Brown Begins Inquiry Into Slavery Ties

[dArKeR]

By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - When a paid notice denouncing the idea of reparations for slavery appeared in Brown University's student newspaper three years ago, angry students protested, dumped the papers in the trash and demanded an apology.

The Brown Daily Herald defended itself on grounds of free speech, and university president Ruth Simmons, herself a descendant of slaves, weighed in by stressing support for free expression.

But Simmons said the campus uproar sparked a desire to learn more.

Simmons, the first black president of an Ivy League college, took the unprecedented step of directing Brown to study its early links to slave owners and traders and recommend whether and how the college should take responsibility for that connection.

"We're trying to cope with our legacy," she said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Things don't get better because we ignore them."

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040321/ap_on_re_us/brown_university_slavery

A little tid-bit I didn't see in my History textbooks!

[DulceDecorum]

1. When people to refer to "old money"

they are talking about those who made their fortunes from the slave trade.

On another note, I would STRONGLY recommend that NO AFRICAN set foot within ANY Ivy League school or college until further notice.
Do so at your peril.

And as for Ruth Simmons herself, there are those of us who have not seen any real evidence of her having actually DONE anything to confront racism during her tenure as President of Smith College, that bastion of old money.

[demdave]

3. Why should blacks not recieve the educational value of an Ivy League

school? I don't understand your STRONG warning. Until further notice? What notice? Notice about what? Do so at your peril? What peril? What is the risk from attending? Please explain. Thanks.

[DulceDecorum]

7. What educational value are you referring to?

As for my end,
I am holding up Dillibe Onyeama's first book.
And I am also looking at the terrible condition in which several international students have been returned to their homes abroad.

[mobuto]

12. ???

I didn't go to Brown, so I can't say first hand, but a great many of my friends and coworkers did (yes, African Americans among them) and they seem to be under the impression that they got a pretty decent edumacation there. But what would they know?

I am holding up Dillibe Onyeama's first book.

Huh? Dillibe Onyeama's book (I confess I haven't read it) appears to be about his experiences as a student at Eton in the 1950s. Relevance? Why are you so interested in denying students of certain skin colors a first class education?

And I am also looking at the terrible condition in which several international students have been returned to their homes abroad.


How shocking! Well, that's happened at my alma mater too, and you know what? Its a function of post-September 11 realities at Immigration and Citizenship Services. I can assure you that they're the ones who deport students, not Brown University heavies.

[AP]

17. And it's not like Brown's happy that their students got deported. In ...

...fact they're probably incredibly pissed.

[DulceDecorum]

34. !!!!

I notice that you do not deny that at this point in time,
it may NOT be to benefit of international students to enrol in Ivy League colleges.

For once we agree on the eventual outcome of the
"function of post-September 11 realities at Immigration and Citizenship Services."

Some of these students have been returned to their home countries in terrible condition. Their parents DEEPLY regret having sent them to United States. Especially when students of certain skin colors (and nationalities) can get a first class education ELSEWHERE.

[AP]

35. Oops. You've changed your argument. "International students" or "Black

students" shouldn't enroll in Ivy league schools? Which is it? And how is this even the same argument at all?

Your argument has been all over the place, and rather than answer any question you've been asked, you simply shift your argument.

You need to start from the beginning and state your argument.

[DulceDecorum]

38. No change.

On another note, I would STRONGLY recommend that NO AFRICAN set foot within ANY Ivy League school or college until further notice.
Do so at your peril.

Many of these students have been returned to their home countries in deplorable condition. If they had not set foot in these Ivy League colleges, they would have been spared.
It is VERY possible to obtain a first class education OUTSIDE the United States. I strongly encourage all internationals to reconsider enrolment in any US institution.

As for the African-Americans residing in the US, it's not like they have much of a choice anyway. My advice to them is to keep on keeping on.

[mobuto]

41. African-Americans residing in the US?

You make it sound like African-Americans are just visiting or something. I hate to break it to you, but African-Americans are just as much Americans as anybody else. And not only is it bizarre for you to suggest they not go to the best American universities, but where else would they go? And how many African-Americans do NOT reside in the US? Why don't you refer to "Saudis residing in Saudi Arabia" or "Frenchmen residing in France" or "Chinese people residing in China?" What context are viewing the world through?

