like many others, i tend to hold onto the past. as i look around my home, i see many things that connect me to my forbears--my paternal grandfather's pocketwatch, furniture and decorative pieces from my parents' home, kitchen items that belonged to my maternal grandmother. in our garage covered by an old bedspread, there sits a beautiful loveseat that was in my grandmother's living room. i can't bear to part with it, even though we don't have room for it inside our home. my first cousin who lives about four hours from us has agreed to take it, but we haven't had a chance to carry it to her. without too much thought, i could list others belongings that have been passed down through our families.
just as we cling to objects from our past, we enshrine ideas and beliefs, not because they are right and true, but because we inherited them from those who have gone before. my beloved grandparents appear in my mind as perfect, saintly individuals. i know that they had flaws, just as we all do. in my minds' eye, it is easy to overlook their faults and see idealized versions of them. we do the same with historical figures. we think of george washington as the boy who could not tell a lie and the symbolic father of our country. we see thomas jefferson as a figure who embodied the noblest traits of american democracy. for most of us, benjamin franklin was an astute statesman, a brilliant inventor, a daring experimenter, and a font of practical wisdom. this is true of all these figures, but they, too, were imperfect. because we have created unrealistic versions of them in our minds, learning of their faults seems all the more damning.
one of our great national shortcomings is our failure to recognize the past for what it is: a history filled with high ideals and the most profound cruelty. as a child, i was taught a story of our country that is far from the truth. we were told in school that robert e. lee, the leader of the confederate army, was a great man who chose family and his native state over country, that he led his soldiers to protect all that he held dear from destruction by the federal forces. we were told that in the aftermath of the civil war, greedy northerners came to the former confederacy and took everything they could by causing the election of uneducated former slaves to state legislatures where they imposed high taxes on hardworking white southerners so they could take their lands. all this was a way of disguising our collective guilt and that of our ancestors for the horror of slavery.
even the capture and enslavement of africans was disguised. we were taught that, for the most part, slave owners were benevolent masters who provided nice housing for their slaves and who saw that these slaves were fed and well cared for. we sang songs like "old black joe" and "carry me back to old virginny" that painted a picture of a bucolic south where happy slaves "labored so hard for old 'massa'." our history books had us believe that these slaves were better off than they would have been as free people in africa, where they would have had to endure constant battle with other african clans and enslavement by their own people. the sad truth is that many white southerners continue to believe these falsehoods. they fear people of color and work to deprive them of equal treatment under the law and the right to vote. as i write, predominantly white state legislatures are passing laws that disenfranchise black and hispanic voters. laws are being put in place that make it illegal for schools to teach a true version of american history and to discuss past and current racism.
thus our great national sin is glossed over and those who were so cruelly treated continue to be deprived of their rights under our constituion. may we admit our failure to live up to our ideals. may we live as though all people are "created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." may we do what we can to make amends for our past failures. may our compassion extend to all people. shalom.
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