RIGHT OF CENTER: CRITICS OF RE-ENACTMENT HAVE IT BACKWARDS

A vignette of American history was replayed before thousands of people this week in Colonial Williamsburg, Va.

But this wasn't a typical historical re-enactment. Monday's event drew vehement protests, not because it depicted a day in the life of Colonial Williamsburg, but because on this day in 1773, townspeople held a slave auction. Civil rights activists denounced the re-enactment as trivializing black history.

They have it exactly backward. The re-enactment provided a factual, albeit painful, portrayal of an event that at one time was common in parts of our nation. Spectators Monday had a chance to see the human side of slavery. The actors in the skit were able to illustrate the dignity of a people facing unimaginable indignities.

Trivializing? I don't think so. Critics said the play should be banned because it is impossible to portray the horrors of slavery in a 20-minute play. Others said it dealt with an episode too painful to handle in a theater-like production.

But the play illuminated a glimpse of a single aspect of slavery that, painful though it is, was as common at the time as a livestock auction.

My guess is critics opposed the re-enactment for another reason. If Americans can envision the true horror of slavery, they will be less apt to see black Americans today as implicitly subject to institutional racism and societal barriers to their achievement.

No other country has on its own -- without overthrowing the government that permitted it -- done away with a national defect so profound as slavery. That it happened here is testament to the goodness of Americans and the ability of our system of governance to improve itself.

But many civil rights leaders deny this truth, instead blaming every urban ill today on this nation's past slave trade. These are the people who trivialize slavery.

These civil rights leaders whine incessantly about the lack of economic opportunities for young blacks. They demand hiring quotas and encourage discrimination lawsuits when a minority loses a job or promotion for any reason. They unashamedly defend rioters, looters and other misfits who rampaged south-central Los Angeles after an unfavorable court verdict in 1992.

How would 18th century slaves view the plight of black Americans today? Imagine a man who could be owned by another and bought and sold on his owner's whim or for purely utilitarian reasons. The woman to whom he pledged his life could be sold on the same auction block and taken to a faraway state never to be seen again. The children they nurtured from infancy likewise could be ripped from their care and sold to the highest bidder.

How would this man view a ghetto today, where men refuse to take responsibility for the illegitimate children they sire with numerous women and where young men and women choose to destroy themselves through drug and alcohol abuse? How would he view a welfare system that encourages people to avoid work for fear of losing handouts of subsistence? And what would he think of black Americans who choose to stay on this welfare plantation?

Imagine the disgust with which he would view black-on-black violence and uncivility. Then imagine his shame when a play that makes real his struggle is criticized as trivial by those who have squandered opportunities unimaginable in 1773.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.