Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. recently wrote an interesting piece for the New York Times called, "Ending the Slavery Blame Game." In the piece, Gates argues that the fight for reparations is convoluted and some what mitigated by the fact that African elites participated in the slave trade.
Sorry Dr. Gates, but I must respectfully (or perhaps not so respectfully) disagree.
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Exerts from his article......
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Ending the Slavery Blame-Game - By Professor Henry Gates.
Queen Njinga, the brilliant 17th-century monarch of the Mbundu, waged wars of resistance against the Portuguese but also conquered polities as far as 500 miles inland and sold her captives to the Portuguese. When Njinga converted to Christianity, she sold African traditional religious leaders into slavery, claiming they had violated her new Christian precepts.
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Sankofa's rebuttal...
She compromised, until she could free her people eventually. They both agreed, Zhinga would convert to Christianity help the Portuguese with the slave trade, also, help to control a war like clan jaga. Portuguese wouldn't remove their troops from Mbdunda. Didn't recognized Ngola kingdom in Angola. During the war the Portugese government meeting, The Queen stated ...
She would release them when they release her people from Brazil.
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More from Pro. Gates......
Some Africans were driven to this only by the unprecedented profits offered by greedy European countries.”
GATES ARTICLE IN NY TIMES QUOTES.....Ghana exported slaves and used the profits to import gold.
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The Complete version of truth is.....
Until March 1957, Ghana was known to much of the world as the "Gold Coast". The Portuguese who came to Ghana in the 15th Century found so much Gold between the rivers Ankobra and the Volta that they named the place Mina – meaning Mine.
The Gold Coast was later adopted by English colonists. The French, impressed with the trinkets worn by the coastal people, named the area to the west “Cote d’Ivoire,” or Ivory Coast.
Ghana was also the site of the Empire of Ashanti which was perhaps the most advanced black state in sub-Sahara Africa. It is said that at its peak, the King of Ashanti could field 500,000 troops
ELMINA CASTLE ...Where Africans were kept until their time to be transported to the New World.
In 1481, King John II of Portugal commissioned Diogo d’Azambuja to build Elmina Castle, which was completed the next year.
Did Africans devise a map or plan to capture slaves and imprison them in Elmina?
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How and why would Ghana want to sell slaves for gold , when they were known as the GOLD COAST?
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Bottom Line.......................................
EUROPEANS DEVISED A PLAN OF EXECUTION, MAPPED IT, SORTED OUT MONEY AND APPROVAL. THROUGH THE POPE WHICH HAD GIVEN HIS BLESSINGS ON SLAVERY.
THE QUEEN SPONSORED THE SLAVE SHIPS AND CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS MAPPED THE WAY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE MOST HEINOUS CRIME TO THE AFRICAN CONTINENT. AKA "The NEW WORLD".
YES THEN AND NOW WE CAN STILL PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT ALWAYS BEEN, REGARDLESS WHO AIDED THEM IN THE CAPTURE OF AFRICANS.
More exerts from Dr. Gates article.............
The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders
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Rebuttal:
THE 90% OF AFRICANS THAT WERE CAPTURED BY AFRICANS STATEMENT - IS AN ABSURD ESTIMATION, NOT AN ACTUAL FACTUAL ACCOUNT OF TRUE STATISTICS. AND SHOULDN'T BE APPLIED TO THE TRUTH.
In order for this to have happened, there would have been africans on every corner of Africa. There is no way of knowing, even an estimation number would proven to be way off .
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IT'S AMAZING.... how a Professor of Harvard hasn't done the full research on the slave trade and Zhinga full story. Most people I find read half of the Truth - THEN RUN AWAY WITH IT. .... mind wrenching.
Gates also does the reparations discussion a serious disservice by reducing it to a "blame game." The fact that African slaves built America for free then in turned sold as Branded Cattle on WALL STREET.....This is not about blaming anyone, it's about "Reality"
Seek out the truth of Alkebulan (Africa) history for yourself. I kinda thank NY Times for highlighting Mr. Henry Louis Gates article because, it caused me to further investigate the truth.
I am under the assumption that by "ending the slavery blame game," Gates is arguing that we should stop blaming the U.S. government and white America for the rape, murder, castration, lynching and beating of our ancestors.
What Gates is revealing to us is nothing but a "smoke screen".
Monument to the Gate of No Return on the Slave Road at Ouidah. A slave who passed this point was not coming back.
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Monument marking the location of the Tree of Forgetfulness.
The belief was that if a male walked 9 times around the tree (or a female 7 times) then their memories were erased ready for their future as slaves.
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Did Africans coined a TREE OF FORGETFULNESS and make Africans march around this tree, in hopes Africans would forget themselves and their history? NO
Did America enslave Africans for many (Hundreds) of years? Yes.
Even after the law to end slavery past, didn't parts of the South refused to cooperate?
This bronze shows how noisy slaves were trained to be silent.
This is what they want us to forget!
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Did they profit from it? Yes.
Did they repay those they enslaved? No.
Also, tell me where was Pro. Gates comments when the Jews got reparations for slavery?
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Sankofa.....
In my opinion reparations can be in many forms, educational scholarships, paid training, etc... there are many avenue's we all can explore. Engaging solutions to our community needs.
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Monument to the Tree of Return. Walking 3 times around this tree would bring the slave's spirit back to Africa after death.
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DO THE MATH!
Even responsibility of the slave trade, should NOT fall on Africans.
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March 2, 1807
The U.S. Congress sought to end international slave trade by passing an act to make it unlawful “to import or bring into the United States or the territories thereof from any foreign kingdom, place, or country, any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of such negro, mulatto, or person of colour, as a slave, or to be held to service or labour." Domestic traffic in slaves was still legal and unregulated.
SLAVE POSTER
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The first shipload of African captives to North America had arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, in August 1619, and the first American slave ship, named Desire, sailed from Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1637. In total, nearly 15 million blacks were transported as slaves to the Americas. The African continent, meanwhile, lost approximately 50 million human beings to slavery and related deaths. Despite the federal prohibition and because the slave trade was so profitable, an additional 250,000 slaves would be imported illegally by the time the Civil War began.
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EM-HOTEP
SPIRIT of SANKOFA*
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1 comment:
I'm sure the NY Times was MORE THAN HAPPY to have that article appear in their paper. Now, had he been taking in support of reparations, that article would have never seen the light of day. I like Gates, but his position here makes me wonder if he is smoking crack, so with that, I'm not even gonna comment; he's beginning to sound like a Clarance Thomas wanna-be. We built this country...Period. And without our blood, sweat, and toil, there would be no America. Hell, Ray Charles can see that, but I suppose there are those that want to be blind, and it seems that Dr. Gates has "drank the kool-aid."
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