I still don't know why also you single out Africans. You think Africans are subject to more immigration problems that international students from other regions? You must be joking. I can assure you, Eastern Europeans and Chinese students aren't having an easy time either. This has absolutely nothing to do with race - and you're argument here is completely nonsensical - and everything to do with the way business is done at Immigration and Citizenship Services.

[DulceDecorum]

44. And the way business is done

at "Immigration and Citizenship Services" is the reason that I am recommending that they go to school elsewhere.
Until further notice.

[AP]

49. What do Ruth Simmons and Reparations have to do with immigration &

nationality????

I've read some of your other posts in other threads and you have interesting things to say, but you're undermining your credibility by trying to squeeze square pegs into round holes.

If you want to talk about immigration and nationality, make it clear and/or start a new thread. This one's about race.

[mobuto]

40. Ivy League colleges?

International students everywhere run the risk of being deported these days. Ivy League students don't run a greater risk of being deported - in fact, my guess is that they run a lesser risk.

I don't understand why you'd seek to blame schools for the actions of the Department of Homeland Security.

I also don't see why you equate black students with international students. There are plenty of minorities who attend top flight schools who are US citizens or permanent residents. Why exactly shouldn't they get the benefit of a first class education?

[DulceDecorum]

45. State Colleges can better protect their students.

Students in state schools CONSISTENTLY report better treatment overall than those in Ivy League schools.

The fact of the matter is:
international students, are getting sent sent home in deplorable condition.
In very very many instances, their minds and their bodies have been seriously and permanently damaged beyond repair, as a direct result of coming to the United States in search of higher education.

[mobuto]

47. Balderdash

First, you create a false dichotomy - there are a lot of schools out there that are neither Ivy League nor Public. Why you single out Ivy League schools or Brown is not entirely clear.

Second, the idea that international students at public universities are somehow less disposed to immigration problems and deportation than their counterparts at private universities comes across as strange. Having known international graduate students at public universities who have been denied reentry, I know for a fact that that isn't the case.

Third, you have repeately failed to explain why you single out African students for your "warning." Are African students targeted more than international students from other areas?

their minds and their bodies have been seriously and permanently damaged beyond repair

Minds and bodies seriously and permanently damaged beyond repair? What in God's name are you talking about? I agree that deportation or being denied reentry can be a traumatic experience, especially when imposed for seemingly arbitrary reasons, but you're being rather ridiculously hyperbolic here. Who is being damaged beyond repair?

[AP]

50. You have ANY evidence to support that?

[AP]

4. "Do so at your peril"???? IIRC, Brown was one of the first

Ivy League colleges to graduate a black man, and was, I'm almost certian, the first one to have black man play on the football team, and Brown, and all the Ivy League schools have been a stepping stone to greater economic, cultural and political power for people of all races for over a century.

To turn your back on that at this point in history makes no sense.

And, Jesus, to do that a Brown, where a Black woman president is taking issues like this farther than anyone anywhere really makes no sense.

[DulceDecorum]

5. RE: Black woman president

Former US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said
“A Black snake will bite you just the same as a White snake".

[AP]

6. Ruth Simmons isn't a snake. If you're going to argue that Brown and other

Ivy League schools are making the lives of the their black students WORSE by giving them access to great educations in liberal arts institutions which open doors for all their students, you're going to have to take your argument a little farther than insinuating dangers and that Simmons is a snake.

[keithyboy]

10. I think maybe there are some here who don't want to learn true history

It doesn't matter what is uncovered, however, those in power are those whose families gained their wealth and postion on the backs of slaves either here or abroad. They control "history" Just think what you learned about the 'cowboys and Indians.'

