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Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Irreconcilable Legacy of White Supremacy by Langston Tingling-Clemmons

Assignment: Carolina permits us to understand the relationship between white supremacy and freedom. Explain this claim. How do you reconcile Locke the champion of liberty with his views on slavery, and his labor theory of property? The answer follows.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” On July 4, 1776 the now United States of America officially issued its Declaration of Independence to the world, but most notably to King George III of England. Paradoxically the majority of men who offered these words, our founding fathers, were themselves slave-owners. It is a laughable absurdity that men who wrote this document could not see the illegitimacy of their words, to fight for their own freedom, while concurrently denying black African slaves theirs. John Locke, the philosopher who helped author the aforementioned passage of the Declaration Independence and the hereditary enslavement of Africans in South Carolina is central to this conflict of ideals – and one of its biggest offenders. He is touted as a champion of liberty while unashamedly participating in the commoditization of other human beings. I can neither reconcile these two antithetical notions nor absolve this purely racist behavior with a clear conscience. However some have tried to exonerate this immense contradiction, to which I will refute.

South Carolina permits us to understand the relationship between white supremacy and freedom. Lord Ashley sought the help of John Locke to write the Fundamental Constitution of a group of eight landowners known as the Lord Proprietor, who owned the majority of colonial settlements in South Carolina.[1] This document sought to manage and maintain the social hierarchy of the feudalist agrarian society. It stated in more words that landowners, “landgraves” & “caziques”, would perpetually lord over indentured servants, “leet-men”. Moreover the document stated that the colony would also be built upon the hereditary enslavement of Africans. Whilst indentured servants (whites) could repay debt through their labor and receive a plot of land at the conclusion of their servitude, slaves (blacks) were to be in bondage from birth until death. This creation of a class and primarily racially-stratified system was also supported by John Locke’s idea of the ownership of Private Property.
He developed a theory of property rights grounded upon labor. Such rights entitled the technologically and economically advanced to settle and exploit land that was under-exploited by less advanced natives; the failure to protect such rights deprived rulers of their authority to govern.

The foregrounding of property rights did nothing of benefit slaves, who were themselves considered to be property. In setting out the constitution of Carolina, Locke had given “Every Freeman of Carolina…absolute Power and Authority over his Negro Slaves.” Paradoxically, it was writers lodging for the glamour of older, feudal values who entered imaginatively into the horrors of enslavement. Locke’s attack on political absolutism in Britain is an important moment in intellectual and political history, but the European imagination had to develop a long way before his hatred of tyranny could be applied to the condition of black Africans.[2]

Africans were considered property, as shown in this excerpt. Nonetheless there seems to be no direct qualms about this fact illustrated in Locke’s literature, which was not to be expected. David Roediger uses the Carolina episode to explore, as he says “the philosophical connection between white supremacy and freedom.” Roediger argues that we can reconcile his political theory regarding slave holding if we look at him as a colonial functionary and planner.[3] He argues that Locke was simply a benefactor of being an intellectual at the rise of personal whiteness within a slave-based society. I do not contest that Locke was a direct beneficiary of mounting white supremacist fervor in the colonies. However it is not a relevant excuse. Not only was he a colonial planner, he used his role to create racial distinctions and excuse the practice of slavery.

In honoring Christian laws and ethics of the day it was an abomination to enslave other Christians, indeed there were many Africans who had been forcibly converted to Christianity. In fact, the very first slaves imported to America (Jamestown Colony) in 1619 by the Spanish, had been christened or baptized, and thus by that act were enfranchised or set free according to English law and should have been admitted to privileges of a free person.[4] In drafting the Carolina constitution Locke and Lord Ashley gave reasoning for not emancipating converted Africans, “Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man’s civil estate or right…it shall be lawful for slaves [to] be of what church or profession any of them shall think best, and, therefore, be as fully members as any freeman.”[5] I find it hard for Roediger to reconcile his actions, as Locke undeniably helped white supremacist documents, but also as a man of loose morals. In addition by giving reasoning for the bondage of other Christians they implicitly admit that the institution is wrong, and to that end that by stating that their property has converted – is a testament to the humanity of slaves.

William Uzgalist’s reconciliation of Locke is even more incendiary. He contrasts the idea represented by the intellectual Popkin who argues that Locke's theory justifies and legitimizes the institutions and practices of Afro-American slavery. While the chief reason for writing the book may have been to justify resistance to the King, a subsidiary reason may have been to justify the practices of the Afro-American slave trade.[6] Comparatively Uzgalist argues the theory of slavery explains both why royal autocracy and chattel slavery are wrong -- for they represent 'the same tyrannical principle.' Just as the efforts of the English king to illegitimately enslave his people is wrong, so the efforts of African and English slave traders and slave holders is illegitimate.

