This is another interesting idea from Whiteman. Not only does the following quote illustrate why some Jews preferred to stay out of the conversation surrounding the abolishment of slavery, it may hint at why still other Jews fought so adamantly for the cause.
If the societies that declared slavery un-Christian, and used Pentateuchal authority to support their views, had also declared slavery un-Jewish, applying biblical interpretation to the realities of American slavery, it is likely that the number of their Jewish members would have increased considerably. But the theological outlook of the mid-nineteenth century made this impossible. The concept of a common Judeo-Christian heritage had not yet been introduced as an apology for the religious approach to American social problems. As a result, most Jews who became involved in the great slavery conflict chose to speak out by means of independent action and kept their Jewish views in the background of their antislavery activity. The extent of this scattered activity will be discussed further on.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Jews in the antislavery movement
I am searching for some historical background that may explain why Lemkin was so silent. This article by Maxwell Whiteman provided some insight into this issue. It would appear that the majority of Jews found the antislavery movement heavily saturated with pro-Christian rhetoric, and that was what put off many of them. It is also interesting to note that there were Jews who felt so strongly about the issue that they fought for the freedom of slaves in spite of the Christian values and anti-Semitic sentiments of pro and anti-slavery advocates.
Whiteman stated, "Hence, the hundreds of Jews who believed in the God of Israel and gave of their energies to the antislavery movement had to close their eyes to its christological influences. But practices which were perfectly in character for Christian-sponsored societies repelled many observant Jews. After the American Revolution, the door that was opened to Jewish participation in libertarian societies did not involve christological teaching. Where it was present, it was not directed to Jews. But with the increasing domination of the societies by clergymen, Jewish membership decreased. Equal participation in the struggle for human freedom was gradually, almost imperceptibly, diminishing."
Whiteman stated, "Hence, the hundreds of Jews who believed in the God of Israel and gave of their energies to the antislavery movement had to close their eyes to its christological influences. But practices which were perfectly in character for Christian-sponsored societies repelled many observant Jews. After the American Revolution, the door that was opened to Jewish participation in libertarian societies did not involve christological teaching. Where it was present, it was not directed to Jews. But with the increasing domination of the societies by clergymen, Jewish membership decreased. Equal participation in the struggle for human freedom was gradually, almost imperceptibly, diminishing."
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The Growth of Terror
"The Negro people fought back chiefly through the Populist parties that opposed the Wall Street trusts through the eighties and nineties of the last century. But their fight became more hopeless against the increased power of American monopoly. Terror was unleashed against them at home -- there were 1,955 recorded lynchings from 1889 through 1901, according to the minimal count of Tuskegee Institute. Side by side went terror unleashed abroad, as American imperialism entered the international arena by subjugating the Filipino, Puerto Rican and Cuban peoples and reduced many Latin-American countries to economic and political vassalage.
It was during this period of American imperialist adventure abroad that most of the state laws segregating Negroes and illegally denying them the vote were enacted in the Southern states. Disfranchisement laws were passed in Louisiana in 1898, in North Carolina and Alabama in 1901, Virginia, 1902, Georgia, 1908, Oklahoma, 1910. They but codified what was taking place in life. They disfranchised poor whites as well as Negroes, thus breaking the Populist movement. It was during this period, too, in which Negroes still had a remnant of political power, that the spurious charge of rape was elevated into an institution, an extralegal political instrument for terrorizing all Negroes, particularly those demanding their rights under the Constitution. With the charge of rape, reaction sought to justify its bestiality and to divorce from the Negroes those white allies who had helped to carry out the democratic practices of Reconstruction.
In November, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Colonel A.M. Wadell said in North Carolina, according to the Raleigh News & Observer 2 that "we are resolved" to win the elections in Wilmington, North Carolina, "if we have to choke the current of Cape Fear with carcasses. The time for smooth words has gone by, the extremest limit of forebearance has been reached." Five days later the Colonel led an armed force against the Negro-white administration of Wilmington, slaughtered scores, and announced himself the new mayor. The Government gave silent assent.
