How We Are Still Complicit in Perpetuating American Slavery (YouTube Video Transcript)

(00:00:00) Your YouTube transcript will appear here (00:00:01) People are still arguing about slavery (00:00:03) and the Smithsonian. Of course, get on (00:00:06) with your bad selves, but the bigger (00:00:07) fight isn't about labels in a gallery. (00:00:10) Truth is more direct and more dangerous. (00:00:11) At least from where I sit, slavery isn't (00:00:14) over. Hey folks, I'm Tad Sturmer. I'm an (00:00:17) American scholar of resistance history (00:00:18) in the American Revolution at the (00:00:20) University of Southern Denmark and Johns (00:00:21) Hopkins. The men who built America on (00:00:23) bondage didn't just fail to end it. They (00:00:26) weren't like constrained by their (00:00:28) circumstances. They actively chose and (00:00:31) planned to entrench it, to strengthen (00:00:33) it, and to pass down its profits. Their (00:00:36) heirs inherited the wealth and the (00:00:38) power. And every time we excuse those (00:00:41) people, every time a white person says, (00:00:42) "Focus on the good the founders did," we (00:00:45) extend the same logic that protected (00:00:47) slavery in the first place. As James (00:00:49) Madison said, "As great an evil as (00:00:51) slavery, is the union is more (00:00:53) important." Oh, really? There must be (00:00:55) some union. But I guess he would say (00:00:57) that as a political structure that (00:00:58) ensures that his will continues (00:01:00) unchallenged would be more important (00:01:02) than the lives of a fifth of the (00:01:04) population of that country in chains. He (00:01:07) would say that you don't have to keep (00:01:09) repeating it like you think it's great. (00:01:11) That's complicity. That's how American (00:01:14) slavery endured then and how its white (00:01:16) nationalist authority endures today. Now (00:01:19) the fury in favor of the Smithsonian (00:01:21) proves part of the point. even though it (00:01:24) only a few people are paying attention (00:01:25) to what's actually being targeted. Think (00:01:27) about the defense of Franklin of (00:01:28) Benjamin Franklin as a great man, right? (00:01:30) That this White House is just sort of (00:01:32) rushing to to take care of. It's one of (00:01:34) their examples is the exhibit about him (00:01:37) about the electric Dr. Franklin that the (00:01:38) regime thinks is so offensive just dares (00:01:41) to say what history and historians have (00:01:43) been making plain and what is true about (00:01:45) all of the founders and what it is that (00:01:48) this regime wants to stop in its tracks. (00:01:50) Franklin's achievements might not have (00:01:52) been his. Enslaved people gave him time, (00:01:56) labor, obedience, and perhaps expertise. (00:01:59) The law demanded it of them. They had no (00:02:01) choice. It's one of the benefits of (00:02:03) slavery that Franklin himself explicitly (00:02:05) promoted over the benefits of paid (00:02:08) labor. (00:02:10) That stolen time from enslaved people (00:02:12) became science. Their stolen lives (00:02:14) became his achievement. (00:02:17) This regime wants that story silenced (00:02:19) because it forces us to see slavery not (00:02:21) as a closed chapter, but as the (00:02:23) operating system of American success. (00:02:25) Privileged white guys will exploit other (00:02:28) people to cosplay the achievement and (00:02:30) then cover up the bodies they stepped on (00:02:32) to climb to the top. And it isn't (00:02:35) Franklin only. They're also going after (00:02:37) the causes of the Mexican-American War, (00:02:39) the impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act, (00:02:41) and the role of the police in George (00:02:42) Floyd's murder. (00:02:44) Each of those examples dares to connect (00:02:46) the past to the present to show that (00:02:48) exploitation and the core nature of it (00:02:51) is not over. (00:02:53) That is what the regime cannot stand you (00:02:55) to know. Yet too many on the left race (00:02:58) to post the obvious while still (00:03:00) celebrating enslavers as if they should (00:03:02) be our guides today. The contradiction (00:03:04) is staggering. Why not just say that you (00:03:07) need to take the high ground on (00:03:08) redistricting while those people steal (00:03:09) your country to return it root and (00:03:11) branch the world of the founders of the (00:03:13) enslavers. Let's exclude everybody else (00:03:15) but the white guys at the top because (00:03:18) Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and (00:03:20) Hamilton and the rest of the boys in the (00:03:22) band weren't reluctant participants in a (00:03:24) system they couldn't escape. They were (00:03:27) the architects of it. Did they have the (00:03:29) capacity to make the world a new or not? (00:03:31) Did the world get turned upside down or (00:03:32) not? (00:03:34) They made these active choices not just (00:03:36) to plan it but to implement it, to (00:03:38) expand it, to extend it, to deepen its (00:03:40) brutality and embed it so completely (00:03:44) that it took armed resistance and (00:03:46) extraordinary struggle outside the (00:03:48) constitution against both the (00:03:50) constitution and the political will of (00:03:52) the nation to end even its legality. And (00:03:56) doing that did not stop it. It mutated. (00:03:59) Jim Crow, redlinining, mass (00:04:01) incarceration, all of those are (00:04:02) slavery's continuation, not its legacy. (00:04:06) Which means that when you like Mount (00:04:08) Vernon's post about Washington's dining (00:04:10) room, when you buy an annual pass to (00:04:12) Montichello, when you invoke Jefferson (00:04:13) or Madison's name in the service of (00:04:16) resistance, you're not being harmless. (00:04:19) You're