SLAVES INDEED

New Jersey's legislature just officially apologized for slavery. Can reparations be far behind?

Some thoughts.

Slavery was inherited from our British colonial government who allowed slaves to be imported in the first place. So why not sue Her Majesty's government for reparations for the descendants of slaves living in Camden, Newark, Trenton etc. Of course The Brit's would respond that the Romans introduced slavery to the British Isles under the Emperor Claudius. So It's the Italian Government, as the successor Government to the Romans who really started all this slavery. The Italians, being shrewd politicians will doubtless point out that it was the Etruscans who forced slavery on them. And this artful fib brings us to the terminus of legal liability. Nevertheless I suggest that we seize all available Etruscan assets and share them with all deserving victims of slavery.

The Cultural root causes of Slavery should be looked into as well. Surely someone must have upheld the antislavery principle among the cultures that formed America? The Hebrews who's Old Testament is so heavily proclaimed in AME churches held slaves themselves. They weren't fond of slavery but they never prohibited it. The Athenians who founded Democracy ran their economy on slavery and saw nothing incompatible with slavery and Democracy . So Athens and Jerusalem, the founding centers of all of our religion and philosophy are cultural co-defendants in the dock of responsibility. Joining them is Islam, the single most slave making civilization know. Indeed a very large percentage of all Blacks in America can thank Muslim rulers in Africa for their presence here as the followers of "the religion of peace" are enjoined by the word of the prophet from enslaving fellow Muslims. That being the case, and being hungry for money, they waged war on their non-Muslim fellow Africans specifically to enslave them for sale. Sorry Farrakhan, you are even more guilty than the rest of us. . So take you stand in the dock Mohammad. By the way, slavery is still practiced in Muslim paradises like Mauritania, Sudan and occasionally one hears, in the homes of Arab diplomats on Long Island. The Christian Spanish and Portuguese started the Atlantic slave trade even before Columbus, on plantations in the Azores and Canary Islands. Christianity has never been comfortable with slavery and the Popes preached against it for many centuries. Slavery within Europe by the late middle ages was largely confined to the Mediterranean basin. Still, Christians did tolerate slavery and practiced on an industrial scale when conquering (and civilizing) most of the known world. And we white Christians are also the people who put a stop to it.

An what of the slaves themselves? They all came from slave holding societies within Africa and saw slavery as an unfortunate but perfectly normal status in human society.

So today governments composed largely of White Christian Americans are apologizing for a practice that they inherited from their European ancestors, that was enshrined in the creed of all cultures, and that they put a stop to with the loss of much blood over a century ago.

This self imposed humiliation bespeaks a slave mentality itself, and is a shameful act unworthy of the descendants of those who set the slaves free.