When you name a thing, you have taken the first step towards controlling it.
Posted on 03/14/2002 9:50:44 AM PST by Owl_Eagle
Naming names
Thomas Sowell
March 14, 2002
Did anyone ever call Franklin D. Roosevelt a "Dutch American" or Dwight Eisenhower a "German American"? It would have been resented, not only by them and their supporters, but by Americans in general. These men were Americans -- not hyphenated Americans or half Americans.
Most black families in the United States today have been here longer than most white families. No one except the American Indians can claim to have been on American soil longer. Why then call blacks in the United States "African Americans," when not even their great-great-great-grandparents ever laid eyes on Africa?
It is certainly understandable that activists, politicians and others who wish to divide Americans for their own purposes would push the notion of "African Americans." They also push such things as the "African" holiday Kwanzaa -- which originated in Los Angeles -- and "black English" or "ebonics," which originated centuries ago in particular localities in Britain, and is wholly unknown in Africa.
Names are just part of the process of creating wholesale frauds about the past, in order to advance special agendas in the present. Personal names are also part of that fraud.
The vogue of repudiating black family names that supposedly were given by slaveowners in times past is another reflection of the widespread ignorance of history among Americans in general, as a result of our dumbed-down education. Slaves were not only not given family names, they were forbidden to have family names.
In many parts of the world, family names began with the elites, and only over the centuries moved down the social scale until ordinary people were allowed to have them. In England, common people began to have family names only after the Middle Ages, and in Japan it was the late 19th century before commoners could use family names. It was the 20th century before ordinary people in Iran were allowed -- and directed -- to have family names.
Slaveowners in the American antebellum South were especially opposed to slaves having family names because such names emphasized family ties -- and the only legally recognized tie of a slave was to his owner, who could sell him miles away from his kin.
The slaves themselves, however, used family names to create a sense of family, though they were careful not to use these names around whites. Even after Emancipation, blacks who had been raised in slavery often hesitated when some white person asked them their family name.
The so-called "slave names" that so many blacks began repudiating in the 1960s, were neither given to them by slaveowners nor were they usually the slaveowners' family names. They were names chosen despite prohibitions, in order to symbolize family ties that were often stronger than those in today's ghettoes.
The late Herbert Gutman -- a tough-minded historian -- was once on the verge of tears as he described the desperate efforts of blacks in the years after Emancipation to try to find family members who had been sold, sometimes hundreds of miles away.
These poor and illiterate people would find somebody who could read and write, who would write what were called "inquiring letters" to black churches in the South. In these churches, someone would then read these letters aloud to the congregations, asking if anybody who knew anything about the person being sought would speak up, so that this family could be reunited again.
Those who try to claim that the shattered families in today's ghettoes are "a legacy of slavery" ignore the fact that, a hundred years ago, a slightly higher percentage of blacks than of whites were married and most black children were raised in two-parent families, even during the era of slavery.
As late as 1950, a higher percentage of black women than of white women were married. The broken families of today are a legacy of our own times and our own ill-advised notions and policies.
Of all the reactions against the supposed "slave names" among blacks, the most painfully ironic has been the taking of Arab names instead. The Arabs engaged in massive enslavement of Africans before the Europeans began to -- and continued long after the Europeans stopped.
One of the many reasons for studying history is to prevent history from being misused for current hidden agendas. Names are just one of the things being misused in this way.
While the "African-American Leaders" of this country busily try to sell the "Blame Whitey" agenda, they ignore the real problems facing their community (which require some actual heavy lifting) at their own peril.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
BTW, Arabic people still enslave blacks today.
Recently we pondered the question of were black family names came from.
I had always assumed they came from the slave owners.
MOTE: Muslim and Middle Eastern names are particularly attractive at this time.
Far be it from me to contradict someone of Dr. Sowell's stature, but in studying genealogy (particularly old church records), I've noticed in several instances that someone referred to as, say, "Joe, servant of John Whatever" before the WBTS was referred to as "Joe Whatever" after the WBTS.
I've also found at least one instance where the slave joined a church of a different denomination than the owner - I'd always been told that the owners made the slaves go to church with them. In this particular case the slave joined the Baptist church, and the owner was a Methodist minister.
However, the African names would come in handy if Je$$ie Jack$on and the "reverend" Al get their wish for repatriations.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
The Christmas decorations were not particularly Christian, but no one objected. Lots of Santa Claus, and the like.
The Hanuka decorations were not particularly Jewish, but the Jews on campus (there were many), didn't take it seriously.
But there was much objection to the Kwanzaa decorations. Who from? Well, it seems that nearly all the African-Americans on campus happened to be Christians.
You can fill in the rest.
Why does there need to be a contradiction?
Of course what you describe probably did happen, but the facs Dr. Sowell brings to light suggest that generally that was not the case.
After the Civil War, those who had previously been enslaved chose a surname to use. Rarely were these surnames chosen out of thin air, or on a whim.
Quite often, they used the names of the "slave owner" who sired them or their parents. That may not have been the name of the "slave owner" who "owned" them at the freedom time. For example, on one side of my genealogy, my great-great-grandfather Daniel Bullock(s) was serially "owned" by a family named Ragland. By 1869, he was using the name Bullock(s).
Also, the formerly enslaved changed their surnames, sometimes more than once. Again from my own genealogy, but another branch, take the two brothers, obviously biracial (I have pictures), who ran away from their "owner" and father during the Civil War. They used the names McSwain or Swain for a while, but by 1870 they were called Cuffin or Nap(p)ier, the latter name being the one their mother's (post-War) husband had selected.
And then, there were people who used the name they were born with. Not every black person was enslaved, not even in the South.
Quite true! I've found that race relations "back then" don't seem to have been quite what I was always told they were.
I've seen instances of people freeing their slaves and giving them property in the early 1800s, men acknowledging their biracial children in their wills, and "mixed marriages" both before and after the Civil War.
Not that those things were the rule, but they happened more often than one would think.
When you name a thing, you have taken the first step towards controlling it.
I asked my black boss if that was true..and he said not in his family it wasn't ..then he laughed
Slavery did not destroy family names..poverty, welfare and mutiple dads for your kids did..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.