It’s not a Black or White thing…..

So sang Red Head Kingpin and the FBI, and I’m sure most people remember Spike Lee’s similarly titled movie (the song was supposed to be used in the film but wasn’t, not that anyone really gives a fuck). I don’t think any phrase spoken about the issue of slavery, racism, or just general black/white relations has condensed the issue so superficially precisely. You see, it is not a black or white thing, it has never been a black or white thing.

This article is not a defence of slavery. Nothing ever could be. Additionally, the argument about judging people because of the period of history in which they live is fallacious at best and downright racist apologism at its worst. There are two simple ways to prove that:

Slaving Away

1. Do the enslaving people (the slave masters) have a word(s) for freedom and ‘free men’? If so, then they know slavery is wrong because they make a linguistic distinction between free people and slaves.
2. Do the enslaving people try and avoid slavery themselves – or more particularly who are their slaves? If the slaves are from conquered peoples or defeated enemies, then they know slavery is wrong. That’s why they enslaved them.

It really is as simple as that. Slavery has been around since we learnt how to subjugate and control our fellow human beings. There have been periods where various cultures have played around with the concept, most notably during medieval Europe where serfdom became popular during the Feudal period, where average peasants became tied to the land under a feudal lord. These peasants were not allowed to leave the lands upon which they lived and were required to provide food and labour to their resident lord – amongst other more outrageous demands. Effectively, this was slavery under a different name. And serfdom lasted until the late 19^th Century in Russia!

A form of slavery continues to exist in parts of the world today, most notably in certain parts of Africa and the Middle East – of course our Arab loving leaders will never criticise the Gulf States for their behaviour, and we even gave one of them the Football World Cup™.

They use indentured labour, primarily from the Indian sub-continent, to build their massive construction projects. These men (they are always men) are kept in poor conditions, work in fatal (yes fatal) environmental conditions, are paid peanuts, and are unable to leave their employer or the country and return home. That by another name is slavery, just like European serfdom.

But let’s get back to the topic at hand. New World slavery and modern race relations. African slaves were brought en masse to the Americas to work the abundant fields growing cotton, tobacco, coffee, and sugar; and those crops were pretty much the extent of it. The desire for these crops in a modernising Europe was almost like nothing ever before seen. Before the industrialisation of farming there was only one way to grow the number of crops needed to meet demand, manual labour, and lots of it.

Given the lack of available labour in the Americas – local ‘peasant’ populations were still quite low relative to the rest of the world, and the heat in much of these agricultural areas was not amenable to white Europeans working long days in the sun – there was really only one solution: slaves. Preferably black Africans.

The reasons were multiple. They were strong. They were used to the heat and humidity. They were cheap – once purchased you could actually breed more! Let that last part just sink for a minute. And they were black. They were considered lesser – although much of the racial superiority arguments came later to justify the continuing aberration of keeping human beings as nothing more than chattel.

Serfs Up Baby

While the slave owners of America grew rich on the backs of slaves there was another side to the Atlantic trade; literally on the other side. Once the Industrial Revolution took hold in Britain the need for goods became ever more pronounced, as did the need for labour of their own. Factories needed workers, and as most of the workers were on the lands tilling the soil for the wealthy landowners – a long standing consequence of serfdom – they needed to get them off the land and into the factory.

To achieve this a whole bunch of quite nefarious things took place. In effect, people were cleared off the land and various legal measures were taken (see the Enclosures Acts). People were forced to work in horrendous conditions, mostly six days a week, 12 hours a day (electric lighting at the end of the 1800s actually worsened working conditions because the lighting made longer hours possible – fuck you Edison).

To house them large estates were built with small, cramped houses often housing up to 8-10 people in two bedrooms. There was no sewerage or running water. The new factories began to churn out pollution that blackened the skies, burnt the lungs, and shortened the lives of generations of British ‘subjects’¹ (at this stage they were almost all British factories). Millions of British families were moved from the countryside, with fresh air, greenery all around, and a reasonably healthy and physical lifestyle, to a monotonous, unhealthy, soul destroying one working in factories.

They were not slaves. They were paid. They were free to go – if they had somewhere to go, and many left to pursue their dreams in the many colonies of Britain, or in America, although not always voluntarily. They came and went freely, so to speak, to the New World, a choice that their black kindred spirits did not.

Serfing USA

Kindred spirits? What the fuck dude? Yes, they were. This is the actual crux of the issue. Of the problems we still face today. Both groups were victims. The average white Britain lived in squalor, in many cases up until the Second World War, and in some cases still that way today – there are also slaves in Britain today, hidden, trafficked by Eastern European and Asian gangs, and not just sex slaves. Many live today in the same conditions that Black Americans find themselves in. Ghettos are not unique to America. And for the same reasons; they were both victims of unfettered capitalism.

