Black Codes, vagrancy, false liberation, convict leasing, and a cop's knee for choking

“One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And the notion, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free”. John F. Kennedy, 1963, Civil Rights Address

  There has always been a collective attitude among White folks that they do not have to respect African Americans because they are not their equals. The day slaves were freed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, there was no official legislation recognizing the edit. The 13^th Amendment was passed April 8, 1864, by Congress, by the House on January 31, 1865. Right away White folks commenced creating ways to sabotage that freedom, further pushing their knees deeper into necks of emancipated men and women and children. White folks did not care about the Emancipation Proclamation or Abe Lincoln’s largess, which was not absolutely sincere. 

Whites believed that no amendment in the Constitution of the United States applied to the free Black Africans. To concede that certain amendments were applicable to Blacks meant cutting in half the elephant in the room: White Privilege. The elephant covers a lot of White Privilege territory: affirmative action, equal pay, judicial fairness, police protection, quality educations, freedom to be free, employment opportunities.

White males in power did not want former slaves to breathe a whiff of fresh air without their permission. Ex-slaves were mobile black bodies without souls and emotions. Like children, they needed guidance. They had to be closely monitored, corralled and beat when they were unruly and disobedient. White women and children did not have full-fledged rights either, but they had a modicum more freedom than former slaves.

After emancipation the Black Africans had nowhere to go. No new life awaited them. They were money-broke, and destitute. They had nowhere to live. No food. No clothing. No job prospects. They were vulnerable and susceptible to the cruelest forms of revictimization administered by White folks. Because thousands of them had no choice list to check off, they stayed with their former owners, working as sharecroppers. Plantation owners provided the land and seed for a share of the profits. However, some ex-slaves decided to try and make it on their own in a country completely controlled by White males.

They did not get the 40 acres and mule as promised by Union General William T. Sherman, January 16, 1866, that was filed order No.15. The 40 acres consisted of land on the costal islands and costal region of Georgia. The Union promised to donate mules it was not using. However, the mules were not packaged with the 40 Acres. The promise was broken. President Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s successor, annulled the deal.

On April 16, 1861, the District of Columbia Emancipation Act made it possible for the government to pay former slave owners $300,00 for each slave they once owned. Around $1 million was put aside to pay the former slaveholders. An estimated 979 plantation and farm owners had around 2,989 slaves. The payees were compensated to stay loyal to the Union. Reparations for loss of “property”? Or reparations for loyalty? Manumitted slave got nothing for their years of hard labor.

Black men and women deciding to make it on their own ran into more brick walls than opportunities. But some were successful. White folks, poor and rich, did not allow Blacks the privilege of becoming viable citizens, earning their own way, earning money to buy land and start a new life. These skilled Blacks were threats to White males, who feared the competition for jobs and land purchases, which would diminish their economic status and power. Enslavement was not you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours handshake deal between liberated Africans and privileged Caucasians.

In the book “I Was Born in Slavery” edited by Andrew Waters, ex-slaves remember their bondage. Wash Ingram recalled his owner and the treatment they received. He said his mother and father were sold frequently. Whoever owned them at any given time was the name they took. Ingram’s father ran away. His mother died. He was left alone. He was sold to a new owner named Jim Ingram.

“Master Ingram had a big plantation down near Carthage and lots of niggers. He also buyed land, cleared it, and sold it. I plowed with oxen. We had a overseer and sev’ral taskmasters. They whip niggers for not workin’ right, or for riunnin’ ‘way, or *pilferin’ ‘round Master’s house. We woke up at four o’clock and worked from sunup to sundown. They give us an hour for dinner. Them that work ‘round the house had tables with plates. Them that work in the field was drove in from work and fed just like hosses at a big, long wooden trough. They had to eat with wooden spoons. The trough and food was clean and always plenty of it, and we stood up to eat. *(stealing in small amounts)

“I ‘member the war, and I sees them cannons and hears’em. I toted water for the soldiers what fought at the Battle of Mansfield. Master Ingram had 350 slaves when the war was over. But he didn’t turn us loose ‘til a year after Surrender. He telled us that the gov’ment goin’ to give us forty acres of land, and a pair of mules. But we didn’t git nothin’”.

Ingram eventually turned his slaves loose. Wash Ingram found his father years later, who had been purchased “a place” in DeBerry, Texas. Ingram lived with him “’til after I was grown”. He got married and moved to Louisiana, returned to Texas and lived with friends. His wife died. He said he had a hard time. He had no more living relatives. He couldn’t find work, so he “managed to git someone to let me work for somethin’ to eat. A few clothes, and a place to sleep”.

Black boy is tired to pole as punishment

Freed Africans moved North, increasing their numbers in various states. White folks were not happy. “. . . many Whites became resentful. White hostility towards Black residents grew. Wealthy Whites feared vagrancy and crime, and poor Whites resented the competition over jobs. . . most White northerners were not interested in fighting to free slaves, or in giving rights to Black people”. PBS TV

White terrorist groups sprang up to keep the Black Africans in place. Desperate plantation owners, farmers and businesses needed the continuance and security of free labor. Without Africans the South’s economy would dwindle. Virginia had the largest population of freed slaves. A year after Black Africans were emancipated, Virginia’s General Assembly passed the "Vagrancy Act of 1866", January 15. Unemployment and homelessness were punishable crimes.

