Yes, Let's Talk About Slavery

Sitting in an American public school classroom, I learned all about the evil whitey slave-owners and the noble, African people brought to the US in chains on slave ships. If only life was so black-and-white, and good and bad so simple to discern.

But, it’s not.

There were good white people fighting to end slavery (Civil War), Quakers aiding the slaves in their struggles (Underground Railroad), white men who fell in love with black slave women (Thomas Jefferson). (Actually, Sally was paid a wage for her seamstress skills, making her an employee not a slave in today’s terms, and their children were all legally “freed” and lived as “whites.”)

Was Thomas Jefferson an evil whitey slave-holder? I see a man forced to live in a time under societal circumstances that would not allow him to marry his life partner and true love. Think of all the arranged marriages in societies all over the world. There have always been societal laws over there (wives), and over here, Real Life (mistresses). Thank God he had Sally for comfort and support as he did his life’s work of helping to create the greatest nation this planet has ever seen. I digress. The point is was he an evil man ruthlessly raping one of his black female sex slaves or a man in love? How could any of us claim to know for sure? They had six children.

I have never felt like an evil whitey, although I was born with blonde hair and blue-green eyes. I was also born with the intelligence to look another person in the eyes and see their heart and true measure. This is not found in skin color.

When I imagine my family history, I see a lot of poor farmers, Cherokee Indians, and fighters (soldiers, warriors). My grandmother always laughed and winked when she called us “Black Dutch” – a term used for many generations to hide mixed-race blood between whites and Indians and whites and blacks. My half-blood Cherokee ancestors claimed this to avoid removal. (I have as much Native blood as many on the public dole, but my people chose a different path, to live in the future, not the past.) Why am I discriminated against for certain opportunities for NOT looking like I have mixed blood?

My Cherokee ancestors could have been slave owners, too. I recently read a fascinating side-by-side comparison of how African slaves and their NATIVE AMERICAN owners lived (found in an OK history text book). They struggled together as practically equal partners to live in a harsh, pioneer environ. They did the same work, ate the same food, slept in similar beds, children reared and educated equally. I see this as people working together to survive. Imagine you are a settler who needs more hands, help – one option is purchasing a slave family to live and work with you.

Did you know African tribes captured other African tribes and sold them into slavery? Our moral outrage demands we find a villain to blame, someone to PAY for the sin of slavery. The conquering tribe? Those who purchased (US plantation owners)? Those who bought and used the cotton (British textile mills)?

Let’s look at the world economic picture the latter part of the 1700s. Cotton plantations in the US deep South were pitted against those in India for the business of the British textile mills, victor determined by cheapest prices, of course. Both were snatching up the world’s supply of slave workers to drive down labor costs. Not quite the situation of “the master” just not feeling like shining his own shoes.

Actually, our time engaged in slavery was brief (in the grand scheme of world history), a dangerous flirtation, a powerful seduction. Then we snapped back to our senses, to our values of right and wrong. The ancient Greeks had no such moral issues, as entire conquered armies were enslaved as a matter of policy. Another common occurrence in the Old World involved forced marriages between a Conquering and Conquered People, to ensure future peace.

As you can see, this whole slavery thing is kinda complicated and convoluted. And yet, we want someone to blame, someone to pay. If only people would fit nicely into Good and Bad categories based on skin color, then we could guilt their descendents into giving the rest of us money or advantage. But good and bad cannot be determined by skin color.

I am writing this today for two reasons:
1. To give Obama a how-to map for truly a “Post-Racial” America. Reparations and special treatment based on skin color are bulls***. Get rid of ‘em. Polls based on skin color are silly, too. Census questions, government studies, counts of military members, college students, drug abusers, criminals, focused on skin color, why? Why? Ridiculous. It ignores an individual’s free will. Maybe they’re in the Army, university, or jail because THEY CHOSE IT. The only official discrimination still happening is Affirmative Action. Abolish it. It’s reverse racism, pure and simple. Don’t endorse it any more. The remnants of racism in our society is a societal issue, not a political issue. No matter how many laws we make and throw at it, societal attitudes change slowly and mostly through positive personal experiences. Official reverse discrimination only retards the pace of change by undermining those positive personal experiences.
2. To give dumb racist organizations like the NAACP something meaningful to do. They need to shift all their resources to today’s world stage where REAL SLAVERY is still happening! At the height of the slave trade in the 1780s, 80,000 Africans were brought to the entire NEW WORLD annually. Today, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across borders as bonded laborers or sex slaves annually, according to the US State Department. Most are women. I’ve even got a new name for the NAACP: something like the National Association for the Advancement of Humanity.

I could barely read the story of Mahabouba Muhammad, found in the new book “Half the Sky,” due to the tears standing in my eyes. This young Ethiopian girl was SOLD to a 60-year-old man as a 2nd wife. Then she tries to deliver her baby by herself in the bush, suffers “fistula” injuries (hole between birth canal and internal organs). She stinks of leaking waste, fellow villagers take her to the edge of town for the hyenas to eat. She drags herself to a hospital, where she is healed, learns to read and write, and helps similar patients. WHO estimates 2 million women with untreated fistulas worldwide, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. A simple surgery can fix.

I want to ask every person in America, young and old: Now tell me again why you can’t or didn’t go to college? Or pursue whatever dream you have? Exactly what is holding you back? Ohhh, your great-great-great-great grandparents were brought here as slaves, probably from sub-Saharan Africa…I see.