Myron Clifton on Spoutible

@PresidentKamalasHand

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1/16

Ron/Florida are saying Black enslaved folk “learned skills that later benefited them” and of course they are being called out for whitewashing american history. What they are saying isn’t *completely inaccurate but it is extremely limited and only a very small part of the story.

11:18 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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2/16

They are purposely reducing enslavement to a few years or a single generation.

But we all *should know American chattel slavery lasted 400 years -or ~20 generations.

theguardian.com

400 years since slavery: a timeline of American history | Race | The Guardian

In 1619, a ship with 20 captives landed at Point Comfort in Virginia, ushering in the era of American slavery

11:19 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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3/16

There were about 0 enslaved people who “learned skills” that later benefited “themselves” in about 370 or so of those 400 years.

All of the skills they TAUGHT THEMSELVES and were used to benefit slavers, the US government, and American and the western world’s economies.

Period.

11:21 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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4/16

Those skills include all manners of farming and harvesting, cooking, building/construction, home management, manufacturing, and others, child development, medical, education, therapy, religious instruction, schooling.

11:22 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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5/16

Those skills also included survival skills necessitated by constant rape, degradation, beatings, mutilations, lynchings, defenestration, humiliation, child theft & trafficking, every manner of sexual abuse you dare imagine, skinning, and worse.

11:22 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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6/16

Our ancestors -millions of them over 400 years, then “learned” how to survive the worst horror white Americans could dream up.

Those “skills” didn’t “later benefit them.”

They remained living in white Christian hell, and owned and controlled by white supremacy at every level of life.

11:23 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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7/16

For the final years of enslavement that spilled into emancipation one could tepidly and limitedly argue that those who were born into enslavement who then became “free” could use a skill that was gained pre- 1865.

Those skills tho almost exclusively benefited white people.

11:24 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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8/16

And those skills would only have benefited themselves in so far as keeping them alive, out of prison, & with a chance at eating every day & taking care of any family they had.

So we can see that republicans are using a slither of data to disingenuously extrapolate misinformation

11:24 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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9/16

Because they know their followers & national media will run w/the surface story & push the narrative.

The happy slave narrative isn’t new or unique.

Neither is the benevolent slave owner.

Americans have always tried to mythologize & thus absolve themselves of their history.

11:25 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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10/16

In fact most US history we were taught is exactly that. And it’s remarkable that despite white Americans telling us to “get over slavery” they have worked 150 years to convince us that slavery “wasn’t really that bad.”

If it wasn’t, you try it, okay?

myronclifton.medium.com

Do Some White People Want to be Slaves? | by Myron Clifton | Medium

Have you ever wondered why so many white Americans joyfully talk about how wonderful American slavery was? Who say that the people who firmly believe that the Civil War was about “State’s rights” and…

11:25 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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11/16

That we are having these conversations in 2023- the type of conversations too juvenile for 4th graders, reinforces how awful american education is forced to be by white voters.

The nation long ago decided that self delusion is more important than truth and reconciliation.

11:26 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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12/16

Ron Desantis, other republican governors, conservative school boards, homeschool curriculums, daughters of the confederacy & their offspring Moms for liberty are all lazy historical revisionists afraid to admit who this nation is & how far we have to go.

11:27 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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13/16

So yes, there was a small window where some formerly enslaved Black folk could use a skill post emancipation.

More broadly formerly enslaved folk gained nothing from being who they were and what they knew because after enslavement came 100 years of jim crow.

11:28 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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14/16

The greater story is the generational resiliency that fueled their survival generation after generation.

Their optimism that something better was just over the horizon.

That our future as a people and nation depended more on them than the folk on our money.

11:28 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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15/16

They knew without seeing any of us that we would inherit their legacy and build upon their foundation of blood, bones, and strength to again know real freedom and real living for ourselves not for a president or slave owner or government.

11:29 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

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16/16

That’s what they learned and passed on to us in our DNA, families, communities, churches, and our humanity.

Those skills did indeed “Benefit them” because we are “Them” and in us those skills live and no mythology or American lie can ever take any credit for their gifts to us. End.

11:29 AM - Jul 22, 2023

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In response to Myron Clifton.

What he also neglects is, the people who worked as slaves, left Africa with a lot of skills which were used for the slave masters benefit.

02:33 PM - Jul 23, 2023

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@PresidentKamalasHand

In response to SphynxCat.

Yes exactly.

02:34 PM - Jul 23, 2023

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