Not by your grace

It's hard for many to understand black slaves weren't freed. Rather, whites stopped-- or were forced to stop, in the singular case of Haiti--enslaving them.

It's a pretty important distinction, as the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah makes reference to in his Times magazine article
A Slow Emancipation:

When I think about how the world of the Ashanti remains etched and scored by slavery, an odd question arises: What is it about slavery that makes it morally objectionable? European and American abolitionists in the 19th century tended to focus, reasonably enough, on its cruelty: on the horrors that began with capture and separation from one’s family, continued in the cramped and putrid quarters below the decks of the middle passage and went on in plantations ruled by the lash. William Wilberforce, the evangelist and Tory member of Parliament who was as responsible as anyone for the passage of the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, was not an enthusiast for democracy when it came to expanding the franchise, and he railed against the “mad-headed professors of liberty and equality.” It was the torments of slavery’s victims that moved him so. (He was also a founding member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.) Once freed slaves had been properly Christianized, he believed, “they will sustain with patience the sufferings of their actual lot.” In the United States, abolitionists mainly shared his perspective, naturally emphasizing the abundant horrors of plantation slavery.

Slavery’s more sophisticated defenders had a response. They agreed that cruelty was wrong, but, they maintained, these horrors were abuses of the slavery system, not inherent features of it.

A cynic would argue what's the difference if Wilberforce and his ilk argued on the basis of cruelty rather than equality for the abolition of the slave trade, as long as the slave winds up free.

I think it's crucial whether someone is free on the basis of who they are (equality) versus who we are (not wanting to be cruel). The latter society is rife with talk of tolerance and forebearance and charity and salvation, but is laced with inherent racism and always oppression.

The former is a true democracy, where everyone is equal without depending on the majority's better angels.

I'm pretty sure come Judgment Day Hollywood is going to have to answer for why it's always portraying situations where whites stop sinning, as heroic whites saving others.

Really, charity begins at home.

Uncaptioned photo by John Stanmeyer in the Times.