Forget the Temptation to Hate

Today is Juneteenth, a new federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of the enslaved African Americans. In thinking about this, I was reminded of a passage I read recently in the book Les Gardiens du Temple by Cheikh Hamidou Kane. In the novel one of the characters in a country in west Africa, in the process of establishing itself after the end of colonization, pondered the uncountable number who had been taken from their home to be enslaved elsewhere over the centuries. He reflected, « Oublier ! Mais sur dix hommes récoltés dans les champs situés de ce côté-ci… un seul parvenait aux plantations, de l’autre côté ! Savez-vous combien il en est parvenu ? Vingt millions, à ce qu’on dit. Deux cent million ! Deux cents millions de nourrissons ont été arrachés à votre lait…. Mais il faut oublier! ... Mais comment, devant l’actuelle désolation, ne pas supputer le compte des villes qui n’ont pas surgi, des terres qui n’ont pas été cultivées, la valeur des arts qui n’ont pas vu le jour, comment ne pas pleurer la civilisation qui n’est pas née !... Comment résister a la tentation de la haine ? »  (“Forget ! But out of ten men harvested from the fields on this side… only one made it to the plantations on the other side! Do you know how many he got? Twenty million, they say. Two hundred million! Two hundred million infants have been torn from your milk…. But we must forget! ... But how, in the face of the present desolation, not to calculate the account of the cities which have not arisen, of the lands which have not been cultivated, the value of the arts which have not seen the light of day, how do not mourn the civilization which was not born!... How to resist the temptation to hate?", pg 69-71). Indeed, the history of slavery is so awful that one wonders how to the past can even be comprehended; so many millions brutally lost their lives over multiple centuries at the hands of people supposedly civilized—how could such horrendous deeds have been performed?

               The scripture that comes to mind as I think about this is the passage containing Joseph Smith’s words about the awful persecution that the Saints received in Missouri in 1838. At places like Haun’s Mill, children were murdered, women were raped, men were cut down, and all were kicked out of their homes in the dead of winter to travel on foot across the frozen ground and Mississippi River. Joseph wrote of the “whole concatenation of diabolical rascality and nefarious and murderous impositions that have been practiced upon this people.” He continued, “It is an iron yoke, it is a strong band; they are the very handcuffs, and chains, and shackles, and fetters of hell…. Which dark and blackening deeds are enough to make hell itself shudder, and to stand aghast and pale, and the hands of the very devil to tremble and palsy” (Doctrine and Covenants 123:5-10). The suffering of these thousands of Saints cannot be compared in scope to the brutal treatment of millions of enslaved, but in intensity and methods we might say that the evil which worked upon both groups was of the same hue. The stain of slavery on the United States in particular—one indeed that was “nefarious and murderous” and which was “an iron yoke” full of “dark and blackening deeds”—could only be redeemed through the shedding of blood of the civil war as Abraham Lincoln suggested. I like the way that this book thought about the future after such a horrendous past: « Mais à présent un jour nouveau s’est levé et sous sa lumière tous les regards se croisent. L’obscure nuit des forfaits est révolue. Il faut se regarder. Les gestes prochains se feront les yeux dans les yeux » (“But now a new day has dawned and under its light all eyes meet. The dark night of crimes is over. You have to look at yourself. The next interactions will be eye to eye”). Now is the time for all to indeed forget the temptation to hate and to build upon a new day where we can all look each other in the eye as equals no matter our religion or race or background.

               Despite all our collective mistakes in the past we work towards the ideal that the United States Constitution was meant to provide: “According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles; That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77-79). And we rejoice that no matter the acts of men, in God’s eyes all are alike and invited to come unto Him: “He doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile” (2 Nephi 26:33).