Transcription
What are the meanings of the terms black and white prior to the transatlantic slave trade and prior to the terms black and white being assigned to certain groups of people? What did those terms mean?
This is an important question to ask because it gives us some background on why those terms were chosen to be assigned to certain people and what it is that they mean still today when people use those terms to identify themselves or other people. And so, in doing so, what we have to do is we have to go back into the cultural context of the people who created these terms, and we're talking about the English. Go back into the English mind to find out what was in that mind prior to lumping these terms onto certain groups of people.
And so, in understanding that, what I want to do is go into this book here called *White over Black* by Dr. Winthrop D. Jordan. This is *The American Attitude Toward the Negro, um, 1550 to 1812*. And Dr. Winthrop is a graduate from Harvard University with his bachelor's and a PhD from Brown University in history. And he, this guy here, he's one of the leading figures when we're understanding the racial ideology, especially during this time. He's referenced by a lot of other noteworthy scholars who deal with the topic of race and understanding the attitudes that set up the racial system, um, during this time. So, this is a very important work to understand and to and to have when understanding, um, the attitudes that went into coming in into this racial worldview.
So, we're going to go in here on page seven so we can get some context with these terms black and white. So, let's start and get some understanding. In England, perhaps more than in southern Europe, the concept of Blackness was loaded with intense meaning long before they found that some men were black. So, let's stop here. There's already a few things that we have to deal with. One of the things that we have to deal with is that it says that the concept of Blackness was loaded with intense meaning, and that's what we're going to find out what the these intense meanings were as we continue reading in this, um, lesson. The other thing that we need to deal with is that it says that this happened long before they found out that anyone was black.
Now, when you read a few pages prior, he, uh, he talks about how the English use the term black as an exaggerated term, which we don't need to read it in any book to understand that because we have eyes for ourselves and we can look and see that it's an exaggerated term. That anyone that labeled as black doesn't have black skin. They have various shades of brown. So, this is an exaggerated term in which we'll deal with in another video, but we have to deal with this first when we're introducing this term black and saying black men, right? So, let's continue going.
Long before they found that some men were black, English men found in the idea of Blackness a way of expressing some of their most ingrained values. No other color except white conveyed so much emotional impact. As described by the Oxford English Dictionary, the meaning of black before the 16th century included deeply stained with dirt, soiled, dirty. Dirty is one of the terms that were linked to black. Foul. Foul is one of the concepts and terms that are linked to black. Having dark or deadly purposes.
Now, I want to stop right here and I want to focus in on the part that's dealing with dark. Now, we have to understand that dark is also a synonym for black. And all, all the same negative meanings that we're going to continue reading about, they're that are linked with black, they're also linked with the, the, um, word dark. Now, what we have to understand is that the language that we use contributes a large portion to the way we construct our reality, right? And so, people use this term dark to describe themselves, saying that they have dark skin. Understand the, the concepts that are linked to the term dark. One of them, the dark side of life. The darkest time in my life. We have concepts like the coming out of the darkness, right? One of the things that children are afraid of is they're afraid of the dark. Then you link those concepts with that term dark and say, "I have dark skin," right? And people say these things and they construct their realities with these terms that have these linked meanings with them. And then they wonder why they walk around having self-hate, right? Because you're creating and affirming these type of realities. You're affirming these things to yourself. Dark skin. And then they go off and they go teach that to their children. And the children understand what these words mean at a very young age. They understand what dark means. You can ask them. They know what that means. And then they make those links to their skin color and they grow up with that type of mentality and they don't understand why it is that they have self-hate, right?
So, in the Earth Poise community, what we do is we drop those terms. We don't describe people as having dark skin. We say they have rich skin, right? And rich has lumped with it and associated with it types of positive meanings that we all understand when we say the term rich. And we understand it in the context of having rich skin, right? That's not far to understand. So, we say, so that person has rich skin, right? Instead of having dark skin, right? Thus, we don't affirm these negative beliefs and these negative ideas that are linked to these terms, right? So, hopefully, we've got some understanding on that and why it's important that the language that we use is part of the final phase of freedom, right? These are the traps that were placed in there by the people who are setting people up to become perpetual slaves, linking certain skin colors with these ideas, dark and black, right? So, we have to understand this. So, let's continue going.
Malignant, pertaining to or involving death. Deadly. What do people wear at funerals? They wear the color black, right? It's a symbol of that in the Western world of thinking. Let's continue. Baneful, disastrous. Disastrous, that's linked with the term black. Tearing stuff up. Things that happen that are just like a disaster in people's lives. That's linked with the term black. Hard times, that's linked with the term black. Struggle. All these things. Disaster, a hard time in someone's life. That's linked with the term black. Sinister. Sinister, that's like someone with evil intent. That's linked with the term black. Foul, iniquitous. Iniquitous, what is that? That's like someone who's unjust and wicked. Someone who just doesn't follow in the path of righteousness or what is deemed to be righteousness. That's iniquitous. That's linked with the term black. Atrocious, horrible, wicked. Wicked, that's someone that we know as being bad or someone who's lacking in the moral department. That's linked with the term black. Indicating disgrace. Indicating disgrace. One, one of the terms that's linked with this is also the black sheep. That's like a disgrace to someone's family. If you're the black sheep, that's linked with the term black. Censure, liability to punishment, etc. Black was an emotionally partisan color, the handmade and symbol of baseness and evil, a sign of danger and repulsion.
