Mage Joan

Qiao An knocked gently on the door, and it was not long before the door opened, and a pretty girl in a maid uniform stood opposite.

"Excuse me, are you... Dr. Vader?"

The maid asked tentatively.

Qiao An nodded, his eyes staying on the maid's face for a long time, and a hint of surprise appeared in his eyes.

The maid seemed to have been accustomed to the strange look in the stranger's eyes, and smiled pretentiously.

"Dr. Vader, please come in and sit. Master is meeting guests. Please wait in the waiting room. If you want to drink, please tell me, tea or coffee?"

"Coffee is good, thank you."

Qiao An sat on the sofa next to the coffee table and looked at the maid again. When the other party brought coffee, he finally couldn't help asking her in front of her.

"Excuse me, what do you call Miss?"

"Sally Hemings." The maid replied readily, "I'm not a young lady, just call me Sally."

Joan nodded and asked tentatively, "Sally, are you white?"

"Of course not, Dr. Vader, I am obviously black." The maid smiled bitterly, with a little helplessness between her brows, as if she had answered the same question countless times.

"I can see a few black features on your face, but overall your skin tone is pale, and you really look more like a white girl."

Qiao An seriously commented.

Sally Hemings seemed to be amused by his stubbornness, and the corners of her lips rose slightly, but she soon suppressed her smile for fear of offending the distinguished guest.

"Dr. Vader, since you care about this matter so much, I can only tell the truth. What I want to say next, I hope you will forget it after you hear it. If someone asks me for verification in the future, I will not admit that I said it. With these words, can you understand my difficulties?"

The girl's look was earnest, which made Qiao An feel guilty, and felt that she shouldn't inquire about others' privacy just to satisfy her curiosity.

"Sally, if it is not convenient to say, forget it."

The girl gently shook her head, her expression sad.

"It's okay, Dr. Vader, you can't hide this kind of thing. People will understand when they see my skin color."

"So... you are actually a mulatto?" Qiao Ann asked in a low voice.

Sally nodded: "My grandma is black."

Grandpa was of course white, but she didn't dare to say who the last name was.

Qiao Ann was born and raised in Alfheim. He understands the atmosphere of southern rural society. Black and white marriages are regarded by many conservatives as treacherous, let alone black and white illegitimate daughters, so he fully understands Sally Hay Mins's difficulties.

"When Madam married our master, my grandmother and mother were dowry maids, and there are many people like us." Sally smiled, quite contented, "Because of my skin color, in the master's manor I was treated very preferentially. I didn't do much heavy work. I also learned a lot of elegant craftsmanship that only ladies can touch."

Qiao An was puzzled by her complacent mentality, and the questions raised inadvertently became extra sharp.

"Sally, your father is also white, right?"

"Of course!"

The girl raised her head proudly. Compared to the noble blood flowing in her body, the identity of an illegitimate girl seemed less unbearable.

"You have three quarters of white ancestry and only one quarter of black ancestry. Why do you still claim to be black?"

Qiao An's blunt questioning made the girl a little embarrassed.

Holding the apron with both hands and rubbing it twice, Sally Hemings replied in a low voice: "Of course I would rather be white! But others told me that as long as there is a drop of black slave blood flowing in my veins, it is a black man, mine. Children and grandchildren will always be black..."

"Who said that? It's nonsense!" Qiao An sneered at this fallacy.

Sally glanced at him cautiously, and replied hesitantly: "Our master said it."

Qiao An suddenly became dumb.

This time it was his turn to be embarrassed.

In fact, thinking about it carefully, it is not surprising that Mr. Jefferson said such a thing.

Qiao An has read a prose book by the principal called "Alfheim's Notes", whose main purpose is to introduce to foreign friends the customs and scenic spots in the southern part of the New World. He also talked about some political ideas by the way.

What impressed Qiao An the most with this book was not the beautiful writing, nor the rich knowledge of humanities, geography, and history, but a basic belief that Mr. Jefferson repeatedly emphasized in the book—whites and blacks in the New World must not be in harmony. Live together!

The principal has explained the reason for his conclusion in the "Alfheim Notes":

"The deep-rooted prejudices of white people; countless memories of black people about their injuries; new provocative behaviors; real differences created by nature and many other situations that will split us into many factions and create chaos...

"Unless one race (black) or another race (white) becomes extinct, these disturbances will probably never stop."

In addition, Jefferson also insisted that black slaves and their descendants were inferior to whites in their minds.

In principle, he did not oppose the liberation of black slaves, but he clearly opposed the intermarriage of blacks and whites, claiming that this was a "biological farce that violated the true distinction that nature has made."

From Mr. Jefferson’s point of view, the inevitable lead to this conclusion:

Slavery is morally wrong, but apartheid is morally right.

That being the case, why does Mr. Jefferson have mulatto women in his own family?

Qiao An was deeply puzzled by this.

Qiao An has spent the most time on scientific research over the years, and his way of thinking is also a typical "science student thinking", in a nutshell, "the unity of knowledge and action".

If you put forward a point of view, you are responsible for verifying or falsifying it in experiments.

If you advocate a certain philosophy or political opinion, you should practice it in real life.

You have the freedom to oppose slavery, and you also have the freedom to support slavery, but you cannot practice double standards, sing high-profile words, use morality as a weapon to attack others, and do something different in private.

This is called "hypocrisy"!

Because Qiao Ann is extremely disgusted with hypocrisy, he can't help but feel confused when he finds that the principal, whom he has always respected, is contradictory, but embarrassed to ask Sally Hemings about the owner's privacy, so he can only hide this question for the time being. In my heart.

At this moment, the door of the office next door opened, and Mr. Jefferson walked out with a middle-aged man wearing a top hat, and shook hands in a polite way of saying goodbye.

After sending off the guests, Mr. Jefferson smiled and walked towards JoAnn.

"Dr. Vader, welcome back to your alma mater! You are the pride of our Leiden College!"

...