The Making of a Racist by Charles Dew

Dew's upbringing in "St. Pete" was idyllic. His dad, a hard working lawyer, and his mother, who he and his brother called "Dear" were loving parents, and life was very pleasant, playing outside, and doing well in school. Dew recalls the way he was made in a racist: that is was the unthinking acceptance of the beliefs of people he admired and loved.

There were a few shadows, when his father angrily berated a black man for knocking on the front door, when an uncle, a doctor told him he had joined the White Citizens' Council because he was afraid of the harassment his children would receive if he didn't. But Dew admitted he basically never questioned the persuasive bigotry around him.

It wasn't until college, that Dew lived outside this society and began to read widely, and interact with black college students, that he began to "unmake" the racist in himself, a process so slow he describes it as "evolutionary."
 
To a 21st century sensibility, its grotesque, a nightmare version of an market. In all the account books and letters from dealers, slave owners seeking to sell, middle men is not a trace of humanity. One of the last letters, written in 1865, recording the sale, inflated Confederate currency, "Seven thousand dollars for the purchase of one(1) Bay Horse at $2000 & girl Maria at $5000." On the reverse of the paper: "Bill for horse and girl."
 
To a 21st century sensibility, its grotesque, a nightmare version of an market. In all the account books and letters from dealers, slave owners seeking to sell, middle men is not a trace of humanity. One of the last letters, written in 1865, recording the sale, inflated Confederate currency, "Seven thousand dollars for the purchase of one(1) Bay Horse at $2000 & girl Maria at $5000." On the reverse of the paper: "Bill for horse and girl."
One that got to me was an estate inventory from an ancestor which goes something like, pepper grinder, Maria and child, bay mare. Reading original documents will definitely have those moments where it makes your hair stand on end.

Thanks for the review, will definitively look this one up.
 
Dew ties together his own experience of being a racist by osmosis, as he describes it, and the inhumanity of the slave traders. He illustrates this with an exercise he does in class: The students read one account: after Thomas Jefferson's death, his slaves were sold to different owners. One young woman was sold, but still at Poplar Forest. An overseer, enraged by some fault on her part, burned her badly on her arms, legs and breasts. Her new owner proposes to Edmund Randolph, the man executing the estate that they each appoint a new appraiser to determine her new value, and they accept that new appraisal. The new owner assured Randolph he would keep the 14 year old to care for his child, since "for she cannot do much else."

His question was, did the two slave owners feel any shame?
 
The 2nd account his student read is a letter from a slave written in 1854 Kentucky. He pleading with the woman who has inherited him to not move him to Virginia, since it would mean leaving his wife and child behind. He writes:
"it is more than I can bare tho I am black I have the feelings becoming man."
Did the woman receiving this letter feel guilt or no guilt?
 
One that got to me was an estate inventory from an ancestor which goes something like, pepper grinder, Maria and child, bay mare.

"I will and bequeath unto my son Samuel Jackson, my old Negro man called Sambo, and my negro woman Betty, and my negro boy called Sampson. I will and bequeath unto my son James Jackson, one pair of my best oxen. I will and bequeath unto my daughter Elizabeth Doughty, my Negro girl names Tenney."

An excerpt from my 7th great-grandfather's will, dated Aug. 26, 1724.
 
Interesting account, thank you for sharing. It's certainly heartening to see how people's opinions, evenly such deeply ingrained ones, can be changed for the better. Reading this brings this quote to mind:
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate..."
And all too often, that learning comes from the people around us as we grow up.
 
Dew ties together his own experience of being a racist by osmosis, as he describes it, and the inhumanity of the slave traders. He illustrates this with an exercise he does in class: The students read one account: after Thomas Jefferson's death, his slaves were sold to different owners. One young woman was sold, but still at Poplar Forest. An overseer, enraged by some fault on her part, burned her badly on her arms, legs and breasts. Her new owner proposes to Edmund Randolph, the man executing the estate that they each appoint a new appraiser to determine her new value, and they accept that new appraisal. The new owner assured Randolph he would keep the 14 year old to care for his child, since "for she cannot do much else."

His question was, did the two slave owners feel any shame?
I don't see how one can answer the question from the information given. There was still money involved, regardless of feelings. I can picture myself failing this class already.

What is the "right" behavior for them to exhibit, to prove they felt shame? Is the 14 year old the one that was burned? It's not clear, but if so, the new owner seemed to offer to care for her and give her an easy job. It's not really fair to set free a disabled 14 year old. He had no reason to feel shame--wasn't his fault what the overseer did--but he at least did the most ethical thing given the circumstances. He could have refused the girl or sold her and let someone else deal with her.

It seems odd that the overseer--the most cruel man in the story--is let off the hook so easily. Does no one care if he felt shame? Seems to me he should have been charged legally in a civil case by the estate, if he couldn't be charged in a criminal one, that he lowered the value of the girl. That would hurt him in the pocketbook if he couldn't be imprisoned. But we're not told if that happened or not. None of the people involved made the laws. The most they could do is use them. If we're expecting them to abolish slavery, then I might as well blame myself that there are still laws on the books I disagree with.
 
