Peonage

In 1866, one year after the 13 Amendment was ratified (the amendment that ended slavery), Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor (peonage). This made the business of arresting Blacks very lucrative, which is why hundreds of White men were hired by these states as police officers. Their primary responsibility was to search out and arrest Blacks who were in violation of Black Codes. Once arrested, these men, women and children would be leased to plantations where they would harvest cotton, tobacco, sugar cane. Or they would be leased to work at coal mines, or railroad companies. The owners of these businesses would pay the state for every prisoner who worked for them; prison labor. It is believed that after the passing of the 13th Amendment, more than 800,000 Blacks were part of the system of peonage, or re-enslavement through the prison system. Peonage didn’t end until after World War II

Source

Diving deep into our current racial climate

I have heard arguments against the Black Lives Matter movement that basically say Black people should get their shit together. They go something like 'what about Black on Black crime?', 'what about derogatory lyrics in rap?' and say we should focus on those things instead of police brutality and white supremacy. I'm not going to dive into the power dynamics of gas lighting and deflection as tools to detract from an issue - that's a whole other can of worms, but suffice to say deflection and gas lighting are very well known and powerful tools commonly used by abusers in order to perpetuate abuse.

What I will say is that in my experience talking about and teaching about racism, when comments like these occur it is usually from the mouths of people who do not have a deep understanding of the issue.

In order to comprehend why we got to where we are now, you must know the history. This is a crucial foundation. Study the history of how Black people were brought to this country. Study and study it some more. I've been studying deeply for at least 20 years and I'm still learning. Learn about Jim Crow, segregation and red lining. Learn about the 'war on drugs'. For Nova Scotians, learn about the Black Loyalists, learn about Africville, learn about Whitney Pier’s Black community – one which the government's treatment paralleled what that of Africville.

Learn about environmental racism, racism in health care, racism in education. Learn about the power of stripping a people of their heritage - I've heard often throughout the years 'well you guys have a Black history month, why don't we have a white history month?'. Short answer to a complicated question: we don't have a 'white history' month because white values, history and culture are reflected everywhere and in everything in North America. It is interwoven into the fabric of this culture. The fact that we have a month to celebrate Black culture is, in my opinion, not a win. It is a beacon that shines on a very large problem - Black culture, history and achievements, on a societal level, are routinely ignored except for one month out of the year (and the shortest, coldest one at that!). We should not need a Black History month. The history and achievements of Black people should be taught, celebrated and acknowledged every day of the year, as should those of all cultures. Another answer to that question - I have seen lots of celebrations, clubs and organizations that laud white culture, but the term 'white' is not used because, by and large, white people have the privilege of knowing their exact roots. For example we don't say 'white day' we say 'St. Patrick's day" - a day to celebrate elements of Irish heritage. The privilege here being that Irish people know where their ancestors came from. Black people in this country do not have the luxury of knowing exactly where our ancestors came from. We know a continent - Africa - but not a country. If we could say Nigeria or Chad or Ghana, we would. But we cannot. That was stripped away during slavery.

But I digress.

Once you have a deep understanding of the history and current issues, take it a step further and learn about abuse. Learn that abuse is not just physical.

Learn about emotional abuse. Learn about the abuser / abused dynamics. Learn about the cycles of abuse. Learn about brainwashing, deflection, denial, dismissal and gas lighting.

Learn about how abuse is used to control. Learn how isolating and stripping someone of their identity is used as a means to control. Learn and apply these principles back to slavery and our current day situation regarding systematic racism.

One pattern I have noticed is that unless something huge happens in someone's life, they will continue on whatever trajectory they have been going on. You see this all the time in stories that basically go - I was a drug abuser and headed on a downward spiral and then (insert life changing event) happened. Is it that much of a stretch to apply this to issues facing the Black community? Add generations of abuse with a lack of knowledge of and therefore pride in ones culture and therefore one’s self and then add on top of that a system that actively seeks to oppress, and you will begin to scratch the surface of answers to questions like 'what about Black on Black violence' (side note, have you ever noticed when a white person kills another white person it's not called white on white violence? The media engine is at play here influencing how we view crimes perpetuated by Black people) and why there is an issue with drugs in the Black community, single parent Black homes etc.