In 1900, when both men and newspapers spoke less circuitously than they do today, the San Francisco Argonaut said: "We do not want the Filipinos. We want the Philippines. The islands are enormously rich, but, unfortunately they are infested by Filipinos. There are many millions there and it is to be feared their extinction will be slow." 3 In the same vein and in the same year Senator Tillman of South Carolina took the floor of the United States Senate and announced: "We took the government away. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot Negroes! We are not ashamed of it!" 4"
See: http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
It was during this period of American imperialist adventure abroad that most of the state laws segregating Negroes and illegally denying them the vote were enacted in the Southern states. Disfranchisement laws were passed in Louisiana in 1898, in North Carolina and Alabama in 1901, Virginia, 1902, Georgia, 1908, Oklahoma, 1910. They but codified what was taking place in life. They disfranchised poor whites as well as Negroes, thus breaking the Populist movement. It was during this period, too, in which Negroes still had a remnant of political power, that the spurious charge of rape was elevated into an institution, an extralegal political instrument for terrorizing all Negroes, particularly those demanding their rights under the Constitution. With the charge of rape, reaction sought to justify its bestiality and to divorce from the Negroes those white allies who had helped to carry out the democratic practices of Reconstruction.
In November, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Colonel A.M. Wadell said in North Carolina, according to the Raleigh News & Observer 2 that "we are resolved" to win the elections in Wilmington, North Carolina, "if we have to choke the current of Cape Fear with carcasses. The time for smooth words has gone by, the extremest limit of forebearance has been reached." Five days later the Colonel led an armed force against the Negro-white administration of Wilmington, slaughtered scores, and announced himself the new mayor. The Government gave silent assent.
In 1900, when both men and newspapers spoke less circuitously than they do today, the San Francisco Argonaut said: "We do not want the Filipinos. We want the Philippines. The islands are enormously rich, but, unfortunately they are infested by Filipinos. There are many millions there and it is to be feared their extinction will be slow." 3 In the same vein and in the same year Senator Tillman of South Carolina took the floor of the United States Senate and announced: "We took the government away. We stuffed ballot boxes. We shot Negroes! We are not ashamed of it!" 4"
See: http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
Klan
In the U.S., it just so happened that the Afro-Americans were more despised than the Jews. It was the other way around during Lemkin's boyhood. Although the Klan was openly anti-Semitic, they reserved the brunt of their terrorist activities for the minority group that was largest in number, and thus posed the biggest threat - Afro-Americans. The quote below demonstrates the extent of their extremely specific INTENT. Once again, I am reiterating Lemkin's view that if these views are made public and the nation's government does nothing about it, that governing body is as guilty as the vigilante group that is perpetrating the genocidal crimes. What Lemkin made quite clear in his statements about the matter is that he had no idea of the extent of the involvement of state and local police, and the judicial system. Yet, there were plenty of people who were trying their very best to educate him on these matters. He merely ignored them. My thoughts on his aversion to this issue are that the case of the Afro-Americans looked too much like a human rights issue and not enough like genocide to Lemkin. At that time there was a significant threat to the genocide convention being presented by those who were in favor of delaying the genocide convention for two years until the human rights convention convened. This greatly distressed Lemkin, and he fought very hard to prevent this from happening.
From "We Charge Genocide" (page 17, 18). "Typical, too, of speeches heard on many street corners in Southern cities, was that of Homer Loomis, Jr., leader of the Columbians, a racist vigilante organization chartered by the state of Georgia, on the corner of Stovall Street and Flatshoals Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia, on October 1, October 1. "We don't want anybody to join," he said, "who's not ready to get out and kill n ------ rs and Jews." Two days later at a meeting of the Columbians at 198 1/2 Whitehall Street, Atlanta, Loomis said, "There is no end to what we can do through the ballot. If we want to bury all n ------ rs in the sand, if we will organize white Gentiles politically to combat the Jew and n ------ r blocs, we can pass laws enabling us to bury all n ------ rs in the sand." During the same year, Loomis told the Imperial Kloncilium of the Ku Klux Klan, East Point Klavern, Georgia, "We propose that all n ------ rs in America be shipped back to Africa with time-bombs on board the ship as an economy measure."
