What slavery has taught me so far

With recent reports about black people being sold as slaves in Libya and re-runs of the History Channel documentary, Roots, being aired, the struggle we go through is constant and painful each time. The amount of catch-22s we’re faced with are unbearable and a tough pill to swallow.

Slavery, one of the least documented and cruelest acts to humanity. Source:PBS

It’s undeniable and innumerable the kinds of atrocities our ancestors faced during the Arab and Trans-Atlantic trade. Although series like Roots and The Book of Negroes only present a tip of the iceberg, at least it shares our part in history. Something that has been neglected for many years by mainstream media, but I digress.

Having watched few documentaries about slavery, one of the questions that I often asked was, why didn’t they fight back? From watching the 1977 adaptation of Roots, two things are highlighted for me, 1 our fathers were warriors, strong black men, brutalised by the slave trade. Stripping them of their identity and worth, 2 every attempt of doing 1 was countered with an attack, at first outright, e.g. silence when called a name given by the white ‘master’, refusing to do chores, running away, angry stares, etc. Additionally by continuing to practice their culture and use names they were born with when the ‘master’ wasn’t around.

The second part of my ancestor’s behaviour tells me that THEY FOUGHT BACK. No matter the cost of this, they did. In one scene, Kunta Kinte (played by Malachi Kirby) is whipped near to death for not accepting the white man’s name. it is only after he says it that he’s let go.

Headlines from mainstream media are titled ‘Don’t call me Toby’: the slave who foughtback. I disagree with this. The story represents, a whole generation of people who fought back. And the horrors therein aren’t limited to American shores or one part of Africa either.

They offer a true account of what they went through. Many of the things they experienced, we still go through today. Poet Lebo Mashile, puts it well when she says “A 400 year old sickness, land less families eat each other seeking shelter beneath the shade of a dead tree.” When will we start to heal?