Back when the slave trade was at it's peak, 1st world countries were convinced they couldn't live without it. Slavery made sugar and cotton and so many things possible for them. They used it, it was a part of their daily lives. People knew about it. Slavery was no secret, and still they wanted it to stay, for various reasons. They were conviced slavery made their lives better.
But though slavery has long been outlawed, it still remains. We don't see it today. Some of it still is a part of our daily lives, in the clothes we wear perhaps, and the various luxuries we buy. But some of it has no lasting or important meaning in our lives or our economy. Sex slavery, for instance, does nothing beneficial for our society as a whole. And advanced as we are, technologically, none of the rest is really necessary either.
I don't want to make light of the work the abolitionists did. I don't want to make light of what happened to those slaves. But if that was terrible then, why is this tolerable now? From the outside, we appear to have come so far, but inside we are as wretched as ever.
How can we allow this to happen? Where has empathy gone? Do we care so much about our own pathetic lives that we forget to see the humanity that is suffering just outside our doors? Slavery exists here, not just in third world countries. Not just in the slums of India, but here. In America. In Europe. If Wilberforce were alive today, i think his heart would break. Our slavery may not exist in the physical chains and visible plantations, but that doesn't make it any less real.
One line that struck me particularly hard tonight. John Newton, the man that wrote the song Amazing Grace, says to Wilberforce: "I wish I could remember all their names. My 20,000 ghosts, they all had names, beautiful African names. We'd call them with just grunts, noises. We were apes, they were human."
Think about that for a moment. They all had names. Everyone, man, woman, child, has a name. Every slave on those ships from Africa had names, and every slave today has a name. The 6,000 little girls trafficked into Atlanta each month each have a name. And yet we've reduced them to numbers and statistics. We've forgotten that they exist.
I'll admit it. There are days, weeks, that go by when I don't think of these beautiful people, when I don't try and do something about it. I am as guilty as the next person of drawing a red X on my hand for the end it movement one day and forgetting about it all the next. I don't regularly contribute to any organization that fights against it, I don't buy all my clothing at stores that don't sell slave labor products. At least 25 slaves work for me.
That's 25 people more than I want to work for me.
If those people are going to work for me, I want to know their names. I want to see that they are well fed, that they have time to play and be with their families. I want them to have homes and good money.
How can we change it? I don't know. I don't have the answers for you. I don't fully understand what it would take. But I do know that spreading the word is the first order of business. People need to know about it, and not just one day a year. We need to remind ourselves, day after day, that this problem exists. We need to let it wreck us, tear us apart, that we could be so cruel as to let 25 or more humans spend blood and sweat on our account, and we can't even send a prayer their way.
Just think about it. Take five minutes, and ask yourself why this should still be happening. If you have the money or the time or the effort to donate to a cause, don't hesitate to do it. Put yourself in their place, and ask what you would have you do. And listen to the song Amazing Grace. Let it change your worldview.
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