I’d like to start off on a high note. Maybe not a dramatic note or a totally
newsworthy one – but in honor of the start of the holiday season and the fact
that the holiday season masks some pretty depressing American history, I wanted
to begin this blog with a quick meditation on the changing nature of morality
in the world.
For many years now I have been finding myself in arguments
in which I’m trying to express why I think the world’s morality is changing,
and why I think it’s changing for the better.
Unfortunately we live in an age in which the atrocities of the globe are
fodder for the nightly news and in which gory pictures of death, mayhem, and
hideous human behavior are just a google search away. But what has always struck me about these
images, these stories is that really they’re nothing new. Yesterday was the American Thanksgiving day
in which we nominally celebrate family and food and our thankfulness for the
things that matter most.
But the native inhabitants of our country have a little bit of a
different take on the day. Every year
the United American Indians of New England gather in Plymouth for a day long
protest and fasting called the national day of mourning. The movement is
designed to combine advocacy for current political issues with remembrance for
the atrocities committed by my own ancestors on the locals of this nation. I bring this up not to endorse either
interpretation of the holiday (and there are, I’m certain, many other views)
but just to note that genocide is nothing new.
So what is new? What
is there to be thankful for? The key, in
my mind, lies in the fact that while genocide continues, no one brags about it
anymore. While horrible acts continue to
be perpetrated both here and abroad, on the national and international stage it
is no longer politically correct to stand up and say “They deserved it.” We have an international criminal court
trying leaders of countries for instigating and perpetuating such crimes, and
here in the United States we’ve not only elected a black president, but a Texan
ranch dubbed “niggerhead” recently became a political liability in the Republican primary debates. So fat lot of good that does the victims,
right? I'm not going to argue with that. But that doesn’t make this a meaningless transition. The
more people who see these acts as wrong even when they occur far from our shore
and to people who don’t look like us,
the more pressure there will be to reign in such acts. That doesn’t mean it will happen right away
or that we should stop fighting. What it
means is that we’re winning. No matter
how dark the outlook seems or how doomsday our newspapers and cable channels
become it means things have changed in a very real way. That brings me enough hope to keep working
for more concrete changes and my wish as you jump into this holiday season is
that it bring you enough hope, too.
Thanks and welcome to the blog!
Jenny
