WEBVTT - Harvard's Vincent Brown on New Book 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.760 This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:07.720 Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Vincent Brown as Professor of American 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.600 History and Professor of African and African American Studies at 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.520 Harvard University. His teachings include the history of slavery in 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.919 America and his most recent book, It's called Tacki's Revolt, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.120 The Store of the Story of an Atlantic Slave War. 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:23.400 His other writings to note how we need to look 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.480 at slavery in the context of empire and militarization and warfare. 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:29.880 I want to learn about this here, to talk about 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.080 it and how we can apply it perhaps to today's 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.440 um protests against racism and kind of the injustice that 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:37.920 we've been seeing, certainly in the last couple of weeks. 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.800 Is Vincent Brown, as we said, Harvard professor on the 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.920 phone from Cambridge. Professor Brown, it really is great to 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:47.400 have you here on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome, all right, kayl 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.440 thanks for having me on, and hello Jason as well. 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:51.920 I'm happy to be with you. So tell us, first 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.720 of all, a little bit about this book and why 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.800 you think it's it's important to maybe perhaps you know, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.280 kind of understanding where we are in society where we 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.840 are when it comes to racism, that just doesn't seem 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.679 to go away. Right. Well, appropriately, we're talking a lot 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.080 more about slavery now because we're talking about racism and 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.240 we're talking about racial violence. And one of the things 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.600 that always impresses me is that the stigma that attaches 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.600 to black people goes way back to slavery, so we 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.360 should be talking about it. And that stigma didn't just 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.600 mark black people out for exclusion and discrimination, it also 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.320 marked them out for violence. I think one of the 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.560 things that we don't often understand is how violent American 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.959 slavery was. And I don't just mean American slavery in 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.759 what became the United States, I mean American slavery all 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.000 throughout the Western hemisphere. That it was a violent institution, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.679 best characterized in some ways as a state of warfare 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.640 between enslavers and the people they enslaved. So tell us 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:52.280 more about that, because I think it's a it's a 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.920 really important point that that is often overlooked and I 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.680 certainly UH learned a lot starting to to read your book. 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:03.480 Give us the historical context here, sure, So, the expansion 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.600 of European empires in the America's involved conquests, and we 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.080 know that right. We know that there was conquest against 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.440 the Native Americans. We know that Europeans fought wars against 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.639 each other in order to defend their territory or take territory. 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.440 We also know, and we know this much better now 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.920 than we used to, that these plantations that they that 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.760 they built in the America's were staffed with people who 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.080 were often captives in wars in West Africa. And those 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.360 were wars in West Africa that were stimulated in part 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.760 by the European arms trade. So the scale of warfare 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.400 in Africa increased with the European arms trade, which increased 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:44.200 the number of slaves exported to the Americas, which enhanced 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:46.440 the value of the plantations because they were the people 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.480 doing the most profitable labor. One thing I think people 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:55.600 don't always understand is that slavery was the basis of 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.560 the colonization effort in the Americas. Where Europeans were able 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.880 to exploit slaves labor, they found their enterprises to be 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.800 much more profitable. So when we think about, say, the 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.920 territory that became the United States, right the thirteen colonies, 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:14.120 the most profitable of those colonies for Europeans were the 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.800 colonies in the south as you go below Virginia and 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.920 down into South Carolina, the colonies that enslaved the most 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:24.480 people UH and in the eighteenth century, UH large percentage 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.400 of then were from Africa. But it's also worth remembering 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.480 that the British didn't have thirteen colonies in America. They 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:35.000 had twenty six, and by far the most profitable of 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.160 those colonies were their colonies in the Caribbean, including Jamaica, 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.680 which was far in a way the most profitable, the 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.920 most militarily significant, and the most strategically and politically important 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.560 colony in the British Empire in the eighteenth century on 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.400 the eve of the revolution, and that was a colony 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:57.280 that was enslaved people and anywhere from you know, two 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.960 thirds to three quarters of those people at any time 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.520 in the eighteenth century would have been born in Africa, 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.600 and many of them would have had experiences in those 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.040 African wars um that that that made them subject to 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.160 capture enslavement. Let's get back to our conversation with Vincent Brown, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.680 Professor of American History and Professor of African and African 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:18.840 American Studies at Harvard University joining us on the phone 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.719 from Cambridge's got a new book. It's called Taki's Revolt, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.559 the Story of an Atlantic Slave War, and Professor Brown, 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.359 I'd like to talk more about the book because you 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:34.440 talk about the violence, obviously of this revolt and the 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:39.920 ultimately how it did more maybe to end the slave 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.320 trade than what some of the white abolitionists were doing. