The Interesting Story of Eugene Robinson, House Slaves and Black Progress in America: A Critical Analysis
By
© Professor Amechi Okolo, Ph.D. 2007
Eugene Robinson’s article, “The Story I'll Never Know All Of,” in the Washington Post is quite interesting.[1] This story confirms that what we are seeing in America today is not new. Specifically, it confirms that some blacks have always progressed in spite of their bondage. It also confirms that we cannot judge or measure the freedom, social status or progress of a people by the high status of a few of those people in the system. More specifically, it confirms that systems of oppression always create or allow exceptional cases. Prompted by the recent revelations that the great grandfather of Al Sharpton, the noted black civil rights activists, was a slave owned by the relative of the infamous racist and segregationist Strom Thurmond, Eugene Robinson decided to publish an interesting story of what he knows of his own background. The story is interesting and useful because it reveals a number of very critical information that are grave and cogent to our understanding and analysis of the continuing deplorable and unacceptable conditions of the blacks and minorities in America today. Eugene Robinson told the story of his great grandfather, Major John Hammond Fordham who was born in South Carolina in the 1850s. According to Mr. Robinson:
Maj. Fordham, my great-grandfather -- was born in the 1850s, when the "inalienable rights" of freedom and liberty did not extend to people with brown skin. When human bondage was still the American way.[2]
He Continued:
We know that Maj. Fordham -- his rank was in something called the Carolina Light Infantry -- did very well for a black man who had been born in South Carolina before the Civil War. He was a lawyer, a federal tax collector, a very minor landowner and something of a politician. He had nine children. From papers he kept in a safe that had to be broken into when he died, we know that the house he built for his family in 1903 cost $1,326.54 to construct and that Theodore Roosevelt once wrote him a letter (it acknowledges a letter Roosevelt received from Maj. Fordham, but gives no hint of what they were corresponding about)[3]. Major Fordham was clearly an accomplished person by the standards of any society. From the standards of primitive, feudal ante-bellum America, Major Fordham’s accomplishments were clearly exceptional and astonishing. I can therefore understand the sense of gloat in Mr. Robinson’s paper about his ancestry. I think many will share the same feelings of pride with him that some African-Americans held their heads up even in those awful, despicable, shameful days. However, the critical relevance of the story comes towards the end when Mr. Robinson realized that they did not really know much about Major Fordham’s life. Thus, in despair, Mr. Robinson stated: But we don't really know how my great-grandfather built this life for himself. How did he maintain his position after Reconstruction was brought to a halt and Southern states were allowed to put black people back in their place? Why did he move his family from Charleston, the cosmopolitan port city, to Orangeburg? There's even some question about his birth date -- one source says 1854, another 1856[4]. Yes, how did Major Fordham build such a great life for himself and his family when many other blacks were treated as mere chattels? He was even a “politician” who was communicating with the President at that time, yet we have never heard of him. He was neither known nor studied during all these periods of Black History Months and Black Studies, He was neither brought up by black history enthusiasts nor even the orthodoxy including the federal government power structure, which he apparently served well. So, all of us should be grieving for the scanty knowledge of Major Fordham’s life and not only Mr. Robinson. Could it be that both sides ignored him because he was a house slave? This question is very critical and crucial to our understanding and analysis of the black conditions today as the title of this paper indicates. The Negative Roles of House Slaves The concept and practice of house slaves started with the plantation system when the masters kept some slaves as their domestic servants. This meant that while the field slaves were toiling in the cotton and tobacco fields, the house slaves spent most of their times in the main house, in the master house servicing the domestic needs of their masters, which included cooking, cleaning, laundry, taking care of masters’ babies and of course, ready, easy sex for their depraved masters or even mistresses. Yes, it is well documented and known that many slave masters were pedophiles that had sex with their teenage slaves or rapists when the slaves were adults. Either way, many slaveholders and overseers were either pedophiles and/or rapists as evidenced by the large number of mulattos around then. Perhaps, the most famous pedophiles/rapists were Thomas Jefferson, the author of America’s Declaration of Independence. His sexual relationship with one of his slaves Sally Hemings with whom he had children was well known and documented. As Jefferson’s slave, he could not have had any other sexual relationship with her but as a rapist. I have read some apologists who defend Jefferson by saying that he loved Sally Hemings, therefore their sexual relationship was consensual. This cannot be because slaves were properties with no free will. Hence, Sally Hemings did not and could not have consented to sexual