Jamin Bradley

I’ve had an idea for a few years to write a sci-fi book about trying to end slavery on another planet. The book would spend hundreds of pages trying to establish how integrated the slavery system was and how deeply racist the culture was. The twist was going to be the very end, where slavery is abolished and it just says, “And they all lived happily ever after.”

Anyone who had really paid attention in the book would be confused. “What do you mean they lived happily ever after? You think a society can just shift over night that and suddenly everything is fine? No one is racist anymore? No hints of the slavery system lived on? You want me to believe everything was just fine?”

That ending is supposed to jar us awake to our own American narrative. Many of us have been taught that slavery and racism was ended a long time ago and none of it has lived on into today. After the emancipation proclamation, we all lived happily ever after. The idea is nonsense to anyone who read the narrative and insulting to anyone still dealing with the looming effects. Juneteenth is a perfect reminder of this, as freedom arrived later than it should have.

Many have forgotten just how dark the country was in the days of slavery. There is still much in society that needs to be uprooted from those days. May our hearts be soft enough to hear the cries of those still suffering that we might make a difference.