I am reading A History of Ireland by Mike Cronin. I looked for a good history on the Irish people because of the vague, yet interesting, facts I often here associated with their plight. [That was how I came to be interested in the Black Panther Party too.] There is something about truth and nobility. No matter how hidden, sullied or disparaged, it still resonates. Cronin's work chronicles the story of a European people whose history reflects that of the African in America and abroad --colonization, genocide, and yes slavery. Irish people, like many people of color where grist for the mills of modern capitalism, and not so long ago! People sometimes acknowledge that "some whites" were indentured servants during the colonial period, but rarely is that subject even explored, let alone presented in depth and for mass consumption. The truth, as it turns out, is that this period of white servitude was longer and more wide spread that people want to acknowledge. A more accurate characterization of it is slavery -- specifically at the hands of the British. As a school teacher, and proud black historian, I remember teaching African American history to my students with passion; always hoping that, as Na'im Akbar exhorted once, that they would see it as a triumph and not a shame. Nevertheless, I saw how the stigma of being descendants of a class of slaves was a difficult and weighty obstacle to overcome for them. I told myself that a better approach going forward would be to teach how slavery is more inherently a system of economics than a rite of passage for African people upon our encounters with Europeans and Arabs. My how I could have been aided by the history of the Irish that Cronin writes. Sure, know your history, but black people, should know about the history of other people too. We might free ourselves of the idea of perpetual victimization... we might learn something more about humanity and the tendencies of all men... and we might do as Bob Marley encouraged and emancipate more of ourselves from 'mental slavery'.
