Reconnecting With Slavery

Yesterday I took my sons to Chicago's Field Museum. They loved every moment of the experience, from the mummies to the meteorites. Or rather, they loved almost every moment. They totally freaked out over the simulated slave ship in the Africa exhibit.

Actually, I should also include myself in the freak out. I just wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared to go into a simulated slave ship hold and neither were they.

There we were, innocently walking through the exhibit, checking out various cultural artifacts from lots of different countries: drums, spears, knives, walking sticks, hairpins and religious iconography -- and then all of the sudden there on one of the walls was this paragraph detailing how slavery stole away so much from the civilizations that had created such beauty. Then, before I knew it, we were at the entrance to what looked like a dark tunnel. Except, it wasn't a tunnel. It was the entrance to the hold of the simulated slave ship.

My four year-old began crying and screaming in terror. My seven year-old clutched my hand and said, "I don't think we should go in there. It looks evil in there."

I tried to take a step forward but neither one would budge. More tears and them crying, "No, no! Don't make us go in there, mommy!"

The fear in their voices made me think about the fear that millions of African children must have experienced as they were forced onto slave ships. I couldn't ask my sons, "What are you afraid of?" because how could they not be afraid? They have not hardened their hearts to the complete blood-soaked and immoral horror that lays claim to our past. In their minds is neither the blase intellectualization of slavery nor an attitude that it all happened years ago so there's no reason to still talk about it.

As I listened to my sons beg me not to take them onto the slave ship, their comments and questions made me realize they'd forgotten that we were merely in a museum. They were really worried that they were really about to be sold into slavery and if they got onto the "ship" they'd never see our families again.

I reassured them that this was not the case and after a few minutes, we proceeded to step through the "hold" of the ship. We moved quickly through. Even though it was simulated it did make me feel like some sort of door was going to clang shut. This photo is my eldest after going through the ship. He'd been crying:I asked him what he was thinking about and he said, "I don't wanna be a slave. Ever." I think he sees himself in those pictures, sees his ancestor's faces reflected back to him.

I am glad he wasn't born 150 years ago. I'm glad we can walk through a simulated slave ship and come out the other side, not as property to be sold, but as ourselves.

Legacy and Destiny

I've been up since around 4:30 this morning. obsessively listening to "Map of the Problematique" by Muse, admiring the full moon hanging so majestically over Los Angeles, and writing a reply to a quite thought-provoking comment left yesterday on my last post. My response to this comment turned into quite the lengthy essay, so I decided to post my reply here instead of in the comment box. Go check out the original comment for more context, but in the meantime, here's my two cents:

Dear Anonymous (and anyone else who might be interested),

Your viewpoints absolutely do not offend and they are clearly offered with true sincerity. In fact, thank you wholeheartedly for taking the risk of offering your perspective. Your thoughts have also made me think about a couple of things.

What you said about your living in the UK and perceiving the US as being like a soap opera reminds me of the time I spent living in Guangzhou, China. I lived in China the entire time the OJ Simpson trial was going on, returning shortly before the verdict was given. To be so outside the situation, it did seem like some sort of sick and twisted soap opera. It made me wonder how I'd perceive the US if I hadn't grown up here, if I hadn't been trained to think about skin color and people in the way I have, in the way I have to constantly struggle against.

One of the other American teachers at the school I worked at disliked me excessively because he said I thought about race too much. He didn't believe that the problems America has with race are a big deal at all and could not understand what I was going through as a person of color who'd been suddenly taken out of the racial mire of America. This is not to say that China was any racial utopia. But there, the beliefs about race, specifically, the beliefs about black people, were not so ingrained, not steeped in a painful history of chattel slavery, and they were easier to overcome.

