THE MOST REVEALING ASPECT OF THE POLICY...:

Proponents of a proposal under consideration by the Trump administration to separate parents from children whose families are caught illegally crossing the border can cite precedent in American history. In the antebellum South, black slaves who were rented among masters could be auctioned off at the start of the year when their owners' contracts expired. In effect, they could be wrenched from their families and sold down the river to far-away plantations in the Deep South. Of all the travails of slavery, the prospect of parents being separated from their children and never again seeing their kin was among the worst.

From the masters' viewpoint, they were simply collateral, sold to satisfy mortgage payments, bank loans or gambling debts. It was like selling livestock. The anguish of the slaves was irrelevant, since they were considered a subspecies, incapable of the refined sensibilities of their white owners who were impervious to the tears of parents torn from their children. Under this system, upwards of 10 percent of American slaves -- probably a low figure -- faced January 1 with dread. After abolition, newspapers throughout the South were filled with the ads of former slaves desperate to reunite with their families who'd been sold to far-off plantations. Too often, the search was in vain.

The thread that links the plight of the erstwhile slaves and the victims of this current policy, which has the blessings of the White House, is the assumption that they are somehow alien to our culture, a lesser order, at once threatening and docile, who can be dealt with in whatever manner we see fit to advance or protect our own interests. In both cases, the policy was, and is, state sanctioned and perfectly legal.

Tweet   @brothersjudd