Dismantling Four Myths About The Middle Passage

[Music]

i

am a romantic

i love love i love affection i love

passion the problem however with

romanticization is that it causes the

truth to oftentimes evaporate into

myths and untruths for instance i’m also

very passionate about the middle passage

and middle passage studies the middle

passage

was that oceanic space between west

africa

and north america the caribbean and

brazil it was the second leg

of the transatlantic slave trade the

most horrendous movement of human beings

in the history of the world

and so when i was in high school

i didn’t learn about the transatlantic

slave trade i didn’t learn about the

middle passage and the truth of the

matter is you probably didn’t

as well and even if you did it was

probably very impotent why

because it’s been romanticized it’s the

horror

of the trade was taken away from our

history books

and so today i’d like to demythologize

four myths about the transatlantic slave

trade the first myth

is africans all look alike the second

africans chose to come to america the

third myth

is

africans in diaspora do not belong here

and the fourth myth is

that the middle passage was not that bad

africans don’t all look alike

i know that because oftentimes even

though i am african-american i have dark

skin and i have dreadlocks

i am oftentimes assumed to be jamaican

or west indian i remember

one time i was going into jamaica and as

i was walking down the runway on my way

to get my luggage i hear this person

hollering in the background

roster yo rasta the assumption was that

because

i have locks then i’m rastafarian

rastafarian is a

rastafarianism is a religion that

has its origins in

jamaica and one of the tenants is

smoking weed and

you guessed it this guy assumed that i

was a rastafarian and wanted to sell me

some weed

so when he approaches me and he makes

the offers i declined it and i say to

him no my brother i don’t need the weed

because

i brought my own well just kidding

i didn’t bring my own and

i’m not rastafarian and all africans

don’t look alike and that’s because

these men and women on slave ships came

from different ethnic groups they were

fulani they were

ashante they were yoruba they were

mandinga

and they all not only did they have

different languages but some of them had

different cultures they were not the

same

and likewise african americans and

people of african descent

are not a monolith we’re not all

just alike number two

africans chose to come to america

there’s no indication that these maybe

two brothers were standing on the west

coast of africa saying you know what i

want to go

to america and be a slave i want to give

up the freedom here i want to forget

all the languages that i speak i want to

see my father’s soul then my mother

abused and my sister

assaulted i want to become the brunt of

all sorts of

racist epithets and jokes that’s not

what happened

our four parents were ripped from their

communities from their villages they

were

stolen and brought here i remember i was

doing an article

on the middle passage and i came across

this narrative about a nine-month-old

baby that was brutalized and murdered on

the ship

the name of the ship was the blackjack

and the captain’s name was marshall

and so the baby is crying because we

don’t really know because it texts us

and tells but we do know this

that while the baby’s crying and and not

eating

the captain begins to beat the baby with

a cat

nine tail now a cat nine tail was

a instrument of punishment was about

maybe nine and a half ten inches long

had nine pieces of leather at the end

and oftentimes they would tie knots in

it

so that when it struck your skin if it

was ripped backward pull your skin off

so imagine now this captain beating this

nine-month-old baby who’s crying at

sea possibly because she’s colicky

and and and he beats this baby with this

cat and ninetale then ties

a three pound log around her neck and he

accidentally dropped the baby the baby’s

neck is broken

and she dies and then the captain calls

the mother and wants the mother to throw

this baby overboard and when she refuses

to throw this baby overboard

the captain flocks the mother and throws

the baby overboard anyway

neither the baby nor the mother chose to

come to america and likewise most of

our ancestors did not choose to come

here myth number three

africans in diaspora don’t belong here

when we hear that statement it’s a dog

whistle is

we live in a culture now where people

are telling other people of color to go

back to the country

from which they came the a priori

assumption behind that

statement is that black people have not

contributed to the american culture when

in fact

we built most of the buildings here if

you if you know anything about harvard

university princeton university yale

university they were built by black

people they couldn’t attend but they

built the buildings

nine of the first presidents of

princeton held slaves while they were in

office the first 13

presidents of the united states

held enslaved people while they were in

office

the transatlantic slave trade

was a horrible experience and so when

these people came here we did contribute

myth number four the middle passage

wasn’t really that bad well slave ships

were torture chambers and oftentimes

because of the fear of the unknown

the fear of the brutality many africans

committed suicide

there are people who jump overboard

as a form of resistance they felt if

they took their own lives that they

self-murdered they would prevent their

captors from using their skills and

talents you may remember

the blockbuster movie the black panther

the

the the the the antagonist eric

killmonger

he makes this statement he’d rather jump

overboard

and die in the sea like his ancestors

rather than be a slave can you imagine

death over slavery that you would rather

take your life than be a slave and yet

that’s what happened

the brutality was so bad that when a

slave ship called to marlborough 100

people were thrown overboard because of

an

insurrection another slip called the

brillante

600 africans were chained to the anchor

and the anchor was dropped

to the bottom of the ocean and these

people died at sea

there’s another ship called the kent

where the captain not only beat and

brutalized 49 people but he shot them he

hanged them

and then mis dismembered their bodies

and threw them in the ocean

that’s what it was like to be on the

slave ship many of these men

and women were whipped so badly that

they

even bled to death some of them were

thrown overboard as

shark bait to prevent insurrections

and yet if we understand it from an

african perspective suicide was

possibly a form of triumph dr derek bell

former professor of law at harvard says

that triumph

is not always in the toppling of a

system

sometimes triumph is in the doing

it’s in the resisting it’s in the

martyrdom

that triumph prevails when

the oppressed take the power back from

the oppressor

so it’s important that you understand

this and you can share this with your

friends one

that africans and african-americans have

fought in every single war

since we’ve been here in 1619. we have

contributed

economically technologically and

spiritually to the growth of this

country

and every other group that came here

from the british to the spanish to the

germans

to the irish they came here on their own

but as for we

for us for us african americans we were

brought here

involuntarily we were stolen from our

homes

and we did not come here by choice

thank you