A thought for this month.
From several years ago: Who Determines History and Why?
I was talking recently with the mother of a preteen student. She was complaining about a book her child was asked to read as a Black History Month assignment. The book, Homegoing, is a popular novel written in the time frame of slavery including the rapes and sexual abuse common between slaves and slave masters at the time. The book is popular and on many reading lists this month but many argue it’s not written for preteens and adolescents. For transparency, I haven’t read it.
The question is whether or not preteens are sophisticated enough to understand rape and sexual abuse and put that into the context of black history. Perhaps the larger issue is who determines an ethnic group’s history and culture. Should an ethnic group be able to determine how it’s remembered? Is slave rape more important to know than the history of Harriet Tubman, for example? For that matter, are the histories of slave rape victims more important than the histories of the white slave owning rapists?
It could be argued that rape is a function of genocide. But the genocide of American black slaves is a bit different. For example, a Yale professor once lectured that in 1860, there were more millionaires (slaveholders all) living in the lower Mississippi Valley than anywhere else in the United States. In the same year, the nearly four million American slaves were worth some $3.5 billion, making them the largest single financial asset in the entire U.S. economy, worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined.
So, slaves were assets. Creating more assets through rape was a business decision for slave owners. Should that be a part of the slave master’s historic narrative? Certainly, I don’t remember that concept in my American history class. Maybe they were too busy documenting the rape, abuse and pillage of American slaves, natives and immigrant workers to fit in the people doing the rapes, abuse and pillaging.
Speaking of Black History Month, here’s something that preteens and adolescents might find interesting. One in four cowboys was black despite the popular myths. In fact, there’s some knowledge that says the Lone Ranger was a black man named Bass Reeves who was born a slave but escaped to Indian Territory in the West during the Civil War. The stories say he eventually became a Deputy U.S. Marshal, was a master of disguise, an expert marksman, had a Native American companion, and rode a silver horse. Sound familiar?
In fact, there’s even more history that says the legend of the western cowboy was based on black men, “boys,” who were hired to take care of and clean up after herds of cows and bulls living in all sorts of weather fighting off all sorts of wildlife including mountain lions and rattlesnakes.
But we’d need some care telling stories that might make heroes of black Americans, wouldn’t we?