Dark Past

…”And he ends with an affirmation of his belief that the history of slavery is a shared legacy. Blacks and whites, Africans and Americans, are forever linked by the burdens of this past; together they must challenge history's destructive silences.” This is a quote by Drew Gilpin Faust, a writer for the New York Times on the web. Faust wrote an article on Edward Ball’s book “Slaves in the Family.” This book chronicles the quest of Ball reconnecting with the truths of his family’s dark past and seeks to offer peace with the people his family affected. You see, Ball’s family had a very lucrative slave operation in South Carolina that spans 400 years. Ball’s intention was to unearth the genealogy of his family (and their festivities) primarily, to find out more about him. Before his adventure began, he had come to the realization that like the other ethnic minorities in the U.S., whites have the right to culture as well. I mean can you blame him? His own descendents formed together to manipulate world systems and systematically disenfranchise anything not boasting the white race. In lieu of the fact that most of those descendents decided to abandon their cultural distinctions to “fit in,” some white folk feel of sense of uncertainty about themselves. They want to identify too, I guess being the majority and dominating everything about American Life is not “in” anymore.
Anyhow, there was not much on the internet about Ball other than sites advertising his book, that it until I came across Faust’s article. Faust paints the picture of a man in pursuit of forgiveness for his family’s actions. He points out that Ball wants it to be known that he cannot be totally accountable for his family’s past because there was no way he could influence their actions, the deeds have already been done. Faust (and pop perspectives) also points out that Ball’s family insisted that they were kind slave masters but he produced records sexual violence, mutilation, and hangings. Right. So, Faust goes on to tell the tale of Ball traveling the country and the continent of Africa to speak to the descendents of his family’s slaves. Of course, he runs into some rejection but he reports many cases of welcoming Black folk, lighter skin, and giggling and chuckling. Anyway, he also unearths some business about possible love connections between slave women and his forefathers, again, Right.
Now to my analysis, I feel like this man has some nerve to unearth years of pain, humiliation, and God knows what else, in HIS quest to find HIMSELF. For what? Only to offer your apologies, what can your apology do for 20th year descendents of slave relatives, other than rehash or introduce battle scars? I think Ball’s research is irrelevant, to the families he’s reaching out to at least.

Pop Perspectives 120-24
Link to article Skeletons in the Family Closet
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/reviews/980301.01faustt.html