Abstract
Excessive moralism can distort our perceptions in a variety of ways. Besides rearranging our priorities, it can misrepresent the world and how it works. Without so much as pausing to observe the collateral damage, a newly energized master value can shoulder equally significant objectives offstage. In the case of race relations, when freedom is declared expendable, whites can be identified as the source of all difficulties, and stereotypes condemned as the central mechanism of racial oppression. As materially, the role culture plays in maintaining caste-based relationships can be totally rejected. The fact is that liberty and equality occur within a social context. We human beings are not isolated creatures whose choice of values takes place in a vacuum. Both the social structure in which we are embedded and the culture operative within this structure determine what we will demand and ultimately what is possible. We must therefore turn our attention to examining the cultural factors molding race relations.
Africans were drawn into the vortex of the Altantic slave trade and funnelled into the sugar fields, the swampy rice lands, or the cotton and tobbaco plantations ofthe new world. The process of enslavement was almost unbelievably painful and bewlidering.... Completely cut offfrom their native land, they were frightened by the artifacts of the white man’s civilization and terrified by his cruelty until they learned that they were... expected to work for him.... John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
The Culture of Slavery: Origins
An early, and rather tendentious, rendering of this observation comes from Charles Ellwood who noted that “slavery did not fit the individual or race for a life of freedom and did not raise moral standards much above those of Africa.” See: Ellwood, C.A. (1924)Sociology and Modern Social ProblemsNew York: American Book. Robert Putnam makes the same point more felcitously. He says, “Slavery was, in fact, a social systemdesigned to destroy social capital among slaves and between slaves and freemen. Well established networks of reciprocity among the oppressed would have raised the risk of rebellion, and egalitarian bonds of sympathy between slave and free would have undermined the very legitimacy of the system.” Putnam, R.D. (2000)Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 294.
Blassingame, J.W. (1979)The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South.New York: Oxford University Press.
D’Souza, D. (1995)The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society.New York: The Free Press.
To quote Myrdal: “In practically all of its divergences, American Negro culture is not something independent of general American culture. It is a distorted development, or a pathological condition, of the general American Culture. The instability of the Negro family, the inadequacy of educational facilities for Negroes, the emotionalism of the Negro church, the insufficiency and underwholesomeness of Negro recreational activity, the plethora of Negro sociable organizations, the narrowness of interests of the average Negro, the provincialism of his political speculation, the high Negro crime rate, the cultivation of the arts to the neglect of other fields, superstition, personality difficulties, and other characteristic traits are mainly forms of social pathology which, for the most part, are created by the caste pressure.” See: Myrdal, G. (1944)An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy.New York: Harper & Row.
Clark, K.B. (1965)Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power.New York: Harper & Row.
Magnet, M. (1993)The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties Legacy to the Underclass.New York: William Morrow. For an overview of the dysfunctional consequences of culture for economic development see: Harrison, L.E. and Huntington, S.P. (Eds.) (2000)Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress.New York: Basic Books.
Attitudes toward cultural explanations have been softening in recent years. There is still some bias against a “culture of slavery,” but cultural constructs emanating from more recent events are better accepted. See: Lamont, M. (Ed.) (1999)The Cultural Territories of race: Black and White Boundaries.Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Patterson, O. (1998)Rituals of Blood: Consequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries.Washington, D.C.: Civitas/Counterpoint; Anderson, E. (1999)The Code of the Street: Decency,Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City.New York: W.W. Norton; Fukuyama, F. (1999) The Great Disruption.The Atlantic Monthly,May; Massey, D. S. and Denton, N.A. (1993)American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Under Class.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harrison, L.E. and Huntington, S.P. (Eds.) (2000) op. cit.
Loury, G.C. (1995) The end of relativism, The Weekly Standard, Sept. 25.
Marger, M.N. (1997)Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives:4th Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Hochschild, J. (1995)Facing Up to the American Dream.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Anderson, E. (1990)Streetwise: Race Class and Change in an Urban Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
See also: Durneier, M. (1992)Slims Table: Race Respectability and Masculinity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
See: Hannerz, U. (1969)Soul Side: Inquiries into Ghetto Culture and Community.New York: Columbia University Press.
Wilson, W.J. (1987)The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City the Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Wilson, W.J. (1996)When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Jencks, C. (1992)Rethinking Social Policy: Race Poverty and the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilson, W.J. (1996) op. cit.
Massey too blames a concentration of poverty for exacerbating black problems, which he says essentially creates a “culture of segregation.” See: Massey, D.S. and Denton, N.A. (1993)American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Under Class.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Park, R. (1950)Race and Culture.Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
Washington, B.T. [1901] (1985)Up From Slavery.New York: Oxford University Press.
Ogbum, W. [1922] (1966)Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature.New York: Heubsch.
Chirot, D. (1994)Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age.Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Merton, R.K. (1968)Social Theory and Social Structure.New York: The Free Press.
