Yes, Slavery Was a Choice

Thanks Kanye West, for saying that 400 years of slavery "sounds like a choice".

It is. As surely as those souls who during 9/11 chose falling to their deaths free from being burned alive.

But yeah, they made a choice.

It seems very appropriate to me that someone not facing incineration, lynching or such imminent threat should point this out. Especially now.

We are living in a time where with little, direct contact with others, we can dismiss their stories, struggles and the weight of changing human beliefs that mold, imprison and persuade us depending upon where we are on the timeline. Thus we can feel (falsely) justified and satisfied to judge others and their choices without having ever even having asked them about the paths they have trod and why.

Eckhart Tolle once said in addressing a person whose spouse seemed deep in projecting pain, "No one consciously chooses to be in pain." I love him just for that. It puts in perspective for me, all the self-righteous bullshit about needing to be responsible to self and others. You can't do what you can't do! If you can, it's not your will that achieved, it's the Collective Universe supporting you.

But without knowing this, ancient Coach Joe Paterno can be hounded to his death for not dealing with his experience of youth abuse then, the way we would NOW. And all the response to the issues that civilized society sees more clearly now, becomes retroactively the standard for those who couldn't see so clearly then.

Prejudice is out, we say. But is it? Maybe you believe it should be, but that doesn't change the fact that it is not. That others haven't had the gift that your insight and experience has lifted you to see is apparent. "Oh, but they should see it this way, because it's evident to me that it's not right." Is it any wonder Trump is president right now. He speaks to millions of people who not as civilly enlightened as us, are upset about living in a society that measures them by what they should see instead of what they do see. Do you see the importance of a conversation of discovery here?

If I were God I would use reincarnation to place everyone in the next life in the probability that their new life would force & allow them to experience the need for the compassion and understanding they denied others in their last life. Yeah ... slaves to slave owners, slave owners to slaves ... till we get it.

Blame and protest adds nothing. Only love and the exploration of understanding and acceptance of another's path and their experience of it, can triumph.

We had best hope that the children and grandchildren of those facing the consequences from what we are now sculpting in present world culture, come to a wider understanding and compassion for us, and the times and the beliefs that have limited us in seeing it.

Otherwise how will we explain our participation in such enterprises as choosing to support the compulsivity of entertainment and data screens over exploring what is before us. What will we say to our replacing real, live, authentic communication with the preference for "tweeting" and other social scripting. How will we justify numbing out from our social conscience, allowing our leaders to make a joke of our nation, turning lying into an art form and denial into a legitimate way of expression. And most of all, what do we say when our more civilly aware offspring ask us how we as a community could have ever idolized fandom over a few billionaires in the midst of billions crying out for our help to survive. My hunch is our response will be the same as before us, "It seemed like the way to go."

Well, when the debts come due for the ways we have chosen, we like Papa Joe, the slaves & slave owners and Kanye West too, will each speak of how we honestly made the best decisions we could, seeing barely between a rock and hard spot and we will be telling the truth, YES we will be telling the truth, our truth. Hopefully those who then see wider than the narrowness of our sight will have been raised into the wisdom, humility and compassion to recognize and love the true cost and the full vitality we paid in faith of a better view.

Yes, it sounds like a choice ... and it is. And gratefully Kanye, it was a choice others made for us.