relationship with Thomas Jefferson, her master. Therefore, the only sexual relationship that Mr. Jefferson could have had with Ms. Hemings was a forced one i.e. rape. Hence, when we start talking about the leading rapists, Thomas Jefferson would certainly be at the top of the list. This understanding is also very important these days as we enact various laws against pedophiles and sex offenders. It would now be clear to us that one of our most revered founding fathers would have been listed as a sex offender with restrictions of where he could live, etc. It is an ominous thought, it is a dreadful and horrible thought, but it is the truth that he was a rapist. The evidence was there. The proof was tangible and undeniable. That Sally Hemings was his slave was real and that he fathered her children was real. A major current relevance of those facts for us these days is that they should temper our policies and laws today with humility, retrospect and caution. The other well-known pedophile/rapist in American history was the late Senator Strom Thurmond who was a major catalyst for Eugene Robinson’s paper. Strom Thurmond was an arch racist and segregationist who raped their housekeeper to father a black daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams. According to Washington Post: Sharpton, known for his fiery rhetoric and a tendency to intervene as an advocate in racially charged incidents, ran for president in 2004 on a ticket promoting racial justice. Thurmond made his own bid for the presidency in 1948, promising to preserve racial segregation, and in 1957 he filibustered for more than 24 hours against a civil rights bill[5] It continued: After his death in 2003, though, it became clear that Thurmond had a complicated history with issues of race. A 78-year-old retired schoolteacher, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, revealed that she was the offspring of his extramarital relationship with his family's black housekeeper[6]. Thus, Thomas Jefferson who wrote our Declaration of Independence and later became our president; and Strom Thurmond who was our longest serving senator were both pedophiles and rapists. Hence, they are people who cannot walk our streets today and people who the current Governor Elliot Spitzer of New York is proposing to lock up for ever even after they have served their court imposed sentences. It must also be noted that Mr. Jefferson was raping our daughter at the time he was saying obnoxious things about us. Thus, in 1829, David Walker wrote one of the most famous Appeals against America’s slavery. He wrote: Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and of minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains[7] David Walker was surprised and alarmed that even the erudite and learned Jefferson joined in the historical denigration of blacks. Certainly, David Walker did not know then that Jefferson was having and enjoying (raping) sex with one of his “inferior” objects. Can you imagine that yourself! Further, can you imagine what David Walker would have said if he knew of the rape then? This is the ugly part of America’s history that the orthodoxy wants to hide and forget or does not want to touch. Unfortunately, they are facts of our past, which still haunt us today. One cannot run or hide from his shadows. We must boil all of them up and critically discuss them, otherwise we will continue to deceive and/or mis-educate our children. In 2005, the Santa Monica, District Attorney, Tony Sneddon, sent over ninety police officers and troopers to ransack and destroy the Neverland Ranch of the pop superstar, Michael Jackson to substantiate his pedophile and rapist allegations against him, which they never found. A celebrated court trial eventually exonerated Michael of all the charges against him. On the other hand, President Bush visited the Monticello Home of Thomas Jefferson as part of his 2007 Presidents’ Day celebrations amid fanfare and jubilations. The point is that the current president visited the home of a previous president, which would have been appropriately raided with troops to rescue Sally Hemings from rape; and arrest the rapist, Thomas Jefferson, if the United States had its head right from the beginning. Therefore, anyone that visits Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, should know that he is visiting a “crime scene” because that was what it was since crimes of rape and pedophilia were undeniably committed there. However, America never wants to tell itself the truth. We specialize in self-deceit, communal mis-education and self-flattery or what Professor Ward Churchill calls “the triumphant elitist history of how the United States is the best, the God-chosen and the most moral country in the world.” He then wonders, “why is it that our children are always too young to hear the truth and the details but are never too young to be lied to[8]” Thus, also according to Russell Means of the American Indian Movement: All my life, I’ve had to listen to rhetoric about the United States being a model of freedom and democracy, the most uniquely enlightened and humanitarian country in history, a “nation of laws” which, I’m sure you’ve heard it before. It’s official “truth” in the United States. It’s what is taught to school children, and it’s the line peddled to the general public. Well, I’ve got a hot news flash for everybody here. It’s a lie. The whole thing’s a lie, and it always has been. Leaving aside the obvious points which could be raised to disprove it by Blacks and Chicanos and Asian immigrants right here in North