by Jolivette Anderson 'the poet warrior'
The real title of the post is:
The Slave Ship 'Creole' and the 49th Superbowl: That Running Back, That Quarterback, and That Coach who cracked that whip aimed at Black Agency, but missed, and he ended up ripping off the flesh of Converging White Interest -- when it was on its way to satisfy itself using a Black man's labor --to benefit the white imagination-- that is really white supremacy in drag and in love with capitalism-- even when it refuses to come out of the closet --even when everybody knows it is designed and used to screw the masses up the butt whether they like it up the butt or not. (sex reference intentional but not meant to offend, so just chill the fuck out)
"we refuse to be, what they want us to be
we are who we are, that's the way it's going to be" -- Bob Marley
My question is and always has been, "Who the fuck is 'they'?
Oddly enough, I found that 'they' is a thing and not a people. 'They' is a practice that must always have White over Black when dealing in human interaction. I believe we act on this practice of white supremacy 'consciously' and 'sub-consciously', the subconscious also being called the 'unconscious'.
'They' were at the Superbowl. 'They' were acting on old United States customs and practices. 'They' would prefer to see images of things as close to the way they 'use to be' as possible.
The Slave Ship 'Creole' was on its way from Richmond, VA to New Orleans when the 135 enslaved persons on board. They were to be sold.
Of the 135 who were enslaved, 19 created a mutiny - a revolt - on board the ship. Four primary figures played key roles in the revolt.
Enter into this modern day comparisons to Madison Washington, Ben Blacksmith, William Loyd Garrison and the Anti-Slavery Movement and its White Abolitionist, Non-Violence, Interest Convergence, Image Control and Capitalism.
MADISON W ASHINGTON;
THE SELECTION AND CANONIZATION OF A HERO
The roots of'The Heroic Slave' are historical. Madison Washington was one of the leaders of a slave revolt in 1841 aboard the Creole, a brig engaged in the internal slave trade. The key source of information about the revolt and Madison Washington's role in it is the December 1841 deposition sworn by the Creole's company in New Orleans and published with minor changes and omissions in several places including the Liberator, Douglass's most likely source.^ The Creole was sailing between Richmond and New Orleans with 135 slaves when, on the evening of November 7, 1841, nineteen slaves mutinied and took control of the ship.
The Seattle Seahawks Franchise is the modern day slave ship 'Creole', for the purposes of this comparative analysis.
Madison Washington helped to ensure that the victory was achieved with as little bloodshed as possible; the captain was badly wounded, and one passenger, a slave trader, was killed. The officers' lives were spared on the understanding that the ship would be taken to a British port in the Bahamas; on November 9, the Creole arrived in Nassau. All but the nineteen slaves directly involved in the mutiny were invited to disembark as free men and women. Madison Washing- ton and his fellow mutineers were held for a time but were re- leased without charges being filed against them. Efforts to have them extradited failed.
The discovery of Madison Washington's presence in the section of the hold reserved for the female slaves apparently started the mutiny. Washington fought off two men trying to hold him and allegedly leaped to the deck, shouting: 'We have commenced and must go through, rush boys, rush aft we have got them now.' Then, calling to the slaves below, be reportedly said: 'Come up every damned one of you, if you don't and lend a hand I will kill you all and throw you overboard.'^
The Seahawks Quarterback is our modern day Madison Washington, for the purposes of this comparative analysis.
Despite this description of Washington's threatening language in the formal 'Protest' that was lodged by the first mate and ship's company, it is also apparent that Washington exercised a restraining hand on the slaves who might otherwise have killed those in their power. The 'Protest,' however, also makes it clear that the mutiny was not led by a single individual, but by four men working together: Washington, Ben Blacksmith, Elijah J. Morris, and D. Ruffin.
THE SELECTION AND CANONIZATION OF A HERO
The roots of'The Heroic Slave' are historical. Madison Washington was one of the leaders of a slave revolt in 1841 aboard the Creole, a brig engaged in the internal slave trade. The key source of information about the revolt and Madison Washington's role in it is the December 1841 deposition sworn by the Creole's company in New Orleans and published with minor changes and omissions in several places including the Liberator, Douglass's most likely source.^ The Creole was sailing between Richmond and New Orleans with 135 slaves when, on the evening of November 7, 1841, nineteen slaves mutinied and took control of the ship.
The Seattle Seahawks Franchise is the modern day slave ship 'Creole', for the purposes of this comparative analysis.
Madison Washington helped to ensure that the victory was achieved with as little bloodshed as possible; the captain was badly wounded, and one passenger, a slave trader, was killed. The officers' lives were spared on the understanding that the ship would be taken to a British port in the Bahamas; on November 9, the Creole arrived in Nassau. All but the nineteen slaves directly involved in the mutiny were invited to disembark as free men and women. Madison Washing- ton and his fellow mutineers were held for a time but were re- leased without charges being filed against them. Efforts to have them extradited failed.
