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The United States did not invent slavery. And while it is historical fact that certain parts of the country did participate in and benefit from slavery; it should also be pointed out that America had the good sense to eliminate slavery and emancipate the slaves, giving them full rights and citizenship.
America, as a country, has provided avenues of opportunity for blacks to excel to unparalleled levels. There are black billionaires, evidence Oprah Winfrey. The key positions of many Fortune 500 companies are filled by blacks. Attorneys, doctors, actors, actresses, authors, producers, professors, engineers, astronauts, small business owners and laborers are black.
Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are among America’s most beloved and revered individuals. Together Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are among the wealthiest and most powerful in America.
So why then is President Bush groveling and genuflecting in Africa? Why is the leader of the country that has given and made so much available to all peoples, especially blacks, on bent knee?
I grow weary of the repetitious mantra of how bad blacks had it or have it. Not everyone came here in chains, Africans included; but nearly every immigrant came here to escape bondage and/or participate in a new life, Africans included.
Because America is viewed as if she is responsible for the accouchement of slavery, a couple points bear mentioning. Arab Muslims were the first slave traders; trading for African slaves on the East Coast, then trading them throughout Western Africa. (Small wonder many blacks are buying into Islam as their true religion, sarcasm intended).
Secondly, while ships from America were amongst those carrying slaves, it should be noted that whites weren’t running through the jungle with nets and chains. That was left to the pre-colonial empires of the Dahomy and Ashanti tribes located in modern day Benin and Ghana.
In this man’s opinion if America is to hang her head in shame, let it be for the murder of millions of unborn babies. Let America hang her head in shame that vile usurpers of truth distort history and corrupt entire communities to make gain and oppress the ignorant.
More than 600,000 Americans died to pay the price for America’s sin of slavery.
It has been said that “whites need to learn black history. I’ll concede that if we add blacks need to learn their history also. It was white Americans who locked arms with Dr. King; it was a black American who used blood from King’s lifeless body to feign importance. It was white Republicans who fought for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
It was not Liberia, the Sudan, Ghana or the Congo that produced men and women like Dr. Carter G. Goodson, Garrett Morgan, Percy L. Julian, Dr. Jane Wright, William A. Lester Jr., Daniel Hale Williams, William B. Purvis or Norbert Rillieux. Collectively those countries produce only pain, starvation and economic malaise.
America is a country whose people were willing to correct injustice with their lives. White college students were murdered supporting Dr. King.
Even now white Americans are doing that which the so-called black leadership will not. It is groups such as Christian Solidarity International and The American Anti-Slavery Group that are raising monies to free present-day African women and children from their Muslim captors.
But while many take advantage of all that America has to offer, others are spurred to dissent by loathsome and spurious individuals.
Even as the president offered acknowledgements of past injustices, reprobates in America were plotting how to use his words against him and our country.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., continued to push H.R.40, a bill calling for the creation of a commission to study the effects of slavery on the descendants of African slaves.
Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action said, “Bush is almost making light of the severity of slavery.”
William Fletcher Jr., president of Trans Africa told MSNBC: “Whether it’s called ‘reparations’ or ‘reconstruction assistance,’ something is needed in order to return peoples to their history.” He continued those of African descent “were ripped out of history, and they need to be reinstated where they otherwise would have been.”
To Conyers I would say: Some black Americans embraced the availability of opportunity, while others embraced bitterness, ignorance and lies. We don’t need a commission to determine the effects of either.
And to Booker and Fletcher, I would offer that perhaps they should consider accommodations in Liberia or the Sudan or perhaps Ghana or Uganda; Then again there is always that place where fires burn eternal.