Opinion

Opinion: Could Reparations for African Americans Uncover White Slavery In America?

Published

6 years ago

August 30, 2019

One of the shrouded notions that we may have about slavery could be the concept of Indentured Servitude. In 1607, Britain began to unleash it’s first cargo of white slaves to the American Colonies. This was spurred by the opportunity of supply and demand; there was more land than people to work the land. The reputation of Oliver Cromwell created a history of his genocidal reign in Ireland that supplied the colonial work force with so called indentured servants for decades. So, if the descendants of African American’s are due reparations, what about the descendants of white slaves that were a part of the British social system of the 17th century?

In the book, “White Cargo: The Forgotten History Of Britain’s White Slaves In America,” I read where author’s Don Jordan, and Michael Walsh, said, “In the summer of 2003, archaeologist excavated a seventeenth century site outside Annapolis, Maryland, and discovered the skeleton of a teenage boy. Examination showed the boy to have died sometime in the 1660’s… The youth was neither African of Native American. He was Northern European, probably English.” It goes on to identify the results of the autopsy and discovered that the boy had been severely beaten and lived a life of toil. Is this evidence of white slavery’? While the Spanish were digging for gold m the west, it was tobacco that was gold in the colonies, however, this required vast amounts of human labor.

In the colonies, to be an indentured servant was not a highly regarded profession, and in the early days of America. findings suggest that the first form of slavery came by way of European women and children as early as 1607, winch was immediately followed by the enslavement of African’s. The problem with White America is that a display of success only whiteness, is what we are lead to believe. The first slaves in America may not have been African, but they were very likely European Whites.

Are the descendants of these enslaved whites’ due reparations also? Many may think that there is a difference between and indentured servant and a slave. There is no difference. If an indentured servant is considered chattel, then that makes that person no greater than a slave. In the book, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” I read where J.D. Vance said, “As a 2011 Brookings Institution study found, “compared to 2000, residents of extreme-poverty neighborhoods in 2005-09 were more likely to be white, native-born, high school or college graduates, homeowners, and not receiving public assistance.” We need reparations to not only restore African Americans, but to also make White America well.

Rev. Curtis O. Robinson, Sr.

Posts by Rev. Curtis O. Robinson, Sr.

Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

5 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

5 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.