Slavery was not just a job.  It was not even an indenture of servitude.  It was the systematic attempt to dehumanize a people who were taken by force, kept by force, threats of force and by threats of loosing their family members forever.   The threat of loosing family members is about as violent a tactic as I can imagine.  
   
  Slavery is defined as: The state of being bound in servitude as the *property* of a slaveholder or household and a mode of production in which slaves constitute the principal work force.  The important part of that definition is not the *principal work force*, although that is important; but is the word, *property*, and especially the implications of treating people as property. 
   
  Classifying a group of people as non-human, creating laws to encourage treatment of people as non-human, and feeling “entitled”, to do so, is wrong.   Violence wasn’t always needed to maintain the system, if enough dehumanizing tactics had already taken place. That practice is inhumane, no matter what small kindnesses were granted on a personal level.  Even if you can believe that some people would choose slavery as a way of life, you can’t believe that children were making that choice. The fact that the practice still goes on in other places doesn’t mitigate the horrendous injustice done here, or the fact that our country was built on this injustice. My dirt poor German ancestors didn’t own slaves, and were no better off than slaves, materially. But they were given the hope that their children’s lives could be as good as their talents, abilities and effort could make them. They were counted as human.  They are counted in the phrase, “with liberty and justice for all”. 
   
  No one should feel personally responsible for events that happened before we were born; but if we don’t appreciate the difference between slavery and *democracy and freedom*, it might just be easy,  even for the entitled, to loose both. It is necessary to face this horrendous part of our past as a real evil, and call it what it is, and not “just a job”. 
   
  Langdon Hagen-Long
  
[log in to unmask] wrote:
  On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Basil Forest wrote:

> I suspect for some slaves, there was a similar mindset....better to be taken
> care of my massa for a hard day's work in the field than have to face the
> uncertainties of the cruel world.

Not unlike the way some people stick with a job they don't like because at
least it's a job, it's familiar surroundings, and being without a job (or
fearing you will be should the boss discover you're looking elsewhere) is
a cold and scary business.

Mario Rups
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