From "We Charge Genocide" (page 17, 18). "Typical, too, of speeches heard on many street corners in Southern cities, was that of Homer Loomis, Jr., leader of the Columbians, a racist vigilante organization chartered by the state of Georgia, on the corner of Stovall Street and Flatshoals Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia, on October 1, October 1. "We don't want anybody to join," he said, "who's not ready to get out and kill n ------ rs and Jews." Two days later at a meeting of the Columbians at 198 1/2 Whitehall Street, Atlanta, Loomis said, "There is no end to what we can do through the ballot. If we want to bury all n ------ rs in the sand, if we will organize white Gentiles politically to combat the Jew and n ------ r blocs, we can pass laws enabling us to bury all n ------ rs in the sand." During the same year, Loomis told the Imperial Kloncilium of the Ku Klux Klan, East Point Klavern, Georgia, "We propose that all n ------ rs in America be shipped back to Africa with time-bombs on board the ship as an economy measure."
Lemkin's Moral Duty
What is also very telling is Lemkin's belief h
that he transformed his personal disaster (he lost 49 members of his family during the Holocaust) into a "moral striking force." In his memoirs, Lemkin states, "Was I not under a moral duty to repay my mother for having stimulated in me the interest in Genocide? Was it not the best form of gratitude to make a "Genocide pact" as an epitaph on her symbolic grave and as a common recognition that she an many millions did not die in vain?"
Here, I assert that Lemkin had a tremendous burden and an incredible amount of nervous energy driving him to see that the atrocities of the Jews and other groups of minorities that were overtly targeted for destruction were recognized and that these episodes were prevented from occurring in the future. For Lemkin, and many others, the plight of Afro-Americans did not seem to match up in that the crimes against them did not stem from a pronounced plan initiated by the federal government to disable or destroy them as a people. However, the Civil Rights Congress presented a very different perspective in "We Charge Genocide." I have only seen statements being made by those who contested their evidence which denied U.S. government involvement in the acts that were committed as a result of a unified effort between local police, local politicians, judges, and vigilante groups to persecute and eliminate Afro-Americans. So my frustration and confusion lies within this strange manner of publicly criticizing the U.S. for remaining quiet about genocide that was taking place against the Jews but forgiving the U.S. government for remaining quiet about the torture and murder of Afro-Americans. And this strange manner of using increased population numbers to justify the crimes is also puzzling. Wouldn't it make more sense to examine the death rate of the group that has been victimized as compared to other groups than to take this blanket approach of examining whether their numbers are increasing overall? Nowhere in the U.N. defintion of genocide or in Lemkin's writings does it indicate that the rate at which a group rebounds should be used as a criterion to establish whether or not genocide has taken place?
that he transformed his personal disaster (he lost 49 members of his family during the Holocaust) into a "moral striking force." In his memoirs, Lemkin states, "Was I not under a moral duty to repay my mother for having stimulated in me the interest in Genocide? Was it not the best form of gratitude to make a "Genocide pact" as an epitaph on her symbolic grave and as a common recognition that she an many millions did not die in vain?"
