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Finding the expression of unqualified criticism cited in the current section on James Oakes' criticism of Ira Berlin's Many Thousands Gone rather surprising, I ventured to read the review and was less surprised to find little trace of the sentiment purported here in the actual document. Oakes' review is largely positive and, while critical of Berlin's treatment of many subjects, especially paternalism, it in no way makes the criticism that Joelrosenblum ascribes to it regarding slavery and capitalism. The relevant passage, which actually quite clearly states the contradiction between slavery and free market capitalism, is copied below:
With the Age of Democratic Revolution the slaveholders were finally trapped within their own contradictions. They had committed themselves to bourgeois religion and bourgeois ideology. They had hitched their fortunes to global capitalism. They defended themselves through the means and mechanisms of the liberal state. Then-as Berlin so effectively demonstrates-the slaves themselves started talking about universal rights and the equality of all men in the sight of God. They often aspired to wage labor, which they called "freedom." They sued in courts and petitioned in legislatures. And where, at that point, could the slaveholders go? Most turned toward a newer, harder racism, as Berlin shows. For some, a great reaction was in the offing. In either case, the slaveholders were fleeing the implications of their own revolutionary heritage, a heritage whose origins Many Thousands Gone cannot adequately explain.
Since this review clearly makes a point that is, if anything, in opposition to the one made by Joelrosenblum, and since I think the intent of placing this single book review in such a position of prominence in the article was to continue advancing the views of the user without proper citation, I am deleting this entire section. This article is not the place to make statements of original research, a point already made quite clearly by Quatloo below. If Joelrosenblum or other users would like to carry on this debate, a peer-reviewed journal is the appropriate forum. For the purposes of this article, any mention of controversy should be succinct, fully and properly referenced, and should make reference to the well-developed views of a representative set of many historians in the field, not simply a single, seven-page book review cherry-picked because of an ostensible relationship to the point that a Wikipedia user had in mind before reading it in the first place. StephenECox ( talk) 15:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm again deleting this entire (above named) section of the article, for reasons I will explain in the following section of the talk page. I'm also deleting the so-called "controversial book passages" section from the talk pages (which I had originally placed here after deleting it from the article) because of libel issues. Those who are concerned with this deletion can obviously find the original content on the history page. What follows below in this talk page section is my initial comment (12-31-06) on why I removed the now-not-visible passage interspersed with joelrosenblum's reply (1-4-07) as edited by joelrosenblum when he replied. In "Controversial Book Passages II" below, I try to explain why I again took this section off of the article page and this time even the talk page.-- Bigtimepeace 11:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
(first paragraph and those that follow on the left margin from bigtimepeace and indented paragaphs from joel rosenblum)
I removed this before and am removing it again for several reasons. A couple of explanatory sentences were added to the beginning of this new version of the section but to me it only improves the case for removing it. With no disrespect to the Germantown Friends School (I happen to know it's an excellent school) I'm not sure that a class from that school is the best source for this article on Mr. Berlin. More to the point, the so-called "inconsistencies" don't really seem so inconsistent to me. I am not at all a partisan of Professor Berlin, but I am quite certain he does not have a pro-slavery bias and I have never heard anyone so accuse him other than a couple of people on this wikipedia page.
Scholarship on the history of slavery has become extremely nuanced in the last few decades, and it has become widely accepted that slaves had greater or lesser degrees of freedom at different times and in different places, while at all times of course remaining ultimately unfree.
The fact that African Americans in bondage were able to "establish families" does not contradict the fact that slave owners emancipated parents while continuing to keep their children in slavery. I assume the author(s) of the above section finds this to be a contradiction, but just to say that African Americans were (sometimes) able to establish families even under slavery does not excuse slavery or suggest that white owners did not break up families. They did (often), and Berlin would not and did not say otherwise. I don't see what the inconsistency or contradiction is here.
The longer paragraph about slavery being "negotiated" which the students of Germantown Friends also had a problem with is likewise not pro-slavery. "Negotiation" here as Berlin is using it is not the same thing as negotiation between equals (such as in a business deal), but rather is a concept that many historians have employed to give slaves "agency"--i.e. to make them historical actors. If the master gave an inch, the slave took a mile--there was a constant tug of war between masters and slaves and the latter were able to exert a bit more power than what we might expect.
This fact is testament to African Americans' struggle against the evil institution. Likewise Berlin's mention of a concession of the "legitimacy" of the opponent by either side (master and slave) is of course not Berlin saying slavery itself was legitimate, and reading the passage that way is odd. The fact is any number of slaves did often concede the legitimacy of certain aspects of the slave system--this is part of the horror of it.
Likewise at times slaves were able to legitimate some of their own practices in the eyes of the master, though at other times they were not. All of this is fairly standard in the historical literature as anyone who has read multiple books about the topic would know, and it's a product of the post-1960s turn among historians of slavery that emphasizes slave resistance. Thus the passage is not pro-slavery, it is saying essentially that slavery was complex and not static, that slaves and masters both shaped the institution, albeit with the latter having much more power.
The last quotation (all in boldface in the article) obviously refers to the earlier period of slavery in the U.S. A large number of historians agree with Berlin that slaves in the early colonial period had a bit more freedom than they later would. Saying this does not make one "pro-slavery," but rather serves to acknowledge changes in slavery over time. It may sound odd to those who view history as one solid line of progress, but in fact being a slave in Virginia in 1640 was probably on average better than being a slave in Mississippi in 1850, at least in terms of the amount of personal freedom allowed. Again, I see no inconsistency or pro-slavery bias here, but rather a fairly standard argument that many historians would agree with.
For book passages (or anything else) to be "controversial" it takes much more than one or two wikipedia editors saying they are--there needs to be evidence of a controversy and I don't see that in the passage I deleted.
Berlin is a widely respected scholar on this history of slavery in the U.S.
Of course many have criticized him (and I personally find any number of authors more insightful than he is) but I've never heard him criticized for having a "pro-slavery bias" and in fact I think most who know his work would find that notion laughable. Thus I'm deleting this section, and I would ask that other editors who want to reinstate it would think carefully before doing so.
