Traces of the Trade

Last night, the church hosted a showing of the documentary, Traces of the Trade, along with a discussion afterwards.

Traces of the Trade explores the experiences of descendants of a family that made its fortune in the slave trade. A very thought-provoking documentary.

One of the discussion questions was about embarrassing or uncomfortable interactions with African-Americans.

An incident from childhood worked its way back to the front of my mind. I thought about sharing it with the group but I couldn't. It hurt too much. I thought about writing about it in this blog but only the emotions and the impact it had on both players in this incident (beyond the immediate reaction to the incident, I can only speculate as to the impact on the other person). I still cannot speak or write of the details of the incident itself.

I'm having trouble even writing about the emotions. All I can say is that it still haunts me even after over 30 years and it ranks as the dumbest thing I've ever said to another person in seriousness. I've said plenty of dumb things that were meant to be jokes; things that get taken the wrong way, intentions not made clear, ignorance or simply poor taste. I said this thing out of ignorance of such a magnitude that someone might have assumed that I had some kind of mental handicap, but I was not joking.

I find myself unable to write any further about this incident despite the emotions roiling within and the thoughts doing battle in my head. Just too much to write about in a coherent way.