Cornering the Market

Hola Everybody,
In an intro to Metro Studies class, I had a wonderful professor, Robert Fitch. He authored The Assassination of New York, a cutting and searing indictment of the financial and real-estate elites who wrecked New York. Unfortunately, Mr. Fitch passed on several years ago. He was an inspiring and passionate teacher. Anyway… 

Cornering the Market

These ‘new’ whitemen were called scramblers because they would rush on board a Slaveship before it docks and brave the filthy stench...
 -- Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados

I bring up Robert Fitch because he spent at least one-third of that intro course expounding on capitalism and how it was such a great boon to Western civilization. Finally, unable to take it anymore, I raised my hand and asked, “But what would’ve capitalism have looked like without the slave trade?”

The man smiled so wide, I thought his face would crack and he said, “I thought you would never ask… ” and he began what was one of the more insightful take downs of capitalism I had ever heard. After class, he called me over and expressed that he thought no one would ever ask that question.

Why bring this up, you ask? Read on… 

First let me start in this way: not that long ago, I overheard two former colleagues describing a bigoted real estate player as a “cracker.” My colleagues were white, raised in the northeast, progressive-thinking, activists -- two people I hold in high esteem. Anybody that knows me even for a little while knows that I’m not exactly “politically correct.” I transgress at least once a day.

I am also a lover of words and love to explore word and phrase origins. Having lived in the deep South, I was aware of the word’s origin. Well, at least as it was explained to me by a genuine “cracker.” He said that the word cracker came from the sound of the whip used to beat slaves. When I informed my colleagues, they were horrified! They never used the word again. Of course, from that point on, I went out of of my way to say “cracker” in their presence at least once a month.

Language is a powerful thing and many of our everyday words and phrases come from ignoble origins. Take “handicap,” for example. Handicap comes from the phrase “hand in cap” used to describe the physically challenged who were forced to beg for money for their survival. Not a nice.

Which brings me to my point today. Let’s take the common phrase, “cornering the market.” To corner the market is a good thing, right? It means dominating and economically exploiting a market. It’s “winning.” Not bad, right? Well the phrase has its origin from the behavior of “scramblers.” Scramblers would rush on board a slave ship before it even docked. They would wade through the filth and death stench of these slave ships so they could get their pick of the healthiest looking captives. They would separate their picks from the rest and have them placed in a corner of the deck. Hence the origin of the capitalist term “to corner the market.”

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, please consider helping me out by sharing it, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, or even throwing me some money on GoFundMe HERE or via PayPal HERE so I can keep calling it like I see it.

Letter from a Free Man

Hola mi gente,
Today, we celebrate the founding of the United States of America. As a person of Puerto Rican descent, I find it difficult and hypocritical at the very least to witness all the bullshit jingoism about values such as freedom, democracy, and bravery as it cannibalizes its colony, Puerto Rico (see here and here).

I once took a speaker at a conference to task for claiming that the U.S. is oldest democracy. A democracy for whom? I asked. Was it a democracy for the First Nation people who were subjected to genocide and the Africans who were brought here against their will and enslaved? Was it a democracy for women? Is it a democracy for the millions languishing in our prisons and jails, the victims of a drug war intended to socially control black and brown people? Miss me with that bullshit

Reflecting on these essential contradictions in U.S. democracy, I remembered the following letter. In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon -- who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family -- responded spectacularly by way of the letter (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated). The letter can be found in the excellent book, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery.

 Cherished as a social document and praised as a masterpiece of satire, Anderson’s letter has been anthologized and published all over the world. Rather than summarize the highlights in this letter, I'll present here in its entirety for your edification (make sure you read to the end). For me the letter highlights how oppressed and marginalized people can use humor and satire to expose the brutality of systemic injustices. Click here for a brief update about the later years of Jourdon and his family.

Letter from a Free Man to his Former Master

Anderson wrote a satirical letter to his former master after he asked him to return to work for him

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson.

A group of escaped slaves in Virginia in 1862,  Library of Congress.

* * * 

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Teachings of a Free Man

¡Hola! Everybody...
Whatever happened to the art of the question? Whatever happened to why? These past two days have been very hectic, leaving me little time to write...

I have a series of blogs on the racist roots of the modern neoconservative movement half done. Those I will post next week... stayed tuned.

* * *

Freeman, 1959

-=[ Freeman ]=-

... Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

-- Langston Hughes, A Dream Deferred

My father’s best friend for a long time was a man named Freeman. Freemeng (as my Puerto Rican relatives pronounced his name) was an African American man from an upper middle class family. He was what we would call back then a bohemian -- a free spirit/ thinker. I often wonder if Freeman was his real name, or if he chose that name for himself. Or maybe his parents chose to name him so in order to emphasize the inherent right to freedom we all are entitled to as human beings. I never knew...

I did know he was a nice man, always kind and gentle. He and my father would engage in deep topics. Everything from Marxism to Castro, education to jazz -- nothing was beyond their reach. My music teacher, Mr. White, often joined them. Shoot, the poet Allen Ginsberg lived in our building, but I think my mother didn’t like him because he had a penchant for walking around naked Howling his poetry. LOL!

