate crisis. Trusha Reddy, head of energy and climate justice at the WoMin African Alliance, emphasizes that climate justice is closely tied to historical injustices. Climate change not only perpetuates but also worsens current inequalities. As it becomes increasingly clear that inaction is the worst response to man-made climate change, nations that pay the least attention to it will ultimately bear the brunt of its consequences.
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