Before getting here to Berkeley, I was at my parents' place in Phoenix for about 4 days, enough time to get over my jetlag from Germany.
One of the nice things we did while I was at home was to take a walk outside (in the relative cool of the evening hours). We did a bit of stargazing, at which point my mom tried to identify the Big Dipper. I wasn't looking at the right thing at first, but once it popped into my view, I couldn't help but admire its beauty. My mom asked about the slaves who once followed it north to escape their bondage. At this moment I found myself in tears. I told her more about the songs they sang to help them remember the way, the Underground Railroad and its symbolic significance even if it didn't free that many slaves, the dangers of being caught as a slave and the cruel punishments that sometimes followed.
I remember that at that moment, I felt extraordinarily angry and almost desperate, not only because of what those slaves suffered, but also because of how we have all suffered. I realized I was also angry FOR those slaves in a way, as though I felt a personal connection to them. We are still in the midst of various apologies and reparations for the descendants of those who had suffered injustices, be they slaves, Native Americans, European Jews, Japanese-Americans, much of which is symbolically important and may even begin to correct the institutionalized disadvantages placed on certain groups. But what saddens me the most is to see how some people still only define themselves by their ancestry or ethnicity. I think it's easy to forget that where we are from biologically says nothing about where we have come. I cannot track my direct ancestors back more than 3 generations, but I am certain that amongst them, there were victims and perpetrators. And why must what the Chinese, the Chinese-Americans, or whatever other categorization I belong to suffered or committed, have any say on my life today? Blood ancestors or not, members of the same ethnic group or not, they have long left this world, not with the faintest idea what their descendants would be like. We have the curse and the blessing of seeing history, but that does not mean we are bound to it. We are children of this whole world in a sense - our parents were only those who facilitated our passage into it, and if they were at all interested in parenting, are only those wonderful enough to help facilitate our passage through it. I am therefore the descendant of both the American slave and the slavetrader, the Nazi concentration guard and the murdered Jew, the violent colonial and the conquered. I have therefore inherited every act of beauty or hideousness committed because I am human and because this is what I was handed upon my birth. And until the cycle of revenge stops and until we spend time learning about all of these problems, we will never learn to avoid them in the first place, and that is far worse than any crime already committed.
1 comment:
i get those moments of reflection too -- when this way of emotions hit. It's a powerful reflection and very moving. we should talk about it next time on our call!
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