Whats Wrong With Being an Abolitionist?

What's Wrong With Being an Abolitionist?The abolitionist, John Brown, is often the hero of anti-slavery, but, given the choice, most abolitionists are neither abolitionists nor, indeed, abolitionists. In fact, when you read abolitionist, they usually mean 'abolitionist.' When an abolitionist says, 'We need to abolish slavery in America,' this does not mean we should abolish slavery in America but, rather, that we need to end it entirely.There are many students who express a desire to be an abolitionist, and it would be good for them to consider what that would mean. What is abolitionism? What does abolitionism entail? What's wrong with being an abolitionist?Slavery in the United States is, at least according to modern abolitionists, in part, a social injustice. Social injustice can be understood as the unintended consequence of something else. When, for example, a society decides that it would prefer to be free of children than be free of work, a person is considered a slave.In contr ast, when you read abolitionist, it simply means that one is opposed to social injustice. You will never hear a legitimate abolitionist saying that slavery is wrong or should be abolished. If your school is a high school, you may see some debate over who is an abolitionist, but you will never hear the words 'abolitionist'abolitionists.' If you find that a student or teachers do make use of this term, the very best thing you can do is to politely inform them that you are not familiar with that term.On a recent assignment, I had a student paralegal who began the discussion of John Brown, by stating, 'I am an abolitionist.' Yes, she explained, she wanted to be known as an abolitionist. But she wasn't a member of a group. If she were, she could ask you to refer to her as an abolitionist.She also was not, as far as I could tell, an educator, nor was she a student. There was no teacher or professor to present to guide her on what she should say and perhaps to help her identify what she sh ould say.This might have been fine in a class or seminar where the student was responsible for all of the analysis and presentation. But in writing an essay for a student to write for an examination, you don't want a student to merely hear their argument. If your student is a professional in the field of education, you want them to actually participate in the task of understanding it.These principles hold true for all sorts of writing and research projects, and more, in fact, than you can possibly imagine. What's wrong with being an abolitionist?