No one knows the exact date of when the first slave ship actually touched land but it is believed to be August 20, 1619, 400 years ago this month.
In his new article, Pitts talks about how indentured servants and ‘free people’, regardless of color, intermingled with one another. Colonies consisting of mixed race populations also existed. They had some freedoms unassociated with how we view typical plantation life until the laws changed in the 1700s prohibiting “interaction between what we say as white and black now or slave and free completely changes in order to subjugate black people to structures of power that are based on ideologies of slave ownership.”
He also asks the question, “Where are we? post slavery; a question The Miami Herald also asked to six people with a follow-up question, “Where do we go from here?”
A sample of few of the answers:
“Dump Trump, says anti-racism activist Jane Elliott. Realign the resources, says noted pundit Roland S. Martin.Truth and reconciliation, says Tim Wise, an anti-racism author.Educate white people about what racism means, says DiAngelo. Black people must own what they create, says Hill.
Although nothing positive resulted from capturing people from a foreign land, transporting them against their will to a new land, selling them to someone who would literally own them from cradle to grave unless said owner decided to sell or regift his human property, Pitts did say that on the day the White Lion ship touched land, it also brought “rhythm and blues to America.”
It brought B-Boy swagger, Jesus moans, stormy Monday and melancholy trumpet solos that seemed to stretch for Miles. It brought uh huh and uh uh and mmm hmm and okra and banjo and bongo and juke and jive and what is hip. It brought the color purple and the bluest eye, brought Porgy and Bess and Jesse B Semple, brought the invisible man and ain’t I a woman, too. It brought nightmares and an incandescent dream.
Read the entire article here:
