When I was a child a lifetime ago I was taught
Black history in elementary school. When my parents
spoke to me of the inequity of fortunes in the world
Black history featured large. At school I learned
words and melodies of 'Negro Spirituals' like
'Go down Moses, Go down in Egypt land
tell old Pharaoh Let My People Go', sentiments
meant to give comfort and hope for the future.
For if Israelites were slaves in ancient history
they no longer were and nor would their own be
much longer. From the use of Jewish antecedent
history to their own enslavement in a world where
from pre-history forward the condition of slavery
prevailed where people born into slavery in Greece
rose to positions of authority and influence, when
philosophers like Phaedo, Diogenes and Epictetus
were slaves, to the present where slavery has the odour
it deserves yet persists, slavery existed on all continents
afflicting every colour of skin. Human memory and
emotion is fickle. Blacks now see fit to condemn the
very people who once stood beside them to force a
society to confront its history of racist exploitation.
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