America – not to mention the Mexicans, the Nicaraguans, the Guatemalans, the Puerto Ricans, the Hawaiians, the Filipinos, the Samoans, the Tamarros of Guam, the Marshall Islanders, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Cubans, the Dominicans, the Grenadans, the Libyans, the Panamanians, the Iraqis, and a few dozens out there who’ve suffered America’s invasions and occupations first hand – there’s a little matter of genocide that’s got to be taken into account right here at home. I am talking about the genocide which has been perpetrated against American Indians, a genocide that began the first instant the first Europe’s boat people washed up on the beach of Turtle Island, a genocide that’s continuing right now, at this moment. Against Indians, that’s not a law the United States hasn’t broken, not a Crime Against Humanity it hasn’t committed, and it’s still going on[9]. To show the unique and unprecedented nature of black sufferings in America’s slavery, Walker stated: But to prove farther that the condition of the Israelites was better under the Egyptians than ours is under the whites. I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family. Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang- Outangs?[10] (Author’s Emphasis) These house slaves and their children were often given and/or acquired special favorable status and privileges among the slave communities that might lead to their manumissions. Some house slaves felt that they were special because they co-habited with the masters. It is natural to feel an elated sense of self-importance and superiority if one shares a bed and intimacy with the master Mothers that are caught in such web obviously transmit and transfer such feelings of difference and superiority to their offspring who are often lighter in complexion; and know that the “master” in the “big house” is their unacknowledged father. The concept of house versus field slaves is important because it formed the initial basis for class distinctions among black slaves. However, it must be mentioned that, while few house slaves became permanently seduced and co-opted to work for the interests of the slave masters, many transcended their illusionary identification with their masters and began working for their own manumission and self-extrication. Due to the benefits he received from his mistress as a house slave, Frederick Douglas (1817-1895), grew up to become one of the best known abolitionists of his time. Frederick Douglas was therefore the best known “house slave” who transcended his initial status to become a true advocate and fighter for freedom. Frederick Douglas actually put the skills he learnt as a house slave to better use unlike most other house slaves who use their skills to further their masters’ interests. Born in Talbot County, Maryland, he was sent to Baltimore as a house servant at the age of eight, where his mistress taught him to read and write. Upon the death of his master he was sent to the country to work as a field hand. During his time in the South he was severely flogged for his resistance to slavery[11]. The psychology of house slaves was their identification with their masters. They saw themselves as the extension of their masters. They would often fight for their masters even more vigorously than the masters would fight for themselves. When the master was sick, they would say, “we sick.” Thus, the masters often used them to spy on the slaves and to control them. In the black community today, there are people who feel so overwhelmed by the crushing power of white supremacy in this system that their only reaction is servitude, total identification and submission to the will and power of American orthodoxy, which is fundamentally, structurally and institutionally racist. These modern day house slaves are put in the ‘main house’ by the masters to serve the masters’ interests, just like in slave days.
The modern house slaves are often given big titles by the masters to make them feel important. However, those titles are phony and hollow because they remain relevant only when doing the masters’ biddings, which was why they were hired to begin with. I have seen such inflated blacks who think that they are special because the masters put them in the ‘main house’. They think the bulk of us are idiots and no-goods because we rave and complain against the inherent structural and institutional racism and injustices of the system. Little do they know that the so-called progresses we have made in this system including even their very own “exulted” positions were made possible because people like us have been ranting and raving ever since the very beginnings of America.
I would dare say that there is not one “progress” we have made in this society that was not because of the ranting and ravings of the few who were appalled by the social institutional and structural injustices at the time – and the inevitable “progress” we will make tomorrow will still be because people like us are still outraged and still raving and ranting about the still pervasive institutional and structural racism and injustices in the system. For example, the abolition of slavery and official segregation, women suffrage, abolition of child labor, eight-hour minimum work and minimum wages are just some of the few great things we have achieved in this system because some people were outraged. It is significant to note that none of those milestones were achieved because of the generosity or wisdom of the government but because were outraged and they ranted and raved against them.
