ARE WE BOND OR FREE IN 2018?
Frames of reference inform public ideas and aptitudes temporarily as templates until being displaced by others more compatible with day to day realities, concepts or precepts.
As I was reading today in A KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (1853) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, I was struck by the similarities between the laws of slavery and those in the present day pertaining to blacks .
"This heavy charge of Judge Stroud is sustained by twenty pages of proof, showing the very great disproportion between the number of offenses made capital for slaves and those that are so for whites. Concerning this , we find the following cool remark in Wheeler's Law of Slavery...
"'Much has been said of the disparity of punishment between the white inhabitants and the slaves and the negroes of the same state; that slaves are punished much more severely, for the commission of similar crimes , by white persons, than the latter. The charge is undoubtedly true to to a considerable extent. It must be remembered that the primary purpose of the enactment of penal laws, is the protection and security of those who make them. The slave has no agency in making them. He is indeed one cause of the apprehended evils of the other class, which those laws are expected to remedy. That he should be held amenable for the violation of those rules established for the security of the other, is the natural result of the state in which he is placed . And the severity of those rules will always bear a relation to that danger , real or ideal, of the other class.
"'It has been so among all nations, and will ever continue to be so, while the disparity between bond and free remains .'"
P.77
Makes one wonder whether black people are, despite the Civil War and constitutional amendments, and the Civil Rights Movement, "bond or free," given the much documented disparity in American law that is severely disproportional to African Americans compared to whites in 2018! Makes one gasp!

Monday, May 14, 2018
BOND OR FREE?
ARE WE BOND OR FREE IN 2018?
Frames of reference inform public ideas and aptitudes temporarily as templates until being displaced by others more compatible with day to day realities, concepts or precepts.
As I was reading today in A KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN (1853) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, I was struck by the similarities between the laws of slavery and those in the present day pertaining to blacks .
"This heavy charge of Judge Stroud is sustained by twenty pages of proof, showing the very great disproportion between the number of offenses made capital for slaves and those that are so for whites. Concerning this , we find the following cool remark in Wheeler's Law of Slavery...
"'Much has been said of the disparity of punishment between the white inhabitants and the slaves and the negroes of the same state; that slaves are punished much more severely, for the commission of similar crimes , by white persons, than the latter. The charge is undoubtedly true to to a considerable extent. It must be remembered that the primary purpose of the enactment of penal laws, is the protection and security of those who make them. The slave has no agency in making them. He is indeed one cause of the apprehended evils of the other class, which those laws are expected to remedy. That he should be held amenable for the violation of those rules established for the security of the other, is the natural result of the state in which he is placed . And the severity of those rules will always bear a relation to that danger , real or ideal, of the other class.
"'It has been so among all nations, and will ever continue to be so, while the disparity between bond and free remains .'"
P.77
Makes one wonder whether black people are, despite the Civil War and constitutional amendments, and the Civil Rights Movement, "bond or free," given the much documented disparity in American law that is severely disproportional to African Americans compared to whites in 2018! Makes one gasp!