The law’s preamble states: “[t]here hath lately been a great increase of idle and disorderly persons in some parts of this commonwealth’, which displaced much of the state’s large population of Africans’”.

If a "vagrant" attempted to escape, and later recaptured, he was sent to prison, or returned to his previous owner, who could work him an extra month for free. The imprisoned vagrants were forced to wear balls and chains. If no former employers took them back, they worked on public projects, surviving only on bread and water. Many of them died from diseases, maltreatment and poor health.

Black Codes were legislated in southern states (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina). These states were an economic mess. They lost access to free laborers. The Black Codes allowed Whites to regain control of the free Blacks and continued free labor. Former slaves could not own land. They could not own themselves, given they had no right to their own bodies unless a White man gave them permission to be responsible human beings. 

Freed Africans had to get permission to travel out of state; they could not own guns. In other words, they still had no rights that White folks had to acknowledge. In 1904 a new law replaced the Vagrancy Act. Vagrancy became a misdemeanor. The guilty had to pay a bond and exhibit good behavior for one year.

BETTER OFF CONFINED TO PRISONS

In “Slavery by Another Name” by Douglas H, Blackmon, the author retraced the imprisonment of a young man named Green Cottenham, who was arrested, charged with vagrancy March 30, 1908, in Shelby County, Alabama.

“After three days behind bars, twenty-two-year-old Cottenham was found guilty in a swift appearance before the county judge, and immediately sentenced to a thirty-day term of hard labor. Unable to pay the array of fees accessed on every prisoner—fees to the sheriff, the deputy, the court judge, the witness—Cottenham’s sentence was extended to nearly a year of hard labor. The next day, Cottenham, the youngest of nine children, born to former slaves in an adjoining county, was sold”.

Blackmon writes that Cottenham was turned over to the U.S. Steel Corporation by the sheriff. “What the company’s managers did with Cottenham and thousands of other Black men they purchased from sheriffs across Alabama, was entirely up to them”.

Thousands of Black men were at the mercy of White men who held their lives and futures in their

Despite being free Black men and boys were forced to work as convict laborers after getting arrested for homelessness, vagrancy, and being unemployed.

hands.  The odds of regaining their freedom was against Black men and boys. They were locked in another form of slavery not even President Abe Lincoln could have freed them from. The corporate White males of privilege refused to take their knees off the necks of these ex-slaves, all solidly trapped by false charges, White power, open racism.

White officials summarily concluded that “Black convicts” would be better off if they were confined to prisons, where they could learn discipline, a trade, and disabuse themselves of bad habits. It was decided they were better off in servitude rather than freedom.  After the enactment of Black Codes, a “program” called Convict Leasing came into play. This “program” was designed to keep Black men in bondage. Convict leasing was finally outlawed in 1928, 63 years after slavery was abolished. Louisiana was the last state to step away from the money-making hustle. 

Whoever sought convict labor were responsible for feeding and clothing them; providing them a place to stay. Black males made up the majority of the rented labor force. They worked coal mines, picked cotton, worked quarries, lumber yards, railroads, plantations, farming, construction. Black men built the Capitol of Texas in Austin, Texas, and the White House in Washington, DC. They have never gotten credit for their contributions in these projects.

“Instead of evidence showing Black crime waves, the original records of county jails indicated thousands arrested for inconsequential charges, or for violations of laws specifically written to intimidate Blacks, changing employees without permission, vagrancy, riding freight cars without a ticket, engaging in sexual activity, or loud talk with a White woman”. Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name.

Evacuation of former slave's graves

In 2018 in Sugarland, Texas, 95 African American graves were discovered on a construction site. Workers uncovered 85 graves of freed slaves. They were estimated to range in ages from 14 to 70. All were boys and men, except for one woman. The skeletal remains revealed that they “were malnourished, their bones misshapen from back-breaking, repetitive labor. They were buried in plain pine boxes, somewhere between 1878 and 1911”.

BLACK FOLKS ARE "THINGS", NOT HUMANS

“I can’t breathe”. Repeat until your mind has traveled all the way back to the first day Africans were enslaved in America. The knees of White slave masters were on their necks. The lives of unshackled slaves were on lease from day one, like that of Black women, men and boys today. The end date of the lease was/is determined by White cops with badges, gun and a pair of working knees for choking.

If White citizens decided a Black person is “dangerous and scary”, they could shot him to death. Whites claimed they were scared, hoping the law and juries would believe their stories. Before the public killing of George Floyd, cops and White always walked free.

Historian, author, editor and activist W. E. B. DuBois said: “The slave went free, stood for a brief moment in the sun, and then moved back again toward slavery”.

