There is a growing habit in this country of borrowing the suffering of the past to justify the laziness of the present.
People invoke the suffering of past generations as if it were a lottery ticket, proof that they are owed something today.
But the men and women who actually endured that suffering worked brutal hours in unbearable conditions, with no guarantees, no safety net, and no applause.
The men and women who actually endured slavery did not live in abstractions. Their lives were not hashtags or talking points. They worked in suffocating heat, under threat, under punishment, under conditions most people today couldn’t endure for a single afternoon.
They did not complain on podcasts.
They did not demand applause.
They did not mistake grievance for virtue.
They survived.
They didn’t sit around demanding rewards for grievances.
They survived.
They endured.
They worked.
And it’s hard to imagine they’d recognize themselves in a culture that treats inherited pain as a credential for entitlement, or hardship as a reason to opt out of responsibility.
History is not a vending machine.
Suffering is not a substitute for effort.
And no one honors the past by using it as an excuse to demand something for nothing.
The people who lived through real suffering didn’t demand the world bend for them, they bent themselves to survive it.
To use their suffering as an excuse to do nothing, to wait in line for handouts while declaring moral superiority, is not honoring the past. It is trading on it.
Using their pain as leverage for entitlement isn’t justice. It’s disrespect.
You don’t honor suffering by cashing it in, you honor it by building something great from it.
History has become a prop.
Pain has become currency.
And responsibility has quietly exited the conversation.
And survival required something that is deeply unfashionable today: endurance, discipline, and work.
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Chu The Cud 