So for the first time in my life, I am watching the popular T.V. series Roots. I grew up without a T.V. most of my youngin years, so not only do I have no memory of Duran Duran or 90210 or any of the other "generational" television I was suppose to have watched, but I also never saw a lot of the classics, Roots being one of them. I read the book one long, hot summer with my mom; she would read ahead and tell me to skip certain pages that described rape scenes (my mom, as much as I love her, was way too Christian, always trying to shelter her children from things she deemed too hard for us to handle.) I've also seen Amistad, so I thought I had an idea of what slaves went through, being chained in the hold of a ship and all. But Roots is really driving home how horrendous the whole thing must have been, to the point where a part of me wants to pretend that that horrible part of our history was all fictional, that people actually didn't do those things to other people.
But they did, and it all happened not too long ago. In fact, one of the ladies at the domestic violence shelter and I had this conversation the other day.
Anita: "You know, I've got sisters who where born in Mississippi in 1918, 1920...they farmed down in Mississippi back then..."
Me: "Oh yeah...? Life musta been hard down there back then? They still farmed with mules and stuff right?"
Anita: "Girl...they left Mississippi 'cuze they was lynching black folks and my family was scared...they left and went to New York..."
Me: (Remembering my history and remembering that being white there where certain hardships that don't even enter my brain half the time...to me, hard would be farming with a mule, to Anita's family, it was fleeing lyincings...) "Oh wow...that musta been scary.."
Anita: "Well I was born in New York so I don't remember that, but some of my sisters do..."
Hey, my little charge Jack just woke up and I have to play with him, so I'll continue this article later..
Love ya,
Carrot
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