Our beloved President is on a tour of Africa, one in which he will not visit Nelson Mandela because of Mandela's opposition to our adventure in Iraq. this is supposed to punish Mr. Mandela, but I'm not sure how. Visiting the hero of the Apartheid movement is likened to visiting the Queen of England. In other words, a pleasant social visit that brings the visitor prestige. In his eternal arrogance, the 43rd President of these United States has decided to punish one of the world's great men.
That's not the real problem, though. The real problem is this line in a speech President Bush made in Senegal:
"By a plan known only to Providence, the stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America. The very people traded into slavery helped to set America free."
Is the President of the United States really implying that God made slavery happen to awaken Americans to the evil of slavery? Or is he saying that it took the slavery imposed on Africans by Europeans to show us the error of the aristocratic South? Either way, he's saying that God used the suffering of millions to make some sort of point.
I don't freakin' think so. Slavery had nothing to do with God, despite the Biblical justifications produced by some fairly twisted pro-slavery ministers. Slavery was about economics. Africans were a convenient target to become slaves because at the time they were seen as "lower" than Europeans due to skin color, level of industrialization, technology, etc...
The President is trying to color slavery with a piece of pseudo-religious garbage that everyone should find offensive. This is just the kind of thing that makes the South look like some sort of racist backwater, and makes our nation look like a pack of imbecils.
Posted by Chris at July 9, 2003 09:07 AM