Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Vincent Brown as Professor of American
Speaker 1: History and Professor of African and African American Studies at
Speaker 1: Harvard University. His teachings include the history of slavery in
Speaker 1: America and his most recent book, It's called Tacki's Revolt,
Speaker 1: The Store of the Story of an Atlantic Slave War.
Speaker 1: His other writings to note how we need to look
Speaker 1: at slavery in the context of empire and militarization and warfare.
Speaker 1: I want to learn about this here, to talk about
Speaker 1: it and how we can apply it perhaps to today's
Speaker 1: um protests against racism and kind of the injustice that
Speaker 1: we've been seeing, certainly in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Is Vincent Brown, as we said, Harvard professor on the
Speaker 1: phone from Cambridge. Professor Brown, it really is great to
Speaker 1: have you here on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome, all right, kayl
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on, and hello Jason as well.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to be with you. So tell us, first
Speaker 1: of all, a little bit about this book and why
Speaker 1: you think it's it's important to maybe perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: kind of understanding where we are in society where we
Speaker 1: are when it comes to racism, that just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to go away. Right. Well, appropriately, we're talking a lot
Speaker 1: more about slavery now because we're talking about racism and
Speaker 1: we're talking about racial violence. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that always impresses me is that the stigma that attaches
Speaker 1: to black people goes way back to slavery, so we
Speaker 1: should be talking about it. And that stigma didn't just
Speaker 1: mark black people out for exclusion and discrimination, it also
Speaker 1: marked them out for violence. I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that we don't often understand is how violent American
Speaker 1: slavery was. And I don't just mean American slavery in
Speaker 1: what became the United States, I mean American slavery all
Speaker 1: throughout the Western hemisphere. That it was a violent institution,
Speaker 1: best characterized in some ways as a state of warfare
Speaker 1: between enslavers and the people they enslaved. So tell us
Speaker 1: more about that, because I think it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really important point that that is often overlooked and I
Speaker 1: certainly UH learned a lot starting to to read your book.
Speaker 1: Give us the historical context here, sure, So, the expansion
Speaker 1: of European empires in the America's involved conquests, and we
Speaker 1: know that right. We know that there was conquest against
Speaker 1: the Native Americans. We know that Europeans fought wars against
Speaker 1: each other in order to defend their territory or take territory.
Speaker 1: We also know, and we know this much better now
Speaker 1: than we used to, that these plantations that they that
Speaker 1: they built in the America's were staffed with people who
Speaker 1: were often captives in wars in West Africa. And those
Speaker 1: were wars in West Africa that were stimulated in part
Speaker 1: by the European arms trade. So the scale of warfare
Speaker 1: in Africa increased with the European arms trade, which increased
Speaker 1: the number of slaves exported to the Americas, which enhanced
Speaker 1: the value of the plantations because they were the people
Speaker 1: doing the most profitable labor. One thing I think people
Speaker 1: don't always understand is that slavery was the basis of
Speaker 1: the colonization effort in the Americas. Where Europeans were able
Speaker 1: to exploit slaves labor, they found their enterprises to be
Speaker 1: much more profitable. So when we think about, say, the
Speaker 1: territory that became the United States, right the thirteen colonies,
Speaker 1: the most profitable of those colonies for Europeans were the
Speaker 1: colonies in the south as you go below Virginia and
Speaker 1: down into South Carolina, the colonies that enslaved the most
Speaker 1: people UH and in the eighteenth century, UH large percentage
Speaker 1: of then were from Africa. But it's also worth remembering
Speaker 1: that the British didn't have thirteen colonies in America. They
Speaker 1: had twenty six, and by far the most profitable of
Speaker 1: those colonies were their colonies in the Caribbean, including Jamaica,
Speaker 1: which was far in a way the most profitable, the
Speaker 1: most militarily significant, and the most strategically and politically important
Speaker 1: colony in the British Empire in the eighteenth century on
Speaker 1: the eve of the revolution, and that was a colony
Speaker 1: that was enslaved people and anywhere from you know, two
Speaker 1: thirds to three quarters of those people at any time
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century would have been born in Africa,
Speaker 1: and many of them would have had experiences in those
Speaker 1: African wars um that that that made them subject to
Speaker 1: capture enslavement. Let's get back to our conversation with Vincent Brown,
Speaker 1: Professor of American History and Professor of African and African
Speaker 1: American Studies at Harvard University joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Cambridge's got a new book. It's called Taki's Revolt,
Speaker 1: the Story of an Atlantic Slave War, and Professor Brown,
Speaker 1: I'd like to talk more about the book because you
Speaker 1: talk about the violence, obviously of this revolt and the
Speaker 1: ultimately how it did more maybe to end the slave
Speaker 1: trade than what some of the white abolitionists were doing.
