The Enduring Vision
Chapter 2 Thoughts
In reading Chapter 2 of “The Enduring Vision”, I was struck by the detailed discussion of slavery. Not just slavery in the U.S., but its beginnings. The text tells us “Europeans had used slaves since Ancient Greece and Rome, but ominous changes took place once the Portuguese began making voyages to Africa” (The Enduring Visions, p. 26). The text also tells us that “slavery was well established in fifteenth-century West Africa, as elsewhere” (The Enduring Vision, p. 25). On the same page, the text goes on to say “the grassland emperors as well as individual families depended on slave labor. However, most slaves or their children were absorbed into African families over time. In contrast, first Arabs, and then Europeans, turned slavery into an intercontinental business” (The Enduring Vision, p. 25).
The text also introduced me to a term I had not heard before: “new Slavery” (The Enduring Vision). The listed definition is “harsh form of slavery based on racism; arose as a result of Portuguese slave trade with Africa” (The Enduring Vision, p.26). The author further explains that “Africans’ blackness and alien religion dehumanized them in European eyes…European Christianity, moreover, made few attempts to soften slavery’s rigors. Because victims of the ‘new slavery’ were physically distinctive and culturally alien, slavery became a lifelong, hereditary and despised status” (The Enduring Vision, p. 26). To cement just how far-reaching and inhumane “new slavery” was, the author tells us that “nearly 12 million Africans would be shipped across the sea. Slavery on this scale had been unknown since the Roman Empire” (The Enduring Vision, p. 26).
I’m not sure where to begin, given all of this information. I knew on some level that slave labor had shaped both the Old World and the New World, especially in places like Egypt where slave labor built the pyramids. I had a strongly negative reaction to the book’s definition of “new slavery.” To describe it as a “harsh form of slavery” implies that there are forms of slavery that are not harsh. I’m sure there have been differing degrees of brutality across time, but all slavery is immoral as far as I am concerned. But, I suppose that what the author was getting at is that the “new slavery” was even worse than historical slavery, because it included the racial component, in essence saying “it’s all right to enslave Africans because they’re not really people in the way that you and I are people.” Obviously, this is beyond wrong. The book goes on to say that “enslaved Africans became property rather than persons of low status” (The Enduring Vision, p. 26). This is another sentence that makes me just stop in my tracks to consider. How would any of us feel if we became someone else’s property? I struggle to understand how supposedly-rational people only a few hundred years ago could think that there is nothing wrong with one human being owning another human being.
And then it gets worse. On page 29, the text tells us that “as disease, overwork, and malnutrition killed thousands of Indians [there’s that word again!] Portuguese slave traders supplied shiploads of Africans to replace them. Although shocked Spanish friars sent to convert the Native Americans reported the Indians’ exploitation, no one worried about the African slaves’ fate. Missionaries joined most other colonizers in condemning Africans as less than fully human and thus beyond hope of redemption. Blacks could therefore be exploited mercilessly" (The Enduring Vision, p. 28).
Reading about this sort of callousness makes me feel angry and embarrassed by my European forebears. Again, I must wonder how any person in any time could take it upon himself to decide which kinds of people are “less than fully human” (The Enduring Vision, p. 28). This makes me think back to Dr. Hamilton’s Theologies of Liberation course, which I took last year. A good, quick guide to the Liberation Theology movement’s ideas on the full humanity of those treated as “less than fully human” (The Enduring Vision, p. 28) can be found in “The Basic Question: How to be Christians in a World of Destitution” by Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, the authors of my text for Dr. Hamilton’s class, “Introducing Liberation Theology.” The full article can be found here: http://www.landreform.org/boff1.htm
I do not identify as Christian (or as a member of any other religion), but I do consider myself a secular humanist. Questions of oppression are near and dear to my heart, having lived as a gay man for nearly 50 years, and having experienced all sorts of personal and institutionalized discrimination because of it. I know how it made me feel to be singled out and treated poorly because of a perceived difference. My first encounter with homophobia was when I was seen by my first-grade class bully as being a sissy because of my longish hair and girly-looking backpack. In those days, I didn’t know anything about sexual orientation, or about sex at all. But, I knew when that bully called me a “faggot” on my first day of first grade that I was seen (at least by him) as different, defective, and not as good as other people. I also saw that nobody stood up for me, so I figured he might be right. I carried that around with me for a long time, and though I have made my peace with it, I will never forget it. I bring this up because, while my experience pales in comparison to that of enslaved people, I have great empathy and compassion for anyone who is singled out as “less than human” (The Enduring Vision, p. 29). I would like to end this post by saying let’s all try to be conscious of how we treat other people in the world every day. Let’s go out of our way to re-affirm each others' humanity, and treat others the way in which we would like to be treated. The next time you feel yourself looking down on someone for any reason, remind yourself that that person is every bit as human as you are. Even when it isn’t easy for you.