I don't think anyone is asking them to abolish slavery. Missing the point. Not everything is about abolishing slavery- this is about how sheer greed allowed slavery to exist- and with it, a culture which carefully avoided any hint of wrong doing towards an entire race. Feeling shame- as part of the system which broke this child, would be a natural, human emotion. There was none. She was given an easy job not because anyone felt sorry for her but because she was no longer capable of performing tougher duties. That is regretful on their part. Her loss in value is being regretted. There is simply no understanding of the girl as human, with feelings, emotions or identity.

The overseer? Same thing- and ties in with the point of the book. We do not have to know what happened to him. Probably nothing. Devalued as a person, it simply did not occur to anyone he'd done anything wrong to a 14 year old child in torturing her. He isn't being let off the hook. He is being used as one, more example of how a terrifyingly, crushingly barbaric system led to a pretty brutal culture, which endured. .
 
In the case of the 14 year old and the overseer, the salient fact if the kid wasn't a slave was that she was crippled by this guy. For these two gentlemen it didn't register at all.

As far as the man pleading to remain with his family, the best option for him was this woman would sell him locally. A happy ending, until the next guy decides to sell him. Or the other owner decides to sell his family. Dew's point is the choices were all tyrannical, but if the woman chose to sell the man in his home in Kentucky, she would probably feel a warm glow of a deed well done, all the way to the bank.

Dew's opinion is that no slave owner would feel any guilt, or have any sense that the system as a whole was cruel. They would, unthinkably, and generally without contradiction, understand that they were doing right by everyone.
 
In the case of the 14 year old and the overseer, the salient fact if the kid wasn't a slave was that she was crippled by this guy. For these two gentlemen it didn't register at all.

As far as the man pleading to remain with his family, the best option for him was this woman would sell him locally. A happy ending, until the next guy decides to sell him. Or the other owner decides to sell his family. Dew's point is the choices were all tyrannical, but if the woman chose to sell the man in his home in Kentucky, she would probably feel a warm glow of a deed well done, all the way to the bank.

Dew's opinion is that no slave owner would feel any guilt, or have any sense that the system as a whole was cruel. They would, unthinkably, and generally without contradiction, understand that they were doing right by everyone.
I think that's something of a leap, from facts to emotions, and not supported by the evidence presented.

To give an analogy, slaveholders probably felt at least as much shame in mistreating people as race horse owners feel in mistreating racehorses - most habitually use drugs to get the best out of their horses, and before slaughter was illegal most racehorses ended in a slaughterhouse. It's the institution - not every horse can win, losers aren't worth anything, and the care of a horse is sufficiently expensive that no one can afford to care for a horse that isn't worth anything. (Off the track horses don't make ideal gifts for horse crazy children.) Observed from the outside, the sport seems to require everyone involved to have no emotions towards their property whatsoever. But I know for a fact, having known many people in the business, that many people involved in racing nevertheless do feel qualms about what they're doing. They like horses for the most part in general and specific horses in particular, and are not incapable of noticing that it's churlish to mistreat an animal which has served them well. Those feelings may get ignored in favor of the bottom line, but they do exist, and generally cause people to at least pretend to treat their horses decently in conversation, whatever they do in reality.

In the same way, lots of slaveowners made a big show of pretending to treat their slaves well, which is not borne out by records of the way they were actually treated. Slaveholders in writing about their own slaves often claimed not to separate families, they claimed never to need to whip their slaves, they claimed to care generously for the elderly. These false claims indicate that they did know they were not doing right by everyone and that they understood their actual behavior was shameful.
 
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"I will and bequeath unto my son Samuel Jackson, my old Negro man called Sambo, and my negro woman Betty, and my negro boy called Sampson. I will and bequeath unto my son James Jackson, one pair of my best oxen. I will and bequeath unto my daughter Elizabeth Doughty, my Negro girl names Tenney."

An excerpt from my 7th great-grandfather's will, dated Aug. 26, 1724.

There are similar entries in the history of my wife's family. The Eborns were a large and affluent family in eastern North Carolina, centered mostly around Little Washington.

The family's claim to local fame was Col. John Eborn, an officer in the Continental Army who was a veteran of the Battle of Guilford Court House. He was a slave owner.

Battle-of-Guilford-Courthouse-AB.jpg
 
In the case of the 14 year old and the overseer, the salient fact if the kid wasn't a slave was that she was crippled by this guy. For these two gentlemen it didn't register at all.

How can you say that? The one guy set her up for the foreseeable future with a home and light work. If we offer foster parents and a sheltered workshop for a disabled 14-year-old today, are our emotions called into question? Isn't that the right thing? If someone does it with no government subsidies, isn't he doing even better?

That's why I bring up "crippled by a guy." We're not told what happened to the overseer and if the law was used against him as much as possible or if he was praised and kept on. There's no way to judge without that information.

Are people assuming overseers were never punished? You can bet they were, when they were unnecessarily losing value for their employers. The law was set up for that, and it was also set up for compassion in the worst cases. Maybe not as strict as modern laws, but I wonder if there's a basic misunderstanding about slave era laws?