Here, I assert that Lemkin had a tremendous burden and an incredible amount of nervous energy driving him to see that the atrocities of the Jews and other groups of minorities that were overtly targeted for destruction were recognized and that these episodes were prevented from occurring in the future. For Lemkin, and many others, the plight of Afro-Americans did not seem to match up in that the crimes against them did not stem from a pronounced plan initiated by the federal government to disable or destroy them as a people. However, the Civil Rights Congress presented a very different perspective in "We Charge Genocide." I have only seen statements being made by those who contested their evidence which denied U.S. government involvement in the acts that were committed as a result of a unified effort between local police, local politicians, judges, and vigilante groups to persecute and eliminate Afro-Americans. So my frustration and confusion lies within this strange manner of publicly criticizing the U.S. for remaining quiet about genocide that was taking place against the Jews but forgiving the U.S. government for remaining quiet about the torture and murder of Afro-Americans. And this strange manner of using increased population numbers to justify the crimes is also puzzling. Wouldn't it make more sense to examine the death rate of the group that has been victimized as compared to other groups than to take this blanket approach of examining whether their numbers are increasing overall? Nowhere in the U.N. defintion of genocide or in Lemkin's writings does it indicate that the rate at which a group rebounds should be used as a criterion to establish whether or not genocide has taken place?
Monday, April 4, 2011
Coming to America
Again, from Lemkin's autobiographical notes, he is writing about his first experiences upon arriving in America. He writes, "The train stopped at Lynchburg, Virginia, and it was here that I saw for the first time, in the rest rooms of the station, the inscriptions "For Whites" and "For Colored." These intrigued me and I innocently asked the Negro porter if there were indeed special toilets for Negroes. He gave me a puzzled look, mixed with hostility, and did not answer. After seventeen years in the United States I understand now that he must have thought I was making fun of him.
As the train moved south I kept thinking about those inscriptions with all the naivete of a newcomer. I remembered that in Warsaw there was one single Negro in the entire city. He was employed as a dancer in a popular night club, where he pounded the floor with both feet as if to destroy it. Everyone enjoyed his dancing and tried to invite him for drinks. A feeling of curiosity and friendliness prevailed towards this lonely black man in Poland. But towards the Jews, I could not help thinking, their was not the same friendliness; there were three million of them, in the trades, in the professions, in other work, and their competition was felt."
Lemkin, Lemkin, Lemkin. You were so clueless.
In "Slavery By Another Name" (Blackmon, pg. 358) we find that nearly 700,000 black men with at leat 2.5 million wives and children lived as sharecroppers and rent farmers. Earlier in the book, Blackmon wrote that thousands of these men were incarcerated due to bogus debts they purportedly owed to the farmers who rented land to them or for abusing farm animals. Upon being found guilty, the sharecropper would have to pay court fees and the debt to the farmer who pressed charges against them. When they could not pay, their options were to accept extremely long sentences on building roads, even longer sentences for a farmer that would accept labor in exchange for paying the fee for them, or serve a one or two year sentence in a coal or steel mine (that ultimately resulted in death for a large number of men).
As the train moved south I kept thinking about those inscriptions with all the naivete of a newcomer. I remembered that in Warsaw there was one single Negro in the entire city. He was employed as a dancer in a popular night club, where he pounded the floor with both feet as if to destroy it. Everyone enjoyed his dancing and tried to invite him for drinks. A feeling of curiosity and friendliness prevailed towards this lonely black man in Poland. But towards the Jews, I could not help thinking, their was not the same friendliness; there were three million of them, in the trades, in the professions, in other work, and their competition was felt."
Lemkin, Lemkin, Lemkin. You were so clueless.
In "Slavery By Another Name" (Blackmon, pg. 358) we find that nearly 700,000 black men with at leat 2.5 million wives and children lived as sharecroppers and rent farmers. Earlier in the book, Blackmon wrote that thousands of these men were incarcerated due to bogus debts they purportedly owed to the farmers who rented land to them or for abusing farm animals. Upon being found guilty, the sharecropper would have to pay court fees and the debt to the farmer who pressed charges against them. When they could not pay, their options were to accept extremely long sentences on building roads, even longer sentences for a farmer that would accept labor in exchange for paying the fee for them, or serve a one or two year sentence in a coal or steel mine (that ultimately resulted in death for a large number of men).
