If I Could Rewrite That Chapter

If I Could Erase One Event From History…

Today’s prompt asks:

If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

For me, the answer is easy.

Slavery.

More specifically, I would erase the system of American chattel slavery that decided one group of human beings could own another.

I would erase the buying and selling of people.

The separation of families.

The stolen labor.

The violence.

The humiliation.

And the belief that the color of someone’s skin could determine their worth.

But I would not erase the people who survived it.

And I would not erase what they accomplished in spite of it.

Because there is a difference between wanting to remove the injustice and pretending the people who endured it did not matter.

Black Americans helped build this country.

They created.

They invented.

They farmed.

They taught.

They led.

They started businesses.

They raised families.

They built communities.

They served in wars.

They contributed ideas, art, music, faith, culture, labor, and innovation—often while being denied the recognition, opportunity, or freedom they deserved.

Sometimes I wonder:

How much further could we have come if all of that talent had been supported instead of suppressed?

How many inventions never had a chance?

How many businesses were never funded?

How many brilliant minds were never educated?

How many generations might have looked different if freedom had truly meant freedom from the beginning?

And yes, slavery happened.

Was it right?

No.

Was it fair?

No.

Can we change it?

No.

We cannot rewrite history.

But we can decide what we do with the history we inherited.

I also do not believe our painful history should become the boundary of what we believe is possible for us.

History can explain some of the obstacles people inherited without becoming the limit of where they are allowed to go.

A wound can explain something…

without being allowed to define everything.

We have to be honest enough to say what happened.

Wise enough to understand its consequences.

Courageous enough to confront injustice when we see it.

And determined enough not to allow yesterday to decide the full measure of tomorrow.

If I could rewrite that chapter of American history, I would begin with words that were already there:

“All men are created equal.”

And I would make those words mean exactly what they said.

Not some men.

Not men of a particular color.

Not men with the right ancestry.

All.

I would want equality to be more than beautiful language written on old paper.

I would want it reflected in opportunity.

In justice.

In education.

In dignity.

In who gets heard.

In who gets protected.

In who gets a genuine chance to succeed.

I hope we reach a place where the boxes we check for race or ethnicity can describe something about our heritage without determining what anyone assumes about our intelligence, our character, our ability, or our worth.

Not because our differences do not exist.

But because our differences should never determine our value.

I know some people will disagree with parts of what I believe.

That is okay.

I would rather have an honest conversation than live in a country where people are too afraid of one another to speak.

Maybe what I want is not a color-blind America that pretends we do not see race.

Maybe I want an America mature enough to see our differences…

and refuse to weaponize them.

We often call America a melting pot.

Sometimes I think we are more like a tossed salad.

Everything is in the same bowl…

but we can still pick out the pieces we like and push the others to the side.

Maybe the goal was never to make everybody the same.

Maybe the goal is learning how to remain different without using those differences as reasons to divide, diminish, or devalue one another.

If I could erase slavery, I would.

But I cannot.

None of us can.

What we can do is decide what kind of country we help build from here.

A country where the content of someone’s character carries more weight than the color of their skin.

A country where we do not have to keep reminding one another that Black lives matter because we have finally learned to treat every life as though it matters.

Not merely in slogans.

But in practice.

In opportunity.

In justice.

In dignity.

In compassion.

In how we see one another.

That is the America I would have written.

And maybe even though we cannot rewrite the beginning…

we still have a say in how the next chapter reads.