I can't shake the realization that Stevenson's grandmother, the person who said to him, "You can't understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close. (14)" was known so well by him and that her parents were captives of the slave-based economy. The fact that he mentions her again and again shows the impact she had on his life and the way in which stories move down through families. I barely knew one grandparent and have no memories of my other grandparents. I have no family history, really, besides that which my brother - the family historian - has documented. He being 6 years older than I has those memories.
I contrast this with the fact that family stories from the time of slavery and Jim Crow must hold great currency in African-American families in America today. They live with this history in a way I do not. We certainly didn't sit around talking about the ways we'd oppressed Black Folk in this country. I do remember my Dad referring to the men who waited on him at the Union League Club in NYC as the "boys," men in the fifties and sixties I'm sure. And he did it as a matter of course, not meaning to be derisive. It was just the way things were.
No wonder W.E.B. DuBois referred to the double consciousness Black Americans needed to survive when he wrote Souls Of The Black Folk in 1903, the year my Dad was born. Without it, you could die rapidly, not grasping how the Whites that surrounded you, perceived you. For me, living freely in the dominant culture, I was safe. It didn't make any difference. And that's the way I was raised.
What Grandma said to Bryan was part of his education to stay alive. I also wonder if it is part of his belief that "it's necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and-perhaps-we all need some measure of unmerited grace". I know I do. And I believe without ongoing direct (close) dialogue with Black Americans, I'll never get there.
Shouldn't we stop reading books and start talking across racial lines?
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