Black History Month: Debunking the 10 biggest myths about black history
OPINION - Here at theGrio, we thought we'd kick off February the right way by debunking the 10 biggest myths about Black History Month...
7. Slavery was not a dehumanizing institution – it was just work for free, so blacks should get over it.
See number 6. Slavery was brutal and dehumanizing. To say that torture, kidnap, rape and murder are not dehumanizing is to live in a world of make-believe. As the master’s property, blacks had no rights under the law, and could be beaten, raped or otherwise abused without recourse. As Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a slave owner, wrote in the Dred Scott case, blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
Slaves were not allowed to learn to read or write, and were forbidden to legally marry. They had no parental rights regarding their children, and separation of families occurred without recourse. Further, black folks had to work the fields six days a week from sun-up until sundown, from “can’t-see morning” until “can’t-see night.”
We haven’t even discussed the Middle Passage, the dreaded transatlantic slave ship journey from Africa to the Americas. An estimated 10 to 16 million Africans were stolen and transported against their will across the Atlantic. Although we will never have an accurate count, according to conservative estimates, for every 100 Africans that reached the New World, 40 to 50 percent died either during the death marches to the slave forts following their kidnap in Africa, or during the disease-ridden 60-90 day journey in the bowels of slave ships.
And speaking of working for free, slavery created an enormous wealth advantage for whites. Moreover, the badge of slavery continues to haunt African-Americans today in the form of economic discrimination, higher interest rates for mortgages, redlining and employment practices. Public policy has prevented blacks from accumulating property and wealth, and the federal government reneged on its promise to compensate blacks by giving every freedman 40 acres and a mule.
Moreover, blacks continue to suffer disproportionately in the bad economy. The wealth gap between whites and blacks >more than quadrupled from 1984 and 2007. In addition, the slashing of public sector jobs has plunged many blacks into poverty, and the recession wiped out black wealth and with it the black middle class.