The discovery of Madison Washington's presence in the section of the hold reserved for the female slaves apparently started the mutiny. Washington fought off two men trying to hold him and allegedly leaped to the deck, shouting: 'We have commenced and must go through, rush boys, rush aft we have got them now.' Then, calling to the slaves below, be reportedly said: 'Come up every damned one of you, if you don't and lend a hand I will kill you all and throw you overboard.'^
The Seahawks Quarterback is our modern day Madison Washington, for the purposes of this comparative analysis.
Despite this description of Washington's threatening language in the formal 'Protest' that was lodged by the first mate and ship's company, it is also apparent that Washington exercised a restraining hand on the slaves who might otherwise have killed those in their power. The 'Protest,' however, also makes it clear that the mutiny was not led by a single individual, but by four men working together: Washington, Ben Blacksmith, Elijah J. Morris, and D. Ruffin.
Although Washington was not, then, the incontestable leader of
the revolt, there are subtle hints in the record as to the importance
of his role. He intervened twice to ensure that the others did not
kill individuals then at their mercy, negotiated the new destination
with the second mate, arranged food for those slaves who had not
participated in the mutiny, and ordered that all guns be destroyed
before the ship reached Nassau. The 'Protest' account gives
Washington a less prominent part in the action that secured the
brig for the mutineers, though, than either Blacksmith or Morris.
Indeed, Blacksmith's role in the mutiny was prominent enough to prompt another fictional depiction of the Creole revolt to portray him, and not Madison Washington, as the leader.
That Seahawks Running Back is our modern day Ben Blacksmith, for the purposes of this comparative analysis.
Like 'The Heroic Slave,' Wolftden: An Authentic Account of Things There and Thereunto Pertaining as They Are and Have Been, is based on the account of the Creole revolt contained in the New Orleans 'Protest.' This is made clear in both the text and the appended notes of Wolftden' That work does not give the Creole revolt a central role in the plot but describes those events instead in a short interlude sketching the fate of Black- smith, a liberated slave of Harry Boynton. Within this short digression. Blacksmith quits his job in a foundry in the North and returns to Virginia to rescue his wife. He is captured and sold, and, along with his wife and child, is put aboard the Creole, headed for slavery in Louisiana.
In Wolfsden, Ben Blacksmith is 'the Vulcan of the plantation, a fellow of herculean strength and dauntless courage,' echoing the description of Madison Washington, with arms 'like polished iron,' in 'The Heroic Slave.'^ However, in Wolßden, it is 'the controlling energy of the master spirit Ben [Blacksmith], communi- cating itself like the electric current to the sympathizing hearts about him,' that sustains the revolt.** While Blacksmith breaks free from his fetters with superhuman strength, Madison Washington, 'a man of milder mood and less feared by the captors, [who] had just been unfettered that he might perform some laborious service for his masters, . . . now [sprang] to the side of Ben, and shouted "Liberty!""'
Indeed, Blacksmith's role in the mutiny was prominent enough to prompt another fictional depiction of the Creole revolt to portray him, and not Madison Washington, as the leader.
That Seahawks Running Back is our modern day Ben Blacksmith, for the purposes of this comparative analysis.
Like 'The Heroic Slave,' Wolftden: An Authentic Account of Things There and Thereunto Pertaining as They Are and Have Been, is based on the account of the Creole revolt contained in the New Orleans 'Protest.' This is made clear in both the text and the appended notes of Wolftden' That work does not give the Creole revolt a central role in the plot but describes those events instead in a short interlude sketching the fate of Black- smith, a liberated slave of Harry Boynton. Within this short digression. Blacksmith quits his job in a foundry in the North and returns to Virginia to rescue his wife. He is captured and sold, and, along with his wife and child, is put aboard the Creole, headed for slavery in Louisiana.
In Wolfsden, Ben Blacksmith is 'the Vulcan of the plantation, a fellow of herculean strength and dauntless courage,' echoing the description of Madison Washington, with arms 'like polished iron,' in 'The Heroic Slave.'^ However, in Wolßden, it is 'the controlling energy of the master spirit Ben [Blacksmith], communi- cating itself like the electric current to the sympathizing hearts about him,' that sustains the revolt.** While Blacksmith breaks free from his fetters with superhuman strength, Madison Washington, 'a man of milder mood and less feared by the captors, [who] had just been unfettered that he might perform some laborious service for his masters, . . . now [sprang] to the side of Ben, and shouted "Liberty!""'