being complicit. You are (00:04:21) laundering violence into heritage, (00:04:23) turning privilege into achievement, and (00:04:25) teaching the descendants of the enslaved (00:04:27) that the harm they live with is still a (00:04:29) footnote. And the heirs to the founders (00:04:31) to the enslavers that they can exploit (00:04:33) and abuse and be excused. (00:04:36) That is slavery still operating in all (00:04:39) the choices we make to admire those who (00:04:41) built their lives on exploitation. (00:04:44) So what do we do about it? Well, stop (00:04:46) letting those social media posts from (00:04:48) Mount Vernon and Montichello and (00:04:49) Colonial Williamsburg and the Museum of (00:04:50) the American Revolution sit as festering (00:04:53) grounds for white nationalism. Stop (00:04:56) sharing memes with Thomas Jefferson (00:04:58) quotes as if they represent some kind of (00:04:59) revolution of the people. Unless by the (00:05:02) people you mean Jefferson's people, the (00:05:03) enslavers and their world. Burn those (00:05:06) colonial Williamsburg t-shirts. starve (00:05:08) that entire industry from its pillows to (00:05:10) its coffee mugs to its books of all the (00:05:13) oxygen it still needs from exploiting (00:05:15) enslaved people, from perpetuating those (00:05:17) lies, from exploiting the memory of (00:05:19) enslaved people and the literal products (00:05:22) of their works that remain today and (00:05:24) extending the function of American (00:05:26) slavery into the present. Keep this (00:05:29) regime from operating to serve its own (00:05:31) ends. that the world of white men who (00:05:33) exploit others for their own purposes, (00:05:35) removed of all accountability for their (00:05:37) crimes can long endure. (00:05:40) And I know that some of you will say, (00:05:41) "But those places have made so much (00:05:43) progress. Now they sometimes even say (00:05:45) the names of enslaved people." Yeah, (00:05:47) those institutions that employ almost (00:05:49) entirely white people that reluctantly (00:05:51) have a few tokens, separate but equal (00:05:53) programs to show as a public relations (00:05:54) strategy that they knew slavery existed (00:05:57) and always every day centered the (00:05:59) experience of a few white people at the (00:06:01) top. Yes, they're making progress. (00:06:04) Malcolm X would tell you to not thank (00:06:06) them for pulling the knife out a few (00:06:07) inches while leaving the rest of it in. (00:06:10) Because every time you boost them, (00:06:12) you're saying enslavers lives matter. (00:06:15) Instead of feeding those institutions, (00:06:17) give your time, your attention, your (00:06:19) money to the people on the ground who (00:06:20) are doing the work. Chie Mcnite at Not (00:06:22) Your Mama's History is one of the best (00:06:24) public historians working today. She (00:06:25) just reposted about her program, the (00:06:27) Let's Talk About Slavery table. (00:06:29) Volunteer, join her Patreon. If you're a (00:06:31) supporter of mine, I love you. But take (00:06:33) those resources and shift them to her. (00:06:35) Her work matters more. Expand and extend (00:06:37) it. Boost Joe McIll at the Slave (00:06:39) Dwelling Project or Frederick Deshawn (00:06:41) Murphy at History Before Us or the (00:06:43) incredible team at Whitney Plantation. (00:06:45) strengthen their foundations because (00:06:47) with powerful public historians like (00:06:49) that leading the conversation, there is (00:06:51) nothing Donald Trump or any regime can (00:06:53) do to erase the honest history of (00:06:55) slavery. (00:06:57) There was never justice for the (00:06:59) enslaved. No trials, no reparations, no (00:07:03) recognition of slavery as the crime (00:07:05) against humanity that it was. Instead, (00:07:08) the entire slave society was allowed to (00:07:09) pick up and move on. Privileges intact. (00:07:13) The perpetrators returned to their (00:07:14) homes, their businesses, their churches, (00:07:16) their politics. They lived out their (00:07:18) lives, passed down their wealth, and (00:07:20) died surrounded by grandchildren. Never (00:07:22) once held to account for generations of (00:07:23) harm and brutality for everything they (00:07:25) stole. No one stood in judgment for the (00:07:28) theft of bodies, the torture, the rape, (00:07:31) the mass destruction of families. No one (00:07:33) was called to answer for embedding a (00:07:35) system so vicious it required war, the (00:07:38) deaths of hundreds of thousands to break (00:07:40) its legality. (00:07:42) But crimes against humanity do not (00:07:44) expire. There's no statute of (00:07:46) limitations. And by every standard we (00:07:48) claim to uphold, they should still be (00:07:50) prosecuted. But instead, we let them be (00:07:53) celebrated. Their names etched in stone, (00:07:55) their words treated as gospel, their (00:07:57) victims forgotten. That's not history (00:07:59) closed. It's history left wide open and (00:08:02) bleeding. (00:08:03) Slavery wasn't ended. It continues in (00:08:06) wealth that compounds, in law that (00:08:07) constrains, in memory that celebrates (00:08:09) enslavers as heroes and silences the (00:08:12) people who actually made this country. (00:08:14) And until the people still living under (00:08:16) its weight are free, none of us are (00:08:18) free. All effective resistance begins (00:08:20) with refusal. The refusal of abusive (00:08:23) authority. So refuse to even pretend (00:08:26) that the enslavers matter in our world, (00:08:28) in the country we want to remake, in the (00:08:30) face of a regime that wants to use those (00:08:32) enslavers and their examples as fuels (00:08:34) for the fire that's going to burn it all (00:08:36) down. (00:08:38) [Music]