More problems with history and the Code Noir

Taken together, i think the readings from Tuesday and tomorrow really drive the point home just how shaky a ground the term "history" is founded upon. Truillot's book, Silencing the Past has strongly reiterated the issue as well. 

"Silences are inherent in history because any single event enters history with some of its constituting parts missing. something is always left out while something else is recorded. there is no perfect closure of any event, however one chooses to define the boundaries or that event. thus whatever becomes fact does so with its own inborn absences, specific to its production. in other words, the very mechanisms that make any historical recording possible also ensure that historical facts are not created equal. they reflect differential control of the means of historical production at the very first engraving that transforms an event into a fact." (pg. 49)

Later on in the same chapter, Truillot also discusses the concept of archiving and how that plays into the inherent issues of "history" and recording history as well. He then goes on to mention some of the points he left out in his retelling of the story of Sans Souci and how certain things were necessary and other unnecessary for the reader to get the gist or the story. more so, he also points out how certain points are left out or added depending on the reader - be that, Americans, Haitians, etc. and how the historian or the one re-telling a historical event is generally cognizant of these other facets outside of the story itself. 

one of the earlier posts commented on how certain "good" parts of history should also be told about slavery as well as the bad parts. but i suppose it depends on who is telling the story and who the audience is. from my perspective, the horrific events that happened during slavery aren't told enough. i didn't learn about the commonality of rape (to both Black men and women), of violence against women, of some women inducing their own abortions or killing their own children to keep them out of slavery, of the castration of Black men (and severing of ears, noses, fingers, etc. after or prior to lynching), of the breaking of ankles and the severing of leg tendons (detailed in DuBois' book), the molestation of children, etc. etc. etc. (and that's not even getting into mental/cultural/familial degradations) ...in any of my grade schooling or even college courses. whippings and arduous labor were the worst parts of slavery that i learned in school. And if i were to tell someone else of slavery, i would more and likely leave out the Code Noir due to my feeling of its insignificance. in the larger scheme of things, i don't see it as influential, important, or a testament to the supposed morality of those who put it in place and enforced it (on whatever small scale that may have been). Although, if i was speaking to a crowd who had a more than novice understanding of slavery, and we were specifically on the topic of enslavement in Haiti, it might be mentioned in passing. other than that, it wouldn't be mentioned at all. a Black Code that says 'one can beat their slave...but not too bad' isn't all that revolutionary, from my perspective.