If you put it back, please provide a better explanation of how Berlin has a "pro-slavery bias" before tarring him with that nasty epithet on a widely-read web site, please explain what precisely is "inconsistent" in the passages you cite rather than just putting some things in boldface, and please make reference to some publication or individual who has called Berlin "inconsistent" or "pro-slavery" other than students at a high school. Their opinion is not sufficient to create a controversy on this matter as far as I'm concerned.-- Bigtimepeace 23:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I have posted a more detailed reply to the above at User talk:Joelrosenblum which explains some reasons for my deletion of these passages other than what I construe to be wikipedia protocol. Beyond the "you-know-little-or-nothing-about-slavery-in-the-U.S-or-how-historians-write-about-it" arguments that I have carefully (?) constructed at the above User talk page, I think the "Controversial Book Passages" section violates aspects of the rules described at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Namely, poorly sourced material which risks charges of Libel (joel rosenblum read the libel article carefully) should be promptly removed. Apparently some-Jimmy-Wales-guy has said:
Basically previous versions of this article said Ira Berlin has "pro-slavery biases" and I have removed such accusations because I think they are utterly wrong and unsourced and risk legal challenge if Berlin, a living figure, ever gave a damn what was written here.-- Bigtimepeace 11:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
"Bigtimepeace" writes, on my talk page:
Hi Joel, I think it's better to conduct our debate on Ira Berlin on our own talk pages as we try to come to some consensus rather than just cluttering up the Ira Berlin talk page. However if you want to move what I write here over there that's fine, although it's really just an attempt to dialogue with you personally before I make any other edits. Since I'm trying to engage with you directly I see no reason to put it on the other talk page.
Let me just mention some things about myself because I think you are forming some incorrect impressions about me. First of all I am not secretly Ira Berlin and furthermore I do not know him in the slightest, nor do I admire him. The professor who has most influenced me regarding slavery has written scathing reviews of Berlin (though not for the same reasons that you do). Hence please do not think that I removed your work because I am a Berlin partisan. I'm not.
I study American history in graduate school, and although it's not my primary area of focus, I have spent a great deal of time on the history of slavery. I say this not to invoke expertise (I'm not an expert and wikipedians don't do that anyway) but just to let you know where I'm coming from. Last year when I taught pre-1865 U.S. history to college undergradautes the primary topic we discussed was slavery and its many ramifications for American society. I can assure that I strove at all times to drill home the horror of slavery rather than to minimize it. We spent a lot more time talking about slavery than we did "great white men" as they are called. I can't prove that to you but I hope you'll take me at my word.
I've taken classes with leftist "race studies" (unsure what that means) professors--even African Americans. I myself am a deeply committed leftist and have been for years, which is not to say that I don't like Bush (though I obviously don't) but rather to say that I am opposed to capitalism and believe that we live in a patriarchal world with severe, systemic inequities of class and race. This obviously applies to the U.S., a country that is far, far away from escaping its white supremacist roots. I don't know whether or not the U.S. is one of the least racist societies, I only know that our society is still deeply racist and white dominated. An enormous part of my political stance is to be an anti-racist which, given that I am white, often takes form in efforts I make to convince other whites that race is an enormous issue in our society and that even though they might say "I'm not racist" they actually are (in the 60s--before my time--the Black Panthers and others said whites should join the struggle by working to decrease racism among whites, and I think this is still true). Of course none of this matters on Wikipedia, but I say it in the hopes that in the future you won't imply that I am going soft on slavery or that I think about things the way Strom Thurmond does (or did--may he not rest in peace).
I truly admire your passion and would be right there with you exposing covert racism and pro-slavery talk in history books if and when it was really happening, but in Berlin's case I'm afraid it is not. To be blunt, I think you need to read more about these issues before you are so confident in your judgments. I can't respond to all of your points, but let me mention a few things. You say "to highlight the changing levels of oppression in slavery is to de-emphasize the fact that at every point in history slavery has been an inhuman system of domination enforced by violence." This goes to the heart of it, and I think you are quite wrong here. What historians of slavery generally do is this. They say, "at every point in history slavery has been an inhuman system of domination enforced by violence." Then they detail differences which are quite important. For example, if you were a slave in the rice fields of Carolina you were much more likely to die of disease or overwork than you were in the tobacco fields of Virginia. However in Carolina you were able to associate with more slaves (and thus better preserve African traditions) and had a bit more free time than you would in Virginia where tobacco required constant attention. Do you find that a relevant fact about the history of slavery? I do, and so does most everyone who studies the subject seriously. To discuss how the oppression of the slave system functioned at different places and at different times does not de-emphasize the fact that slavery was inhumane and oppressive. Your suggestion, that if you talk about temporal or geographic changes you essentially play-down slavery, is illogical and kinda strange.
You also said (first quoting Berlin): "Although denied the right to marry, they made families; denied the right to an independent religious life, they established churches; denied the right to hold property, they owned many things. "How is this conception of a "family" different from a couple of monkeys allowed to breed in a cage to make more monkeys to be experimented on? They have no right to parent their children at the moment the master decides to sell them or their children, firstly, and secondly, what kind of monster would "emancipate parents while continuing to keep their children in slavery"?" Again, a very strange reading of this passage. Berlin's point is obviously that in spite of everything slaves were prevented from doing, as individuals they were at times able to go against--though never defeat--the system of slavery. And you should think twice about what you wrote. Is your argument that a man and woman who were African American and enslaved and who had a daughter together were not a family, that they did not try their damndest to be a family in spite of the constant threat of being separated or killed? I find what you said more offensive that what Berlin wrote by a long shot. You're correct that family life under slavery is unbelievably stunted and limited, that it is an awful, awful way to live, but you essentially say that blacks did not have families under slavery while comparing them to monkeys (which shows you did not think so well about what you wrote). There are hundreds of books written about slave family life. Read one before you talk about the topic anymore.
Also you did not object to Berlin's mention of African Americans creating churches and owning property because of course they did those things. I hope that you are able to see that those facts and the fact that slavery was the most abominable institution ever created (which it was and is) are not mutually exclusive.
