Replies

Really I just see both sides engaging in this ancestor worship, which I find pointless.

It's not ancestor worship. It's more like stamp collecting, at least for me.

I've got a little bit of the whole world in my familly tree, from kings of England and Mayflower Pilgrims on the one hand, to abolitionist radicals and Indian chiefs and Mormon polygamists and black slaves on the other-- even one Gypsy.

The story of America is woven into every cell in my body. Probably it lives in yours too. Try to learn more about it someday, and I am sure you will find it interesting.

-ccm

What I meant was the way the people on both sides are putting such an immense stake in the life of one fallible human being. It is ancestor worship. I work with people everyday who worship Haile Selassie as God, that people worship making someone out to be more than they ever were.
How about just looking at one's immediate family? I carry around pictures of my mom and dad. I could be inspired by what my ancestors did and how hard they worked. It really would not matter to me that instead of a poor sigar cane planter, that my great grandfather was some rich colonist.

The story of America is woven into every cell in my body. Probably it lives in yours too. Try to learn more about it someday, and I am sure you will find it interesting.

** None of my relatives are from America but I look at my dad since he came here first. It was him that convinced my mother to stay here when she was wanted to turn around and go home. Not because she couldn't hack it in America, she found the vice and society very distateful. My mother was a stay at home mother. She taught me all there is to know about being a fanatical anglophile and how hard she had to work. My dad personified the European immigrant of the early twentieth century. Hard scrabble life in the ghetto then using a pushcarts (my dad sold hats) becomes a millionaire.

I have lots to be inspired about. But I am also inspired by other cultures as well. I don't need to be black to be inspired by black personalities that most Americans know about. If one thinks about it, loo at slaves who built businesses. There really is NO EXCUSE for anyone not to succeed in America.