Yes, Mr. President - Slavery Was, in fact, Bad

Donald J. Trump, President of the United States as quoted in The New York Times today:

The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post. 

The President of the United States, in an effort to whitewash American history as presented in the Smithsonian, which is essentially our national museum of record, as well as other museums, has chastised the leadership of these museums because they are focusing on “how bad Slavery was.”

As an English teacher, I tend to still rely on things like dictionaries as an authority on the meaning of specific words. With that in mind, I share with you, dear reader, what the Webster dictionary defines as “slavery”:

1a: the practice or institution of holding people as chattel involuntarily and under threat of violence; b: the state of a person who is forced usually under threat of violence to labor for the profit of another; c: a situation or practice in which people are coerced to work under conditions that are exploitative;

2: submission to a dominating influence

So,by the very definition of the word, as shared in what is a highly respectable dictionary, it pretty much looks like slavery was, to say the least, BAD.  I mean,I can’t think of anyone on this planet at any time in the history of humankind, who would think that being held as property under the threat of violence and forced to labor for the profit of another person would be THE JOB OF THE CENTURY AND ONE THAT THEY CAN’T WAIT TO FULFILL!! 

It’s fucking slavery, for God’s sake.  It’s dehumanizing. It’s. . . . .BAD!!!  So yes,  Mr. President, at the Museum of African American History, slavery is going to be presented as a pretty bad thing - what else could it be????    A great job-training program (as Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, has in essence described it in defending a new history curriculum that teaches as much, pointing out that some slaves became blacksmiths, tailors, and other manual tradesmen)??? 

It’s time to call out this President for what he is - a deranged individual who is slowly but surely pushing this country toward what can only be described as a collective state of imbecility.  

Slavery WAS bad, Mr. President. And I don’t need a damned museum to tell me that.

Edison, New Jersey

To Get Here

 Almost everyone I know  looks back on their childhood with some degree of nostalgia. No matter how tough the times, you can always find something that makes you smile and feel good.  I was a child of the seventies, having been born just days before President Kennedy was assassinated, meaning I came of age during the latter stages of the Age of Aquarius and developed into what passed for an adult during the era of gas shortages, Watergate and Fonzie.

Personally, I love the Seventies. The music changed as the decade wore on, but it was (and still is to a certain extent) the soundtrack of my life.  While nothing will ever replace The Beatles as the most important musical influence on me, Wings, The Doobie Brothers, ELO and Chicago did a lot to shape the person I was to become as the decade wore on. 

And while many call the automobiles of the decade those of the Malaise Era, these were the cars of my childhood.  Fortunately, growing up the Seventies meant I was surrounded by the great cars of the Sixties, and those that were to become nostalgic touchpoints for me in the Seventies, including the Gremlin and the Vega (two no-so-great cars of the decade which came to signify the decade), the Grand Prix, the Camaro Z28 and the Pontiac Trans Am.  Not to mention my beloved Corvettes (not mine personally - mine is from 1991, but that’s a different story).

Speaking of the Trans Am, that reminds me of my favorite movie of the Seventies, Smokey and the Bandit.  I don’t exactly know how many times I have seen that film but it has to number in the thirties at least.  It’s one of those that I don’t turn off when I come across it on TV on any given day (and one that I can easily pop the DVD in and watch whenever I want).   There were so many good films that came of out this decade, including of course The Godfather (I and II), A Star is Born (I’m pretty much a sucker for almost any Barbra Streisand film of the decade - I thought she was absolutely stunning back then), Saturday Night Fever and, of course, Grease.

The reason for this sudden quick trip down memory lane was really inspired by a more recent film that I just re-watched, called The Last Movie Star with Burt Reynolds.  Burt Reynolds WAS the Seventies - he was an action star, a dramatic star and a comedic star. He was the embodiment of cool. He was probably the reason (my uncle being the other) that I grew and maintained a mustache for so many years.  I loved Burt Reynolds in the Seventies and seeing him in his later years (The Last Movie Star was his last film) was sad, but it was also inspiring. His fictional character was really Burt Reynolds with another name. Even the flashbacks were Burt Reynolds movies from the Seventies.  Watching the film reminded me - in a good and bad way - that time has moved on and, with it, I have aged as well. I was a pretty carefree kid during the Seventies, with almost nothing to worry about except what kind of car I was going to drive someday (always a Corvette - which took decades to happen.  Almost always a Chevrolet, though), what music to listen to (see the above list), what movie to see, and who I was going to date.  That pretty much took care of itself when I dated the girl next door for the first time in 1979 - and we have been together ever since.

There was a great song in the film called “To Get Here”, written by Diane Warren and performed by Willie Nelson that reflected on life. And while it wouldn’t have made sense to me back in the Seventies, as I sit here in 2025, it sums up my life perfectly.  So I’ll end with those lyrics:

There are things I've done

I wish I could undo

I'd take back all the pain

I put the ones who love me through

And I'd make some better choices

I'd take some different roads

I'd hold on to what mattered

I would never let it go

Life is 20 20 hindsight

Might take a lifetime just to get some insight

Might not always get it right

But you get where you need to be

All the mistakes I made, I'm glad I made them

All the wrong turns I took, I had to take them

Can't look back with regret, 'cause the view is never clear

That's what it took to get here

There are things I said

I wish I could unsay

I'd erase all the hurt

From those I have hurt along the way

And I'd make the right decisions

And change some I made before

And I'd love a little deeper

And I would give a little more

Sometimes you get second chances

When they come you gotta go and grab them

Might not be the way you planned it

But you get where you need to be

All the mistakes I made, I'm glad I made them

All the wrong turns I took, I had to take them

Can't look back with regret, because the view is never clear

That's what it took to get here

And you can't go back and change anything

You can't make what happened happen differently

But you can get what you need

Get where you need to be

All the mistakes I made, I'm glad I made them

All the wrong turns I took, I had to take them

Can't look back with regret, because the view is never clear

That's what it took to get here

• Ocean City, NJ