Hochschild, J. (1995) op. cit.
See especially: Fukuyama, F. (1999)The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order.New York: Free Press; Patterson, O. (1998) op. cit; Anderson, E. (1999) op. cit.
For a special case see Hamilton, R.F. (1996)The Social Misconstruction of Reality: Validity and Verification in the Scholarly Community.New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fein, M. (1990)Role Change: A Resocialization Perspective.New York: Praeger; Biddle, B. (1979.Role Theory: Expectations,Identities and Behaviors.New York: Academic Press.
Chirot, D. (1994) op. cit.
Gerth, H. and Mills, C.W. (Eds.) (1946)From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology.New York: Oxford University Press.
Fukuyama, F. (1999) op. cit. A compelling example is also provided by: Putnam, R.D. (1993)Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Fein, M. (1990) op. cit.
Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitas has similar implications. See: Swartz, D. (1997)Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Some recent speculations about the impact of the emotions can be found in: Elster, J. (1999)Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions.New York-Cambridge University Press.
van der Kolk, B.A., McFarlane, A.C. and Weisaeth, L. (Eds.) (1996)Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind Body and Society. New York: Guilford.
For contemporary reflections on the nature of human agency see: Coleman, J.S. (1990b)Foundations of Social Theory.Cambridge MA: Belknap Press; Giddens, A. (1984)The Constitution of Society.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Sumner, W.G. (1906)Folkways.Boston: Gin.
Gerson, M. (Ed.) (1996)The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader.Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Gates, H.L. and West, C. (1996)The Future of the Race.New York: Vintage Books.
Lee, S. (1991)Five for Five: The Films of Spike Lee. New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang.
Roth, C. (1970)A History of the Jews.New York: Schocken Books.
Gambino, R. (1974)Blood of My Blood.New York: Anchor Books. See as well: Putnam, R.D. (1993)Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. For a contemporaty comparison of Italians and Jews see: Rieder, J. (1985)Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sowell, T. (1996)Migrations and Cultures: A World View.New York: Basic Books.
Leyburn, J.G. (1962)The Scotch-Irish: A Social History.Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Lewis, O. (1966)La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty.New York: Random House; Howell, J. T. (1973)Hard Living on Clay Street: Portraits of Blue Collar Families.New York: Anchor Books.
Valentine, C.A. (1968)Culture and Poverty.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
See the “culture of segregation” in Massey, D.S. and Denton, NA. (1993) op. cit.
Patterson, O. (1982)Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Elkins, S.M. (1969)Slavery.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Blassingame, J.W. (1979) op. cit.
Zimbardo, P.G. (1972) The pathology of imprisonment.Society.April.
Early textbooks in sociology did sometimes refer to the “slave culture of the negro,” but this was not the norm. See: Gillin, J.L., Dittmer, C.G., and Colbert, R.J. (1928)Social Problems.New York: Century. Much more common was the supposition that black culture was a pale, and often distorted replica, of white culture. See: Myrdal, G. (1944) op. cit.
Styron, W. (1967)The Confessions of Nat Turner.New York: Random House.
Ellis, J.J. (1996)American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson.New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
It must not be assumed, however, that slave culture was exclusively reactive to white impositions. Holdovers from African cultural precursors, as well as slave creativity, also played a part. See: Genovese, E.D. (1974)Roll Jordan Roll. New York: Pantheon.
Locke, J. 1772)Two Treaties on Government.London: J. Whiston. See also: Aristotle (1941)The Basic Works of Aristotle.Edited by R. McKeon. New York: Random House. Orlando Patterson would surely agree that slavery has its origins in warfare. See: Patterson, O. (1991)Freedom: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture.New York: Basic Books.
Thomas, H. (1997)The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 14401870.New York: Simon & Schuster.
Douglass, F. [1945] (1968)Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass.New York: Signet Books.
Speaking of a later time period (the 1930s) John Dollard observed that “the hostility properly directed toward the white caste is deflected from it and focused within the Negro group itself” See: Dollard, J. (1937)Caste and Class in a Southern Town.New Haven: Yale University Press.
Blau, P.M. (1955)The Dynamics of Bureaucracy: A Study of Interpersonal Relationships in Two Government Agencies.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hughes, E.C. (1958)Men and Their Work.Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
The Sally Hemmings case, wherein Thomas Jefferson has been demonstrated to have fathered several children by the slave half-sister of his deceased wife, is a vivid example.
Cherlin, A.J. (1992)Marriage Divorce Remarriage. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Anderson, E. (1999)The Code of the Street: Decency Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W.W. Norton. Douglass, F. [1945] (1968)Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass. New York: Signet Books.
Blassingame, J.W. (1979) op. cit.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2001 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fein, M.L. (2001). The Culture of Slavery: Origins. In: Race and Morality. Clinical Sociology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1281-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1281-3_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5476-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1281-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive