Twelve Years A Slave and the myth of “getting it right”

On one of our lucky Covid/stay-at-home jaunts to the little free library near our house, I picked up a book I’d always wanted to read. Published in 1853, it is the autobiography of a free, northern-born black man captured and sold into slavery in his thirties. Twelve Years a Slave details the agonizing period of time Solomon Northup endured at the hands of southern slave owners, unbeknownst to even his own family.

I was so moved by the writing, I read parts of it aloud to my children as we swung in hammocks in the backyard and listened to covers of Follow the Drinking Gourd on Amazon music. I edited as necessary for the under ten year old crowd, but didn’t skimp on detail. Northup relates the unending sorrow of slave life in Louisiana, the hopelessness and pure hate sown and reaped along with cotton and sugarcane.

I cleared my throat and called my children to pay attention to the text–I read to them hard labor, the two hundred pound sack of cotton around the neck of a slave, master whipping their backs all day long. The toil and sweat–no matter how fatigued and weary he may be, no matter how much he longs for sleep and rest, a slave never approaches the gin-house with his basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short in weight, he knows that he must suffer.

The kids’ ears perk up–this is a true story, more captivating than any fiction–and I read more:

His done, the labor of the day is not yet ended, by any means. Each one must then attend to his respective chores. One feeds the mules, another the swine–another cuts the wood, and so forth; besides, the packing is all done by candle light. Finally, at a late hour, they reach the quarters, sleepy and overcome with the long day’s toil. Then a fire must be kindled in the cabin, the corn ground in the small hand-mill, and supper, and dinner for the next day in the field, prepared. All that is allowed them is corn and bacon, which is given out at the corncrib and smoke-house every Sunday morning. Each one receives, as his weekly allowance, three and a half pounds of bacon, and corn enough to make a peck of meal. That is all–no tea, coffee, sugar, and with the exception of a very scant sprinkling now and then, no salt. I can say, from a ten years’ residence with Master Epps, that no slave of his is ever likely to suffer from the gout, superinduced by excessive high living. Master Epps’ hogs were fed on shelled corn–it was thrown out to his “ni***rs” in the ear. The former, he thought, would fatten faster by shelling, and soaking it in the water–the latter, perhaps, if treated in the same manner, might grow too fat to labor. Master Epps was a shrewd calculator, and knew how to manage his own animals, drunk or sober.

My ten year old boy has tears in his eyes. My six year old’s eyes are wide. The latter is the child who came home from his colorful kindergarten class earlier this year and thoughtfully, innocently remarked, “Mom, you know what? The darker the skin, the nicer the person.”

I read on:

The corn mill stands in the yard beneath a shelter. It is like a common coffee mill, the hopper holding about six quarts. There was one privilege which Master Epps granted freely to every slave he had. They might grind their corn nightly, in such small quantities as their daily wants required, or they might grind the whole week’s allowance at one time, on Sundays, just as they preferred. A very generous man was Master Epps!
…When the corn is ground, and the fire is made, the bacon is taken down from the nail on which it hangs, a slice cut off and thrown upon the coals to broil. The majority of slaves have no knife, much less a fork. They cut their bacon with the axe at the woodpile. The corn meal is mixed with a little water, placed in the fire, and baked. When it is “done brown,” the ashes are scraped off, and being placed upon a chip, which answers for a table, the tenant of the slave hut is ready to sit down upon the ground to supper. By this time it is usually midnight. The same fear of punishment with which they approach the gin-house, possesses them again on lying down to get a snatch of rest. It is the fear of oversleeping in the morning. Such an offense would certainly be attended with not less than twenty lashes. With a prayer that he may be on his feet and wide awake at the first sound of the horn, he sinks to his slumbers nightly.

The softest couches in the world are not to be found in the log mansion of the slave. The one whereon I reclined year after year, was a plank twelve inches wide and ten feet long. My pillow was a stick of wood. The bedding was a coarse blanket, and not a rag or shred beside. Moss might be used, were it not that it directly breeds a swarm of fleas.

