August 2017
When I lived in Japan I was shocked at how little Japanese learned in their history classes about World War II and the wartime atrocities visited upon Koreans and Chinese during those years. Literally, it was like the Rape of Nanking and the Korean Colonial Period simply never occurred. I was shocked and not a little outraged. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the Germans. When I visited Germany the locals reminded me they are harangued with their militaristic, world-war-causing past (along with the Holocaust) ad nauseum until the average German becomes totally inured to it. The final result is the same as never having heard about it at all - Germans have just tuned it all out. Then lofty America with its ideals of government, freedom, and justice extolled world-wide sits in judgement of everyone... blemish free. Hmmmm
I went to the African American Museum when it still required a timed entry ticket with DC bestie PM. Neither of us had been and I was very curious to see what the latest Smithsonian Museum held. I admit to being underwhelmed by the Museum of the American Indian when it first opened. It so tamely related the genocide of the original inhabitants of North America. It was not ignored, just relegated to one small part of the museum. I wondered how this new museum would present history.
The design is like a fanciful birdcage and fits the theme of the museum - a people trapped behind bars, no matter how beautifully they have been crafted. It was built with multiple subterranean and above-ground levels. Below ground on the very bottom, level one starts a slow ascent through the beginning of European slavery, then American slavery, and finally its aftermath in "separate but equal", segregated America. The upper floors of the museum are dedicated to the achievements of African-Americans. The layout is brilliant, but it is almost too much to absorb in one visit. PM and I just did the basement levels.
The Germans who lived near the concentration camps were forced to go inside and SEE what had actually occurred there at the end of the war. No, they did not participate - but yes, it did happen during their lifetimes right under their noses. Americans are only "forced" to see the injustices levied against Black Americans via TV programs or films like "Roots", "the Color Purple", or "the Help". All of which, in their time, have sent shockwaves through mainstream America, but then again....they were "just movies". Walking upward from the basement of the African American Museum of the Smithsonian was not a movie. It was crushingly real and at times horrifying. Anyone bristling at the constant condemnation of the "dead white men" in control of everything in the past should have a look at the exhibit to understand what said forefathers actually sanctioned.
Slavery is not unique to American history - it has been around for millennia. In the sweep of history, Africans have probably not disproportionately enslaved compared to others across time around the world. Slavery is a very old and despicable institution. Even the Abrahamic religions accept it in that none of their holy books speak out against it (although I will say that the Prophet Muhammed manumitted all the slaves he obtained, so he did speak out against it through example). Whatever the case, slavery did occur in the USA and it is a part of our history that should be faced and bitterly accepted. Americans DID breed human beings and use them as beasts of burden. That really happened. The bad karma that it generated and its knock on effects in society still reverberate even more than 150 years later. How much time does it take for a society to recover from something like that? More frighteningly - can a society really ever recover?
Even though impossible, all American school kids should have to walk through those lower levels of the African American Museum. We should never ignore history, nor should it be thrust upon us until we block it out - but at least we must know about it.
With knowledge begins understanding.