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.000 Help us understand what was involved in this revolt and 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:51.520 ultimately what it led to. Oh, thanks you the question, Jason. Um. 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.840 I really think of the dynamic that Lay Revolt was 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.920 a part of when it came to ending the slave trade. 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.680 I was interested to hear you talking about Colin Kaepernick 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.560 and his iconic gesture of kneeling right during the national anthem. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.000 Reminds me of the iconic medallion made by a man 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.520 named Josiah Wedwood in the late eighteenth century with an 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.560 African man in chains kneeling and the caption was always 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:16.520 am I not a man and a brother And it 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.320 was a question which asked people whether or not black 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:24.600 people were deserving as Christian fellowship. The alternative to fellowship 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.040 was war, and people were thinking about slavery body in 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.039 the Caribbean as the alternative to that kind of fellowship. 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.799 I do think we see something like that dynamic happening now, 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.200 which is violence in the streets is the alternative to 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.359 recognizing that we must have, should have and work for 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.760 an equal society in which black people are not stigmatized, 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.560 are not killed disproportionate to their numbers and the population 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.800 by officers of the law. UM. And so I really 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.880 see those connections going all the way back. I'm trying 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.279 to you know what's interesting, Jason was it was it 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.520 John O'Brien that we had the conversation where he was 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.200 talking with younger individuals about you know, why do you 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.200 have to protest? Why do you have to write? And 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.799 they were saying to him, listen, you have a place 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.080 at the table. You know, you get to go talk 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.120 with the president, and you get to go talk to 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.000 corporate boards. We don't have a place at the table. 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.200 And this is how we get noticed and we get attention. 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.800 And I thought it was really kind of interesting and 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.320 telling to me. And I do wonder, you know, Professor Brown, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.520 how do we stop just talking about all of this 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.680 and and those actions that are being taken, you know, 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.920 really bring about lasting change. The cover of Bloomberg Business 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.279 Week magazine this week is really telling. It's a picture. 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.880 I think how many black CEOs are out there among 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.679 I think the SNP it's four. You know, it's really telling. 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.240 So how do we really make a difference. I think 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.119 reducing an equality in society is one of the major 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.479 things we can do. We've got a society that's grossly unequal, now, 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.600 far more unequal than it was even in the night sixties. 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:02.600 I think we need to move in the other direction. 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.360 Removing some of the poverty of black people and brown 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.480 people and poor white people, frankly, is key to removing 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.440 some of the stigmas that attached to their lives, some 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.320 of the ways of value in their lives less than others. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.440 I think that's going to be crucial. Recognizing the value 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:20.920 of black life is at the heart of it, but 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:25.520 also reducing the general level of violence in our society. 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:27.320 One of the things I was interested in when I 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:31.200 wrote this book is how a militaristic society like uh 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.640 Jamaican slave society in the British Empire um really was 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.640 violent from top to bottom, from the level of intimate 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.400 relations between masters and the enslaves, all the way up 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.240 to imperial warfare. Unfortunately, we live in a society that 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:49.400 glorifies violence, that has been engaged in what seems like 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.280 perpetual warfare for decades now, and I do think that 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.600 that means our entire society is violent. Remember that the 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.119 police in the United States kill about a thousand people 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.720 a year, disproportionately Black people, but not all black people 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.760 by any means. About half of that number, about five 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.600 hundreds of those people are generally poor white people. It's 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.320 a society that's thoroughly violent, and then the stigma that 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.880 attaches to black people makes it even more violent towards 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.640 black people. But reducing the total level of vines in 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.160 society is going to going to go a long way 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.840 towards revalue in everyone's life, and black lives as well. 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.600 So Professor Brown, as a student of history and someone 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:33.720 who is living through this right now, Uh, does this 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:38.200 moment feel different based on people you talk to, based 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.559 on your research? I think we all want to hope 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.520 that it is. But but candidly I defer to someone 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.280 who's a lot smarter than I am, being you in 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:50.480 this case, Uh, to help me with the reality check here, Like, 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.880 how should we be hopeful. Is there something different that 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.480 that feels like it's happening. It feels a bit different 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.040 to me, And it feels different in part because the 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.160 protests are so broad, such a broad cross section of 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.520 society is engaged in them. Um. I do think that 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.200 that's going to make a change, But it all depends 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.240 on what comes next, right, UM. There there might be 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.080 a reaction to this that takes us in the other direction. 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.000 If the fear of these protests, uh is stimulated so 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.840 much sure that people you know, get afraid even more 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.319 afraid of young people, of black people, of people who 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.280 are protesting, then we might not move in the right direction. 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:29.920 What we really need is to recognize that we need 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.480 a less violent society, We need a police force that, uh, 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.720 that doesn't shoot first and ask questions later, uh, and 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.520 that we need to move towards a more equal society. Well. 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:45.400 And it's clear that this is an economic issue as well, 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.240 And I'm glad you circled back to that, and I'm 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:52.040 glad we started there in in your explanation uh and 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:56.760 analysis of even the roots of slavery and the profitability 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.640 uh that that you tied to those early slave trades 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:04.600 because Ultimately, this is a story, a current story of 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.880 poverty and both and Carol and I've been talking a 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.400 lot about this, both income and wealth gaps that have 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.000 to be filled if we're going to do anything about this, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:15.840 and if I can, yeah, and if I can piggyback 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.400 on that, because I think we always thought education would 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.120 be the great leveler right and create you know, or 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.760 get rid of the inequalities in society, Professor Brown. But 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.680 we know that that necessarily isn't the case, and we 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.040 know people don't all have the same access. Yeah, of course, 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.040 So I mean in our society, one of the ways 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.000 that people build wealth over generations is to compound interest 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:41.240 on their investments. The compound interest on enslavement. It's nothing, right, 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.440 And so you know, if for generations people had come 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.480 here enslaved, earned nothing for their labor, could invest nothing 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.560 in the for the betterment of their own children, you know, 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.000 educating them simply when you allow them to gain access 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.439 to education generations down the line, isn't going to allow 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.160 them to catch up to people who have Actually we've 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.280 been investing the fruits of their labor generation after generation 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.400 after generation. So one you know, really needs to kind 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.880 of put our backs into reducing the inequalities that have 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.520 been built up and accumulated over generation. Now it's a 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.640 really interesting point, I mean, and and that does come 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:20.080 down to some extent to access to capital markets. And 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:21.960 again that has been at the core of a lot 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.720 of the conversation we've had. Thank you so much, Vincent Brown. 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.520 He is Professor of American History Professor of African and 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.600 African American Studies at Harvard University. His new book, Takies Revolt, 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.120 The Story of an Atlantic Slave War a huge number 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.240 of lessons. It is clear for what we're talking about 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:42.040 right now. And to understand this, you don't just need 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.800 to understand what's happened over the past few weeks or 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.200 even the past few years or the last generation. It 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.720 goes back centuries. Gotta take our Naomi Kurbal over in London, 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:52.920 because she brought that to our attention, and when we 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:54.719 saw it, we're like, yeah, we definitely want to talk 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.640 to Professor Brown. So yeah, I think it's really important, Jason, 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.840 and I think we need to understand and um the 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.800 situation and where we are, what got us to here, uh, 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.720 and certainly what got blacks in America to where they 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.640 are today and how we can maybe improve it going forward. 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:11.719 So I think that's gonna be We're gonna put that 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.680 out on a podcast because that was just a fantastic conversation. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:16.800 And I hope we can draw on him in the 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.840 future because I think he could certainly provide more insight