Once Again...

So let me understand.....

A PBS program (not exactly TMZ or some hatchet fake news website) Finding Your Roots is blocked from airing because a prominent powerful actor does not want it revealed that his ancestors were slave owners.
Yet thru the very action of blocking it, he revealed that his ancestors were slave owners.

Once again we are shown how the powerful elite can control what is said and broadcast, and how the truth can be silenced. Again we are shown how other less prominent or powerful people aren't afforded the same opportunity to rewrite their families history in a more favorable light.

Those who are connected to those who suffered through slavery are admonished to forgive and forget; to move on, turn the other cheek and be the bigger person even when still routinely being told that they are second class citizens. . All while walking in parks, driving on streets, studying in schools and living in cities dedicated to people that fought to keep them enslaved because it benefited them economically.

Yet again we are shown that others can continually rewrite history to cast themselves and by extension those that may have participated in owning slaves in a more favorable light.

Again we have tangible proof that some people just don't "get it" when it comes to slavery and what it did to the mind, soul, and spirit of the entire country. How do you get over something that all you hear is deny it existed. deny it was that bad. deny any involvement or knowledge, deny it took place. It wont be long before it is completely written out of our history books and consciousnesses as a country and the brainwash will be complete.

I am glad that I learned my history from my grandmother and grandfather, I am glad I know the story and did not need a website or a tv show to tell me who my ancestors are. I am blessed because i know where my bloodline came ashore, where we were sold, where the plantation was in Sussex County, Va, I know because we were admonished to never forget. I know because we wrote in it books stitched together with yarn. I know because at family reunions the elders still gather the young from near and far and tell them the old old story. Because once you forget, you can be brought back to that same place.We were admonished to tell the story to our children so that they know as well.

I don't hate, nor do I hold malice. I don't look side eyed or fail to trust or give chances because of what happened in the past. But that does not mean that I don't remember, Not from what I was taught nor from what i personally experienced. Our issues as a country are way deeper than symbols and statues. It is the substance that troubles us. That when we look in the mirror we don't like what we see so we try to rewrite it based on our ideals instead of facing the reality.

Until we admit it, we will never get past it. We can't even do that as a country. Therein lies the root of the problem.

Ideal vs Real

There is an ideal America and the real America.

We are taught and indoctrinated by those who have a vested interest in hiding their involvement in past abuses of their own ideals. We are taught the ideals of a future state that constantly asks those being denied rights to ignore the abuses of the past, even when they still occur in the present. The reality of America is that the ideals of this country don't often manifest in reality but fora select few, often on sharply divided economic and ethnic lines. The idealists shout down those who point out the realities of not living up to the ideals. The realists often wallow in the realities pointing their fingers at the wrongs they have experienced without doing what they personally can do to push for better ideals.

Yet my present reality of living wont stop me from pushing for a better one for those that follow after me. We must give them better than what we have received. That is not an optional. Make it better starting now.