Unless one did not feel that the above milestones depict progress for the system or can show that it was the government that initiated them, it is obvious that social progresses have always resulted from the outrage against the injustices of the system, and never from the classical or the modern house slaves who are always happy trying to stabilize and entrench the oppressive orthodoxy.
The equivalent of house slaves today or the modern house slave would be people like General Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State and Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Powell’s successor as the Secretary of State. Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Judge, appointed by Papa Bush and Alberto Gonzales, Baby Bush’s Attorney-General, would be other prominent modern day house slaves, in addition to a host of other lesser-known and mid-level house slaves that help the bosses keep the racist system afloat.
General Powell has had an excellent career in the system and has also been generously rewarded and highly esteemed by the society until his copulation with the Bush administration that made him their Liar-in-Chief on February 5, 2003 before the United Nation’s Security Council[12]. In fact, Harry Belafonte, the consummate African-American entertainer called Powell, “a house slave” because of his support and acquiescence of the current racist Bush policies. Colin Powell was sent by the White House to make the historic false presentation that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to the United Nation’s Security Council (UNSC) because of his stature and high credibility in the society – a credibility that collapsed once it became clear that he lied to the UNSC, to Americans and to the world. In fact, Colin Powell has been historically used by the system to jack up its credibility when necessary. For example, it was interesting for me to watch America use Powell to boost its image in 1990. When I went for a visa to come to the United States on Sabbatical to the University of Wisconsin, the U.S. Ambassador told me that I was lucky to be going to the US at that time because great things were happening to blacks then and that two blacks held important positions in the country then – that Colin Powell was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and David Dinkins was the Mayor of New York City at that time. I had not heard of Powell or Dinkins then in Nigeria, but the Embassy felt happy to give me the information because of my historical interests in social justice and human rights. I was therefore glad and grateful to hear that blacks were rising to prominent positions in America because it suggested some kind of social progress for the blacks and the minorities and for America. More importantly, the Embassy felt that the information was good for a Nigerian professor who was coming to America on sabbatical to know that America treats blacks and other minorities fairly. I must emphasize the word suggested because I knew that the elevation of few minorities in a system does not mean the triumph of social justice or the end of social negativities for the minorities in the system. But I was grateful for the unsolicited information which actually formed the background for my observations and studies in America. I have therefore since carefully followed Powell’s very impressive career since 1990. I have however, been disappointed that he has squandered his enormous prestige by sheepishly or timidly following Bush’s criminal/fraudulent policies. As I said earlier, Bush sent him to lie to the world and to America at the United Nations to support and start a war he did not even believe in. It was reported that he told Bush that he “would own Iraq if he broke Iraq.[13]” My point is that if Powell was as distraught about the Iraq war as Bob Woodward and others reported, he had no business sticking around to sniff the butts of the “Bush mafia” as Powell’s Chief of Staff, Mr. Wilkinson knew and once called the Bush power base. Powell could have publicly resigned from the administration, then openly exposed and condemned their nefarious war plans. Such overt actions would have been more credible and useful to Americans and the world for which we would all have been grateful today given our current quagmire in Iraq. If Colin Powell had openly joined the millions of us who opposed the war from the beginning, our current national disgrace, sufferings and quagmire might have been averted. Powell might have had a positive influence on Bush because he helped the Bush administration come into existence in the first place.
