Absolutely right and eloquently stated, Kevin.  Thank you.

--Jurretta Heckscher


On May 11, 2007, at 12:34 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> 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
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 11:53:45 EDT
>> From: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Official Opposition Events
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> Why would African heads of state be invited?  It was the
> African  tribal
>> leaders who oversaw the sale of their African brothers into
> slavery in  the first
>> place.
>>
>> J South
> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
> Department of History
> James Madison University
>