You know, we have to stop right here. It says that black is supposed to be the symbol. Understand what, how powerful this is. What it's saying. The symbol meaning. We take all of these ideas of evil, baseness, danger, repulsion. You take all these broad ideas and you compress them into this small term and you label it black. So, that means when you unfold black, when, when someone says the term black, all these ideas are supposed to unfold. Embedded in the concept of Blackness was its direct opposite, whiteness. No other colors so clearly implied opposition.
Uh oh, here we go. When we understand the concepts that are linked to the word black, by default, we can also understand what is implied by white, right? Because white and black, they're polar opposites, right? They're polar opposites to the same thing. White provides the backdrop to black. Black provides the backdrop to what white is, right? They go hand in hand. They're mutually inseparable from one another. So, when we know what black is, we know what white is. And we're going to find out exactly what the English concept of what white is as we continue going down.
Every white will have its black, and every sweet its sour. White and black connoted Purity and filthiness. Two sides to the same coin. Here we go. Purity and filthiness. You can't detach them from one another. You only know Purity by understanding filthiness. You know what a clean house looks like by understanding what a dirty house looks like. Those two throw light on one another, right? They're inseparable, right? And these concepts are also linked to the terms black and white. And in your own intuition, when we say these, these lists that we're going to keep naming, you're going to intuitively know which color goes to which word, right? Just like you understand right now which one is Purity and which one is filthiness. Virginity and sin. The woman wears what color at the wedding to demonstrate virginity? Virtue and baseness. Virtue is dealing with high morality, righteousness. What color is linked to that? Base is dealing with the low level of things, right? That's why it's called a basement. It's at the lowest level. Beauty and ugliness. Which color is what symbolizes beauty? Which color is what symbolizes ugliness?
Certain people walk around and they have self-hatred. There's a reason behind it. I'm letting you know right. These are concepts inherited from the English mindset that they had prior to being attached to certain people. And this is what we're reading about right now, right? Getting an insight into the mind of the people who set up the society, right? And what concepts they had built up in their culture before putting it on other people. Beneficence and evil. That's good and evil. Which one of these concepts do we have linked to the color black and white, right? This is something that we don't even have to think about because it's already, when it's so embedded in the culture, then it's something you don't even have to think about. It's just something you just know. You don't have to do much analyzing. Let me sit here and think about this for a minute. Let me find out which one it is. It's not like some hard mathematical equation. When it's laid out, people automatically know. Point to it. They'll know, right? Kids know at a young age which ones go with which, right? That's why we can look at the black doll experiment and they can tell you which one is the good one, which one is the bad one. Those kids start pointing to it automatically. They don't even have to think about it. When you watch the video, they, they start pointing into it. This one here, this one here. They've linked these terms and these ideas with black and white. They've linked them to skin colors, right? And it's created self-hate within a lot of people. And it's also meant into going into the creation of perpetual slaves, right? And that gives you the key in understanding what's required in order to liberate, right? But that's something that people have to want. They have to have a desire for liberation and freedom. Freedom is something people have to desire. It's not a given. People have to want it. Just like you have to want to go out and, um, get married, or you have to want to go out and go study, you have to want to go to college. You have to want to do these things. You also have to want to have freedom. Is that something that people want? We'll see.
Now, I want you to pay attention right here to this final concept linked from the English mind to these colors, black and white. Hit it. God and the devil. Which color do they link to God? The angels in heaven. Think about all these concepts and which color is linked to the devil, demons, and the concept of hell. Something that we have to think about, right? Something that has to be thought about, right? These are the things that get passed on from generation to generation. And these are things that deal with deep aspects of people's identity and the way that people perceive themselves and the way the conversations that they have inwardly, right? And those inward conversations reflect word when they see other people that they perceive to be them or to look like them or to come from a similar background as them. It reflects, right? And these are linked. These ideas are linked in the unconsciousness of people. And they don't know why they act a certain way towards certain people. And why they look at themselves in the mirror as certain, in a certain light, right? This is heavily influencing the way people perceive their reality, right? These are the deep aspects that only people in high levels of understanding really know. People who know how to socially construct, uh, and engineer societies, they understand these keys, right? These are serious things to understand. And that's why we go, go over it multiple times on this channel because these are the pieces that are missing, right? These are the keys. And you have to understand them. Let these seeds plant into your mind. Think about them. Continue to contemplate. Let them germinate. Let them sprout. Let them develop. And then it'll becoming obvious.
So, hopefully, like I said, we've gotten some understanding. And, um, that's it. So, I want to thank you for watching the video until the end. My name is Brooklyn St. Michael, and I'll see you on the next one. Ooh.