Innocents were driven from sanctuary. They were accosted by the demands of a twisted society and subsequently condemned to a life of inferiority despite the mutual kinship people share as siblings of the human race. They were treated as machines with no rudimentary facets and served others as if they were merely animals. The process lasted 245 years until it was abolished, stating “involuntary servitude” as an inherent wrong, therefore demolishing any potential future under the slave trade.
How do we define slavery in the 21 century? Think this over carefully. Especially as it applies to actions conducted decades prior, by individuals who are no longer alive? As it stands, slavery is a done and finished deal, but we have recently been hit with a brief and painful reminder via the latest United Nations panel.
According to a report by the U.N. Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, the actions supervised by the United States during the slave period demand and justify reparations toward the African-American community. This body of the U.N. complex serves as a primary human rights index that reports to the organization’s high commissioner for issues related to fundamental human principles.
“The legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the U.S. remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent,” according to the report.
Given the slew of police-related killings of unarmed black males in the United States, the U.N. panel proposed a fairly different stance on the issue: compensation and atonement. So, by some measure, there exists the notion that current generations of black communities deserve restitution for the travesties of slavery, a payment of some kind for the enslavement, abuse and overall heinous crimes committed by the people of old.
Is this sentiment logical?
The consideration, harbors positive intentions. But time-scale wise, it would be a fairly late resolution to what has been a centuries-long ideological conflict.
Speaking of ideology: ideas are in a constant state of quarrel and America is a country full of them. We have less of an issue with black v.s. white confrontation than we do with the “idea” behind these mental skirmishes.
The media perpetuates the “bad guy” stereotype attributed to blacks, deeming them violent or assigning negative connotations to a group of people who deserve to live in the Land of the Free as much as any other race and ethnicity. However, the other side of the spectrum seems to almost feign ignorance by encouraging a pro-black mantra, but failing to mention the high black-on-black homicide rates occurring across the country.
That said: where has the fairness gone?
