Humbling Thoughts

I keeping thinking that I’ll write a post on why Ta-Nehisi Coates is my favorite writer, but so far, I can’t do him justice.  This recent passage below, however, is one of my reasons.  

It is not enough to know that you are the descendant of slaves--you should also understand how easily you could have been the slave-master. You don't read George Fitzhugh to assure yourself that there is evil in the world. Auschwitz is all around us. Auschwitz is alive and well and living in your noble heart. The existence of evil is the premise. The discussion must proceed from there.  

Years ago, when I was reading Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball, I realized that if I had been a southerner in 1830, I too might have thought slavery was natural and right.  It was, in a way, a life-changing thought.  Coates says history “is sometimes rage-inducing. But in the end it should be humbling.”  Yes.