We Should Talk About Original Sin

We were a slave owning nation. We fought to keep it that way for so many years that it’s impossible for most Americans to say, with a straight face, that their families weren’t involved in it. It doesn’t matter if you’re from the North or South, from a slave state or a “free” state, because—just like today—everything was interconnected. This also means, of course, that other nations that traded with us, have blood on their hands as well.

That doesn’t make us evil or “bad.” We are also a young nation, naive and full of ourselves with our high-minded claims to equality that fell short in practice. We exported what we thought was the best philosophy in the world, and it is a good philosophy. Liberalism is a fantastic governing strategy.

But what mars our moral standing is the fact that we absolutely refuse to fix it. Every time we come close to acknowledging, we fail to rise to the occasion. We backlash as a nation and then erase all of our progress. It’s not a new cycle. It’s been happening since the founding of our nation. Then eventually we feel bad about it and try to course correct again.

This is an unsustainable situation. Eventually, we have to land on a philosophy: either we value other human beings, or we don’t. Right now? Well…this podcast episode speaks for itself.

This is not safe history.