Just think about how most whites view Africa, Iraq, etc. "uncivilized is what they call them when in fact, their civilizations, including reading, writing, and arithmatic originated in those civilizatons. Long before Moses, wrote in stone, the Akkadian had the story of the flood and a 'chosen' race memorialized. All roads led to the Arab nations and the far east (China) for trading in food, goods, gems, etc. Remember, most aryans came from cold, dank countries or areas with little natural resources and hence needed to rely on conquest to get the lands and resources to survive. Even today, the unreast and turmoil in the world comes from that same kind of need that drives the desire for conquest and control of those areas for their natural resources. And remember, they had to invade and take this rich land from the Native Americans.

[DulceDecorum]

18. I think that you really need

to go talk to one or more of those students who have received what you refer to as "great educations in liberal arts institutions."

Ask them how many times they have been brought to tears by the actions of their professors and the local Young Republicans Club.

Ask them how they are being treated under the auspices of the Patriot Act.

Ask them of their experiences during or shortly after September 11 when they went to offer condolences to their fellow students.

Ask them of their experiences with banks and the local Department of Motor Vehicles.

Ask them of their experiences in the library when they walk the stacks or when they sit at their study desks.

Ask them how often their cell phones and computers and mail appear to have been tampered with.

And then,
after asking the international students in Ivy League schools all these questions,
ask them if they can remember anything they have learned in class and whether they would recommend that another international student come to the same place to experience the same "access to great educations."

[AP]

20. There aren't that many Republicans at Brown.

And how did the PA, or 9/11 or banks or DMVs, influence black students at Brown any differently that at any other college in America?

And if you're talking about experiences in the libary, I think you're going to have a hard time convincing every black student in America that they're better off at an HBC.

I love HBCs. But I don't think we should have a university system for black students and a university system for white students.

Do you realize how absurd it is to conflate issues of immigration and post-9/11 anti-Muslim hostility with the idea that African-Americans should boycott ANY university in America?

[DulceDecorum]

9. Re: graduating a black man.

I am sure that other black men in America were indeed happy to know that their lives spent in slavery courtesy of the Brown family were found to be of benefit by one of their number.

Tell me, where did this black man eat?

We have heard of the dining clubs of Princeton and are aware that in the dining rooms of Smith College, the previous home of Ruth Simmons, were still segregated well into the 90s. Smith College was forced to abolish apartheid in dorms in 1985 and rid itself of every single black academic by the the end of the following year.
The chemistry professor who brought about this sea change,
by obtaining a federal grant which could not be used in an institution that had hitherto steadfastly refused to accept Equal Opportunity or Affirmative Action,
was found dead. They say it was suicide.

[AP]

15. Actually, I think he was a member of a frat.

So, Ruth Simmons is a snake because she went to Smith? She would have been a VICTIM of racism at Smith, and not a perpetrator of racism. She's BLACK!

Don't you think black students should feel comfortable going to a college where the president has actually experienced this?

I would argue that if you're black, Brown should be at the top of your list, and that, if you don't get into Brown, you should still consider Princeton, Yale and Harvard, because this is the best way to increase your cultural, economic and political power.

Also, I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Brown has had an exchange program with an HBC for decades.

[goclark]

25. Ruth Simmons Is A True Educator

She challenges students to seek the truth,whereever that may lead.


As an African American I am proud that she is head of Brown.

My best wishes go to Brown students as they open their eyes to the sorrows of slavery. Perhaps they will be more compassionate world leaders in the future.

Love you Ruth Simmons, love you!:bounce:

[AP]

26. Another good thing about Simmons: her son plays bass in a jazz band in...

...Atlanta (iirc).

In other words, she probably isn't using her position and connections to pass on inherited power and privilege to the detriment of people who work hard to earn what the get. But if any Brown alum gives the guy's band a recording contract, at least that's not going screw up the world or rip people off.

[DulceDecorum]

27. How do you feel

about Condoleezza Rice?
She is another black educator, and a VERY smart woman.
I hear that Ms. Simmons has also recived many awards from the African-American community, although not quite as many as her sister, Condoleezza Rice.

[sangh0]

28. Guilt by association?

How quaint

[AP]

30. Maybe if Rice had gone to Brown, she would have turned out more liberal.

And what a bizarre implication? Hearsay that Simmons receives awards, but not as many as Condie, so she must be bad?

