by
Walter E. Williams

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Jon Hubbard,
a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, has
a book, titled Letters
to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative.
Among its statements for which Hubbard has been criticized and disavowed
by the Republican Party is, “The institution of slavery that the
black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people
may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could
endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded
with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the
face of the Earth.”

Hubbard’s observation
reminded me of my 1972 job interview at the University of Massachusetts.
During a reception, one of the Marxist professors asked me what
I thought about the relationship between capitalism and slavery.
My response was that slavery has existed everywhere in the world,
under every political and economic system, and was by no means unique
to capitalism or the United States. Perturbed by my response, he
asked me what my feelings were about the enslavement of my ancestors.
I answered that slavery is a despicable violation of human rights
but that the enslavement of my ancestors is history, and one of
the immutable facts of history is that nothing can be done to change
it.

The matter
could have been left there, but I volunteered that today’s American
blacks have benefited enormously from the horrible suffering of
our ancestors. Why? I said the standard of living and personal liberty
of black Americans are better than what blacks living anywhere in
Africa have. I then asked the professor what it was that explained
how tens of millions of blacks came to be born in the U.S. instead
of Africa. He wouldn’t answer, but an answer other than slavery
would have been sheer idiocy. I attempted to assuage the professor’s
and his colleagues’ shock by explaining to them that to morally
condemn a practice such as slavery does not require one to also
deny its effects.

My yet-to-be-learned
lesson – and perhaps that of Rep. Hubbard – is that there are certain
topics or arguments that one should not bring up in the presence
of children or those with little understanding. Both might see that
explaining a phenomenon is the same as giving it moral sanction
or justification. It’s as if one’s explanation that the independent
influence of gravity on a falling object is to cause it to accelerate
at 32 feet per second per second could be interpreted as giving
moral sanction and justification to gravity.

Slavery is
widely misunderstood, and as such has been a tool for hustlers and
demagogues. Slavery has been part of the human condition throughout
recorded history and everywhere on the globe. Romans enslaved other
Europeans; Greeks enslaved other Greeks; Asians enslaved Asians;
Africans enslaved Africans; and in the New World, Aztecs enslaved
Aztecs and other native groups. Even the word slave is derived from
the fact that Slavic people were among the early European slaves.

Though
racism has been used to justify slavery, the origins of slavery
had little to do with racism. In recent history, the major slave
traders and slave owners have been Arabs, who enslaved Europeans,
black Africans and Asians. A unique aspect of slavery in the Western
world was the moral outrage against it, which began to emerge in
the 18th century and led to massive efforts to eliminate it. It
was Britain’s military might and the sight of the Union Jack on
the high seas that ultimately put an end to the slave trade.

Unfortunately,
the facts about slavery are not the lessons taught in our schools
and colleges. The gross misrepresentation and suggestion in textbooks
and lectures is that slavery was a uniquely American practice done
by racist white people to black people. Despite abundant historical
evidence, youngsters are taught nothing about how the Founding Fathers
quarreled, debated and agonized over the slave issue.

October
23, 2012

Walter
E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics
at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist.
To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other
Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate web page.

Copyright
© 2012 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

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