Cancel Slavery to Solve Our Racial Divide

By Patrick Quay

In 244 years of American history, the new Cancel Culture surely ranks as the most stupid, idiotic trend that has ever taken place.   It beats out New Math, the tattoo craze, Whole Language, the self-esteem movement, New Journalism, and maybe even the laughable idea of identifying as a sex that you aren’t.

The sight of American history being removed pains most Americans.

We’ve suffered through news reports of statues being torn down — or worse, spineless officials kowtowing to a mob.

Christopher Columbus, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and even George Washington have been cancelled in many locations and on most woke college campuses (with the University of Texas being one of the spineless-est.)

The Confederate Memorial in Belton, Texas photographed on July 15, 2020.

We’ve stood by helplessly as long-held traditions have fallen and schools have been renamed.

No more Reagan High School in Austin. And in Midland, Texas, one of the most tradition-rich high schools in the country is losing its legacy. This past October, the Midland school board voted to rename Robert E Lee High School “Legacy High School.” How clever – and how dumb can you be?

Warning: what comes next is satire.

There is a simple way to stop all this and end the madness.

We are told by domestic terrorist organization such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter that certain parts of our history must be cancelled due to America’s original sin of slavery.   These groups have demonstrated that if we do not comply they will “peacefully” riot, burn, loot, pillage and kill policemen in some of our urban centers. Our “leaders” seem to lack the stones to arrest them and charge them when they break the law.

So consider this: None of this would matter if we cancelled slavery. We could simply erase it from our history books! Forget it ever happened! Gather up all mentions of slavery in encyclopedias and in the New York Times’ 1619 Project and trash them.

Then, we could scrub the internet of all mentions of slavery. If anyone tried to post about it, Facebook and Twitter could flag the posts!   Think of the possibilities.

With slavery cancelled, there would be no reason for the racial divide.

Sure, it happened. But with its entire history cancelled, what would it matter? After all, we wouldn’t be teaching it in schools. There’d be no need for race-based anything. Corporations would no longer need a Department of Diversity and Inclusion – nor would colleges and universities. Colleges wouldn’t need to teach subjects such as African American Studies. With slavery erased, there’d be no need.

All the statues could go back up. Since we’d only be removing monuments to those who opposed slavery (no need for them with slavery erased) like Harriet Tubman, Chris and Jefferson, and Robert, and George could all be re-erected. With slavery erased, there’d be nothing about them to be objected to.

We certainly wouldn’t need reparations for an epoch that no longer exists.

 That would diminish the importance of race-based political hacks such as Ilhan Omar, Kamala Harris, Maxine Waters, and Eddie Bernice Johnson. The racial reverends would be out of luck too – Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright and Rapahel Warnock wouldn’t have anything to rail about in their sermons. Jesse couldn’t shake down any businesses.

Colin Kaepernick might fade away into history as simply a quarterback who never made it in the NFL.

So let’s cancel slavery and totally erase it from history. How about it?

On the other hand, that’s a bad idea.

The problem with canceling slavery is that it existed and there is a lot to be learned from it. If we were to flush it down Orwell’s Memory Hole, would America be better for it? Not likely.

Studying slavery is proper because it happened, and professors ought to teach it from two points-of-view: those of the time in which it occurred, and from modern sensibilities. They also should teach that America did abolish slavery—and lot of people died for that cause.

Other parts of American history should be preserved and taught as well – in the light of objective truth and not with the constraints of political correctness. For example, Robert E. Lee owned slaves. Robert E. Lee was also a great historical figure who was not the one-dimensional racist that he is made out to be.

Canceling slavery is clearly not something we ought to do.

Neither is tearing down statues and re-naming schools. Whole Language is clearly not as good as Phonics. Cancel culture is clearly not as good as respecting our history and judging our forefathers in the light of the times in which they lived and their contributions to the freedoms we all enjoy.

Patrick Quay is a writer and man-about-town. No one knows where he lives.