Lemkin on minorities
From autobiographical writings from box 1, reel 2, NYPL
"Who does not remember the pogroms under the Tzar, the destruction of 1,200,000 Armenians in 1915 , and who will dare to forget the destruction of 6,700,000 Jews by Hitler? This last example shows that Genocide is more dangerous than war. After a war which is lost, a nation may rebuild its technical and financial resources, and may start a new life. But those who have been destroyed in genocide have been lost forever. While the losses of war can be repaired, the losses of genocide are irreparable. In my mind of a young an inexperienced man was always alive an episode of the Jewish history in Russia. Under Tzar Nicholas I, the persecutions of the Jews wee very sharp. Not only pogroms took place, but the Tzar directed his attacks against Jewish children. In the ages between eight and 12 years, they were taken away for 25 years' military service and were lost to their relgion and families forever."
More or less the very same thing occurred during slavery. Note the following quote from Orlando Patterson's Rituals of Blood (page 39):
"Mothers were torn from their infants long before the period of lactation was over, in order to return full-time to the fields. Wilma King considers this to be one of "the most unsettling events in the lives of [slave children]," who, on plantations of more than 20 slaves, were placed in "nurseries where there care was in the hands of slaves either too infirm, too old, or too young to work elsewhere." Usually, these old slaves, tired and overwhelmed with too many infants, simply neglected their wards or else beat them with switches when they became unruly. As soon as they were able to, children were put to work, which, according to King, "can be rightly called the thief who stole the childhood of youthful bond servants." Patterson goes on to present Steckel's findings that young children were horribly malnourished. "Owners hedged their bets, not wanting to invest resources in the offspring of their slaves until they were certain that they would become productive adults. An unusual pattern of growth emerged in which those children who survived this Malthusian hurdle were then well fed from their adolescence onward. Steckel has correctly pointed out that this would have had disastrous consequences for the personalities of the slave children. Like malnourished children today, they are likely to have been "apathetic, emotionally withdrawn, less aggressive, and more dependent."
So when you combine these ideas with the knowledge that this went on for literally hundreds of years afterwards because of the horrors of sharecropping, and unjust incarceration for the purpose of acquiring cheap labor for the coal and steel mines, then Jim Crow, and finally segregation in urban ghettos after white flight, the loss of the black middle class and the evacuation of major industries, you have exactly what Lemkin predicted. The victims of genocide who never recovered from the crimes committed against them. I realize that Lemkin did not have all of the facts, but he had enough information to arrive at the conclusion that genocide against Americans had occurred. I do not excuse him. He was too wrapped up in his own issues and fear and frustration of the U.S. not ratifying the genocide convention.
"Who does not remember the pogroms under the Tzar, the destruction of 1,200,000 Armenians in 1915 , and who will dare to forget the destruction of 6,700,000 Jews by Hitler? This last example shows that Genocide is more dangerous than war. After a war which is lost, a nation may rebuild its technical and financial resources, and may start a new life. But those who have been destroyed in genocide have been lost forever. While the losses of war can be repaired, the losses of genocide are irreparable. In my mind of a young an inexperienced man was always alive an episode of the Jewish history in Russia. Under Tzar Nicholas I, the persecutions of the Jews wee very sharp. Not only pogroms took place, but the Tzar directed his attacks against Jewish children. In the ages between eight and 12 years, they were taken away for 25 years' military service and were lost to their relgion and families forever."
