I’ll try to keep this review to a small percentage of the size that is the original book. After deciding that I find myself questioning, where do I begin to unpack this diminutive in size, yet far exceedingly, more worthy than the value of the words classic epic? Truly, this books size does not speak to its significance. If you are American, or have studied American history, then you know some of the details pertaining to the inhuman savagery called the slave trade between the fifteen-hundreds and the eighteen-hundreds. What is rarely discussed today is how the attitude in regards to the entirety of the slave trade as being just such, and a very intricate part of American economics. What is also not discussed today is how this practice of some three hundred years set up the basic model for modern America’s wage slavery and is the substratum for American capitalism. Though some like to use the term Antebellum (pre and post), its true name was and still is slavery, Its true nature is the ultimate goal and the ideal procedure for modern capitalism; to receive the highest amount of profit and most amount of gain while imputing the least amount of effort and least amount of overhead. Human life was and still is a commodity.
I first heard of this book on an episode of Different World, I remember somebody said something about it and ever since I’ve heard it mentioned sporadically in random poems. There were times, when listening to a friend speak, or watching a show about black consciousness in the new era, someone would refer to this book. I know that there has been speculation about the speeches authenticity. There have been calls for the author to provide proof of an original or show any historical documents that mentions said speech. People have also said that the only person that could have been in the right place and at the right time to be the noted William Lynch was not born until some thirty years later. Rather if the author wrote them in nineteen-ninety-two or they were spoken some three-hundred and eighty years earlier, they were and are still relevant. I believe that this mentality and this strategy survives in many different forms today.
“I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves, and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use FEAR, DISTRUST, and ENVY for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies, and it will work throughout the SOUTH. Take this simple little list of differences and think about them. On the top of my list is "AGE" but it is only there because it starts with an "A"; The second is "COLOR" or shade; there is INTELLIGENCE, SIZE, SEX, SIZE OF PLANTATION, ATTITUDE of owner, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, east or west, north, south, have fine or coarse hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action- but before that, I shall assure you that DISTRUST IS STRONGER THAN TRUST, AND ENVY IS STRONGER THAN ADULATION, RESPECT OR ADMIRATION.”
It is often written, in various literature, when looking for the perpetrator of a crime, one should find whom would benefits from said crime. Here the only one that profits is the slave owner.
Sowing the seeds of distrust amongst the slaves while having them believe they were better or worse than one another based on something frivolous not only let the slave master sleep soundly at night, but one could theoretically extrapolate that the larger the plantation in size and number of slaves the more effective these tactics. Again in the interest of keeping this review small and confined to a review, I won’t get into discussing all of the obvious psychological and sociological effects and numerous studies that would supports such claims effectiveness. I will say that if you have worked, in America, for a major chain retail company that has zone managers, regional managers, assistant zone managers, and assistant regional managers, and have often felt confused at how these people obtained their various positions and titles when they seemed to be very inept and really do nothing but cause confusion and turmoil, there are reasons.
The book goes on to discuss how a black man (not the word they use) must be mentally, and physically broken from his natural, free state of independence and self-reliance to that of servitude and total dependency on his master. This dependent state must be done to such an extent that if said black man (not the word they use) were given the option of freedom, after being broken, they would have no idea how to provide for themselves or for a family if they chose to have one, said black man would opt back to a state of servitude to his master. In essence, the broken black man (not the word they used) would be the equivalent to a crippled and mentally disabled child which when offered freedom would cry for the controlling hand of the master just as a confused child cries for the hand of its mother. The book later speaks of the greater importance it is to breaking the black woman (NOT the word they used)
The breaking of the black woman was of such great importance because she was the key in perpetuating they cycle unto and upon the next generation of black men and women. She, if properly broken herself, would innately break her children of her own accord. This breaking would be so great it would be as strong as her own maternal instinct.
“THE BREAKING PROCESS OF THE AFRICAN WOMAN
Take the female and run a series of tests on her to see if she will submit to your desires willingly. Test her in every way, because she is the most important factor for good economics. If she shows any sign of resistance in submitting completely to your will, do not hesitate to use the bullwhip on her to extract that last bit of [b----] out of her. Take care not to kill her, for in doing so, you spoil good economics. When in complete submission, she will train her offsprings in the early years to submit to labor when they become of age. Understanding is the best thing. Therefore, we shall go deeper into this area of the subject matter concerning what we have produced here in this breaking process of the female nigger. We have reversed the relationship; in her natural uncivilized state, she would have a strong dependency on the uncivilized nigger male, and she would have a limited protective tendency toward her independent male offspring and would raise male offsprings to be dependent like her. Nature had provided for this type of balance. We reversed nature by burning and pulling a civilized nigger apart and bullwhipping the other to the point of death, all in her presence. By her being left alone, unprotected, with the MALE IMAGE DESTROYED , the ordeal caused her to move from her psychologically dependent state to a frozen, independent state. In this frozen, psychological state of independence, she will raise her MALE and female offspring in reversed roles. For FEAR of the young male's life, she will psychologically train him to be MENTALLY WEAK and DEPENDENT , but PHYSICALLY STRONG . Because she has become psychologically independent, she will train her FEMALE offsprings to be psychologically independent. What have you got? You've got the nigger WOMAN OUT FRONT AND THE nigger MAN BEHIND AND SCARED . This is a perfect situation of sound sleep and economics. Before the breaking process, we had to be alertly on guard at all times. Now, we can sleep soundly, for out of frozen fear his woman stands guard for us. He cannot get past her early slave-molding process. He is a good tool, now ready to be tied to the horse at a tender age. By the time a nigger boy reaches the age of sixteen, he is soundly broken in and ready for a long life of sound and efficient work and the reproduction of a unit of good labor force. Continually through the breaking of uncivilized savage niggers, by throwing the nigger female savage into a frozen psychological state of independence, by killing the protective male image, and by creating a submissive dependent mind of the nigger male slave, we have created an orbiting cycle that turns on its own axis forever, unless a phenomenon occurs and re-shifts the position of the male and female slaves. We show what we mean by example. Take the case of the two economic slave units and examine them close We breed two nigger males with two nigger females. Then, we take the nigger male away from them and keep them moving and working. Say one nigger female bears a nigger female and the other bears a nigger male; both nigger females—being without influence of the nigger male image, frozen with a independent psychology—will raise their offspring into reverse positions. The one with the female offspring will teach her to be like herself, independent and negotiable (we negotiate with her, through her, by her, negotiates her at will). The one with the nigger male offspring, she being frozen subconscious fear for his life, will raise him to be mentally dependent and weak, but physically strong; in other words, body over mind. Now, in a few years when these two offsprings become fertile for early reproduction, we will mate and breed them and continue the cycle. That is good, sound and long range comprehensive planning.”
Dissecting the previous words would again add so much length to this review that it would be a rewrite of the book and again a greater volume than the book itself. I also believe that anyone reading this review is intelligent enough to decide themselves, make up their own mind about the implications of such words are a mighty behemoth.
If you have never read this book, I say pick it up it is a wonderful yet short read. You will read this and it will stretch and branch your brain out in so many directions and fill it with so many thoughts that if one were to look back to this book, as the seed and root of it all, you have something as mighty as a mustard tree, and its physical size being the same as a mustard seed. Buy two copies: one for yourself and one for a black child you know that can read or is learning.
