Some statements - the eye-rolling ones, the ones that engender nervous laughter and the ones that bring uncomfortable silences - too often get spun out of control and fail to emerge as "teachable moments." Such is it with the recent declaration that one candidate and his party wishes to place some members of society "back in chains."
Putting aside that the comment was undeniably about the concept of a wholly unregulated banking system which is a proven mistake; and, putting aside that bankers themselves have admitted that their own greed requires regulation; and, putting aside that Joseph Kennedy effectively started the Securities and Exchange Commission precisely because he understood how unscrupulously the industry behaves; and, putting aside that most Americans are struggling because Wall Street was not really paved with gold; and putting aside the Revolutionary lamentation of Patrick Henry, "is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - the nation jumped on the comment as race-bait like lions on a gazelle in a feeding frenzy.
It is not news that the Vice President said something offensive; this is the same man who forgot more than once to turn the
mike off before dropping the f-bomb (now a real word) and who calmed
the nation by declaring that he was too frightened to use public transit due to
fears of influenza. Indeed, it is not news that vice presidents and candidates for the vice presidency essentially write monologues for an entire nation of comedians with their ad libs. It is also not news that comments, such as the recent gaffe by the current vice president, send political opponents into fits of joyful apoplexy condemning the statement and accusing the declarant of fueling negativity.
Negativity is part of American politics and has ever been. Once Washington stepped down, the mud-slinging began. The election of 1800 included accusations by the Federalist camp that Jefferson was the child of a racially mixed union and the Democrat-Republicans countered with Adams' slightly effeminate persona. Equally disgraceful were the smear campaigns between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. The list goes on, but negative campaigns are not the point. The (again, my apologies for this phrase) teachable moment is the point.
So, here it is: schools teach that slavery was an unfortunate and ill conceived economic system which existed well before and after the colonists broke ties with Britain and ended after the Civil War. It was bad, we were good to end it. With the exception of some escaped and freed slaves like Frederick Douglass and Phillis Wheatley, slavery is a nameless, faceless historical relic. Only it is not.
Northerners like to believe that individual slave holders in Southern states were the oppressors; but this is another fairy tale. Every colony had slaves; every colony contributed to slavery. Indeed, Northern economic concerns helped drown out early Southern voices for abolition. Without minimizing truly heroic and visionary individuals, most American laws and people supported the institution of slavery, tacitly or overtly - even if they hated it - because the legal and economic system of the entire country supported slavery, regardless of where the practice itself continued.
Economics also encouraged indentured servitude which, similar to slavery, was eternal, brutal, hopeless and demoralizing. Indentured servants were personal property and could be bought and sold. As awful as the life of a white indentured servant could be, the dehumanizing chains and shackles and naked auction blocks were reserved for black slaves.
Courageously, men and women who had been deemed less than whole by their own government found the dignity and grace not only to stay and contribute to American society after freedom was declared, but to hold up the mirror of truth for this nation to live up to its own creed. And, yet instead of gratitude, as a nation we stood idly by as thousands of African Americans were lynched, when Jim Crow laws emerged, when chain gangs existed, when public and private institutions all over this country were segregated, when African Americans could only have a dream of equality. Indeed, the silence of today's coded language and colorblindness echoes as loudly as overt racism of our not-too-distant past. We condemn slavery at the same time we fail miserably to welcome African Americans fully into the privileges and immunities of citizenship bestowed upon all Americans. What else is this but a badge and incident of slavery hearkening back to the unfulfilled promise of the 13th Amendment?
This is the teachable moment. Reference of chains and shackles made to a largely African American audience caused a collective gasp, as those of a generation ago used to whisper the word "cancer" as if to utter it out loud would somehow let out a secret no one was supposed to know. It is not a secret to African Americans that slavery existed in this country. African Americans are well aware that their ancestors were shackled in chains and sold at auction. This, too, is not a secret. It is the nation's, not the individuals' or their descendants', shame and it should not be hushed. Only by understanding and studying this history can we ever tackle its lasting effects.
Many of the lasting effects come out in criminal contexts: Boston believed a white Charles Stuart in 1989 when he blamed a black man for attacking him and his pregnant wife until the facts revealed that he killed his own family; in 1994, a white woman, Susan Smith blamed a black man of carjacking her and her sons when, in fact, she had murdered her own children; in 2008, a white woman, Ashley Todd, blamed a tall, black man of carving into her face when, in fact, she had mutilated herself; in 2012, Bonnie Sweeten, a white woman, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for embezzlement, but that was only after her false original story - blaming a black man of carjacking her and her daughter and stuffing them into the trunk - unraveled. Intensive investigation revealed the fraud in each of these cases, but query why these people would decide to blame a black man for their own crimes.
When he was a senator, Vice President Biden voted for a law to have youths as young as 14 tried as adults subject to the same penalties for "serious violent or drug related crimes." He voted for a law that increased the number of crimes subject to the death penalty and mandated life in prison for three drug crimes. But, as scholars have explained, the "war on drugs" has disproportionately become a means of incarcerating African Americans despite the greater sale and use of drugs by whites than blacks. As with most legislators, he may not have realized the effect of these laws was, indeed, to place a disproportionate number of African Americans "back in chains".
Real chains, real shackles and real humiliation accompanies every incarceration under these laws. This topic is uncomfortable because we desperately want to believe that if we chain and shackle people today at least they "deserve" it. Yet, barring the rare case of uncontrollable violence, it is difficult to imagine the necessity for this badge and incident of slavery to continue save to create the illusion that those incarcerated are different from those not incarcerated. But, even if the argument for restraints succeeds, most of the irons wrap around the legs of black men. Frederick Douglass warned, "no man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own." Everyone suffers when we are unjust in our laws their application. Those shackles, and the chains of our inability to discuss race in meaningful ways, weigh us all down.
Given the speaker, it is fair to say that the "y'all back in chains" statement was nothing more than an unfortunate combination of words that happened to fall out of his mouth while a microphone was on. But, race bias is real in this country; ignoring it, glossing over it, making hay of it is not going to help change anything. The presidential campaign will continue on its own negative trajectory with or without racial allusions. The lesson to take away is that the reason this exploded into an issue is not the ghost of Lee Atwater as an earworm to politics, but rather because we are so still uncomfortable talking about race and the continuing badges and incidents of slavery.
No one alive today is responsible for the African Slave Trade. We do not study history to take blame or credit. But, if we learn the truth without painting good and evil into historical portraits, we will acknowledge this past, its imprint on the present, and aim to eliminate the residue from our hearts, our minds and our legal system (and perhaps we will spend less time punishing the poor and more time seeking to establish a functional, regulated financial market).
The teachable moment grants us permission to declare that words are not merely words; shackles and chains connote mental images. But, also words are not merely words - this country began with a profound promise to each other, that, we, the people of the United States, would strive to enhance our union by working together to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity - not just words but a living, breathing affirmation.
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