Need a Reason to Cry?

This week’s reading was a bit tough for me. I cried while reading these chapters and not because I am naïve, unaware of the violence in our world, have never heard of slavery, or I think that I am Mother Theresa (I, too, criticize people and call them names in my head). But these 55 words, which I had not read before, made me hurt all over: “There she no doubt saw the whips and leg irons used to discipline the captured Africans as well as the windowless dungeons in which hundreds were crammed while waiting for the ships that would carry them across the Atlantic to the Americas. Almost certainly she also caught sight of the infamous ‘gate of no return’.” (Strayer & Nelson 601). After I read this quote, I felt such sadness and such anger at the same time. Once again, I question those religious individuals who speak and/or preach about loving God. Who is this God we must love, devote ourselves to, kill for, eradicate, or displace those we conquer? No one has ever seen or heard this God ask these things of us. Strayer writes that not all slaves experienced the same oppression and/or mistreatment, that some were able to have decent living conditions, but a slave is a slave. No human being should ever be bought or sold and most certainly not tortured, raped, or discriminated against because of his or her skin color. Nor should a person from Africa be thought of as being of an inferior race or being anything less than human. (Strayer & Nelson, 624)