You said: "The fact that slaves died daily and fought rebellions to kill their masters and get out of slavery even though they generally had no chance in succeeding tells me more about the history of slavery than Berlin's entire book..." Well, actually it hasn't, because you don't seemt to know much about the history of slavery and what you said is wrong. There were very few slave rebellions in America (more in places like Brazil, Cuba, and of course Haiti).
Masters were certainly murdered (often by "house" slaves, the kind you would call Uncle Tom) though this was not a frequent occurence.
Slaves did run away, steal shit,
break tools, work slowly or poorly, refuse to work, hit their overseers or get them fired, make children and raise them as best they could given the circumstances, create new African-American subcultures, etc. etc. Most of the time they did not revolt.
Why? Because you got killed. No slave revolt in the U.S. was ever successful, and slaves knew this.
During the Civil War Southern slaves ran away in huge numbers and thus greatly contributed to the Union victory (as well as freeing themselves). However this was the exception.
You might be bored by hearing about how slaves negotiatied for less work hours or the right to build a church (Christianity, incidentally, was not imposed on African Americans--the earliest mass conversions were not until the mid 1700s and they were generally voluntary--many masters were not happy about it)
but those acts of resistance had a lot more to do with how African Americans fought against slavery and lived their daily lives than whatever glorified notion of revolt you have. Had you been a slave in 1820, you likewise might have chosen to try to raise your children in whatever limited way you could rather than running out to revolt and dying. That wouldn't have made you an Uncle Tom.
I could say more about your points in your reply (I basically disagree with all of them incidentally) but won't. Just bear in mind a couple of things in a general sense. You are making a very serious accusation against a living public figure. You are saying a historian of slavery is biased in favor of slavery on the web site people are most likely to go to look up information on this person. At least one person with at least some knowledge of the topic (me) is telling you this is way, way off base and that you kinda don't know what you are talking about. Also I think a wikipedia admin would say you can't say these kind of things about someone who is alive without backing it up. You're bordering on slander if what you say about Berlin is wrong (I'm not saying that as some kind of threat, it's just true).
You might also think about what makes something controversial as I said in my original note on the talk page. Is something "controversial" just because one or two people say it is? You make reference to "leftist race studies teachers, especially Black ones" who apparently would find Berlin controversial but you don't produce any who agree with you.
You say "Wikipedians can decide for themselves" but wikipedia is not a web site to throw out all types of nonsense and see what sticks, or a blog with a comments section--it's an encyclopedia. Do you really feel like you know enough about Ira Berlin and the history of American slavery to be confident that your personal criticisms of him belong on his encyclopedia entry?
If you can't find other historians who say Berlin is pro-slavery, can you admit to the possibility that you are wrong, and would you admit at the least that your remarks probably don't belong on this web site since you cannot back them up?
Do you believe that Berlin would have been elected head of the Organization of American Historians if he was pro-slavery?
Maybe you do, but then you don't know much about the state of the field of U.S. history right now. You can reply to me on my talk page, or better yet e-mail. If you do, please don't accuse me of being conservative or racist or Ira Berlin's lover or the man himself. I'm going to wait awhile for your reply, but eventually I'm almost certainly going to take down what you have put up on Berlin because I don't think it bears inclusion in the slightest. Actually the whole entry sucks (you're right that it's just a list of his achievements) and should be revamped, but for now I'm focused on convincing you that your stuff should not be on there. I do this in the spirit of trying to resolve a dispute and not make it personal, and of trying to make this a better wikipedia entry. Peace.--Bigtimepeace 06:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Joelrosenblum and I obviously disagree about this content. I do not feel that he has established any "controversy" and merely has a bone to pick with Mr. Berlin. He cannot cite anyone other than the Germantown Friends School who feels the way he does. He is not well informed on the history of slavery or on how historians write about it. He believes that the OAH is a racist organization because Ira Berlin was president once and he "knows" Berlin is pro-slavery so therefore the whole Organization of American Historians is racist (and presumably pro-slavery). The fact that he actually believes this absurd idea should be enough to show his obvious bias and lack of knowledge on these topics. I'm excited for joelrosenblum to edit the OAH entry to explain to us all that the organization is actually not just racist, but pro-slavery! That will be fun.
My concern is not to suppress working-class people from speaking truth to power as joelrosenblum suggests (a suggestion that is quite beyond the pale). My concern is that making reference to pro-slavery biases held by Mr. Berlin without providing evidence of that could constitute libel of a living person. I don't want to war with joelrosenblum about this anymore because he resorts to personal attacks and seems to assume that anyone who disagrees with him is an evil racist. I am instead posting this entry on the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard where hopefully someone can weigh in and see if my concerns are justified.
To Joel, your most recent edits are sloppy. For example you spelled "have" wrong (and also phraseology) and put "apparent pro-slavery biases held by Mr. Berlin" in quotations. Who are you quoting? Me? Yourself? Why the quotes? (Incidentally, as I said before, I posted on your talk page because this is a standard way to discuss things on wikipedia. I was not trying to keep my comments out of view (I invited you to post them on this talk page which you did, including my e-mail address I had given you if you wanted to contact me--try not to do that again) but was just hoping we could discuss the issue since we were the only two people writing about it. It's hardly a "new take" to talk about things on user talk pages, but you apparently construed that to be further evidence of my nefarious intentions.)
I'm leaving this passage in until someone else can take a look at it and hopefully remove it. I'm all for criticism of living figures, but not defamatory nonsense which is what, in my opinion, has been repeatedly posted here.-- Bigtimepeace 21:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
The entire section is original research. Regardless of the merits of the argument is, it does not belong here. See Wikipedia:No original research. Quatloo 07:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
"Bigtimepeace" writes:
Hi Joel--As I noted on the other talk page I listed the Ira Berlin article on the Biographies of Living Persons Noticeboard so someone else can take a look at it since our discussion is not getting anywhere. Let's wait and see what another party says, okay? I just wanted to mention a few things to you, and I really hope we can keep the tone more civil. Some of these points don't even relate to the article but just to things you or I wrote on the talk page. They relate to a couple of factual matters and to ways in which I feel you have mischaracterized what I wrote.