That said I would contest that these issues also plague white homes and communities, but the media would have us believe that these are issues that affect Black communities moreso than white communities.

Let's get into the history.

During slave times, calculated efforts were made to break slaves. You don't break a person physically, you break them mentally. You break up strong family structures and ensure they cannot be formed. You pit people against each other. You make people hate themselves. When you break a person psychologically, you set in motion a longstanding chain of events.

We've all heard the phrase 'hurt people hurt people'. This applies. If a person is broken, if they hate themselves, if they are constantly fighting an uphill battle and being broken down time and time again, wouldn't it stand to reason that that person's parenting would be compromised? If a broken person raises a child, wouldn't it stand to reason that the child would have additional issues? All parents are broken in some way - they are only human - but my point here is the additional trauma placed on Black people makes the struggle even harder in all aspects of life.

The thing is, in order to fix something that is broken, you have to first acknowledge that it is broken, then know how it was broken and then work your way backward to begin to unravel the complicated tangles that keep someone or something (in this case, society) bound to a trajectory that is no longer working.

So in saying 'what about...' you must understand that those things exist today as a direct result of the machine of systematic racism that was designed to and continues to keep Black people broken. You must also understand that the BLM movement is in place to begin addressing some of those issues in order to fix them.

Learn. Start with Willie Lynch's instructions on how to break a slave and apply what you've learned to current events.

And for those who think - well those days are long past. Pull yourself together already; think about your own life journey. Self improvement is one of the hardest things anyone can achieve in their life. Imagine trying to work on yourself and improve yourself in a hostile environment that has things in place to keep you down. Also consider this, people who are under attack enter something called Fight or Flight mode. People who are in survival mode will have an even harder time improving their life circumstances.

In order to know where you're headed, you've got to know where you've been.
Know thy history, know thyself.

Some resources to start: 

Willie Lynch - the making of a slave

Willie lynch - the making of a slave speach

Light Girls documentary

Dark Girls documentary

The racist legacy of breastfeeding

Why English Class is Silencing Students of Color | Jamila Lyiscott | TEDxTheBenjaminSchool

What if someone told you that the way you use language every day had the power to disrupt or uphold social injustice? Language is saturated with history and culture and memory, yet the way that it is policed within our classrooms and our communities is deeply connected to racism and colonialism.

Everyday Struggle: Switching Codes for Survival | Harold Wallace III | TEDxPittsburgStateUniversity

Harold Wallace III is a Los Angeles, CA, native who received a Bachelor’s degree in Ethnic Studies from Wichita State University and a Master’s of Science in College Student Personnel from Arkansas Tech University.

The Missing Century of Black History in the Americas: Jane Landers at TEDxNashville

Jane Landers is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. She has written a number of works on Africans in the Atlantic World, including the award-winning monographs, Black Society in Spanish Florida and Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the British Library Endangered Archives Programme. She directs the Ecclesiastical and Secular Sources for Slave Societies digital archive, which is preserving the oldest records for Africans in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, and the present-day United States.

Black murder is normal | Michael Smith | TEDxJacksonville

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. In this Talk, Pastor Michael T. Smith argues that the “normalcy” of black murder is engrained in our American culture. Indeed, the idea that a black American would be involved in a homicide—either as perpetrator or victim—is so broadly accepted as to be largely unnoticed.

Smith exposes the racism that underlies the appalling lack of outrage at high death rates in the black community, and highlights the hypocrisy of a society that glamorizes violence, but ignores its victims. “It doesn’t take action to keep racism going,” Smith observes, “it takes inaction.”

Heroes and Villains: Is hip-hop a cancer or a cure? | Lecrae | TEDxNashville

When we prostitute things like misogyny and violence for the sake of entertainment, we perpetuate villainous ideas as heroic. Hip hop is one of our generation's perpetrators, but is also the art form that can turn this ship around.

Racial progression in our generation | Michael Smith | TEDxFSCJ

The talk is about my personal journey with the word as part of my vocabulary and psyche from a young age. It also includes how the word has morphed over time from a pejorative to a term of endearment to being eradicated from my vocabulary entirely. The talk concludes with what I believe is the front line of racial progress in our generation: definition, expectation, and normalcy.

How Canada tries to hide its racism by pointing a finger at the U.S.

