Week 3 - To Alabama from Me


Dear fellow Alabamians,

This weekend has given me so much to think about I fear I cannot hold all of these emotions and competing ideas in my mind at once. I write you this letter on a plane from Washington D.C. to California, where I live now. Two important things have led me to the mental state I am at right now; this weekend spent at a conference about Israel-Palestine and also my weekend spent reading a sizable portion of Annette Gordon-Reed’s remarkable book, The Hemingses of Monticello.

I have attempted to speak and write about Alabama and all it entails so so so many times, especially at Stanford, where I feel the need to explain my state and its complexity as a justification for why people should care, why this whole nation shouldn’t just forget about our existence as so many white people seem to want to do (especially Californians!). I found an interesting comparison to my own issues with discussing Alabama when talking to many fellow participants at the conference. One boy talked about how he had spent his conscious years reading and thinking about Palestine and Israel and he still felt he could not discuss it. Another friend described it in similar terms, noting that although her mother had studied international human rights for decades, she still felt a “blind-spot” regarding having a framework for discussing the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Despite this fear of my own naivety, The Hemingses of Monticello has given me a starting point.

I am sorry. First, to my black fellow Alabamians, for not trying harder and seeking deeper within myself to understand better what the legacy of slavery has done to the lives of you and your ancestors. Gordon-Reed’s most striking statement that gave me more clarity about the reality of slavery is, that slavery is “the millions of separate assassinations and attempted assassinations of individual spirits carried out over centuries”. Second, to my fellow white Alabamians for failing to hold you to higher standards. For failing to push back harder in class and school to reorient your unbelievably white-centered outlook on every single thing, including slavery. Gordon-Reed pushed me to move beyond dominant narratives that put the white slaveholder experience above the slave experience in terms of something to be studied and something to be understood as individual. Something that seems obvious now, yet remained unknown to me prior, is that enslaved people benefit enormously emotionally and culturally the further they are from their owners. Additionally, alternative narratives, stories, and emotions of enslaved people are entirely unknown to their oppressors. This point underscores Gordon-Reed’s emphasis on the most important theme of Sally’s life; her veiled existence.

I believe further learning and self and societal examination is incredibly important to my own journey in racial consciousness and the collective journey of Alabamian, especially white Alabamian, racial consciousness, but it must also occur in tandem with tangible change because lives are currently at stake. The effect of white supremacy on black and brown folks leaves us with no choice to simply bear witness Alabama, we must act. Something that struck me this weekend at the conference was a discussion between a centrist Israeli author and a Palestinian peace activist. Their conversation was varied in topic and seriousness, veering into emotional and painful territory several times. Importantly to me, they talked about reconciliation of pain and acknowledgment of loss. Alabama, specifically Alabama and its deep confusing societal make-up, expectations, and rules, has brought more personal pain into my own life than I thought possible. I come to you, Alabamians, as a white person with a limited view and very different existential and physical stakes in fixing inequality and injustice than others in our state. Yet, I must offer my up belief in dialogue. We must be honest Alabama, about true feelings and true loss. About true fear and true prejudice. It will be so painful, and the pain will be unevenly distributed to black folks, as it always has been in the United States, especially Alabama. Yet, I see no other way forward. I know I can start with my own community, with the white people I know and have access to. I believe in us Alabama. I believe in our goodness and our love for our families. I believe that we can be so much better.

With timid love,
Anna

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