Imperial Valley Press

NO RIDICULE INTENDED

Several of our colored friends have protested against the publication recently of an old-time advertisement taken from a Missouri paper, in which a number of slaves were listed for sale.

Their point is that the advertisement held the negro up to ridicule and embarrassed the members of their race. Granting them the right to look at it that way, we cannot agree with them, though we are quick to declare that there was no intention of ridiculing the negro. To ridicule the negro is to admit one's own ignorance.

Everyone, including the colored people, knows that negroes were sold as slaves. Everyone likewise knows that the progress made by the negro race since its emancipation has been one of the bright spots in American history.

The advertisement referred to did use the objectionable word "nigger", and undesirable adjectives in describing the sex of the slaves. We know it to be true that the colored people object to the term "nigger" and that the better class of white people, recognizing the justice of the objection, refrain from using it. At the same time it was a common term in the nation during slave days, and is today, not only among whites but among the negroes themselves. Bert Williams, loved by the whites as much as by his own race, used the term often in recounting his negro stories, and Bert was proud of his race.

In reprinting the advertisement, we were impressed primarily by the facts that even as early as 1846 Missourians were showing the good sense to sell out and move to California, and that "hard cider" was offered as an inducement to attend the sale. On these two points alone was any comment made. The slave sale was secondary to us, if indeed we thought of it at all.

Our colored friends said their people wish to forget that they were once slaves, and do not like to be reminded of it. This, they declare, is primarily for the sake of their children. But negro youngsters study American history and they cannot escape the knowledge. If anyone desires to forget slavery it should be the white man and not the negro. There were too many instances of unselfish loyalty and devotion on part of the negro to wish them to be forgotten. The debits during that period are all on the side of the white race—the credits are with the negro. Negroes may recall slave days with something of sorrow, but there should be no shame. The shame is the white man's.

As for ridiculing the negroes, we need cite no more distant example than the Eastside school in this city, to confess that they compel by their achievements, not only our respect and our admiration, but our good will.