In a remarkable piece of sophistry titled Six Inconvenient Truths about Slavery, right-wing movie and social critic Michael Medved lays out a clear and concise justification for the slavery of Africans in America.
What is unclear is why he felt such a justification was necessary:
1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation.
Yes, Michael, slavery was excused, or at least not condemned, in the Bible, but that doesn’t make it right. Besides, who said it was a uniquely American innovation, and what difference does that make in the greater scheme of things? The fact that the Brits and the Spanish did it too is hardly an excuse.
2. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales, in the history of the republic — involving only a tiny percentage of the ancestors of today’s Americans.
This is bizarre. Yes, slavery ended in the North not long after the republic was founded but slavery of Africans was present in various locales along America’s Eastern Seaboard from around 1670 until 1865.
3. Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.
Got that, black Americans? You’re lucky we didn’t kill you.Where’s your gratitude for that!
4. It’s not true that the U.S.became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor: the most prosperous states in the country were those that first freed their slaves.
This is historical revisionism, at best. The Southern colonies were more prosperous than the north for much of our pre-revolutionary history. Charleston, S.C., was the largest city in the colonies for years. Even after the North’s ascendancy in the early Industrial Era, the majority of the vast wealth generated by the states that would comprise the Confederacy was generated by slave labor. To ignore that fact is disingenuous and not a little reprehensible.
5. While America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition.
All it took was the deaths of 500,000 Union and Confederate soldiers, and the complete destruction of the slave economy in the South — a loss we are only just now starting to recover from in many ways.
6. There is no reason to believe that today’s African-Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa.
It is impossible to game out what would have happened in Africa if so much of its population hadn’t been captured and exported into servitude, especially since the descendants of these people have proven to be enterprising, innovative, intelligent and talented.
This article is a real head-scratcher. It appears to be a preemptive argument against paying reparations to the descendants of African slaves, but if the reparations movement has made significant inroads lately, it is news to me.
On the other hand, if Medved’s piece was intended to open a new dialog on racism in America, it is clear that liberals and conservatives are as far apart as ever on this issue.
* maybe medved will be the one to prove jfk wrong when he asked, ‘if the life of the negro in america is so good, who among us would willingly trade places?’
* ball in your court michael. \\ free born
“those who would trade essential liberty for a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.†— b. franklin, 1759
There is an awful lot of overt racism lately and I have to think it isn’t accidental. Again, the powers that be want us blaming all our problems on someone else so we won’t look at their corruption.
For a while they had the Muslims — but people are beginning to weary of Iraq and don’t want a war with Iran so that fearmongering is losing its punch. They tried going after the illegal immigrants — but that didn’t push enough buttons. Now we’re back to good old classic KKK racism. Old faithful of the Republican party.
They want race riots in this country. Why? It will give them an excuse to declare martial law and then Bush and his puppet master Cheney get to take over. Then Cheney will get finally get to realize his lifelong ambition of nuking a nation.
Wake up people. Don’t fall for it. Our problems are NOT black vs white. Our problems are rich vs poor. If we don’t stand united against these greedy, warmongering, power hungry demons — they’ll win and we will have lost the US for good.
Who really cares what that tired piece of excrement thinks? Not me. Does he even think at all? Hard to tell. Slavery still exists. Hell, I work 3 months out of the year just for the government, (so do most of you by the way). Not to mention that there is ACTUAL slavery going on, I believe that Israel has been previously exposed as having quite a stake in the current white slave trade. Maybe if someone wrote about the 6 inconvenient truths of the holocaust, (or call it: “Great Strides in Plastic Surgery Throughout the Late 20th Century”), I believe Mr. Dedhed might get a little upset. Not to mention the fact that all his little friends would be talking about it all over the MSM. Hannity, Limbaugh, O’Lielly, would all be instant Orthodox Jews.
3. “Though brutal, slavery wasn’t genocidal: live slaves were valuable but dead captives brought no profit.”
David Stannard in his book “American Holocaust” states that between 30 and 60 million Africans died as result of the slave trade. Medved has a degree in history. His arguments are both morally and intellectually bankrupt.
I think Mr. Medved should go back to reviewing movies. He can start with Griffith’s BIRTH Of A NATION. He ought to like that just fine.
For their own good and ours, people as twisted as Medved should be shot.
Who is Medved shilling for this time? What a smarmy piece of shit. I’m tired of him and all the other traitors to the Constitution.
From the original article:
“5. WHILE AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION. In the course of scarcely more than a century following the emergence of the American Republic, men of conscience, principle and unflagging energy succeeded in abolishing slavery not just in the New World but in all nations of the West. During three eventful generations, one of the most ancient, ubiquitous and unquestioned of all human institutions (considered utterly indispensable by the “enlightened†philosophers of Greece and Rome) became universally discredited and finally illegal – with Brazil at last liberating all its slaves in 1888. This worldwide mass movement (spear-headed in Britain and elsewhere by fervent Evangelical Christians) brought about the most rapid and fundamental transformation in all human history. [snip]”
The writer, Michael Medved (of Russian origin – Medved is a common Russian family name, the Russian word for bear [as in Teddy Bear, polar bear] which translates as “lover of honey” – many Nordic countries of shamanic backgrounds use descriptives rather than names for many objects; in Sweden, the word candle doesn’t exist as such, they are called “levande ljus” which translates as “living light”, for example), is supposed to be a historian. He fails miserably in this and seems to be oblivious of Russian history – Russia first abolished slavery under Peter the Great in 1762. It was later reinstated, but Catherine the Great in turn abolished it in 1861 (two years before the USA abolished slavery), and neither Peter the Great nor Catherine the Great were anything remotely connected to any form of “fervent Evangelical Christians”.
