Is Unpaid Labor talking about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi, Libya? When she said this she was talking about the story of the attack on an American outpost in Libya when she was Secretary of State. But no, we’re talking about the history of Unpaid Labor. And what difference does that make? Unpaid Labor or the first 12 generations of Americans of African descent (1607 to 1865) were the indispensible factor in the United States of America becoming the most successful nation in the world in modern history.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that history means:

1. a tale or story

2. a record of significant event told in the order that they happened including what caused them

3. an area of knowledge that records and explains past events, or

4. events that form the subject matter of a history

It is important that the stories of history are told. They educate us about the past so that we can understand the here and now. They educate us about the past so the can have a vision of what the future can be. They educate us about the past so that we can feel good about ourselves. But what if the history is wrong? If it’s wrong, we’re mis-educated. If the history is wrong, our understanding about the here and now is wrong. If it’s wrong, our vision of what the future can be is wrong.

What difference does it make? It makes all the difference in the world when it comes to race relations in America. The history of Unpaid Labor has only been told as something awful that the nation did to the slave, and that’s true. But by not telling the story of what the slave did for the nation the story of slavery in America is incomplete. What’s missing? What’s missing is the story of contribution or what the slave did for the nation.

When the complete story is told, something wonderful will happen in our country:

1. People will get the complete message.

2. People will understand that the wrong view of our history is responsible for the false ideas that black people and white people have about the superiority of whites and inferiority of blacks in the United States.

3. People will understand that disparities in current conditions between the races that seem to support the idea of Black inferiority and White superiority do not support this at all.

What different does it make? It makes all the difference in the world. It will change the mindset of all Americans about race relations.