Coming to terms with the history of American slavery

I have a few apps on my phone that offer free daily book summaries and one of them today was for the book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. I found it particularly interesting and eye-opening because it revealed how the legacy of slavery in America still haunts many cities and locations in the U.S., often unnoticed. For example, even the simple fact that the Statue of Liberty has broken shackles on her feet to represent the "the end of all types of servitude and oppression" — every picture I ever see of the her only shows the upper portion or a view zoomed out so far you cannot see the shackles.

Other tidbits where details about Thomas Jefferson's life as a slaveowner. I had known that he was a slaveowner, but I did not know he kept female slaves as "breeders" to produce more slaves for himself and thus sold his own children into slavery. The lack of moral conscience of people in the past astounds me sometimes, but then I just think of how much of these things are still happening today: an estimated 21-45 million people are trapped in some form of slavery, ranging from sex trafficking, forced labor, domestic servitude, bonded labor, child labor, and forced marriage. And we cannot forget that there are hundreds of thousands of innocent people today enduring daily oppression—or worse, deliberate torture—in concentration camps, gulags, labor colonies, and 're-education' camps still in existence around the world.

It's important that Americans come to terms with their past so we can ensure history does not repeat itself and more importantly fix the still-lingering stench of systemic racism in our social institutions. We still are far from doing so, but it all starts by acknowledging the real history of America, not just the one that was carefully curated and prepared for us in textbooks and classrooms.

Although I just read the summary, I found it quite provocative. This is probably one of those books that deserves to be read in full. 🙂