Book Review…Wounds that never healed

Jan 24, 2016 Book Review…, Features / Columnists

Book: Through the lens of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade
Author: Vinita Moch Ricks
Reviewer: Dr Glenville Ashby

Riveting and stunningly disturbing! In this searing opus, Vinita Moch Ricks, retired professor and social scientist, delivers a trove of information – so extensive and overwhelming that it demands multiple readings.

The book cover of Through the lens of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade

There is much to ponder here. Interestingly, Ricks’ experienced her enlightenment recently and appears befuddled by the information she has unearthed. There is so much data, much of which is not daringly original, but connect the dots, and you have an incomparable thesis that lays bare the disturbing realization that we live in a world driven by lies, distortions and duplicity.
Fundamental to Ricks’ works is that the slave trade – not slavery, is at the core of our legal, financial, educational, and constitutional system. It is imprinted in the DNA of our world order.
Ricks leans heavily on observation, and this qualitative methodology works.
Admittedly, her TransAtlantic Slave Trade appears disjointed at times. She begins with her experience as a teacher and the diverse attitude of students of different racial backgrounds. Blacks, she says, will accept their grade; white students will demand better grades, while Asian students will demurely seek an explanation and will return the next day with much improved work. To what does Ricks attribute these attitudinal differences? No doubt an intriguing salvo.
Lending credence to her work is Ricks’ travels to several countries and continents. It is during this time that she becomes aware of monumental edifices, canals, and bridges, all of which were constructed at the apogee of the slave trade. She writes about her visit to Oporto, Portugal: “We decided to visit this very large structure in the centre of town. I am not sure that I knew it was a church. Upon entering, it felt like I had been struck by lightning. Immediately, I saw these huge wooden pillars, each pillar has been hand-carved on all four sides. Immediately, I ran out of the church. I needed to see its construction date. It was 1775. Oh my goodness, this was during the Slave Trade. Here was my first sighting of European slave money, hiding in plain view. Now I was seeing and experiencing my topic of study with new eyes.”
And it is from this trajectory that Ricks presents her case. With clarity, she argues that the Slave Trade is the progenitor of our credit, financial, litigious and judicial systems. Buying and selling slaves, shipping, trade, and colonisation required credit. Insolvency and difficulties honouring loans led to legal battles. Such developments formed the backbone of today’s capitalist system of stocks and bonds, and insurance companies.
Ricks articulates:”The Slave Trade had a key impact on two money products: stocks and taxes. To participate in the Slave Trade, companies needed large amounts of money that would not be paid back immediately. They would pay it back later from profits shares, bonuses or quarterly dividend checks. They sold stock in the company or in one of the company’s ships.”
This pattern, she states, is very much alive today.
Every vestige of slavery and the Slave Trade impacts us, according to Ricks. She explores the diet of blacks that mirrors their harrowing past. “Most blacks were given the poorest, cheapest foods. They ate from the bottom of the food chain, such as the intestines of the pig, or chitterlings. They ate pig feet and fried pork skins. Slaves were also given sugar to artificially boost their caloric intake and provide the rush needed to work from sun up to sun down.”
And later, she advances the Triumvirate theory: our fate is determined by the tentacular influence of government, multinational corporations, and religion. Our consumptive value system and salvation-based religious philosophy guarantees the towering stature of these three institutions. As it was yesterday, so it is today.

Through the lens of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade by Vinita Moch Ricks
Publisher: Honoring the Heart Publishing
ISBN: 13: 978-1491265628
Available: Amazon
Ratings: Highly recommended