1) The fact that a professor I know criticized Berlin's work is not libel and I assume you know this. Libel is when you write something defaming about a person that is not true. Okay?
2) I do make clear that "great white men" ran the slave system when I teach U.S. history. I assume you were sarcastically saying I did not.
3) I am not defending Ira Berlin's book, I am saying what you are saying about his book and his point of view is wrong. Because I disagree with you does not mean that I like Ira Berlin or his work. Incidentally, to suggest as you do that anyone who defends a book you happen to think is racist are themselves racist shows an intolerance for other points of view on your part. Your idea seems to be that if someone disagrees with you they are racist oppressors. That kind of moral certitude is really annoying and frightening.
4) When I made reference to slaves "stealing shit" it was not a negative moral judgment as you assumed.
All I said was that stealing was a form of resistance to slavery which it was. Interestingly, slaves often referred to it as "taking", suggesting they felt entitled to "steal" which sounds about right to me. I fully agree with your assertion that "If they took anything they had a right to do so." I did not say otherwise--you're just reading into my comment until you see what you want to see. I am not painting African Americans under slavery as criminals and I agree with you that this portrayal persists today as you suggest which is racist and wrong. Please quit trying to turn everything I write into some form of covert racism. You should assume good faith as wikipedia says rather than assuming I'm a secret racist and trying to hide that from you somehow.
5) I said there were very few slave revolts in the U.S. relative to other places. Believe it or not, most historians agree with this.
I am well aware of Herbert Aptheker's book and it was and is important, but it was not the last word on slave revolts. They happened in the U.S.--I did not say they didn't--and Aptheker changed how we thought about them (convincing many to view them as positive rather than negative which is a perspective I fully agree with) but they just were not that frequent. Here's a passage from a very recent book (2006) by David Brion Davis (one of the foremost scholars of the history of slavery) called Inhuman Bondage which is considered an excellent general study of slavery in the Americas. Davis writes: At the outset we need to note the striking contrast between North America and the many other slave societies to the south with respect to the frequency and size of slave revolts as well as slave escapes to fairly durable maroon communities. Although the population of slaves in the United States eventually dwarfed the numbers in Brazil and the Caribbean, there were no significant revolts in the colonial Chesapeake from 1619 to 1775 or in the nation as a whole from 1831 to 1865. In Brazil, by contrast, slave revolts were more common, and in the 1600s thousands of fugitives found refuge for nearly a century in the maroon community of Palmares...Major slave insurrections continued to erupt in British Jamaica from the 1670s to 1831... (Inhuman Bondage, 207). My point in quoting this passage is that what I was saying about fewer revolts in the U.S. relative to other slave societies is not conjecture--it's generally agreed upon. This does not mean that slaves were happy in the U.S. or that slavery here was good. Slaves were not happy here and slavery here was awful--there just were not as many revolts. It may seem odd, but it's true.
6) You're correct that slaves were generally prevented from practicing African traditions including religion. However, in the U.S. at least, forced conversion to Christianity was not the norm as you assume (incidentally, I'm not a Christian and am not defending the religion so don't jump to that conclusion as you have to so many others). Not until the Great Awakening (i.e. the mid 1700s) did a significant number of slaves convert to Christianity. A larger number converted in the early 1800s. More often than not white masters were not happy about it, because they felt stories like those in the book of Exodus would give slaves ideas about getting out of slavery. Later slaveowners would try to instill in slaves passages from the Bible that were pro-slavery (there were a good number) but African Americans of course generally rejected these aspects and often found liberatory messages in the Bible and the religion generally. Afro-American Christianity is unique though, as it obviously contains aspects of African religious traditions. It's an interesting topic that you should look into rather than assuming (and loudly proclaiming) that Christianity was forced upon slaves and they hated it. Assuming that you are white, which I'm guessing is true, I'd be interested to watch you go into an African American Baptist church someday and try saying that.
7) You say to me: "Can you understand that every conclusion you make about the valor of slaves is based on your own feelings that slaves were content with what they had?" Let me state this categorically and please believe me here. I could not disagree more with the idea "that slaves were content with what they had" and as such the idea does not represent my own feelings. Okay? I believe European enslavement of Africans is the greatest moral crime in the history of humanity. Slavery is always awful, but this was the worst kind, and in no way were African Americans or anyone else whoever lived under slavery content. Again, you are forcing a viewpoint on me that I do not hold. Just because I disagree with your characterization of Berlin does not mean I am an apologist for slavery. I think you need to work on demonizing those who disagree with you a bit less. It's not a good way to deal with issues on wikipedia or in life.
8) Your contention that I am speaking down to working people is outlandish. I work, I have worked since I was 15. I don't know what in the name of God you are talking about.
I believe that what you have written on Ira Berlin is a violation of wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons (have you read that yet?). Wikipedia takes lible very seriously and you are writing on wikipedia so you should take it seriously as well--otherwise you should start a blog and put all of this stuff there. I have a problem with what you (not working people--you don't represent them even if you are a worker) wrote because I think it is inaccurate and defamatory. It has nothing to do with working people or speaking truth to power. It has nothing to do with being a leftist. Is your argument that leftist's should not care about libel, that leftists should not be angry when, for example, someone lies about Noam Chomsky and says he is a Holocaust denier as people sometimes do? In the kind of non-capitalist society I hope we create someday, I would think slandering people will still be a no no. It's ridiculous to even be talking about this subject in these terms, but then again it's ridiculous for you to accuse me of oppressing the working class when I merely suggest that an article is not being written according to wikipedia guidelines. Please try to tone down your rhetoric.--Bigtimepeace 01:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The Bio section--i.e. the whole article--needs more work. The last anonymous deletion from 141.151.16.137 was helpful in terms of describing Berlin's most important book but not sounding like a commercial for the man pulled from his university bio page (which the page previously has been). This page should probably be in line with those of other Organization of American Historians presidents.
