I am going to say something here where my intention can be easily misunderstood. I hope it isn't.
Without the people and their descendants that slavery brought to America, history would have looked very different. There would have been no George Washington Carver to teach us about peanuts and their beneficial uses. There would have been no Frederick Douglas. There would have been no Martin Luther King Junior. No Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek. There would have been no Nat King Cole. The lady of color who was the human calculator behind the NASA efforts to get to the moon wouldn't have been there. The revolutionary army might all have died of small pox if not for the wisdom of an African slave who showed Cotton Mather how to inoculate against it half a century earlier in Boston. Or the Civil War might not have been won at all if not for the efforts of a freed slave posing as a housemaid in Jefferson Davis' house and gathering information for the Union.
For all the horrors and atrocities that slavery brought, and it brought many, too many, it was also the soil which produced great minds, great people, people who inspired and taught us in so many ways. People without whom the United States could not have survived. I was contemplating at what point in history slavery could have best been stopped. Ideally, it would have been by waylaying the first Dutch slave traders so that it never took root to begin with. But then I remembered all of these great people and many more who contributed so much to who we all are as a nation. I remembered Les Mitchell who was a youth leader at the church I grew up in, and who was there for me at moments in my childhood when no one else was. Without slavery, he wouldn't have been there either.
It is a general principle that more often than not, some of our greatest moments of growth, some of the most powerful lessons we learn, some of the moments which define who we are come from tragedy, from horrors, from things that happened which should never have happened. It is a truth that, without the Holocaust, it's likely that the State of Israel wouldn't exist today. Without the horrors of the Civil War, slavery itself wouldn't have been abolished in the United States. Without the Atomic Bomb dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan would probably never have surrendered in WWII. How many people have experienced radical positive life changes from literally dying for a short time?
There is a story from the Zen tradition:
-
There once was an old Zen farmer. Every day, the farmer used his horse to help work his fields and keep his farm healthy.
But one day, the horse ran away. All the villagers came by and said, “We're so sorry to hear this. This is such bad luck.”
But the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”
The villagers were confused, but decided to ignore him. A few weeks went by and then one afternoon, while the farmer was working outside, he looked up and saw his horse running toward him. But the horse was not alone. The horse was returning to him with a whole herd of horses. So now the farmer had 10 horses to help work his fields.
All the villagers came by to congratulate the farmer and said, “Wow! This is such good luck!”
But the farmer responded, “Good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?
A few weeks later, the farmer's son came over to visit and help his father work on the farm. While trying to tame one of the horses, the farmer’s son fell and broke his leg.
The villagers came by to commiserate and said, “How awful. This is such bad luck.”
Just as he did the first time, the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”
A month later, the farmer’s son was still recovering. He wasn’t able to walk or do any manual labor to help his father around the farm.
A regiment of the army came marching through town conscripting every able-bodied young man to join them. When the regiment came to the farmer’s house and saw the young boy's broken leg, they marched past and left him where he lay.
Of course, all the villagers came by and said, “Amazing! This is such good luck. You're so fortunate.”
And you know the farmer’s response by now…
"Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?"
-
No one wants tragedies or hurtful things to happen to them. No one wants atrocities to occur to anyone. The Holocaust was an atrocity. Slavery was an atrocity. But without the filth and dirt of those atrocities, we would not have had such beautiful things take root and grow as a result.
