Muslim slavery vs. Black History Month: an answer to Larry Elder

In a recent hot-take, libertarian pundit Larry Elder decries what he sees as liberal bias in Black History Month (BHM). He says, “Despite years of Black History Februarys, many know little to nothing about the vast role played by Arab and Muslim slavers in the African slave trade.” He asks, “Why Don’t They Teach About the Arab-Muslim Slave Trade in Africa?”

I have seen variations of this objection many, many times. Sometimes, it is even used as an objection to talking about the history of American slavery at all. Elder, however, seems to join the larger group which sees it as merely a matter of emphasis deriving from a leftist agenda. I honestly am surprised the objection is so popular, for it is quite easy to lay to rest.

Even if we grant the liberal bias (which I do), the answer still needs to account for even more obvious reasons: limited time, limited space in the curriculum, and the main focus of BHM in America which is . . . American history.

Indeed, we can barely even correct the emphases in our normal teaching of American history and especially the Civil War. While people often assume there is tons of liberal bias here, too, they are actually quite mistaken.

For example, until recently, slavery was downplayed as a cause of the Civil War in the U.S. It brought up the rear in a list of three causes. The school authorities just in the past year changed it, rightly, to prioritize slavery as “a central role.” This may seem parochial to the unique land of the Lone Star State until you realize that Texas constitutes the largest market for textbooks in the country; as Texas goes, so go the rest. So, this is essentially a national change to address a national problem. In light of it, complaining about what we may or may not leave out in African, Middle Eastern, or Asian history may not be he highest priority in things to get straight.

Yet in many instances in which I have address our history of slavery, I have been met immediately with the argument: slavery was not unique to the U.S.! It happened all over the world, and Africans and Muslims enslaved blacks and whites alike! Why do we keep picking on white people in the U.S.?

This is usually followed by the admonition to, “Do some research!”

One of the most frequently quoted expressions to this effect comes from the black conservative icon, Thomas Sowell. I love Sowell’s work! And I have probably read a broader selection of it than most average readers. I only say that in order to add that most people who repeat this single quotation have missed an awful lot of the rest of what Thomas Sowell actually said and meant on the subject of slavery.

For example, Sowell is quoted here:

Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and color were enslaved – and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed.

Likewise, Larry Elder partially quotes this very passage from Sowell in his own piece. Walter Williams, another libertarian/conservative black economist, makes a very similar argument.

Little do readers usually know, Sowell actually wrote some extended paragraphs on slavery which change the context of the subject substantially in comparison to these excerpts, which themselves are only from more narrowly-focused editorials. In the context of the original article, Sowell was narrowly criticizing those who wish to defame men like Washington and Jefferson on the sole criterion that “they had lots of slaves,” without any qualification or context. Sowell’s point is good enough to dispense with that handily; but it not designed to do much more heavy lifting than that.

When Sowell addresses the topic in other places, he gives a much broader view of the subject which, I dare say, would make many conservatives uneasy in its condemnation of the American institution, and would perhaps even draw accusations of “leftist propaganda” itself, did the readers not know who wrote it. But I think that since we conservatives are people of facts, logic, and principle, i.e. the truth, then maybe we should get real and talk about the whole bit.

Slavery, critics, critics of the critics, and so on. . . .

There are several reasons Elder’s complaint is short-sighted, and is a distraction from more important aspects of BHM.

First, the context is American history, not middle eastern or European. While Black History in the context of Black History Month can certainly include aspects outside of America, in America and for Americans it generally covers what is most relevant to America.

Specifically, Elder quotes Sowell when the subject of slavery comes up in this context: “what many teachers seem not to emphasize is that slavery is as ancient as humankind and that it was practiced nearly everywhere.” This is a uniquely conspicuous instance of whataboutism. It is a distraction from what is obviously most relevant to American slavery.

Yes, slavery was a near universal practice, but as one conservative scholar also adds, “Slavery has existed in various kinds of societies for thousands of years, but American Negro slavery had a peculiar combination of features, whose effects are still felt more than a century after its abolition.”

Second, American slavery was particularly racist, almost entirely anti-black. Americans / westerners developed the racism more intently and codified it. Again, we can look all around the world, but when we focus on American slavery, we see this trait acutely.

