David Walker’s Appeal

Slavery is a bothering topic. No one wants to experience that churning sickness in her stomach. No one wants to see dark skin marred by bloody tracks in her mind’s eye. No one wants to imagine screams and wailing. And definitely no one wants to put themselves in a former slave’s shoes–to feel the gravity that comes with the scorn and hate of hundreds of thousands of people. Do you feel that churning yet? As I said: bothering.

Everything I mentioned above is bothering, despicable, disgusting, disturbing, and every other synonym in between, but something that really, really hurts me when I think about black slavery are the people who were doing it, who the slave holders were. White, Christian men and women. White, Christian men and women! I mentioned in my introductory post that I am a Christian, and my love for Jesus is the most important thing about me. So, reading about what people in my religion, my belief system did to other human beings is very hard for me.

It makes me sick knowing that the same people who read “Be kind and compassionate to one another” were a same people who declared that black people were subhuman. The people who know the commandment “You must not make for yourself an idol” made idols of themselves and demanded to be worshiped with blood. The people who told their fighting children to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” were the same people who showed horrible, relentless cruelty to numerous black people.

David Walker, in his appeal, felt the same way. He too was a Christian, and it must’ve disgusted him to have to share the title with the slave holders. Of course, Walker, seeing as he was a Christian, also knew that “faith without works is dead.” He knew God loved him, he knew he wasn’t created lesser, and he knew self proclaimed Christians who treated people with such evilness with no remorse were no more Christians than the demons in Hell. He knew what true Christianity looked like because of Christ’s example, and most of the white people during this time in American history (not just the slave holders) didn’t make the cut.