-- Bigtimepeace 11:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Ira Berlin/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Hardly any information. Needs a picture. When there is enough information, divide the article into sections.--( Wikipedian1234 ( talk) 21:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)) |
Last edited at 21:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 19:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
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Finding the expression of unqualified criticism cited in the current section on James Oakes' criticism of Ira Berlin's Many Thousands Gone rather surprising, I ventured to read the review and was less surprised to find little trace of the sentiment purported here in the actual document. Oakes' review is largely positive and, while critical of Berlin's treatment of many subjects, especially paternalism, it in no way makes the criticism that Joelrosenblum ascribes to it regarding slavery and capitalism. The relevant passage, which actually quite clearly states the contradiction between slavery and free market capitalism, is copied below:
With the Age of Democratic Revolution the slaveholders were finally trapped within their own contradictions. They had committed themselves to bourgeois religion and bourgeois ideology. They had hitched their fortunes to global capitalism. They defended themselves through the means and mechanisms of the liberal state. Then-as Berlin so effectively demonstrates-the slaves themselves started talking about universal rights and the equality of all men in the sight of God. They often aspired to wage labor, which they called "freedom." They sued in courts and petitioned in legislatures. And where, at that point, could the slaveholders go? Most turned toward a newer, harder racism, as Berlin shows. For some, a great reaction was in the offing. In either case, the slaveholders were fleeing the implications of their own revolutionary heritage, a heritage whose origins Many Thousands Gone cannot adequately explain.
Since this review clearly makes a point that is, if anything, in opposition to the one made by Joelrosenblum, and since I think the intent of placing this single book review in such a position of prominence in the article was to continue advancing the views of the user without proper citation, I am deleting this entire section. This article is not the place to make statements of original research, a point already made quite clearly by Quatloo below. If Joelrosenblum or other users would like to carry on this debate, a peer-reviewed journal is the appropriate forum. For the purposes of this article, any mention of controversy should be succinct, fully and properly referenced, and should make reference to the well-developed views of a representative set of many historians in the field, not simply a single, seven-page book review cherry-picked because of an ostensible relationship to the point that a Wikipedia user had in mind before reading it in the first place. StephenECox ( talk) 15:42, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm again deleting this entire (above named) section of the article, for reasons I will explain in the following section of the talk page. I'm also deleting the so-called "controversial book passages" section from the talk pages (which I had originally placed here after deleting it from the article) because of libel issues. Those who are concerned with this deletion can obviously find the original content on the history page. What follows below in this talk page section is my initial comment (12-31-06) on why I removed the now-not-visible passage interspersed with joelrosenblum's reply (1-4-07) as edited by joelrosenblum when he replied. In "Controversial Book Passages II" below, I try to explain why I again took this section off of the article page and this time even the talk page.-- Bigtimepeace 11:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
(first paragraph and those that follow on the left margin from bigtimepeace and indented paragaphs from joel rosenblum)
I removed this before and am removing it again for several reasons. A couple of explanatory sentences were added to the beginning of this new version of the section but to me it only improves the case for removing it. With no disrespect to the Germantown Friends School (I happen to know it's an excellent school) I'm not sure that a class from that school is the best source for this article on Mr. Berlin. More to the point, the so-called "inconsistencies" don't really seem so inconsistent to me. I am not at all a partisan of Professor Berlin, but I am quite certain he does not have a pro-slavery bias and I have never heard anyone so accuse him other than a couple of people on this wikipedia page.
Scholarship on the history of slavery has become extremely nuanced in the last few decades, and it has become widely accepted that slaves had greater or lesser degrees of freedom at different times and in different places, while at all times of course remaining ultimately unfree.
The fact that African Americans in bondage were able to "establish families" does not contradict the fact that slave owners emancipated parents while continuing to keep their children in slavery. I assume the author(s) of the above section finds this to be a contradiction, but just to say that African Americans were (sometimes) able to establish families even under slavery does not excuse slavery or suggest that white owners did not break up families. They did (often), and Berlin would not and did not say otherwise. I don't see what the inconsistency or contradiction is here.
The longer paragraph about slavery being "negotiated" which the students of Germantown Friends also had a problem with is likewise not pro-slavery. "Negotiation" here as Berlin is using it is not the same thing as negotiation between equals (such as in a business deal), but rather is a concept that many historians have employed to give slaves "agency"--i.e. to make them historical actors. If the master gave an inch, the slave took a mile--there was a constant tug of war between masters and slaves and the latter were able to exert a bit more power than what we might expect.
This fact is testament to African Americans' struggle against the evil institution. Likewise Berlin's mention of a concession of the "legitimacy" of the opponent by either side (master and slave) is of course not Berlin saying slavery itself was legitimate, and reading the passage that way is odd. The fact is any number of slaves did often concede the legitimacy of certain aspects of the slave system--this is part of the horror of it.
Likewise at times slaves were able to legitimate some of their own practices in the eyes of the master, though at other times they were not. All of this is fairly standard in the historical literature as anyone who has read multiple books about the topic would know, and it's a product of the post-1960s turn among historians of slavery that emphasizes slave resistance. Thus the passage is not pro-slavery, it is saying essentially that slavery was complex and not static, that slaves and masters both shaped the institution, albeit with the latter having much more power.
The last quotation (all in boldface in the article) obviously refers to the earlier period of slavery in the U.S. A large number of historians agree with Berlin that slaves in the early colonial period had a bit more freedom than they later would. Saying this does not make one "pro-slavery," but rather serves to acknowledge changes in slavery over time. It may sound odd to those who view history as one solid line of progress, but in fact being a slave in Virginia in 1640 was probably on average better than being a slave in Mississippi in 1850, at least in terms of the amount of personal freedom allowed. Again, I see no inconsistency or pro-slavery bias here, but rather a fairly standard argument that many historians would agree with.
For book passages (or anything else) to be "controversial" it takes much more than one or two wikipedia editors saying they are--there needs to be evidence of a controversy and I don't see that in the passage I deleted.
Berlin is a widely respected scholar on this history of slavery in the U.S.
Of course many have criticized him (and I personally find any number of authors more insightful than he is) but I've never heard him criticized for having a "pro-slavery bias" and in fact I think most who know his work would find that notion laughable. Thus I'm deleting this section, and I would ask that other editors who want to reinstate it would think carefully before doing so.