Convict leasing was the brutal enforcement of Step Two to the slavery saga. The reimprisonment of Black men and boys proved to be a bigger enemy than their previous enslavement. Once again, they lost control of their own lives, which did not matter to White males who paid other White males to lease them.

The New York Times Magazine: “Some American slavery matured into perverse regimes that denied the humanity of Black people, while still criminalizing their actions. As the Supreme Court of Alabama explained in 1861, enslaved Black people were ‘capable of committing crimes,’ and in that capacity, were ‘regarded a person’, but in most every other sense they were ‘incapable of performing civil acts’ and considered ‘things, not persons.’”

The 13^th Amendment is credited with legally abolishing slavery. Section 1 states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”. Therein lies the words that trapped emancipated bondsmen, leaving them up a creek without a paddle. Vagrant? Homeless? Unemployed? They could be charged with these crimes that only applied to Blacks.

Neither the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution mentioned slavery, despite forefathers owning and violating enslaved men and women. Although they were full human beings, they were referred to as “three-fifths of all other persons” in the U.S. Constitution.

When cops employ their knees to put Black men in death holds, they do not see human beings. A Black man, boy or woman lying belly-down on grass or pavement have no power to renew his or her lease on life. Cops that willfully kill them, the majority unarmed-- are reliving the oppression of 1865 vagrant laws. The cops see three-fifths Black bodies, likened to animals that are treated more mercifully.

SANDBAGS WITH ARMS, HANDS AND FEET  

“In Greenville, (LeRoy) Percy helped organize a flood fight and held his front against the river. But just above Washington Country, The New York Times reported, an engineer who ran out of sandbags ‘ordered . . . several hundred negroes . . . to lie down on top of the levee and as close together as possible. The Black men obeyed, and although spray frequently dashed over them, they prevented the overflow that might have developed into an ugly crevasse. For an hour and a half this hatred lasted, until the additional sandbags arrived. The men were convicts, and the Times called the idea ‘brilliant’. But Percy did not approve. To him men were economic units competing with other men, not sandbags’”, writes John M. Barry in Rising Tide.

Democratic Governor of Mississippi, James K. Vardaman, a devout racist who “fed on, and fed the hatred”, did not like the notion of Black citizens getting an education. He said education “renders him unfit for the work which the White man has prescribed and which he will be forced to perform”. He recommended repealing the 14^th and 15^th Amendments.

Vardaman declared that Blacks were “lazy, lying, lustful animals which no amount of training can transform into a tolerable citizen. . . “[I]f it is necessary every negro in the State will be lynched, it will be done to maintain supremacy”. Rising Tide

African Americans have been referred to as “animals” by Whites throughout history, expressing exactly the same attitude as Vardaman. Former President Barack Obama and his family were referred to as monkeys, gorillas, orangutans. Cops, whose Facebook and other social media ramblings have been exposed and caught calling Black folks all these names and more.

On lynching Blacks, Vardaman said he did not care if they were innocent or guilty, because “[t]he good [negroes] are few, the bad are many, and it is impossible to tell what ones are . . . dangerous to the honor of the dormant race until the damage is done”. Vardaman held office 116 years ago.

A DILEMMA: COPS CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD BLACKS AND BAD BLACKS

After shooting a Black person, no matter the age or gender, White cops assert they feared for their lives. They do not have the same fear when confronting a White person pointing a weapon at them. They suddenly feel the need to be reasonable as they try negotiating with the White individual. Unfortunately, being Black is a crime punishable by physical abuse or death.

Louie White (deceased) became a cop in Austin, Texas in 1959. At the time a Black cop could arrest a White person, even if they were caught committing a crime. If a Black cop was assigned a downtown beat, that was limited to a couple of blocks. They had to call for a White cop to arrest a White person. Black cops could not control, handcuff or touch any person perceived as White. On the other hand, White cops could go on the East Side to arrest, beat, kill or harass any Black person they wanted to. Black cops could only deal with Blacks.

In Psychology Today, Allision Abrams writing about “The Psychology Behind Racism”, says, “Attitudes of extreme hatred are usually based in fear. They come from primitive survival mechanisms or instincts to avoid danger—to fear anything that appears to be different, which leads to fear of the other.

“When one race of persons unconsciously feels fear in response to a different race group—fears that their own level of security, important or control of being threatened—they will develop these defensive thoughts and behaviors. They will create exaggerated and negative beliefs about the other race to justify their actions in [an] attempt to secure their own safety and survival”.

MSNBC News “Think” (Opinion, Analysis, Essays), Damien Jones, writes about his fear of the police, who sees his height as dangerous. “As a 6-foot-3 Black man, I’ve been trained my whole life to protect my safety by trying to make myself seem less threatening—dressing in professional clothing, smiling extra hard, not wearing my do-rag in public. But it shouldn’t be my duty to undo hundreds of years of stereotyping of Black men. It should be the responsibility of officers to unlearn their biases, and to be trained to distinguish real threats from nonthreats”.

