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Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

#145: Apr. - June 2016 (Non-Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery


Please use this thread for discussing Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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I picked up a free pdf of this book at pink monkey, and will comment on some of the surprising points in it.
the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. This I say, not to justify slavery- on the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.
Hindsight is so very different from foresight. When people are engaged in something new and unprecedented, such as the settlement of America, their actions tend to be bounded more by what is possible and practical than by what is good and moral. Since there is nothing to stop exploitation, exploitation will happen. Only when the consequences of an evil practice become apparent does a social regulation arise to extirpate it. Such was the case for slavery.

Booker T’s comment here is that the blacks of the USA are obviously much better off than the blacks of Africa. Black Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e ... me#By_race have a median annual household income of $37,000, while in Sub Saharan Africa, the per capita average income is below $2000 per year. http://data.worldbank.org/region/SSA On the whole, the institutional framework of the USA has enabled African Americans to prosper, despite the ongoing racism and deprivation.

Just as a general comment, one of the dog whistle signals sent by fundamentalists who swear by the Ten Commandments is that the most important commandment is God’s endorsement of slavery, with the injunction not to covet thy neighbor’s slave. By this mentality, a “neighbor” is a man who owns property, and all other people are his possessions.

Aristotle said in The Politics slavery would exist until the looms could run themselves http://eugesta.recherche.univ-lille3.fr ... 2_2012.pdf The industrial revolution partially proved this true as far as the grand institution of the antebellum was concerned. But slavery is hardly gone with the wind. There are more slaves alive today than ever before. http://www.freetheslaves.net/about-slav ... ery-today/
The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means confined to the Negro. This was fully illustrated by the life upon our own plantation. The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white people.
Another really interesting observation. The aristocratic status of slave owners produced a distortion of values regarding work. But I think there is another side to this, namely that it is a fact that the work of ideas is inherently more valuable than manual labour.
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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Few people who were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education. As I have stated, it was a whole race trying to go to school. Few were too young, and none too old, to make the attempt to learn.
For American slaves, the power of writing was a real tangible force that enabled their subjugation and also enabled white wealth. This visibility of education spurred the desire to share in it. By contrast in Africa, the valuing of education is still much lower, perhaps due to the absence of a whole social stratum which demonstrates the power of learning as exists with the whites of the USA.

The yearning for learning among ex-slaves may indicate idealism about the potential for social transformation. It will be interesting to see how Booker T explores the tensions that crept into this early optimism.


http://thisisafrica.me/who-taught-you-t ... dark-skin/ discusses from an African perspective the problems arising from the pervasive idea that lighter is better (particularly if it comes with European, rather than African, features). This fits the political metaphysics of colonialism whereby “Part of the process of creating a European empire was to define the European self in contrast to everyone else. How could you justify dominating and enslaving other people if you didn’t tell yourself you were better in every way?”
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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Project Gutenberg has a version of "Up From Slavery" as well.

I enjoy reading histories. So far, chapters 1 through 3 have been pretty good. (IMO) I always enjoy stories of perseverance, determination and hard work. Booker, like many others, demonstrates the value of self-determination.

I am reading UFS as a companion to Ken Stamps' "The Peculiar Institution" . I'm not so much interested in the degradation and cruelties of slavery as much as how the hole damn mess came to be in the first place. Its like the colonist's made the whole thing up as they went along, The invention of racism along side regulation and defining what slavery was to be. The Birth of the USA and slavery were conjoined. Booker T seems to have recognized this and held little in the way of a public grudge.

The constitution of the U.S. put no obstacles in the path of slavery, allowing it to be a matter for individual states to regulate, The citizens of those states took full advantage.

One disturbing fact is states being added to the union, it was done in pairs, one where slavery was legal and one where it was not, this was done so that no side gained an advantage over the other. California when added to the union was required to send one senator who was pro-slavery and one who was against.
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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Very interesting posts. Thanks guys
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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The very fact that the white boy is conscious that, if he fails in life, he will disgrace the whole family record, extending back through many generations, is of tremendous value in helping him to resist temptations. The fact that the individual has behind and surrounding him proud family history and connection serves as a stimulus to help him to overcome obstacles when striving for success.
In this comment from Chapter 2, Booker T illustrates his respect for conservative tradition, and seems to indicate his dismay at how delinquency and family destruction serve to undermine black advancement. It remains a relevant story today, with the capacity to hold a family together under even greater strain, and relatively few having the type of family heritage and pride and connection and stability that Booker so admires.

A big part of this conservative framework is the role of men, serving as sources of advice and role models for boys. For only if the father takes the time and effort and has the vision to explain to his son what he has learned about family heritage and good values will these stories be kept alive. Personal example is a key.

This sort of opinion is why Booker T is reviled among the left, for his refutation of their opinions denigrating the importance of family values. For left wing opinion, i his plain morality of respect and hard work even in difficult circumstances serves as the source of real progress, built upon tradition.

With the idea of progress now largely captured by social justice warriors who deprecate the role of the family and see an ever larger role for state functionaries as the source of wisdom, this line about pride in historical identity, as something whites have more than blacks in his opinion, helps to put detail into the often vague concept of family values.

The traumatic destruction of identity involved in slavery has been a massive source of delinquency, crime, resentment, confusion and incoherence in American society. Booker is arguing that blacks can rise above this conditioning of social destiny. Pride is not restricted to the wealthy, and is not helped by bitterness at one’s social station.

