Comments on: Not just a professor, but a mentor: on hiring a new African-Americanist http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/24/not-just-a-professor-but-a-mentor-on-hiring-a-new-african-americanist/ Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:18:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Richard Aubrey http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/24/not-just-a-professor-but-a-mentor-on-hiring-a-new-african-americanist/#comment-326183 Richard Aubrey Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:27:30 +0000 http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/24/not-just-a-professor-but-a-mentor-on-hiring-a-new-african-americanist/#comment-326183 Well, they were commodities. That's why there was a trade. Profit. Within that system there is room for agency, willfulness--even suicide--and all that is human. And there are records of such. But, what is the effect on the view of the African American experience in the New World? According to Roots, to the extent that something like it was true someplace, the African American experience includes the human-centered focus. But that changes not a whit the commodification of human beings. IMO, both have an effect. Both are true, both have an effect. AAs know their ancestors were brought here as commodities and survived to today by titanic personal effort. Separate question: According to my instructors in SubSaharan Africa studies, three to five times as many Africans were taken east as went west. Where, in the Middle East or on the littoral of the Indian Ocean is there anything like Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil, or Alabama? What happened? Well, they were commodities. That’s why there was a trade. Profit.
Within that system there is room for agency, willfulness–even suicide–and all that is human. And there are records of such.

But, what is the effect on the view of the African American experience in the New World?

According to Roots, to the extent that something like it was true someplace, the African American experience includes the human-centered focus. But that changes not a whit the commodification of human beings. IMO, both have an effect.

Both are true, both have an effect.

AAs know their ancestors were brought here as commodities and survived to today by titanic personal effort.

Separate question: According to my instructors in SubSaharan Africa studies, three to five times as many Africans were taken east as went west. Where, in the Middle East or on the littoral of the Indian Ocean is there anything like Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil, or Alabama? What happened?

]]> By: Hugo Schwyzer http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/24/not-just-a-professor-but-a-mentor-on-hiring-a-new-african-americanist/#comment-326056 Hugo Schwyzer Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:10:26 +0000 http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/24/not-just-a-professor-but-a-mentor-on-hiring-a-new-african-americanist/#comment-326056 The traditional analysis, simply put, is to focus on African slaves as commodities in a triangular trading system. Guns and booze and bibles from Liverpool to West Africa; slaves to the Americas; raw materials back to Liverpool, Bristol, etc. It reduces the human experience to one link in a larger economic chain. The other analysis is more human-centered, focuses on de-commodifying the African experience; it focuses too on seeing possibilities for agency and defiance in the lives of those who were transported and enslaved. The traditional analysis, simply put, is to focus on African slaves as commodities in a triangular trading system. Guns and booze and bibles from Liverpool to West Africa; slaves to the Americas; raw materials back to Liverpool, Bristol, etc. It reduces the human experience to one link in a larger economic chain.

The other analysis is more human-centered, focuses on de-commodifying the African experience; it focuses too on seeing possibilities for agency and defiance in the lives of those who were transported and enslaved.

]]> By: Richard Aubrey http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/24/not-just-a-professor-but-a-mentor-on-hiring-a-new-african-americanist/#comment-326019 Richard Aubrey Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:52:30 +0000 http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/24/not-just-a-professor-but-a-mentor-on-hiring-a-new-african-americanist/#comment-326019 So. What is the consensus on the question of the traditional analysis of the Middle Passage and the possible distortion of the view of the African American experience in the New World? To have a traditional analysis implies there may be some other, differing analysis. That true? If so, who decides which is traditional and which is the other? And what is the other analysis? So. What is the consensus on the question of the traditional analysis of the Middle Passage and the possible distortion of the view of the African American experience in the New World?

To have a traditional analysis implies there may be some other, differing analysis. That true? If so, who decides which is traditional and which is the other? And what is the other analysis?

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