The Black Man in a White Society – Barbara Jones (1969)

From ‘The McGill News’, Montreal (Kanien’kehá:ka territory), January 1969

By Dr. Barbara Jones

There is a certain reluctance at all times to talk about the unsavoury aspects of any society. North American society has for a long time put aside the problem of the black man until the problem itself is on the brink of causing a civil crisis through the whole of the North American continent. Canada is a vital part of this continent and as such she cannot sit back with smugness and hypocrisy and look at her neighbour in the south.

Whenever I am asked to speak or write about the problem of the black man in Canada, there is a level of presumption with which I do it. I speak or write only because there are many who would like to do so but fear for their jobs and do not wish to risk the economic, social and political alienation — a risk that individuals of minority groups in a complex society have to confront. To quote the black poet and writer from the French West Indies, Aimé Césaire in Discours sur Le Colonialisme: “I am talking of millions of men who have been skillfully infected with fear, inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement.’’ These are the people among whom I number and for whom I write.

It is sometimes asked whether one can justify the black man’s position from the philosophical viewpoint. There is ample reason to believe that one can. Man, the human reality, exists first and then after defines himself. The black man has defined himself and will continue to do so in the future. Man is in essence responsible for all men so we are justified in holding the white man responsible for the present conflict, confrontation and contradictions which his black brothers are heightening. Man is also the future of Man; in effect, the black man does not want his children to have a future as dismal as is his present or as intolerable as was his past. Last of all, Man’s dignity is his own destiny and to this end all black men are prepared to fight, and now to their death.

What does the black man want? He wants to be liberated from the chains of economic, social, and political slavery in which he finds himself, so that he can realise his full potential and thereby his full consciousness. Discrimination, prejudice and racism in its ultimate form is, in fact, a waste of human potential.

Realities of Black History

To talk of the black man in abstract terms is purely academic if the realities of his history, that is the history and economics of the slave trade era, are not reviewed. Slavery, particularly the trafficking of black men from Africa began a little after the rediscovery of America by Columbus. The need for labour in America was aggravated by the fact that in some areas of the Caribbean the indigenous tribes preferred to commit suicide rather than work for the white man. The problem was aided by the prevalence of new strains of bacteria and viruses to which the native people had little resistance.

Most of the slaves came from West and Central Africa, the present countries of Ghana, Dahomey, Nigeria, Chad and the Congo, with traders’ routes to Tanzania and Angola. In all, it is estimated that about one hundred million slaves were transported to the New World, with about three million a year as the highest recorded in peak trade. It is also estimated that about twenty-five percent of these died in the “middle passage” where the Doldrums made the transatlantic crossing virtually impossible. The slave trade was at its peak by the middle of the seventeenth century but the role of the English-speaking peoples, and now their descendants who share the large part of the black man’s anger, was accentuated by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 when the English won the monopoly of supplying slaves to both Spanish and English colonies. Clearly it was economics, with the victor getting the choice spoils.

On the African continent the missionaries aided the traders. There was seldom any crisis of conscience for the Christian missionaries from Europe who believed, as their ruling and merchant class did, that black men were to be exploited. James Wellard in his book Lost Worlds of Africa, states that modern evangelisation of Africa began about the sixteenth century, and describes how records show that upon landing on the coast of Africa the friars always set up the cross first, the canticle Te Deum Laudamus was chanted and then the traders came in to select slaves when the tribesmen had gathered for worship. In another instance he describes how ‘‘a Jesuit monastery at Luanda in Angola possessed 12,000 slaves; and when the trade was at its height between Angola and Brazil, the Bishop of Luanda was regularly carried on his episcopal chair to the quayside in order to bless the ships and crews and to exhort the cargo to accept baptism and Christian religion. He was probably well-praised for his efforts.”