Rather than sounding like he is chairman of Urban Justice and Equality, PAC, Jones sounds like a manumitted slave having to watch his behavior, appearing nonthreatening around White folks, especially cops. In the year 2020 he is still scared not smile “extra hard” for fear he won’t appear friendly. This professional Black man’s life is very much akin to the rules set by the 1866 Vagrancy Act, created to keep a White man’s knee on his Black neck if he is identified as someone he is not.

“American culture is imbued with fears that African Americans will someday repay the violence and oppression that has marred their history in this country”, said Noam Chomsky, linguist and cultural critic. He emphasized the ongoing impact of Black enslavement and subjugation in the U.S., saying, ‘fears that the victims might rise up and take revenge are deeply rooted in American culture, with reverberations to the present’”. Alternet.org

Knowing they could do whatever they wanted with run-away slaves or liberated slaves without freedom papers signed by their former owners—organized, armed paddy rollers took advantage of their power over their helpless captives. If they severely beat, tortured or killed their prisoners, they did not claim they “feared for their lives.” They did not fear the sizes of their prisoners. Their bloody deeds were executed without consequences.

During a traffic stop in Virginia in 2019, one cop on the scene proved the “I feared for my life” is a lie; a myth. The episode began with the cop letting the young Black male know that he was in charge. The Black man, stopped for an expired inspection sticker and suspended driver’s license, immediately began taping the interaction. He made sure his hands were raised and visible. 

"He said to the cop standing at the window, “Sir my hands are up. I’m in no threat to officers”. The cop, opening the car door, said: “You are going to get your ass whupped”. His bodycam was not on. The Black man was pulled out of his car. His cell camera stopped but not the audio. After pulling the driver out of his car, throwing him to the ground, the cop said, “How do you like that, motherfucker? How do you like that”?

The driver reminded the cop he was not resisting. He asked the cop to get “off my neck”. The cop did not exhibit fear of the Black man. He retained his supremacy. The young black man, who sustained several injuries, was the Constitution’s three-fifths of a human, his dignity pinned to the street like his body.

Norm Stamper, former police chief of the Seattle Police Department, wrote: “Simply put, White cops are afraid of Black men. We don’t talk about it, we pretend it doesn’t exist, we claim ‘color blindness’, we say White officer treat Black men the same way they treat White men. But that’s a lie. In fact, the bigger, the darker the Black man the greater the fear. The African American community knows this. Hell, most Whites know it. Yet, even though it’s central, if not the defining ingredient in the makeup of police racism, White cops won’t admit it to themselves or to others.

“I’ve studied fear for years. I’ve learned how it affects our bodies, out perception, judgment, and actions. [R]ecently I’ve tried to dig up empirical evidence to support my particular theory that White cops are afraid of Black men. [T]here are studies showing that Whites, in general, are likely to view Blacks as more violent than Whites.

“So, why am I so certain that White cops are afraid of Black men? Because I was a White cop. In a world of White cops. For thirty-four years. From the earlies days of academy training, it was made clear that Black men and White cops don’t mix, that of all the people we’d encounter on the streets, those most dangerous to our safety, to our survival, were Black men”. A Top Cop’s Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing, by Norm Stamper

Whereas Stamper said White cops are afraid of big African American men, during slavery the bigger, the blacker a slave, the more favor he received from his White owner.  A big, black buck was perceived as valuable. He was perceived as a good worker and breeder, worthy of living not killing. For decades White cops have been shooting Black men, women and children without regard to their 

size, despite of Stamper’s assessment.

“In Amite, Louisiana, fifty miles north of New Orleans, several farmers were indicted on charges of kidnapping a family of Negroes for a twenty dollar bill; the Negroes were forced to work without pay for weeks under armed guards”.  Rising Tide

George Floyd

May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 6 feet, 7 inches, George Floyd, 46, was murdered on a Minnesota street as people watched in horror and disbelief. His murder was videoed in real time by a person on the scene. While in police custody, Floyd was eventually wrestled to the pavement, held down by Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng. He asked not to be put in the back of police car because he was claustrophobic and had recovered from COVID-19. He was eventually wrestled to the ground. He had volunteered to lay on the ground rather be locked in the closed police vehicle. 

Derek Chauvin was the nonchalant cops that held his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd begged and pleaded for Chauvin to get his knee off his neck. He could not breathe. The cop refused, Floyd died, handcuffed, held down by three other cops, lying face down on the street, begging to let him breathe, calling for his deceased mother. He predicted the cops were going to kill him.

His crime, other than being Black? The owner of a grocery store called the police, telling the 911 dispatcher that a customer was trying to pay for a purchase with a counterfeit $20 bill.

In 1928 a Black family sold for a $20 bill. The White farmers who snatched the family, taking them to Mississippi, were indicted for kidnapping. A Black was man murdered by four cops, because he was accused of trying to pay for a purchase with a phony $20 bill. The four cops will stand trial for George Floyd’s murder. His life and the lives of a Black family was worth less than $25.00

'Django Unchained', a Tarrantino movie that distanced itself from the true facts of slavery

I went to see Django Unchained a couple of weeks ago. I avoided critics and what others were saying about the movie. I wanted to get my own impression of Django Unchained. I love Jamie Foxx and Samuel Jackson, two characters in the movie. Having already watched a couple of Quentin Tarrantino movies I was prepared to see violence, and rough language. 