Time for a logic class!!!!

[DulceDecorum]

43. The University of Denver isn't THAT bad.

I hear rumors that Ghadaffi holds a degree in polisci from Stanford, but I have yet to his name on any of their brochures.

As for Condoleezza Rice,
somebody likes what she is selling.
http://www.naacp.org/news/releases/presidentaward013002.shtml

[AP]

51. Are we talking about race or immigration now?

I was making a joke about Brown's reputation for being LIBERAL, and wasn't saying anything about the quality of the education. However, if there's a correlation between being a "bad" school and being a "conservative" school, I'm willing to discuss it.

[goclark]

33. Condi Is Slime

I have never talked with an African American that respects or likes her after she started with GWB. I talk to a lot of African Americans. That is not to say that she doesn't have supporters in our community. We are a rainbow of beliefs like every other community.

My friends understand that she has been educated at great schools, speaks Russian and has the eyes and ears of the President. That said,
most see her as a turn coat and dislike her to an extreme degree.

When we in the African American community see our heroes destroyed daily, it hurts when we see her standing up for this bigot GWB.
We see her as a Prissy Sister that has lost touch with her roots and believes that White Folks Love Her - NOT.

I did see her interviewed once by Gwen Ifill (sp.) and Condi said that she had been to dinner at Gwen's house, like they were friends.
I can't remember what had happened in the sorry administration that caused her to "come home" to her people and speak to the African American Journalists Association. I was shocked to see her kissing up when she opposed Affirmative Action and everything else our community holds dear.

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. Not all old money was made off the slave trade

That's hyperbole.

Shipping, railroads, real estate, stocks, guns, oil, etc. all made tons of money for people. Much of the old money that was made from slavery was in the South (no, far from all) and most of that was lost in the Civil War.

[DulceDecorum]

11. Amazing Grace,

how sweet the sound
of the money that I am counting and re-investing after shipping slaves, transporting cotton picked by slaves on my railroads, selling real estate complete with workers, stocks in the East India Company, guns for my fellow members of the local Skull and Bones Pirate club, oil (who knew how BIG that was goint to become!), etc.

The slaves might have wound up in the South, but HOW do you think they got all the way from West Africa to there?


Puritans justified slavery on economic, spiritual and legal grounds. To many Puritans, slavery represented cheap labor needed to establish their new colony. As many as 20 slaves could be maintained for the cost of one indentured servant. Our colony will never thrive "untill we gett...a stock of slaves suficient to doe all our business," wrote Emanuel Downing to his brother-in-law in 1645.
Puritans also justified the slavery of blacks on spiritual grounds. Because Puritans saw themselves as God’s chosen people, they viewed the enslavement of blacks and native peoples as a sacred privilege given to them by God. Layered upon that thinking was their belief that they were obligated to bring Christianity to blacks and native peoples in order to save their souls. Any suffering slaves might experience was offset by their delivery from a life of idolatry and heathenism. Typically, Puritan ministers had slaves, as did Reverend Samuel Hooker of Farmington, who owned a "negro slave" valued at 30 pounds sterling in 1697.
Accordingly, Puritans gave slavery a legal sanction. In 1641, the Colony of Massachusetts gave slavery and servitude statutory recognition. This statute was the first to legalize slavery in the English colonies. In the Colony of Connecticut, slavery was never established by law, but the recognition accorded it by the courts made slavery legal by action and the practice was not discouraged.
New England Puritans began trading for slaves with the West Indies in 1638 and initiated direct trade for slaves in Africa in 1644. By the early 1700’s, Puritan New England was the greatest slave-trading region in the New World.
http://www.stanleywhitman.org/slaverynewengland.html

[QC]

13. Many of the great early fortunes of New York and New England

were made in the rum and slave trades.

[Muddleoftheroad]

14. And many were not

To make a blanket characterization that all old money came from the slave trade is downright irresponsible.

[QC]

16. I didn't make that characterization, now did I?

I do find it refreshing, though, that someone is dropping the old pretense that only the states south of Pennsylvania had any involvement in slavery.

