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Originally Posted by 1069  Yes, because our victims' descendants are still suffering today because of what our ancestors did back then... and we are still prospering from the ill-gotten gains of our ancestors, at the expense of their victims' descendants.
Out on my family's land, there's a place- a little grove in the woods- called Eli's Hollow.
Eli was a slave that stayed on through the civil war and beyond it, until the end of his life, working as a sharecropper for my family. That little clearing is the spot where his cabin stood.
The thing is, my great-great grandfather owned Eli, amassed a fortune with the help of Eli and numerous other slaves.
And there's still enough of that left for me and my family to have certain benefits in life.
But what about Eli's great-great granddaughter?
She might be just my age. She might still live here in town.
Does she even know his name? Probably not; it's hard for people of color to do their genealogies, because people of color were not listed on censuses until the 1880s.
Does she know that that spot in the woods is his, named for him? That we still have furniture he built with his own hands?
How hard he worked for my family and how loyal he was until the end of his life?
Does she know that some of the money we have is hers- not by legal right, but by moral and ethical right? |
The reverberations of the past generations are clearly still felt today. The story of Eli is, I'm sure, one of millions of slaves and their descendants.
But it was not you who owned Eli; what he did benefited you and your family, but you didn't buy him or sell him. He didn't work for you for nothing - he worked for your great-great grandfather.
I reject the idea of generational guilt - I believe that we did not commit the crimes of the past, and I don't believe we should feel personally guilty for them either. Yes, there were wrongs. Slavery and discrimination are a part of our country's history and for many, family history. But I don't feel shame for what happened before my birth any more than a German should avert his eyes from the face of a passing Jew.
We are where we are - here and now. This generation. Our history is our history and we can't deny that it happened. But it we didn't own slaves; we didn't lynch black men for looking at white women.
We don't need to give people an unfair advantage or handicap others for things beyond their control. The wrongs we seek to correct should be todays wrongs; poverty, crime, education. These are the reverberations of the past we should fight, not helping the right percentage of races get into college. And in doing so, we can seek to heal the wounds of history. Not feel guilt for them.