It is easy to see how the 'Protest' could be used as a source for
the different versions of events contained in 'The Heroic Slave'
and Wolfsden. Both are built from meager character sketches provided there. Both also note a central irony bebind the 'Protest,'
which was a document designed to shield the officers of the Creole
from claims of negligence or mismanagement. The self-serving
'Protest' inadvertently reveals the restraint, heroism, and foresight of the mutineers that were quickly recognized within an
antislavery movement well schooled in using Southern testimony
to condemn slavery.'^
But why, one must ask, was it Madison Washington, and not Blacksmith, as portrayed in Wolfiden, or Morris, the man who fired a pistol at the start of the mutiny, who emerged, by consensus within the antislavery movement, as the hero?
The Seahawks Coach is the White Abolitionist of the 1850s, who has power to set the stage and the tone for how Slaves should deport themselves in their quest for liberty (freedom). A leading White abolitionist of that time was William Loyd Garrison who believed that violence should never be used by anyone, not even those enslaved (slavery being an act of violence itself on the body, mind and spirit) and the Abolitionist Movement used this and other strategies to end slavery, including the celebration of former slaves who demonstrated the respectability associated with non-violence.
One answer is suggested by the movement's discomfort with the use of violence. In its Declaration of Sentiments, the American And-Slavery Society had announced that its principles forbade 'the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage, relying solely on those which are spiritual.'^'
Despite the absoluteness of such a pronouncement, one senses
a certain equivocation at times. One instance is evident in the
concluding remarks of a work entitled 'The Hero Mutineers,' which places an expressed admiration for those involved in the
Creole revolt against a more general denunciation of the use of
violent resistance to end slavery:
Within this context of equivocal support for violent resistance, one can see the logic behind the selection of Washington as the hero of the moment in preference to either Blacksmith or Morris. It seems likely that Madison Washington's name, 'a name unfit for a slave, but finely expressive for a hero,' helped with his selection as well.
'The Hero Mutineers' calls Washington 'the master spirit' behind the revolt, applauding his 'commanding attitude and daring orders, when he stood a freeman on the slaver's deck, and his perfect preparation for the grand alternative of liberty or death, which stood before him.' 'The Hero Mutineers' sees Washington's actions as 'splendid exemplifications of the true heroic' Washington is not credited with heroic deeds of conquest; it is, instead, 'his generous leniency towards his prisoners, his oppressors' that is noted and praised.'^ '
The Hero Mutineers' is an important document in the selection and canonization of Madison Washington; it set the tone and terms for the way the Creole revolt would be treated, especially within the Garrisonian antislavery movement. But although Madison Washington emerged there both as the hero of the revolt and as the ideological 'master spirit' and moral exemplar of the incident for the antislavery cause, his leading role in the revolt allowed others to see him as a symbol of violent resistance rather than of restraint and reconciliation.
I would like to respond to the previous paragraph, but life is calling me and I must respond. Perhaps, the contradiction of the last line to my argument will feed into a deeper discussion on Black diversity and the 'kinds of Black folk' in the United States.
Peace,
Jolivette
Sources:
Hamilton, Cynthia S. Models of Agency: Frederick Douglass and 'The Heroic Slave. American Antiquarian Society, 2005 pp 87-136
But why, one must ask, was it Madison Washington, and not Blacksmith, as portrayed in Wolfiden, or Morris, the man who fired a pistol at the start of the mutiny, who emerged, by consensus within the antislavery movement, as the hero?
The Seahawks Coach is the White Abolitionist of the 1850s, who has power to set the stage and the tone for how Slaves should deport themselves in their quest for liberty (freedom). A leading White abolitionist of that time was William Loyd Garrison who believed that violence should never be used by anyone, not even those enslaved (slavery being an act of violence itself on the body, mind and spirit) and the Abolitionist Movement used this and other strategies to end slavery, including the celebration of former slaves who demonstrated the respectability associated with non-violence.
One answer is suggested by the movement's discomfort with the use of violence. In its Declaration of Sentiments, the American And-Slavery Society had announced that its principles forbade 'the doing of evil that good may come, and lead us to reject, and entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage, relying solely on those which are spiritual.'^'
Indeed, the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery
Societ)' felt compelled to issue a disclaimer in the wake of a reso-
lution passed at a meeting of the Liberty Party on December 29,
1841, which 'Resolved, That the slaves of the brig Creole, who
rose and took possession of said vessel, thereby regaining their
natural rights and liberty, acted in accordance with the principles
of our Declaration of Independence, and the late decision of the
Supreme Court; and have proved themselves in their whole con-
duct worthy of their freedom; and we trust that their noble exam- ple will be imitated by all ifi similar circumstances' Expressing concern that such views might be confused with those of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the society's executive committee repudiated this invitation, making reference to Article 3 of its constitution, which states, in part, 'this Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force.'''*
duct worthy of their freedom; and we trust that their noble exam- ple will be imitated by all ifi similar circumstances' Expressing concern that such views might be confused with those of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the society's executive committee repudiated this invitation, making reference to Article 3 of its constitution, which states, in part, 'this Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force.'''*
There are only two grand reasons which render it the duty of men, in any circumstances, to submit to the enforcement of such an ignominious claim on themselves and their offspring. One is the
hope of obtaining deliverance hy patient waiting, and the other is
the impossibility of obtaining it by insurrection. These two reasons
rest over the condition of our Southem slaves at large, and sustain the
true abolition doctrine of doing nothing to eficotirage, but every thing to
discourage imurrcction.But these reasons in the case of the Creole slaves had vanished.