Speaker 1: Help us understand what was involved in this revolt and
Speaker 1: ultimately what it led to. Oh, thanks you the question, Jason. Um.
Speaker 1: I really think of the dynamic that Lay Revolt was
Speaker 1: a part of when it came to ending the slave trade.
Speaker 1: I was interested to hear you talking about Colin Kaepernick
Speaker 1: and his iconic gesture of kneeling right during the national anthem.
Speaker 1: Reminds me of the iconic medallion made by a man
Speaker 1: named Josiah Wedwood in the late eighteenth century with an
Speaker 1: African man in chains kneeling and the caption was always
Speaker 1: am I not a man and a brother And it
Speaker 1: was a question which asked people whether or not black
Speaker 1: people were deserving as Christian fellowship. The alternative to fellowship
Speaker 1: was war, and people were thinking about slavery body in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean as the alternative to that kind of fellowship.
Speaker 1: I do think we see something like that dynamic happening now,
Speaker 1: which is violence in the streets is the alternative to
Speaker 1: recognizing that we must have, should have and work for
Speaker 1: an equal society in which black people are not stigmatized,
Speaker 1: are not killed disproportionate to their numbers and the population
Speaker 1: by officers of the law. UM. And so I really
Speaker 1: see those connections going all the way back. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to you know what's interesting, Jason was it was it
Speaker 1: John O'Brien that we had the conversation where he was
Speaker 1: talking with younger individuals about you know, why do you
Speaker 1: have to protest? Why do you have to write? And
Speaker 1: they were saying to him, listen, you have a place
Speaker 1: at the table. You know, you get to go talk
Speaker 1: with the president, and you get to go talk to
Speaker 1: corporate boards. We don't have a place at the table.
Speaker 1: And this is how we get noticed and we get attention.
Speaker 1: And I thought it was really kind of interesting and
Speaker 1: telling to me. And I do wonder, you know, Professor Brown,
Speaker 1: how do we stop just talking about all of this
Speaker 1: and and those actions that are being taken, you know,
Speaker 1: really bring about lasting change. The cover of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week magazine this week is really telling. It's a picture.
Speaker 1: I think how many black CEOs are out there among
Speaker 1: I think the SNP it's four. You know, it's really telling.
Speaker 1: So how do we really make a difference. I think
Speaker 1: reducing an equality in society is one of the major
Speaker 1: things we can do. We've got a society that's grossly unequal, now,
Speaker 1: far more unequal than it was even in the night sixties.
Speaker 1: I think we need to move in the other direction.
Speaker 1: Removing some of the poverty of black people and brown
Speaker 1: people and poor white people, frankly, is key to removing
Speaker 1: some of the stigmas that attached to their lives, some
Speaker 1: of the ways of value in their lives less than others.
Speaker 1: I think that's going to be crucial. Recognizing the value
Speaker 1: of black life is at the heart of it, but
Speaker 1: also reducing the general level of violence in our society.
Speaker 1: One of the things I was interested in when I
Speaker 1: wrote this book is how a militaristic society like uh
Speaker 1: Jamaican slave society in the British Empire um really was
Speaker 1: violent from top to bottom, from the level of intimate
Speaker 1: relations between masters and the enslaves, all the way up
Speaker 1: to imperial warfare. Unfortunately, we live in a society that
Speaker 1: glorifies violence, that has been engaged in what seems like
Speaker 1: perpetual warfare for decades now, and I do think that
Speaker 1: that means our entire society is violent. Remember that the
Speaker 1: police in the United States kill about a thousand people
Speaker 1: a year, disproportionately Black people, but not all black people
Speaker 1: by any means. About half of that number, about five
Speaker 1: hundreds of those people are generally poor white people. It's
Speaker 1: a society that's thoroughly violent, and then the stigma that
Speaker 1: attaches to black people makes it even more violent towards
Speaker 1: black people. But reducing the total level of vines in
Speaker 1: society is going to going to go a long way
Speaker 1: towards revalue in everyone's life, and black lives as well.
