Trump's Separation of Families: Reflections of "New" American Slavery

Part 3 of 6

American slaveholders intentionally separated families. By 1818 separation of families was considered a part of the strategy of control and dis unification. Fathers and mothers were sold on the auction bloc. Children were sometimes sold together, but often separated from their family. Their mothers were partially stripped of clothing, shown to the crowd, and sold on the block to the highest bidder. Children were also sold this way, but not necessarily to the person who bought their mother. They were sold to the highest bidder or who ever offered the best deal. Screaming and crying children called for their mothers, but there was no response. Children were ripped from parents, with no concern for their needs or well being. They were considered property, they had no rights, and their needs were only those decided by the slave-master. With rare exceptions, separated children would never see their mothers again, or even know the places they were taken. They were black, alone, and separated from their families. This was enslavement in America , and it was deliberate, inhumane, and cruel.

200 years later, it happened again. This time people are brown, of color, and Hispanic, but the practices and policies are the same. The President of the United States gave orders to separate infants and children from their mothers. (The plantation owner gave orders to the overseer, get adults, separate children. Acquiring adults slaves are part of plantation tradition and southern way of life. Children were burdensome to overseer, unless profitable.) Today, political voices say,we must control and limit the number of persons of color coming to our country. They are ruining our country, they are changing our culture. They are not like us, they do not share our values and culture. They are criminals and thugs, and rapist are the false claims and charges echoed by the racist of the nation. (The slave owners mind set and practice was to control slaves, separate families, wipe-out identities, and instill the idea-of human ownership. The seeds of worthlessness and inferiority to whites was daily planted in the mind of persons of color. Slaves had no rights, they were inferior was the belief held by plantation and slave owners, as well as poor whites.)

Children are separated from their parents. They are not allowed adult touch, placed in cages, without knowledge of parents. They are unaware of where their parents are or if they will ever see them . Even some members of Congress cannot get accurate information about these children, or see their living conditions. Their health was not a concern, and medical conditions are unknown. Some children separated from their families by the Trump administration have yet to be reunited with their parents-three years later. Some parents have been deported, unknown to their children, and cannot return and their children are still in America, caged by the Trump administration. The detailed inhumane story can be read in the book, Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by Jacob Soboroff (Slave children were shackled, locked in jail-like rooms, still hoping their mothers would come, never knowing they had seen them for the last time.)

The permanent memory of enslaved children would be their mother's tears. This memory would be coupled with humiliation, the lash , a broken heart, and days spent in cages. Children were later transported to a plantation for more humiliation, lost identity, and injustice. Children, under Trump have been sent to various parts of the country without identifying records, with not way of ever matching or reunifying some families. Infants and babies are deliberately being disbursed to private contractors without possibilities of reunification. How can you identify or question an infant child?. 11 to 14 month old children were sent to other states without records, or a system to identify them with their mothers or any parent.(* Slave masters deliberately separated and sold family members far away from each other. There was a desired intention to erase from the minds of slaves any reminder of children or relatives or their present location. There was an intense desire to dehumanize enslaved people, plant seeds of inferiority, and forever make persons of color, obedient chattel,tied to the land, and forever uneducated. Slave-masters did not want family unity or reunification. They feared unity, strength, and rebellion.

There was a strong fear on the part of slave-owners that family unity was strength and a source of resistance or rebellion. A key desire of slavery was to wipe out identity and erase any remnant of African culture and tradition. Some plantation owners made serious attempts to destroy unity, stir discord and create jealousy by making differences in skin color of slaves. An often overlooked goal of slavery was to destroy African culture and traditions.( Slave owners wanted to erase language and home reminders. They set out to re-mold and make a new individual, one they could control. One who is thoughtless,one who is subservient. Create an inferior being, one whose mind will bend to the master's will. Create a worker who will not think but obey. Poison the slave's mind to think you know best and will always take care of him. Control his mind ,control his body, control his life. Create a worker who will think he is happy without freedom and always obey the will of the master.) Young children who are separated from mothers and family for long or unexpected periods experience serious trauma that has lasting health effect. ( A child slave separated from his mother and sold afar carried the trauma of a broken heart all of his life)

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CHILDREN, INFANTS AND BABIES, SEPARATED FROM THEIR PARENTS WITH NO WAY OF REUNIFICATION IS A REALISTIC REMINDER OF THE NEW AMERICAN SLAVERY.

*** From the up coming book Servant of God by J.T. Clemons used by permission.