I hear people from different walks on the Afrocentric globe talk about what it was like being a slave. Well one day I started to think about what it meant to be a slave. I mean what constituted that a person was a slave. Here are my observations and my conclusions.
1) Physical limitations…as in chains. Most slaves during the civil war were not in chains. The slaves brought from Africa were in chains. But as generations were born into slavery, chains were not needed on a regular basis.
I realized that chains were needed as long as a person did not accept they were a slave and would fight for either their freedom or a chance to overtake their captors. Being in subjection to another was not accepted and the human instinct to be free of subjection would prompt a person to fight. Only then would chains or physical restrictions be necessary. When a person begins to accept their condition of subjection they look for the best way to cope with their condition but they seek not to revolt or chose a physical fight for freedom. Some slaves accepted their condition and therefore no longer needed to be in chains. The slaves who refused to accept their condition would run away, revolt, or attack their masters. These slaves would then be physically restricted.
2)Not prospering from the harvest of your own labor. When a slave worked from “can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night” all the produce of his/her labor was not their own. And when what was produced was sold the profits were not his or her own.
The long hours worked did not a slave make. It’s the reality that all the long hours produced a harvest and when the harvest is sold the one who keeps the profits was not the one who put forth the labor. It is natural human nature to work hard to produce a good harvest because a good harvest meant profits. A slave did not own the land and therefore did not own the produce from the land. They earned no profits from the sale of the produce. When we work long hours and we do not own what we produce the profits from the sale of what we produced is not ours either.
3)For their labor slaves were given only food, clothing and shelter. Slaves spent long hours working on the plantation and they only received what was needed just to live another day. Every now and then they might get a trinket thrown their way but they had nothing to show for days, months, years, a lifetime worth of labor.
When a person owns what they produce and can keep the profits of what they produce, (because they own the land or business in which they labor) they can leave a legacy via a farm or business to their children. Slaves could not leave a farm or business or profits for their children. They did not own what they produced. When all we have to show for a lifetime of labor is years of rent, grocery, gas, power, credit, phone bills and debt we too have the same end result to our life as our ancestor slaves. Nothing to leave for our future generations.
My conclusion to all of this is that a LOT of us are what I call voluntary slaves. We work and labor long hours, we do not own the business or land for that which we labor, we don’t own what we produce, we don’t keep the profits from what we produce, and all we have to show for a life time of labor are bills and debt. Maybe we own a house. But our house does not produce a harvest for us to receive a profit.
Society no longer needs slavery….we chose to VOLUNTEER our labor for the profits of others instead of the profits being for of ourselves, our family and our own community.
Just something to think about the next time you get your paycheck from your job with a business you do not own.
Hambree!
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