The Strange Career of the American Negro

The American Negro sits on a pedestal in American society. Astutely derided by many, yet unwaveringly worshipped by the System, Negroes exist in a bizarre position of unrelenting, perceived victimhood while the primary societal apparatus and the media caters to their most petulant of whims. The two mainstream perspectives on which they are viewed, whether hated or faux-supported, both provide an unfair answer to the Negro Question, leaving the race in a perpetual existence of poverty, crime, fatherlessness, and brainwashed hysteria. The history of the American Negro is rather quite tragic, unworthy of the rabid hatred from the Far Right and groveling worship from the Left.

With their permanent existence in North America dating to the 17th Century, Negroes’ American history began with their expulsion from their home continent of Africa, primarily Central and West Africa, at the behest of fellow Africans via the Atlantic Slave Trade. During the enforced voyages to the Americas, Negroes were either sent to the Caribbean or to the American Colonies. It was henceforth the destination of delivery which would decide the fate of the slaves-to-be.

Within Colonial America and the First Republic, the plantation societies which existed were numerous and divergent culturally, ethnically, and geographically. The Tidewater and Mid-Atlantic Gentry, which comprised the Virginia Dynasties, generally provided Negroes with a relatively moderate lifestyle. Tobacco, wheat, and rice abounded among Virginia’s plantations. Though hard work, the mild climate and moderate, Episcopalian disposition of Virginians created a society not all too horrendous for slave life.

The Cotton Kingdom of the Deep South, though notorious, often adhered to the paternalism adopted among Virginia and North Carolina Planters. Contrary to the neo-abolitionist historiography in vogue since the 1960s, the Deep South Planters found more interest in killing each other, often via pistol dueling, as opposed to mistreating their Negro slaves. As the Deep South developed, its Christian influences did as well. The Second Great Awakening of 1790 to 1840 and the Third Great Awakening of 1855 to the early 20th Century both imbued Deep Southerners with a Low Protestant Christianization which only furthered the adoption of paternalistic principle; additionally, abusing a slave would result in a negative financial investment, as slaves were expensive. Life as a Negro slave on a Cotton plantation in the Lowland was not so macabre as often claimed.

Sugar Planters of Louisiana and the Caribbean tended to reflect the harsh realities of slave labor widely accepted and purported today. Sugar production required laborious work and often resulted in slaves simply being worked to death. Additionally, the primary ethnicity of these Planters was French, and the non-Frenchmen in the region tended towards the Francophillic. Frivolity and social liberty permeated within French communities, and their Catholicism, promiscuity, and miscegenation practices appalled their Anglo neighbors throughout the rest of the South. Indians, alongside the Francophiles, usually practiced much harsher forms of slavery as well.

Much of the genuine social history of the Antebellum Period has been suppressed. Fortunately, a number of once respected historians worked diligently to ensure not all was lost to time. Ulrich B. Phillips, superlative among his cohorts, often argued in favor of the idea that slaves lived relatively decent lives. Additionally, Thomas Sowell, the Negro historian and political commentator, even argued life as a poor White drew closer to misery than that of the slave, the former being crippled by the wealth accumulating slave system and competition for work. Lastly, it remains a highly maligned topic that a few slaves did, in fact, remain on their masters’ plantation in spite of freedom being given to them. These freedmen and women often filled the role of “House Negro.”

Further discussion of the relationship between master and slave necessitates deliberation. Whites and blacks maintained intimate relationships, particularly regarding “house Negroes.” The interactions between these two demographics was constant. Additionally, many young White children developed close relations with black women, a trait which lasted well into the 20th Century. The sexual abuse and rape of Negro women at the hands of Planters is largely a myth. A moderate understanding of gender relations would infer many young female slaves would have willingly lay with their masters. The Great Awakenings of the 19th Century would have furthered the continuation of paternalism, and Whites were known for instructing their slaves in the Lord’s teachings. Freedom via invasion and unrelenting Northern propaganda would sever and sour this intimacy.

