You hit the nail on the head, well said.

Anita


>From: [log in to unmask]
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history         
>      <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Official Opposition Events
>Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 12:34:20 -0400
>
>The implication here is that the "original sin" of slavery
>rests with Africans, as if that somehow lets everyone else who
>profited from the enslavement of African peoples off the hook.
>  But framed that way, the argument is silly.  Human nature
>being what it is, its not all that surprising that African
>peoples bear their share of guilt for the historical thriving
>of the institution.  Every market transaction requires buyers
>and sellers, and both parties in a transaction expect to
>benefit from it.  If the transaction is morally evil, both are
>implicated in it.
>
>The fact that some African nations participated in slavery and
>bear share of the historical responsibility for it does not
>change the fact that, with very rare exceptions, pretty much
>ALL of the victims of the institution were African or Native
>American.  The ancestors of a great many of the victimized
>families live in Africa.  The forced migration of ten million
>or so people, a substantial portion of whom were worked to
>death in Caribbean plantations, is a historical evil.
>Moreover, slavery still exists in the world, so this
>particular evil is not yet an artifact of history.  Under
>these circumstances, it is not at all unreasonable to suggest
>that representatives of those African polities whose citizens
>are the descendants of people victimized by slavery should be
>present to bear witness at Jamestown.
>
>We should pause to ponder just why slavery is evil.  Slavery
>certainly can involve harsh suffering and physical
>deprivation.  But while those things are awful, it is not
>primarily in the physical suffering that the evil of slavery
>resides.  Slavery, as Orlando Patterson noted long ago,
>demands the social death of the slave.  As a consequence,
>slavery, by its nature, strips the slave of autonomy and the
>capacity for self-definition and self-government.
>
>For citizens of the United States of America, slavery is
>especially problematic.  As American thinkers have long
>understood, the continued survival of the American polity
>depends upon the continued public commitment of self-governed
>citizens.  The promise of the American polity is ordered
>liberty--freedom, rightly understood, constrained by right
>reason.  The antithesis of slavery is this fundamental
>American good:  liberty.  It is possible, of course, to
>reconcile slavery with American republican values, by denying
>the slave's full capacity for self-government.  But we know
>today that this attempt to reconcile slavery with American
>public ideals is premised on a lie--that racism has no basis
>in reality.
>
>There can be no moral harm in asking slavery's victims to bear
>witness to its depravity.  But there are especially profound
>reasons for American citizens, of whatever genetic or cultural
>background, to bear witness as well.  The salutary good that
>comes from so doing is to remind ourselves, collectively and
>as a people, what it is that we stand for.  In condemning
>slavery, we affirm the deepest and most valued commitments of
>our public order.
>
>All best,
>Kevin
>

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