The History Book Club discussion

This is the thread for the Free Read- Lead and Discuss thread for Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.

by Ibram X. Kendi (no photo)

With the current climate regarding race relations in this country right now - this is one of the books that is considered top on a lot of lists on race relations and being able to talk about racism.

Considering the debilitating events of the last couple of weeks, it is timely. And the question of what can I do is on many people's minds. And that is where the reason for reading this together begins.

I am also opening up a thread to read and discuss - White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism

by Robin DiAngelo

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.

by Ibram X. Kendi (no photo)

Synopsis:

The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.

Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America--it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.

In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.

As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities.

In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.

PRAISE

"We often describe a wonderful book as 'mind-blowing' or 'life-changing' but I've found this rarely to actually be the case. I found both descriptions accurate for Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning... I will never look at racial discrimination again after reading this marvellous, ambitious, and clear-sighted book." - George Saunders, Financial Times, Best Books of 2017

"Ambitious, well-researched and worth the time of anyone who wants to understand racism." - Seattle Times

"A deep (and often disturbing) chronicling of how anti-black thinking has entrenched itself in the fabric of American society." - The Atlantic

AWARDS:

- Winner of the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction

- A New York Times Bestseller

- A Washington Post Bestseller

- Finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction

- Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe, - Washington Post, Chicago Review of Books, The Root, Buzzfeed, Bustle, and Entropy

OK, this is a free read. So there are no deadlines, no assigned moderation, no weekly reading assignment - just folks who want to talk about this particular book.

Hopefully, in time we will have folks step up to the plate and who want to read a poll selected book and the person who nominated the book just gets to read and post about the book they are reading and make comments as they go through the book. There are no spoiler threads and nothing else to it.

It is like the book discussions that you find in most other groups. These are not the History Book Club Buddy Reads, Spotlighted Reads or Book of the Month nor our Presidential Read Series - those all have structure to them. The HBC is making it easy for those folks so they have a spot too.

But we feel that sometimes folks want to read something of their own choosing so we have the polls for the Free Reads and nominations.

You must follow our rules and guidelines for civility and respect and of course - no self promotion and citations are required for any other book or author different from the selection itself.

Who would like to join me for this free read. Sign up on this thread.

I would love to have some company as we post randomly how we feel about the book

I would like to get further on White Fragility but I will begin this book after I complete that one.

Come be a Free Reader - only at the HBC - The History Book Club on 카지노싸이트. Free Read!

I'm in. When will we start this one?

Douglass I was just going to reach out to you tomorrow to see if you would like to begin this August 10th I can PM you or email you to discuss. If we can get up the table of contents and the syllabus of how you are going to discuss this then I can let folks know to give them a chance to get the book and join in. Since this is a free read then they can go at their own rate but that should not stop you from adhering to your own suggested schedule. It is never too late for anyone to start or jump in. But let us discuss. Do you have the book yet? About 30 pages max a week. Sometimes that is one chapter and sometimes it is two.

Looking at the table of contents - I would say two chapters a week. Three chapters would be too much for a lot of people.

So for the first week - I would do the Prologue, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2

Second week would be Chapters 3 and 4.

Book found on Square Space -

It is also available at Amazon, on Audible and on Kindle.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

PART I COTTON MATHER

1. Human Hierarchy 15
2. Origins of Racist Ideas 22
3. Coming to America 31
4. Saving Souls, Not Bodies 47
5. Black Hunts 58
6. Great Awakening 66

PART II THOMAS JEFFERSON

7. Enlightenment 79
8. Black Exhibits 92
9. Created Equal 104
10. Uplift Suasion 120
11. Big Bottoms 135
12. Colonization 143

PART III WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

13. Gradual Equality 161
14. Imbruted or Civilized 177
15. Soul 191
16. The Impending Crisis 202
17. History’s Emancipator 214
18. Ready for Freedom? 223
19. Reconstructing Slavery 235
20. Reconstructing Blame 248
viii Contents

PART IV W. E. B. DU BOIS

21. Renewing the South 263
22. Southern Horrors 269
23. Black Judases 280
24. Great White Hopes 295
25. The Birth of a Nation 308
26. Media Suasion 323
27. Old Deal 335
28. Freedom Brand 349
29. Massive Resistance 365

PART V ANGELA DAVIS

30. The Act of Civil Rights 381
31. Black Power 393
32. Law and Order 410
33. Reagan’s Drugs 424
34. New Democrats 440
35. New Republicans 456
36. 99.9 Percent the Same 469
37. The Extraordinary Negro 482

Epilogue 497

Acknowledgments 513

Notes 516

Index 562

I will add a syllabus starting August 10th if that is good for you. If you think that two chapters is a week is good for you then I will set it up for that. Let me know.

Sounds good. Look forward to it.

