Vol. 29: The blessings of slavery

Ron DeSantis weighs the pros and cons

         Americans owe a big debt of gratitude to Ron DeSantis for reminding us that there are two sides to every story— in this case, the story of slavery.
         With the governor’s encouragement, Florida’s new fair and balanced social studies curriculum informs students that slavery provided formerly enslaved Black Americans with useful life skills.
        “Some of the folks eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” DeSantis explained the other day.
        Finally: a politician with the courage to challenge conventional wisdom about a sensitive subject.
        My only quibble is that DeSantis didn’t go far enough. Indeed, the very word slavery has always been loaded with negative connotations. As DeSantis helpfully suggests, we’d do better to think of it as an internship program whose participants acquired expertise that would prove invaluable to them if they ever escaped.

Like Tin Pan Alley

         But why would they want to? Antebellum slavery offered Black people just about everything you could ask for: guaranteed lifetime employment and free room and board in a perpetually sunny climate, not to mention free state-of-the-art (circa 1750) health care. Unlike today’s immigrants, who must battle border patrols and bureaucratic red tape to breach our borders, antebellum slaves enjoyed free trans-Atlantic travel and were welcomed upon arrival with open arms. Once here, they were relieved of all concerns about finding work, supporting their families, shopping for groceries, or filing tax returns. Those duties were assumed by their masters— mentors, if you will— who took a keen interest in their slaves’ education, having invested all that money to purchase and transport them in the first place.
       DeSantis neglected to mention slavery’s most successful training program: preparation for careers in show business. Those long days outdoors in that sunny, carefree milieu with nothing much to do inevitably inspired slaves to conjure up toe-tapping entries in the Great American Songbook like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “Let My People Go,” and “Camptown Races.”
         (Oh, wait— Stephen Foster wrote that last one.)
         The antebellum South was a veritable Tin Pan Alley, churning out hundreds of hit songs and dances for the enrichment of all American culture. Do you really think Black Americans could have composed such classics, so dear to all our hearts, if they were free to work eight hours a day in a noisy textile mill or a stuffy law firm?

One woman’s ordeal

         You want to hear about real human suffering? Stop fixating on slavery for a minute and feel the pain of Joan Carter, who struggled against decades of gender discrimination to become, in 1986, one of the first five women admitted to membership in the Union League, Philadelphia’s pre-eminent private civic club. Carter followed that achievement in 2010 by becoming the League’s first woman president. Shortly after that triumph, I attended a talk in which Carter recounted her lifetime of persecution— not by male chauvinists, but by the federal government.
         As Carter described her harrowing ordeal, in 1973 she and her husband co-founded a private equity investment firm that subsequently owned more than 40 businesses, from renal dialysis companies to a small airline to a film production company, only to find themselves “choking” on burdensome government regulations. Carter used that “choking” term twice during her talk. For good measure, she added that she and her husband are being "strangled," too. Carter discreetly refrained from singing “Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen” at the conclusion of her talk. But if she did, who could blame her?
         (As far as I could tell from my admittedly obstructed view in the back row that day, Carter didn’t seem to be choking at all. On the contrary, she appeared well dressed, well fed, and well-coiffed, with a perpetual smile on her face, to boot. Maybe she was speaking figuratively.)

From Lincoln to DeSantis

         Incidentally, this is the same Union League of Philadelphia that was created in 1862 to help save the Union from destruction by the Southern slave power. It’s also the same Union League that earlier this year bestowed its Medal of Honor upon… Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. And that’s the same medal that the Union League conferred upon Abraham Lincoln in 1863.
         In other words, an institution created to rescue Americans from slavery is now honoring an apologist for slavery.
         So— did the Union Leaguers change their minds about slavery on the basis of new information provided by Ron DeSantis? It’s confusing, I know. But here’s the bottom line: After 160 years, the Union Leaguers finally got their priorities straight, with the help of a certain Florida governor.

What makes you smart?

         To be sure, DeSantis didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know about the benefits of slavery. As far back as 1865— a few months before John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln— that great tragedian and assassin astutely observed: “This country was formed for the white, not the Black man, and looking upon African slavery from the standpoint held by the noble framers of our Constitution, I, for one, have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and for us) that God has ever bestowed upon a favored nation.” But did anybody listen to John Wilkes Booth until DeSantis came along?
        Ask yourself: How did Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, and W.E.B. DuBois get so smart? How about the NASA scientists Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Katherine Johnson— the Black women whose dazzling computer skills helped send John Glenn, the first American astronaut, into orbit?
         Come to think of it, how did the Jews get so smart?
        The conclusion is inescapable: Nothing sharpens your mind like a few centuries of slavery.
         Try it some time. You won’t regret it!

Mandatory message from the Food & Drug Administration:

         WARNING: Slavery can be harmful to your health. Do not use if you suffer from hypertension, diabetes, or excessive ambition. If you are pregnant, over 65, suicidal, or idealistic, talk to your neurologist before choosing slavery. Side effects may include sorrow, anger, depression, hopelessness, and death.

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s new memoir, The Education of a Journalist: My Seventy Years on the Frontiers of Free Speech. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com