Broaden perspective

I strongly believe that all people are born equal in the eyes of God and should be in the eyes of man. Wasn’t that what people like Martin Luther King were advocating?

Yes, there are some bad things in our past that we would not tolerate today. Nevertheless, you can’t judge another era by current standards. There was a time when slavery was legal in a large part of what today is America. That’s just the way that it was in that era. Condemning people for behaving according to the standards of their day is a waste of time. That makes as much sense as reliving Saturday’s ball game Monday morning.

However, if you insist on revisiting the past, here are a few things that should be taken into consideration: “Slavery” and “race” are two different things. Slavery was around for thousands of years before 1619. In many countries, you could be a slave and have no physical characteristics that distinguished you from your master. Slavery here likely couldn’t have existed if African tribes had not raided one another for slaves to sell to the European slave traders.

In addition, we adopted the British model for slavery where slaves were considered to be property with no rights of their own. Under the French and Spanish systems, slaves had at least some legal rights.

In addition to slavery, there was also “indenture.” A lot of Europeans came to the colonies having signed an indenture by which their passage was paid if they would work for someone for seven years in order to pay off the debt. While there certainly was a guaranteed end for their indenture, they were in fact little more than slaves for seven years.

Immigrants from a number of countries were looked down on as lower than slaves. If you had a dirty or dangerous job to do, you hired one of these immigrants so that you would not risk a valuable slave. After all, if something happened to the immigrant, you were only out $20 for a pine box.

I’m just saying that you should broaden your perspective a little and be more objective.

JOE WHALEN

North Little Rock