We are going to start digging into this book next week! I had the privilege of hearing Prof. Kendi speak at an education conference this summer. He talked about the importance of seeing racism as a characteristic of policies and behaviors, but not a characteristic of people themselves. A person is not "racist" or "not-racist." Most people think or act in ways that are racist at some times and in ways that are antiracist at other times.

I just finished Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist today. It is part memoir, part guide to antiracism. In it, there is a section where he discusses the context in his life and in the country when he wrote Stamped from the Beginning:

Heartbroken, Alicia Garza typed “Black Lives Matter” into the mourning nights, into the Black caskets piling up before her as people shouted all those names from Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown to Sandra Bland to Korryn Gaines. The deaths and accusations and denials and demonstrations and deaths—it all gave me the strength each day to research for Stamped from the Beginning.

By the summer of 2012, I was finding and tagging every racist idea I could find from history. Racist ideas piled up before me like trash at a landfill. Tens of thousands of pages of Black people being trashed as natural or nurtured beasts, devils, animals, rapists, slaves, criminals, kids, predators, brutes, idiots, prostitutes, cheats, and dependents. More than five hundred years of toxic ideas on the Black body. Day after week, week after month, month after year, oftentimes twelve hours a day for three horrifically long years, I waded through this trash, consumed this trash, absorbed its toxicity, before I released a tiny portion of this trash onto the page.

Kendi also writes that "the history of racist ideas is the history of powerful policymakers erecting racist policies out of self-interest, then producing racist ideas to defend and rationalize the inequitable effects of their policies, while everyday people consume those racist ideas, which in turn sparks ignorance and hate." This idea that racist policies are the root cause of racism is emphasized in both books. Stamped goes into more detail on the history of those policies. It's a great fit for this group, and I look forward to reading it with you!

by Ibram X. Kendi (no photo)

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are two versions of this book. The original, which we are reading, is Stamped from the Beginning.

by Ibram X. Kendi (no photo)

A similar-looking, similarly titled book for young readers is Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, which is a "remix" of this book for young readers, co-authored by Kendi.

by Jason Reynolds (no photo)

The contents of that one appear to be a lot different, so I wouldn't want anyone to pick that one up and be confused. It would be a great edition though to share with a family member who is a young reader!

Thank you Douglass for making that clear to folks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR



From :

IBRAM X. KENDI is one of America’s foremost historians and leading antiracist voices. He is a National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. Kendi is a contributor writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News correspondent. He will become the 2020-2021 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for the Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Kendi is the author of THE BLACK CAMPUS MOVEMENT, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize, and STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING: THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF RACIST IDEAS IN AMERICA, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2016. At 34 years old, Kendi was the youngest ever winner of the NBA for Nonfiction. He grew up dreaming about playing in the NBA (National Basketball Association), and ironically he ended up joining the other NBA.

His third book, HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST, was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and made several Best Books of 2019 lists. His much anticipated fourth book with Jason Reynolds, STAMPED: RACISM, ANTIRACISM, AND YOU, was also a # 1 on the New York Times Bestseller. His first board book, ANTIRACIST BABY, was recently published and was a #1 Indie Bestseller.

Kendi has published fourteen academic essays in books and academic journals, including The Journal of African American History, Journal of Social History, Journal of Black Studies, Journal of African American Studies, and The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture. He has published op-eds in numerous periodicals, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, London Review, Time, Salon, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Paris Review, Black Perspectives, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He commented on a series of international, national, and local media outlets, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeerah, PBS, BBC, Democracy Now, OWN, and Sirius XM. A sought after public speaker, Kendi has delivered hundreds of addresses over the years at colleges and universities, bookstores, festivals, conferences, libraries, churches, and other institutions in the United States and abroad.

Kendi strives to be a hardcore antiracist and softcore vegan. He enjoys joking it up with friends and family, partaking in African American culture, weight-lifting, reading provocative books, discussing the issues of the day with open-minded people, and hoping and pressing for the day the New York Knicks will win an NBA championship and for the day this nation and world will be ruled by the best of humanity.

In 2013, he changed his middle name from Henry to Xolani (meaning "Peace" in Zulu) and surname from Rogers to Kendi when he wed Sadiqa Kendi, a pediatric emergency physician from Albany, Georgia. They chose their new name together and unveiled “Kendi,” meaning "loved one" in Meru, to their family and friends at their wedding. Their wedding photos, including Sadiqa's beautiful gold dress, were featured in Essence Magazine.

Kendi was born in 1982 to parents who came of age during the Black power movement in New York City. They were student activists and Christians inspired by Black liberation theology. While Kendi was in high school, his family moved from Jamaica, Queens, to Manassas, Virginia. He traveled further south and attended Florida A&M University, where he majored in journalism. He initially aspired for a career in sports journalism, freelancing for several Florida newspapers, and interning at USA Today Sports Weekly, as well as in the sports sections of the Mobile Register and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. By the end of his tenure at FAMU, he had become alienated from sports journalism and increasingly interested in engaging in racial justice work. He picked up a second major in African American Studies and graduated in 2004.

After working for a time as a journalist at The Virginian Pilot, Kendi pursued his graduate studies. At 27 years old, he earned his doctoral degree in African American Studies from Temple University in 2010. Kendi has taught at SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Albany, the University of Florida, and American University. In 2017, he became a full professor, the highest professorial rank, at 34 years old.

Kendi has been visiting professor at Brown University, a 2013 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, and postdoctoral fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. He has also resided at The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress as the American Historical Association’s 2010-2011 J. Franklin Jameson Fellow in American History. In the summer of 2011, he lived in Chicago as a short-term fellow in African American Studies through the Black Metropolis Research Consortium. He has received research fellowships, grants, and visiting appointments from a variety of other universities, foundations, professional associations, and libraries, including the Lyndon B. Johnson Library & Museum, University of Chicago, Wayne State University, Emory University, Duke University, Princeton University, UCLA, Washington University, Wake Forest University, and the historical societies of Kentucky and Southern California. In 2019, The Root 100 listed him as the 15th most influential African American between the ages of 25 and 45 and the most influential college professor. Kendi was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019.

Kendi lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Source:

by Ibram H. Rogers
by Ibram X. Kendi (no photo)
by Jason Reynolds (no photo)
by Ibram X. Kendi (no photo)

SYLLABUS

Below is a reading schedule that I will follow. I tried to follow a leisurely 30 pages or less per week. I will add chapter summaries along this schedule, but this is a Free Read, so feel free to jump in at any time to discuss anything in the book!

Part I: Cotton Mather
8/24-8/30 Prologue, Chapters 1 & 2
8/31-9/6 Chapters 3 & 4
9/7-9/13 Chapters 5 & 6

Part II: Thomas Jefferson
9/14-9/20 Chapters 7 & 8
9/21-9/27 Chapters 9 & 10
9/28-10/4 Chapters 11 & 12

Part III: William Lloyd Garrison
10/5-10/11 Chapters 13 & 14
10/12-10/18 Chapters 15 & 16
10/19-10/25 Chapters 17 & 18
10/26-11/1 Chapters 19 & 20

Part IV: W.E.B. Du Bois
11/2-11/8 Chapters 21, 22, & 23
11/9-11/15 Chapters 24 & 25
11/16-11/22 Chapters 26 & 27
11/23-11/29 Chapters 28 & 29

Part V: Angela Davis
11/30-12/6 Chapters 30 & 31
12/7-12/13 Chapters 32 & 33
12/14-12/20 Chapters 34 & 35
12/21-12/27 Chapters 36 & 37
12/28-1/3 Epilogue & Wrap-up

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Prologue

Kendi introduces 5 big definitions:

1. segregationists: blame Black people for racial disparities
2. antiracists: blame discrimination for racial disparities
3. assimilationists: blame both Black people and discrimination
4. anti-Black racist ideas: "any idea suggesting that Black people, or any group of Black people, are inferior in any way to another racial group"
5. intersectionality: "prejudice stemming from the intersections of racist ideas and other forms of bigotry, such as sexism, classism, ethnocentrism, and homophobia."

We get a couple quotations that sum up main ideas from the book:

“For nearly six centuries, antiracist ideas have been pitted against two kinds of racist ideas: segregationist and assimilationist.”

“Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate. Time and again, powerful and brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era’s racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people.”

“Racial discrimination led to racist ideas which led to ignorance and hate.”

“Racist ideas are ideas. Anyone can produce them or consume them”

“Racially discriminatory policies have usually sprung from economic, political, and cultural self-interests, self-interests that are constantly changing. Politicians seeking higher office have primarily created and defended discriminatory policies out of political self-interest—not racist ideas.”

And we get our first introduction to the 5 main characters, who each get a section of the book: Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Angela Davis. “Their complex lives and influential ideas have sat at the apex of debates between assimilationists and segregationists, or between racists and antiracists, and thus provide a window to those debates, to this intricately woven history.”

Part One - Cotton Mather

Chapter One - Human Hierarchy

We learn about the influence of Aristotle's philosophy on the Puritans and early colonists. Aristotle discussed Greek superiority, human hierarchies, and normalized slaveholding.

While ethnic, religious, and color prejudice existed in the ancient world, "constructions of races" began later in modern Europe.

The preference of an Ancient Greek prejudiced philosopher to a Christian thinker like St. Augustine, who is African, was convenient contradiction for early Christian Americans. This choice seems to support Kendi's thesis that racist ideas are created to support racist policy, not the other way around.

West African empires like Ghana (700-1200), Mali (1200-1500), and Songhay (1350-1600) had impressive economies, governments, and cultures. Their accomplishments were largely ignored by outsiders who sought to enslave them.

Chapter Two - Origins of Racist Ideas

Gomes Eanes de Zurara's 1453 biography of Portuguese Prince Henry, "The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea begins the recorded history of anti-Black racist ideas.”

Despite attempts by the family and Zurara to hide it, the Portuguese royal family was getting rich from enslaving people from West Africa.

“Almost from Columbus’s arrival, Spanish colonists began to degrade and enslave the indigenous American peoples, naming them negros da terra (Blacks from the land), transferring their racist constructions of African people onto Native Americans.”

“Thousands of Native Americans died resisting enslavement. More died from European diseases, from the conditions they suffered while forcibly tilling fields, and on death marches searching and mining for gold.”

Bartolomé de Las Casas and others complained about Native American slave labor and created “the myth of the physically strong, beastly African, and the myth of the physically weak Native American who easily died from the strain of hard labor.”

“In History of the Indies (1561), released five years before his death, Las Casas regretted 'the advice he gave the king' to import enslaved Africans. He saw in Zurara’s writing evidence revealing the slave trade to 'be the horror that it is'... Las Casas was condemned in Spain after his death, and his works were practically banned there.”

“Leo Africanus established himself through Della descrittione dell’Africa as the world’s first known African racist, the first illustrious African producer of racist ideas (as Zurara was the first illustrious European producer of racist ideas). Anyone can consume or produce racist ideas of African inferiority—any European, any Asian, any Native American, any Latina/o, and any African. Leo’s African ancestry hardly shielded him from believing in African inferiority and European superiority, or from trying to convince others of this plain racist 'truth.'"

Cotton Mather
Thomas Jefferson
William Lloyd Garrison
W.E.B. Du Bois
Aristotle
by Gomes Eanes de Zurara (no photo)
by Bartolomé de las Casas
by Leo Africanus

Angela Davis (no photo)

St. Augustine of Hippo (no photo)

The big 3 words here are antiracist, assimilationist, and segregationist. Kendi's other book, How to Be an Antiracist, provides neat definitions of these 3 terms that might help us interpret what we read in Stamped:

ANTIRACIST: One who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea...

ASSIMILATIONIST: One who is expressing the racist idea that a racial group is culturally or behaviorally inferior and is supporting cultural or behavioral enrichment programs to develop that racial group.

SEGREGATIONIST: One who is expressing the racist idea that a permanently inferior racial group can never be developed and is supporting policy that segregates away that racial group.

by Ibram X. Kendi (no photo)

Good start Douglass. Thank you for the update/edits on Chapter Overviews and Summaries. We post them each Monday in advance of the assigned reading for that week. But since we are beginning this discussion - this is great. Sunday is good for the kick off.

Folks, please post here and join in on the discussion with Douglass.

Prologue


Protestors in Indianapolis, Indiana, June 1, 2020 (photo by Douglass Gaking)

Discussion Topics and Questions:

1. Have you encountered the terms antiracist, assimilationist, and segregationist before?

2. Have your perceptions of these 3 types of ideas and policies changed over time?

3. Intersectionalities have been getting more and more attention in recent years. Are there notable examples of intersectional prejudices you have witnessed or read about?

This is a Free Read, so join the conversation about what you are reading at any time. Just let us know what chapter you are talking about.

Chapter One - Human Hierarchy


Statue of Aristotle at the University of Freiburg (photo by Michael Paraskevas)

Discussion Topics and Questions:

1. Have you encountered examples of human hierarchy in other histories from before the modern era?

2. Do you think that the study of Aristotle and not St. Augustine was a conscious choice by Puritans to promote racist policy, or could it have been accidental or by some other motivation?

3. Did you ever learn about the empires of Ghana, Mali, or Songhay in your formal education? Have you encountered them in reading about history? If not, is this an example of education and study and publishing of history being too Eurocentric?

Chapter Two - Origins of Racist Ideas


Massacre of Queen Anacaona and her subjects by Spanish governor Nicolás de Ovando in 1503, publ. by Theodori de Bry, & Ioannis Saurii (1598)

Discussion Topics and Questions:

1. What have you learned so far in the book that is new or surprising?

2. How much should we trust travel writers in the time periods we are studying as sources? For example, the Czech who wrote that the Portuguese king was making more selling captives to foreigners “than from all the taxes levied on the entire kingdom."

3. Have any of these centuries-old racist mythologies continued to today? For example, Las Casas's idea that Native Americans were physically weak and that Africans were physically strong and therefore better slave laborers.

I have thought a lot about the points about Aristotle in chapter 1. I think there is a combination of factors that led the Puritans to study Aristotle, and Ancient Greek, but to neglect Christian thinkers like St. Augustine.

It was convenient for economic interests that Aristotle seemed to support slavery and human hierarchy, and many people continue to point to Greek culture as the foundation of Western culture. Aristotle promoted the superiority of Greeks, and so his ideas were a good fit for people who saw Western culture as superior to peoples who they benefited from oppressing.

I think St. Augustine was not so much ignored because of economic and racist interests as it was more because he was Catholic. The Puritans were more partial to Protestant thinkers like John Calvin (see Osgood, 1891, ).

Aristotle
Augustine of Hippo
John Calvin

My feelings are that American universities focused on the classics modeling European colleges - especially those in England. Studying the classics by translating the original Greek and Latin texts were what educated young men learned and studied as their curriculum.

Most of the colonists were English (Church of England) so studying Catholic theologians was probably verboten.

Here are some excerpts regarding the curriculum during that period:

Scholars who enrolled at Harvard College during the pre-Revolutionary years of turmoil possessed both similar and disparate attributes.

They had passed the admission hurdles which, according to the college laws of 1767, required prospective candidates to show ability to translate commonly read Greek and Latin writers, understand the rules of Grammar, write Latin sentences correctly and parenthetically, “have a good moral character.”

Their average entrance age had risen from the beginning of the century to 17 years, but so had the age range disparity which in one class (1772) found freshmen of 12 and 27 years studying together.

Similar diversity was reflected in their family’s social and economic status, which until 1769 had come to play an important part in class ranking.

Some freshmen, such as Thomas Bernard (A.B. 1767), son of the Massachusetts royal governor, were obviously from the colonial elite.

Others, such as charity student Silas Biglow (A.B. 1765), came from quite moderate circumstances, but the majority were sent from families of what Benjamin Franklin called “the happy mediocrity” of the English colonies. The cost of a student’s Harvard education, which Timothy Pickering (A.B. 1763) cited as “£121·18s·9¼d lawful money,” was considerable though not exorbitant.

And while New England (and especially Massachusetts) provided most of its scholars, Harvard’s reputation had even attracted occasional students from other continental colonies and the West Indies.

The academic environment in Cambridge had broadened significantly since the seventeenth century, though the atmosphere remained generally circumscribed.

While some students were given permission to reside outside the Yard, all were expected to follow a specific regimen during the lengthy school day.

On weekdays they arose near dawn and gathered in Holden Chapel for prayers. After a brief recess came recitation which lasted until the noontime meal. This was followed by brief recreation and lengthy study, an evening meal and further prayers and study before bed. Saturday evenings were given over to prayers, as was the Sabbath itself.

The Harvard Laws and Customs enforcing this weekly regimen had moderated somewhat since the previous century though by the pre-Revolutionary era they still retained their basically rigid and authoritarian character.

Harvard’s curriculum and instructional procedures had also undergone transformations since its earliest years when all four classes were taught together by individual tutors.

Initially the undergraduate course of study, influenced by medieval and renaissance patterns, had centered on logic, rhetoric, ethics, metaphysics, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and classical belles lettres.

By the eve of the Revolution new studies in natural philosophy (science), geography, and mathematics were introduced into the curriculum along with texts of John Locke, Isaac Watts, John Desaguliers, Willem Gravesande, Patrick Gordon, and Jean Jacques Burlamaqui.

In 1767 the earlier method of general instruction was altered so that each of the four tutors was to teach specific subjects.

Yet, by 1775 vestiges of the original curricula remained. The faculty still prepared their scholars in mastering the art of Latin orations and syllogistic disputations while bachelor’s degree candidates were expected to be “able to translate the Original of the Old and New Testament into the Latin Tongue and [have] a good Acquaintance with the Classics, [be] well instructed in the Principles of the Mathematics, of natural and moral Philosophy, of Logic and Rhetoric,” and as proof of the value of a Harvard education, “be of an unblemished Life.”

Harvard, in the pre-Revolutionary period, was then undoubtedly the foremost institution of colonial higher education, and its alumni were deeply affected by their experiences in Cambridge.

Its very existence was a justifiable symbol of intellectual pride and achievement for New England, most especially for Massachusetts.

Source: Colonial Society of Massachusetts

Agreed. I think this is a good demonstration of how limiting the viewpoints we read can be dangerous. The Puritans and many other colonists who came to the Americas created their own echo chambers. They often read from a short list of Western authors including writers of the ancient classics and writers of their particular sects of Christianity.

In the case of Protestants, Calvin was a huge influence, and his views reinforced ideas of hierarchy and superiority. Dunbar-Ortiz writes,

Calvinism was a Protestant Christian movement with a strong separatist political component. In accord with the doctrine of predestination, Calvin taught that human free will did not exist. Certain individuals are “called” by God and are among the “elect.” Salvation therefore has nothing to do with one’s actions; one is born as part of the elect or not, according to God’s will. Although individuals could not know for certain if they were among the elect, outward good fortune, especially material wealth, was taken to be a manifestation of election; conversely, bad fortune and poverty, not to speak of dark skin, were taken as evidence of damnation.

Akenson adds, “The attractiveness of such a doctrine to a group of invading colonists … is obvious, for one could easily define the natives as immutably profane, and damned, and oneself as predestined to virtue."

Here we are starting to see policy creating ideas which approve policies with create further ideas, and so on. Kendi says policy comes first, but I see that once those ideas are created, they can influence further policy, creating a feedback loop.

Sources:

by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
by Donald Harman Akenson (no photo)
John Calvin

This is this week’s assignment:

Week Two: August 31 - September 9 (pages 31 - 57)

Chapter 3 - Coming to America (page 31)

Chapter 4 - Saving Souls, Not Bodies (page 47)

Again, this is a free read, so feel free to comment about any part of the book at any time! Just let us know what chapter you are discussing.

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter Three - Coming to America

Writings by Richard Hakluyt and William Perkins in the late 1500s promoted colonialism and racial hierarchy. They would influence the Puritans' and Virginians' treatments of Native Americans and African Americans. The 1st slave ship from Africa to colonial America, the San Juan Bautista, sailed from Angola toward Mexico but was captured and sent to Virginia. Slaveowners could financially benefit from raping Black women and were never prosecuted for it, but White women were severely punished for having relationships with non-White men. African men and women were portrayed in literature as sexually aggressive.

Chapter Four - Saving Souls, Not Bodies

Charles II persecuted the Puritans. Richard Baxter, John Locke, and François Bernier wrote works in the 1600s that justified slavery and supported prosteletizing to slaves. Mennonites petitioned against slavery beginning in 1688, but slaveholding Quakers fought to protect their economic interests from the consequences of abolition. In reaction to Bacon's rebellion, planters created more White privileges and White militias to prevent future unity between poor/landless Whites, slaves, and Native Americans. Cotton Mather was a prodigy, the youngest student in Harvard University history, and a prolific reader and writer. He would have been exposed to many of the racist ideas we have read about so far.

Richard Hakluyt
William Perkins
Richard Baxter
John Locke
Cotton Mather

François Bernier (no photo)

We get some new definitions in chapter 3:

1. Curse theorists: "the first known segregationists. They believed that Black people were naturally and permanently inferior, and totally incapable of becoming White."
2. Climate theorists: "the first known assimilationists, believing Black people had been nurtured by the hot sun into a temporary inferiority, but were capable of becoming White if they moved to a cooler climate."

I like to keep track of these because once Kendi defines something he will usually keep mentioning it and expecting us to remember it!

Here are some additional thoughts on curse theory and climate theory that I found:

Perhaps the most intriguing concepts discussed by Kendi are those of the climate and curse theories, and how those ludicrous concepts have come to influence racism in America through not only religion, but also politics. While these theories were created in order to explain the “causes of Blackness”, the purpose of their utilization was more for the enforcement of racial stereotypes and the subsequent oppression of Black peoples. By looking closely at how each of these theories carried out their purposes, we can find saddening instances of those theories still holding influence today.

Climate theory has been a prominent theory among both assimilationists and segregationists since racist ideas first originated. This idea, that those of a darker skin complexion have such a complexion because of their location, and that by being in a place commonly inhabited by White peoples could turn those complexions lighter (and thus better to Europeans and Americans), can be found enforcing racism throughout many periods of American history. For example, not only did climate theory convince many that Black peoples had to be made more like White peoples, it went so far as to connect science and religion, for those who laid eyes on or read about Black peoples whose skin became lighter due to pigment mutations in their DNA became convinced that climate theory could be a prevailing one. And because of climate theory’s persistence throughout history, a stereotype still exists today that lighter skin tones correlate with higher degrees of beauty and intelligence.

Curse theory, which claims all Black peoples are inferior because of the biblical story of Ham, has also had a negative impact on ideals of racism and race issues throughout United States history. Because of the shift from climate to curse theory that takes place during the beginnings of the American slave trade (discussed in chapter 3), an “individualizing of White negativity and generalizing of Black negativity” (42) takes place. This meant that racism was able to flourish on the premise that negative behaviors were typical of Blacks as a group, but only applicable to Whites that were considered uncommon or outside of the social norm. Unfortunately, that is still a stereotype seen throughout the United States today, Black peoples being generalized as a criminal and inferior (or cursed) group rather than the principle of individuality being considered.

One message of Kendi’s is outlasting throughout his work: the theories that established slavery and racist ideas have persevered into the religion, politics, and culture of today’s society. Even assimilationists and abolitionists throughout United States history have implicitly upheld the racist ideals established by the progression of the climate and curse theories throughout our nation’s history. With this particular message of Kendi’s in mind, we must ask ourselves; how do we truly shed the preconceptions created by these historically racist concepts?