More or less the very same thing occurred during slavery. Note the following quote from Orlando Patterson's Rituals of Blood (page 39):
"Mothers were torn from their infants long before the period of lactation was over, in order to return full-time to the fields. Wilma King considers this to be one of "the most unsettling events in the lives of [slave children]," who, on plantations of more than 20 slaves, were placed in "nurseries where there care was in the hands of slaves either too infirm, too old, or too young to work elsewhere." Usually, these old slaves, tired and overwhelmed with too many infants, simply neglected their wards or else beat them with switches when they became unruly. As soon as they were able to, children were put to work, which, according to King, "can be rightly called the thief who stole the childhood of youthful bond servants." Patterson goes on to present Steckel's findings that young children were horribly malnourished. "Owners hedged their bets, not wanting to invest resources in the offspring of their slaves until they were certain that they would become productive adults. An unusual pattern of growth emerged in which those children who survived this Malthusian hurdle were then well fed from their adolescence onward. Steckel has correctly pointed out that this would have had disastrous consequences for the personalities of the slave children. Like malnourished children today, they are likely to have been "apathetic, emotionally withdrawn, less aggressive, and more dependent."
So when you combine these ideas with the knowledge that this went on for literally hundreds of years afterwards because of the horrors of sharecropping, and unjust incarceration for the purpose of acquiring cheap labor for the coal and steel mines, then Jim Crow, and finally segregation in urban ghettos after white flight, the loss of the black middle class and the evacuation of major industries, you have exactly what Lemkin predicted. The victims of genocide who never recovered from the crimes committed against them. I realize that Lemkin did not have all of the facts, but he had enough information to arrive at the conclusion that genocide against Americans had occurred. I do not excuse him. He was too wrapped up in his own issues and fear and frustration of the U.S. not ratifying the genocide convention.
Imagining the African American West
Kansas, like Texas, had a troublesome history. Although the Exodusters would later envision Kansas as the biblical promised land, the territory in the 185os was hostile to racial minorities. Many white residents opposed the introduction of slavery because they wanted to prevent African Americans from coming to Kansas, not because they favored racial equality. At one constitutional gathering, legislators and delegates ʻsimultaneously demanded the prohibition of slaveryʻ and ʻthe exclusion of free Negroes.ʻ? At the turn of the century, when Hopkins was writing Winona, the state still had a poor record on equal rights. One year before the novel appeared in the Colored American Magazine, where it was serialized in igo2, the magazine published an article on Kansas documenting its treatment of criminals. Unlike whites, who were sentenced to prison for crimes they committed, African Americans were sometimes lynched or burned at the stake.9 1
We Charge Genocide made it clear that the lynchings and other murders were nation wide. But this is valuable because it describes the hopes that Afro-Americans had of seeking freedom in the West, and not finding it. In fact, Kansas residents seemed to prefer bypassing the industrial profits of slavery altogether to keep Afro-Americans out altogether.
1 Blake Allmendinger, Imagining the African American West (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005) 36, Questia, Web, 4 Apr. 2011.
We Charge Genocide made it clear that the lynchings and other murders were nation wide. But this is valuable because it describes the hopes that Afro-Americans had of seeking freedom in the West, and not finding it. In fact, Kansas residents seemed to prefer bypassing the industrial profits of slavery altogether to keep Afro-Americans out altogether.