[Muddleoftheroad]

22. The other post did

DulceDecorum (1000+ posts) Mon Mar-22-04 03:03 PM
Response to Original message

1. When people to refer to "old money" they are talking about those who made their fortunes from the slave trade.

[DulceDecorum]

36. Nobody with "old money"

refused to business with slave-owners and slave products.
Somehow or other, all the way down the line, "old money" benefitted GREATLY from the slave trade.

Looked at any sweatshops lately?
Shopped at the Gap, Wal-Mart, Nike, Disney, Target, and Tommy Hilfiger?
(I know you did not buy a sweatshirt from the GOP.)

Heard about Federal Prison Industries?
http://www.uschamber.com/government/issues/privatization/fpi.htm

If you have NOT boycotted these products,
if you OWN products produced by people who have been compelled,
oftimes at gunpoint,
to work for little or no pay, then you too are in the same position as those with "old money."
You too, have benefitted from a trade involving forced labour.
And more so if your 401K has invested in funds with these stocks.

[Muddleoftheroad]

37. Wow, that's scientific

Yeah, because there were no abolitionists in the north.

The rest of your post seems a random rant against, well, pretty much everything.

[DulceDecorum]

23. Does indentured servitude

qualify as slavery?
Or do the Irish need not apply?
http://dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu/~yliu/classes/hist/slavery.html

Many Irish came to the US basically as slaves.
When they were ill-treated, as most slaves are, they would run away. It was very difficult to find a runaway slave who could vanish into another white population.

However, when a black slave ran away, he remained black. This helped narrow down the search. Hence the color/slave/racist connection.

[Muddleoftheroad]

32. Indentured servitude had a time limit generally

Of seven years. So, no it was not slavery.

[QC]

42. They were alike in a lot of ways.

Both indentured servants and slaves were chattel property, and could be bought and sold, wagered in card games, or whatever their owner wanted to do with them, which included splitting up families. Working and living conditions of the two groups were pretty much the same. Colonial laws referred to both groups as slaves. And indenture was not always voluntary--there was a thriving business in kidnapping and "spiriting" in England. It was not uncommon for people to wake up from a drinking binge and find themselves in the hold of a ship. And, of course, people convicted of such capital offenses as stealing bread were shipped wholesale to the plantations in the new world.

As Muddle points out, indenture had a time limit, but given the number of people who died before their seven years were up, this was often a distinction without much practical difference. Of about 250 servants sent to Jamestown in the beginning, only about 70 survived the first winter. Practically all of the Irish sent to Barbados died of disease and overwork before their term was up. And even after conditions improved in the American colonies, estimates are that anywhere from 20-40% of servants died before their indentures expired.

I know that history textbooks present indentured servitude as an act of charity by the rich, but the real story is much different.

[AP]

24. A lot of it came from war profiteering, by the way.

Kevin Phillips's Wealth & Democracy covers this.

[DulceDecorum]

29. As if the slave trade itself

was NOT downright irresponsible
and INHUMAN.

What are your views on the term "robber baron?"

[Muddleoftheroad]

31. HUH?

As a descendant of slaves, I have posted many times here about my hatred for that pathetic institution.

However, it is unfair to paint everyone with the same broad brush because they have "old money."

[DulceDecorum]

39. I personally

cannot help what my forebears did or did not do.
But the fact remains that I have benefitted from certain actions they took.
And I own to it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

48. Well, it sounds like YOUR old money is linked to slavery

But that is fine for you and not for everyone.

[cap]

46. not an option

African Americans who receive an Ivy League degree do significantly better than those who dont. There was a study on this -- let me go find the link.

Nor are they corrupted by the process -- many Ivies are very liberal and Brown is one of the most liberal campuses in the country.

[AP]

2. "a desire to learn more"

That's the right attitude.

People have such firmly held opinions on this issue, yet I have no idea how anyone could have an informed opinion about it until after we go through this process Brown's going through.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AP]

21. Maybe if they knew they were going to get eight years of undergrad tuition

out of you, they would have accepted you!

Ka-ching!!!!

[Moderator]

52. dArKeR

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
news source.

Thank you.

DU Moderator