A Liberal Dose, November 2, 2023 "Why the True History of Slavery and Race Matters Today"

 

A Liberal Dose

November 2, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Why the True History of Slavery and Race Matters Today”

 

I have been talking about the origins of slavery in America. In part, I’ve been doing so because there is a lot about that subject that most people don’t know -and our current political climate, especially in red states like ours, suppresses honest discussion and true understanding of the subject. You can’t understand the present without understanding the past, nor can you effectively build the future, and some people would rather you not do any of those things. Their strategy for controlling the present and shaping the future is controlling your ability to know the past.

That said. For roughly the first century of the English colonies, labor in the South was done by three groups: African slaves, white indentured servants, and American Indian slaves. For reasons discussed last week, by about 1720 it had become exclusively the task of African slaves. Southern colonies started passing laws to keep even free blacks separate from poor whites, the better to control them both and avoid a replay of Bacon’s Rebellion.

Those laws became, in fits and spurts, more and more restrictive as the eighteenth century progressed. Every time there was a failed slave revolt, or word was leaked of a planned one, Southern colonial legislatures passed more laws exerting ever more control over the black population, free and slave alike. Free blacks lost most of the rights they had possessed the previous century, and slavery became harsher and harsher. This continued after the Revolution and into the nineteenth century. Race was simultaneously defined by LAW, and shaped by custom. This was a way for the planter class -who controlled the economy and the politics -to tell poor white workers and farmers, “Hey, you may not have any money or access to education or many opportunities in life, but you are white like us and we are all on the same side. You are not like those OTHER people... so stop hanging around with them. They are inferior to US.” This was a way to both delude the white “lower classes” and keep them from turning on the powers that be, and to protect the institution of slavery which was making the elites rich.

I’ll return to the cookie analogy I’ve used often. Picture three guys sitting around a table: a black guy, a poor white guy, and a rich white guy. There are ten cookies at the table. The rich guy has eight and the other two each have one. The rich guy tells the poor white guy, “You’d better watch that black guy, he wants to steal your cookie.” And while the poor white guy and the black guy are watching each other, neither notices that the rich guy now has ALL the cookies. Or, as Lyndon Johnson put it, “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

This was done to maintain the social status quo, and keep the empowered in power. And it worked. Thousands and thousands of poor white Southerners who had never owned a slave and never would fought and died to protect the institution that only benefited the people at the top. And when that war ended slavery in America, the same economic/political class leaned in heavier than ever on reinforcing racism in order to hold on to that control -and that worked, too.

Today many Americans -95% or more of them white, I would guess -want to gloss over all the history I have laid out these last few weeks, because they think it makes America look bad… and because they want people to stop complaining about racial injustice, because doing so is a “divisive concept.” “Let’s forget it and move on.” But “forgetting” it (or never learning it in the first place) only further cements it.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

 

A Liberal Dose, May 25, 2023 "Tear Down the Walls of Division"

 

A Liberal Dose

May 25, 2023

Troy D. Smith

“Tear down the walls of division”

 

My 9^th grade civics teacher (also 11^th grade history teacher), Burl Johnson, was also a county commissioner and deeply patriotic. This was in the ‘80s, when -as had been true for well over a century -White County was overwhelmingly Democratic. Mr. Johnson said on several occasions that “the Republicans stand for the rich man, and the Democrats stand for the working man.” We’ll skip over the fact he shouldn’t have been making political preference statements in the classroom. My dad used to say the same thing, as did a lot of people around the country. This was especially true during the Depression when FDR was president, pushing through all those social safety net laws, which is probably why, in 2016, people in their 90s (who remembered FDR) were more likely to support Bernie Sanders than Clinton or Trump.

Now, I’ve known (and still know) a lot of wealthy people who were incredibly kind, empathetic, and giving people. Heck, FDR and JFK came from very wealthy backgrounds. Conversely, there are very rich Democrats who give a lot of money to politicians. So you can’t paint people with broad strokes. But, by and large, I agree with the past words of Burl Johnson and my dad: the Republican Party tends to benefit the wealthiest one percent way more than the middle or working class. The kind of wealthy people my grandma referred to as “the big shots.”

This hearkens back to my very first entry in this column two years ago, about Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 Virginia. The poor white folks, free black folks, and runaway slaves all came together to rebel against the colonial elites and it was barely suppressed. Southern colonies then began to pass laws meant to divide white workers from black ones, and pit them against each other. The implicit promise the elites gave to poor whites was “stick on our side, you’re one of us, we’re better than THEM.” The Populist movement of the 1890s made some temporary cracks in that dividing wall, as did FDR’s New Deal.

More bricks were put in the wall, though, first by Nixon and then by Reagan (look up “the Southern Strategy”, or Reagan’s speeches about “young bucks” and “welfare queens”). Republicans inundated the white middle-and-working class with “others” to be scared of, and have only ramped it up in recent years. As LBJ said, this was a tactic to distract them so they didn’t notice their pocket was being picked. Remember all that stuff I wrote about the white middle class feeling abandoned and betrayed beginning in the 90s? That was because of Republican economic policies -but there were GOP politicians and pundits constantly giving them other people to blame. People who were different. “Black people want to live off your tax money!” “Immigrants want to take your jobs!” “LGBTQ people are… are wearing dresses!”

Many liberals have done themselves no favors by appearing to drip with contempt at the “backwardness” of the working class. They, too, have added some bricks to that wall. Not NEARLY as many as Republicans, true, but bricks nonetheless… reinforcing the idea that liberals think the white working class is stupid and evil, which only pushes them farther into the camp of those who are using them.

Drag queens, immigrants, and minorities are neither hurting you nor holding you down. Billionaires whose only concern is making more money (and keeping it all)… that’s who is behind your economic woes. Your other woes are only imagined -exaggerated fears planted in your mind to keep you voting against your own real interests.

Farmers, factory workers, immigrants, minorities… and yes, LGBTQ people (drag queens included), and wealthy people with a social conscience like the Roosevelts and Kennedys …no matter their color or race… should all be on the same side. Against the big shots, the real elites, trying to keep everyone else down so they can make one more buck. THEY are the “dividers.”

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE