Coleman Hughes, a rising star in journalism (he’s only 29 years old), has been snapped up by The Free Press, where he writes regularly. He’s a clear and eloquent writer, and, more important, he seems a lot more objective than people who write what are essentially opinion pieces in the MSM. And today we have one of those pieces: an analysis of why both left and right are distorting the history and effects of slavery. (In that respect it’s like the inimical effects of left and right on science.) While Trump is trying to remove any mention of the inimical effects of slavery from American life, “progressives” blame the residual effects of slavery on nearly all aspects of America, maintaining that the history of America should begin in 1619, and engaging in antiwhite racism as instantiated by an offensive poster in the Smithsonian created by wokies long before Trump (see below). Further, the left ignores the contributions of African blacks and Arabs, which were considerable, to the slave trade, as well as the fact that Native Americans in the SE also had slaves, with five such tribes taking the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War.
It will do you good to read this article, which you can do by clicking on it below. (You’ll need a subscription to the FP, as their articles can’t be archived.)
Some excerpts, with Hughes beginning with The Problem:
If you’ve been following American politics for the past five years, you may have noticed an unhealthy pattern: The left, which controls most cultural institutions, uses soft power to shape them in an ever more progressive direction. The right, which controls few cultural institutions but does possess political power, passes vague and heavy-handed policies intended to undo the left’s handiwork (and then some).
Core to this pattern is the fact that the left tends to view the institutions it controls as politically neutral when, in fact, they are stamped throughout with their own sacred values. The right, in turn, tends to see their scorched-earth responses as justified by a sense of powerlessness over the leftward direction of American culture.
Perhaps nowhere has this pattern been more perfectly illustrated than in the fight over depictions of slavery in our national museums.
The fight began when President Donald Trump issued the executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” on March 27. The executive order was intended to fight the “corrosive ideology” that I call “neoracism” in my book—an ideological outgrowth of critical race theory that demonizes whiteness, elevates blackness, and argues that America is white supremacist in its very DNA.
As the order explained, this ideology “seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light,” and reconstructs America’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness” as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
But blame devolves on the left, too:
Starting about a decade ago, neoracism began to sweep through America’s elite institutions. As I explained in a recent essay, journalistic outlets began to blame just about everything on the legacy of slavery, including Excel spreadsheets, gynecology, tipping, mass incarceration, the Second Amendment, prison labor, Jack Daniel’s whiskey, fine dining, abortion bans, coffee, the word cakewalk, and the obesity crisis.
You may remember this poster that the Smithsonian put up; I wrote about it at the time (2020). After a huge public backlash, the Smithsonian removed it. It’s racist—and offended both blacks and whites. Fortunately, you can still see the extent of virtue-flaunting that followed the death of George Floyd. Get a load of this; my earlier post, linked above, gives some details:
The Smithsonian is pretty woke (go look at its Human Evolution exhibit), and this is one reason Trump singled it out—in a way that Hughes thinks is probably illegal:
One of the many things Trump has done to fight this strategy is direct the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents to “prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy.”
It does not take a linguist to understand that this order is vaguely worded and bound to produce confusion—one man’s “divisive” ideology is another man’s common sense. Nor does it take a constitutional expert to understand that Trump does not have the authority to force the Smithsonian to do anything. By law, the Smithsonian is run by a Board of Regents, and that board is composed of the vice president, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, three senators appointed by the president pro tempore of the Senate, three House representatives appointed by the Speaker of the House, and nine citizens appointed by a joint resolution of Congress. In other words, Trump can’t just take a wrecking ball to the institution without violating the separation of powers and the rule of law.
Unfortunately for Trump, the law requires–and rightly so–displays at the Smithsonian about the history of slavery in America, and this was done in 2003, when Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate as well as the Presidency:
By law, the museum must have “permanent and temporary exhibits documenting the history of slavery in America” as well as other aspects of African American history. This was all a bipartisan effort—not an example of the left forcing something down the right’s throat. If Republicans had a problem with it, they could’ve thwarted it at the time.
But Hughes, as did other black intellectuals, points out issues with the Smithsonian’s depiction of slavery:
This is not to say the Smithsonian’s slavery exhibit is without flaws. As John McWhorter pointed out in The New York Times earlier this year, the exhibit could have done more to highlight African participation in the transatlantic slave trade. He is echoing an argument made some 15 years ago by Henry Louis Gates Jr., who wrote an infamous New York Times op-ed called “Ending the Slavery Blame-Game.” In it, Gates pointed out that, for whatever reason, Africans are the one group of people that have mysteriously escaped history’s harsh eye despite being enthusiastic participants in the transatlantic slave trade.
“The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred,” he wrote.
The backlash to the op-ed was fierce. As Gates put it: “People wanted to kill me, man.”
In the end, what is Hughes’s point? Simply this: he wants a “compromise” position that emphasizes the horrors of slavery but also facts that don’t fit the narrative, like Native American ownership of slaves. In other words, he wants the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth:
The Trump administration has accurately diagnosed a problem area in American culture. But its attempt to fix it should not focus on minimizing the ugly facts of American slavery. Instead, it should focus on broadening the scope of facts that we allow into the conversation. In this way, Americans can have a more complete, more accurate, and less racially divisive picture of our own history—without compromising the truth.
A good set of excerpts (I don’t have access to the entire essay) by one of our most promising—and lucid—public intellectuals. Thank you for posting this—and for reminding me of that awful Smithsonian poster.
I think part of the challenge is that History is badly neglected as part of education, and that what students learn about slavery is more likely to be the neoracism that Hughes discusses. Slavery, just in the U.S., and anti-slavery are huge topics. Broadening the scope of the discussion is absolutely needed, but so is nuance, and that seems to be in short supply in both secondary and post-secondary teaching.
History
Civics
Literacy
Thinking
Nuance
…
Part of the problem, of course, is that the term “slavery” in the US often means just that, the history of slavery in the USA. If we would teach about the history of slavery worldwide throughout the eons, it would help significantly in dispelling some of the nonsense.
I recommend Seymour Drescher’s book, “Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery”, focusing on the whole of the period from the 15th century onwards, including state-organized slavery in Europe in the twentieth century.
Irrespective of any facts, it is obvious that the moral worth of ethnic groups does depend on historical narratives, especially those we feed to schoolchildren.
The fixation on the transatlantic slave trade and the role of European states in it is not just an US problem. Discussions in Europe also tend to overlook the fact that, from the 16th century onwards, the colonial powers would not have been able to buy and transport millions of black Africans to America and use them as slaves there without the active assistance of African kingdoms.
Even less is said about the fact that a probably even larger number of black Africans were abducted as slaves from the 7th century until well into the 19th century by the various Arab caliphates, the Ottoman Empire, and the North African Barbary states.
All very good and important points…and data that are extremely sticky to locate. But what a boon to the curriculum content of K-12 history in the U.S. it would be to have them. Also, with a tip of the hat to the journals and podcasts that made some of their most important public health oriented content during covid19 pandemic, free of their usual paywalls, so should Bari, Coleman, CBS, etc for an important piece like this from Coleman. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could freely send a copy to members of school boards?
Jim, everything at The Free Press has been free for the last week. Today is the last day for that offer. You do, however, have to give them an email address to access the “free” content.
Thanks Doug. Yes I took advantage of that today, but as you note this is the last day which severely limits any further distribution attempts…at least as I understand it.
“In the end, what is Hughes’s point? Simply this: he wants a “compromise” position that emphasizes the horrors of slavery but also facts that don’t fit the narrative, like Native American ownership of slaves. In other words, he wants the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth:”
Never going to happen.
I raised my boys in Seattle and it was common yearly field trip to a “Potlatch”; an important ceremony celebrated by the Salish people who were living in Puget Sound when the Europens came. So Seattle public schools, rightly, as it important that kids get exposed to some native Americn cultural traditions and besides, it’s an important tradition and a source of income for some, sponsorred trips to a location that held a traditional Potlatch..
They were generallly entertaining with dancing, and constumes, and salmon smoking on frames (fake, I’m told). But one hting they most definately didn’t include in a tradional Salish Potlatch, the central ceremony; The ritual execution of slaves.
It was a sign of power; if you could afford to say, cut off the hands and feet of one of your slaves, tie them to a stake then slash them to death slowly over the course of hours (as accounted by a European witness) your high status in the tribe would be confirmed. I’m told the more effciencent Salish leaders usually just tied them to a stake and burnt them to death. The point being, a man’s power amongst the Salish had, in part, to do with his williness to sacrifice one of his slaves, as they were expensive. A slave trade, small by comparison to some, was a major source of income for North West tribes and the Potlatch included ritual murder of slaves.
No Seattle public school kid learns that.
“No Seattle public school kid learns that.”
Agree. And that’s not going to change. Not in Canada, either.
Thanks for enlightening this Polish-Canadian immigrant. Réné Girard referred to this kind of holier-than-thou attitude as “scapegoating of the past.” The idea that if only WE were to live back then, we would be sooo much better, kinder, and overall more, dare I say, woke than people responsible for letting those horrible practices persist. People steer clear of the realization that we consider slavery abhorrent TODAY. Back then, it was seen as normal, part of life, nothing to it. This mirror makes many people really uncomfortable in their own skin, especially when they consider how many horrific practices are seen as normal. Practices such as war. Deportation. Rendering people homeless. Death of hunger. Death penalty. Political imprisonment. Refusal of medical care to the poor. I could go on.
