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.
Too true. The hater may not be as injured by hatred as those he hates, but nevertheless, hatred is a stick sharpened at both ends.
The big problem with racial dialogue — if that isn’t too strong a word — up to the present is that it is almost always “us” talking about “them”. White people often say things like, “What do they want from us?” I’ve heard black people express similar sentiments.
But that’s exactly the problem. Just thinking in terms of “us” and “them” is to be racist. We have to come together, recognize each other as fellow citizens, neighbors, brothers, members of the same large family trying to get by in the world and hopefully make it a better place. We won’t ever get anywhere if we are constantly meeting ourselves as us and them. That recognition, which Barack Obama so eloquently stated in his recent speech on race, is the missing link that keeps us — as it has kept us for centuries now — from moving into a better future.
We have to talk. We have to give ourselves room to make mistakes and to learn from them. We have to listen, too, and be patient and slow to take offense. That’s all of us. Our enemy isn’t each other, it’s fear and it’s anger. We all have to be willing to talk to each other despite our fears, and we have to be willing to let go of our anger. Neither will happen other night, but neither will ever happen if we don’t start coming forward, one by one, until the walls that divide the human family begin to crumble.
I’m not especially given to hope for the better parts of human nature overcoming the worst parts. I’m more than a little surprised that I keep catching myself hoping that this particular politician is going to catalyze the reconciliation we all so desperately need. But I’m willing to risk disappointment in this case because the alternative is an endless nightmare and the prospect of the reward brings tears to my eyes despite myself.
eodell, those are all good points, well said and deeply touching.
..which is such a hard one for so many people.
I’m white, and I’ve gotten in more arguments with people I thought were educated and progressive over the Obama/Wright thing than I would have ever thought possible. I had another one yesterday.
A problem is that I think many people view “racism” as the personal desire to harm a person of color. Since they themselves are not in touch with any such feeling, and don’t know anyone who would admit to it, they think racism is largely over. They don’t see racism as a systemic cancer that has white privilege embedded within it all over the place.
It will be a long road.
If you think that’s bad, try having an honest conversation about White Supremacy – it’s not about rednecks in white sheets…
It is a hard one to have. It’s hard to look at oneself and see the ways that, despite the best intention, one has ended up entertaining racist thoughts and behaviors without realizing it at the time. There are things I’ve done and said in the past that fill me with shame now, even though I’ve never been the kind of overt, conscious racist that most people associate with the term.
I’m not religious, but whenever the topic of race comes up, I think of what Cain says to God after the murder of Abel. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
I am a secular humanist, and consequently, the closest I have to God is the human race. So my answer is yes, I am my brother’s keeper. And I must confess that yes, I have sinned, and I must ask forgiveness.
I don’t think that means — as many on the reactionary right might think — that I am a self-loathing white man with a surplus of white guilt. I’m not responsible for the injustices of the past, just my own. But I am my brother’s keeper. And that means I am responsible for making our world a better place any way I can. I am obliged to make amends, if possible, to people I have slighted or wronged. And I am obliged to always strive to be a better person in the future, which means, among other things, being a better person to my fellow man. Even when it is hard.
If I could wish for one thing to come out of the present day, it will be for white people and black people to actually talk to each other, not just about race, but also about everything else. The unofficial segregation that exists in our society makes blacks and whites strangers to one another, and it is human nature to be suspicious of strangers. That, more than anything else, is why the current wave of resegregation in the schools scares the hell out of me.
Scientific American Mind has an article, “Buried Prejudice,” by Siri Carpenter. There is an online version, however, I think one has to pay to read the whole article.
The lead, “Deep within our subconscious, all of us harbor biases that we consciously abhor. And the worst part is: we act on them“
From within the article:
Well said. I do not think very many of us, of any color, can honestly consider ourselves completely free of racist thoughts and attitudes. They may be conscious or unconscious, malicious or innocent, but they are there in almost all of us.
I like to think of myself as a relatively enlightened person. My very best friend in high school — almost my only true friend, really — was, in his own words, “Half Kiowa, half Cherokee, half Mexican, and not very good at math.” We had almost nothing in common except a love of reading and good books, but through that one connection we forged the sort of friendship that shapes every other relationship throughout one’s life. And through the sort of honest communication that can only happen within the trust of such a friendship, I came to see the countless ways that unconscious assumptions colored, no pun intended, my perceptions of other people, particularly people who were a different color. To this day I see how such assumptions affect the behavior of my friends and colleagues at work, and they are in most cases totally unaware of them.
At times I recognize those same shortcomings in myself. How many times I have felt the need to watch my words carefully in conversation with someone obviously different from me. Not so much because I harbor overtly racist attitudes. I flatter myself that I am honest enough with myself to recognize and at least attempt to correct those. But because I am acutely aware that my words might be misunderstood, that the other person might take offense at what they think I mean rather than what I’m actually trying to convey. Well, that in itself is a form of racist perception. Until we can trust each other enough to be honest, until we can trust each other enough to meet halfway, we will never be truly free from racist perceptions and attitudes. We all have work to do.
Thanks for stopping by.
On the Rev. Wright flap, this may be ( a little naive) perhaps helpful. Sometimes what is unknown impedes. Some always see only the the dark side:
a repost of mine in a front page entry by BooMan on Lanny Davis
Excellent diary, idredit.
I watched last night and have to make a correction in the information you posted. The white David Wilson was NOT living in the “same big house.” The house had been abandoned in the 50’s when the last two elderly members of the family died. Both Davids toured the delapidated house together.
The doll test made me cry.
thanks for the “correction” but you’ll note this was a direct quote from MSNBC’s own promo article of their documentary. The diary went up before the airing.