This guy disliked how I'd constantly talk to the my Chinese students about the oneness of the human family and the beauty and nobility of people of all skin colors. To me, the unity of the human family is the only thing that will cure our social ills so it was natural to do so. For example, one of the first things I did was show my students pictures of my parents, my sister, my cousins. These third and fourth grade students, like some folks here in America, seemed very surprised that my mother is black and that my father is white. They kept asking over and over if my mom was really black. I understood what that was about, clearly having experienced such a reaction before. The Chinese teachers at the school were more honest and direct in their explanations that to them, being black meant being a criminal, stupid, lazy, ugly, thugs and HIV positive. They got all of this from watching American shows on Star TV. Their favorite show was "COPS".

It was at that point that I really understood what a huge role the media has around the world in spreading racism and I understood even more what a huge responsibility we have in the US to solve our racial problems and come together united as one human family. We model so much for the rest of the world that desires to emulate our materialism, our consumerism...and our racial ideologies. .

I remember the day I taught the words beautiful and ugly. I decided to do an experiment with the students. I asked them to say one of the words in English when I held up individual pictures I'd ripped out from some magazines I'd brought from the States. Every single time I held up a picture of someone who was not white, they said "Ugly". I held up a picture of a Chinese woman and a white woman side by side. I asked them which one was more beautiful. It's a mean question, I know, but I was curious. Every single student picked the white woman.

This kind of thing is the same in the States, as evidenced in last year's documentary by Kiri Davis, "A Girl Like Me". We are taught in this racial system that to be white is to be beautiful, intelligent, superior, capable, good, hard-working. If I go to the store right now and look at every single magazine cover, chances are I'm not going to see a black face unless I'm looking at Essence, Ebony, Jet or O Magazine.

You bring up how black people are having plastic surgery to change their noses, and ask why skin lighteners are such a big business. Well, it's because our whole society screams this negativity. We're buffoons, fat mammies, hair weave wearing rump shakers...Hottentot's indeed. And black people are marginalized in the most seemingly inocuous ways. For example, I can't just walk into any hair salon and expect to find a stylist that knows how to do my hair. In fact, I used to walk into random salons just to mess with the staff. I'd request to have my hair cut or styled. They'd freak out at Super Cuts and Fantastic Sams as they stammered that they didn't have a stylist that did black hair...because our hair is supposedly so difficult that everyone isn't trained to do it.

You said, "I, like a lot of "black" Britons look to "black" Americans for social, psychological, political and spiritual guidance."

I found that so interesting because it made me think about a Baha'i quotation that compares black people to, "the black pupil of the eye surrounded by the white. In this black pupil you see the reflection of that which is befor it, and through it the light of the Spirit shines forth."

It's that light that keeps black people going despite everything that's happened in our history. I believe we do have an innate spiritual legacy, born from the blood of our ancestors. It's a legacy that's soaked into the soil of this country, shaped by the countless prayers surely said for deliverance from horrors I hesitate to imagine, all while offering thanks for all that they had. To me, tapping into that legacy and leaving behind all the materialism and consumerism is the ultimate revolution.

We don't know who we are right now. We have absorbed all the messaging our culture has given us and so we see ourselves primarily as material beings, still to be bought and sold to the highest corporate bidder. To me, that's why we have black on black crime and the problems with addiction. Definitely read that Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome book. I wholeheartedly believe that when we recognize our true selves, then things will change. When that happens, you won't have the helicopters and neither will I. Some folks think that's so idealistic, but I think it's completely possible.

And truly, there are so many amazing and dedicated people who are doing what they can to change things in their own spheres of influence. I really believe it's less about some big charismatic "Leader" and more about how we are leaders in our own communities, with our own circle of friends, with who we decide are our friends.

Surely, if we all, no matter what color our skin is, change our own hearts, ask ourselves the tough questions, and then act on what we know to be right, surely, that can and does make a difference.

Heritage

I'm back home in Los Angeles but I haven't yet given up on the New Orleans spirit. I came home and rocked my green and white beads all day Saturday in honor of St. Patrick's Day. My little boys were happy to wear some beads too. My husband refused.

"Oh, that's ok. I'm not Irish," he said.

Technically, I'm not Irish either. I'm half Irish-American.