Following emancipation, the Freedman fared worse as a free man as opposed to life as a slave. Loss of life and regress of the black social conditions has been discussed in great detail by the calumniated preeminent Dunning School of Historiography, a school which lasted from roughly 1900 to 1950. Records indicate the Negro population between 1860 and 1870 lost 25% of its number, roughly 1,000,000 persons. The cause of this mass loss of life was multifold.

Regarding immediate emancipation, Union forces utilized Negroes in high casualty infantry units, resulting in notable loss of life. Following the War, and even some during the conflict, Negroes abandoned plantations regardless of circumstance or lack of destination, though a few “house Negroes” did remain. They began roaming throughout the Southern wilderness or moved to nearby towns and cities. In the city, packing together “like sardines,” the Freedmen left behind all hygiene practices they were taught as slaves, resulting in diseases which contributed to their high mortality rate. Additionally, the wandering Negroes of the wilderness engaged in various violent crimes, cattle theft and animal cruelty, non-hygienic practices, and general nuisance. Both rural and urban Blacks engaged in the practice of gun toting and dog ownership. What was often considered a respectable privilege, the Negroes utilized this practice to commit numerous crimes throughout the region, most often targeting their own ilk. By 1870, it is estimated that roughly 25% of the pre-War Negro population had died off or simply disappeared.

Reconstruction would mark the beginning of Negro political participation; additionally, Reconstruction brought with it the total upheaval of the established social order. With their newfound freedom and encouragement from Radical Republicans, Negroes began behaving in the most reprehensible of manners. In conjunction with the crimes mentioned in the previous paragraph, the bravado of Radical politicians and the neglect of the woes of local Whites would send Southern society into a tailspin. Reaching its nadir by 1869, violence erupted across the South. Militias spread rapidly and racial strife was abundant. Though subsiding by 1871, this violence would resurge from 1874 to 1877, ending as a result of the Compromise of 1877.

Peace would ensue afterwards, but the Negro Question would remain. By the mid 1880s, the Bourbon Democrats’ power had weakened, and they were poised to strike a deal with the segregationist faction of the Southern Democratic Party in order to defeat the growing proto-socialism within the biracial Populist movements of the time, as well as, satiate the persistent malice poor Whites often held for upper classes. In 1885, Florida would ratify the first Jim Crow Constitution; however, sweeping Jim Crow legislation would not charge through the rest of Dixie until Mississippi ratified its constitution in 1890, under the tutelage of Governor John Marshall Stone. Though segregation existed prior in one form or another, whether legislatively or in social practice by 1877, 1890 marked the official beginning of de jure Jim Crow.

Used up and abandoned by Republicans at Reconstruction’s conclusion and largely prohibited, alongside poor “white trash,” from voting due to fairly reasonable literacy tests and poll taxes, Negroes were left to their own devices by 1900. Participation in greater society would differ by state and opportunity afforded. This coincided directly with Whites’ attitudes toward Negroes in each respective state. Throughout the Jim Crow Era and still existent today in one way or another, the Deep Southern Whites generally held more amicable relations with Negroes in contrast to their Upper South and Peripheral counterparts, strongly contesting to contemporary and historical opinion.

Limited in their political participation and segregated, Blacks were largely left to either lounge in depravity or look introspectively to improve their lives. They usually worked alongside Whites in rural areas, particularly sharecropping, and often got along with them fairly well in states like Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Harsher and more divided racial lines would have existed in locales such as Virginia or North Carolina. Urban areas experienced the most enforced forms of segregation. Negroes, under scrutiny, did improve their lives during the Jim Crow Era, though at a marginally slower rate than that of Whites.

