Ignoring Slavery

I just finished reading "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet Ann Jacobs (Linda Brent).  The book, which was published in 1861, is a first-hand narrative of Jacobs's life as a slave (her freedom was later purchased after she escaped to the North).  Although I read plenty of stories, articles, and texts about slavery as a child and as a student, this is the first time I've read a book that was written by a former slave.

 

It was, at times, riveting.  At others, moving.  But at all times, more or less horrifying.  The history of slavery in this country is a terrible shame, and this book shines a particular light on the resilience of slave children and slave families in the midst of tragic trials, the abhorrent sexual abuses endured by female slaves, the indignities they constantly suffered in being treated as chattel incapable of feeling, and the wrenching pain endemic to a slave's existence as she waited for death and a better life beyond the wretched injustices of this world.  One cannot read this book without feeling the gravitational pull of a millstone in one's conscience...or the weight of embarrassment on behalf of so many who stood by as such grave injustices continued.

Particularly cheek-reddening were passages in which Jacobs commented matter-of-factly that many self-professed Christians stood idly by as slavery persisted in the South.  Many such Christians even defended and promoted slavery, and deemed it a virtue in society to "tame" otherwise wild souls.  I know some might argue that those Christians weren't really true believers in Christ, for if they were, surely God would have convicted their hearts about the evils of slavery, and that God would have convinced each soul that slavery is unjust and sinful.  But I do believe there were likely some sheep among the thick packs of wolves; I believe that some of the folks who were pro-slavery were actually believers in Christ.  And they were terribly, terribly blind and in their blindness, they passed many an opportunity to stop the injustices so prevalent in their society.  That made me very sad, regretful, and disappointed.

It also scared me. 

Lest it appear that I am casting a stone, let me be clear that just as I felt the weight of conscience on behalf of brothers and sisters before me who allowed slavery to persist (and encouraged it, in too many cases), I also felt the weight of my own conscience bearing down on me as I reflected on Jacobs's indictment of the Christians around her in the South.  It is easy for me now--as a 21st century believer, to look down my nose and back on the 1800s with the benefit of 20/20 vision, the Emancipation Proclamation, the progress of the Civil Rights movement, and a liberal education--to conclude that my brothers and sisters of yesteryear should have realized the obvious injustice and adopted a staunch abolitionist stance.  But I am not so naive as to think that I am not vulnerable to the very same the blinders that plagued them years ago.  

That's the part that frightens me:  what injustices as grave as American slavery exist in our society today?  Surely we are not so advanced a society that we aren't prone to equally deplorable, if not similar evils.  But as I sit and ponder and scratch my head, I find that nothing bothers me to such a degree.  In other words, I've got my own blinders up, too, and in my own way, I am ignoring slavery today.  This is a troubling thought, one that ought to make me lose sleep at night.  Centuries from now, what will our great-grandchildren's generation say about how we lived today? What will be so obviously evil to them, that seemed acceptable to us at the time?  

I suspect one culprit may be in the ultra-low prices we pay for products made abroad.  People, including children, work long and hard at backbreaking and heartbreaking labor to produce goods cheaper by the dozen, all so that I can save an extra five dollars to line my pocket and have a bit more to give to others so I can feel good about contributing to the Kingdom of God.  But what if God doesn't want my five dollars?  What if obedience isn't in the giving, but in the identification of injustice and the hatred of slavery, and the refusal to participate in it?  

I admit that to date, I have not been bold enough to seriously research and pursue this hunch.  Part of it is laziness: I'd rather watch Downton Abbey.  But the bigger part of it is fear of what I may find, fear of what it may cost me, fear of what it may require of me.  But that's all wrong.  If I really had a heart of wisdom, I'd see that the correct object of my fear is God and His Holiness, and my falling short of it for the sake of laziness and a few more coins jingling in my pocket.  Micah 6:8 says that what God requires of us, of me, is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.  This sounds so good in theory, so clean and neat and majestic.  And in practice, it sounds impossible... so impossible that I feel weak even in the attempt. 

But if I lived in the 1800s, and my great-great-grandchildren lived in 2013, I'd want them to be able to say that their great-great-grandmother was an abolitionist who fought for the right, just, hard things in life.  I'm not there yet.  Nowhere near close.  But I want to be.