House Slaves, Field Slaves and the Obama Predicament

by Mark P. Fancher

"Obama has found himself in the pathetic position of
trying to convince white that he is ‘safe,' and not at all like those 'other
blacks.'"

HouseCottonPickers

In his book, Africa and
Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400 - 1800, author John
Thornton confirms the long-held anecdotal presumption that enslaved Africans
who worked in the plantation "big house" had a better quality of life than
those who worked in the fields.

Thornton
states:

"The contrast between the
life of a domestic servant, residing in the owner's house, perhaps well dressed
and not necessarily overworked, and that of the plantation slaves and field
hands is well illustrated by the case of two Brazilian domestics, Ines and
Juliana. These two pampered slaves, raised among the Europeans and sharing in
their lives, testified against their master, Paulo Affonso, to the Inquisition
of Bahia in 1613-14, and in reprisal, their master ordered them transferred as
field hands to his sugar estate at Itapianga. There, a short time later they
were both dead, victims of ‘many whippings and bad life and labor.'"

It is likely that as a
consequence of these and comparable incidents, many enslaved Africans who
toiled and suffered in the fields recognized their limited life options, and
set their sights on a place on the master's domestic staff. If the fate of
Sisters Ines and Juliana is any indication, disloyalty, insolence and
recalcitrance were not qualities that were tolerated in a house slave, and a
slave could win a coveted position in the big house only if he or she could
assure the master that there would be no efforts to slip poison into the slave
owner's food, or kill him as he slept.

"Disloyalty, insolence and recalcitrance were not
qualities that were tolerated in a house slave."

However, masters had no
guarantee of docility. In his book Runaway Slaves, distinguished
historian John Hope Franklin observed:

"Even slaves who were
thought to be mild mannered and obedient sometimes reached a breaking point.
Having never reacted violently, the house servant of a Louisiana woman
‘returned the blow' as she was being physically chastised by her owner, threw
her mistress to the ground, and ‘beat her unmercifully, on the head and face.'
The white woman's face swelled up and turned black. ‘I could not have known
her, by seeing her,' a visitor at the plantation said a few weeks later, ‘poor
little woman is confined to bed yet' and remains ‘dangerously ill.'"

Thus, a house slave - or an
African who aspired to become a house slave - was faced with the choice of
either pleasing the master at all costs in order to preserve a relatively
privileged position, or, resolve that even if there were benefits to living
under the master's roof, they were not worth losing the little bit of dignity
and self-respect that even a slave might have if he or she was willing to fight
for them.

Africans may have ultimately
moved off of the plantation, but many continue to seek their place in the big
house. Modern big houses may be executive positions in major corporations - or
even entry level jobs. A big house might be tenure on a university faculty, or
a partnership in a major law firm. The shared characteristic of all of these
"big houses" is that in some way, shape or form, the aspirant must gain favor
with gatekeepers. To accomplish this, Africans must frequently suppress or
conceal much about themselves that connects them to their culture. Speech
patterns and slang used at home give way to "corporation speak." Otherwise
natural hair is relaxed. Jokes told in the board room that aren't funny to most
Africans are laughed at anyway. A brother who might normally prefer to spend
Saturday afternoon shooting hoops will grudgingly find himself on the golf
course with his white co-workers.

"Modern big houses may be executive positions in major
corporations - or even entry level jobs."

HouseTobyFetch
Barack Obama's efforts to
enter the biggest of big houses in American politics has allowed us to see in
the clearest way possible that the price of access is doing whatever it takes
to make white people like you. Thus, Obama has found himself in the pathetic
position, of essentially trudging through rural America with hat in hand,
trying to convince white people - many of them bigots - that he is "safe," and
not at all like those "other blacks." Reverend Jeremiah Wright's rhetoric has
been blamed for having a destructive impact on the Obama campaign. But the
truth is, if the pastor had never spoken a word, in the minds of white America,
Wright's mere presence would still have proclaimed: "Obama is just like all of
those other Negroes!" What's more, it has been interesting to observe how so
many Africans who have come to identify strongly with the Obama campaign react
when Reverend Wright or anyone else actually says things that threaten to
shatter the illusion of the "black man who isn't black." In one form or
another, we have heard a loud chorus of: "Hush now! Don't let them white folks
hear you!"

Has it really come to this?
Have our people forgotten that Malcolm X, the Panthers, John Carlos, Tommie
Smith, Kwame Ture and countless others stood up so that we would never again
have to kneel meekly before "The Man"? What happened? Have our people on a mass
level adopted a house slave mentality?
Not likely. After all, the Detroit Branch of the NAACP and 11,000
Africans who attended its Freedom Fund Dinner, displayed the spirit of the
field slave when they welcomed Reverend Wright into their presence as an act of
defiance. Not only that, there are no doubt millions of other Africans who
agree with every word Reverend Wright has uttered.

No, the irony is that in
many cases, the near fanatic support for Obama (notwithstanding the candidate's
obsession with calming white fears) is in many cases fueled by field slave
impulses. In general, those impulses drive the field slave to take that which
is forbidden, to walk through doors that have been locked, and to (whenever
possible) rub success in the face of the oppressor. As the field slaves watch
Obama march steadily toward a position that a black man is not supposed to have
until the passage of at least another generation, they can't help but get
caught up.

"Merely becoming a resident of the big house
does not transform the new occupant into the master."

Only time will tell whether
the unrelenting beating that Obama has taken in recent weeks for no reason
other than he happens to be African will be the cold slap in the face that
reminds the slaves out in the field that merely becoming a resident of the big
house does not transform the new occupant into the master. Although many
see value - even if only sentimental or symbolic- in electing a black
president, it should become increasingly apparent that if the quest for a
position in the big house compels a slave to abandon his pastor, ignore his
community, commit to a corporate and Zionist agenda, and pander to bigots, then
it is likely that once he moves in, he will have to stay with that program if
he wants to keep his job.

On
the plantation, it is likely that many of the field slaves who managed to talk
their way into the big house entered fully conscious of the likelihood that the
humiliation they would suffer there would reach intolerable limits. Those
contemporary field slaves who live vicariously through would-be President
Obama, will be well advised to, like their ancestors, continue their journey
toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with open eyes, and a frank realization that
the presidency is not a political panacea - and possibly not even a palliative
pill for the ills of America's African population. If we are to achieve genuine
liberation, all political options, including revolution must not only remain
open, but be pursued as though the world had never heard of Barack Obama.

Mark P. Fancher is a human rights lawyer, writer
and activist. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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