The precise death toll of the Civil War is continuously debated.
But this June, it’s indisputable that lots of of hundreds of white unionists died to free black slaves.
Each time I ask a progressive if this has happened in every other country on this planet, there may be at all times dead silence.
These crickets are inevitable because America is really unique, whatever the false claims of those that today would sow deep racial animosity.
Global slavery amongst all races (e.g. black enslaving black, indigenous brown enslaving brown) has been the norm for much of human history, including in Africa and South America.
I’m the descendant of a Native American woman who was enslaved as a toddler by one other Native tribe and sold for the worth of a quilt to white Mormon settlers on the Utah frontier, who liberated her and adopted her as a family.
![A contestant adjusts his Juneteenth-themed hat during the Juneteenth Neighborhood Festival on June 17, 2023 in Washington, DC.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012840061-1.jpg?w=1024)
The “original sin” of slavery was a deep, hideous stain on America’s early days, and whitewashing or censoring the teachings of history regarding its true nature (including the murder and suffering of many black Americans) is fallacious and dangerous.
But it surely also fails to teach the total truth: American liberation was achieved by a white coalition largely working in tandem with black Americans.
It was mainly white Western Judeo-Christian leaders in America and Britain (through the Clapham Saints) who launched the attack on the evil global norm of slavery.
Their war continues, as illustrated by latest movies equivalent to “The Sound of Liberty”; Christians today are engaged in a continuous fight against human trafficking.
![Staten Island celebrates Juneteenth in Rosebank.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012843258.jpg?w=1024)
Northern white Christians sacrificed their lives to liberate black Americans and defeat America’s “original sin”.
They’d nothing to gain personally and all the pieces to lose.
Lots of these dedicated union patriots sired today’s working-class white Trump voters, a lot of whom also voted for Barack Obama, the country’s first black president.
Juneteenth happened despite Southern white Christians.
Nobody should downplay the evil of those white supremacists – who censored Christian scriptures, cutting out Bibles read by black slaves so as to remove Moses, the story of brown people owning white slaves who rejected their captors.
Their horrific deeds must be known, but initiatives equivalent to Project 1619 The Recent York Times fail miserably at telling the all-encompassing truth.
Some Christians behave in a pathetic way. Probably the most religious zealots used political pressure to kill Jesus, and the apostle Judas, one in every of the primary Christians, mortally betrayed Jesus.
![A woman blows bubbles during the Juneteenth celebration in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012890987.jpg?w=1024)
Human nature doesn’t change.
As slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass put it, “Between the Christianity of this country and the Christianity of Christ I see the widest possible difference.”
Indeed, there generally is a vast difference between a man-led religion and a relationship with God.
But it surely was true Christian theology (e.g. the readings of Moses, Jesus, Joseph, Paul, etc., all liberator/savior figures) that inspired the American abolitionists.
![A retailer showcases Juneteenth-themed clothing at the nearby Juneteenth Festival in Washington, D.C.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012840056-1.jpg?w=1024)
The deep, openly Christian theology of Martin Luther King Jr., a pastor generations later—when the bloodshed of the Civil War was not cathartic enough—helped to fully secure the civil rights of black Americans.
The reality is that no other Western country – despite all of the European discuss America’s Neanderthal culture – has elected a black man as president. America Exceptional has.
This isn’t to lessen the suffering or plight of today’s black Americans – it’s real and urgent.
But solid empirical research by many, including black men equivalent to Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Jason L. Riley, shows that despite centuries of systemic racism, current racism is removed from the basis reason behind black-white disparities.
![People attend the Juneteenth celebration at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn on Sunday.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000012891006.jpg?w=1024)
Brown and Asian Americans of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Japanese, Korean and other ethnicities they outperform whites, with generally higher education levels, lower crime rates, and more intact families than whites. This dispels the parable of systemic “white supremacy” in America.
In fact, this doesn’t mean that racism between people doesn’t exist (including against Asian students, although the Supreme Court may soon treatment this) and we must vigorously fight to exterminate it, but politics and culture matter far more in America.
The nations of Singapore (mostly of Asian descent) and Jamaica (mostly of African descent) offer a compelling parable, as economist Stephen Moore notes: “Sixty years ago, Singapore and Jamaica had almost the identical per capita income. Singapore went with free market capitalism. Jamaica went with democratic socialism. The graph explains the remaining.
This June, it’s price noting that essentially the most brutal, impoverished and educationally declining areas of black America are ruled by the identical progressive, socialist ideology – which promotes the welfare state and rejects school selection and public safety – that plunges Jamaicans into poverty and crime.
The trail to liberation, wealth, and security for black Americans is thru strong faith, family, labor, and community. These fundamental, universal values uplift people of all skin colours.
Carrie Sheffield is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Voice and a member of the State Financial Officers Foundation.