He was well aware that many blacks saw mobilizing the power of the state as the only way to redress the social imbalance of structural injustice that keeps them poor. But while eager to maintain a policy dialogue with governments, this comment suggests he came from a very different view on the relative importance of state and society, seeing the institution of the family as central to civil progress, in view of the personal care and attention that parents of both sexes must provide to give their children the best chance of success in the world. He rose above his fatherless illiterate chattelhood to become free, and suggests this hard path is one that others can benefit from too, rather than the talismanic invocation of social justice as a secular political religion.

The moral theme he mentions of resistance of temptation is about the virtue of self control and ability to delay gratification. This ability has been identified in longitudinal social studies as a key determinant in success in life. Patience, discipline, diligence, vision, planning, respect; all these moral values require active nurture and cultivation and are not present simply by genetic endowment.

It is the social order of white society that Booker admires, despite its great flaws such as the damage slavery does to the owners. This focus on values illustrates why redistribution alone will not create an equal society, which instead requires conversation about the factors causing delinquency and how they can be overcome.

Further, this moral value of pride and discipline explained here by Booker T as a foundation for white success may help to provide some coherence for the mess of conservative religion, which in fact is primarily focused on the patriarchal order of social control, based on the opinion that old rich men are the wisest leaders of civil society. If conservative religion uses God the Father as a concealed allegory for male power in family and society, the inability to mesh the story of God the Father with any objective scientific narrative is a major blow to the enduring influence of the values that the old myth supports.

The confusion caused by the failure of patriarchs to exercise that role effectively has opened up advocacy of a wild variety of social models within a widespread cultural relativist ethic of each to their own. I personally support gender and racial equality, with the great caution that these ethical principles are best advanced in a respectful dialogue with conservatives.
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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There was never a time in my youth, no matter how dark and discouraging the days might be, when one resolve did not continually remain with me, and that was a determination to secure an education at any cost.
Here Booker T suggests that character is key to his success. His determination to secure an education at any cost is an attitude of personal will, based on vision, drive and discipline. Here again Booker T opens the suggestion that black advancement should look to personal values, the ability of formerly destitute people to rise, adapt, integrate and assimilate into the broader society, as a prerequisite to enable equality and social change.

It is very true that his circumstances were dark and discouraging. Lynch mobs, overt racial discrimination by governments, traumatised communities, against all this he set his strength of personal character and will as the only thing that could overcome his difficulties and begin to transform the society.
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race.
This theme of visualization is a key topic in self help. This idea of the centrality of picturing our aspirations in our imagination emerged in older books such as The Power of Positive Thinking, The Magic of Thinking Big and Neuro Linguistic Programming, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People and a recent book I like, Gorilla Mindset. Neuro-linguistic programming claims the connection between neural processes, language and behavioral patterns learned through experience can be changed to achieve specific goals in life, including the point Booker T makes, to model the skills of exceptional people. This is a defiant statement against fate, against the idea that environment is destiny, instead saying we can create our world through power of will by visualising how we can realize our dreams.
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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Booker T Washington wrote:out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
This theme of how difficulties produce strength of character is complicated. There are many instances where hard struggle does not produce strength and confidence, but rather produces deference, trauma, hesitancy and ignorance among people broken and bowed down by oppression. But even so, the theme of triumph through adversity is a good one, with the toughness of poverty producing a discipline and drive that does not exist among the soft.

Booker T’s comment reminds me of Saint Paul’s statement in Romans 5 explaining his concept of justification by faith, that we glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not fail us. Paul is expressing something like a theory of dynastic cycle, where an established corrupt culture is overthrown by a dynamic moral culture.

There is a ‘no pain no gain’ philosophy here, reflecting on how riches are often squandered by the grandchildren. Giving people the luxuries of wealth makes them soft and lazy and indifferent, prone to conquest by others who are hard and diligent and organised. That is why competition is like a refiner's fire.

There is a Christian authenticity in Booker T’s sense that the strongest morality is found among people who are at the margins of the society. As Jesus put it, the stone that the builder refused will become the head of the corner.
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Re: Chapters 1-3: Up From Slavery

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Booker T Washington wrote: mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless he has individual worth, and mere connection with what is regarded as an inferior race will not finally hold an individual back if he possesses intrinsic, individual merit. Every persecuted individual and race should get much consolation out of the great human law, which is universal and eternal, that merit, no matter under what skin found, is, in the long run, recognized and rewarded.
This open discussion of attitudes about superior and inferior races is placed here against a ringing statement of faith in the high principle of the victory of merit. The problem with Booker T’s faith in long run merit is that in the interim, racial prejudice is highly destructive of the capacity and opportunity for nurturing and cultivating merit.

People of suppressed races can internalize a sense of inferiority, with self-talk that produces a damaging negative belief in their personal potential and worth, as a result of being constantly told that they are rubbish and hopeless, as well as the destructive social conditions of poverty. As a result, their ability to acquire the meritorious values that Booker T promoted, of work, education, respect and property investment, can be severely diminished.

It is a good question what Booker T means by seeing individual merit as intrinsic. For example, a person who has talent will often lose out to a person who has persistence, and even more so if the persistent person has a better social support network. Intrinsic merit has many factors. Some of the most successful societies in the world are meritocratic, with Singapore a good example. Singapore does have many leading Indians and Malays, but there is also a tendency to see Chinese as having most merit, due to their cultural values of education and discipline.

When a culture is delinquent, with foetal alcohol syndrome, widespread imprisonment, violence, failure of fatherhood, etc, the ability to acquire merit is diminished. That is the situation for many Aboriginal Australians, who have some shared factors of historical traumatization with American slaves and indigenes.

In 2009, 4.7% of adult black American men were incarcerated, nearly seven times the 0.7% rate of whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... ation_rate

Intrinsic merit is enhanced by mentoring from successful role models, but this is often difficult to arrange when people are in a struggle to survive or lack a clear sense of values.
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