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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Spread your broken wings and learn to fly....

I am currently reading a book titled "Slave in the White House" by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor.  To a person in the 21st Century it is shocking. Somehow my elementary and high school educators failed to teach us much more than a cursory look at "slave trade" and the Civil War.  There is a huge hole in my education and so I assume that same chasm exists for most American students and may be far worse than my own.  I grew up in New York, the Northeast, the Union side.


This book chronicles the life of a man named Paul Jennings - half African American (his mother was a slave) and half English. ???? There is no record and hence no explanation of who "Jennings" may have been. But any offspring of a slave "belonged" to the owners of the mother. I feel strange even typing out that word "owner" in reference to a person. It's abominable. Paul was unusual because he could read and write.  He must have been extraordinarily astute since it appears he just absorbed the knowledge from being around the white owners kids when they were instructed.  Oh, by the way, the owners were James and Dolley Madison. Mr. Madison was the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817.  One of the "Founding Fathers." He spoke a lot about the equality of man, expounded upon the evils of slavery.  Yet he had them.

I often wondered about the lack of last names for the emancipated people but according to this book, like Jennings, they had last names, they just weren't really allowed to use them. There were no birth certificates, no formal papers to preserve their names, no marriage license since their marriages were not "legal" or officially recognized. The owners also made a habit of using a diminutive or nick-name when possible for their first names.  This is a subtle way to show lack of respect, remove dignity and ensure that a person knows where they stand in the hierarchy.

Madison had a plan for emancipation.  He seemed to know that the day would come eventually when Americans would have to give up their human property. His plan was to send them to Africa. I don't know yet if Africa was consulted on this plan, I am only one third of the way through the book.

There was a news article today about a teacher in Georgia.  The teacher was outraged by clear and blatant racist questions on a test for young students. The teacher resigned because math problems were posed as such: "if eight slaves pick them (56 oranges) equally then how many...?" Slaves???? My stomach churns reading about what went on in the early 1800's.  What kind of people live in Atlanta today? Four teachers are being "investigated." How do you come to adulthood, get a college degree and become a teacher with a head full of hate?

Paul Jennings gained his freedom through a loan from Daniel Webster.  But the question remains,will we ever be free of this kind of ignorance?

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