This is incredible. The man knows no history. While it’s true that there was a lot of slavery in the world, almost everybody abolished it before we did. In fact, only Brazil was later than the U.S. in getting rid of it. Also, abolition was NOT rapid (I presume Medved refers to the fact that the Civil War only lasted four years). The Founders themselves were uncomfortable with slavery, and the abolition movement in the U.S. agitated for DECADES. It was a long, hard slog.
Speaking of hard slogs, the death toll in the Civil War was around 620,000, not 500,000. Most of the soldiers were fighting to restore the Union, not abolish slavery; it took Lincoln’s vision and courage to raise the bar.
I know this will be hard for Medved to accept, but – and I’m putting it mildly – SLAVERY IS A BAD THING. End of argument.
Let’s face it, folks…if slavery was legal, then the neo-cons, conservatives, republicans, right wingers, or whatever you want to call them, would be taking full advantage of it, just as Mr. Medved has demonstrated. This will be most apparent by the deafening silence and lack of condemnation from the right that will soon follow. So much for compassionate conservatives. Not only is the term contradictory, let alone hypocritical, but such a thing does not and cannot exist.
I thought he was going to take the approach; that the slaves were better off than the poor of today who are on their own, for lack of Government responsibility!
At least the slaves had a roof over their heads, food, and in many cases medical attention.
Before you get your dander up, I had an ancester who due to early widowhood, and loss of her other 2 children was forced to live out her last days, on the charity of her slave owning son-in-law.
She spent the last of her life administering to the slaves and their poor white neighbors, until she was thrown from her horse and died at the age of 80.
Nowadays we have hospitals dropping off poor people on the streets of LA to fend for themselves.
BUT that doesn’t make Medved any less of a total Blockhead!
Maybe Medved was not thinking about reparations at all. As he expects the Republicans to successfully complete their task of completely dismantling the social safety net, he is thinking ahead to the possibilities that will offer. As there will be untold numbers of destitute and desperate people, wouldn’t it be nice if there were some incentive for the “winners” to take care of them, for example, say, making them property. The poor could sign over their lives to their new masters and get food, shelter, and health care! And of course the children of the poor would have to be part of the deal, and we know they would be better off than they would have been left to their own devices in that cold cruel world (which of course is as it is, oligarchic corporate capitalism, because that is the only way!).
See, Medved is not looking to the past. He is planning for the future.
Thanks, Craig R. Lane, for reminding us all that ignorance and bigotry are not the exclusive province of the far right.
Jackass.
Apparently Jane Hawes “knows no history” as well when she says that only Brazil abolished slavery after the US … Cuba abolished slavery in 1886 and Puerto Rico in 1873 (but slaves in PR were then required to work for three more years for their masters). Also, slavery exists to this day in Africa in the zone of interaction between the Arab north and the black south, although often this slavery is de facto, not de jure. Slavery is dead wrong and always has been, but Michael Medved’s facts are nevertheless correct.
Sounds like Old Blinky Mike just wanted a little attention. He got it. For about 20 seconds. Now, let’s move on…
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fuck you bitch…on behave of all black people
i think medved is super intelligent ,eloquent ,knowledegebale and good debater
weather you agree with him or not you need to admit that
If only his ideas weren’t so stupid.
I wonder how he would feel if he were to, at best, search for his “anceSTORY” WITHIN A VASTLY DECREPID SOCIETY THAT KEPT HORRID DOCUMENTATION OF HIS PEOPLE, AND THAT IS TO SAY IF DOCUMENTATIONS WERE KEPT AT ALL LET ALONE BE ACCURATE. AND THAT DON’T BEGAN TO EXPLAIN “BAD”. SIX THIS CRACKER
Send this to Eric Holder..He need the education
To the author Jon: There is nothing as irritating as taking a in-depth analysis and having someone pick and choose at it to make talking points. This is such a blatant liberal technique, lazy and simplified intellectualism. BTW- Just getting the “PENS” in a name doesn’t give any thought process validity to the rebuttal. But, as usual, form before substance.
It’s so annoying: short-sighted thinking of the liberal “supposed” intellectual elites who end causing more calamities as issues are usually addressed on one-liners, on a touchy-feely childish basis, and a thinking only of today mentality. Consequences are irrelevant in the liberals mind. When you grow up, please re-address intelligently and take more than 5 minutes to rebut Michael Medved, who happens to be a TRUE intellectual. You know, what one should aspire to be: actually research, not just regurgitate pseudo-facts you get from cliff notes.
Medved was never justifying or defending slavery, as you imply. A primary point was: the self-flagellation which seems to permeate the world is ridiculously imbalanced. Are the Middle East or Africa, worst slave-owners/drivers ever, allowing themselves to implode as much as the US due to: the continuously promoted White Guilt by the Liberal agenda, (blatantly Racist by the way), and the Black elite racial mongererers – they have caused more damage to African American communities in this country than the Conservative thought process could ever dream of. True help involves empowerment of a group, not handouts, that’s 101. Downtown Detroit alone proves that out. African-Americans don’t need to have the handout mentality promoted, (unless there is an agenda such as promoting a group’s perpetual power by buying votes and thereby reducing the human worth of a targeted group?) Self-dignity, self-respect, self-worth, all that comes from INDIVIDUAL effort, not continuous handouts.
Liberalism: simplified intellect.
Desiree
Desiree, do the words, “bat shit crazy” have any particular resonance for you?
“Got that, black Americans? You’re lucky we didn’t kill you.Where’s your gratitude for that!”
Is this sack of shit serious? Not only is he clearly insane, he also doesn’t understand proper punctuation.
The only one that was totally incoherent was number six. The people in Africa actually had a controlled system and the slaves would be better off there.
Also on the italics in number three, that was total bullshi*.