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“Questions of silence always raise questions of memory. Who and what has been forgotten? Which peoples and events are downplayed?
“[…] Memory is a site of conflict, ‘in which many contrary forces converge and in which the interactions between memory and forgetting are contingent as much as they are systematic…”
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Haitian anthropologist, historian, and writer. (1995).
(via The Standard.co.zw)
In the joy of Emancipation Day celebrations, we should not forget the pain of the past and link it to present-day life in Trinidad. We may have removed the ownership of individuals, but culturally, economically, institutionally, and in our family life, the marks of slavery persist.
Stephanie Smallwood (2016) reminded us that “the history that is accountable to the enslaved” reveals “the inner workings of power and violence”. (The emphasis is mine.)
Some would suggest that slavery ended a long time ago and that we ought to move on. However, Vaneisa Baksh’s biography of Frank Worrell (Son of Grace, 2023) reminds us that the trail continued into our lifetimes.
In 1928, Sir Pelham Warner, known as the ‘Grand Old Man’ of English cricket, had to make a case for the inclusion of black players for the tour of England (p 72).
Worrell recalled: “Even before we left for our last trip to Australia in 1960, we were offered terms that were completely unacceptable… Those of us who protested got. Those who didn’t got less.”
In Chapter 17, Australia and Leadership Drama, Baksh details the bickering that surrounded the selection of the West Indies’ vice-captain position.
Atkinson holds the record for bowling the highest number of wicketless overs in a Test innings, after recording 72 overs for 137 runs with 29 maidens but no wicket against England in 1957.
Denis Atkinson, an inexperienced player, replaced Worrell. The West Indies Cricket Board of Control (WICBC), as it was known in 1955, “regarded it as an opportunity to prepare a white player for the leadership”. (p 135)
Every inch of the way has to be fought.
Worrell’s real victory was that “these chaps can go home as socially acceptable first-class citizens”. (p 25). Today, this desire among some of our citizens remains unfulfilled.
(via Skynews)
Baksh’s book is a valuable contribution to our social history.
Slavery was established in Barbados in l636. That colony became the proving ground for the spread of the legal system that underpinned slavery in the Caribbean and the USA. The Barbadian Slave Code (1661) was adopted by the American colony of South Carolina in l696, introducing the crucial legal guidelines for slavery.
In 1829, a US judge reaffirmed that owners could treat their enslaved people with impunity.
“With slavery…the end is the profit of the master, his security and the public safety; the subject, one doomed in his own person, and his posterity, to live without knowledge and without the capacity to make anything his own, to toil that another may reap his fruits.
“The power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect.”
The insatiable greed today causes many to be used as mere tools.
The desire for maximum profit, not the requirement for labour, made slavery necessary.
The Portuguese were the first people to take a ship of enslaved people across the Atlantic in 1526. That first ship would not be the last, as it became clear how profitable it was.
It is the same that applies today. The winner-take-all approach to capitalism leads to job insecurity via contract labour. Ignoring the widening income gap and the pauperisation of the Unfortunates are features, not bugs, of the system.
We see W E B Du Bois’ observations daily: “The mere fact that a man could be, under the law, the actual master of the mind and body of human beings had to have disastrous effects. It tended to inflate the ego of most planters beyond all reason; they became arrogant, strutting, quarrelsome kinglets.”
Whether familial or via their network, wealth continues to breed disdain and disrespect for others who contribute to that fortune. It does not matter whether they are qualified for the job.
Baksh (2023:136) registers the insufferable arrogance of the entitled Atkinson, who was promoted ahead of Worrell, Everton Weekes and Clyde Walcott for the 1955 Australia tour.
He penned a note to the WICBC President on the notepaper of The Barbados Mutual Life Assurance Society:
‘Just a short note thanking you and the Board for my recent appointment. I am aware of the responsibility and criticism that is bound to be thrown at me. However, I see no reason why I cannot make a success of the job.
‘Strangely enough, the public here in Barbados have (sic) not been as critical as one expected. Guess thats (sic) because they seem to have little regards (sic) for Worrell, especially within recent years.’
In 1854, the enslaved fugitive John Brown remembered: “When the price rises in the English market, the poor slaves immediately feel the effects, for they are harder driven, and the whip is kept more constantly going.”
Is this something we see in some workplaces today? Poverty wages and back-breaking work conditions are the modern-day vestiges of slavery.
There are 40,000 persons employed in our fast-food places, roadside vendors, caterers and parlours. There was an estimate of 9,000 casino workers. Many of these 49,000 workers are women.
When we work them harder, how can they care for their children? Are we not beating them up but simultaneously blaming them for not bringing up the children properly?
“Whipping was not only a method of punishment. It was a conscious device to impress on the slaves that they were slaves; it was a crucial form of social control, particularly if we remember that it was very difficult for slaves to run away successfully.” (Rawick, 1972).
Wealth often seeks to dominate labour. It aims to imprint in the workers’ minds that there is no other alternative to earn a living.
Enslaved persons were more than economic objects; they were also sexual objects. This predatory behaviour from slavery still rears its ugly head today.
Singing Sandra (1987) identified it: “[…] Some of them done park up already/ Yet they sit down waiting like mapepire/ Using the power of their cash and position/ Waiting to abuse and exploit any woman…”
Even today, male bosses are sometimes predators without loss of standing in their communities.
“The chain of corruption started with black women and ended with white men. It was the ‘circumstance […] of the licentious manners of the female negroes’ that constituted the grand instrument of corrupting the manners of the white population by affording the male part of them the ready means of gratifying their most depraved appetites without much degrading their character in the opinion of their fellow-citizens.” Rev John Stephen, cited in Green (2007).
Ms Diana Mahabir-Wyatt tells us: “It (workplace sexual harassment) is cruel and demeaning in the same way that slavery demeans both slave and slave owner.”
In speaking about new legislation, she reminds us: “Young women needing employment to support themselves, and more often their children and their mothers, used to react to harassment by senior and more powerful managers by just retreating to the ‘Ladies’ and crying their eyes out in shame and despair.”
Enslaved men were deprived of the ability to become family heads. Nothing could interfere with the planters’ access to and control of the women and children. Yet, the woman was blamed for being a target of seduction by her master.
(Copyright Corbis)
The family was a target. There were strong incentives for matrifocality. The children and father could be sold at any time. Orlando Patterson (1967) noted that “the male head could not assert his authority as husband and father as his ‘wife’ was the property of another”.
That pain echoes today in many Afrocentric neighbourhoods. Fixing this can help fix our crime problem.
More anon.
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“[…] What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Read more
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate at Jesus’ trial (Luke 18:36). The Greek word for truth is aletheia, which literally means Read more
“If you don’t have unity, we can’t fight. There are fresh people who call themselves leaders. You can’t be leading, Read more
Noble Philip, a retired business executive, is trying to interpret Jesus’ relationships with the poor and rich among us. A Seeker, not a Saint.
A very thorough, informative, well-written and thoughtful article.
Thank you for your enlightenment!