After the notorious 5-4, Supreme Court, split decision that selected the Bush presidency on December 12, 2000, most Americans were angered and distraught at the open and daylight robbery of our democracy. People were also worried that the High Court was handing the presidency to Bush who was clueless about foreign policy; Powell was therefore, the leading figure that Bush used then to shore up his national image. Bush had not even been confirmed as the next president of the United States; there were still many processes and huddles to jump before the confirmation could be assured. Congressional filibusters, strikes, demonstrations, protests by aggrieved Americans were expected and/or planned by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and many others, at that time. But, perhaps, his greatest huddles then was the publics’ concerns about Bush’s mediocrity, his naivety, inexperience and cluelessness about foreign policy – and that was where Powell was most needed and useful. Hence, according to Vincent Bugliosi: Bush had no national or international experience, had no intellectual curiosity and seemed to be proud of it, and looked as presidential as the guy who walks on the stage when the magician asks for volunteers[14] I remember Bush always parading Powell then at Crawford and elsewhere. Powell then literally became Bush’s chum, body and travel mate. The strategy was to show off Powell as the leading member of his in-coming administration. It was very crucial for Bush to travel with and be seen with Powell and to parade him as the core member of his in-coming administration because he had enormous national goodwill and foreign policy experience to compensate for whatever shortfalls and apprehensions the public might be perceiving or having about Bush. In fact, I remember at one press conference then when Bush was asked what job he would give Powell in his administration. Bush’s response was that “Powell would take any job he wanted in my administration.” Such was truly the enormous stature of Powell then that he would literally get any job he wanted in any administration. In addition, I want to emphasize any administration because even the truly elected and popular President Bill Clinton begged Powell to remain as his Chief of Joint Staffs in 1993. Powell was also very instrumental to the military and national acceptance of Clinton’s controversial military gay “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 1993. Actually, a major section of the Republican power base had previously seriously pushed Powell to become their presidential candidate, which he wisely vigorously resisted to their disappointment. I say, Powell “wisely” rejected the Republican push for him to run for the White House because he has very little support among the blacks even though he is black. He was always seen as a black in top position because he served the interests of the white masters who put him there. Blacks have always been suspicious of him and have rarely identified with him. In fact, if he had run his “house slave” status would have been fully confirmed because he would not have gotten just about 5% of black votes while his white Democratic opponent would receive over 90% of black votes. The truth is that Powell has done well for himself, his family and friends, but blacks and minorities rarely identify with him. They see him as serving the white interests, which is what house slaves do. Compared to Powell, Barack Obama who is black and running for president in 2008 election, has massive black and white support while Powell had only massive white support. Not all blacks will support Obama and no one expects hundred percent black support for him or anyone, but Obama gets massive black and white support, which is healthy and admirable for America. On the other hand, blacks do not support Powell because he is perceived to be a house slave. Blacks and whites support Obama because he is authentic and appears to understand America’s problems – for whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc. The point I am making is that in 2000, Colin Powell was a rare gem in America, that he was the golden bride that everyone wanted to grace his companion. For the criminal Bush bunch, Powel was the only solid, untainted figure they had. Hence, they embraced him, paraded him, hugged him and used him maximally as their chum to advance their nefarious plans. Powell was clearly well loved and respected then in white America and worldwide. He had done a national and global book tour to promote his autobiography that endeared him more to white Americans and the world. He was paid $6 million cash advance for the book – a huge amount regarded as payoff for his services in the black community.
The book tour also allowed him to have exposures that are more global and to make personal contacts with global leaders like Tony Blair of Great Britain and others[15]. Therefore, Colin Powel was at the height of his career in the fall of 2000 – financially, socially, etc – when he agreed to join and lend his tremendous prestige and influence to the tottering and fledgling Bush camp. Retired General Colin Powell is an intelligent and accomplished man by any standard. He knew what the deal was. More importantly, he knew that Bush & Co. did not win the 2000 election. Therefore he joined the crooks with clear eyes and mind to consolidate their seizure of America’s government just as retired generals are often invited by young military officers after they have successful carried out military coup d’etats in Africa and the third world. Vincent Bugliosi called the December 12, 2000 Bush v. Gore decision of the Supreme Court that selected Bush as the 43rd president a “judicial coup d’état[16]. I however think that the way they embraced and brought in Retired General Powell into their fold smacked of a complementary military coup d’état to consolidate and finish-off the judicial coup d‘état which the five criminal Supreme Court judges had delivered. Powell therefore offered the essential political stability and the needed military muscle for the Bush/PNAC mafia to clinch and mount power in Washington, D. C. The Bush/PNAC government in Washington, D. C. is therefore the first known administration that a successful judicial coup d’etat cum military d’état installed. The corrupt and criminal five Supreme Court judges – O’Connor, Thomas, Rehnquist, Scalia and Kennedy – had finished their dirty job of stealing America’s votes and handing them over to their preferred candidate, Bush, while the respected, impeccable General Powell was called to stand-by to control his officers if needed. .
