I took one of my sons on a 900-mile, 4-day road trip, to visit a number of Civil Rights sites in Alabama. It was some quality time for the both of us. We had great conversation, and we ate great food (some of it was actually healthy!). But the main reason we went was to learn and to grow.
Here are some of my main take-aways that I’ve been dwelling on:
Despite being White1, my relationship with our nation’s history is more nuanced, since my Mom’s side of the family immigrated from Russia/Ukraine/Eastern Europe near the end of the 19th century. And my biological father (whom my Mom divorced when I was a toddler) was born in Colombia, South America.
While I don’t have familial connections to the chattel slavery of the US, I still benefit from living in a country that was largely built on the enslavement and oppression of Black people.
Besides the resources, wealth, and opportunities that I (and many others) have benefited from, many of my neighbors and spiritual brothers and sisters have lost resources. Opportunities and wealth were squelched (at best) and ripped away (at worst) under slavery (1619-1865), during Jim Crow (1865-1965ish), and even in biases and injustices over the past 60 years.
Additionally, these neighbors and brothers and sisters carry the negative effects of oppression and trauma that get passed down for generations.
Even if I’m not culpable for oppression and injustice toward Black people, I am still responsible to do something to bring about restorative justice.
Some of my actions need to be top down (pushing for policy), and some bottom up (personally supporting those coming out of systemic oppression). But at the least, I need to start with lamenting.
Especially irksome to me (as we toured places like the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and The Legacy Museum in Montogomery) is how “Christianity” and “science”
wereare twisted to justify slavery, oppression, and segregation. 4
I usually list “White/Caucasian” as my race, but more accurate would be 50% Ashkenazi Jew and 50% Colombian (and according to my Ancestry.com results, 25% of that 50% is Native American).