Taking a line from Langston Hughes’ poem, Mother to Son: “I’se still climbin’, And for me it ain’t been no crystal stair.” From my reading of history I knew that life for slaves was “no crystal stair.” Their life was nowhere close to what Tarrantino depicts in this movie. 

Jamie Foxx as Django,
wearing sunshades

I am not a regular moviegoer, so when I Goggled the word “Django” I was surprised to see that a previous Django movie was produced in 1966. The film, an Italian western, was directed by Sergio Corbucci.

Jamie Foxx is Django, whom we meet when he’s being transported with other slaves. He’s rescued by a German minded abolitionist and  bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christop Waltz), who schools Django in the ways of tracking down and killing men. 

Django becomes the Robin to his Batman, but he wants one thing in return: to go back to the Mississippi plantation where his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), is still enslaved and free her.

Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx in town

What caught my attention, soon after Schultz purchased Django from paddyrollers--was them riding into town. The town's people were aghast. A slave riding a horse like he was a free White man! And he was pistol strapped, wearing a hat and regular clothing!
 
Prior to coming to town Schultz and Django shot the paddy rollers, leaving captured run-a-ways to escape to a freedom. Django took clothes and boots off one the dead paddy roller. By coincidence they fit him. The time period was 1858, three years before the "Proclamation Emancipation" was issued by President Abraham Lincoln.

As a slave Django had no access to a barber; therefore, it was reasonable that his hair was nappy and bushy. In a scene following a quick shootout between Schultz and some gangsters wanted dead or alive, they went into the town’s barber shop. 

The owner did not make a fuss about serving a slave. He did not say, “I don’t serve no nigger slave in here!” Or “What you doin’ with that nigger slave in here?” Nor did he demand that they leave his shop. By the time the two left town that day, the slave was sporting a fade haircut! The carefully crafted fade was popularized by Black barbers. Also, remember this is 1858, and Foxx’s character had dropped his slave dialect.

Call me picky, but obvious dangler after dangler caught my attention, like Moses wearing a red wrist band in The Ten Commandments. But I digress. Schultz and Django went to Candyland, the biggest plantation in the South, where slaves called the DiCaprio’s character “Big Daddy”. Before riding up to the big house, Django spotted an overseer beating a slave. He quickly sprinted toward the overseer, snatched the whip and commenced beating him. He shoots the overseer six or seven times as slaves look on in admiration and amazement. 

Later in the movie, the KKK scene was pure comedy relief. Klansmen argued about the skewed eye cutouts in the cloth bags covering their heads. I didn't and don't understand what this particular scene added to the movie. Remember, the KKK was organized in 1865, soon after slaves were freed.

Throughout the movie, the soundtrack was absolutely contemporary music, including rap! I could not believe it! Tarrantino did not bother to write an original soundtrack for Django Unchained.

Calvin Candie played by Leonardo DiCaprio

Django learned to read quickly, and just as quickly, he evolved into an expert marksman. I stared in disbelief when one of Candie’s guests asked Django how he pronounced his name. The Foxx character told him, explaining that the “D is silent.” 

A slave with knowledge of silent letters! Not even White slave owners knew about consonants and silent vowels! Maybe Django learned it from one of those English books he was allowed to read, courtesy of his German rescuer.
 
One of Candie’s in-house female slaves (see photo to the left) was dressed in a short black and white uniform, replete with heels, black stockings, pressed hair, neatly styled and decorated with a big white bow. She stood in the doorway as two slaves fought for the pleasure of Candie and his male guests. The winner hits the loser in his head with a hammer, killing him. This happened as the loser lay on the floor, moaning from his wounds. 

Candie had demanded that the victor take the loser out of his misery. DiCaprio’s character gives him a hammer to complete the deed. This slave is later mauled to death by hunting dogs. The slave does not want to fight anymore, but that is not his decision to make. Candie talks him down out of the tree, promising he won't have to fight anymore, which was a lie.

In addition to the movie going against everything related to the brutality of bondage, male slaves wore t-shirts, regular shirts and pants and haircuts. However, they were barefoot. 

Finally, Stephen, the in-house Negro played by Samuel Jackson, comes on the scene when Schultz introduces Django to Candie, who instructs his help to treat Django like a “White man.” Of course, this surprises Candie's White guests and the slaves standing around. 

Sam Jackson is unadulterated Pulp Fiction, talking loudly and cursing strong. Like Django, he does not speak with a slave dialect. For some reason, Stephen hates Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington. When Schultz and Broomhilda, (Django's wife) and the property of Candie, sneaked away for a moment of privacy, they converse in German (with subtitles), even though both can speak English. The three of them do not let on that she is Django’s wife, who Schultz plans to buy back from Candie.

