Sarah Hoyt continues to say interesting things.
For instance, take Mister Obama. I don’t deny that he has the outward appearance of a minority that was very mistreated historically. However, in his particular case, he is not the descendent of slaves but the descendant of slave dealers on his father’s side, and slave owners on his mother’s.
I don't know if his family owned slaves (on his mother's side), but he is apparently
a cousin in that direction of George Washington. Washington owned slaves too, from what I hear. All the great heroes of that era seem to have been associated with the slave trade. Even the great philosophers, if not by owning slaves then by endorsing the practice.
Ummmm.....where have you been the last 7 years? I saw a few black commentators saying this in 2008, part of the Obama isn't really black enough etc etc...His mother's side of the family had slave owners in it, and, well, I couldn't say anything about his father's side of the family, but I do know that the British spent time and trouble suppressing the slave trade in East Africa in the 19th century, to include what is now Kenya, so I suppose it is possible.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's the interesting part. Is there evidence that he is descended from slavers on his father's side? That's an aggressive claim.
ReplyDeleteI think that is based on his father's social class and tribe in Kenya, and what they were doing in the 19th century.
ReplyDeleteJust a guess, but that is where I would start looking.
Eh, call me old fashioned, but if someone makes a surprising statement and claims it as fact, it's incumbent on the speaker/writer to prove their claims, not on the listener/reader to prove it for them.
ReplyDeleteThat seems fair. It strikes me as a shocking thing to say, even as a rhetorical device.
ReplyDeleteThe claim is logical even if not documented.
ReplyDeleteObama's nearest African ancestor was actually from Africa, not the American South. His ancestors of 150 years or so back could NOT have been taken as slaves, they MUST have been the ones who remained in Africa, either (a) escaping slavers (b) collaborating with slavers or (c) being slavers.
To whatever extent European Americans are guilty of perpetrating slavery even if their ancestors were from the Northern US, (even, say Quakers or Wilberforce-ian abolitionists), Africans and African Americans who were in categories (a) and (b) above are guilty to the same extent. If someone escaped slavery, someone else, an African peer, suffered in his place. If someone turned a blind eye to slavery, but did not participate, he allowed his peers to suffer.
My understanding, which this article appears to confirm, is that most slaves came from West Africa (for the logical reason that the Western coast was closest to the American markets). Africa is huge, much bigger than it looks on a Mercator projection map: sailing around it to the other side is not an easy venture.
ReplyDeleteSo, were Kenyans slavers? Maybe not. Plausibly they weren't involved in the trade at all, neither as victims nor collaborators nor participants. Or if they were, it wasn't in the Transatlantic but the Eastern trade.
http://aconservativelesbian.com/2009/07/13/obamas-kenyan-ancestors-sold-slaves/
ReplyDeleteI don't think I made clear that I didn't think Obama's ancestors sold slaves to the Americas, I think only the French may have exported slaves out of Madagascar to the Caribbean. East African slaves went to the middle east.
Interesting. They're right about one point: there are not large black populations in Iran or Saudi Arabia, indicating that their practices were extremely brutal.
ReplyDeleteHussein Obola's type selling slaves to the Islamic Jihad... fitting.
ReplyDelete