"In 1969, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau famously said that living beside the United States was like “sleeping with an elephant.” Indeed, a beast of such size is impossible to ignore in even a king-sized bed, and his every grunt and movement becomes the problem of his bedfellow.

Canadians love to conceive of our relationship with the United States like this: we are helpless and can do little against the giant beside us. Roll over. Put a pillow on your head. Hope to God he doesn’t roll over on you.

But the relationship is much more than a tale of a helpless small animal keeping an even keel in the midst of an elephant. Our identity is formed not simply by lying beside the beast, but also by using the United States to whitewash and obscure our own reality."

One month after George Floyd’s murder, “woke” white people in Nova Scotia should look at their own repeating history

"In The Hanging of Angelique (2006), her landmark book about the 1734 public execution of an enslaved Black woman in Montreal, Dalhousie University professor Afua Cooper rightly noted: “Canadian history, insofar as its Black history is concerned, is a drama punctuated with disappearing acts.”"

Nova Scotians need to wake up to homegrown racism.

‘Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence’ by Resmaa Menakem

The best laws and diversity training have not gotten us anywhere near where we want to go. Therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem is working with old wisdom and very new science about our bodies and nervous systems, and all we condense into the word “race.” Krista sat down with him in Minneapolis, where they both live and work, before the pandemic lockdown began. In this heartbreaking moment, after the killing of George Floyd and the history it carries, Resmaa Menakem’s practices offer us the beginning to change at a cellular level. 

How I Discovered I Am White by

"When I was 14 or so, I asked my grandmother why we didn’t have a “white club” at school. I don’t recall her response, but I do remember feeling particularly smug and vaguely angry that there was a “Latino” club and a “Chinese” club but not a “white” club."

Read this important post.

Racial Injustice has Benefited Me - A Confession by Phil Vischer

"I'm watching America burn, and watching fingers point in all directions.  Of course, I'm not a racist.  I've never kneeled on anyone's neck or denied housing to anyone.  So I'm clean.  Right? 

This situation has me examining how I tell my story, and I am more convinced than ever that how we tell our stories matters.  I have benefited from racial injustice.  How?  Here's my story."

158 Resources to Understand Racism in America by Melian Solly

These articles, videos, podcasts and websites from the Smithsonian chronicle the history of anti-black violence and inequality in the United States.

From Juneteenth to the Tulsa massacre: What isn't taught in classrooms has a profound impact

Educators said the history of systemic racism in this country and the contributions of Black people

have been erased.

The history of Canadian slavery goes back 400 years, except we’re blind to it

" It is not common knowledge, but it should be: there is a centuries-long and ugly history of slavery north of the 49th parallel.

The Underground Railroad, a secret network that brought 30,000 enslaved men, women and children to relative freedom starting in the mid-1800s, is often associated with slavery in Canada.

However, slavery here predates the Railroad by at least 200 years."

Click to read this excellent article.

Understanding My Privilege | Sue Borrego | TEDxPasadenaWomen

University Chancellor, Susan E. Borrego, reflects on her life as an emancipated minor and dissects the emotionally charged conversation surrounding race relations in the United States. This raconteur uses her powerful first-person account of "White Privilege" and "Black Lives Matter" to underscore the responsibility each one of us has to bring about change.

White Men: Time to Discover Your Cultural Blind Spots | Michael Welp | TEDxBend

White men rarely, if ever, are required to examine their own culture. In this timely and provocative talk, Welp speaks to his own experience becoming conscious of his white male culture, bias, and privilege as key tools to effective partnership across difference.

Let's get to the root of racial injustice | Megan Ming Francis | TEDxRainier

In this inspiring and powerful talk, Megan Francis traces the root causes of our current racial climate to their core causes, debunking common misconceptions and calling out "fix-all" cures to a complex social problem.

Black Panthers White Lies | Curtis Austin | TEDxOhioStateUniversity

What made the Black Panther Party successful, as well as politically dangerous? In his very personal talk, activist and historian, Dr. Curtis Austin tells his story of being labeled a 'felon' as a result of his research on the Black Panther Party. Dr. Austin details the major successes of the Black Panther Party and the key action behind those successes. Using his personal experience, years of research, and some gruesome realities, Dr. Austin contextualizes the recent outcry by people across the United States against the legacy of the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement.