The Philosophy of Slavery
An insight on the violence African women faced during their enslavement and its connection to African-American women today.
In the hundreds of years since the United States was formed, the country has pursued to be the one true nation with democracy, justice and most importantly freedom. There have been numerous precautions taken to ensure this life. Like allowing us the many freedom of speech and the other things listed in the constitution. This is for the citizens that inhabit the land, yet there are many hypocrisies that stands out for many people of color and forces them to question their own position in this very harsh and racist society. One hypocrisy that stands out the most is slavery, and more specifically the enslavement of about 4 million Africans that were transported and forced to work for free on sugar, tobacco and cotton plantations. This practice seems unimaginable to most of us who grew up learning of the horrors of slavery, yet this is still true and shines a light on how much that part of history has shaped many lives of many African-American men and women too. For women, the slave trade was also filled with responsibilities that are sexist and dehumanize these women even more.
Their responsibilities during this time included working, child bearing and being able fulfill the sexual desires of their husbands and even the white “owners” on the land which caught much attention because of their “exotic” presence. This is a role that is extremely problematic for these women because it outlines the amount of sexual violence they were strategically placed in due to their status of not only women but being seen as property. These two conjoined terms of women and slave, creates an issue that is deeper than what is taught to many of us in school. It also allows us to question the morality of being slave in a deeper context because we can analyze the slaves and their problems, but we can also analyze the intersectionality of being a colored woman as well and determine how those problems have followed African-American women to this day as they are still susceptible to this violence.
The Philosophy of a Violent History
The idea behind slavery itself seems like a hard concept to understand, but there are ways that we can decode our own human instincts and apply them to how something like slavery is able to exist. A German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has explored many topics that can be used to further analyze the issue of women during the years of slavery in the United States and how that legacy has pushed back African American women to be forgotten. One topic that he explored was the slave morality, and this can be described as power dynamic between owner and slave that both have morality, one in response the other. This means that the morality that comes out of slaves is in a response to their oppression and “ressentiment” which is the hostility and blame that comes out from one’s frustration. This allows us to apply it to slavery in the US, meaning that Nietzsche’s perspective seems to highlight the connection of sexual violence the slave owner inflicted on slave women. This violence was seen as an appropriate because of the morals that the owners believed which was the fact that they saw these women as less than them, and it was okay for them to inflict it.
“Ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of beings denied the true reaction, that of the deed, who recover their losses only through an imaginary revenge. Whereas all noble morality grows out of triumphant yes-saying to oneself, from the outset slave morality says ‘no.’”
A Debt to be Paid
Another relevant concept Nietzsche discussed is the idea of a creditor and debtor, which is the relationship between people who are deemed guilty and their “debt.” This debt to be paid to any “creditor” which thus leads to people being worth of experiencing violence because they are in debt and made guilty, also allowing the ‘creditor’ to feel even more empowered after doing so. Enslaved women were paying their said debt by being forced to work for free, and since they were deemed guilty by society it opened up sexual violence to be a part of their payment for their debt.
“The creditor is granted a certain feeling of satisfaction as repayment and compensation, — the feeling of satisfaction that comes from being permitted to vent his power without a second though on who is powerless.”
The Lingering Effects of a Violent Past
Fast forward to today and we can see the legacy these problematic stereotypes that African American women deal with day to day. The violent history of slavery and continuing racism has left the African American community behind in the economic and health aspects of life, and their overall wellness in this country. Women in this community not only have to deal with the hardships of being African-American but the suffering that being a woman as well. This included the added violence their lives contain; many Black women report 34–65% of childhood sexual violence. This violence is also a factor on the wellness of these women as they are more likely to live in poverty, which then also puts them at an even higher risk of sexual violence.
“Throughout much of U.S. history, the rape of Black women was widespread and institutionalized. The legal system offered little protection and stereotypes about Black women’s hypersexuality were used to justify limited social support for Black rape victims.”
The violence that is being placed on these women are a direct consequence of the enslavement of millions of people, and their hardships faced even after it was abolished due to the passing down of racist and sexist values. Values that many people today in our society and in power have, values that are in connection to the belief that women and people are less. We need to start teaching the whole truth in history classes, and we need to start seeing the decline in those “values” that many still obtain from family memebers. We need to mobilize and take control of what is happening today as it was in the past, the youth needs to learn and use the knowledge of history to be able to analyze their surroundings and make checks on their lives to make sure that they are living up to the standards of America — which is justice, democracy and freedom.
