WVSU Yellow Jacket — The Latter Half of Fall - The Pursuit of Infinite Happiness
One of the questions raised in this half of the semester dealt with slavery. Are we so wrong to define ourselves with reason, compassion and justice during this time period?
To understand the revolutionary changes that took place in our world, we must put them into a finite perspective. If we look over history as a whole, with no limit on our geographical expanse, save the boundary of the Earth, we see that slavery was common in all cultures and peoples for thousands of years.
While we look in reeling horror at the graphic imagery of the slave ships brought to life by Hollywood, we forget the history of the world prior and erroneously label the people involved in the slave trade as devils.
It is rash to jump so quickly to conclusions. These people were only conducting a business that has existed throughout recorded history. If we ask, "How can they not see it is wrong?" -- then we ask it with blind eyes. We all fall into the complacency rhythm of the world around us. We do as our parents did and do what our friends and colleagues do.
To think that in less than 300 years, we established a free country, abolished slavery, have established the rules for civil rights for all people and are proactively implementing those same reforms around the globe -- it is nothing less than astonishing.
Certainly, the label "reason" has no proper fitting to make it represent what changes have taken place. Perhaps, there is no label to it at all. However, we are living in a very enlightened time and that is a very good thing.
While the revolution of the mind that destroyed the chains of human slavery is amazing, it doesn't lessen the insidious acts of hate committed and they should not be reduced to a single passing remark. However, to understand the concept we cannot merely blame an individual, we must look to the higher order of the nature of man and our struggles with selfishness and selflessness. In vernacular, the charge of good versus evil. That is, if we can cooperatively assume the definitions of good and evil. They are such loaded terms with the variety of religion and philosophy in the world; we must question their use and decide if given the space to truly expand this discussion, if they shouldn't be struck from the language entirely. (I'm inclined to think they should be.)
The question of enlightenment? If we are so brave and true in our claims of the world we live in, then one can only surmise that in another 300 years the chains of racial inequality will be gone as well. (Surmise is such a weak word, but we have no prior evidence to base a prediction on, we are making history now.)
One can argue all day the injustices of the world and cite the hate crimes that exist in our land, but they have a valid place and a most instrumental task to perform. Without these terrible acts, the void left would surely cause us to stop being horrified. Then we stop questioning the world around us. That breeds complacency and we would be left with only a partial change, perfectly happy in thinking that there are differences in people that would justify them to be judged on their race, sex, religion or sexual preference. Discrimination would be acceptable.
In the greater scheme of things, these horrible acts are working to fight ignorance, by empowering people to fight them. Once ignorance is gone, the concept of race will be as well.
After all, we are all just homo sapiens - human.
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