There was a reason that Marx and Engels wrote their Communist Manifesto in 1848. There was a reason why there were multiple revolutions across Europe following that. But not in America or Britain – at least not class revolutions. The Europeans weren’t industrialised, not really, and so they had a simple Aristocracy v the Peasants thing going on. Rich v Poor. Easy to pick a side; depending what side you were already on.

The industrialised and capitalised nations had a dilemma. They had masses of poor white people, and, in America at least, masses of really fucking poor black people, newly liberated from the bounds which held them. Here in lies the problem and the genius of the solution – if you’re a sociopathic capitalist pig. The threat to the ruling elites of America was quite clear. If the revolutions beginning in Europe showed the power of the masses, the Civil War had taught many about the potentiality of uprisings. There was a powder keg sitting under the newly emancipated America and someone needed to defuse it.

The Elitist Dilemma

The answer was simple. Nineteenth Century science had provided some of the answers by seemingly proving that Black people were genetically inferior and therefore should not be afforded the same rights as whites – this was the beginning of Social Darwinism; one of the many downsides of Darwin’s theory.

Black people would need jobs, now that they weren’t slaves, and the easiest way to get them? Easy. Take the poor white dudes’ jobs. Blacks were fitter, stronger, used to backbreaking labour. They would also presumably take less money. Fuck man, one dollar is more than a slave earns, right?

So, you start telling all the poor white folk that the black man is coming for their job, maybe even their women. That allows the rich white man to keep labour cheap – simple supply and demand – it allows them to instigate laws that keep the blacks down and, in their place – remember rich white folk still need their help too; for the same reasons all the rich white folk in Texas and California need illegal Mexican migrants today. It enshrines in law, and socially, all the same conditions that benefitted all the wealthy capitalists in both the North and South of the United States.

Black or White: Us and Them

This subtle social engineering is predicated on the ‘Us and Them’ mentality. It encouraged racism from the poor whites – those at threat of the freed black population – and encouraged dependency from the blacks. Take what you can boy cause you’re just lucky you’re free, oh and we’re protecting you from all that dirty white trash. Wages stay low. Job competition is high. Profits stay large. And the ruling classes continue to rule as before. It was an extension of the ‘know your place’ system that feudalism entrenched.

Yes, things have improved, somewhat. More people have been lifted out of poverty than ever before. Labour Unions have helped – unless we talk police unions, then maybe not so good, oh and teaching unions. But let’s not pretend there is anything here except massive capitalist exploitation. We could demand better pay. We could demand better working conditions. Free healthcare. Free education. Demand that the rich pay their taxes – I fucking well pay mine your fascist fucking pieces of shit. But do we really?

No. Of course not. They keep outsmarting us. We keep arguing amongst ourselves. Fighting over gender politics, climate change, immigration, race, and now vaccination status. We know who the real bad guys are, they are the people that have exploited all of us for centuries. And now they have – somehow, maybe a conspiracy even – managed to set the extreme right, and the extreme left, against each other and have caught us up in the middle of it all.

Black or White, don’t spend your life being a colour…

The issue of the day is not race. It is not whether black people are equal (if this requires explanation then perhaps this article is not for you). The issue is the divisive politics and society in which we now live. It was conceived by the elites but implemented by us. We are to blame. All of us. Black and white (and every shade in between). We have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked. I don’t fear black people. Black people should not fear white people. We need to turn that fear on its head. The elites should fear us.

If a person, no matter who that person is, whispers in your ear, or screams from the rooftops, that white people are racist, or evil, or that black people are criminals, and lesser humans, they are not your friend. They are the evil ones. They are working to sow dissension. They are doing the work of those that put us here today – even if they don’t even realise it. Do not listen to them. Tell them to take their hatred and vitriol shove it so far up their ass it’ll make their eyeballs twitch.

Don’t allow them any longer to pit black against white. We need to stand together, all colours, we are all human beings. We all want the same thing. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants a roof over their head. Everyone wants a full belly. Everyone wants security, of life, property, for their loved ones. Everyone needs a purpose. These are universal. We all want the same thing. Let us all work together to achieve that.

Remember try to do the right thing!

1^ Until relatively recently (like in the last couple of decades) British citizens were referred to as ‘subjects’ due to their ‘subjugation’ before the monarchy. I have old passports that refer to me by that very title and I’m not that old!