Say Hey Willie, Juneteenth, and the Reinvention of Slavery

I HAD INTENDED to write an essay about Willie Mays, and one about Juneteenth and the end of slavery. Now, upon further reflection,I find it tempting to combine the three topics into one hoped for succinct essay, three birds with one stone, so to speak. The end result may be considerably other that anything I had planned. When a friend mentioned that slavery was horrible, stating the obvious, and that the end of slavery was something indeed to celebrate, I responded that argubaly slavery never ended, but was merely reinvented in less formal forms, and that the reinvention continues to this day. Nothing that has happened in the last few minutes has changed this personal opinion, nothing that happens over the next few decades is likely to either. I pointed out in the course of the ensuing "discussion" that slaves were valuable property, were generally well enough if sparsely, spartanly fed, and that the beatings,whippings, and rapes were indeed real,but that conditions varied widely from plantation to plantation, and that only a tiny fraction of the white southern population owned more than one or two slaves,and that those same slaves tended to be spared harsh treatment, and indeed often integrated into the family, quite by accident, an accident of human nature in which familiarity breeds contempt, but also, at times, love, especially when both parties are not equal in power and status, after the fashion of dog and master. I futher asserted that the treatment of African-Americans scarcely improved post slavery, and indeed,in many cases, worsened. Being free has its limits when one has no land, no property, no job, no money, no home, and too little to eat. The corrupt bargain of 1877 elevated Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency, and condemned the former slaves to a life of misery. Slaves, if little else, at least had homes, food, work, a purpose in society, if only as chattel property. Arguably, Their condition post slavery, after the end of reconstruction, was equal in terms of sheer deprivation if not worse than what they had endured while enslaved. To a large and very important extent, objections to slavery are purely, properly moral, when compared to conditions experienced by freed slaves in America ever since, which are quite real, and objectionable on both moral and practical terms. We continue to reinvent slavery, and give it new names. Now we are banning mention in American public schools of enduring systemic racism in the United States, which, as someone congently pointed out, is in itself a perfect example of systemic racism. Next thing I know, I'm being accused of failing to adequately condemn formal slavery. I had rather condemn the four hundred and five years of the African-American experience, than single out two hundred and forty six years of formal slavery for special, righteous condemnation. Yes, slavery was and is horrible, wherever, whenever. Lettuce so stipulate. But instead of dwelling on it and acting like by condemning it was have somehow solved and moved beyond the fundamental problems associated with it which plague us in our world today, extending it into our own times like residual historical stench and limiting any hope of actual racial equality to rhetoric unsupported by substantive facts, its time to stipulate the horror of slavery, to move on, and to talk about ourselves, and our refusal to let go, of formal slavery, and change our focus to the enduring informal slavery. Condemning slavery is all well and good, but using it as an excuse to self congratulate ourselves on progress which esixts in self congratulatory flowery rehetoric, but not so much in the real world, defeats the very purpose of opposing, eliminating,and condemning formal slavery.