Sidebar

[Teach]

“Masser, please don’t break up the family! We’ll work hard for you, Masser,” the slave pleaded.

During the ante-bellum period, buying and selling slaves was as simple as trading stocks on one of the exchanges. After all, slaves were “liquid”. You might not have always received the price you were seeking; however, you got something (cash) to pay a bill or pay off a gambling debt.

In the case above - a true story - that I often used for ancillary readings on slavery, a slave family of five: father, mother and three children were about to be sold. As the five slaves stood on the auction block, bids were coming in from every direction. Just then, one of the bidders noticed that one of the children, a boy in his teen years, was holding his arm behind his back. One of the bidders said, “Boy, pull your arm out from behind your back.” When the boy did as instructed, it revealed the fact that he had mangled his hand in a cotton gin accident. Well, his value and that of his entire family suddenly depreciated.

That’s when the father pleaded with highest bidder to keep the family together. “Don’t break up the family, Masser!” the father said. Yet, despite his pleas, the teenaged boy was not part of the purchase plan. “Why should I pay for defective ‘goods?’” the slave-owning bidder said.

In the end, the teenaged son was not part of the deal. He was sold separately at a reduced price.

This brings me to the situation of the deportation of Mexicans from our shores. Yes, there are many who are here illegally. Yet, they’re not, in most cases, crooks, felons or drug-dealers, but law-abiding people. Yet, the “otter-door” approach rounds up everyone and prepares them for deportation.

Frankly, there must be a better way. A more humane approach. A “pathway to citizenship”. I’m not saying that some people should not be deported. Yet, each situation should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

Further, I ask: If these Mexicans were of European stock, would we take the same pains to deport them?

Again, the United States is a nation of immigrants whose residents came from foreign shores to forge a better life for themselves and their families.

Oh, the humanity! How callous. How cruel! That’s not what we’re all about. And, we’re not the cruel, heartless Simon Lagrees who kept a teen-aged black slave from remaining with his family.