Down south

Ever since I saw that famous picture of the dirt jars I wanted to come to this place.
Yesterday I felt like I was showered with a bucket of cold water after deep diving in the Civil Rights Movement and segregation. It was nothing compared to today.

Today started in Africa, where the slaves were taken from their entire world and sold (if they survived a terrible boat journey) to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The first thing you see is the ocean, an angry ocean that makes you wonder if it was better to die at sea than to survive and experience everything I was about to read and find out about in this 4 hour visit that I'll remember forever.
We all think we know about slavery, we "get it" but you have no clue, you just don't.
So much loss, so much pain and so many things that haven't changed one bit.
The pain is still there, the "white" feeling of I'm white and you aren't, I can't even begin to explain everything that you read about and experience in interactive videos.
You see the jail cells, the shackles, the numbers, the stories, ads selling slaves, comments on each slave, and right in the middle is God without actually being there.

Slaves built Broadway and Wallstreet, so the rich white men could later accept the Statue of Liberty, think about that for a sec.

I feel everyone should live this experience and this should be a top 10 attraction of the United States. They should be proud and brag about this museum but ironically it's not as popular as it should be, again being overlooked by more important things, just like the blacks in America.

After the Museum we went to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, where Dani and I basically spat to each other everything we felt and learned.

It hit me personally because even though I have a Spanish passport that I got after being an illegal citizen for years, I know I'll never be seen as Spanish.

Even though I speak and write English at a very high level, I have to convince Human Resources in every job interview I have that I can speak the language. Why? Because I'm Mexican, and Latin American humans are seen as mischievous sly foxes to the Spanish, always trying to do less. It's the truth. It's hard to prove your worth constantly, and most of all, it's unfair.

Obviously I'm lucky and under any pretence am I trying to compare myself to any black person that has struggled or worse, died just trying to live and be happy just because they got in the way of ignorance.

It just stings but places like these ones give you hope, ironically. Because at least it's here for all to see, and it's not being shut down or banned, it's there and it happened. And yes, the balance is still horribly tipped the wrong way but there's heroes calling it as it is and hopefully one day they'll be heard.Weiterlesen