I really enjoyed the Jamestown-Quebec-Santa Fe exhibit (ends Sunday) at the Ripley Center today after admiring the gardens behind it and by the Hirshhorn. (Can't seem to find info. on Cherokee leader Ocanasta who was courted by both the French and the English apparently...)
Ocanasta apparently commented after an exchange of students that if the Gentlemen of Virginia wanted to understand why the Cherokee were less than thrilled with the education some young Cherokee men received (they were sent to live at I William and Mary I believe for 4 years of university, and returned 'unable to withstand cold or hunger and nable to run well, in effect, useless as men' was the quote I must re-find...) , he offered to accept and train some young men from the Gentleman (their sons) of Virginia, and return them as Men. This looks like it really was a total difference and shock of cultures, since at that time the two societies lived in quite different ways.
Anyway, the exhibit was in Spanish French and English, fully trilingual, comparing all aspects of life for the three cities starting from first European contact, and comparing the different ways in which the three great powers (with early brief mentions of the Dutch and the Swedes!...) made alliances with and also use of native american allies, and how they treated both indigenous, African, and English (indentured) labourers over time, showing the system of encomiendas, indenture, and manorial duties used by Spain, England and France. Really interesting.
(also made it appear that many old Quebecois families are highly likely to have Huron or other northern tribal blood, as the three northern algonquian and non-iroquoian tribes allied to the French often gave their daughters in marrage to the French who had few women in Montreal before 1700. Maybe that explains the gulf between Quebecois French and French French? Interesting...)
A very nice older gentleman there saw me and asked where I was from, saying how nice it was to see someone of color, particularly since our young people generally rush right through the museum, stopping to study all of the details of the exhibit. As we talked, he told me to remember that love is the key to everything, and that everything has a purpose and a meaning. He reminded me that I may need to step back and see things from a different point of view, a more universal point of view, reminding me that I am undeniably universal, and occassionally need to stop seeing things 'through my own eyes' and see the presence of that Universal Love. This man, a wonderful older Black man, just walked up to me and offered me these words. And how grateful I am for coming from a culture where every older person is an authority figure, takes the time and responsibility (ok, not always, but sometimes) to guide the younger generations, and I gratefully accepted his words with the sam words I told my father as he was offereing his advice over the phone that last time we spoke to each other, as I realized that despite everything, he meant well, and actually had some experience I may not have had: I told him "Yes, sir" and I meant it.
It still amzaes me, ok, lots of these museums are new or have been changed since 1989 when I last lived here, but still, I feel as if I am just learning the city all over again, and it is a marvelous yet humbling experience at the same time. I know how to get around, feel comfortable in the city, even drawn to places where I used to live, incuding Anacostia (and I definitely want to see this museum of African-American life in Anacostia. I seem to remember Fredrick Douglass's house being there, so now I am very confused...). Yet the friendliness of most people remains the same. Ok, for me, it is still confusing when I cross paths with a White person as to whether I should greet that person or not, but I feel as if I have comfortably slid back into the habit of greeting every Black woman, and most Black men, with a friendly greeting, even if my accent has changed enough to make me uncomfortable, and remembering that this is what things used to be like, somewhere, and that that was the reason that I take with me, everywhere I go, the expectatoin that people should greet each other even if they don't know each other. Yes the men flirt a bit, but that is normal, expected, and harmless. This reminds me, even as I find myself occassionally ignored or rejected by an upper-class extremely well-dressed Black woman, that I grew up somewhere, lived somewhere, where the people around me accepted me as Black, or at least as a person of color, greeted me and expected me to greet them too. Maybe it was my Grandmother's place in Long View Beach, MD, maybe it was spending summers with my great Grandmother on Connecticut avenue NW, or maybe it was in Oxon Hill, MD, on Good Hope Road SE, or in my grandfather's neighborhood after walking 45 minutes from the Big Chair, still in SE but almost like a different country, yet every neighbor said hello. Of course I may be starting to erase those memories of not feeling accepted, of being looked down on as mixed or red or high-yellow, but now that I am finally back in my birth city, I feel the acceptance of each person who has called me their 'sister' and I remember that I am also accepted as a person of color, but more importantly, another amabassador for the warmth and friendliness and welcome of this city where I was born and went to high school. This city is a Southern city, as I am forced to admit after years of missing grits, cornbread, greens. After immersing myself in other cultures looking for acceptance, I find that I have family who does accept me, if only I can learn to accept myself. So as I relax, that is what I work on. Acceptance and love for all people, from all sides, and from all of my own sides. Yes, Dad, I am Black, and I have striven never to deny my Blackness, but I also have to acknowledge the other sides to my makeup, and that does not negate any of those parts. Maybe I can really be a bridge after all?
Peace,
with hugs and thanks to my Dear Friends and Family
Şiir
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