In fact, a report on the very topic of how Islam is given the kid-gloves treatment, or “airbrush” in its own words, on the issue of slavery, nevertheless admits that the Islamic institution was significantly different in this respect, among others:

“In contrast to slavery in the Western Hemisphere, Islamic slavery did not have a racial dimension and slaves could and did achieve a variety of social stations, some of them of considerable power.” (page 30)

So especially in the context of BHM, it makes perfect sense to magnify the racial element in American slavery, even if hardly mentioning the Islamic version, because the latter didn’t have the racial element, and because they didn’t completely dehumanize their subjects along racial lines.

The report is hardly alone. For example, please take the time to read what another prominent conservative scholar notes in this regard:

Although only a small fraction of the white population owned any slaves . . . the bulk of the white population shared the vicarious feeling of being part of the dominant race. It was in fact, noticed by many that those whites who did not own slaves were usually stronger supporters of slavery and/or more antagonistic toward the slaves than those who did.

The two other key features of American slavery were that it followed racial or color lines and that it was slavery in a democratic country. The fact that it existed in a democratic country meant that it required some extraordinary to reconcile it with the prevailing values of the nation. Racism was an obvious response—a racism far stronger than that which accompanied slavery in undemocratic countries. . . .

Slavery, the most obvious antithesis of everything the country stood for, could be reconciled with American social and political philosophy only by regarding slaves as a special exception among human beings—or as subhuman beings. . . .

One way out of this dilemma was to proclaim black people inferior, incapable of taking care of themselves, dangerous, and the like. Racism has been common in all ages and in virtually all parts of the world. What was peculiar about racism in the South was the extremes to which the doctrine was carried and the powerful emotions behind it. What the experience of the postrevolutionary period suggests is that the ideals of the country made extreme racism necessary for slavery to be perpetuated. . . .

[W]hile racial arrogance and racial oppression occurred in these countries, then and now, it never approached the pervasive fanaticism reached in the United States. . . . [T]hese countries did not find it necessary to rationalize their actions with a racial ideology and racial stereotypes. . . .

Slavery was common throughout the ancient world. . . . Although there might be arrogance and cruelty toward slaves, there was no pervasive, emotion-laden belief in their innate inferiority. . . . Modern slavery in the European and transplanted European civilizations was more clearly race-based slavery—predominantly the enslavement of Africans by various Europeans. Racism was a natural consequence. . . .

[T]his powerful racism forced an elaborate hypocrisy with regard to racially mixed offspring—who were common in all contemporary systems of slavery. . . . In Latin American countries the offspring of white slave owners and black slave women were openly acknowledged and often freed, while Anglo-American slave owners could not socially afford any such acknowledgment and the law prevented manumission in most cases anyway. It was common to blame mulatto children on the overseers, or on “po’ white trash” nearby. . . .

It is not merely that black Americans are denied some current opportunities but that they were long denied the more basic opportunities to fully develop their abilities themselves.

This allegedly conservative scholar, who presents the uniquely acute racism and its damaging, lasting social effects on blacks in America? Who, you ask?

That scholar is . . .  Thomas Sowell. (See Thomas Sowell, Race and Economics (New York: David McKay Co., 1975), 3–4, 19, 20, 25, 32, 33.)

As you can see, I took their advice: I have done some research.

People need to read the whole story before they start cherry picking quotations for their own agenda.

Third, American racism lasted well beyond slavery, too, and still exists.

In addition to what Sowell has already said, we can add that even once slavery officially ended after the War, the racism that accompanied it remained for a long time—in both North and South. The Jim Crow, “separate but equal,” and Civil Rights eras are obvious aspects of this.

This is why Sowell could conclude above, “It is not merely that black Americans are denied some current opportunities but that they were long denied the more basic opportunities to fully develop their abilities themselves.” (Race and Economics, 33.) He was not speaking about the freedom mainly right after the War, when they were fresh out of slavery. He was speaking of their oppression legally and socially up until the present time.

To be fair, Sowell would hardly suggest that leftists are correct every time they blame “racism” for something; and he certainly would not condone many of their state-sponsored attempts to solve the ills of minorities. The bulk of his work on the topic is to show that there are other underlying causes of the problems and that government programs are either ineffective or even more damaging than nothing. I would agree with him in nearly all of this. Yet he is also correct to acknowledge that the past treatment of blacks was uniquely racist in U.S. history and that it had long-lasting effects upon them. It is here where it seems as if most conservatives have never read what he wrote; and it is here perhaps where they most need to.