It is interesting that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court after the criminal and most shameful decision where they aborted democracy by stopping the counting of legal votes to award the election to the loser, their friend and ally, George W. Bush. However, since her retirement, the American mainstream has been hailing her as the moderate judge who kept in the Supreme Court and who will be missed for her moderate votes. They conveniently forget that she was “one of the gang of five judges” who delivered the hoisted the horrible Bush mafia on America and the world. The Iraqi war with all its deaths, corruption and quagmire, Katrina with all its deaths, racism, neglects and incompetence could not have occurred if the “gang of five Supreme Court’ judges did not abort our democratic process of which Sandra Day O’Connor was the pivotal actor.
The other member of the “gang of five” worth mentioning here is Justice Clarence Thomas. I have earlier mentioned him as a house slave. He is black and was appointed by Bush 41. His nomination elicited wide and loud protests from democrats and blacks who saw him as a house slave who did not represent black interests. Our concerns have been doubly vindicated because Judge Clarence Thomas has consistently cast anti-black, anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-common man votes at the Supreme Court.
After their Supreme Court victory, the Bush mafia was nervous, unsure and uncertain of their next move then. They were like a bunch of robbers who had just successfully pulled off an improbable but still smoldering coup; hence Powell was called in to boost their credibility problems with the American public as well as a stand-by to control the officers and members of the military if need be. As a Nigerian, a country that has witnessed countless military coups, the image of Bush and Dick Cheney introducing Colin Powell in Crawford, Texas, as an integral member of their incoming administration who could take any position he wanted, reminded me of our many military coup d’etats and forceful seizures of government. In that press conference, W. Bush and Cheney looked like the military coup leaders in Nigeria during their first conferences after they had “successfully” seized the Nigerian government but were not yet sure how the people would react to them or if a counter military coup would be launched by a faction of the military. The first things they did then were to call a press conference, announce/promise new policies and rattle out the names of respected Nigerians who would be part of their new administrations with the hope of calming people down and assuring them that better things were coming. It has been shown that the policies they announced/promised and the names they mentioned that would be in their new government determine the level or degree of national acceptability and hence, the potential success of the new government. That was exactly what Bush and Cheney did with Powell then. Having successful organized a “judicial coup” against America, they desperately needed the towering status of Powell to consolidate and ground their new government. They knew that they had stolen the election and were not sure how Americans and the world would react to them. Thus, presenting the highly respected, admired and experienced General Powell as an integral part of their incoming administration was clearly one sure way they planned to sell themselves and assure us that we would be in safe experienced hands under them. Therefore, clearly, the Bush forces used Powell’s credibility to ascend to the throne at the time they needed him most, and discarded him when he was no longer useful. Powell is therefore clearly a house slave as Harry Belafonte once called him for the following reasons: (a) He knew that Bush did not win election fairly by America’s standards. (b) He willingly joined the illegal bunch and willingly executed their criminal policies until they jettisoned him. (c) He did not care about the society and the country as long as he personally benefited from his position. (d) Powell’s son was also given a good, high-profile position by the Bush bunch. The son also lost the position when his father’s usefulness was finished and terminated. Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State is also a pathetic figure for me. She is clearly a brilliant lady who has many notable accomplishments that are remarkable for anyone especially for a woman and a black. However, she has aligned herself with the dark and negative Bush forces with such vigor and tenacity that she has become the leading agent, advocate and spokesperson for the Bush’s fascist and regressive policies. I am ashamed that a learned and intelligent black and minority or anyone for that matter, should become the mouthpiece and megaphone of this very racist, oppressive, incompetent, shameful and shameless; and lawless regime – the worst regime this country has ever had and I certainly hope, will ever have in modern times. . For example, it is a shame that Dr. Rice, who is black and who benefited from affirmative action policies firmly stood with Bush when he vigorously opposed University of Michigan affirmative admission policies. Yes, Bush himself got admission to Yale and Harvard because of affirmative policies – his white race and his white family connections[17]. Sure, he could never have gotten into those schools based on his academic merit, yet he had the audacity to rail against affirmative admission policies of the University of Michigan, and Dr. Rice was there vigorously supporting him, explaining and rationalizing his position – just as house slaves do. To the world, she is the public face of the failed and disgraced Iraq war. She is either a total moron to be so foolishly following all these Bush’s failed and ridiculous policies or she is truly evil and delusional like Dick Cheney and the rest of the bunch. I do not see any honor or redemption for her in her current path. Honor and Shame of Leaders:
It is simply very regrettable and pathetic to observe such a wasted talent that is Dr. Rice. It was in 6th grade in Holy Trinity School, Onitsha in the 1950s that our headmaster gave us a guiding philosophy to evaluate officials and good governance at all levels. The philosophy is so enduring and intrinsically correct that none of my searches in various higher educations has produced a credible substitute. He gave it to us in the form of a poem, which he made us recite during morning assembly. The title was “Honor and Shame of Leaders” and goes like this: Honor and Shame,
On No Condition Stand,
But He, Who Does His Work Well,
There, All The Honor Lies.
