About Being American

This week I managed to get myself a NH Public Library Card as I work for Valley Vision, the public access TV station in Conway, NH. I chose NH library system because they use Libby and it feeds my Paperwhite Kindle.
I just finished up The Life of Tecumseh and His Brother the Prophet. I’ve been interested in the early American (U.S.) experience and how it relates to today. I came in hot with The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.

WARNING: Graphic description & slavery commentary coming

As I write this, I’m only a small handful of chapters in. I have to say, this is an essential look at America that NO ONE teaches you. I’m starting to feel we all need to hear these tales. Most people have an inkling that slavery was bad and people suffered. It’s a parroted attitude we didn’t think hard about. Here in the U.S. especially now, the educational system glosses this over with happy songs and rebel flags. This book comes in about 1812 and helps the reader have an unapologetic raw look right at slavery without blinking. It is not light reading. If you are in the camp that wants to pull back rights for people of color, take a minute and read this first. It is but is not not fantasy. It IS a novel laden with stories based on accounts of life as a slave in the south. I feel confident this author has done the research and I’m here for the story.

Jumpin’ Glob!! Folks think about whipping and how awful that might have been. We know the movie “roots” and LaVar Burton. That’s the mild story. I won’t go overboard here with spoilers but I can’t shake one particular eye opening piece.

A  man ran for the north, hoping to find the railroad to freedom. He was caught and returned. All the slaves were made to watch his punishment daily.
Day one, he was put into custom made stocks on an unlit pyre and whipped to the bone. His “manhood” cut off, shoved into his mouth which was then sewn up. The plantation owner had this done because the following day he would have guests and “an example needed to be set for the others”. He didn’t want his guests to suffer the screaming. For two days he was left to suffer this way. On the third the fire lit under him to burn slowly. The guests only retired after the fire lit and the man thrashing against his bonds being burnt alive…. because the mosquitoes were bothersome.

“Good law abiding Christian southern gentlemen in white suits and spiced rum drinks on the porch of their stately manor”.

Getting Through This Book

It’s going to be tough but I am here for the lesson I should have been taught a long time ago. An eye opening piece. I feel like the least I can do for the people who build this country in which I live, is to hear the stories of the sacrifice.

The beginning writing style is a little problematic. It takes a while to get used to what’s being presented and where the story is. It starts in a very jolting way switching characters and time without letting you know it did so. It just throws unintroduced names at you, and I really wish the editor had flagged this problem. I feel it does smooth out eventually

This heinous inhumanity is part of the American story. I personally feel right now as we teeter on a knife’s edge with racism in power and our roots being exposed, it’s important to have a plain look from whence we came. Who really built what we have? What lives made pivotal history?

I am and am not enjoying it. These readings have helped me have a clear perspective and know that I am here to dig in and not run.