Black is Beautiful
Monday, March 27, 2006
A Poverty of the Mind
As a retiree, I visit the public library when the working people are at work. The checkout lines are filled young white mothers, apparently middle class, with pre-school age children. The kids are loaded down with items designed for enriching their lives—even books designed for the pre-literate. In due course, they’ll be graduating from Harvard.
When my mother was a child in Honea Path, South Carolina, little colored girls weren’t allowed to enter the public library. As a matter of fact, little colored kids weren’t even provided with a public school. One of the stories that my mother told me when I was a kid was how much she yearned to enter that library and look at all those books. She made it a point to read to my brother and me when we were young, and to take us to the Mansfield, Ohio, public library whence we left laden with enrichment.
Mom was a member of the first generation of American black people to have been born free. Her father, my grandfather, was born a slave. His grandparents were not only born slaves, but also died slaves.
Yesterday morning I read a column published in the op-ed section of the Sunday, March 26 edition of the New York Times. The author was Orlando Patterson, a professor of sociology at Harvard. He entitled it “A Poverty of the Mind.” It is available in the Times online archives at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/opinion/26patterson.html/. I encourage you to read it. I don’t agree with his point. It was another one of those “blame the victim” articles. Essentially, he claimed that societal factors are not the primary agents responsible for the dire condition of a disproportionate percentage of America’s black population. Rather, it is inherent in the black “culture.”
Of course, there is a toxic component in black culture. White people put it there. Slavery was not, as often characterized, a benign institution. It was illegal to teach black slaves to read and write. Marriage between black slaves was not recognized. The children of black slaves belonged to their owners, and were considered property, to be bought and sold and used as the owners saw fit, just like the rest of the livestock. There was no recognition of black families whose children were to be enriched so that one day they might be Harvard graduates.
Did those conditions end with the proclamation of emancipation? On the contrary, they persist today—in far too many places. Far too many “experts” advocate their own silver bullets as the solution to all the problems. Professor Patterson promoted the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” method. All the poor black folks need is to espouse the white folks’ values and all will be well. We have to graduate from high school. We must become more self-reliant and get off welfare. The fathers of all those out-of-wedlock babies should take responsibility for supporting them. You’ve all heard the sermon.
But only a moment’s reflection reveals the obstacles that have been placed at every turn: poor school systems, inadequate housing, poor health care, lack of public transportation, insufficient employment that provides a living wage. Removing any one of these obstacles, by itself, is not nearly enough. Every one of them is linked to every other one—like a giant spider web. But it’s a cast iron spider web.
I describe the obstacles as “having been placed” at every turn. They didn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere. They are the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Their birth is the result of willful, conscious societal exploitation. Only willful, conscious societal manipulation will produce change. And that won’t happen until white society ceases to regard black society as intrinsically inferior and undeserving.
With any luck, I will use this blog to publish more reasonable solutions than “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.” I claim no originality on my own part. Social scientists have been studying this issue for years. The literature brims over. I hope to pass on some that strike my fancy.
In case you’re wondering, Harry’s and my mother was fortunate enough to escape a part of her Jim Crow heritage. Her family church, the Liberty Hill Baptist Church in Honea Path provided, a reasonable education for colored children. Her father, our grandfather who was born into slavery, was a blacksmith and a respected businessman. White friends would pass on books for his family, providing a private lending library. He and his offspring were literate, and in the case of our mother, a book lover. More about that will appear here as time passes. Watch this space.
(Credit: The drawing at the top of the page accompanied the Times article. It was produced by Josh Cochran)
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Sources
First under the European colonial powers, then under the independent American government, slaves were traditionally not accorded ordinary human rights and privileges. Individual slave names were not recorded in routine legal documents, even in the leases and bills of sale of the slaves themselves. Those historical practices complicate African American genealogical studies.
My brother, Harry, and I are extraordinarily fortunate in this respect. One of our ancestral lines, the Robertses, was never enslaved. Such events are not commonplace in black families, but they do occur. Moreover, there is another truly astonishing incident—we are the subjects of a book. The book is Southern Seed, Northern Soil, by Stephen A. Vincent, Indiana University Press, 1999.
Needless to say, this gives us an extraordinary advantage. An examination of the cited sources in our genealogical reports reveals that most of the data on the Roberts family was provided by that book. The existence of that book came to us as a surprise. After all, what would have motivated us to go to a library seeking a book about a black family? But our mother in Mansfield, Ohio had become friends with one of our cousins on our father’s side. Her name was Juanita Brown Thomas, in Boston. Her grandson, William Joseph (Bill) Hill III, our first cousin twice removed, was himself attempting a genealogy of his family, the Browns, related to us by marriage. Bill was a member of an Internet genealogy discussion group, and accidentally learned of the existence of the book. Bill and I didn’t know each other, but he knew that his grandmother was related to the Robertses, and the chain was closed.
We will be revealing the story of the Roberts family in due course. But briefly, a free African, born about 1700, was the overseer of some land in Northampton County, North Carolina, owned by an English Lord Roberts. Lord Roberts died in England, in testate. The African assumed ownership of the land. This much of the story is anecdotal. But a land purchase by his son, John Roberts is recorded. And the story of the African’s grandson, Jonathan Roberts, and his progeny, are faithfully recoded in Southern Seed, Northern Soil.
We will develop more of that story, and the story of the Mattison family, of Anderson County, South Carolina, as postings in this blog, and perhaps in other digital media, as time progresses.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Welcome to the Roberts-Mattison Story
Re: Black is beautiful
Welcome to the Black Is Beautiful blog.This is one of 6 web presences registered to Ernie Roberts. They are all linked together. Together they tell the story of the Roberts-Mattison family of Mansfield, Ohio. This one is devoted to the entire family. There is another devoted to Ernie's personal story: http://ErnestRobertsJr.spaces.live.com
As you can deduce from the title and the photographs, we are black. We are proud to be black. And we find that black is beautiful.
The blog makes story-telling possible, and invites those who wish, to respond to our musings. There is also a link to our genealogy site, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~robertsmattison/; our overarching website, www.ErnestRobertsJr.com; and an email address, Ernie@www.ErnestRobertsJr.com. We hope that you enjoy your visit. Come back from time to time to see how the site develops.
