Slavery: Guilt v. Responsibility
Before I post this on WWF, any thoughts on language changes? Whether I should post at all?
A man in Alaska has filed suit alleging that the Fourteenth Amendment does not carry with it the right to hold public office. This particular frivolous lawsuit not only infuriates me, but concerns me. Not that there is a bigot out there willing to allege that Barack Obama cannot be president because of his race, but that said crazy felt comfortable enough in the current sociopolitical environment to file suit challenging his candidacy. Not only that, but if you read through the complaint, there have been attempts in states other than Alaska to keep Obama off the ballot. I am not going to say that this man is representative of conservatives, or even the Republican Party. But if you read the document, he is also a birther, and those crazies are more thick on the ground than one would think in a rational society.
These people drive me nuts. Racists in general do, because of my background. I am called to speak out against them, and there are so many....
I am a child of privilege in many ways. Not only in the way that white people in general are privileged, but in a more particular way that those of us who are Southerners and who have roots reaching back to the antebellum period have. A lot of my ancestors owned slaves, including one who was a plantation owner in Greene County, Georgia*, and who owned more than one hundred and thirty slaves. (A horrifying number of those were children and teens. )
I have no guilt about the actions of my forebears. I have not been a slave owner. I have not supported slavery. I have not longed for a return to the plantation system of the antebellum South.
But as a descendant of those people, and one whose family has been shaped by the institution of slavery, I have a responsibility to support in whatever way I can efforts to overcome the lasting effects of that evil system. I say "support," because it is unfortunately not my fight per se; I can only give whatever aid I can and speak the truth as I see it. I am in no way a hero in this fight, and I don't want people to think I am trying to portray myself as one, just someone trying to do the best she can. If I feel guilt, it is that I have not done enough.
My forebears did evil. To the extent can, I am morally compelled to support the correction of that evil.
*Oddly enough, this was not from the Greene side, but from my mom's side. My dad's side is no cleaner, however.
A man in Alaska has filed suit alleging that the Fourteenth Amendment does not carry with it the right to hold public office. This particular frivolous lawsuit not only infuriates me, but concerns me. Not that there is a bigot out there willing to allege that Barack Obama cannot be president because of his race, but that said crazy felt comfortable enough in the current sociopolitical environment to file suit challenging his candidacy. Not only that, but if you read through the complaint, there have been attempts in states other than Alaska to keep Obama off the ballot. I am not going to say that this man is representative of conservatives, or even the Republican Party. But if you read the document, he is also a birther, and those crazies are more thick on the ground than one would think in a rational society.
These people drive me nuts. Racists in general do, because of my background. I am called to speak out against them, and there are so many....
I am a child of privilege in many ways. Not only in the way that white people in general are privileged, but in a more particular way that those of us who are Southerners and who have roots reaching back to the antebellum period have. A lot of my ancestors owned slaves, including one who was a plantation owner in Greene County, Georgia*, and who owned more than one hundred and thirty slaves. (A horrifying number of those were children and teens. )
I have no guilt about the actions of my forebears. I have not been a slave owner. I have not supported slavery. I have not longed for a return to the plantation system of the antebellum South.
But as a descendant of those people, and one whose family has been shaped by the institution of slavery, I have a responsibility to support in whatever way I can efforts to overcome the lasting effects of that evil system. I say "support," because it is unfortunately not my fight per se; I can only give whatever aid I can and speak the truth as I see it. I am in no way a hero in this fight, and I don't want people to think I am trying to portray myself as one, just someone trying to do the best she can. If I feel guilt, it is that I have not done enough.
My forebears did evil. To the extent can, I am morally compelled to support the correction of that evil.
*Oddly enough, this was not from the Greene side, but from my mom's side. My dad's side is no cleaner, however.