That’s the question you’ll find woven in a new documentary —Meeting David Wilson – on MSNBC that airs tonight. [The] “Film traces one man’s journey to track down his family’s past in slavery.”
David Wilson a young black journalist meets his namesake; David Wilson, a white son of the 1940s-50s segregated south. This young filmmaker, David Wilson, traces his family line to slavery and encounters a descendant of the white family that once owned his.
(HT; Too Sense)
How moving; in a week where we have noted the 40 years since the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; as we debate the subtleties of race in the nation, its impact on the selection of an African-American to become the Democratic Party standard bearer; as we suffer the timid Lanny Davis types.
MSNBC: Not the descendants of victims but victors
Meeting David Wilson
For Wilson, the journey was eye-opening. Working with Nancy Carter Moore, a genealogical researcher, he learned that his family had been enslaved for three generations on vast plantations across North Carolina and Virginia belonging to the wealthy Wilson family.
To his surprise, Wilson learned that the family still lived in the same big house in Caswell County, N.C. The owner’s name, according to the county clerk’s office: David Wilson.
In “Meeting David Wilson,” the filmmaker recounts his first contact with his namesake:
“I called there, and I eventually spoke with him, and I said: `Hello, Mr. David Wilson?’ And he said: `Yes?’ And I said, `Well, my name is David Wilson, and I believe your family once owned mine.’
“He paused for a second and said: `Well, that could be.’
“It was the most uncomfortable feeling I’ve ever had.”
Accompanied by his director and cameraman, Daniel Woolsey, David A. Wilson, the young, black New York journalist — set out to meet David B. Wilson — the white son of 1940s and ’50s Southern segregation and owner of a nationally known barbecue joint that opened in 1949.
`Dialogue a lot of people dread having’
“I think he’s going to be a tobacco-chewing, straw-eatin’, rifle-totin’, rockin’ chair-sittin’, lemonade-drinkin’ redneck,” Wilson, half-joking, said as he and Woolsey hit the road from New York.
What they found was quite different.“I have so much respect for him because here you have a man who’s just this common guy, yet he’s been put in a situation, and he’s welcomed the situation where he’s been put in the middle of this dialogue that a lot of people dread having,” Wilson said.
“David and I, in our conversations, don’t address all the issues regarding race. We don’t find all the answers. What I think we do is set the example that it is possible to to talk about race in a way in which we can all come together. We can focus on our future together, as opposed to our divided past.”
[.]
A preview
After the airing, Brian Williams moderates a 90-minute discussion of racial issues at Howard University.
“Race finally pushed itself into the heart of America’s civic conversation. “
“In some ways we’ve never talked more about race in America,” Mark Whitaker, senior vice president of NBC News, said in a commentary he wrote as part of the network’s initiative with msnbc.com’s Gut Check America series examining race relations in the United States.
And yet, he lamented, “there has been virtually no debate in this campaign about how to tackle the crisis of inner-city black men, millions of whom are locked in a vicious cycle of criminality and incarceration.”
Is that the sum total of the misery facing all African- Americans? See a black person, think crime?
So what’s wrong with black people? What do they want? Not much.. Maybe some respect. Some African-American organisations may ask,
“Where are our reparations?”
What for? Well here’s it is: On the way to the new world, America and the West Indies, Africans packed in slave ships were thrown overboard when the food and water ran low.
Thrown overboard Alive. Our forefathers were considered cargo. Under Maritime law, being thrown overboard was legal – still is legal for a ship’s captain to dump cargo.
Then they worked the plantations. No vacations.
Are you pissed off yet?
And when slavery was abolished, they were promised a mule and some land.
Our forefathers gave up waiting. Some escaped to Canada. Others resettled to the place now called Liberia. Those who stayed were held under the new slavery of segregation.
Obama May Win or Lose
Among my family and friends, a tiny scared – we have been pinching ourselves. Daring to think Obama’s candidacy has changed the landscape. Young people, old people are proud and white folks will never again see us in the same light.
Tell these people, it’s OK, really Obama is half white, half black
Some white folks are pondering even saying, “I never knew they can think, they are educated, they can speak too.” Some will always hug their racism as a comfort blanket.
Obama advances a small step further than those before him and hopefully his candidacy will send ripples worldwide. How America votes in Philadelphia, Levittown or in West Virgina will tell how mature we’ve become.
One Drop at Too Sense:
Why Should White People Fight Racism?..[..] To hold onto the kind of rigid mindset that racism requires is to constrict one’s own soul, limit one’s own opportunities for interaction, for business, for friendship, even love. Hatred, fear, and arrogance, all of which are at the root of racism, are not constructive emotions. They do not contribute to the well-being of one’s heart or mind.
White people may benefit materially from racist systems. But those material benefits, in the long run, pale in comparison to the spiritual rot that racial animosity causes. Even if one feels no obligation to overcome racism because of some larger question of justice and/or equality, the emotional damage that racism causes to the racist is, or should be, reason enough to work to overcome it.
Not just for whites. Works for all.
