Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing
click to enlarge
This is a recreation of an advertisement for the sale of Slaves in the American South. Link
Ads such as these were not the exception, they were not rare, they were in every paper and similar posters could be found in almost every capital and port city in the “New World” during this era.
This is not “Black Hysteria” or “civil rights nonsense” as some of my recent emails have claimed. This is not Black History – it is American history.
You can find more slave ads here, courtesy of the University of Virginia.
Cornell University has an excellent online collection of Anti-Slavery documents from the period. Those of you hooked on the HBO mini-series will enjoy this collection as it has a lot of John Adams’ rants against slavery included.
Disclaimer:
When I went to school, we were never taught Black History. We never learned about the Black leaders, the long, agonizing history that brought most Blacks to America. Those atrocities were glossed over in favor of mindlessly boring topics like the X Y Z Affair.
This series of cartoons will review Black history as told from a Black mother to an interracial child. This series will be ugly, course, horrific and truthful. I will mostly abandon the commentary for an article on Black history.
This series is not about Obama or Hillary. I want to you to try to imagine how Black families tell their children of the atrocities their ancestors, all of them, suffered because of the color of their skin. Try to imagine how Black families counsel their children when someone calls them “nigger” for the first time. Can you imagine the bone crushing emotion that must well up? Can you imagine the agony, frustration and anger?
Can you imagine being the Black preacher who tries to paint a picture of a just God every Sunday? Especially in a country that claims where the notion of racism is a thing of the past, the job is difficult.
These strips may at times be entertaining and sometimes they may not – mostly not.
I don’t want you to laugh so hard you cry, I want you to cry so hard you do something about it.
