Using History to Change Your Heart

I read The Warmth of Other Suns in 2013. It was a book that stayed with me. Therefore, I was pleased to see the Krista Tippet of On Being recently interview the author, Isabel Wilkerson. Wilkerson's book details what is called “the great migration.” Approximately six million African-Americans moved from the former slave states in the south to northern states between 1915 to 1970. These immigrants were not completely welcomed, but still, for most the north was safer and offered more job opportunities. 

Tippet's interview of Wilkerson is informative and moving. I encourage you to listen. For me, it adds to the thinking I've been doing lately about the importance of history and how it affects how we see ourselves, our country, and our world. 

People (mostly white people) often say that slavery and prejudice is in the past, that continuing to talk about it just makes matters worse. Wilkerson answers with this analogy:

When you go to the doctor, before you can even see the doctor, the very first thing they do is they give you all of these pages to fill out. And they — before the doctor will even see you, he wants to know your history. He doesn’t want to know just your history, he wants to know your mother’s history. He wants to know your father’s history. They may go back to your grandmother and your grandfather on both sides. And that’s before he will even see you.

You cannot diagnose a problem until you know the history of the problem that you’re trying to resolve.

Much of us this—I'd like to think the worst of it—happened before we were born. For some, it may have happened even before our ancestors came to this country. But if we are truly committed to this country, then we have acquired its history, and it still causes dis-ease today. It is tempting to ignore it because it's painful to look at it. As Wilkerson says, “It’s looking into the human heart and examining it and allowing ourselves to feel the pain of others. You don’t want to feel your own pain. Why would you want to feel someone else’s pain?” She continues, “So I think it’s an act of love and an act of faith to allow yourself to feel the pain of another.”

We are good at looking at our countries triumphs. How would this country change if everyone could truly feel the pain of those oppressed by history?