Not So Fast Professor Gates - by Henry Duncan

Reparations has been debated since the 1800’s. Yet the 40 acres and a mule has never been delivered. For some reason, Professor Henry Louis Gates has taken on this issue in his op-ed article in the New York Times entitled Ending The Slavery Blame Game. In this article, Prof. Gates argues that, since African monarchs sold their slaves to Europeans, that Europe
and Africa share responsibility for slavery. Obviously this claim has sparked much controversy. You can start with the letters in response to the article. Eric Foner, a professor of history at Columbia University, who states that “reparations are unworkable” does refute a point that Gates presents in his article.

In the article, Gates states:
Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in “Roots.” The truth, however, is much more complex: slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike.

Prof. Foner fires back with the fact that this problem cannot be ignored because “ it hardly qualifies as news; today, virtually every history of slavery and every American history textbook includes this information.”

All the letters to the editor that are listed are from professors of various universities and they all echo one point. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was abolished in 1808, but that did not stop the internal transfer and growth of slavery here in America. As Prof. Foner points out:
the great growth of slavery in this country occurred after the closing of the Atlantic slave trade in 1808.

It was Americans, not Africans, who created in the South the largest, most powerful slave system the modern world has known, a system whose profits accrued not only to slaveholders but also to factory owners and merchants in the North. Africans had nothing to do with the slave trade within the United States, in which an estimated two million men, women and children were sold between 1820 and 1860.

One of the main points of Prof. Gates’ article is that Africans knew about the horrors of slavery using two points. First he states that “many elite Africans visited Europe in that era, and they did so on slave ships following the prevailing winds through the New World”. He also uses Liberia as an example: “ there were thousands of former slaves who returned to settle Liberia and Sierra Leone. The Middle Passage, in other words, was sometimes a two-way street. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to claim that Africans were ignorant or innocent.”
The intent of this article is very unclear to me. To my knowledge there has been no recent attempts to introduce legislation for reparations. We have a president that believes that reparations is “unworkable”. There are no recent stir ups about reparations within the Black community; it’s not even Black history month. It seems like this article came out of the thin blue sky. There are a few points that I take issue with in this article.

Prof. Gates uses Liberia as an example of Africans knowing about the Slavery in American. I guess Prof. Gates assumes that Liberians went on an African tour to profess the horrors of slavery in America, which didn’t happen and Liberia was founded, depending on which source you choose, between 1820 and 1822. This is significant because this is almost 15 years after the Slave Trade was abolished which means that even if they did take an African tour America was no longer receiving slaves from Africa so that point is irrelevant. He also states that Africans went to Europe on the slave ships. That only proves that they knew the condition of slaves on the slave ship not in America. Prof. Gates presents no evidence that these “elite Africans” ever visited or even stopped in the south on their way to Europe. In addition, it is a well known fact that Slavery in Europe and American were drastically different. Fredrick Douglas, whom Prof. Gates quotes in his article, fled to Europe at the behest of his benefactors until they purchased his freedom.

In my opinion Africa, as a whole, has paid a price for the involvement of the few African elites that sold their brothers into slavery. After these African elites sold slaves to these Europeans, they were eventually colonized and lost whatever power and riches that they had to the same European countries. Africa still continues to pay a price. These “slaves” that they sold were not just a labor force, they were the bright minds that were responsible for inventions and advancements that we as Americans enjoy to this day. Their actions are part of the reason that we see the undeveloped and disease ridden areas, political crisis, and genocide that we see in Africa. So whatever “blame” that can be placed on those Africans, they have paid their price. What price has America and Europe paid: none to speak of. While Africa suffers from the actions of a few Africans, Europe and America have thrived due to it’s involvement in the Slave Trade.

I have to reiterate my earlier point; Why? What’s the point of this article? Perhaps we will never know. In my research I have not found any interviews where Prof. Gates responses to any of his critics. I will definitely be looking out for his response. Peace.