Source:

Chapter 3 - Coming To America


Captain John Smith's map of Virginia, 1624 (public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Have you encountered curse theory or climate theory before? Are any of these ideas still prevalent today?

2. Do you think that the racist ideas discussed so far were organic ideas based on ignorance or deliberate constructions to support racist policies?

3. How do the racist policies of the 1600s compare and contrast with racist policies of the 2000s?

Chapter Four - Saving Souls, Not Bodies


Cotton Mather's home in Boston, MA (1912, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Have you found evidence to support Kendi's thesis that racism is rooted in policy before ideas?

2. How much should we let the promotion of racist ideas by writers like Locke influence our interpretation of their ideas, their motives, and the motives of those who read, accepted, and tried to execute those ideas, racist or otherwise?

3. If you are not yet familiar with Cotton Mather, how do you think the racist ideas he reads in this time period will affect his future writings and actions?

These are great questions and posts Douglass.

The more I read of the history of racism in the US, the more I see common themes occurring, regardless of the time period. Ideas and policies are renamed and reframed, but at their core they are the same. Races, ethnicities, and other demographics are stereotyped, and those stereotypes affect how they are treated in policy. Policies disproportionately affect particular groups, whether that is by design or by accident, and their beneficiaries scramble to find excuses to justify them.

The New York Times Magazine "1619 Project" attempted to bring attention to this aspect of our history, yet some prominent , not by privately trying to help them revise small inaccuracies, but by publicly trying to humiliate its creators. Those critics offered the beneficiaries of racist policies the excuse they needed to attack the project. The President is now that teach this mostly accurate portrayal of American history because he views it as too pessimistic.

Lies about our history and our identity have been used to protect racist policy for over 400 years ago, from where we are in chapters 3 and 4 of this book to today. If we pretend that unity and equality exist where they do not, then we will never be able to fix oppression and inequality.

Sources: New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Twitter

Yes, Douglass - the same problems have been the same problems with decades and generations. In fact, I was just reading that there has been a drop in the support of the Black Lives Matter movement among white people. I am not sure if it is the short attention span that every single news cycle has with Americans in general (during this social media generational timeline). But it is telling. Have the looting and the violence diminished support? I always say focus on what you want: elimination of the choke hold, reform for minorities within the criminal justice system (numerous reforms are needed), reforms with policing and accepted crowd control practices, reforms for housing and healthcare.

This is this week’s assignment:

Week Three: September 7 - September 14 (pages 58 - 78)

Chapter 5 - Black Hunts (page 58)

Chapter 6 - Great Awakening (page 66)

Again, this is a free read, so feel free to comment about any part of the book at any time! Just let us know what chapter you are discussing.

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter Five - Black Hunts

Cotton Mather helped lead the 1689 Boston revolt and attempted to use it to restore Puritan rule to the Massachusetts colony. He inspired and defended the Salem witch trials. His other writings and efforts aimed to keep slaves obedient to their masters. As the slave trade turned into an economic boom, colonists remained resistant to the idea of spreading Christianity to slaves.

Chapter Six - Great Awakening

Some colonists, such as Judge Samuel Sewall, opposed slavery, but often not from an entirely anti-racist point of view. The rise in slave population also increased fears of slave revolts. Black people in the colonies were treated like cattle and criminals. No matter how they behaved, whether obedient or rebellious, it was perceived as proof of their barbarism. Efforts to Christianize enslaved people finally gained ground late in Cotton Mather's life as the colonies approached the First Great Awakening, but Whites refused to acknowledge that African people could be equals in mind or body, only in soul.

Chapter Five – Black Hunts


The 1689 Boston revolt, 1876 rendition by William A. Crafts (public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. How much influence do you think the Salem witch trials had on racism in that era?

2. What motivated Mather's writings, which always seemed to target women and racial groups? Was this about religious fervor, ignorance/naïveté, or controlling people?

3. Did the public accept Mather's ideas because they genuinely believed in them or because they benefited socially and economically from them?

Great great posts Douglass.

Folks, Douglass is reading a very well received and popular book - I do hope that you post and join him on this read. It is never too late to just post and join in. Thank you.

It is definitely a great book that lives up to the hype, and there are so many things to talk about with both history and current events here.

Well I hope people pop in and discuss the book. At least your hard work will always be here when they do.

Chapter Six – Great Awakening


Portrait of Cotton Mather by Peter Pelham (ca. 1700, public domain)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. How do some of the racist ideas in this chapter persist today? Can behaviors of cooperation and resistance still be used against Black people as they were 300 years ago?

2. Do you agree with Kendi's decision to frame the early colonial era around Cotton Mather as "America's first great assimilationist"?

