Van Lathan Speaks on The Economic Impact Slavery and His Clash With Jillian M on CNN

See The Clip Below At The 41:52 Mark

“Uh I keep begging people to read the book. It’s just one book. I’ve read many on it, but a book called From here to Equality by Dr. Sandy Darity. When we are talking about slavery, we’re talking about the involvement of slavery in the American economy. Now, Rachel, if I was to talk to you, if I was to say, “Tell me about the NBA.” Most people, if we had a robust conversation about the NBA, we would just not just talk about the players and the owners in the NBA. Think about all of the things surrounding the NBA that are a part of the NBA economic machine.

Uh marketing is a part of it, commercials are a part of it, sponsorships are a part of it. Like Sprite is a part of the NBA, right? Or starry, I guess it’s starry now.

All of the drinks, whatever is the official blankety blank of the NBA, KIA is a part of the NBA, right? Um, uh, the college basketball is a part of the NBA. High school basketball is a part of the NBA. The EYBL, the Nike summer league is a part of the NBA. The ABCD camps, all of those things, the Adidas, all of that stuff, it’s all a part of the NBA. It’s a part of the structure that undergurs and feeds resources and a workforce into the NBA. The NBA in and of itself is an economic machine that makes 1012 billion a year. But the things that are involved in basketball culture, which the NBA is the center and flashoint of, it goes way further than that. Right? It’s ways further than that. Way, way further than that. Uh slavery is not that much different. It’s actually not different at all. Right? For somebody like Jillian, she thinks, okay, the white people that were involved in slavery are the white people who owned slaves.

What if you owned a newspaper and in that newspaper you advertised slave auctions? What if you owned an insurance company and that insurance company insured slaves? What if you owned a shipping company and that shipping company shipped slaves? What if you are a part of not direct enslavement of African people but the economic infrastructure that benefits from the direct enslavement of African people? Sorry, you’re a part of slavery. By the way, there are numbers behind that. There are estimates that at the peak of American dependence on slavery that you’re saying you’re seeing around 25 to 35% of the or actually Donnie check that around 20 or 30% of the American economy involved in slavery.

Right. If you transport that number today, that is $8 trillion. $8 trillion in today’s money. Trillion dollars in today’s money involved in slavery. And that doesn’t even begin to contextualize the global industry of slavery where cotton alone is so dependent on by some other nations that us moving away from the slave trade is changing their financial systems. So many things that they are depending on the American South for that there are political ramifications in the freedom of black people. They’re all there cultural ramifications in it. Jillian just doesn’t understand the issue.”  – Van Lathan