Owned?: No, library
Page count: 265
My summary: In the history of uprisings against slavery, there are many times and places that are not mentioned. History remembers the Haitian Revolution, the revolt that ultimately led to Haiti's freedom from slavery - but similar, less immediately successful uprisings are forgotten. In Demerara (modern Guyana) in 1823, there was an uprising that was quashed, leading to the brutal punishment of many involved. But just because freedom was not gained that day does not mean that the events are not worth remembering. For Jack Gladstone, for Quamina, for John Smith, and for anyone who fought for their liberty.
My rating: 3.5/5
My commentary:
Still doing research! I am reading fiction at the minute, but my current fiction book is the latest Outlander so, you know, it's taking some time. This is, I shall admit, not necessarily relevant to the book I intend to write (said book being set over a hundred years earlier and all), but I want to go into my story with a more rounded knowledge of the state of colonisation in the Caribbean. I know a fair amount about Haiti, or Tacky, or Nanny of the Maroons, but there were other rebellions and people resisting their enslavement that are not as commonly spoken about. Enter this book - I'll admit that, like Harding, I hadn't heard of the Demerara Uprising before, or really considered where Demerara might be outside of 'where that type of sugar comes from'. The story itself is interesting, that of rebel Jack Gladstone and his family who enacted a largely nonviolent resistance against their enslavers, and were punished for it, along with white missionary John Smith who was blamed for inciting the uprising. Where this book falls down is…well, you can see that the title is White Debt, but it could just as well be White Guilt, given Harding's handwringing about his family's involvement in the slave trade. Don't get me wrong, he's got a good heart and seems very well-meaning, but…well, I'll elaborate on that in a bit.
The actual content of the book is really interesting! It's an account of the Uprising, starting with its roots with leaders Jack Gladstone and his father Quamina, and the situations that led them to consider taking their freedoms when they did. And also the aftermath - the mass execution of people involved or suspected to be involved with the uprising, the brutal treatment of Quamina's body after his death, and Jack's sentence of death which was later commuted to imprisonment in a penal colony. (Jack falls out of the record after that, and his fate is somewhat uncertain.) It once again displays the hypocrisies of the system of slavery; the lie that enslaved people were well-treated, the reality of the harsh and often arbitrary punishments, the brutal treatment of people involved in a largely non-violent uprising (very few white people were killed), and the pro-slavery attitudes that were openly in favour of commerce over human lives. It's a lesser known story, but absolutely one that deserves to be told - especially as, Harding argues, the uprising itself cannot necessarily be classed as 'unsuccessful'. Sure, the resistance was quashed, but the aftermath of the event rippled throughout British society, and may have been a factor in emancipation, which happened not too long after. (The Slavery Abolition Act was in 1833.) Small comfort for Jack, Quamina, and the other people who were killed after the uprising. But significant, nonetheless.
In between, however, are accounts of Harding's visit to Guyana and musings on the idea of the titular white debt - the debt both of recognition of Britain's role in slavery and a more literal reparation due to those descended from the enslaved. And this…comes across as very Baby's First Exposure To The Idea Of His Own White Privilege. Don't get me wrong, he's well-meaning (and I understand the instinct, as a fellow white person) but his way of going about it seems a bit too heavy-handed for me, a little too unsubtle. He makes some good points about Britain's denying of its role in slavery (the attitude that we were barely involved, were the 'good guys', or at least were better than the Americans and that makes us morally superior forever) and the complex feelings that this has induced in him, as a white Jewish man whose ancestors benefited from slavery, and were also subject to intense oppression and literally paid compensation from Germany for what they were subject to during the Holocaust. But his way of talking about it sounds like he's just discovered that racism existed and that he is somewhat complicit as a white man, which…he was fifty four years old on this book's publication. Little late to the party there, Harding. But it's not bad, as I say it's well-intentioned, it's just a little cringey to read at times. And I'll take 'a little cringey' over 'blatantly bigoted' any day.
To one who spend the majority of her tender teen years with both with a band of intense evangelicals (a story for another day) and the escape provided by high fantasy novels, the word “Reckoning” inspires deep drama. Reckoning is an event, inescapable, it’s also a turning point. Given her interest and specificity in choosing the right word, I have to imagine this effect, or something similar, is what Eula Biss was going for when she titled her New York Times Magazine article White Debt: Reckoning With What is Owed-And What Can Never Be Repaid- for Racial Privilege. It was an interview about this article that led me to carve out this small space on the internet, and so it seems right that this is the first article I try my hand at responding to.
I took a lot away from reading this article, including more bread crumbs to follow (see below). The connection Biss makes between guilt and debt immediately resonated with me, particularly “how easy” it can be to live with. Like Biss, we too recently bought a house after a lifetime of trying to avoid financial debt- Recent enough that we own maybe half a bathroom and the hall closet downstairs, even after years of mortgage payments. Which, it turns out is just long enough to feel comfortable calling it “ours.” What really hit a chord in me, though, were the passages in which she talks about conversations with her young son about his own privilege. As I write this, we are mere months away from meeting our unborn child. For lots of reasons (another story for another day) we’ve elected not to find out the assigned sex until they’re born. The one thing we do know with certainty (beyond their aversion to sweets and preference for 5am dance parties on my bladder) is that they will be white.
I am not sure which I feel less equipped to do- raise a white girl who will have to fight to maintain her agency, reproductive rights and safety from the patriarchy (without forgetting the women of color who have long been ignored in such fights), or a white boy who may very well grow up to be that patriarchy.
When well-meaning folks respond to our intentional gender ignorance with “How will you know what toys to buy?” I wand to respond: “Forget about that noise- how will I know what kind of asshole we don’t want them to be, what kind of courage to give them?” Especially if they are a boy-, how will I raise him to be kind, compassionate and to resist what Biss describes as the encouragement, “...at every juncture in his life to believe wholeheartedly in the power of his own hard work and deservedness, to ignore inequity, to accept that his sense of security mattered more than other peoples’ freedom and to agree, against all evidence, that a system that afforded him better housing, better education, better work and better pay than other people was inherently fair.”
This piece is filled with the question that rings in my head like a bell, that led me to start “Confused White Girl Muddling Through*”: “What can I do? How can I get past this useless, paralyzing guilt?” In response to her own question, Biss offers an interesting counter-question: “...why not imagine guilt as a prod, a goad, an impetus to action?” These days, when I can barely tie my own shoes, reminding myself of the debt I own and the privilege I enjoy is something I can do. I may not be able to stay awake past 9pm on most nights, but I can try to stay awake and make sure I don’t take what’s not mine without pause and try to avoid complying with unjust rules. I can and will do the same for our child. Like Biss, I can remind us both to temper pride with humility, to look outside of ourselves and “...to know the difference between compliance and complicity.
Breadcrumbs to follow:
(These are works referenced in Eula Biss’s article. If you follow these paths before me, let me know@ We can talk over coffee or tea once I get there too)
On the Genealogy of Morality - Frederick Nietzsche
The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning - Claudia Rankine
Reckoning with what is owed — and what can never be repaid — for racial privilege.
“Race Traitor articulated for me the possibility that a person who looks white can refuse to act white, meaning refuse to collude with the injustices of the law-enforcement system and the educational system, among other things. This is what Noel called ‘‘new abolitionism.’’ John Brown was his model, and the institution he was intent on abolishing was whiteness.”
“Guilt is what makes a good life built on evil no longer good. “
“A guilty white person is usually imagined as someone made impotent by guilt, someone rendered powerless. But why not imagine guilt as a prod, a goad, an impetus to action?”