The Christian Church has never fully accepted the black man as equal. This is probably one of the reasons why the black man has never had much respect for the Church or the white man. Neither the Church nor the traders did anything to alleviate the condition of the slave because they both assumed that the African was an economic entity and hence he was excluded from the brotherhood of man in a sub-human way. W. Bosman describes some of these conditions in1705 in A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea: “Those selected for shipment were branded on the chest with the owner’s initial or trademark.”

“We take all possible care,” a Dutch slave dealer wrote, “that they are not burnt too much, especially the women who are more tender than the men.” The descriptions of Thomas Clarkson in The Cries of Africa to the Inhabitants of Europe 1821 are significant: “A full grown male was allowed 6 ft. x 1 ft. 4 in. of space; a full grown female 5 ft. 10 in. x 1 ft., a boy 5 ft. x 1 ft. 2 in., and a girl 4 ft. 6 in. x 1 ft.” Clearly we are not dealing with brotherly love.

The Struggle for Dignity

Canada’s black people came as slaves to Lower Canada as early as 1688 and to Upper Canada as late as 1806, but the majority came in the middle of the eighteenth century as runaway slaves from the south and settled in Nova Scotia. There were an estimated thirty thousand there by 1865. In Montreal in 1730, when the treaty of surrender was signed, Article 47 of the Articles of Capitulation contained a clause which guaranteed the ownership of slaves, both black and Indian, who were owned by the French. It was common practice for both the rich French and English to keep slaves.

The myth that slaves were docile and submitted to this oppression does not hold true when the number of slave uprisings are counted. In fact the slave had his own particular type of communication to gather his brothers together if a chance of escape or rebellion was envisaged. The majority of the negro spirituals and early work songs were in fact directions which during the work day in the field the slaves gave the images of places of safety. Even today black men seldom speak to their own people in the same way that they speak to the white man. The sub-culture of any black ghetto in the United States is a living example of this: Soul Brother and Honkey are not the same.

The revolts as early as 1730 in Montreal, under Gabriel in Virginia in 1800, under Vesey in Carolina in 1822, and under Nat Turner in 1831 in Virginia, are only some that occurred on mainland America. In the Caribbean the famous Haitian Revolt towards the end of the eighteenth century led not only to the treachery of the leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, who died in a cold prison in the north of France in 1804, but to the only successful slave revolt in history. Similar revolts in other Caribbean islands, notably Jamaica, were cruelly suppressed.

These revolts are even more surprising when one looks at the conditions which existed for the slaves. A day in the life of a slave was described in this excerpt from “‘An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Colonies”’ by the Reverend James Ramsay in 1784, who at the time administered to the spiritual welfare of the West Indian Plantation owners:

“A am: The plantation bell rings. Slaves go to the fields.

“9.9:30: Breakfast eaten in the field.

‘‘Noon: Collecting blades and tufts of grass for the master’s horses and cattle.

“2:00 Assembly. Slaves who return with an inadequate bundle of grass get 4-10 lashes with the whip. Dinner.

“3:00-7:00: Strong slaves work in the plantation; old and weak slaves culling grass blade by blade.

“7 :00-8 :00: Supper

“8:00-midnight: During the harvest strong slaves and animals required for boiling the sugar cane. Sundays: Slaves allowed to work their own vegetable patch.”

Today, even after the black man’s sweat has built the Western anglo-saxon wealth and in spite of words such as these, “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” we find the black man in North America still striving for the socio-economic conditions which would make his civil, political and educational rights seem attainable. No other race has been so emasculated, so dehumanised, so fragmented, so culturally oppressed as the black man. It is of importance to note that the black man is not without a history of his own. It is also of importance to note that the problem is an economic one and is in essence a class struggle in the Marxist sense, and hence transcends the black man to the Third World peoples, the “‘have-nots” of today’s world. This is perhaps why many of the black leaders of today stress the global aspect of the black man’s struggle.

The fact that the white man’s world is the world of wealth, based on the capitalism of slavery, colonialism and imperialism, all these together have kept the black man in the role of second-class citizen throughout the world. The new look at Africa as the motherland and the positive approach to blackness as something beautiful are aspects of the Afro-American struggle in his fight for dignity. He now questions the Africa from which he came to see whether the myths and misinformation about his ancestors were valid; but he also knows that he must keep pushing forward all the frontiers of his fight for liberation.

