The Break with Reality: Navigating the Dissonance of False Historical Parallels

How Obsessive Historical Extrapolation Clouds the Present

I recently received a fervent text message from a family member who I believe borders on the realm of racial delusion. The increasing hold of Blackness is Oppression, Nothing else matters is now threatening the mental health of Black Americans. I can foresee a break with racial reality. 

What do I mean? How do I justify such a provocative statement? 

According to the Pew Research Survey, 76% of Black Americans consider Blackness extremely important or very important to one's sense of self. 26% of Black Americans consider Blackness to be of no importance or little importance to one's sense of self. Thus, the vast majority of blacks in America are psychologically primed to see race behind every stone and tree. All events are given a cynical, negative filter to the consternation of less racialised family members and friends. Case in point -- the text message I received at 4:15 a.m. from a family member with the breaking news headline Prisoners Sue Alabama, Calling Prison Labor System a "Form of Slavery." The news story appeared in the New York Times.

Unless I am mistaken, slavery in the United States of America was abolished in 1865 with passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It has been a long, long time since people were slaves under the law. Being a slave meant that one was seen as a non-human with no rights. One was chattel to be bought and sold and devised as slave owners desired. Slaves had no freedom or liberty under the law as they were the property of others. The system of slavery was a legal abomination which prompted decades of abolitionist efforts culminating  in the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

American Slavery is centuries and generations behind us.

Prisoners are in prison because they committed crimes; they are not bought and sold in slave markets at the local corner. Offending is the reason they find themselves in prison in the first place. There are de minimis exceptions to this rule. Once someone has been convicted, they naturally forfeit certain rights held by the non-offending, law-abiding population. It is incredible that I have to state the obvious, but we live in delusional times, and in my case, among delusional family members.

In the breaking news story, black prisoners filed a lawsuit alleging prison labour is a form of slavery. What an insult to our ancestors who were real slaves under a legal system of enslavement! I repeat, how outrageous is it for criminals to compare their work arrangements as prisoners to people who knew legal bondage in American history. 

Allow me to list the material distinctions between these Alabama prisoner plaintiffs and the people who experienced slavery, not just a "Form of Slavery" but slavery itself in the Southern states:

1. Real slaves were not human under the law. Prisoners, despite their wicked crimes of murder and homicide in some examples, remain human under Alabama and U.S. law. 

2. Real slaves were subject to flogging for transgressions in the slave system. No black Alabama prisoner on God's green earth will be flogged for any transgression within the prison system. It is a moral outrage that I have to state the obvious. 

3. Real slaves were routinely and systematically violated with abandon by their owners. Black Alabama prisoners do not have owners. And even if one argues the warden and prison guards are "owners" of the black prisoners, there is zero evidence of widespread sexual assault against black prisoners by the Alabama warden and guards. 

4. Real slaves gave birth to slaves. Issue of slaves belonged to the slave owner. The children of black prisoners in Alabama do not belong to the Warden or guards. Children of black prisoners are born free. However, if the children follow in the footsteps of their hapless prisoner parents and engage in offenses, that is a different story.

5. Real slaves could be devised as an inheritance to spouses and children. Show me under Alabama state law where the Warden and guards can devise a black prisoner to the heirs of the Warden and guards. 

Conclusion: There is a break with reality among otherwise sane professional black people. The break with reality is this fear of being returned to chains. I heard a national leader at a local function several years ago say this to me. "They are not going to put me back in chains!" He was not joking. He was serious. Who says such a thing? Who believes such a thing? This urgent text message from an otherwise sane and professional black family member disturbs me. I fear a mass break from reality for most black people. If we don't live in reality, we are subject to manipulation of our primal fears as black people (although I no longer refer to myself in this regard because I reject racial dogma). Those who are experiencing a break with reality denigrate our slave ancestors who knew real slavery, in contrast to what I call the mental slavery of black fragility that is prevalent today.

Most importantly, a break with racial reality signals the potential to lash out at others today due to slave sins in the 1700s and 1800s. No racial group will advance towards a bright future if the present remains haunted by the ghost of slavery past. And fore shame on the New York Times for airing such racial dribble. 

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Winkfield Twyman, Jr. is the co-author of Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America. He is a writer, commentator, and former law professor. He has written for the Chicago Tribune, the San Diego Union Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Richmond Times Dispatch, and several other publications. He can be reached at twyman.substack.

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