After recitation, the headmaster would then explain the poem to us. He would then explain that there was no inherent honor or shame attached to any office holder – that honor or shame would always go to a person depending on how well or poorly the person performed his or her job. This means that a president who does not do his/her work well does not deserve respect or honor on that job while a lowly janitor who does his/her work well would be praised and loved by his community. Each morning, the headmaster would select a job or profession as the theme for his morning mini-assembly lecture. It was like a mini lesson where he would talk to us about what it means to do the job well or badly. This means that from the standards of my elementary school headmaster, Bush and Co deserve only shame for the terrible mess they have made of the American presidency. In the history of this nation, no administration has been as thoroughly wrong, bumbling and incompetent as the current Bush administration. They have screwed up literally every important institution, department or organ of the American system. While we have all been concerned with Bush’s invasion of Iraq where they have performed awfully dismal, the administration’s domestic policies have only received scanty attention. Domestically, Bush and Co., have been behaving like an invading, victorious and occupying army, that is determined to deface America beyond recognition by the time it finishes dealing with us. They have screwed our national security organs so much that no body believes what ever they say starting from Iraq to North Korea to Iran, Syria, etc. because they have all gotten them very wrong in the past due to political pressures. Nothing is beyond politics for this administration. No area is sacrosanct, everything must be controlled. They suffer no opposition or critique. They will use all types of intimidation, subtle, overt or covert to ensure compliance. This means that Bush and Co have made such a terrible mess of the presidency, the world and the US that it would take decades to redress. Bush is currently only bumbling along waiting for the next presidency to confront the quagmire. Due to many reasons, few outstanding persons from an oppressed group could always pull through the insurmountable huddles but that does not mean that the oppression, domination and exploitation of the people are over. In fact, it is even arguable that domination/exploitation systems require such exemplary individuals for existence. The “successful” individuals serve dual purposes for the oppressive fascist system. The systems actually create them, often put them up and use the as tools to control their oppressed communities and as straw examples and evidence to all that they are improving and are not as bad as some might think. Does it then mean that every “successful” member of the oppressed group is a house slave? No. House slaves are those who consciously or unconsciously use their high positions – status or money – to serve and further the fascist system that gnaws and holds down his/her people. While every successful person in a fascist, plutocratic oppressive system like the United States has the duty to challenge America to live up to its noble independence ideals of the “inalienable rights”; “successful” minorities have the special burden to be proactive in the struggles for social justice. They must not to be complacent and cozy up with a system that continues to hold down the vast majority of their fellow minorities. They must not think of themselves as “special” and forget where they come from. If they do so, they are house slaves, traitors to their race and a disgrace to humanity. We must never gauge the success or worth of a person by the amount of material wealth he amassed or by the high positions or statuses he attained or held but by how he leveraged his wealth, status and/or privileged positions to change the oppressive system and better the lives of the less fortunate masses. I was raised a catholic, and I am not a particularly religious person, but I believe in the biblical injunction that “to whom more is given, more is expected.” If it has pleased the Lord to bless you in any number of ways, you should give back to the community where the good fortune comes from. It even becomes criminal if you, in various ways, actively help to promote, maintain and sustain the oppressive system that holds many others down like Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, Retired General Colin Powel, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, etc. They are all in very high positions but the bosses whose interests they serve very well, put them there. Yet the bosses always eagerly display them to demonstrate that the system is progressing as some of my students often contend that blacks have made important progress since slavery because of the existence of these high profile “successful” blacks and minorities. The students are essentially correct, but you cannot judge the progress of a people by comparing their current statuses with their eighteenth century slave status and welfare. It in fact, demonstrates and confirms the abject failure of the system; and really a shame and ironical that one has to resort to such absurd comparisons to show that America is doing well in this twenty-first century. No. The proper approach is to compare the status of blacks and Hispanics with the whites now, which if we do, will underscore the wide disparities between them, and thus confirm the racist oppressive structure of the American system or what Senator Edwards calls, “the problems of two Americas.”
