Human beings are not bargaining chips—a lesson America has yet to learn
The United States of America almost did not happen. In 1787, as our country’s “founders” debated for months over what the US should be, it became clear that the Northern and Southern colonies had very different visions for nationhood—visions that were in some ways irreconcilable.
What made one nation—the USA—possible was the Three-Fifths Compromise, a concession by Northern “Founding Fathers” to legally, formally, and systemically dehumanize Black bodies. In order to get Southern states to sign on to the new US Constitution, Northern delegates at the Constitutional Convention agreed to count each enslaved African or African American as three-fifths of a human being—not a full member of the human species.
This was hardly a new or revolutionary idea. It reinforced the definition of whiteness as humanness that had been written into law a century earlier in the colony of Virginia.
Here is the tradeoff, as Northern “Founding Fathers” saw it: We can have a nation if and only if we throw all Black people under a (horse-drawn) bus. So, we’ll take that bargain. We can revisit and fix things for Black Americans later.
But that’s not the bargain the Southern “Founding Fathers” thought they’d forged. To them, the bargain said this: We’ve been given carte blanche to make white-body supremacy the center of law, culture, and life, in perpetuity—legally, Constitutionally, and systemically. The North can do otherwise if it wants. But the Southern states are formally and officially dedicated to white-body supremacy.
As the years and decades passed, some Northerners thought: Our task and obligation is to make this a steadily more perfect union, step by step. Others, however—especially Northern merchants who made big profits from manufacturing, selling, and shipping textiles woven from the cotton picked by enslaved Southern Blacks—felt that a “more perfect union” could wait a while longer.
Meanwhile, white Southerners thought: Screw you. You promised us white people that we could own chattel forever. You made a sacred promise to us, and you break it at your peril. We would rather die or leave the Union than give up white-body supremacy.
In another effort to hold the country together, as part of the Compromise of 1850, the U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. The act required that any enslaved person who had made their way to a Northern free state not only could be returned to their owner, but had to be. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying these enslaved people. In addition, under this law, fugitives could not testify on their own behalf, nor were they permitted a trial by jury. Heavy penalties were imposed upon federal marshals who refused to enforce the law; penalties were also imposed on people who helped the enslaved to escape. Once again, an extension of white-body supremacy was the glue used to hold the country together—at the expense of Black lives, liberation, and autonomy.
Nevertheless, this compromise proved insufficient for many white Southerners, and the two irreconcilable visions remained fully intact. Beginning in 1861, eleven Southern states seceded; Fort Sumter, South Carolina was attacked; and the American Civil War began. After four years, that war ended with a Northern victory—but the two mutually exclusive visions lived on.
Since then, Northern leaders have repeatedly faced the exact same dilemma: either divide the Union or “save” it by throwing African Americans and other bodies of culture under (first horse-drawn, then motorized) buses. Every time, they have chosen to “save” the country by harming bodies of culture. Here are just two of many further examples:
After the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election, Congress held the country together through the Compromise of 1877, which pulled federal troops out of the South. This resulted in the end of Reconstruction, the beginning of mandatory segregation in the South, and the widespread disenfranchisement of African American voters.
In 1938, in order to pass the Fair Labor Standards, Act, which was part of the New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt agreed to specifically exclude protections for professions practiced by large numbers of bodies of culture.
In all of these cases—which span over 150 years—the only way that white leaders with differing views were able to forge a compromise was by writing into law an additional new aspect of white-body supremacy.
Fast forward to today. The divide is no longer quite so geographical, but we are still having the same fight. And many white hearts and minds—and the unmetabolized racialized trauma stuck in many white bodies—have not changed.
In one deeply important way, however, our situation today is quite different. For perhaps the first time in our nation’s history, many Northerners know that they cannot address the divide by throwing bodies of culture under a high-speed rail car. Doing this will tear the country to pieces. Too many Americans of all skin tones simply will not permit another mass sacrifice of bodies of culture in general, and Black bodies especially, to the faux cause of “a more perfect Union.”
As a country, we have reached critical mass. Now, finally, we are having the fight that we should have resolved in 1787. This fight cannot be avoided. It cannot be addressed by “compromise.” No reconciliation of two long-held irreconcilable visions is possible.
Yet, somehow, America must find a way through this conflict—not around it. It is a situation rife with possibility and rife with peril.
I don’t know what will happen. No one does. But I do know what each of us can do: live into events as they unfold with as much compassion and discernment as we can muster, and consistently act from the best parts of ourselves.
Human history is never as simple as the rough retrospective arcs we draw—including the arc I’ve drawn here. In real time and real life, human bodies live, breathe, hope, hurt, make decisions, face peril and possibilities, act upon one another, and try to make a difference. Only later do people look back on our lived experience and create history from it.
Nevertheless, the energies that forged Virginia law, the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Compromise of 1877, and the Fair Labor Standards Act continue to live in our American bodies today—bodies of all skin hues.
The body practice below can help you acknowledge, experience, and begin to untangle these energies in your own body. This untangling may help you live into the events to come with compassion, discernment, and a more emergent, more settled body.
The Two Faces of Compromise
Sit comfortably with your back straight, with paper and a pen—or some other writing implement—nearby. (Pen and paper will make you more much aware of your body than a keyboard.)
Take a few slow, deep breaths. Let your body settle for half a minute or so.
Think back to an incident in your life when you were asked or expected to compromise, and you said yes—even though you knew that the compromise would hurt someone, possibly even you. This might involve your family, your work, or some other context.
Mentally relive that incident from beginning to end—including what other people said and did; what you said and did; and what events unfolded as a result of your compromise or appeasement.
As you do, pay close attention to what you experience in your body, especially any:
- Physical sensations
- Urges and impulses
- Images
- Movements or actions
- Judgments
- Meanings or explanations
Take a few more deep, slow breaths. Let your body resettle as best it can.
Now, think back to a different event in your life—one in which you forged a compromise based not on appeasement, but on your own integrity. This compromise might (or might not) have involved negotiation, or reframing the situation, or letting go of one of your hopes or desires. More notably, this compromise harmed no one; created a win/win situation for all parties; and perhaps had other positive results as well.
As before, mentally relive this incident from beginning to end. Once again, pay close attention to what your body experiences, including:
- Physical sensations
- Urges and impulses
- Images
- Movements or actions
- Judgments
- Meanings or explanations
Be sure to also review how that compromise played out. What events or changes did it engender? Whose lives were changed because of it, and in what ways?
Now, pick up the pen, and write down what you experienced in your body as you relived each compromise. Then write down what your body is experiencing right now.
Lastly, read aloud what you’ve just written. What is different about how your body responds to the two different compromises?