I don't know exactly how to relate the feeling, but there occasionally comes a moment when I realize something to be true. It's different than reading a factoid in a book, or seeing a picture; in these cases, I learn a concept or gain some new knowledge of the world. I can learn what the Eiffel tower looks like, read of its history, and know that there's a massive girth of girders next to the Seine in Paris, but I cannot realize the Eiffel Tower's size and scope until I see it in the flesh.
Until then, it's a mental concept, instead of an emotional reality. It's like the feeling I had as a child when I broke something: I knew I was going to be in trouble, but there was still some other feeling when the parent discovered the damage. My apprehension would give way to sadness or sorrow, just as my eyes widened upon first approaching the Tour Eiffel. I knew I had won a scholarship competition when they announced the 2nd place winner, leaving me in front by the process of elimination, but I still had to have my named called.
In any case, I had another of those moments a few days ago while reading my paternal family's history. I was fortunate enough to have a great-great uncle, or something like that, who wrote up all of the Slack trees back in the early 1900s, and I occasionally looked at the book while growing up. Now, with my super college reading speeds, I gave it another glance and found a passage that had previously escaped my eyes. I don't recall the specifics, but it was something about the family wisdom and the obvious foolishness behind ideas of racial equality.
At that moment, my knowledge that my ancestors were racists was realized. I couldn't emotionally deny it (I think I had been doing that, at least a little), because the words were on the page, and it sent a little shudder through my core. In retrospect, such a feeling seems foolish - our family owns a bit of old silver that was polished by slaves, and I knew my ancestors had made their living off of plantations, but it wasn't quite real until that moment.
To be honest, I don't know how to react, or if this post is itself an overreaction. But something in me says that this knowledge of legacy matters - I don't think I'll read about slaveowners quite the same anymore, or so easily dismiss legal racism as a thing of the past: the genes that enabled it so long ago live in me, and I cannot escape my history. It doesn't make me feel guilty, wrong, or culpable, but it makes that legacy mine. I can no longer draw upon my family's traditions of education and service without passively acknowledging their foolishness. I think it's a part of growing up - I have long since realized that my parents are people like the rest of us, and I think my ancestors just joined the club. I would condemn them if I felt it could help anything, but to be honest, I think mass generalization is possible for each of us, no matter our race, and in condemning them, I condemn my own human condition.
The cliche is that we are all imperfect, but I like to say that
we are all broken. Everyone has burdens that make our joys a little bit heavier, goals that we never satisfied, and dreams that we cannot attain - the great gift of our society is that we have the freedom to reach for at least one of those dreams, but there will always be pain, if only because we will not always remember everyone's birthday, no matter how much Facebook reminds us. My ancestors were racists, and I cannot escape that, but I can live with it. Our legacies are resources, sometimes subject to legitimate praise or scorn, but they are mine, and they are yours. You have a legacy, and you will leave a legacy. History is happening today.