Sometimes my mother, not having enough to feed them, would feed them pegao. Pegao (literally meaning, “stuck”) is the rice that -- yup! -- gets stuck to the bottom of the pot. It more financially stable homes, pegao was usually thrown away. For Nuyoricans, it was part of our staple -- nothing was thrown out! Feeling somewhat embarrassed at not having enough, my mother would tell Freeman and Mr. White that it was Puerto Rican fried rice and they loved it! It got so they wouldn’t eat my mother’s real rice -- they would insist on the pegao. LOL!

I would learn a lot from these men even as a little boy, as I would sit on my fathers lap with my ear to his chest, so that I could feel the vibrations of his voice through my ear. This was the 60s and everything was fodder for questioning. Blacks and Latino/as were asserting themselves, challenging the racist status quo; women were questioning gender roles, gays and lesbians were beginning to implement the strategies learned from the civil rights movement and using it for their own cause; an unpopular war fought under false pretext was raging -- it was a heady time. Our ramshackle apartment was always filled with thinkers, artists, activists, my elementary school teachers, and all kinds of characters.

Yes, I am a radical progressive. I am left of anyone you know... those days, and men like Freeman and my father, shaped my worldview. Here’s something I learned from Freeman. And perhaps this explains why he was called Freeman...

The history of black Americans and other people of color is often presented in contrast to general (white) American history. Blacks are too often portrayed as passive victims in an otherwise brilliant display of democracy and American expertise.

Slavery, Jim Crow, and racism are issues that beg to be swept under a rug in Mississippi somewhere. It those crackers, the history books seem to be saying, or (better yet) it was the ignorance of a long time ago, but that’s old news, this is post racial America.

It was Freeman’s point that this compulsion to deny or marginalize the black American experience did harm to everyone in our society. To begin with, he explained, the black American experience was not an aberration. American Indians were slaughtered for their lands. Landless citizens (even white ones) along with all women were denied the right to vote for many years. Homosexuality is still a black mark against many of our citizens.

Freeman taught that the black American experience is the history of America. His position was that the struggle of the marginalized to survive in the face of blinding hatred is in part the key to the understanding how we all can escape the chains of modern America.

I think if Freeman were alive today he would say that white Americans are learning today what the black race learned long ago the hard way: not to believe the corporate hype. People of color have been hearing those lies for hundreds of years. We take the media with a pinch of salt, and we know that many of our social institutions serve the more fortunate. We know the word retirement means getting old means you’re going to get tired of trying to make ends meet.

After World War II ended, there descended an extended period of prosperity for the middle class. Poor people and people of color suffered more because there were few opportunities for us to rise above the level of manual labor. And so we were forced to keep the historical memories of survival alive while others got along with a newfound confidence in the value of the dollar and the fact of perpetual labor. While others looked forward to comfortable retirement and brighter tomorrows, the ghettos were busy studying survival and revolution.

These studies can benefit almost everyone today. At least I believe that’s what Freeman would say.

Love,

Eddie

Cornering the Market

¡Hola! Everybody...
Well, the Arod controversy notwithstanding, baseball’s spring training is about to start! That's a good thing... I would like to point out that all this commotion about athletes cheating isn’t anything new. Athletes have been looking for an edge since time immemorial. In the 50s it was amphetamines, for example. And as for drug abuse, Babe Ruth was very likely a drunk (and womanizer); Mickey Mantle was definitely a drunk, as was Don Newcombe and countless others. Yankee great, Whitey Ford, would doctor the baseball to gain an advantage. If they had played during this era, they would be embroiled in the same nastiness (maybe even worse).

Back in the day, reporters knew that Mickey and the Babe were less than perfect, but there was an unspoken rule back then to keep things under wraps. The point being that we shouldn’t be teaching our children to adopt role models whose only qualifications are athletic ability.

* * *

-=[ Cornering the Market ]=-

“These ‘new’ whitemen were called scramblers because they would rush on board a Slaveship before it docks and brave the filthy stench... ”

-- Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados

Not that long ago, I over heard two of my colleagues describing a bigoted real estate player as a “cracker.” My colleagues were white, raised in the northeast, progressive-thinking, activists -- two people I hold in high esteem. Anybody that knows me even for a little while knows that I’m not exactly “politically correct.” I transgress at least once a day.

I am also a lover of words and love to explore word and phrase origins. Having traveled extensively in the South, I was aware of the word’s origin. Well, at least as it was explained to me by a genuine “cracker.” He said that the word cracker came from the sound of the whip used to beat slaves. When I informed my colleagues, they were horrified! They never used the word again. Of course, now I go out of my way to say “cracker” in their presence at least once a month.

Language is a powerful thing and many of our everyday words and phrases come from ignoble origins. Take “handicap,” for example. Handicap comes from the phrase “hand in cap” used to describe those who begged for money. Not a nice way to describe the physically challenged...

Better yet, let’s take the common phrase, “cornering the market.” To corner the market is a good thing, right? It means dominating and economically exploiting a market. Not bad, right? Well the phrase has its origin from the behavior of “Scramblers.” Scramblers would rush on board a slave ship before it even docked. They would wade through the filth and death stench of these slave ships so they could get their pick of the healthiest looking captives. They would separate their picks from the rest and have them placed in a corner of the deck. Hence the origin of the capitalist term “to corner the market.”

Love,

Eddie