A Few Reflections on Slavery
For one thing, the white man did not introduce slavery to the world.
Publisher’s Note: We are sad to report the passing of our longtime friend and writer, Burt Prelutsky, a devoted Patriot Post contributor since 2009. Burt’s astuteness, sarcasm, and patriotism were evident in each and every column. We will be running his last few columns over the coming week. Please lift his family up in prayer during this difficult time.
The 1619 Project is an anti-white invention which also goes by the rather pretentious name of Critical Race Theory. It pretends that the very foundation of America’s prosperity was based on the practice of slavery, and that the nation’s official birthdate should be 1619, not 1776, 1619 being the year that the first black slave was brought to this land.
Because the slander is so enormous, it’s hard to know where to begin. For one thing, the white man did not introduce slavery to the world. It goes back to biblical times and probably existed even before Moses led the Jewish slaves out of Egypt.
The white man didn’t even introduce slavery to North America. There were Indian tribes who enslaved other Indian tribes, and the enslaved were luckier than some, as cannibalism wasn’t unknown on the continent.
Condemning America because slavery existed for a couple of hundred years until it was ended in the 1860s is unfair because individual states had already outlawed it: Vermont in 1777; Pennsylvania in 1780; New Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1783; Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784; New York in 1799; and New Jersey in 1804. Georgia had actually outlawed it as early as 1733, but it was restored by the king of England in 1750 when Georgia became a royal colony. All of that took place even before the great William Wilberforce finally managed to get Parliament to banish slavery throughout the British Empire.
And as much as the thugs in BLM want to pretend that slavery was a white enterprise, the blacks who were brought to America had been captured and sold by their fellow black Africans.
As for slavery having been the foundation of America’s prosperity, the fact is slavery was only widespread in the South, the least prosperous part of the country.
The fact is that there were more slaves brought to South America and the Caribbean than to North America, and neither of those places enjoyed the economic success of North America.
Something else that black activists like to ignore is the role that Christianity played in the abolition of slavery. It was white ministers in the North who constantly sermonized against the vileness of slavery and who played a major role in the creation of the Underground Railroad.
It also happens to be a fact that Mr. Wilberforce was a convert to Christianity, so the religion played a crucial and noble role on both sides of the Atlantic.
But to ignore the fact that slavery was commonplace centuries ago and still exists today in the Middle East and in China has to be intentional, and with no other motive than to create division between the races.
In fact, to condemn the South for slavery in the historical past is almost as silly as condemning the passengers on the Mayflower for undertaking such a dangerous sea voyage instead of booking a flight on United.
In a related matter, the closest the mainstream media ever comes to identifying young black males as the number one perpetrators of violent crimes is when they refer to the “inner-city” or “high crime areas,” which is the politically correct code for reality.
It’s rather as if the fault lies with certain streets and neighborhoods, as if the same drug sales, robberies and drive-by killings would be taking place if the residents were Asian shop owners or Hassidic Jews.
If Joe Biden had set out to pick the very worst person to fill every slot in his administration, he couldn’t have done better. Or worse, as the case happens to be.
His latest is Rachel Rollins, a typical black racist, who, also typically, is half white, but refuses to recognize the part supplied by her Irish father.
Like Lori Lightfoot, Stacey Abrams, Maxine Waters and Kamala Harris, she sees everything through a racist prism.
This past week, the Senate, on a straight party vote with Kamala Harris casting the deciding tiebreaker, appointed Ms. Rollins to be the state attorney for Massachusetts. That puts her in charge of overseeing federal law for the entire state.
This is a woman who, in her previous role as the district attorney for Suffolk County, came up with a list of 15 crimes she would refuse to prosecute. They included trespassing, shoplifting, breaking and entering, the wanton destruction of property, drug dealing and resisting arrest.
She was, however, willing to prosecute embezzlement, bank robbery, cybercrime and forgery, no doubt because those are the crimes least often committed by blacks. During the BLM riots, she defended the mob, while accusing police officers of “killing us with impunity.”
I do wonder what her Irish-American father makes of her bigotry.
I liked a meme sent along by Mike Daddio. It showed Kyle Rittenhouse with the caption “My 3 shots were more effective than Fauci’s.”
One who would vehemently disagree is one of my subscribers, a woman who is a retired police officer.
Ever since that night in Kenosha when Rittenhouse defended himself against three criminals intent on killing him, she has been attacking the kid.
In her latest email, she managed to misread what I had written, thinking I was quoting someone who came up with five reasons that Rittenhouse shouldn’t have been in Kenosha, missing the fact that the quote referred to one of his attackers, Gaige Grosskreutz, who had no right to be armed and on the street that fateful evening.
She wrote: “He’s right on. And Kyle’s mother needs to have her head examined for whatever encouragement she might have given him!! He’s young & dumb, I give him that…so whatz her excuse? The entire thing could have been avoided Period! My kid would NOT have left the house. It has never been made clear, who he represented? Organization? Dept? City? County? Govt? Badge? No, please! Superior Officer? WHO? What official business did he have out there? None! Zero! Idiot child!!”
I didn’t clean up the spelling and punctuation because I thought it best to let her convey her full frenzy. I suspect that if she had cooled down before writing, she would have dropped a few of the exclamation points, but maybe not.
In any case, I replied “But the reference wasn’t to Rittenhouse, but to one of his ‘victims.’ The kid was there to help defend the town, to clean up the graffiti and to lend assistance to those who required simple medical attention. He was in town where his father and grandparents live. Finally, he was there because those folks in uniform you prize so highly weren’t there doing the job they’re paid to do. Now, please stop bashing on the kid I wish was my son.”
Just because the Muslims frown on singing, dancing and movies doesn’t mean they don’t know how to have a good time.
For instance, in the United Arab Emirates, they are currently hosting an annual camel beauty pageant in which 25,000 camels from throughout the Middle East are competing for millions of dollars.
But even Muslims, I have heard, have been known to stoop to having their camels’ natural charms enhanced with Botox. At least that much is known. I, having grown up in Southern California, strongly suspect that nose jobs and hump implants are as commonplace over there as they are in Hollywood.
You can email Burt directly at [email protected].