1 Blake Allmendinger, Imagining the African American West (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2005) 36, Questia, Web, 4 Apr. 2011.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Underestimating Marital Instability - Orlando Patterson
The following quote is from Rituals of Blood. "It was not the intention of Preston and his colleagues to deny or underplay the role of changing socioeconomic forces in the evolving patterns of Afro-American gender and familial relations. Indeed, they make it clear that the "enormous burden of mortality clearly played havoc with the stability of black marriages" at the turn of the century and that it was precisely because the "true incidence" of widowhood was so "extraordinarily high...that the label was overused in other situations." Their point, rather, is that "underestimating past marital instability exaggerates the amount of observed change" and, at the same time, downplays the role of cultural factors in explaining Afro-American life, both those derived from Africa and those that emerged in Afro-Americans' forced adaptation to the slave environment" (Patterson, pg. 47)
When viewed in the context of genocide studies, this evidence flies in the face of Lemkin and the background paper written by J. M. Cates entitled, "United States Government on the Civil Rights Congress Publication "We Charge Genocide." Cates asserted that "We Charge Genocide" was communist propaganda and held no merit. The strength of his argument, supported by Lemkin was that lynching and race riots were incidents of violence incited against individuals and were sporadic occurrences of violence that were disconnected and not a part of any unified effort to exterminate the Afro-Americans who were being targeted. The main distinction Lemkin made between the attacks against Afro-Americans and the attacks on the Jews during the Holocaust was that these incidences were homicides against individuals, not premeditated crimes against the entire group. The quote above seems to indicate the opposing view. If the genocidal killings disrupted the family unit in a wide-spread and long-lasting way, these killings cannot be considered sporadic events that only affect the individuals who were murdered. Another idea that is loosely related but extremely relevant is the separation of children, particularly teen age boys from their families as an indicator of genocide. In Lemkin's autobiographical writings, he explained that "During four hundred years of control over the Christian countries in the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire the Turks used to take away every year a certain number of teen age boys from Christian communities ... My Greek friends told me that Greece is now a nation of seven million, instead of having a population of 16 million, only because the children were taken away for four hundred years. Such were the frightful consequences of this genocidal technique." Lemkin goes on to discuss the practice under the Russian Tzar of enlisting Jewish boys into military service for twenty five years and the devastating effects of the loss to "their wretched people." The parallel between these events in history and the plight of Afro-American males in the U.S. might be missed if we are permitted to fall back on our usual ignorance of history and fall into the trap of blaming the victim by shrugging our shoulders and saying, "well it's their fault if they can't get their acts together and stay off the streets." The most cursory glance at the history of incarceration in the post-reconstruction era in order to exploit Afro-American male labor for use in the steel and coal mines as described by Douglas A. Blackmon in "Slavery by Another Name" revels that no human being chooses a life-cycle of violence when they truly believe there is a better alternative available to them.
When viewed in the context of genocide studies, this evidence flies in the face of Lemkin and the background paper written by J. M. Cates entitled, "United States Government on the Civil Rights Congress Publication "We Charge Genocide." Cates asserted that "We Charge Genocide" was communist propaganda and held no merit. The strength of his argument, supported by Lemkin was that lynching and race riots were incidents of violence incited against individuals and were sporadic occurrences of violence that were disconnected and not a part of any unified effort to exterminate the Afro-Americans who were being targeted. The main distinction Lemkin made between the attacks against Afro-Americans and the attacks on the Jews during the Holocaust was that these incidences were homicides against individuals, not premeditated crimes against the entire group. The quote above seems to indicate the opposing view. If the genocidal killings disrupted the family unit in a wide-spread and long-lasting way, these killings cannot be considered sporadic events that only affect the individuals who were murdered. Another idea that is loosely related but extremely relevant is the separation of children, particularly teen age boys from their families as an indicator of genocide. In Lemkin's autobiographical writings, he explained that "During four hundred years of control over the Christian countries in the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire the Turks used to take away every year a certain number of teen age boys from Christian communities ... My Greek friends told me that Greece is now a nation of seven million, instead of having a population of 16 million, only because the children were taken away for four hundred years. Such were the frightful consequences of this genocidal technique." Lemkin goes on to discuss the practice under the Russian Tzar of enlisting Jewish boys into military service for twenty five years and the devastating effects of the loss to "their wretched people." The parallel between these events in history and the plight of Afro-American males in the U.S. might be missed if we are permitted to fall back on our usual ignorance of history and fall into the trap of blaming the victim by shrugging our shoulders and saying, "well it's their fault if they can't get their acts together and stay off the streets." The most cursory glance at the history of incarceration in the post-reconstruction era in order to exploit Afro-American male labor for use in the steel and coal mines as described by Douglas A. Blackmon in "Slavery by Another Name" revels that no human being chooses a life-cycle of violence when they truly believe there is a better alternative available to them.
