Remember Not to Forget

After seeing a “get over slavery” type of post on Facebook today, I had to step on my soap box for just a minute:


People-as much as you may want to forget-the sad reality is that our country was built upon slave labor-the blood, sweat, tears, separation and destruction of families. So there is an energetic “icky-ness” that exists here in the U.S. that doesn’t exist in those countries that never experienced slavery. I know this from traveling & living outside of the U.S. and speaking to people from other countries who have moved here. I’ve been told by more than a few foreign-born people that they never understood what racism was until they came to the U.S. and experienced it themselves, or saw it first-hand. And these are not black people that are saying this. These are Columbians, Brazilians, Moroccans, etc.



I had a dinner conversation just last night with a Columbian woman who moved to the US when she was 11 years old and went to school in a predominantly white area in Southern California. Kids would make fun of her because she spoke with an accent. They assumed she was stupid, that she came from a country without electricity, and that she was poor. When she was asked to check a box saying what her race was, she didn’t understand the question. Was she supposed to say she was Caucasian? Her skin was fair and her hair blonde. But her nationality was Columbiana; her language-Espanol. When she began taking American history and learned how blacks in this country were stolen from their land, forced to work as slaves on tobacco and cotton farms in the hot Southern sun, separated from their children, partners, and loved ones- she was disgusted. She said she couldn’t believe that human beings could treat each other this way. It was like a bad nightmare.



Although slavery happened a long time ago, Jim Crow laws were in effect just 46 years ago. That’s the generation of people who are now in their 50’s like my mom & dad. So yes, we have come far. But racism still exists. As do the privilege and entitlement that persists in a country that is still feeling the effects of slavery. There are certain privileges that I have been afforded as a “light skinned”/ mixed race person, that my brown-skinned mother was not given. For me to deny that fact would be ridiculous. It’s reality. And in the same way, there are certain privileges that white people are still afforded that non-whites are not. Just like the rich have certain privileges the poor don’t … and attractive people, and so on….To believe otherwise would be like believing in unicorns. Is this an excuse to hold on to anger and treat others poorly? Absolutely not. But it IS also important to remember. So the same mistakes aren’t repeated 1 or 2 generations in the future. We don’t need another genocide of an entire race of people like what happened to American-Indians, Jews, or those in Darfur or Rwanda.


It is a lesson that we have to remember NOT to forget.