What You Can't Say

Jon Hubbard, a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, has a book, titled Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative. Among its statements for which Hubbard has been criticized and disavowed by the Republican Party is, "The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth."

Hubbard's observation reminded me of my 1972 job interview at the University of Massachusetts. During a reception, one of the Marxist professors asked me what I thought about the relationship between capitalism and slavery. My response was that slavery has existed everywhere in the world, under every political and economic system, and was by no means unique to capitalism or the United States. Perturbed by my response, he asked me what my feelings were about the enslavement of my ancestors. I answered that slavery is a despicable violation of human rights but that the enslavement of my ancestors is history, and one of the immutable facts of history is that nothing can be done to change it.

The matter could have been left there, but I volunteered that today's American blacks have benefited enormously from the horrible suffering of our ancestors. Why? I said the standard of living and personal liberty of black Americans are better than what blacks living anywhere in Africa have. I then asked the professor what it was that explained how tens of millions of blacks came to be born in the U.S. instead of Africa. He wouldn't answer, but an answer other than slavery would have been sheer idiocy. I attempted to assuage the professor's and his colleagues' shock by explaining to them that to morally condemn a practice such as slavery does not require one to also deny its effects.

More