+1
Exactly. We were all like that one point.
Deportation is not a horrific practice, Matthew. Come. Nor is evicting tenants into the street who won’t pay rent.
Some really awful people get into our countries, and into our rental properties. (In the latter case, “awful” is defined as “doesn’t pay rent.”) We should be thankful that we can deport them and evict them without having to convict them of crimes. The mere facts that they have no legal permission to be here, or have no rent receipts, suffice nicely.
Chat GTP tells me the killing and torturing was a rare exception to the general practice. For what it is worth.
I am going to take a skeptical view, but of course folks are free to reply.
Although it is fine to call for some sort of fair and balanced telling of the history of slavery (Africans participated. Indians had slaves too…), the history of white settlers in this country is meanwhile our history, and I would just wish that this telling in museums and history texts conveys our contribution on an appropriate scale with bar graphs and other quantitative measures, and that our economy an infrastructure expanded significantly from forced unpaid labor. Our European ancestors carried out slavery on an industrial scale, with the full backing of law and the most powerful militaries of the time. By scale, this is in contrast to Africans or Indians or whoever.
I hang out on a photography web site where the commentariat tends to be conservative to very conservative (but they do know photography!). The same discussion comes up, and invariably someone makes the same points that slavery occurred in many countries and times so we weren’t the only baddies. From them, it’s clear that they mean STFU about slavery in American history. It’s a conversation stopper, not a conversation starter. I just don’t want the discussion to devolve to that.
In that vein, I can’t help but notice that although native Americans owning slaves is mentioned, native Americans being enslaved is not. And that was not an uncommon thing – the colonies were net exporters of slave labour in the 17th and into the early 18th century, and a significant fraction of the native population between the Atlantic and the Mississippi ended up being exported to the Caribbean (whose sugar plantations and refineries had life expectancies loosely in line with Auschwitz).
This doesn’t change African (and native American) chiefdoms participating in the slave trade, nor the immense scale of the Arab and Ottoman slave trade, but it’s rather telling that the usual suspects wish to treat the history of history of America as the history of European Americans and write out everyone else – EXCEPT when it comes to slavery, then suddenly native Americans and African kingdoms have not just a role to play, but are suddenly the main protagonists.
And I can also recommenda video podcast from this morning: Coleman Hughes speaking with Haviv Rettig Gur on “antisemitism and the black experience” which includes a segment on left wing antisemitism and general white antisemitism as seen particularly since Oct 7. Some new thoughts for me – 67 minutes at url
In twentieth century Europe, as many Europeans were forcibly imported into Germany to do forced labor as Africans were forcibly transported to the New World as slaves between the mid fifteenth and mid nineteenth centuries. Forced unpaid labor of European people was a very big deal, and Himmler explicitly described what the German were doing as enslaving people.
If memory serves me, it has been discussed here (and of course elsewhere) whether we in the 21st century should judge people of a couple of centuries or more ago by our 21st century standards. I trust that slavery is an exception. Slaves at any time did not want to be slaves. (Even if they themselves hypocritically had no problem with enslaving others.) It is intolerable that anyone would say, “Well, other people did it” in order to minimize scrutiny and their culpability. Everyone during whatever age should be intensely scrutinized and critiqued about their positions on slavery. Regarding “American Exceptionalism,” the U.S. would have been a little more “exceptional” (and a little more worthy of the fatuous claim of being “exceptional”) had it forsworn slavery.
People murdered by war did not want to be murdered, yet many countries are proud of this murder and call its perpetration patriotic and a duty. One day I hope the barbarity of it will be noted.
The real question is, did ordinary people living in those times have it in them to ban slavery? Some did, some did not, that’s why it led to civil war. Do people have it in them TODAY to go to the scary places where slavery STILL exists, to end it, by force if necessary? No volunteers, eh? It’s easy to pass moral judgments on the Internet over people who see shades of grey where others see only black and white. Your condemnation of slavery is noted, and I trust you feel the same about impaling, starving to death, castration, and other practices we abandoned.
No less than Nikole Hannah-Jones (the 1619 project) has extolled slavery (as long as white people were not involved). Mansa Musa (who was a major slave owner) is treated as a hero. The sad truth, is that almost all human societies had human slavery, before mankind for a way to enslave rocks (coal and its successors). To put this in perspective, the average human produces around 100 W of energy. Our machines use (roughly) 8,800 W of energy.