In the Sept. 4 PDN appeared an article regarding Biden’s visit to Kenosha.
He indicated that the recent turmoil around Black Lives Matter gives us an opportunity to confront the “original sin” of slavery.
Our country’s economic engine was based on slavery at the very onset of our country.
The North needed the slaves to pick cotton for the mills in the North as much as the Southern states needed slavery to operate the giant effort to provide the cotton.
The South could not have developed the huge amount of wealth of the plantation lifestyle without slavery.
They did not have the capital to pay for labor and slavery was their answer.
Today we hear from those defending actions of the formerly slave-owning states that, they are defending their heritage.
What if that heritage is equal to white supremacy and hatred?
We hear them talk about the “Lost Cause,” and wasn’t that cause the right to own other humans?
We must learn the actual truth, the details of slavery, and the way systemic racism has worked its way into our institutions over 400 years.
There are places to go to learn this history.
Currently many books are being published to help us understand the depth of our problem.
Please take the time to learn the history of slavery and its effect on the present.
Until we can discuss this openly, no solutions can be found.
Dennis Daneau
Port Townsend