Michael Harriot Profile picture
Sep 7, 2020 33 tweets 6 min read Read on X
Whenever we talk about reparations owed for the free labor of enslaved people, someone will inevitably argue how few white people owned slaves.

But it's Labor Day, so let me show you how everyone in America profited from slavery.

A thread:
First, we have to remember that the first Americans came here to escape religious persecution, which explains why this country is founded on liberty and freedom.

HAHAHAHA

That's just something we tell kids when they're young enough to believe stupid shit.

It was about money.
The Jamestown settlers were actually owners and employees of a joint-stock company called the Virginia Company of London.

What was their purpose?

Well, aside from money, they wanted to civilize the "infidels and savages"

Their get-rich-quick scheme worked because of slavery
After the American Revolution, the U.S. could've been a poor country. They owed millions to Britain.

How did we pay back our debt?

We sold Native American land

Well, we raised taxes on the richest people, namely the Southern Plantation owners and the northern manufacturers
The plantation owners and the manufacturers made so much profit because very few slave owners offered 401k and medical insurance.

I could talk about Wells Fargo, Barclays, & Brown Brothers Harriman (The largest private investment firm in the US) but let's start with the REAL $$
We like to think of NY as the "financial center" of America but early on, the Dutch actually owned much of NY, so the real powerbrokers were in Philadelphia (born and raised. Trading securities is how they spent most of their days)

In NY, they would let ANYBODY trade ANYTHING
Unlike the market in Philly, anyone could trade in NY. These country NY muhfuckas just met under a buttonwood tree and traded stocks, slaves, securities, slaves, bonds and slaves. (MOSTLY just slaves).

That buttonwood tree became 1 of the biggest slave markets in the WORLD.
But after the Revolution (The American one, not the one started by Prince) 24 of the NY dudes got together and signed the "Buttonwood Agreement." Modeled after the Philly Merchants Exchange, u had to register to trade.

The company got so big, they decided to build a building
They built it near the site of the original slave-trading tree because the area was protected by a huge stone barrier built by the Dutch.

And that's how the New York Stock Exchange came to be built on a little road called "Wall Street"
How did it become the financial center?

Slaves.

For instance, NY Life opened a Wall Street office in 1845. How did a local insurance company make so much money?

Well, when NY Life was struggling, an enterprising agent had an idea on how to create a new insurance market:
He bought ads in Southern newspapers informing plantation owners to insure their property. This wasn't a revolutionary idea because every insurance company sold hazard insurance. But he introduced another kind of policy:

He sold insurance on slaves.
James Ogden, who owned the company, never owned a single slave. He hated slavery. But by 1847, insuring slaves was one-third of his business.

And that's why NY Life is STILL the third-largest insurance company in America.
After the US outlawed the importation of slaves, a businessman named Moses Taylor made so much dough shipping enslaved Africans to the Caribbean that he didn't have a place to keep all of his money, so he took over the National Bank of the City of NY
They built their headquarters at 111 Wall Street and made so much money that they literally financed the purchase of the Philippines, the War of 1812 and underwrote the ENTIRE Civil War.

They also made another great financial acquisition:
In 1825, after enslaved Haitians kicked France's ass, France demanded that slaveowners be repaid for the "theft of slaves." Because the US fucks with France, we let France do it.

They're the only country we let send warships to the Caribbean during the Monroe Doctrine years
NBCNY bought the debt from France & even made US marines seize the gold from Haiti's treasury and bring it to Wall Street. That debt is the MAIN reason Hait, which was one of the richest countries, is now poor.

But that bank is called CITIBANK now.

theroot.com/as-haiti-burns…
But EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN made a profit.

Churches were built with slave labor AND received tithing from slave owners.
The railroads were built with it.
EVERY American was able to buy cheap food and clothes because cotton & plants were planted, grown & harvested with free labor.
Even if you didn't own a slave, if you owned a retail outlet, you got more of a markup.
If you built ships, you used cheap labor.
If you were an American, you didn't have to live in a poverty-stricken country because enslaved Africans paid your way.
And some of those slavemasters even profited from the talents of the people they enslaved.

For instance, my great-great-great grandfather was the best blacksmith in the county. He ran his master's blacksmithing shop and made his owner very wealthy.
This is how some enslaved people managed to buy their freedom.

Which brings us the greatest Labor Day Story ever—Mary's Day Off:

How a black woman changed the world.
When Mary was a kid, her masters noticed that she had a talent for drawing and designing. She could look at something and draw it from memory.

So, they taught her how to be a seamstress. They made so much money that Mary was able to stash enough money aside to buy her freedom.
During the Civil War, Amazon wasn't shipping to the South, so Mary basically became the Fashion Nova of Norfolk.

One day, she was probably making a Steve Harvey 32-button suit for some Confederate bigwigs and she overheard them talking and laughing.
Apparently the dudes had seen a CNN report (Confederate News Network) that the Union Navy was building a ship covered with iron. This is before "fake news" was invented, so the dudes had an idea on how they could win the war.

They were going to do it FIRST
Instead of building an iron-coated ship, the South's plan was to take an old US Navy ship they recovered, coat it with iron, and destroy the Union blockades while the North was still building their ironclad.

And they did it!
On March 8, 1862, the Confederacy's USS Virginia started fucking shit up.

It sank the USS Congress and the USS Cumberland. It was about to dogwalk another one, the USS Minnesota, but it got too dark.

They were like: "We'll chill, but we're gonna bust that ass tomorrow."
The next morning, the well-dressed white supremacist Navy went out to finish off the Minnesota (It had already run aground) when out of nowhere came the USS Monitor, a Union ironclad!

How did they know?

Well, Mary had done it.
Mary asked the Confederate engineer for a day off and a "pass" to go visit her old master (She was free, but free black people still couldn't be roaming around like that. The needed documentation from white people)
Then, Mary WALKED to DC.

When she was captured by the Union Army, she asked to speak to the Secretary of War (Coincidentally, this was the first time in US history a black woman had asked to speak to the manager)

They took her!
When she arrived, she pulled out THE ENGINEER'S PLANS, which she had drawn herself (some sources say she traced them because...You know white history goes)

Whatever the case may be, the Union Navy sped up its plans to develop ironclads.
So when the racist side attacked, the USS Monitor sped in and they faced off. By all accounts, it was a draw.

But it was also the first battle between two metal warships of any kind.

And the Navy's switch to an ironclad fleet is what helped win the Civil War.
It changed war forever. No one in the world could come with that wooden ship bullshit anymore.

And because of that, militaries around the world had to develop torpedoes.

When Mary delivered this info, they offered to keep her up north or to escort her back to Va.
Mary was like: "Nah, I don't wanna be seen with all these white dudes. I'll get in trouble."

She was somewhere between 55-70 years old but she WALKED BACK and went to work the next day!

And that's how Mary Louvestre (sometimes its written as Touvestre) spent her day off.
She's one of the few women honored by the CIA.
She changed modern warfare.
She changed the trajectory of history.
And she didn't even get Labor Day off.

Which is why I'm finna chill on the couch.

It's my way of honoring Mary

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More from @michaelharriot

Mar 21
One more thing:

In 1924, lawmakers tasked the census bureau was tasked with figuring out the “national origins of the white population of the US.”

If white people were from a certain country, that country was considered “Good.” Nonwhite people were from “bad countries.” Image
To preserve the country’s racial composition, they created a formula. Ppl from good countries could immigrate based on the % of pop. in the formula. Immigration from bad countries was limited.

And no Asians

This was why we call it the Asian Exclusion & National Origins Act Image
In 1952, they changed the formula to allow people from “bad countries” to immigrate at a minimum # 100

Except for Africans. Under the formula, ALL of Africa was considered 1 country

In 1965, civil rights activist convinced LBJ to sign the Immigration & Nationality Act Image
Read 7 tweets
Mar 20
I'll take this one.

The idea that affirmative action or diversity, equity & inclusion policies equal lower standards is something that a lot of people believe.

Instead of citing what "I believe" like Elon did, let's use facts & a something I like to called "math"

A thread.
First of all, there is a good reason why Elon referred to Duke. It's part of a discussion began by Ben Shapiro and some other white people after a white girl said some things about Duke Medical School's DEI program

By its own admission, the school has a DEI program.
Duke Medical School is 12.5% Black and US News ranks it as the 5th best medical school in America. Nationwide, Black students make up 10% of medical students.

25 years ago, Duke was ranked 6th and was 9% Black. In 2005, the medical school was 15% Black.

So what did DEI change?
Read 19 tweets
Mar 11
Three years ago, I realized one of my lifelong dreams that reflects the racial progress this country has made throughout its history.

I became a diversity hire.

A thread.
Growing up, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED stand-up. As a kid, I watched episodes of "Evening at the Improv) & once got in trouble for listening to Richard Pryor (Even worse, I dubbed it over my grandma's James Cleveland album).

And I LOVED Late-night TV.
Every night, my mom would even record Johnny Carson's monologue for me (This was BEFORE VCRs. She would literally put a cassette tape recorder by the TV & hit record).

I swung on a college roommate once because he turned off my favorite show – David Letterman
Read 16 tweets
Mar 11
Three years ago, I realized one of my lifelong dreams that reflects the racial progress this country has made throughout its history.

I became a diversity hire.

A thread.
Growing up, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED stand-up. As a kid, I watched episodes of "Evening at the Improv) & once got in trouble for listening to Richard Pryor (Even worse, I dubbed it over my grandma's James Cleveland album).

And I LOVED Late-night TV.
Every night, my mom would even record Johnny Carson's monologue for me (This was BEFORE VCRs. She would literally put a cassette tape recorder by the TV & hit record).

I swung on a college roommate once because he turned off my favorite show – David Letterman
Read 11 tweets
Feb 29
Here’s an interesting #BHM challenge:

You get to choose any three people, living or dead, to answer 1 question:

Who is responsible for saving the most lives in all of human history?

I’d argue than no one can beat my team.

A thread.
The first 1 is easy. You probably already know her name:

Henrietta Lacks

Although her cells were harvested without her consent, its possible that we’ll EVER KNOW how many lives were saved because of HeLa cells.

hopkinsmedicine.org/henrietta-lack…
My favorite fact is that, even though Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine, it was 2 Black scientists at Tuskegee Institute who proved his worked and created the process to mass produce it.

scientificamerican.com/article/hidden…
Read 13 tweets
Feb 26
I know I tweet about history a lot, but for Black History Month, let's talk about math (OK, there'll be a little bit of history involved)

A thread:
The first thing you should know is that after the fall of the Roman Empire, there was so little intellectual & scientific progress, that historians later referred to this period as "the Dark Ages."

To be fair, that term only refers to white people
While Catholic-controlled Europe was experiencing widespread ignorance and illiteracy, parts of Africa, India, and the area we call the "Middle East" experienced an era of scientific, intellectual advancement.

Historians had a name for that, too.

The Islamic Golden Age.
Read 42 tweets

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