Stephen is disrespected everyone in the dining room where Candie’s guests were dining. No way under God’s blue sky would a slave be allowed to rant, curse and bloviate like Jackson’s character. Such disrespect would have demanded a flogging to teach all the slaves a lesson about respect and knowing their place. In one scene, where Broomhilda is held at gun point by a slaver, an angry Stephen shouted at Django: “I don’t give a good goddamn about you! Believe that! We’re gonna blow this bitch’s brains out! Believe it!” Really, Tarrantino? Really, Sam Jackson?

Stephen (Sam Jackson) and
Broomhilda (Kerry Washington)

A gun fight breaks out inside the plantation. White men suddenly burst in the door. Bullets fly and all hell breaks loose. Blood sprouted from bodies like bleeding hydrants. Django survives, but is captured by an overseer, who hangs him upside down by his ankles in a barn, butt naked. 

The overseer was getting ready to castrate him when Stephen entered the barn, saving a scared Django.  He gets dressed and goes back inside the plantation, killing the overseer that captured him. Still angry, he shoots Stephen in both knees, before blowing up the plantation. Blow up, mind you! Not set the plantation on fire! However, there is a subsequent fire due to the explosion. The movie ends with Django and Broomhilda on horses, both elaborately dressed.   

Django Unchained did not resemble the true horrors of slavery in America. It was too 21st century for me. Maybe I was looking for too much reality to take the movie seriously. It did well at the box office and in many cases, got good reviews from critics. There is even talk of an Academy Award. I have to agree with Spike Lee, despite my going to see the movie. Django Unchained was akin to a spaghetti western that disengaged itself from the horrors of slavery and the plight of imported Africans who lived the horrors up close and personal.

The Family Leader says children born into slavery were better off than children born today

Presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum

Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann

In a July 7 press release from The Family Leader, presidential candidates were told what they would have to do would to get its endorsement: voluntarily sign "The Marriage Vow" pledge that says candidates must agree to oppose gay marriage. Republican candidates Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann have already signed the pledge. Republicans no longer pledge their allegiance to America. They pledge to individuals and organizations.

The Family Leader describes itself as “a Christian conservative organization which provides a consistent, courageous voice in the churches, in the legislature, in the media, in the courtroom, in the public square . . . always standing for God’s truth in order to strengthen the family.”

Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The Family Leader said in the press release, “We believe that the candidates’ positions on core values, such as marriage, correlate directly to his/her moral stances on energy issues, sound budgeting policies, national defense, and economic policies".

The Marriage Vow subtitled A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family states:

“Presidential candidates who sign The Marriage Vow will sign off on support of personal fidelity to his/her spouse, appointing faithful constitutionalists as judges, opposition to any redefinition of marriage, and prompt reform of uneconomic and anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and divorce law.  The Marriage Vow also outlines support for the legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), humane efforts to protect women and children, rejection of anti-women Sharia Islam, safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. military personnel, and commitment to downsizing government and the burden upon American families".

Bob Vander Plaats

The “Vow" further states: “Faithful monogamy is at the very heart of a designed and purposeful order–as conveyed by Jewish and Christian Scripture by Classical Philosophers, by Natural Law, and by the American founders –upon which our concept of Creator-endowed human rights, racial justice and gender equality all depend".

As I read more of the document, a paragraph directly below the above statement hit me like a ton of flying bricks, all of them landing flat on my head! I could not believe what I was reading! But my mind quickly reverted back to Michele Bachmann’s rewriting of African American history as it relates to slavery.

Number one of six points stated in the pledge:

“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parents household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African American President".

According the stories and historical recollections I’ve researched, there was no such thing as a”two-parent slave household”, or slave children being raised by both slave parents. In the book I Was Born in Slavery, edited by Andrew Walters, there are personal accounts of individuals born into slavery. They were not raised by a "two parents household."

In the book Sarah Ashley (her slave name) recalls “I was bo’n in Miss’ippi. I was ‘bout five years old when I left there and come here (Texas). Mister Henry Thomas, he buys us and bring us here. He was a spec’lator. He buy up lots of niggers and sell and sell’em. Us fambly was separated. My udder (other) two sisters and my fadder (father) was sold to a man, I never know his name, in Alabama. I stay with the spect’lator’s gang fo’ five or ten year.

“Then they put me on a block and bid me off. That was in N’ Yawlins (New Orleans). I was scared and cry, but they put me up there anyway. They sold me and my two sisters. They take me to Gregory. I think they pay ‘bout a thousand dollars for me. Mister Thomas, he trabble (travel) ‘roun and buy and sell, buy and sell niggers. They didn’t sell us fo’ a long spell. Us stay in the spec’lator’s drove".

The words of exslave Sarah Ashley and thousands more like her speaks loudly and clearly. Her recollection knocks The Family Leader's idea of slave history is knocked out of the ballpark by Ashley's memory. We all know that children today are not put on auction blocks and sold like cattle, while their parents await their turn to be sold at the same auction. 

