JULY 3, 2022 – (Cont.) “English cane growers in the Caribbean,” I said, “shipped molasses back to England, where it was made into rum. Traders then transported the rum to West Africa, where they used it in nefarious ways to kidnap people, throw them into unspeakable conditions aboard ships, sail them across the ocean to the New World, and put to work as slaves in the cane fields—then cotton fields of the southern tier of the 13 British colonies.”
“Kidnapped? Enslaved?” the alien asked with a tone of disbelief. “Why would you do that to your own species?”
“Well, I’ll tell you a dirty detail about the human race: we’ve been kidnapping and enslaving our own for millennia. Back in time, one of the common spoils of war and conquest was slaves—that is, the vanquished.”
“I think your word, ‘Wow!’ might be appropriate to describe what I’m hearing.”
“Unfortunately, you don’t know the half of it—or tenth of it. I’m not exactly a student of slavery, but I’m reasonably sure that nearly every place on earth has known one form or another of slavery. The continent of Africa, especially, has been largely defined by slavery among its own people and by outsiders. It was—and is?—a cruel version of humanity’s inhumanity to humankind.
“The sad reality for our own country is that the consequences of institutionalized slavery are still very much with us today, though human bondage was officially outlawed nearly 160 earth years ago. These effects are manifest in the marginalized condition of a majority of people whose ancestral roots were bound in slavery. And back to the immediate subject—politics and democracy in America—this history of slavery and its effect are a deep, dark blemish on the face and soul of our democracy.”
At this point, the alien pulled a new stunt, flashing filaments and all: It popped itself off the glass tabletop and shot down onto the porch floor under the table. There its filaments flashed bright red several times before going dark.
I laughed nervously. “I’m sorry if this revelation bothers you,” I said. “It disturbs me and many other humans too. But look at it this way—I’m simply being honest with you.”
Upon my utterance the alien’s filaments flashed orange once and yellow twice. The creature then flew back onto the tabletop. “Do you have any idea how alien you earthlings are?” it asked ironically.
“I can imagine,” I said, “but I suspect you’re incapable of imagining just how alien we are.” No sooner had the words left my lips when I felt again the danger of divulging information against my self-interest. I’d gained some confidence—perhaps by a variation of the Stockholm Syndrome—that my rapport with the alien had widened to the point where the whole human race was no longer in danger of being extinguished by this visitor from Goldilocks. Now, however, by the mention of slavery and the alien’s unusual, negative reaction, I worried again that I’d said too much; that perhaps by continuing the conversation, I was jeopardizing the fate of humans before our own time and by our own pattern of behavior.
“And then there were the religious zealots who came to America,” I said, surprising myself, given the trouble I’d already created over slavery.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