Before them, there was a splendid prospect, by valorous resistance, of immediate and perpetual liberty. Again we repeat it, the restrain ing reasons had vanished, and both law and gospel justified their rising.'^
This is NOT about what happened DURING the game. This is about what the Coach wanted to happen AFTER the game. The need of Whiteness to control Blackness to the benefit of Whiteness. It just so happens that the plan - whether the coach is conscious of the plan or not - did not work because the Seahawks lost the game. This is not to say the coach is a racist. This is to say that we all perform racial acts against Blackness and Black identities all the time, personally and professionally, and this has been the nature of race relations dating back to the 1840s as documented by the happenings in U.S. Racial History outlined in this post, in the writings of Frederick Douglass and the scholarly article by Cynthia S. Hamilton that interrogates the novella written by Douglass called 'The Heroic Slave'
Given this conclusion, it is not surprising that 'The Hero Mutineers' contains a description of the revolt that emphasizes the restraint of the mutineers rather than the violence of the uprising. In this account, it is the mutineer's 'symbolic' renunciation of further violence that resonates most deeply for the author. 'But nothing in the whole affair appears so sublimely affecting as their conduct on arriving at Nassau,' the author notes. 'They divested themselves of all their arms, even casting them into the sea, and came before the British authorities defenseless^confiding in the justice of their cause, and in the protection of free and righteous institutions against the claims of their oppressors! Noblemen! ^^
This is NOT about what happened DURING the game. This is about what the Coach wanted to happen AFTER the game. The need of Whiteness to control Blackness to the benefit of Whiteness. It just so happens that the plan - whether the coach is conscious of the plan or not - did not work because the Seahawks lost the game. This is not to say the coach is a racist. This is to say that we all perform racial acts against Blackness and Black identities all the time, personally and professionally, and this has been the nature of race relations dating back to the 1840s as documented by the happenings in U.S. Racial History outlined in this post, in the writings of Frederick Douglass and the scholarly article by Cynthia S. Hamilton that interrogates the novella written by Douglass called 'The Heroic Slave'
Given this conclusion, it is not surprising that 'The Hero Mutineers' contains a description of the revolt that emphasizes the restraint of the mutineers rather than the violence of the uprising. In this account, it is the mutineer's 'symbolic' renunciation of further violence that resonates most deeply for the author. 'But nothing in the whole affair appears so sublimely affecting as their conduct on arriving at Nassau,' the author notes. 'They divested themselves of all their arms, even casting them into the sea, and came before the British authorities defenseless^confiding in the justice of their cause, and in the protection of free and righteous institutions against the claims of their oppressors! Noblemen! ^^
Within this context of equivocal support for violent resistance, one can see the logic behind the selection of Washington as the hero of the moment in preference to either Blacksmith or Morris. It seems likely that Madison Washington's name, 'a name unfit for a slave, but finely expressive for a hero,' helped with his selection as well.
'The Hero Mutineers' calls Washington 'the master spirit' behind the revolt, applauding his 'commanding attitude and daring orders, when he stood a freeman on the slaver's deck, and his perfect preparation for the grand alternative of liberty or death, which stood before him.' 'The Hero Mutineers' sees Washington's actions as 'splendid exemplifications of the true heroic' Washington is not credited with heroic deeds of conquest; it is, instead, 'his generous leniency towards his prisoners, his oppressors' that is noted and praised.'^ '
The Hero Mutineers' is an important document in the selection and canonization of Madison Washington; it set the tone and terms for the way the Creole revolt would be treated, especially within the Garrisonian antislavery movement. But although Madison Washington emerged there both as the hero of the revolt and as the ideological 'master spirit' and moral exemplar of the incident for the antislavery cause, his leading role in the revolt allowed others to see him as a symbol of violent resistance rather than of restraint and reconciliation.
I would like to respond to the previous paragraph, but life is calling me and I must respond. Perhaps, the contradiction of the last line to my argument will feed into a deeper discussion on Black diversity and the 'kinds of Black folk' in the United States.
Peace,
Jolivette
Sources:
Hamilton, Cynthia S. Models of Agency: Frederick Douglass and 'The Heroic Slave. American Antiquarian Society, 2005 pp 87-136