The bottom line is we have no way of knowing if the available laws were used against the overseer or not. There was a famous (infamous) trial geographically close and probably within 20 years, where an overseer named Sledd whipped a slave to death. He only got two years in the penitentiary, but he did get two years. Edited to add: http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2012/09/which-sledd-killed-slave-in-1811.html

Dew's opinion is that no slave owner would feel any guilt, or have any sense that the system as a whole was cruel. They would, unthinkably, and generally without contradiction, understand that they were doing right by everyone.

I guess he didn't notice all those slave owners in New York and Massachusetts, and what they did? James Birney? The Quakers who quietly got rid of their slaves, then finally moved out of slave states for their safety? Seems a tautalogy: if a slave owner is heartless, then that proves slave owners were heartless. If a slave owner feels guilty and goes outside the system to become anti-slavery, then that shows anti-slavery people were compassionate.
 
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I don't think anyone is asking them to abolish slavery. Missing the point.

Working within the legal system set up in slave states is apparently not enough. If they had punished the overseer up to what the law allowed, would that have made them compassionate enough, in Dew's eyes. I didn't get that impression. If they had said, well, we can get him for $100 in a civil suit and that's all, would Dew have been happy or would he expect a full-on lynching or what? I don't know--would like to know the answer.

Not everything is about abolishing slavery- this is about how sheer greed allowed slavery to exist- and with it, a culture which carefully avoided any hint of wrong doing towards an entire race. Feeling shame- as part of the system which broke this child, would be a natural, human emotion. There was none. She was given an easy job not because anyone felt sorry for her but because she was no longer capable of performing tougher duties.

How do you know that?

The overseer? Same thing- and ties in with the point of the book. We do not have to know what happened to him. Probably nothing. Devalued as a person, it simply did not occur to anyone he'd done anything wrong to a 14 year old child in torturing her. He isn't being let off the hook. He is being used as one, more example of how a terrifyingly, crushingly barbaric system led to a pretty brutal culture, which endured. .
Remember, Dew is judging people like you and me. If someone in our hometown beats his wife, are you comfortable with taking responsibility for the punishment he gets? That's what Dew is apparently saying. Not only that, but he knows that you and I have no compassion for the beaten wife because our county court let the wife-beater off easy, in his opinion. He takes judgmentalism to a bizarre level.
 
How can you say that? The one guy set her up for the foreseeable future with a home and light work. If we offer foster parents and a sheltered workshop for a disabled 14-year-old today, are our emotions called into question? Isn't that the right thing? If someone does it with no government subsidies, isn't he doing even better?

That's why I bring up "crippled by a guy." We're not told what happened to the overseer and if the law was used against him as much as possible or if he was praised and kept on. There's no way to judge without that information.

Are people assuming overseers were never punished? You can bet they were, when they were unnecessarily losing value for their employers. The law was set up for that, and it was also set up for compassion in the worst cases. Maybe not as strict as modern laws, but I wonder if there's a basic misunderstanding about slave era laws?

The bottom line is we have no way of knowing if the available laws were used against the overseer or not. There was a famous (infamous) trial geographically close and probably within 20 years, where an overseer named Sledd whipped a slave to death. He only got two years in the penitentiary, but he did get two years. Edited to add: http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2012/09/which-sledd-killed-slave-in-1811.html



I guess he didn't notice all those slave owners in New York and Massachusetts, and what they did? James Birney? The Quakers who quietly got rid of their slaves, then finally moved out of slave states for their safety? Seems a tautalogy: if a slave owner is heartless, then that proves slave owners were heartless. If a slave owner feels guilty and goes outside the system to become anti-slavery, then that shows anti-slavery people were compassionate.

The unnamed overseer in the incident described by Dew(really a letter he provided) may have been fired, or at least yelled at for reducing the value of a sale item.

In the second case, the writer is in the position of being permanently torn from his wife and child. The options for him are quite limited and mostly bad, but of course, all legal. The options for his new owner, limited by her point of view, her frame of reference, her range of choices are warped by her position of owner and his as property.

Dew's point is that most participants in a slave holding system never question its rightness, any more than he questioned the Jim Crow society he grew up in. However as his life experience broadened, he was able to process that new information and change. In the 19th century, I think those opportunities and life experiences were often more limited.
 
There are similar entries in the history of my wife's family. The Eborns were a large and affluent family in eastern North Carolina, centered mostly around Little Washington.

The shocking thing for some is that the excerpt from my granddad’s will is when he was living in Long Island, NY, not the south! New York didn't actually abolish slavery until 1827, btw. My dad's family were prominent New Yorkers who didn't move south until my 5th great-grandfather, to South Carolina, in the 1750's. Both sides of my family were slave owners though, by the middle 1600's.

The family's claim to local fame was Col. John Eborn, an officer in the Continental Army who was a veteran of the Battle of Guilford Court House. He was a slave owner.

Interesting. :thumbsup: My 4th great-granddad fought in several battles in the war with the 4th South Carolina artillery. This is his grave marker, faithfully attended to every Independence Day, by the DAR.

Expired Image Removed
 
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