An hour before day light the horn is blown. Then the slaves arouse, prepare their breakfast, fill a gourd with water, in another deposit their dinner of cold bacon and corn cake, and hurry to the field again. It is an offense invariably followed by a flogging, to be found at the quarters after day-break. Then the fears and labors of another day begin; and until its close there is no such thing as rest. He fears he will be caught lagging through the day; he fears to approach the gin-house with his basket-load of cotton at night; he fears, when he lies down, that he will oversleep himself in the morning. Such is a true, faithful, unexaggerated picture and description of the slave’s daily life…

I closed the book and we sat silent for a few moments.

Coincidentally, it feels like last week has also been a good time to sit silent for awhile.

I have no intention of hashing out faulty politics or racial tension, though I think we all can easily stand brazenly and shout for justice. The peculiar vibe I am getting is a collective, internal rage. It is the same I felt as I read Solomon Northup’s words nearly two hundred years after he wrote. Where were the witnesses? Oh Lord, where was the justice?

Northrup addresses the violence in southern Louisiana among white slave owners:
Every man carries his bowie knife, and when two fall out, they set to work hacking and thrusting at each other, more like savages than civilized and enlightened beings.
The existence of Slavery in its most cruel form among them has a tendency to brutalize the humane and finer feeling of their nature. Daily witnesses of human suffering–listening to the agonizing screeches of the slave–beholding him writhing beneath the merciless lash–bitten and torn by dogs–dying without attention, and buried without shroud or coffin–it cannot otherwise be expected, than that they should become brutified and reckless of human life…It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives. He cannot withstand the influence of habit and associations that surround him.

Consider what this man was saying, a black free man, kidnapped and forced against his will to be a slave. He bore a death threat for twelve full years. After twelve full years he was able to objectively tease out the motivations of hateful men. And all it amounted to was systematic hate, hate perpetuating itself.
Today is hardly any different: we are embedded in a cultural system that routinely washes up wickedness and desensitizes us to every cruel action of man. One oppresses the other with their views and opinions, fearmongering and threats.One a victim, one a perpetrator.

What I’ve noticed lately in current events is this unspoken, dangerous rule: Get it right.
Speak up, louder…but not too loud. Actually, don’t speak on things you don’t understand. After all, you don’t really know someone else’s struggle. Support, but don’t overwhelm. Acknowledge differences, but don’t differentiate. It isn’t enough, your apologies and pretentious words of restitution. Show up, just don’t assume you have anything to offer. Broaden your scope, enlighten yourself. Expose your children to others’ points of view and culture. Cultivate sensitivity. Tolerance. Accept the tension, swallow your discomfort. Admit you’re part of the problem.

Get it right.

Please pardon me, truly–we will never get it right.

This is why a perfect man, Jesus, was put to death for our sin. God himself wedged his foot in the door of our system, the one where we lived proud, ignorant lives, and told us to love one another, just as I have loved you.

Purposeful living, where God made us to worship Him with our whole lives, to be the light of the world and lovers of good, kind, tenderhearted–it fails when we take Him out of the equation. We are just a bunch of fools jogging on a hamster wheel of a broken system. We are counterfeit peacemakers apart from Jesus. The hate that simmers under the surface–it lingers as we make up rules of engagement, petty suggestions to get it right. It quickly rips into a monster flame when we stir it up by continually intaking a thousand social media cues and news of disaster and despair. Hate is only ever eradicated at the foot of the cross.

Jeremiah said it like this: we are broken cisterns who cannot hold any water. Our compassion for our fellow man, our love, is dry. We need Living Water. We need a good dose of history, a recollection of how far hate has ever gotten us in the past.

I am grateful I stumbled upon the little old book in the little free library. As the story closes, Northup expresses little more than disdain; he does not pour any extra gas on the fire. He exists in perpetuity as his own witness, the facts and dates, verified places and times and account of his suffering. We read his words to remember and not forget, to awaken ourselves to systematic injustice, yes, but also to the hopelessness of humanity apart from Jesus.

Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.
Hosea 10:12