The joy of slavery, according to Adele Ferguson

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, March 14, 2006 at 10:45 AM

Just as there is an unending stream of those who insist the Holocaust never happened, or that it has been "greatly exaggerated, there is never a lack for someone, usually in the south, to insist that slavery wasn't all that bad.  In the not too distant past, a private school in Virginia or Maryland (I forget a lot of the details) was using a textbook that had the hidden benefits of slavery as a major theme.  Just a few days ago, we got Adele Fergusen, in the Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal who enlightens all of us ignorant fools who consider slavery to be a hellish event that was physically, psychologically, and spiritually destructive to all involved that we're just wrong.  In fact:

The pony hidden in slavery is the fact that it was the ticket to America for black people. I have long urged blacks to consider their presence here as the work of God, who wanted to bring them to this raw, new country and used slavery to achieve it. A harsh life, to be sure, but many immigrants suffered hardships and indignations as indentured servants. Their descendants rose above it. You don't hear them bemoaning their forebears' life the way some blacks can't rise above the fact theirs were slaves.

Besides freedom, a job and a roof over their heads, they all sought respect. But even after all these years, too many have yet to realize that to get respect, you have to give it.

So there you have it: immigrant hardships comparable to slavery.  Voluntary emigration equals "whack 'em in the head ans throw in the boat" kidnapping to a foreign continent.  Initial immigrant poverty until educated equals blacks forbidden from learning to read and write.  Enclaves of immigrants with the same language, culture, and customs equals haphazard clumping of slaves from various parts of Africa, with no common language, culture or customs.

Makes you wonder what Adele would find comparable to the Nazi concentration camps.  A bad European vacation?

My response to Adele is that she unwittingly answers her own question.  Blacks are predominantly Democrats because there are still far too many Republicans who insist on such insanity as claiming that slavery was a Godsend.  Frankly, only a "Devilsend" would think slavery was a "Godsend."

But perhaps the perfect reply to Adele comes from "Gen. JC Christian, Patriot" who says on Patriotboy that the answer is simple: "If, as you point out, slavery was a godsend to them, then surely, they're still angry at Lincoln, the first Republican president, for freeing them."