Fourth, westerners made a conscious choice to engage in the African slave trade, and they are more culpable than the Muslims for this reason alone.

Whatever blame we can cast on Muslims and African chieftains and rival tribes for their pillaging and kidnapping of slaves, we still have to deal with the fact that those in our western tradition stood from the outside and observed all of it, and yet still made a conscious choice to engage in the same business and trade with the Chieftains and Muslims.

The western leaders could have drawn upon their thousands of years of biblical and Christian teaching and bypassed the whole endeavor—even condemned it!—but they did not. Indeed, we know that they did in many cases consult directly with biblical and church teachings, knew the traffic was wrong, and yet did it anyway. If we are to boast the glories of Western Civilization, we do not come off very good in this scene. The more we blame others, the more condemn ourselves. One could point out that they didn’t have the law and Gospel in their hearts, which Christians claim. The Christians are faced with the reality of having this, and yet having defied it anyway. It’s a disgrace to our faith.

Fifth, some of our founders were more complicit in slavery than others. Some who get credit for wanting to end slavery were not necessarily the champions we are led to believe.

Both Sowell and Williams address the leftist angle that only wants to blame America. It is irresponsible, they argue, to magnify these ills when men like Washington and Jefferson were unique among almost all of the rest of the world and history in condemning the institution and calling for its end (even if they could not come up with a practical way of doing so in their day).

There is obviously some truth to this rebuttal. The influence of abolitionism and the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence and equality must not be denied. Nor should the context of the infancy of these ideas in virtually all of history be overlooked.

Nevertheless, we also cannot ignore that there was considerable hypocrisy on the part of some of these men. Jefferson consciously raised slaves as commodities, including the higher valuation of “breeding females.” His explicit letters to this effect are difficult to accept as real, but they are.

Likewise, Washington very circumspectly removed some of his slaves from the White House, then in Philadelphia, back to his plantation in Virginia, solely because he feared they could be freed under Pennsylvania law. That conflicts strongly with the claim that he desired to end it but simply could not find a practical way.

I detail these uncomfortable historical realities and many more in my book on the history of American slavery and the churches.

Sixth, contrary to Elder, they do teach about the Muslim angle, too.

If we stick to Elder’s narrow point, about the lack of teaching on the Arab and Islamic involvement on the slave trade, we’ll find that even that is not entirely true. Granted, it is a real deficiency that, even in the proper context for it, its real magnitude is rarely if at all taught to younger students.

Nevertheless, it is not completely avoided as Elder suggests. Even the liberal National Educators Association (the nation’s largest teachers union) promotes a lengthy, detailed essay on the African Slave Trade for BHM. While it admittedly could be more candid about the scope of Muslim involvement, it nevertheless says clearly that they were involved in capture and enslavement all across large sections of Africa, Jihad was involved, and they often violated their own religious precepts in taking their co-religionists captive as well. See under the section, “Capture and Enslavement.”

Likewise, for anyone with a computer and an internet connection, there are two extensive Wikipedia sites on the subject. They are quite candid. One is History of Slavery in the Muslim World, and the other is Arab Slave Trade. I doubt these are assigned reading for most secondary schools these days, but anyone researching the topic at any level will find them in their earliest Google searches on the topic.

At any rate, they are far from hidden or suppressed knowledge.

Conclusion

To suggest that “many know little to nothing” about this because of liberal bias is itself a bit of propaganda. The truth is, “many know little to nothing” about most of the history of anything. When the information is readily available on the first page of a Google search as well as in NEA standards, any deficiency is a testament to low standards and apathy across the board.

I would be very happy for students to know the whole truth about the Islamic contribution to slavery, as well as the vast extent of human trafficking today, which is shocking in both its scope and in how close to home it really is—right under our noses quite often! But this is no reason to blame Black history Month or to divert attention away from the sore lack of knowledge about the even more relevant and damaging evils of racism in our own slavery.

When we get the issues in our own history, culture, and politics worked out, then maybe we can start pointing fingers at others around the world.