Professor Questions Accuracy of Famed Slave Narrative [interesting read]

Olaudah Equiano wrote with vivid detail of life as human cargo -- the foul smells aboard the slave ship that brought him from West Africa to the New World in the 18th century, the anguished cries of women, the despair of those headed to a life of bondage.

The best-selling autobiography he later published is now a key text for scholars studying slavery and its roots in Africa, one of the few first-person accounts by a slave of the brutal cross-Atlantic trip known as the Middle Passage.

A forthcoming biography of Equiano by English professor Vincent Carretta of the University of Maryland, College Park, contends that Equiano was actually born in South Carolina and could never have made the trip he describes. Carretta uses baptismal and naval records he unearthed to prove his point.

By challenging the authenticity of a major voice in the history of African slavery and one of the most widely taught slave narratives, Carretta's work, titled "Equiano, The African: Biography of a Self-Made Man," has stirred a furor among some historians and literary scholars.

"I think devastating is not underestimating some people's reaction to this notion," said Philip Morgan, a Princeton University history professor who has written about 18th-century slavery.

Carretta's book, published by University of Georgia Press, will be released Oct. 24...................

They want to succeed by being good at what they do. These are mature full-time working adults. I think reality teaches a lot.

That's the difference between people (black, white, or otherwise) that *want* to work......and people that *want* a handout.

It never ceases to amaze me that people aren't more offended by affirmative action. As in - "You poor oppressed minority. Normally I'd think that you weren't good enough to work here, but since the gov't says that I need to hire you, I'll *give* you a job. I expect complete loyalty as well as undying gratitude." If an employer pulled that crap with me, I'd tell them to get stuffed, thank you, I'll find another position.

I'm offended when anyone suggests that I achieved my (comfortably middle-class) success because I'm a straight, white, conservative male. I got to where I am today with 25% smarts and 75% hard work. I started out with two strikes against me by going to a HighSchool in the backwoods of Maine. Nearly failed out of college, because the first couple of years was just review for kids that had gone to better schools - it was all brand new to me.

Then I went into the business world and learned that no matter how tough profs were, they've got nothing on bosses, or customers.

Race, status, etc had nothing to do with where I am today, and neither did luck.....you make your own luck, as far as I can see. Your friend that said "I want to join the ruling class" has got it right. The way to get ahead is *surely* not to wait on a gov't handout. The fastest way to success is to do it yourself.

/rant off. And don't get me started on tenured professors in safe academic positions talking about the working world like they know anything about it. :-)

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