The Cultural Heritage

What was the cultural state of the Africa from which he was taken? By 100 AD iron was used as part of the everyday equipment and in the making of ornaments. The Birom, a tribe of over a hundred thousand in the Jos plateau in Nigeria, in the village of Zawan were some of the earliest users of iron; excavations have revealed ironwork dating back to that era. The leatherwork of Northern Nigeria from the towns of Kano, Sokoto and Bornu date back to the fifteenth century and were, in fact, sold on many European markets. The ivory jewelry of the Ibos of Onitsha, and the similar work from. Benin to Owo are matched only by the Yoruba jewelry in brass bronze and copper from the sixteenth century. Most of the finest gold work is found in Ghana and dates back as far as sixteenth century relics. There are the even more famous Nupe and Benin bronzes, relics left by the founder of the Nupe Kingdom founded in the fifteenth century by King Tsoede. The famous glass beads of Ife, Bida and of Benin which are now housed in the Ife Museum were even copied in German and Venetian factories as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth century, because of their almost inimitable blue colour.

Neither was the creative element in Africa dead nor was the literary element non-existent in Africa. Micheal J. C. Echeruo, a Nigerian poet and writer and professor of English at Ibadan University, states that excerpts from the Lagos Observer in the nineteenth century showed that works in Yoruba were evident in both theatre and concert, and at that time the middle-class blacks that were emerging tried their best to suppress this active aspect of the national life because they were significantly conditioned to agree with their colonial masters that everything “native” was automatically “uncouth” and “primitive.” These examples by no means cover the wealth of folk material written or unwritten and handed down from generation to generation or from tribe to tribe.

It is perhaps important to discuss that the black man’s awareness of himself as an Afro-American springs from many sources. First, within the last fifteen years the imperial powers have found the colonies expensive to maintain, the profits from the raw materials which were the mainstay of the European economy can now be more easily made by synthetics. There is no longer a colonised Africa; the black man’s brothers on the major portion of the motherland are free. Other black dominated colonies such as the West Indies have also become independent within the last few postwar years. Black men now have a say in the world in places such as the United Nations. The brotherhood of the classless masses in the Third World in Asia, and nearer home in Cuba have given black men the necessary pride that the oppressed of the world are uniting against the monolithic capitalistic octopus.

Secondly, the mass media: in seconds we have the whole world before us “living colour.” The demonstrators in Chicago before and during the Democratic Convention in August last year made this point quite well. Thirdly, the black man has always been struggling for his share in the American society that he helped to build. The problem of the black man is in essence similar to the problem of the poor throughout North America who go to bed hungry in an affluent society, except for the fact that, with a visible difference, the chances of overcoming the hundreds of years of prejudice are even slimmer. The white man’s dilemma is that as soon as his comfortable place in America or anywhere is threatened by the disenfranchised, the poor or the black, he makes every effort to suppress them. To quote John Boyd Orr and David Lubbock, in The White Man’s Dilemma: “So soon as the poor are assured of food and the other physical essentials of life, they have taken the first and by far the most important step to liberty.’” In most white societies this step frightens if the poor are also black.

Recent Canadian Movements

How does Canada fit into all this ? Canada is in a large sense a branch plant of the United States. She also represents a wealthy multi-ethnic society. She also has at least ten percent of her population that lives below the poverty line and a large portion of these are black. The most outrageous case of this is the black population of Nova Scotia, for whom there are few rights and fewer laws that serve to protect them. I have only recently heard of cases of extensive police harassment in this unfortunate situation, where over twenty thousand black Nova Scotians see not only a blind justice but also feel a deaf justice.