If you put it back, please provide a better explanation of how Berlin has a "pro-slavery bias" before tarring him with that nasty epithet on a widely-read web site, please explain what precisely is "inconsistent" in the passages you cite rather than just putting some things in boldface, and please make reference to some publication or individual who has called Berlin "inconsistent" or "pro-slavery" other than students at a high school. Their opinion is not sufficient to create a controversy on this matter as far as I'm concerned.-- Bigtimepeace 23:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I have posted a more detailed reply to the above at User talk:Joelrosenblum which explains some reasons for my deletion of these passages other than what I construe to be wikipedia protocol. Beyond the "you-know-little-or-nothing-about-slavery-in-the-U.S-or-how-historians-write-about-it" arguments that I have carefully (?) constructed at the above User talk page, I think the "Controversial Book Passages" section violates aspects of the rules described at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Namely, poorly sourced material which risks charges of Libel (joel rosenblum read the libel article carefully) should be promptly removed. Apparently some-Jimmy-Wales-guy has said:
Basically previous versions of this article said Ira Berlin has "pro-slavery biases" and I have removed such accusations because I think they are utterly wrong and unsourced and risk legal challenge if Berlin, a living figure, ever gave a damn what was written here.-- Bigtimepeace 11:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
"Bigtimepeace" writes, on my talk page:
Hi Joel, I think it's better to conduct our debate on Ira Berlin on our own talk pages as we try to come to some consensus rather than just cluttering up the Ira Berlin talk page. However if you want to move what I write here over there that's fine, although it's really just an attempt to dialogue with you personally before I make any other edits. Since I'm trying to engage with you directly I see no reason to put it on the other talk page.
Let me just mention some things about myself because I think you are forming some incorrect impressions about me. First of all I am not secretly Ira Berlin and furthermore I do not know him in the slightest, nor do I admire him. The professor who has most influenced me regarding slavery has written scathing reviews of Berlin (though not for the same reasons that you do). Hence please do not think that I removed your work because I am a Berlin partisan. I'm not.
I study American history in graduate school, and although it's not my primary area of focus, I have spent a great deal of time on the history of slavery. I say this not to invoke expertise (I'm not an expert and wikipedians don't do that anyway) but just to let you know where I'm coming from. Last year when I taught pre-1865 U.S. history to college undergradautes the primary topic we discussed was slavery and its many ramifications for American society. I can assure that I strove at all times to drill home the horror of slavery rather than to minimize it. We spent a lot more time talking about slavery than we did "great white men" as they are called. I can't prove that to you but I hope you'll take me at my word.
I've taken classes with leftist "race studies" (unsure what that means) professors--even African Americans. I myself am a deeply committed leftist and have been for years, which is not to say that I don't like Bush (though I obviously don't) but rather to say that I am opposed to capitalism and believe that we live in a patriarchal world with severe, systemic inequities of class and race. This obviously applies to the U.S., a country that is far, far away from escaping its white supremacist roots. I don't know whether or not the U.S. is one of the least racist societies, I only know that our society is still deeply racist and white dominated. An enormous part of my political stance is to be an anti-racist which, given that I am white, often takes form in efforts I make to convince other whites that race is an enormous issue in our society and that even though they might say "I'm not racist" they actually are (in the 60s--before my time--the Black Panthers and others said whites should join the struggle by working to decrease racism among whites, and I think this is still true). Of course none of this matters on Wikipedia, but I say it in the hopes that in the future you won't imply that I am going soft on slavery or that I think about things the way Strom Thurmond does (or did--may he not rest in peace).
I truly admire your passion and would be right there with you exposing covert racism and pro-slavery talk in history books if and when it was really happening, but in Berlin's case I'm afraid it is not. To be blunt, I think you need to read more about these issues before you are so confident in your judgments. I can't respond to all of your points, but let me mention a few things. You say "to highlight the changing levels of oppression in slavery is to de-emphasize the fact that at every point in history slavery has been an inhuman system of domination enforced by violence." This goes to the heart of it, and I think you are quite wrong here. What historians of slavery generally do is this. They say, "at every point in history slavery has been an inhuman system of domination enforced by violence." Then they detail differences which are quite important. For example, if you were a slave in the rice fields of Carolina you were much more likely to die of disease or overwork than you were in the tobacco fields of Virginia. However in Carolina you were able to associate with more slaves (and thus better preserve African traditions) and had a bit more free time than you would in Virginia where tobacco required constant attention. Do you find that a relevant fact about the history of slavery? I do, and so does most everyone who studies the subject seriously. To discuss how the oppression of the slave system functioned at different places and at different times does not de-emphasize the fact that slavery was inhumane and oppressive. Your suggestion, that if you talk about temporal or geographic changes you essentially play-down slavery, is illogical and kinda strange.
You also said (first quoting Berlin): "Although denied the right to marry, they made families; denied the right to an independent religious life, they established churches; denied the right to hold property, they owned many things. "How is this conception of a "family" different from a couple of monkeys allowed to breed in a cage to make more monkeys to be experimented on? They have no right to parent their children at the moment the master decides to sell them or their children, firstly, and secondly, what kind of monster would "emancipate parents while continuing to keep their children in slavery"?" Again, a very strange reading of this passage. Berlin's point is obviously that in spite of everything slaves were prevented from doing, as individuals they were at times able to go against--though never defeat--the system of slavery. And you should think twice about what you wrote. Is your argument that a man and woman who were African American and enslaved and who had a daughter together were not a family, that they did not try their damndest to be a family in spite of the constant threat of being separated or killed? I find what you said more offensive that what Berlin wrote by a long shot. You're correct that family life under slavery is unbelievably stunted and limited, that it is an awful, awful way to live, but you essentially say that blacks did not have families under slavery while comparing them to monkeys (which shows you did not think so well about what you wrote). There are hundreds of books written about slave family life. Read one before you talk about the topic anymore.
Also you did not object to Berlin's mention of African Americans creating churches and owning property because of course they did those things. I hope that you are able to see that those facts and the fact that slavery was the most abominable institution ever created (which it was and is) are not mutually exclusive.
