Today we have reached a new milestone or millstone if one is a bit cynical like me, It would appear after some 232 years of Independence Declaring, Congress has now decided to issue an apology for the practicing of slavery and Jim crow segregation against African Americans.
I have very mixed emotions about this. Perhaps if I were of another mind or I held a Liberal view as was my want in life some 30 years ago, I should be overjoyed by this awe inspiring news, virtually tripping afleet of foot down the golden pathways of hysterical happiness. However a new bear has been seen growling through the woods these days and this bear has many questions.
There have been apologies aplenty concerning man's inhumanity to man. My Question: why now congress, why after 232 years or so, have you decided to issue an apology at this time. Of course I am not saying an apology is wrong and that such an apology should have been made some some 200 years ago and it was not. I am merely questioning the timeliness of such a resolution.
My opinion: No man, woman, or child should ever be enslaved by another, for all men are created equal in the eyes of God and have rights in and under the law.
To enslave another human being is to deny that person as human and insuch causing that person to be regarded and treated as an inferior being equivelent to being an animal, thus harming that person. Therefore, slavery is a sin against God who gave us human rights in the first place and against each other.
My concern is now that the apology has been given, will we all be able to live in peace? Will we feel free to discuss our differences reasonably? Will we develop ways of accepting each other because of our differences, physical, mental, religious or otherwise? Can we help erradicated slavery in other parts of the world by working with other peoples so they don't make the same mistakes of the past or is history doomed to repeat itself? Will Black Americans, Native Americans and other people of color hold those people not of their race accountable for the people who lived here before. Please remember not all people of color living today in the US had ancestors who were enslaved in the US. Some people came to the US by their own free will from countries who may or may not have enslaved them. Some people had ancestors who were considered freemen and thus not enslaved. Not all people enslaved others. Even today there are exceptions to any generalization. We could have opinions about non-documented aliens vs documented aliens and naturalized citizens of all colors. We can discuss the horrible practice of children and woman forced into labor or sex slavery or even white slavery. Again let me be clear, slavery is absolutely an abomination.
My other concern: Are we to be reminded constantly of the failings of the forebearers of this Country even though many of our ancestors were not involved in this period of time, or is it the old sins of the fathers thing, these not being our fathers. Will we need to pay reparations for the rest of our lives and our descendents?
My Prayer: Dear Lord Teach Us to Love One Another as You Have Loved Us.
What say you folks? How do you feel about today's latest resolution.
So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating heartsand living affections,onlyassomany things belonging tothemasteröso long asthefailure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless miseryand toilöso long is it impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.
—Stowe, Harriet (Elizabeth) ne¤ e Beecher
Machines are worshipped because theyare beautiful, and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous, and loathed because they impose slavery.
—Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed,ö Or to victorie!ö Now's the day, and now's the hour; See the front o' battle lour; See approach proud Edward's power, Chains and Slaverie!
—Burns, Robert
Es binden Sklavenfesseln nur die H a« nde, Der Sinn, er macht den Freien und den Knecht. The chains of slavery can only bind the hands. The mind makes us either free or enslaved.
—Grillparzer, Franz
La force a fait les premiers esclaves, leur la" chete¤ les a perpe¤ tue¤ s. Force made the first slaves; their cowardice perpetuated slavery.
—Rousseau,JeanJacques
Indeed the arguments on both sides were invincible; for in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery; but in fact eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt.
—Swift,Jonathan
Apprenez qu'on ne sort de l'esclavage que par une grande re¤ volution. Learn that one never escapes slavery except by a great revolution.
—Laclos, Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de
Extreme freedom can't be expected to lead to anything but a change to extreme slavery, whether for a private individual or for a city.
—Plato
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
—Orwell, George pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair
We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery? Our cause is just, our union is perfect.
—Dickinson,John
If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves? as they must be if the being subjected to the inconsistent, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of men, be the perfect condition of slavery? and if the essence of freedom consists, as our masters say it does, in having a standing rule to live by? And why is slavery so much condemnedandstroveagainst inonecase, andsohighly applauded, and held so necessary and so sacred in another?
—Astell, Mary
Let usnever toleratetheslightest inroad onthe discipline of our holy Church. Let us never consent that she should be made the hireling of the Ministry. Our forefathers would have diedönay, perished in hopeless slaveryörather than consent to such degradation.
—O'Connell, Daniel known as the Liberator
Slavery broke the world in half, it broke it in every way. It broke Europe.It madethem intosomething else, it made themslave masters, it madethem crazy.You can't dothat for hundreds of years and it not take a toll. They had to dehumanize, not just the slaves but themselves.
—Morrison,Toni Chloe Anthony ne¤ e Wofford
'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion, It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe; Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!) Wich of our onnable body'd be safe?'
—Lowell,James Russell
I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.
—Nin, Ana|« s
No man can point to any law in the U.S. by which slavery was originally established. Men first make slaves and then make laws.
—Washington Bailey
Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.
—Burke, Edmund
Look at me! Look at myarm!? I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head meöand ar'n't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear de lash as wellöand ar'n't I a woman? I have borne thirteenchilernandseen'emmos'allsoldoff intoslavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but Jesus heardöand ar'n't I a woman?
—Truth, Sojourner ne¤ e Isabella
The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn't want to give the white man nothing else.But the fact is, you got to give 'em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your (donkey).
—Walker, Alice Malsenior
That state is a state of Slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and in his working time that which is required of him.
—Gill, (Arthur) Eric Rowton
Facts are generally overesteemed. For most practical purposes, a thing is what men think it is.When they judged the earth flat, it was flat. As long as men thought slavery tolerable, it was tolerable.We live down here among shadows, shadows among shadows.
—Updike,John Hoyer
But when a man who sees the world one way becomes Barker theslave of a manwho interpretstheworld inexactly the opposite way, the result is, to my mind, the worst possible kind of slavery.
—Jones