Last October a Conference of the black people of Canada was held in Montreal to try to coordinate all the black organizations throughout Canada in an attempt to discuss the problems of the black man. The problems which were discussed revolved around employment, mobility and advancement in the labour force, and the problems of social, political and cultural alienation within the society. Delegates came from all parts of Canada, British Columbia to the Maritimes. Many facts were revealed for the first time even to black Canadians. It was found that in terms of legislation to protect the rights of the black man in housing it was only in Ontario that there was any such legislation (Ontario Human Rights Code, 1962) where it states “No person… shall… deny to any person or class of persons occupancy of any commercial unit or any self contained dwelling unit.’” Legislation in Nova Scotia only provides protection in the area of apartment housing, which is almost useless since most of the blacks in Nova Scotia cannot afford such housing.

I would state here again, as I have elsewhere, that the beginnings of black ghettoes in major cities of Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia should serve as a warning to any political party which envisages a Canada different to urban northern United States. For black Canadians as for blacks in any ghetto, the ghettoes are formed as a measure of protection from a white society from which the blacks are alienated economically, socially, psychologically and politically.

This early conference dealt with the problem of black Canadians but the Congress of Black Writers in mid-October tried to embrace more global aspects of the struggle. The underlying and fundamental issues concerning the black man were discussed. The more militant aspects of the problem in the international sense arose where ideology for the future with the need for a social and violent revolution were proposed. Needless to say, the speakers from the United States had the most to contribute; this reflected the depth of the injustices and the vigor of the struggle in their country. But this should also be a warning to Canadians, as Al Purdy states in The New Romans: Candid Canadian Comments on the U.S.: “What happens in the most powerful nation on earth is everyone’s business, for what happens in the U.S. affects every Canadian.”

I will not state my own experiences in Canada for I have done so before and I do not think that one’s personal experiences are valid unless they represent the norm of similar experiences for a sample of black people. In most cases the discrimination which I have faced here in Canada can be supported by many other black people who have had similar experiences. I must state that I have found this country no different to the United States where [ lived as a student for five years. The problem is that few people want to believe this about their Canada. There will always be exceptions, e.g. one black member of parliament or one rich black man, but that is not the average black man who has to fight for his bread every day. There are, therefore, some general ideas concerning the black situation that I would like the reader to think about.

Racism: A Waste of Human Potential

When a people become desperate and have nothing to lose, the means to achieve their ends are of no consequence. The conditions in which they live will dictate the terms of their struggle. Canadians, as well as all white men, must accept the idea of equality, from educating their own children to this concept to the practice of it themselves; at least the equality of opportunity must exist. The cohesion of the black peoples of Canada although now loose, if accelerated by conditions, will prove to be a real force for their own progress, and there is no doubt that the quality of the lives of many blacks in Canada must improve.

It is often asked, what are the solutions to the black man’s problems? There is a need for social reorganization of the capitalist society so that there are fewer who go hungry in a wealthy society. Many are disenchanted with the system and the life style in the western world but do not know how to change it. The society is in itself so violent to all, especially to the poor and the black, that men must seek for something new. Racism is a waste of human potential and men must seek a new humanism if they are to lead meaningful lives. As all men are responsible for their fellow men I believe that there is a need for a total commitment to improve the lives of men, and more so black men, at local, national and global levels.

Canada is a multi-ethnic society and as such is not a melting pot, but a mosaic. Its reputation is at stake if it allows some of its citizens to be perpetually second-class. Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau points this out in his book Federalism and the French Canadians: ‘‘From a philosophical point of view the aim of a political society is not the glorification of the ‘national fact’ (in its ethnic sense). . . The state, whether provincial, federal, or perhaps later supra-national must seek the general welfare of all its citizens regardless of sex, colour, race, religious beliefs or ethnic origins.” In order to achieve this laws must be made, enacted and enforced which are relevant to the human and civil rights of all citizens, which must set the proper moral tone for the “just society.”

Racism is a white man’s problem born out of greed and fear and after almost four hundred years the white man must now accept the black man at every level so that the hate of subjugation, which the black man feels, can be converted into a useful and productive force. Finally men must seek a new humanism and work towards a better Man.