Although peace prevailed, contention would occasionally foment between the races. Lynchings were a common form of vigilante justice enacted within the South, and Negroes were not the only victims of such instances. Whites formed roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of those executed in such a manner. The reasonings for lynching were multifold. For much of Dixie’s history, it existed as more or less a frontier, and the War and Reconstruction set much of its civilizing back several years. The retarding of its economy via discriminatory freight rates hampered the South’s financial recovery for generations until its lifting during World War II. With a mostly rural population, Southerners often lacked the means of effective law enforcement; therefore, they often took the law into their own hands. Whereas some instances occurred in which lynched individuals did no wrong, those lynched were generally guilty parties and quite reprehensible, such as in Leo Strauss’ case. Little else of note may be said of post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow interracial quarrels, excepting the Tulsa Riot and the Red Summer.

In spite of this period of quietness, Communists and Marxists relentlessly pursued avenues of infiltration and social sabotage. Utilizing Northern labor unions in order to take over the Democratic Party and catering to the pro-corporate auspices of the Republican Party, Communism took root and fomented a cause so destructive it would rend the fabric of the American Empire, as Lincoln did to the Republic a century prior. This would ultimately culminate in the Civil Rights Movement. Beginning in 1948 and politically spurred on by President Harry Truman, the Civil Rights Movement would ultimately be wholly successful in crushing Southerners’ control over their own homeland, political bodies, and living spaces; in correlation, the revolutionary act would totally invert the American social hierarchy, effecting White Southerners the most in the process.

Promising Negroes a better future, the revolution caused them more harm than good. Whereas life for Negroes had been improving, financial stability increasing, out of wedlock child bearing decreasing, and fatherlessness withering, the events between 1948 and 1968 ground their progress to a halt. Driven mad by relentless media and political propaganda designed to incriminate White Southerners and introducing debilitating welfare meant for those with limited long term insight, the Negro communities tethered themselves to destructive customs and the Democratic Party. Severing any positive relations with Whites and drawn to the greener pastures of the urban landscape, Negroes would flock to the North or into nearby urban areas during the first half of the 20th Century, after which the majority proceeded to turn feral as a result of Civil Rights legislation.

As affairs settled during the 1970s and 1980s, urban landscapes became uninhabitable. White flight, Negro takeover, and militant attitudes would cause crime to continue skyrocketing. By the 1990s, Negro elders were wholly supporting gun control legislation, as their youth were doing their level best to kill each other. Gangsta Rap did little to help the situation and instilled youths with a hostile, lowlife, gang mentality, much to the chagrin of their parents and grandparents. During this time, alcoholism and drug abuse increased. Urban life would not improve and violent crime rates would not peak until the 1990s, due largely to gentrification and the evolution of the modern police state, all the while having Negro leadership all too eager to sell out the people they supposedly represent. With gentrification and constant Third World immigration displacing Negroes from their urban homes and politicians doing nothing to improve the situation or allow for home rule, the Negro sits atop an unstable platform of crime, betrayal by other Negro politics, credulity, and biological predisposition for naivete.

Throughout their post-bellum history, the Negro has unfortunately fallen victim to the promises of dishonest politicians and malicious media propaganda. Whether the promise of paternalism under the Bourbon Regime, political freedom with Civil Rights legislation, or financial stability during the rapid urbanization of America, the Negro not once benefitted from any of these gestures of false charity. This tragedy remains a controversial one within contemporary discussion. Whereas the Left and the Establishment view Negroes above reproach, whilst providing them with little initiative or self-esteem and also allowing the constant inflow of drugs into poor Negro and White communities, the Right, excluding Republicans, views the African demographic with utter disdain. Republicans are simply too blitheringly incompetent to know what to do other than betray their own voter base.

This leaves the Negro in a difficult state of affairs. Negroes are simply too naïve and lacking in foresight to improve upon their situation without outside guidance, hence the reasoning for Jim Crow and antebellum practices of paternalism. The pandering they receive is nothing more than mind control, manufactured division, empty promises, and political grift, none of which will ever benefit Negroes in the long term. As it stands, the American Negro, with a long and troubling history, cannot possibly hope to improve his stance under the current regime, despite the latter’s supposed positions of generosity. As painful as it is to say from an objective standpoint, the demographic is doomed to abject poverty and unfulfilled promises, constantly living in the shadow of those whom they are brainwashed to hate.