Thanks for your comment. Nowhere in my article did I profess to expect perfection. I repeatedly spoke of how the founding fathers were inherently flawed as are all human beings.
I appreciate you giving historical context to slavery but knowing that does not negate that the man who wrote the words that all men are created equal owned enslaved humans. It cannot be that difficult to see and acknowledge the hypocrisy of his words and it shouldn’t be that hard for any American to sit with that without trying to justify it.
There would be no space for anyone to justify concentration camps or Hitler’s actions. Every human being can attest that the degree of human suffering inflicted upon the Jews was one of the most horrific and detestable events in history.
Why, then, is it so hard to say the same about slavery in America without bringing up other things that don’t relate? Why do we try so hard to justify that the actions of men who wrote a document intended to benefit only one portion of the population? And so much so, that any abhorrent atrocities they inflicted upon my ancestors could be explained away by these documents that didn’t even have enslaved Africans in mind?
It has been interesting to me that in these comments not one person has addressed the fact that the majority of the writers of the declaration of independence owned enslaved humans.
But I understand why.
America cannot deal with slavery because it would be forced to recognize that the men whose names are on monuments memorials schools, etc, practiced and promoted chattel slavery which again, was only practiced in America.
It is easier to just continue to refer to these words that didn’t (and still don’t) mean much to Black Americans because to this day they are not enforced to uphold true equity in this country.
While you are entitled to have a problem with the term “original sin”, the fact remains that the BIGGER problem is that chattel slavery was permitted in the first place. And what still remains to be addressed by this country are the continued inequities and racism that we as their descendants still experience in 2024 because of slavery, the subsequent Jim Crow laws, and the continued practice of white supremacy.
My children whose safety I worry about on a daily basis unfortunately don’t have the luxury of waiting for the next world to afford them the same inalienable rights of White American. They , and all other Black Americans are alive NOW and need these liberties NOW.
