The city of Charleston continues to enthrall us. I’ve never been in a city that has done such a great job of preserving it’s history. Or I guess, to be more accurate, to preserve the history of the last 400 years.
Any history has both good and bad, pretty and ugly. It’s no different here in Charleston. The architecture is beautiful. If you were born with the correct color skin, and into a family with money and power, then what a gorgeous city to call home. Beautiful homes situated among nice gardens on a peninsula sitting in a large harbor with cooling breezes in the summer, and far enough south to avoid the bite of any significant winter.
If, on the other hand, you happened to be born with dark skin, then this was a place of terror. The city was built by slave labor. Charleston was the largest slave market in North America. While the slave trade from Africa was officially banned in 1808, the practice continued on an outlaw basis. Charleston officially banned public slave auctions in the early 1860’s but private markets continued to flourish.
So in many ways I’m torn as I walk through this city. It’s a beautiful city that’s done an amazing job of preserving its European history. I’m often reminded, though, that this beauty was raised on the backs of slaves.
There’s an old man who fishes in a little bight not far from here. He’s black, and while I call him an “old man” it’s possible that he’s younger than me. I am, after all, an old man too at this point. Most days we pass him as we’re headed back to Harvest Moon after our walk. I always ask him what he’s catching that day. While he answers, it’s clear that he’s a little leery of any extended conversation. The other day I used one of the rental bikes that are around the city to ride to West Marine to pick something up, and as I was coming back I saw him riding home after his day fishing. He balanced his five gallon bucket and three fishing poles on his bike as he rode. I waved, though I doubt he recognized me.
I get the feeling that I’m too much of an outsider for him to be enthusiastic about having much of a conversation with me. But then, maybe that’s me imposing my own feelings on my reaction to him. I’d like to get to know him better, and learn about the fishing here, how to fish, and what to eat.
It adds up to reminding me again of the southern culture that was forged in a world of slavery. The wounds that stretch back generations. How long does it take to heal from the sins of our great great great grandfathers?
Not that “my people” were here at the time. While it’s possible that there were some relatives from my mother’s side who were here in the US during the days of slavery, they would have been poor immigrants rather than slaveholders. They would have been in the industrial north working to find ways to eke out a living rather than benefiting from a slave economy in the South. People on my father’s side didn’t arrive here until the turn of the century, migrating immediately from Ellis Island where they landed to the hinterlands of Wisconsin and Minnesota where they could find other Scandinavian immigrants like themselves.
But that doesn’t absolve me of the scars of slavery. For two reasons.
First, as a white man I have benefited all my life from the white male privilege that the age of slavery helped to cement in our culture. It wasn’t ONLY slavery that created this white male privilege, but slavery helped cement it. And there is zero doubt in my mind that I have benefited from this during my life, and that my current situation and “status” as a retired white man living a comfortable life is—in some part large or small—made possible by my gender and skin color. Certainly not ONLY gender and skin color, but those things have helped me rather than hurt me.
Second, we too often forget that slavery has been a human condition for all of recorded history across all (or nearly all) cultures, nations, and people. From the Israelites to the Egyptians to the Romans to the Chinese and Japanese. From the Incas to the Sioux. Human’s have found ways to build economies on the backs of others that they can force to do work for them. The practice continues to this day. And my people—those Scandinavians who are so productive and peaceful today—were some of the most prolific slave traders of the middle ages. In those days, if you were conquered, you became a slave to be brought home and put to work, or to be sold for profit. The Swedes were particularly prolific slave traders.
During the days of the horrific Atlantic slave trade when millions of Africa’s best and strongest were captured and sold into slavery in the Americas, the practice of slavery within Africa was also practiced. In fact, the Africans who were transported across the Atlantic were sold TO the slave traders by other Africans working as slave traders. (Over twelve million Africans were sold to European slave traders.)
Does this make any of it okay? Does it justify anything? Of course not. It’s just a reminder to me that this practice of slavery has been a chronic part of humanity for at least the last several thousand years, probably much longer.
I’m sitting in our nation’s cradle of slavery. Being here is reminding me of both the sins of the founders of this nation, the sins of my ancestors, and of the sins of humanity overall. While the African slave trade is our cross to bear, and here in Charleston it is on full display, what is it about us as humans that makes slavery okay in our cultures?
I’m reminded that during the age of slavery here in this country, churches and pastors regularly used the New Testament as proof that slavery was right in G-d’s eyes, referring specifically to passages instructing slaves to be obedient to their masters, as well as the fact that clearly the Israelites owned slaves and condoned the practice. Which causes a real dilemma if you’re a person who wants to take every single word of the Bible as the word of G-d, put together in English in exactly the order and meaning that we use today in the English language. Because using that measuring stick, then slavery is indeed just fine.
I remember having a discussion about this among a group of pastors one evening over a beer many years ago. The consensus among the group was that the meaning of the word “slave” needed to be understood in the context of the day. In that point in history, labor was achieved with slaves. It’s how economies worked. Slaves weren’t “free”, and most people treated slaves relatively well because the slave class represented an economic asset. It was simply a way of using other people to get work done on your behalf. Some of the participants in the discussion felt like in today’s world, we’ve simply taken to compensating people low wages and forcing them to find a way to feed themselves, and this is its own form of slavery.
I see the point, but I struggle with this point of view. A person today might be working for slave wages, but at least they have a choice, right? Hmmm, maybe that’s questionable. But they aren’t someone else’s “property”. They aren’t plucked from their home and taken somewhere else. Well, unless they’re Mexican and ICE finds out about them…
I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about. What I know is that this beautiful city is a place we should all spend time in, both to enjoy the beauty AND to reflect on our contribution to the evil of slavery in human history.
