I have written this article several times over the last year, but I have never been satisfied with the final product. However, with the response to the George Zimmerman verdict in the Trayvon Martin killing, I came to the conclusion that it was more important to me to communicate the idea than worry about the style in which it was communicated. What happened to Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. What happened to George Zimmerman compounded that tragedy. What happened to Trayvon Martin was the result of the state of race relations in the country. What happened to George Zimmerman was the result of politicians and race baiters who profit from the state of race relations in this country. For 250 years, this country has argued about race, and there has always been people who profit from keeping the hatred between the races alive.
In the 18th and 19th century, slave traders and slave owners made money from that hatred. Politicians obtained power from perpetuating that hatred by reinforcing the slave system. When slavery ended with the national tragedy of the Civil War, Northerners perpetuated the hatred with the tragedy of Southern reconstruction. With the end of reconstruction, the South reacted with Jim Crow, perpetuating the hatred and oppression that occurred with slavery. Later, as the 19th and 20th century progressed, race baiters and politicians obtained power and money first by perpetuating Jim Crow, then then by responding to Jim Crow with the so-called affirmative action.
Each of these policies was driven by greed and hatred, by politicians, business owners, carpet baggers, and hucksters who manipulated people’s race-based grievances created by years of hatred and oppression. Whites oppressed blacks through slavery and Jim Crow. Blacks gathered their grievances and justified the government oppression of whites with affirmative action. Whites gathered their grievances against blacks resulting from affirmative action, and have used it to justify the continuance of their negative attitudes based on race.
Liberals and conservatives alike are responsible for perpetuating these grievances, whites and blacks are responsible for perpetuating those grievances. A lot of people hold onto those grievances because those grievances become a good excuse for their personal failures. Politicians and hucksters reinforce those grievances because they obtain money and power by manipulating them.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that slavery was a national tragedy, and that this country would pay a steep price for perpetuating it. We lost 600,000 American lives in the Civil War as a result of that tragedy. We, as a country, are continuing to pay a steep price because we will not forgive and forget. Trayvon Martin lost his life, and George Zimmerman his freedom and security, because of the tragedy of this history of hatred and oppression.
I propose a National Day of Forgiveness. Slavery was an ugly and oppressive institution, without a doubt. The policies of Reconstruction and Jim Crow as a response were ugly and oppressive, as is affirmative action. All of these government based policies, however, result from the inability of one race or another to forgive the other from past sins. We, as a society, need to let them go. The only way that will occur is if we all just forgive and forget. Wipe the hard drive clean, and put in all new software. Software based on forgiveness and racial equality. Real equality, not some fake equality that perpetuates the grievances between the races.
We are all sorry for what has occurred in this country. It was ugly and evil and wrong. It has perpetuated discord and division between people. What occurred however cannot be fixed by perpetuating that discord and division, or by holding onto that hatred. Forgiveness by both sides is the only solution. A National Day of Forgiveness will remind us as a nation that we can only end racial division by ending the grievances we have held onto as a result of that division.
As important, it will remind us that people who wish to perpetuate that division, whether they are politicians, businesses, hucksters or carpetbaggers, do not have our country’s best interest in their hearts. They are motivated by hate and greed. We will forgive each other, and our ancestors for all of those sins, and put them in the past. No more Lester Maddoxes, George Wallaces, Jesse Jacksons, or Al Sharptons, politicians and hucksters who have profited from perpetuating our grievances. The goal of the National Day of Forgiveness will be to end those grievances.
It may not stop the tragedy that occurred with the death of Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman, but it may stop the politicians and the hucksters from trying to profit from those kinds of occurrences. A National Day of Forgiveness may help us clean the hard drive and start all over. We, as a country need to start over.