No, Republican candidates, slave children were not raised by two-parent. Few of them lived with their mothers and fathers until adulthood. A great majority of stronger Black males–then called “bucks" were used as breeders, not in-house fathers and heads of households.

From one plantation owner to another; Willie Lynch outlines a 300-year plan for slavery

Willie Lynch guarantees 300 years of division and control
 
The mysterious Willie Lynch Manifesto has been around for decades. No one knows if the author was Black or White, man or woman, or a mythical character created by someone who wanted to emphasize light skin vs dark skin slaves, pitting them against each other on plantations. Whatever the case, Lynch predicted that his formula for controlling and categorizing slaves would work for 300 years if slave masters followed his strategy.

The Willie Lynch Manifesto ignited some interesting debates and conversations. None of the back and forth are more boisterous and comedic than between customers in community barber shops. In these shops you see and hear Willie Lynch personified. The debaters and conversationalists are both serious and side splitting hilarious when they explain slavery, dark and light skinned slaves, house and field slaves, and White masters who fathered thousands of "mixed" children, the result of raping young slave girls and women.

The mysterious Lynch was spot on in his evaluation of slave life. He was holding a bankable check when he predicted that his blueprint to divide slaves by skin color would work 300 years if slaveholders followed his advice. As of 2013, in African American communities, there is still a color caste system, in which light skin is more desirous than dark skin. If a light complexioned Black woman has long "good hair" that is a bonus for her. She will have Black men vying for her attention. She does not have to be movie star attractive on the scale of a Halle Berry. 

Light skin will suffice for those who tend to shy away from dark skin. Black males tend to fall in love with women's hair before they fall in love with her. It's not unusual to hear a Black man brag about his woman's long hair and light complexion. She is his long-haired trophy on display when they are in public. His friends envy him. This swells his chest. Some African American men say long hair is the reason they like White women, Asian women, Latino women.

A large number of successful Black males, especially those in sports, prefer light complexioned Black women, Latino, White women. It is fairly common to hear African American men make excuses for rejecting dark skinned women. This is puzzling, given the fact that many of their mothers, sisters, cousins and aunts are dark skinned. These Black males, many of whom are dark skinned themselves, find dark skinned women less attractive because they are too bossy, have too much attitude, too controlling.  They say White women do not have these personality flaws. Of course, this not true, but it gives Black males the excuse they need to explain their attraction to White women, and their rejection of dark-skinned Black women.

Thousands of African American parents favor their light skinned children over their darker children. I have read personal stories of parents pouring bleach in their children's bathwater, even rubbing bleaching creams on the bodies of their dark children, getting their young daughters' hair permed. 

I have heard Black women say they prefer having children with a White man, a Latino, a light skinned Black man. Why? Because they want children with "good hair" and light complexions. They say that biracial children are prettier and smarter. Unfortunately, this myth lives on in Black communities today. Realistically, not all biracial children have "good hair" and light complexions. Not all of them are pretty, cute, smarter or beautiful. Some of them are light complexioned but have short kinky hair and "Negroid" features. 

Light skin, dark skin, videos and favored children

More proof of complexion preference is seen in music videos, TV commercials, the modeling industry, employment, magazine covers, the movies. A White music producer said light skinned entertainers are "less threatening than dark skinned entertainers". His reasoning is that White people find light skin more acceptable and pleasing to the eye. Beyonce, Queen Latifah and other African American women in beauty and hair commercials are so light skinned, even the Black community wonders if they have bleached their skins. The secret is that producers of the commercials use special lens and lights to "lightened" skin tones. They utilize specific camera angles to make women look thinner and flawless.

It is not unusual to see dark skinned Black males in commercials, more so than Black women. If they are at a party in the commercials, they are often paired with White women, or a light skinned African American woman. If children are in the commercial, they, too, are light skinned or interracial. The same rule of thumb applies to characters on the big screen. Male characters may be dark skinned, but their female counterparts are light skinned, and sporting long weaves. TV commercials are making it clear that Black women are not desirable.

Producer, director, playwright and filmmaker Tyler Perry is the only filmmaker I have seen who consistently casts actors according to their talent, not skin tones or slim body types. Characters in his plays and his TV shows are reflective of the characters in his movies. They are reflective of a true America. He is only concerned about their talent to get the job done.

Observing musical videos in which a singer or rapper is African American, no matter the gender of the entertainer, you will see light skinned dancers with long weaves. Very seldom are dark skinned dancers seen in their videos. If one or two are in the videos they are usually relegated to the rear of the video. They are never lead dancers interacting with male entertainers, like their light skin counterparts. Being pretty and body perfect does not get on them on the front line. A noted reality show personality said she would never put female dancers in her videos if their skin is lighter than hers. Neither can a female dancer be prettier or skinnier than her.

Highly paid Black athletes lean towards White women as opposed to Black women. If they are married to or dating a Black woman, she is light skinned or fair skinned enough to be classified as "light." I have heard some figures in sports say that they seldom come across Black women in their travel and social life. In other words, African American women do not go to games or socialize in trendy night clubs like White women.