You said: "The fact that slaves died daily and fought rebellions to kill their masters and get out of slavery even though they generally had no chance in succeeding tells me more about the history of slavery than Berlin's entire book..." Well, actually it hasn't, because you don't seemt to know much about the history of slavery and what you said is wrong. There were very few slave rebellions in America (more in places like Brazil, Cuba, and of course Haiti).
Masters were certainly murdered (often by "house" slaves, the kind you would call Uncle Tom) though this was not a frequent occurence.
Slaves did run away, steal shit,
break tools, work slowly or poorly, refuse to work, hit their overseers or get them fired, make children and raise them as best they could given the circumstances, create new African-American subcultures, etc. etc. Most of the time they did not revolt.
Why? Because you got killed. No slave revolt in the U.S. was ever successful, and slaves knew this.
During the Civil War Southern slaves ran away in huge numbers and thus greatly contributed to the Union victory (as well as freeing themselves). However this was the exception.
You might be bored by hearing about how slaves negotiatied for less work hours or the right to build a church (Christianity, incidentally, was not imposed on African Americans--the earliest mass conversions were not until the mid 1700s and they were generally voluntary--many masters were not happy about it)
but those acts of resistance had a lot more to do with how African Americans fought against slavery and lived their daily lives than whatever glorified notion of revolt you have. Had you been a slave in 1820, you likewise might have chosen to try to raise your children in whatever limited way you could rather than running out to revolt and dying. That wouldn't have made you an Uncle Tom.
I could say more about your points in your reply (I basically disagree with all of them incidentally) but won't. Just bear in mind a couple of things in a general sense. You are making a very serious accusation against a living public figure. You are saying a historian of slavery is biased in favor of slavery on the web site people are most likely to go to look up information on this person. At least one person with at least some knowledge of the topic (me) is telling you this is way, way off base and that you kinda don't know what you are talking about. Also I think a wikipedia admin would say you can't say these kind of things about someone who is alive without backing it up. You're bordering on slander if what you say about Berlin is wrong (I'm not saying that as some kind of threat, it's just true).
You might also think about what makes something controversial as I said in my original note on the talk page. Is something "controversial" just because one or two people say it is? You make reference to "leftist race studies teachers, especially Black ones" who apparently would find Berlin controversial but you don't produce any who agree with you.
You say "Wikipedians can decide for themselves" but wikipedia is not a web site to throw out all types of nonsense and see what sticks, or a blog with a comments section--it's an encyclopedia. Do you really feel like you know enough about Ira Berlin and the history of American slavery to be confident that your personal criticisms of him belong on his encyclopedia entry?
If you can't find other historians who say Berlin is pro-slavery, can you admit to the possibility that you are wrong, and would you admit at the least that your remarks probably don't belong on this web site since you cannot back them up?
Do you believe that Berlin would have been elected head of the Organization of American Historians if he was pro-slavery?
Maybe you do, but then you don't know much about the state of the field of U.S. history right now. You can reply to me on my talk page, or better yet e-mail. If you do, please don't accuse me of being conservative or racist or Ira Berlin's lover or the man himself. I'm going to wait awhile for your reply, but eventually I'm almost certainly going to take down what you have put up on Berlin because I don't think it bears inclusion in the slightest. Actually the whole entry sucks (you're right that it's just a list of his achievements) and should be revamped, but for now I'm focused on convincing you that your stuff should not be on there. I do this in the spirit of trying to resolve a dispute and not make it personal, and of trying to make this a better wikipedia entry. Peace.--Bigtimepeace 06:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Joelrosenblum and I obviously disagree about this content. I do not feel that he has established any "controversy" and merely has a bone to pick with Mr. Berlin. He cannot cite anyone other than the Germantown Friends School who feels the way he does. He is not well informed on the history of slavery or on how historians write about it. He believes that the OAH is a racist organization because Ira Berlin was president once and he "knows" Berlin is pro-slavery so therefore the whole Organization of American Historians is racist (and presumably pro-slavery). The fact that he actually believes this absurd idea should be enough to show his obvious bias and lack of knowledge on these topics. I'm excited for joelrosenblum to edit the OAH entry to explain to us all that the organization is actually not just racist, but pro-slavery! That will be fun.
My concern is not to suppress working-class people from speaking truth to power as joelrosenblum suggests (a suggestion that is quite beyond the pale). My concern is that making reference to pro-slavery biases held by Mr. Berlin without providing evidence of that could constitute libel of a living person. I don't want to war with joelrosenblum about this anymore because he resorts to personal attacks and seems to assume that anyone who disagrees with him is an evil racist. I am instead posting this entry on the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard where hopefully someone can weigh in and see if my concerns are justified.
To Joel, your most recent edits are sloppy. For example you spelled "have" wrong (and also phraseology) and put "apparent pro-slavery biases held by Mr. Berlin" in quotations. Who are you quoting? Me? Yourself? Why the quotes? (Incidentally, as I said before, I posted on your talk page because this is a standard way to discuss things on wikipedia. I was not trying to keep my comments out of view (I invited you to post them on this talk page which you did, including my e-mail address I had given you if you wanted to contact me--try not to do that again) but was just hoping we could discuss the issue since we were the only two people writing about it. It's hardly a "new take" to talk about things on user talk pages, but you apparently construed that to be further evidence of my nefarious intentions.)
I'm leaving this passage in until someone else can take a look at it and hopefully remove it. I'm all for criticism of living figures, but not defamatory nonsense which is what, in my opinion, has been repeatedly posted here.-- Bigtimepeace 21:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
The entire section is original research. Regardless of the merits of the argument is, it does not belong here. See Wikipedia:No original research. Quatloo 07:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
"Bigtimepeace" writes:
Hi Joel--As I noted on the other talk page I listed the Ira Berlin article on the Biographies of Living Persons Noticeboard so someone else can take a look at it since our discussion is not getting anywhere. Let's wait and see what another party says, okay? I just wanted to mention a few things to you, and I really hope we can keep the tone more civil. Some of these points don't even relate to the article but just to things you or I wrote on the talk page. They relate to a couple of factual matters and to ways in which I feel you have mischaracterized what I wrote.
