Debra Leigh Says

(Photo from http://usslave.blogspot.com/2012/11/facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery.html) In Part One of this essay, I wrote that a country born of genocide, built by slavery, grown by exploitation and cruelty, with its society fueled by racism and intolerance, may not be capable of being saved.  I begin Part Two here by saying that, if such a country cannot be saved and reformed, then it should cease to exist.   Such a country is a danger to everything that is life-affirming, and should be challenged, both from within by its citizens and from without by countries who are more committed to the well-being of their people. Stefan Zweig , an émigré from the Nazi terrors in Europe, was deeply miserable in the United States, where he and his wife had landed after escaping first the continent, and then England.  He watched in horror as fascism and violence consumed everything he once knew of his life.  Europe, he wrote, was committing suicide.  It was only...

When my daughter was about four years old, she took it into her head to hide from me in a children’s clothing department at a Macy’s Department store.  For what only could have been about 2 minutes, I searched for her, called her name, enlisted the help of the saleswomen in the department.  The terror I felt was indescribable, fueled largely by the fact that this department was right near a triple set of glass doors leading out of the store and into the parking garage.  I was shaking with fear that my little girl had been taken, abducted.  My ordeal ended when a very tall man, who was walking through the department, saw us searching.  Being very tall, he was able to see down into the center of a circular clothing rack, and asked, “Is your little girl wearing a purple sweater, does she have long dark pigtails?” as he leaned in and scooped her out in one quick motion. His action terrified my daughter, who had no idea that a stranger could so easily hold her...