I sense the foul whiff of compromise in the air and it alarms me. Compromise has never worked out well for me. The Compromise of 1790 robbed me of two/fifths of my humanity and perpetuated my enslavement.
By 1850, with America on the verge of collapse, Congress reached what it hoped was a solution….the notorious Compromise of 1850, which required that fugitive slaves be returned to their masters. Like so many political Compromises before and since, it was a deal by which white Americans tried to advance their interests at the expense of black Americans. Yet the Fugitive Slave Act, intended to preserve the Union, in fact set the country on the path to civil war.
The compromise of 1865 resulted in a reign of terror and lynching and 100 years of Jim Crow, discrimination and segregation.
We need the fumigating properties of ACCOUNTABILITY to dispel this loathsome whiff of political COMPROMISE.
I am concerned that failure to demand ACCOUNTABILITY…. given the rhetoric and actions that are being so easily expressed today…could result in the resurrection of ovens and gas-emitting showerheads, reminiscent of the not-too-distant past.