Speaker 1: So Professor Brown, as a student of history and someone
Speaker 1: who is living through this right now, Uh, does this
Speaker 1: moment feel different based on people you talk to, based
Speaker 1: on your research? I think we all want to hope
Speaker 1: that it is. But but candidly I defer to someone
Speaker 1: who's a lot smarter than I am, being you in
Speaker 1: this case, Uh, to help me with the reality check here, Like,
Speaker 1: how should we be hopeful. Is there something different that
Speaker 1: that feels like it's happening. It feels a bit different
Speaker 1: to me, And it feels different in part because the
Speaker 1: protests are so broad, such a broad cross section of
Speaker 1: society is engaged in them. Um. I do think that
Speaker 1: that's going to make a change, But it all depends
Speaker 1: on what comes next, right, UM. There there might be
Speaker 1: a reaction to this that takes us in the other direction.
Speaker 1: If the fear of these protests, uh is stimulated so
Speaker 1: much sure that people you know, get afraid even more
Speaker 1: afraid of young people, of black people, of people who
Speaker 1: are protesting, then we might not move in the right direction.
Speaker 1: What we really need is to recognize that we need
Speaker 1: a less violent society, We need a police force that, uh,
Speaker 1: that doesn't shoot first and ask questions later, uh, and
Speaker 1: that we need to move towards a more equal society. Well.
Speaker 1: And it's clear that this is an economic issue as well,
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you circled back to that, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad we started there in in your explanation uh and
Speaker 1: analysis of even the roots of slavery and the profitability
Speaker 1: uh that that you tied to those early slave trades
Speaker 1: because Ultimately, this is a story, a current story of
Speaker 1: poverty and both and Carol and I've been talking a
Speaker 1: lot about this, both income and wealth gaps that have
Speaker 1: to be filled if we're going to do anything about this,
Speaker 1: and if I can, yeah, and if I can piggyback
Speaker 1: on that, because I think we always thought education would
Speaker 1: be the great leveler right and create you know, or
Speaker 1: get rid of the inequalities in society, Professor Brown. But
Speaker 1: we know that that necessarily isn't the case, and we
Speaker 1: know people don't all have the same access. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: So I mean in our society, one of the ways
Speaker 1: that people build wealth over generations is to compound interest
Speaker 1: on their investments. The compound interest on enslavement. It's nothing, right,
Speaker 1: And so you know, if for generations people had come
Speaker 1: here enslaved, earned nothing for their labor, could invest nothing
Speaker 1: in the for the betterment of their own children, you know,
Speaker 1: educating them simply when you allow them to gain access
Speaker 1: to education generations down the line, isn't going to allow
Speaker 1: them to catch up to people who have Actually we've
Speaker 1: been investing the fruits of their labor generation after generation
Speaker 1: after generation. So one you know, really needs to kind
Speaker 1: of put our backs into reducing the inequalities that have
Speaker 1: been built up and accumulated over generation. Now it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting point, I mean, and and that does come
Speaker 1: down to some extent to access to capital markets. And
Speaker 1: again that has been at the core of a lot
Speaker 1: of the conversation we've had. Thank you so much, Vincent Brown.
Speaker 1: He is Professor of American History Professor of African and
Speaker 1: African American Studies at Harvard University. His new book, Takies Revolt,
Speaker 1: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War a huge number
Speaker 1: of lessons. It is clear for what we're talking about
Speaker 1: right now. And to understand this, you don't just need
Speaker 1: to understand what's happened over the past few weeks or
Speaker 1: even the past few years or the last generation. It
Speaker 1: goes back centuries. Gotta take our Naomi Kurbal over in London,
Speaker 1: because she brought that to our attention, and when we
Speaker 1: saw it, we're like, yeah, we definitely want to talk
Speaker 1: to Professor Brown. So yeah, I think it's really important, Jason,
Speaker 1: and I think we need to understand and um the
Speaker 1: situation and where we are, what got us to here, uh,
Speaker 1: and certainly what got blacks in America to where they
Speaker 1: are today and how we can maybe improve it going forward.
Speaker 1: So I think that's gonna be We're gonna put that
Speaker 1: out on a podcast because that was just a fantastic conversation.
Speaker 1: And I hope we can draw on him in the
Speaker 1: future because I think he could certainly provide more insight