doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
ewww »
Monday August 25, 2003
I’m the descendent of slave owners. I’m not simply the descendent of slave owners but I’m the descendent of slave traders, owners of one of the largest “slave houses” in the Carolinas.
This embarrasses me. I don’t have any control over it but it embarrasses me. I hate that my name is attached to that kind of a horrific act.
I’m torn, too. Is it ok for me to be embarrassed? Should I admit to this connection? I watch programs and read about the slave industry and I feel for those who were slaves. I watch programs where descendents of slaves say that we will never understand the stigma that comes from being a slave. That’s true. I hope I never will. I do understand, though, that deep seeded humiliation of being connected to something so atrocious.
I wonder if those who are descendents of Nazis feel the same (just for the record, I have a lot of German blood in me and I’ve never taken pride in that because of the connection to Nazis – even though my descendents came here in the 16th and 17th centuries).
I’m one of those people who has a low tolerance for racial slurs. I’ve had people leave my house when they persisted in telling racial “jokes.”
I wonder, though, if I’m being too empathetic, too connected to that past. Am I taking on too much?
To me, it’s hard to be personally embarassed about something that my ancestors did. You certainly couldn’t influence them or stop them from acting in a manor that is unacceptable now. Though for me, I sort of have both sides in my ancestry – on my father’s side, I have old Southern plantation owners; on my mother’s, I have a Carribean Indian people who were wiped out as a people by the Spanish colonials. I tend to think that evens me out.
No matter what, though, I believe it’s our own actions we are responsible for, not those of people who died long before we were born. If you were a racist, then yes, a certain level of shame would be called for. But you do the best you can to be a good person, to be fair to others regardless of who they happen to be, and I think that’s much more important. But that’s just my opinion; I’m sure others would disagree with me.