SLAVERY, HISTORY, and TODAY

 Yeah - I'm wading into the thick of it again today. Call me crazy - maybe it's just that. I like to think it's because I am wired to find solutions - and solve problems.

Today, I am looking at solutions and positive actions. Today, let's focus on what the protestors this spring - are actually 'protesting'. These protests are supposed to bring attention to the "oppression" and "systemic racism" of blacks.

Throughout the history of this great nation, we have had some chapters that were less shining than others. Slavery is one of those chapters. When we speak about Slavery in the US, most often it refers to slavery of blacks from the Caribbean or Africa. There were also other slaves in the 'New World'. Indeed, the Irish were enslaved - in Europe and the Americas earlier and longer than African blacks - past the Civil War years, by way of conscription, kidnap and indentured servitude. It is historical fact, and can be researched as such. The Irish were treated viciously in our nation - no less than Africans. We will, however, keep that topic for another day.

Slavery started in the colonies in 1612 and was first legalized in the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1625. Slavery was ended as an institution in the US in 1865. In that 240 year span, many blacks of Caribbean and African descent were held as slaves. There is nothing to say on this topic other than slavery and enslaving of another human is abhorrent and evil.

When slavery ended, there was a time that blacks were considered to be less intelligent, less capable than whites - and that view is also abhorrent. We had Jim Crow, discrimination, segregation, desegregation, and civil rights movements and laws that helped usher in equality for all in the US. It seems crazy, to us, that our forefathers would hold these beliefs - but there it is. And, in fact, there are still sects of the KKK and White Supremacists in existence - though those beliefs will die out with those throwbacks to a darker time.

I think then, based on the previous information, we can all agree that no one alive today - in the US - has been held as a slave as part of that institution in the US. In fact, no one has been held a slave as part of that institution in the past 152 years.

Today, black Americans have nothing in law or legislation that prevents them from being anything they want to be - indeed - up to and including the President of the US. The only limit is your ambition and the only method of getting there is hard work.  Anything is achievable.

**One note - slavery still exists today in our world.  Today - as we speak - Africans and Christians are enslaved, bought, auctioned, sold and traded in the Middle East and Africa.  I would ask where the outrage is for these people from those who think looting and burning businesses is an effective means of "change".