3. How has this first part of the book supported Kendi's thesis that slavery is rooted in policy before ideas?

4. How does Kendi's history of the early colonial period measure up to other histories you have read? Are you learning new facts and ideas that reframed the way you think about this time period?

Kendi covers a lot of major people and events in chapters 5 and 6, so here are some resources if you want to explore them more:

(New England Historical Society)

(UMKC Law)

(University of Virginia Law)

(The New Yorker)

(Teaching History)

(includes full text PDFs of many of his writings)

Sources: NE Historical Society, The New Yorker, Teaching History, UMKC Law, University of Virginia Law, Georgia State University

Great sources.

This is this week’s assignment:

Week Four: September 14 - September 21 (pages 79-103)

Chapter 7 - Enlightenment (page 79)

Chapter 8 - Black Exhibits (page 92)

And feel free to discuss any part of the book that you have read or are reading. It is a free read!

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Chapter 7 - Enlightenment

Benjamin Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society (APS), modeled after the British Royal Society. Ethnic racism created markets for enslaved people from particular parts of West Africa. Voltaire and "most of the leading Enlightenment intellectuals were producers of racist ideas and abolitionist thought."

Chapter 8 - Black Exhibits

Some enslaved people, such as the poet Phillis Wheatley in Boston, were taught skills, which were then promoted to contradict racist thought, not out of antiracism, but out of assimilationism or out of seeking profit from the novelty of this exhibits. David Hume and other thinkers wrote some awful arguments about race and slavery that were historically and/or biologically inaccurate.

Chapter 7 - Enlightenment


American Philosophical Society, building constructed 1785-89 (photo by Beyond My Ken, licensed CC-AS, 2006).

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Has the book changed your perspective on authors and thinkers discussed so far, such as Voltaire in this chapter?

2. What commonalities does slavery in Colonial America share with the modern prison system?

3. Why weren't there more true antiracists like John Woolman in the 1700s? Was Woolman–as Kendi writes–"ahead of his time?"

Great adds Douglass and such great work

Chapter 8 - Black Exhibits


Portrait of Phillis Wheatley, 1773 (Library of Congress, no rights/restrictions)

Discussion Topics and Questions

1. Have you seen instances Black exhibition today?

2. How is assimilationist racism manifested today? Have you seen examples personally or in the media?

3. How much assimilationist racism–whether today or in the time period we are reading about–do you think is well-intentioned but ignorant, and how much is for personal social or economic gain?

Chapter 8 had me thinking of a few related things I have read recently that all demonstrate this exhibition method of assimilationist racism.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Water Dancer is a historical fiction novel set in the antebellum South and incorporating magical realism. The protagonist, Hiram, is enslaved and has a superpower mostly associated with his memory. The plantation owner–who is also Hiram's father–seems like he might love Hiram and have paternal feelings for him, but he also exploits his powers in a ridiculous way, having Hiram perform parlor tricks with playing cards at his parties. Coates is as much a scholar of history as Kendi, so I am confident this scene was intended to demonstrate Black exhibition as it would have been seen at the time.

I also see a connection with the minstrel shows of the 1800s. Some of these shows offered Blacks opportunities to earn money and fame in a time where that was otherwise unheard of for them in the US. However, they often made jokes and promoted stereotypes that ultimately exploited Black talent to advance White agendas. Jeffrey Ogbar writes:

Characterized by buffoonish styles of singing, dancing and vernacular, minstrelsy depicted black people as infantile and pathological while underscoring the importance of race to the meaning of democracy in America. In an age that saw the expansion of voting to all white men, the ubiquitous image of the black minstrel, or 'coon,' affirmed the notion that black men were unfit for the responsibilities of democracy.

Ogbar also discusses how this problem continues in today's entertainment industry. Many Black artists are exploited as the industry incentivizes their participation in performances that help reinforce negative stereotypes. Many gangsta rappers portray themselves as violent, criminal, and misogynistic, while conscious rappers literally call them "minstrels" for it.

Another good example of modern assimilationist Black exhibition might be White savior stories like the film The Blind Side (I did not get as much of a White savior vibe from the book by Michael Lewis as I did by the film, but it might have been there too). In the film, all Black characters are problematic, while the White characters protect a Black character, football player Michael Oher, from the other Black characters and perhaps from his own Blackness.

From Phillis Wheatley to minstrel shows to gangsta rap and White savior stories, the exploitation of Black artists to promote the ideas of assimilationist racism does not seem to have changed a whole lot in 300 years.

by Ta-Nehisi Coates
by Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar (no photo)
by Michael Lewis
Phillis Wheatley

Douglass - great, great post.

This is this week’s assignment:

Week Five: September 21 - September 27 (pages 104-134)

Chapter 9 - Created Equal (page 104)

Chapter 10 - Black Exhibits (page 120)

As this is a Free Read, we can discuss these and anything else in the book this week.