One thing I have had to learn in my anti-racism journey is that whatever we read about as having happened during Jim Crow, enslavement times, etc. The patterns are still going on today. Navigating the layers, walking on eggshells… It starts from childhood. Black People having to learn, from infancy, tactics and strategies for surviving us.
In my wider circles, which include both EA liberals and EA conservatives (in addition to my own socio-political demographic, lefty anarchists), there’s so much talk about the yearning to return to a simpler time. It’s an illusion.
We grew up in a bubble, either not knowing or not wanting to know that our classmates leading parallel lives in another part of town were having a totally different experience.
The above was prompted by this post on Facebook about Maya Angelou, by Echoes of Classics, on a page called Classic Literature.
On the gut-wrenching childhood trauma that formed the seeds of her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.