African Americans in deep denial 

Years ago on a popular TV talk show I saw a Black male make clear his preference for White women, because they "are not loud" like Black women. He said they are easier to get along with. He said he would never date a Black woman. He said if he did date a Black woman she would have to look like Halle Berry or prettier. He then said he was not sure if he would date Berry, even if she asked him for a date. He was fixated on White women, and nothing was going to change his mind. The man was not slim, was not a snappy dresser, handsome or attractive. He was unemployed, jobless, overweight and lacked a college education.

On another talk show--where the theme was race and heritage--the guests were African Americans, all of whom claimed to be of mixed heritage. They were adamant that they were not pure African American! However, not one of them could pass for White. One female guest in particular caught my attention, and that of the audience. She was attractive, well groomed, articulate, educated, gainfully employed. As she told of her heritage and bloodline, she named about four nationalities, none of which were African American, despite her mother and father being Black! She said she felt like a White woman trapped in Black skin.

This dark-skinned woman, whose hair was perfectly permed, identified only with White people. When the host asked about the African American side of her family she became mildly incensed, insisting that she is not Black. This confused the host, the audience. Clearly woman was an African American. But there was no confusion in her mind that she was not an African American. She had a teenage son, who she encouraged to date only White girls. He was not allowed to bring a Black girl to her home. The woman's son, who was dark skinned like herself, admitted that he was attracted to White girls. He did not find Black girls attractive. None of the other guests on stage were as extreme as this woman.

The Clark's Doll Experiment

In the early 1940s and 1950s psychologists Kenneth Bancroft Clark and his wife Mamie Phillips Clark, both African Americans, conducted an interesting experiment with Black children. Called the Doll Study, it was designed to measure the psychological effect of segregation on Black children. Their study was the first of its kind to be used by the Supreme Court when determining the unlawfulness of segregation in public schools. 

The Clarks used plastic dolls, a White a doll and a Black doll in the experiment. A select number of Black children between the ages of three and seven participated in the experiment. They were asked questions to determine their racial perception and preference.

According to the Clarks observations Black children preferred the White doll over the Black doll. The children attributed "positive characteristics" to the White doll, negative characteristics to the Black doll. The Clarks concluded that the reason for the color preference was the result of "prejudice, discrimination and segregation."  These three human characteristics in a segregated society caused Black children to develop "a sense of inferiority and self-hatred." 

When I was a kid there were no other dolls but White dolls to play with. My sister and I had no other dolls to compare. It is quite possible we might have selected the White dolls because our sense of self was not fully developed. On TV we only saw White people positively interacting with each other. Their TV lifestyles were depicted as reality, and they all looked superior compared to our common lifestyles.

Intelligence

Ever since there have been studies on intelligence it has been a foregone conclusion that African Americans are inferior to Whites. Blacks grew up with this assumption hanging over their heads. In 2023 there are still Whites who feel they are superior to Blacks. Although the Clarks did not touch intelligence, it cannot not be separated from the doll experiment conclusions. Unfortunately, these were the kinds of Black professionals that equated their social class and skin tones with their intelligence.

This reminds me of an incident that occurred when I worked as a waitress in an upscale restaurant and bar frequented by educated, middle and upper middle-class professionals, politicians, teachers and business owners, all of whom were African Americans. 

One night a customer approached me, asking if I was the one who wrote a weekly column for one the community newspapers. I told him I was. He said with0ut thinking, "I didn't know you were that intelligent . . .  I mean . . . " I laughed and asked him, "How do you tell who is intelligent?" A college student, he couldn't answer the question. I did not expect him to. I assumed he made the assumption because I am dark skinned and a waitress. 

"You must use the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves, and the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves . . ." Willie Lynch

 

The Willie Lynch 300-year plan for skin color division
  
Gentlemen:

I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies, where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest methods for control of slaves. Ancient Rome would envy us if my program is implemented.

As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish, I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of wood as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers, you are here using the tree and the rope on occasions. I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple miles back. You are not only losing valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit. You suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed.

Gentlemen, you know what your problems are. I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems. I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here I have a full proof method for controlling your black slaves. I guarantee every one of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 years. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it.

I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves, and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies, and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them.

On top of my list is "age" but it's there only because it starts with an "A." The second is "color" or shade; there is intelligence, sizes of plantations, status on plantations, attitude of owners; whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short.

Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action, but before that, I shall assure you that distrust that is stronger than trust and envy stronger than adulation, respect or admiration.  The black slaves, after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.

Don't forget you must pitch the old black male vs. the young black male, and the young black female against the old black female. You must use the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves. You must use the female vs. the male. And the male vs. the female. You must also have your white servants and over-seers distrust all blacks. But it is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us. 

Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them. Never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful. 

Thank you gentlemen.

The mysterious Willie Lynch in his analysis captured everything that I've posted in the article, from skin tones to negative attitudes that are still with us today.