1) The fact that a professor I know criticized Berlin's work is not libel and I assume you know this. Libel is when you write something defaming about a person that is not true. Okay?
2) I do make clear that "great white men" ran the slave system when I teach U.S. history. I assume you were sarcastically saying I did not.
3) I am not defending Ira Berlin's book, I am saying what you are saying about his book and his point of view is wrong. Because I disagree with you does not mean that I like Ira Berlin or his work. Incidentally, to suggest as you do that anyone who defends a book you happen to think is racist are themselves racist shows an intolerance for other points of view on your part. Your idea seems to be that if someone disagrees with you they are racist oppressors. That kind of moral certitude is really annoying and frightening.
4) When I made reference to slaves "stealing shit" it was not a negative moral judgment as you assumed.
All I said was that stealing was a form of resistance to slavery which it was. Interestingly, slaves often referred to it as "taking", suggesting they felt entitled to "steal" which sounds about right to me. I fully agree with your assertion that "If they took anything they had a right to do so." I did not say otherwise--you're just reading into my comment until you see what you want to see. I am not painting African Americans under slavery as criminals and I agree with you that this portrayal persists today as you suggest which is racist and wrong. Please quit trying to turn everything I write into some form of covert racism. You should assume good faith as wikipedia says rather than assuming I'm a secret racist and trying to hide that from you somehow.
5) I said there were very few slave revolts in the U.S. relative to other places. Believe it or not, most historians agree with this.
I am well aware of Herbert Aptheker's book and it was and is important, but it was not the last word on slave revolts. They happened in the U.S.--I did not say they didn't--and Aptheker changed how we thought about them (convincing many to view them as positive rather than negative which is a perspective I fully agree with) but they just were not that frequent. Here's a passage from a very recent book (2006) by David Brion Davis (one of the foremost scholars of the history of slavery) called Inhuman Bondage which is considered an excellent general study of slavery in the Americas. Davis writes: At the outset we need to note the striking contrast between North America and the many other slave societies to the south with respect to the frequency and size of slave revolts as well as slave escapes to fairly durable maroon communities. Although the population of slaves in the United States eventually dwarfed the numbers in Brazil and the Caribbean, there were no significant revolts in the colonial Chesapeake from 1619 to 1775 or in the nation as a whole from 1831 to 1865. In Brazil, by contrast, slave revolts were more common, and in the 1600s thousands of fugitives found refuge for nearly a century in the maroon community of Palmares...Major slave insurrections continued to erupt in British Jamaica from the 1670s to 1831... (Inhuman Bondage, 207). My point in quoting this passage is that what I was saying about fewer revolts in the U.S. relative to other slave societies is not conjecture--it's generally agreed upon. This does not mean that slaves were happy in the U.S. or that slavery here was good. Slaves were not happy here and slavery here was awful--there just were not as many revolts. It may seem odd, but it's true.
6) You're correct that slaves were generally prevented from practicing African traditions including religion. However, in the U.S. at least, forced conversion to Christianity was not the norm as you assume (incidentally, I'm not a Christian and am not defending the religion so don't jump to that conclusion as you have to so many others). Not until the Great Awakening (i.e. the mid 1700s) did a significant number of slaves convert to Christianity. A larger number converted in the early 1800s. More often than not white masters were not happy about it, because they felt stories like those in the book of Exodus would give slaves ideas about getting out of slavery. Later slaveowners would try to instill in slaves passages from the Bible that were pro-slavery (there were a good number) but African Americans of course generally rejected these aspects and often found liberatory messages in the Bible and the religion generally. Afro-American Christianity is unique though, as it obviously contains aspects of African religious traditions. It's an interesting topic that you should look into rather than assuming (and loudly proclaiming) that Christianity was forced upon slaves and they hated it. Assuming that you are white, which I'm guessing is true, I'd be interested to watch you go into an African American Baptist church someday and try saying that.
7) You say to me: "Can you understand that every conclusion you make about the valor of slaves is based on your own feelings that slaves were content with what they had?" Let me state this categorically and please believe me here. I could not disagree more with the idea "that slaves were content with what they had" and as such the idea does not represent my own feelings. Okay? I believe European enslavement of Africans is the greatest moral crime in the history of humanity. Slavery is always awful, but this was the worst kind, and in no way were African Americans or anyone else whoever lived under slavery content. Again, you are forcing a viewpoint on me that I do not hold. Just because I disagree with your characterization of Berlin does not mean I am an apologist for slavery. I think you need to work on demonizing those who disagree with you a bit less. It's not a good way to deal with issues on wikipedia or in life.
8) Your contention that I am speaking down to working people is outlandish. I work, I have worked since I was 15. I don't know what in the name of God you are talking about.
I believe that what you have written on Ira Berlin is a violation of wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons (have you read that yet?). Wikipedia takes lible very seriously and you are writing on wikipedia so you should take it seriously as well--otherwise you should start a blog and put all of this stuff there. I have a problem with what you (not working people--you don't represent them even if you are a worker) wrote because I think it is inaccurate and defamatory. It has nothing to do with working people or speaking truth to power. It has nothing to do with being a leftist. Is your argument that leftist's should not care about libel, that leftists should not be angry when, for example, someone lies about Noam Chomsky and says he is a Holocaust denier as people sometimes do? In the kind of non-capitalist society I hope we create someday, I would think slandering people will still be a no no. It's ridiculous to even be talking about this subject in these terms, but then again it's ridiculous for you to accuse me of oppressing the working class when I merely suggest that an article is not being written according to wikipedia guidelines. Please try to tone down your rhetoric.--Bigtimepeace 01:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The Bio section--i.e. the whole article--needs more work. The last anonymous deletion from 141.151.16.137 was helpful in terms of describing Berlin's most important book but not sounding like a commercial for the man pulled from his university bio page (which the page previously has been). This page should probably be in line with those of other Organization of American Historians presidents.
-- Bigtimepeace 11:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Ira Berlin/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Hardly any information. Needs a picture. When there is enough information, divide the article into sections.--( Wikipedian1234 ( talk) 21:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)) |
Last edited at 21:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 19:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)