If we must compare blacks with their slave status, them we must also compare the Irish with their status during the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, or the Scottish with their feudal and servile status in Europe, or the Polish, the Jews and other “whites?” with their various deplorable forces that “pushed” them out of their homelands to America. We do not do those comparisons because it would make sense and we rarely want to do anything that is rational, makes sense or will remind the whites how horrible they were in their homelands, which we do not want to remember.
The principle of gradualism, which requires us to be grateful and happy because we (blacks) are no longer in classical slavery today, is an outrage to modernity, totally unacceptable and very condescending. It ignores that the Irish, the Germans, the Scottish, the Poles, the Sicilians, Spaniards and other whites mostly migrated to this country in miserable, subjugated, poor, illiterate, impoverished, hungry, starving wretches and thrived to their current opulence in the system, which is why they call America, “the land of opportunities.” Compare the two groups and you will find that both have made significant strides since centuries ago, but that white are generally doing two to four times better than blacks, minorities and native Americans which confirms the fundamental and structural injustice of the system. Currently, the Chief Judge of India is an Untouchable. Indeed, a one time president of India was also an untouchable. Yet the caste problems of India are still very well entrenched. Therefore, the existence of few “successful” blacks and minorities does not and cannot mean that blacks and minorities are doing well now or that equal access now exists in the system. America has come a long way from its primitive shameful slave years, and/or from when Andrew Jackson slaughtered thousands of Indians in the “Trail of Tears”; but we still have a long way to go to get to the Promised Land. We got to where we are today only through toils and very rigorous struggles; and we will get to our Promised Land only through continuous and relentless struggles. And, like Martin Luther King said, “I may not get there with you but I hope that my children and grand children will get there” only if the struggle continues. In conclusion, the story of Major John Hammond, Eugene Robinson’s very successful great grandfather, while rare was expected. We now know that systems of domination and exploitation like the historical United States have always produced pockets of such exceptionally “successful” individuals who serve the systems in various ways. Their existence should therefore, not diminish the intolerable and dehumanizing conditions under which most blacks survived in the eighteenth century slave America. In the twenty-first century, we also have pockets of such high-profile “successful” blacks and other minorities, their existence does not diminish the comparatively intolerable conditions under which most blacks, and other minorities exist and toil in America today. Eugene Robinson, therefore has a duty to investigate his great grandfather more so as to open a wider window for national understanding of the roles of our great grandfathers, great granduncles, etc.
[1] Read, Eugene Robinson, “The Story I'll Never Know All Of” Washington Post (Friday, March 2, 2007); A13
[7] David Walker’s Appeal In Four Articles (Boston: 1829)
[8] Read, Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present (San Francisco: City Light Books, 1997), pp. 1-19.
[11] Read, Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) ...
[13] Bob Woodward, State of Denial: Bush At War 111 ( New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), passim.
[14] Vincent Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How The Supreme Court Undermined The Constitution And Chose Our President (New York: The Nation Books, 2001), p. 18
[16] Bugliosi, op.cit., p. 8.
[17] Read, Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, fortune And The Politics of Deceit In The House Of Bush (New York: Viking Books, 2004), passim; and Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History Of Admission And Exclusion At Harvard, Yale, And Princeton, (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 2005), passim.
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