We Charge Genocide
This is from the opening statement to the general assembly of the united nations. "In addition, the great majority of Negroes are for peace, and peace endangers profits. George Bott, general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, has formally ruled that advocacy of peace by a worker is cause for discharge. The venerable Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, elder statesman of the Negro people, man of letters and scholar of international renown, has been indicted by the Government of the United States for his advocacy of peace. Such advocacy, it is charged, makes him a "foreign agent." Paul Robeson, a spokesman for the American Negro people who is known and honored the world around, has been denied a passport for travel abroad because he speaks uncompromisingly for peace. His voice, too, endangers the profits from war. All these factors combine to make the Negro people in the United States the increasing target of reaction's genocidal fury."
By this time I have read Lemkin's views from several sources including a letter to the New York Times on June 14, 1953 in which Lemkin reduces the plight of African Americans to individual acts of terrorism and instances of "fright". Oakley C. Johnson responded in a letter to Lemkin on June 24, 1953 articulating that Lemkin was missing the point that African Americans were not just being discriminated against or harassed in massive numbers, they were being terrorized. The resistance to the acceptance of the murder and oppression of African Americans as genocide centered around several key political issues: the involvement of some African American activists in communist groups, the view of oppression and discrimination cases as human rights issues as opposed to genocidal, and several key misunderstandings about whether the genocidal murders where individual or institutional. Additionally, there was the ongoing debate about being able to prove special intent to destroy the entire group of African Americans and again, misunderstandings about the meaning and application of the UN definition of genocide and confusion on the part of Lemkin and subsequently hosts of others about including genocidal massacres that do not unfold as the Jewish Holocaust did. This project will delve into reasons that Lemkin may have overlooked the evidence presented to the U.N. on behalf of African Americans due to important events in his personal background and strong anti-communist sentiments here in the U.S. More importantly, I will propose some very practical suggestions about how to utilize the phenomenal work that has been done by William Patterson and the Civil Rights Congress, along with the work that was spurred by the publications that followed to educate high school students and their parents. I will also propose several mechanisms of teaching students to gather data about their individual, communal, and familial lives that highlight the ongoing nature of the genocidal activities in U.S. These data can be used to incite students to enter their writings into the wealth of available, essay, article, and poetry contests offered each academic year. As a mathematics and science teacher in an alternative school, I have suggestions for activities in those areas as well.
By this time I have read Lemkin's views from several sources including a letter to the New York Times on June 14, 1953 in which Lemkin reduces the plight of African Americans to individual acts of terrorism and instances of "fright". Oakley C. Johnson responded in a letter to Lemkin on June 24, 1953 articulating that Lemkin was missing the point that African Americans were not just being discriminated against or harassed in massive numbers, they were being terrorized. The resistance to the acceptance of the murder and oppression of African Americans as genocide centered around several key political issues: the involvement of some African American activists in communist groups, the view of oppression and discrimination cases as human rights issues as opposed to genocidal, and several key misunderstandings about whether the genocidal murders where individual or institutional. Additionally, there was the ongoing debate about being able to prove special intent to destroy the entire group of African Americans and again, misunderstandings about the meaning and application of the UN definition of genocide and confusion on the part of Lemkin and subsequently hosts of others about including genocidal massacres that do not unfold as the Jewish Holocaust did. This project will delve into reasons that Lemkin may have overlooked the evidence presented to the U.N. on behalf of African Americans due to important events in his personal background and strong anti-communist sentiments here in the U.S. More importantly, I will propose some very practical suggestions about how to utilize the phenomenal work that has been done by William Patterson and the Civil Rights Congress, along with the work that was spurred by the publications that followed to educate high school students and their parents. I will also propose several mechanisms of teaching students to gather data about their individual, communal, and familial lives that highlight the ongoing nature of the genocidal activities in U.S. These data can be used to incite students to enter their writings into the wealth of available, essay, article, and poetry contests offered each academic year. As a mathematics and science teacher in an alternative school, I have suggestions for activities in those areas as well.
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