Melville CookeCHECKED CAP twisted in his gnarled hands, a bead of sweat running down his nose, his downcast eyes flicking upwards intermittently to read backra's condescending face, the black man says "thank yu suh, massa suh." He has just been thrown a crumb from the master's bounty a job, a day off, permission to sell a pumpkin in the market and he is appropriately grateful as the nigger has been taught to be before and since Queen sen freedom papa. Regardless of the fact that the thing he is grateful for is his by right of birth and labour and also that he created the loaf that he is being granted a sliver of as some sort of favour.
Dawn Ritch and Wilmot Perkins may be physically a few generations removed from the plantation, but on this issue mentally they are still standing in the front yard, scuffing their toes in the dirt, eyes turned to the verandah, glowing with appreciation for backra's largesse. They argue, in part (see Dawn Ritch on page 9A of last Sunday's Gleaner and The Gleaner of Dec 3, A3), that black people have benefited from slavery by having English as a first language. (I guess the Surinamese and Haitians were unfortunate to have had the wrong set of masters). Ms. Ritch further argues that we have had the benefit of English law and West Indian women are among the go-getters in the United Kingdom.
In other words, black people (some, at least) have been fortunate to be a part of the world's dominant system via slavery. That makes about as much sense as a man thanking a thief for giving him back a bus fare out of the month's paycheque he has stolen from him. The system that we apparently should be grateful for being a part of would not have come to dominate the world commercially and to a large extent culturally if it were not for the African slave's labour.
The springboard for the English-speaking races' domination lies not in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, but in the unwritten tome of Hawkins, Morgan, Queen Victoria, Kissinger et al, which could have been entitled Theft of Nations. How can we be grateful to be snapping up the scraps of something that would not have existed without our unpaid labour, murder and torture? Which leads us to the utter cruelty of slavery, which I find is often glossed over by saying millions of our forefathers blah blah blah. How Mr. Perkins and Ms. Ritch can see benefits in a system brought about by amputations, whippings, branding, mass rape, hanging and destruction of families is beyond me.
But then, they are a part of the middle class (as I am), and their views are not that uncommon among those who have had the benefit of getting some semblance of an education. There has been some rustling, but hardly a storm of protest about their statements. The real benefits of slavery for some is the elevation of their mediocrity to excellence in a situation where the majority is educated for the canefield and the political rally.
Since September 11 the United States has seen an outpouring of patriotic fervour, Bush the second's popularity has skyrocketed and by some reports I have read people have drawn closer together, especially in New York City. I am yet to read a line pointing out these things as benefits and thanking whoever was responsible for the attacks for the side-effect. It may be a topic my respected seniors, Ms. Ritch and Mr. Perkins, wish to tackle.
Ms. Ritch has expressed a thinly concealed contempt for the continent of Africa which, again, is not uncommon among Jamaicans. It is the same contempt which a rape victim faces, and the more times he or she is raped, the more the scorn rises. As a multiple victim Africa is not high on the totem pole, but I must point out that the world's richest diamond company, De Beers, is based in South Africa. Countless wealth, including my forefathers on one side (Scotland on the other, I think), has come out of that continent.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where thieves and rapists get more respect than their victims, as long as they speak proper English. I have not said anything about the Jewish Holocaust. So who shall stand for the Star of David?
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