Uzgalist does this by arguing many things but primarily two major points: 1. Locke’s Theory is incompatible with African American Slavery; and 2. Locke was not a Racist. In arguing that Locke’s Theory as read in the Second Treatise, was incompatible with slavery and that he was not a racist, Uzgalist highlights that Locke made only one justification for slavery, for captives taken in a just war – engaging in unjust aggression. However, slavery is not benevolent in any form. In addition how would one find that an action was an aggression? It appears that would only be decided by the victor of battle whether they were the instigator or not. John Locke used this justification in 1768 when advising governor Nicholson of Virginia. Locke disputed that “Negro slaves were justifiably enslaved, having been taken captive in a just war thus forfeiting their liberty.”[7]

Furthermore Locke argues the doctrine of equality is evidence that he could not be a racist. Yet, even Uzgalist does not completely believe that Locke is not a racist. “Locke, at least implicitly, would deny the claim that blacks or other peoples of color had the same natural rights as white men.”[8] As he continues to capitulate, he argues that there is a distinction between strong racism and weak racism.[9] However no distinction can be made because racism is racism. Uzgalist does a poor job of defending the seemingly racist ideals that settlers could dispossess Indian land or black Africans from land because they did not make their land “lie waste.”[10] Nonetheless he never acknowledges the fact that on productive white land it was primarily Native Americans and African slaves tending to the land. Also in Locke’s On Human Understanding he described organized fantasies he characteristically treated as fact – of African women giving birth to the children of apes.[11]

Not only did Locke harbor racist attitudes he directly benefited from and participated in the slave trade. Locke was a share holder in The Royal Africa Company, a company which carried on the slave trade for England. Locke, along with Shaftsbury and many others bought shares in the Royal Africa Company. Locke later sold his shares at a profit.[12] Locke also held a significant share in the Bahama Adventurers, another company which traded in slaves in the Bahama Islands. Given his involvement with English colonial policies, commercial ventures involving the colonies and English trade, it is clear that Locke knew as much or more than anyone in England about the colonies, the slave trade, and slavery. Thus, when he wrote his theory of slavery in the Second Treatise he was writing with detailed knowledge of the nature of the slave trade and the practices of Afro-American slavery in the 1670s.

Uzgalist gives many conciliatory arguments as to why Locke is the philosopher of liberation as he is painted in grade school. Farr and Uzgalist’s attempt to save his legacy is even more upsetting. To that end they both embody the air of white supremacy that “our” nation’s founders were heroes. I’m sure they would argue that Thomas Jefferson was a friend of the slave too, or that when the founding fathers wrote all men are created equal that any of their racist actions were an exception or out-of-character.
Both John Henrik Clarke and Anthony Browder conceptualized the domination of White Europeans over Peoples of African descent, their particular focus within a historical frame of reference. For both of these African-centered scholars, White supremacy is inextricably interwoven with the notion and practice of white racism. Therefore White supremacy is not something merely to be associated with White hate groups and the Ku Klux Klan of North America and the British National Party of the United Kingdom. On the contrary, White supremacy manifests in the social, economic, political and cultural history of European expansion and the development of the New World. It is a history and experience that has a life span of more than 5 centuries. At the dawn of a new millennium, it can be confidently stated that the world continues to be maintained by various forms of White supremacy.[13]

Locke effectively managed to empower the landowning white male class by helping to subordinate poor whites, African slaves, and Native Americans. By explicitly distinguishing between the races through legal advising he successfully discerned who was truly free and who was not. This legacy of denying freedom, movement, liberty, and property to certain peoples, and exclusively to white males, not only created and supported the idea of white supremacy, but also helped it endure through the years. For example all of our Founding Fathers were white males who were property owners. So as slaves were undoubtedly unequal under law, so to were women, Native Americans, and poor whites also disenfranchised. This phenomenon shows that white supremacy is just as much about white racism as it is about male supremacy and wealth supremacy.
Farr and Uzgalist give reasons for how we can reconcile Locke’s action in various ways but neither of them can logically explain how he could have been part of writing the Fundamental Constitution of Carolina. They contend that his racism was weak racism instead of strong racism. The idea that John Locke could have been part of institutionalizing slavery and white supremacy, while still being seen as a liberator, is irreconcilable. In addition any attempt to do so embodies a snub sentiment of white supremacy and demonstrates a disregard for the truth and reality.

[1] Roediger, David How Race Survived U.S. History: from Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon (New York: Verso 2008), p. 8.
[2] Hughes, Derek Versions of Blackness: Key Texts of Slavery from the Seventeenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press 2007), p. xxvii.
[3] Roediger, p. 10.
[4] Higginbotham Jr., A. Leon In the Matter of Color, Race & The America Legal Process: The Colonial Period (New York: Oxford University Press 1978), p. 21.
[5] Roediger, p. 9.
[6] Lott, Tommy L. Subjugation and Bondage: Critical Essays on Slavery and Social Philosophy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1998), p. 60.

[7] Lott, Tommy L. et. al. A Companion to African-American Philosophy (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006), p. 131.
[8] Lott, Tommy L., p. 56.
[9] Farr, James Political Theory Vol. 14, No. 2 (May, 1986), pp. 263-289 retrieved on internet 2/10/10.
[10] Roediger, p. 16.
[11] Roediger, p. 26.
[12] Lott, p. 55.
[13] Christian, Mark An African-Centered Perspective on White Supremacy. Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2, 13th Cheikh Anta Diop Conference Selected Proceeding. Retrieved on the internet on 2/10/10.

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