Its crazy looking at modern depictions of antebellum slavery where my ancestors - and Im not just saying that because Im white, I can literally trace my lineage to owners of a plantation fifteen miles from my house - used other human beings for profit. Inspected them like you would a horse (checking the teeth); bought and sold them like furniture; whipped them bloody for the sheer sport; raped their young girls and women almost as a right of passage to manhood; and robbed them of their identities, religions, cultures, names, the right to learn to read; and my ancestors did all this so they could have nicer furniture, bigger houses and fancy clothing. Its like the bean stalk in Jack and the Giant, its so absurd it doesnt even seem possible. But it did; and you gotta wonder how? Because its easy to say these were evil people, heartless people; but they werent, they loved their family, they wanted to make them happy, they wanted better for their children than what they had and the only way they could see to get that was to step over others, use them and hurt them. So they drew lines in the sand, categorized their scapegoats as different and pretended they were less than human because thats the only way a human being could ever live with them-self after hurting other people like that. Native Americans were enslaved first, however they were born trackers and hunters, knew enough of European customs and knew the land too well to make good obedient slaves. Indentured servants, white slaves from Europe, were too accustomed to the European ways and too familiar to make an acceptable lower class. But in Africa, where Warlords fought and killed each other, raped the women of those they conquered and enslaved any left alive, my ancestors saw an opportunity. They wouldnt be creating slaves, merely buying already existing slaves and they wouldnt feel so bad about it. Then, to get them used to the culture, they were brought to the Caribbean and trained, beaten and broken to understand the protestant religions, European languages and customs. By the time they were brought to the shores of the United States they were so subservient, so exotic, so seemingly different to us that it wasnt hard to pretend they werent human. So thats exactly what we did, we pretended they were less than human and it was okay to treat them however we pleased. But slavery and hurting other people isnt exclusive to my antebellum ancestors, theyre just the center of attention. The more aggressive Native American tribes such as my Apache ancestors were known to scalp women and children and burn whole settlements to the ground. Before Cortez massacred them, Aztecs were a warrior culture that required war to exist and made blood sacrifices to their monarchs who were gods. Genghis Khans barbarian tribes raped so many women across northern Asia where Europeans had settled that Asian traits in modern eastern Europeans are plainly evident. In Nanking China in 1937 the Imperiel Japanese Army under the command of Prince Asaka, Emperor Hirohitos own blood, had the generals make a game and bet on how many civilians they could line up in front of a machine gun and cut down. It was military order that they rape as many women as they could; and I use the term women loosely because females from the elderly to infants were raped. If physiology and young age made rape impossible, they would use bayonets to cut the girl open so she could be raped; often by several different soldiers. Then when they were done she would be executed and have canes, bottles, broomsticks or anything handy shoved in her vagina for humiliation. The night before the Japanese left they killed fifty-thousand people (as many Americans as died in Vietnam) to try and cover up their brutality by leaving no witnesses. Today African warlords commit genocide like its a holiday. Women are still thought of as spoils of war and raped without mercy. Humans are killed and their entrails and bones are used for psychological warfare. And it all stems from super-racism and xenophobia. My point is that no one is innocent. And if you try to throw blame around to a people or a culture and separate them from yourselves then youre falling into the same way of thinking, the same trap that allowed them to commit their atrocities in the first place. Theres no us and them, were all in this together; and we have to be better.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 18:30:25 +0000
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