African heritage, not slavery, defined the Black condition

Evidence

It becomes clear, then, that for the period between the mid-sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, it was an African tradition that grounded collective resistance by Blacks to slavery and colonial imperialism. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 833 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The makings of an essentially African response, strewn across the physical and temporal terrain of societies conceived in Western civilization, have been too infrequently distinguished. Only over time has the setting for these events been integrated into the tradition. The social cauldron of Black radicalism is Western society. Western society, however, has been its location and its objective condition but not-except in a most perverse fashion-its specific inspiration. Black radicalism is a negation of Western civilization, but not in the direct sense of a simple dialectical negation. It is certain that the evolving tradition of Black radicalism owes its peculiar moment to the historical interdiction of African life by European agents. In this sense, the African experience of the past five centuries is simply one element in the mesh of European history: some of the objective requirements for Europe’s industrial development were met by the physical and mental exploitation of Asian, African, and native American peoples. This experience, though, was merely the condition for Black radicalism-its immediate reason for and object of being-but not the foundation for its nature or character. Black radicalism, consequently, cannot be understood within the particular context of its genesis. It is not a variant of Western radicalism whose proponents happen to be Black. Rather, it is a specifically African response to an oppression emergent from the immediate determinants of European development in the modern era and framed by orders of human exploitation woven into the interstices of European social life from the inception of Western civilization: [T]he similarity of African survivals in the New World points not to tribal peculiarities but to the essential oneness of African culture. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 395 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Enslaved Africans carried their cultures and consciousness into slavery, contradicting primitive accumulation; The category of the Negro was fabricated in the West, not Africa; The Black radical tradition springs from a conserved African worldview under enslavement (+19 more)

Related

• An African tradition grounded Black resistance from 1550 to 1850 (similarity 0.93)
• The Black Radical Tradition accreted collective intelligence from generations of slave struggle (similarity 0.90)
• Black radicalism is an autonomous African response, not a Black variant of Western radicalism (similarity 0.90)
• Black radicalism is a distinct tradition, not a Black variant of Western radicalism (similarity 0.89)
• African cultural meanings survived slavery and grounded resistance (similarity 0.89)
• The Black radical tradition originates in conserved African metaphysics transmitted as culture (similarity 0.89)
• African culture formed a shared shield against dehumanization in the New World (similarity 0.88)
• African slaves carried their full cultures and consciousness into the New World (similarity 0.88)
• Black radicalism is transcending nationalism and class struggle for its own authority (similarity 0.87)
• Black mass culture evolved from resistance to slavery and a racial social order (similarity 0.87)
• New World Africans favored spiritual preservation over violent confrontation (similarity 0.87)
• The tradition let Black thinkers reject Western radicalism’s universal claims (similarity 0.87)
• African heritage, not slavery, shaped the Black condition fundamentally. (similarity 0.87)
• The Black radical tradition challenged Western radicalism’s assumptions about capitalism and ideology (similarity 0.86)
• Black revolt has historically focused on structures of the mind, not material conditions (similarity 0.86)

Broader Connections

• An African tradition grounded Black resistance from 1550 to 1850 #corroborates (0.85) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 833
• The Black radical tradition springs from a conserved African worldview under enslavement #corroborates (0.80)
• African culture formed a shared shield against dehumanization in the New World #corroborates (0.80)
• Black radicalism is an autonomous African response, not a Black variant of Western radicalism #corroborates (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 395
• The Black radical tradition derives from its own cultural synthesis, not imported theory. #corroborates (0.80)
• Black outrage at racial capitalism springs from an African-rooted epistemological standard #corroborates (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1428
• Historical materialism fails to capture Black historical being as more than opposition to capital #expands (0.70)
• Enslaved women preserved their humanity by clinging to traditional African practices #exemplifies (0.70) — Stella Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly- Women, Slavery and…, 380
• Historical materialism fails to capture the full historical being of Black peoples. #expands (0.70)
• Shared African culture, not tribal origin, is what resisted European dehumanization #corroborates (0.70)
• The tradition let Black thinkers reject Western radicalism’s universal claims #corroborates (0.65)
• Early Black resistance sought survival and consciousness-preservation, not revolution #corroborates (0.60)
• Surrealism served Black radicals as recognition, not invention #corroborates (0.60)
• Slave communal practices preserved Black identity and nourished the radical tradition #corroborates (0.60)
• The category of the Negro was fabricated in the West, not Africa #qualifies (0.50)