Six Words: Minimum, Slave, Wrestle, Girlfriend, Lamp, Foreign
There are subjects that are difficult to talk about, but that are sometimes necessary to talk about. There are lessons to be learned by shining a lamp on history, history that is sometimes an example of greatness and sometimes an example of things that we wish were foreign to our history. Things that you wouldn’t have a casual conversation with a girlfriend about, but ideas that, at a minimum, should be discussed and wrestled with. One of those things is slavery and not just in the ways we all have heard about.
Most of us, I think, aren’t aware of how much slavery influenced our Constitution. For example, the Preamble to the Constitution says “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, . . .” Part of that “domestic tranquility” was making sure that there could not be a slave rebellion, even in places where black slaves greatly outnumbered white people. The “Blessings of Liberty” did not apply, obviously, to slaves.
But talking about it, or worse, teaching students about it, challenges the image that many of our fellow Americans would like to believe. Which history have we taught? Which history should we teach?
I yield the soapbox.