Living the Dream and Making Amends

I recently read an article entitled, After Slavery, Servitude in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The article focused on a forum discussion which took place in Atlanta, GA to discuss Douglas A. Blackmon's book entitled "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II."

I have not yet read the book, however, according to the AJC article, the book chronicles the continued enslavement of blacks after emancipation by virtue of false arrests and rigged policitical and judicial systems.

The forum consisted of about a dozen people from various backgrounds - black and white, professionals and students. Everyone who participated in the forum seemed to agree that the very fact that most of us are unaware that large numbers of blacks continued to be enslaved after emancipation is, on its own, quite remarkable. Of course, all of the forum participants expressed their ideas and opinions about this horrific practice and at least two of the participants are the descendants of men who engaged in the post-emancipation enslavement of blacks.

After reading the article, I began wondering how making amends and "Living the Dream" relate. Are the women whose ancestors engaged in the post-emancipation enslavement of blacks, and purportedly benefitted from it, in any way responsible for making amends for the acts of those ancestors. The immediate answer, of course, is no.

But as I continued to ponder this question, I kept coming back to karma. If I refuse to acknowledge that someone I know and love or someone from whom I descend has done something wrong from which I benefitted, how will that affect me as I pursue my best life? Do I do myself an injustice and create negative karma for myself by failing to apologize for, or even acknowledge, something in which I did not play a direct role? If I feel any compunction to make amends, how would I go about doing so?

One of the forum participants shared that her great-great grandfather "bought" (stole) 10,000 acres from the Cherokee Indians and some of that land was divided up between her mother and her aunts and uncles. Then according to her, "[a]ll the wealth that was derived from it was stolen from these African-American sharecropping families. They were paid absolutely nothing . . . So the history as it is reconstructed for me is such firm evidence that the present wealth of [many] whites in the South still derives from slave labor."

So how would this women make amends to the descendants of the Cherokee Indians whose land was stolen or to the descendants of the sharecropping families who worked that 10,000 acres? Is it enough that she has acknowledged her great-great grandfather's wrongdoing and the legacy that wrongdoing carries for her and her family as well as the families of the Cherokees and the sharecroppers? Does she even have a responsibility to make amends? Would it even mean anything to the descendants of the Cherokees and the sharecroppers if she were to apologize to them for the sins of her great-great grandfather?

If this participant decides that she can't or won't do anything to make amends, to change the legacy in even the smallest of ways, is she creating bad karma? Will she be able to "live the dream?"

In our everyday lives, do we harm ourselves by being mean, spiteful, and petty? Do we harm ourselves by being selfish, greedy, and angry? How are we effected if we ignore the past? What would our lives be like if we were kind, generous, and caring? What would life be like if we could each apologize to just a few of the people we have hurt or in some way wronged?

I believe that as we journey through life, we must each answer these questions for ourselves. We must each decide whether we want to be a force for positive change and growth. We must decide whether our differences are simply too large they cannot be overcome. We must each decide what "Living the Dream" means and whether making amends has any place within that meaning.