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The Ten Precepts of American Slavery Jurisprudence or White Privilege
THIS IS AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE AGENDA
THESE ARE THE LAWS THAT WE STILL LIVE UNDER IN AMERICA
THOSE THAT CANNOT SEE WILL NOT SEE
THOSE THAT ARE TRYING TO SEE WILL BE ABLE TO SEE
THOSE THAT ARE ABLE TO SEE WILL SEE MORE CLEARLY
THIS STILL GOES ON IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The Ten Precepts of American Slavery Jurisprudence
A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. (1)
. . . . Slaveholders, legislators, judges, and other public officials displayed a common understanding on the issues of race and slavery that catered to their shared economic interests and political views. This common understanding created a simple “universality of the rules.”(2) Once established, these rules formed the logical and precedential foundation for the American slavery culture for more than two hundred years. It is the breakdown of those components making up this “universality of the rules” that I call the Ten Precepts of American Slavery Jurisprudence. . . .Even after the abolition of slavery, some aspects of those precepts, pertaining to the alleged inferiority of blacks and the desire to make blacks powerless, still continue to haunt America in 1996. . . .
Inferiority |
Presume, preserve, protect, and defend the idea of the superiority of whites and the inferiority of blacks. |
Property |
Define the slave as the master’s property, maximize the master’s economic interest, disregard the humanity of the slave except when it serves the master’s interest, and deny slaves the fruits of their labor.(3) |
Powerlessness |
Keep blacks–whether slave or free–as powerless as possible so that they will be submissive and dependent in every respect, not only to the master but to whites in general. Limit blacks’ accessibility to the courts and subject blacks to an inferior system of justice with lesser rights and protections and greater punishments than for whites. Utilize violence and the powers of government to assure the submissiveness of blacks.(4) |
Racial “Purity” |
Always preserve white male sexual dominance. Draw an arbitrary racial line and preserve white racial purity as thus defined. Tolerate sexual relations between white men and black women; punish severely sexual relations between white women and nonwhite men.(5) With respect to children who are products of interracial sexual relations, the freedom or enslavement of the black child is determined by the status of the mother. |
Manumission and Free Blacks: |
Limit and discourage manumission in order to minimize the number of free blacks in the state. Confine free blacks to a status as close as possible to slavery.(6) |
Family |
Recognize no rights of the black family; destroy the unity of the black family; deny slaves the right of marriage; demean and degrade black women, black men, black parents, and black children; and then condemn them for their conduct and state of mind.(7) |
Education and Culture |
Deny blacks any education, deny them knowledge of their culture, and make it a crime to teach those who are slaves how to read or to write.(8) |
Religion |
Recognize no rights of slaves to define and practice their own religion, to choose their own religious leaders, or to worship with other blacks. Encourage them to adopt the religion of the white master and teach them that God is white and will reward the slave who obeys the commands of his master here on earth. Use religion to justify the slave’s status on earth. |
Liberty–Resistance |
Limit blacks’ opportunity to resist, bear arms, rebel, or flee; curtail their freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of expression. Deny blacks the right to vote and to participate in government.(9) |
By Any Means Possible |
Support all measures, including the use of violence, which maximize the profitability of slavery and which legitimize racism. Oppose, by the use of violence if necessary, all measures which advocate the abolition of slavery or the diminution of white supremacy. . . . |
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