So the latest crazy out of Charlotte, N.C., involves an African-American tour guide at the historic Latta Plantation. Brother Ian Campbell forced three black children to act like cotton-picking slaves during a hands-on Civil War history lesson. Oh, I'm forgetting the important part: in front of their white classmates. Campbell allegedly supplied the captive black children bags for the cotton, you know, to provide an authentic flair. Come on, how are you going to have an authentic reenactment of slavery without a bag of Old Man Cotton? Of course, parents, teachers and even Charlotte's NAACP president Kojo Nantambu, are outraged. However, Brother Campbell is sticking to his guns. He says:
"I was trying to be historically correct not politically correct."
What was Brother Campbell thinking? Everybody knows if you're going to force black children to dress up, act like or sound like an enslaved person from early American history then you must do the obvious. Supply them with guns, ammunition, a map to Canada, a sack of money (that they earned but were never paid), a fleet of horses, and the bloody heart of the inhumane slaveholder who owned them. Why? So they can get the hell out of there! Will somebody give Brother Ian Campbell my phone number so I can help? He's obviously living in a cloud of crazy down there at the Latta Plantation.
Keith Josef Adkins is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and social commentator.