Can humanity learn from its past? Are we doomed to repeat our mistakes? Can we evolve?
Is all of America about to become Bunce Island? Maybe.
I have seen through the eyes of my Melungeon ancestors that the distance between oppressor and the oppressed is about three generations. I see this phenomenon repeated in the cycle of human history. Descended from royalty, from the enslaved, from warriors, conquerors, occupiers, the displaced, prisoners, all the predators and their prey, can this cobbled together country I call home withstand human greed? I honestly do not know.
I took the photo on the far left while visiting a historic site. It is a tiny island off the West African Coast of Sierra Leone. It represents my deepest questions of whether human decency is an oxymoron. There is a fireplace still standing that was used to heat the branding irons used to mark the prisoners there. The corridor that families walked down as they sorted them into men, women, and children. Cannons lining the cliff to keep raiders and foreign governments from interceeding or disrupting their enterprise operations. This ruin is a monument and testimony to the greatest atrocities that we visit upon one another, similar to the barbed wire, mound of shoes and furnaces on display at Auschwitz. The island was once a fortressed prison to hold men, women and children who had been kidnapped in order to process them for enslavement. These fortresses of enslavement are still in existence today, as vulnerable people are overpowered and held against their will for profit, and their lives are enslaved for the use of others. I am not just speaking of the gangs of thugs who kidnap via violence and con artists who use deception to entice their victims. Yes, there are still men, women, and children being sold, violently kidnapped by strangers, or exploited by deceit. These prisons where they are held may not be so obvious to us, as the public condemnation of slavery turned the practice into an illegal act. But they are all around us, and the enslaved are serving in households, businesses, and criminal enterprises all across the globe, with the USA still being a common destination with some of the most ardent end-users of enslaved humans. As long as the act itself remains profitable, and we don’t manage to purge the desire to objectify and oppress for personal gain from the human psyche or soul of America, I expect it will continue.
Enslavement is no longer just what people do in the shadows, and mass enslavement is growing in popularity in America. I hope that offends you. It does me, too, and I wish I were making this up. Enslavement operations are out in public, but under disguise as crucial components of the America First agenda. Fifty point one percent of our population is convinced the America First agenda is good for America.I am reminded of one of my favorite, but deeply disturbing musicals, The Fantasticks. America is Luisa, with her mask on, ignoring what is happening right in front of our eyes – or worse, seeing it as something quite different as she is assured that it is an amazing vision of the life she wants, and not the horror that is being inflicted on poor Matt. Luisa never removed her mask, she learned of the con after her prized possession was stolen from her.
All turns out well in the musical, because Luisa realizes she was duped while she has her life left to live, but that’s not historically accurate, as 6 million Jews and 6.5 million others could testify about the horrors of WWII, were they still alive, and the ancestors of 4 million enslaved in the US before and during the Civil War (13% of the entire US population at the time) would agree. Even as we decry the “inhumane” behaviors represented by Bunce Island and Auschwitz, we are building private, for-profit prisons in the USA in 2025 to house people picked up off the street for the crime of existing. We are defining out of existence and legislating away the rights of “others” who do not agree with or fit into the narrative of the America First agenda and Project 2025. We have taken back our philosophy of caring and sharing and replaced it with a narrative of life as a zero sum game. We are arresting elected officials and citizens for being difficult or oppositional to the agenda. We use our armies, our police, and vigilantes to hunt, capture, and imprison people without recourse to justice. The laws are being changed as I write this to make it easier to do exactly that. Our prized possession – democracy- has been stolen from us. Will America realize we’ve been duped while we still have life left in us and a chance to recover? Maybe?