The Trail of Tears
7 July 2008 - 5 תמוז 5768 by Huw
IVE A listen to the sins of our people…
The Trail of Tears: Episode 1 and 2 are both there.
I’m feeling rather moved by it because of knowing that I would be gone: the moving of anyone “with one drop” of Indian blood… that my whole family would have been gone. It’s kinda odd, just a loose connexion to Holocaust, the American Final Solution. But it is catching me as I hear stories about the western part of North Carolina, the eastern end to Tennessee, the Northern end of Georgia. Worse is knowing that my people did it. I recognise who my people are - not the Indians, but the racists who said, “one drop of blood…” Not the Southerners: the orders came from Washington, anyway. It was Anglo-Americans that did it. North and South. And 1/4 of a nation was gone when it was over.
We have readers who have a closer connexion - to the rightful owners of this land, to other peoples who have suffered Holocaust. I do not mean to make light and forgive me if it seems so.
Listen.
And vow never again.