It's funny though, I have a whole lot of pride about that Irish heritage. Some people might think it's because I'm trying to identify more with the white side of my heritage instead of the black side. I think it's more that I don't know a whole lot about my black ancestry. With the Irish side, I know what boat my ancestors took over here, what year they got here, where they settled, what their names were.

Do I know any of that about the black side of my family? Nope. I couldn't tell you what slave ship carried them, what country they came from (because Africa is a continent, not a country), what plantations they worked on, what they did during Reconstruction...none of it. My black family history begins with my grandmother's father, a man named Green Walker. I should know more than that.

I've always wanted to be one of those folks that take the time to research their family genealogy. One of these days, I'm going to do it. I want to know it all.

It's Not Good Enough To Just Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

It's three in the morning and I'm still trying to sort out everything I've experienced during my first day in New Orleans.

I'll confess that whenever I come to the South, I'm very conscious of the fact that slaves once stood on the same ground I happen to be walking on. I got off the plane and was immediately confronted with "Tour a Plantation!" advertisements. I wondered, do they show it all? Do they show the fields and the slave quarters? Do they show whipping posts and slave cemeteries? Do they explicitly discuss slavery on these tours? (I've heard they don't) or is it just a ride through the glory days of the Old South, when everything was much simpler and Negroes knew their place? And is there a moment of silence where we honor the memories of the countless souls that suffered unspeakable horrors?

For me, I see the word "plantation" and I think of whips and chains and scenes that were first visualized for me while watching the mini-series Roots. I think of blood flowing down scarred backs. I think of those backs broken from bending over in cotton fields and hands raw with the pain of picking.

Other people are not thinking of these things. They're thinking of sipping mint juleps on a spacious porch.

And, I wonder, who exactly buys these postcards? I found them in a store a couple of blocks away from my hotel. I don't think black people are the ones trying to hold on to precious memories of "Mammy". To the chagrin of the sales clerk, I snapped photos of Mammy-Ann and her gens de coulers. While I'm marinating on this image, let me go ahead and thank God right now that I still have an aversion to Aunt Jemima pancake mix, Mrs. Butterworth's syrup and Uncle Ben's rice, if only because of the resemblance to images like these.

A walk down Bourbon Street feels a little bit like, bar-bar-strip club-souvenir shop, repeated a dozen times. It feels like a fantasy land for the seven deadly sins. The smell of stale vomit laces the air and absolutely nothing feels forbidden. Oh, and let's not forget the black children out tap-dancing with the crowds of white folks standing around watching. I'm terrible, I know, but I think they're thinking, "Just look at those pickaninnies move!"

Yes, what I saw last night... it's like being Luke Skywalker and going over to the "dark side".

The most puzzling thing for me was that other than cooks in the kitchen and these kids, where are the black people? You know, the ones that probably let Harry Connick Jr. play horsey on their backs and taught him about jazz? Um, I'm in New Orleans and I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. I feel like I see more black folks at home in Los Angeles.

But, not all the black people are gone. All the craziness I saw on a Sunday night on Bourbon Street, and the only person I saw getting arrested was this brotha right here.

I wish I would have snapped photos of all the middle-aged married men getting their freak on while dressed in their Dockers flat-front khakis and polo shirts. I'm sure their wives would love to see images of their "faithful" spouses walking into the strip clubs, wedding rings glinting faintly in the dimness.

If I just stayed here on the edge of the French Quarter, I might start to think that nothing's wrong in this city, that it's back to it's normal self. After all, look at all the people throwing beads off the balconies and letting the good times roll.

Sure, it's fun to do the electric slide in the middle of the street. Yes, I had a great time wearing a cat-mask without anyone batting an eye. But, it's not good enough. It can't stop there. If all the revelers venture beyond hedonism-central, what does the rest of New Orleans look like? And do these people happily tossing beads care or even want to know?

One of my colleagues, James, taught here and yesterday he went to the neighborhood where his school is. Or was. He said it's a ghost town. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to see some of that for myself.