This is the second part of scene 2 from the performance piece I have written. To start at the beginning, click here. To start at the top of scene 2, click here.
[F exits]
Allan: From all accounts, my grandfather was a great man:
kind, giving, a devoted husband and father, a loyal friend. However, I also
know that my grandfather was very much a man of his time, a man that grew up in
Georgia and northern Florida in the mid-twentieth century. That is basically to
say that he was pretty racist. I don’t really know the extent, but I certainly
remember growing up hearing the terms “nigger-rigged” and the rhyme
“Eeny-Meanie-Miney-Mo” including the hauntingly violent image of “catch[ing] a
nigger by the toe.” And for the most part, there’s a simple narrative you come
to learn in the South—even the arguably pseudo-South of Northern Florida—that
lets you reconcile yourself to this messy racial family history: “they’re from
an earlier generation, they didn’t know better.” But something about that is
not enough; I still struggle with what exactly I am supposed to do with this
strain of mortal imperfection that disrupts the vision of familial sainthood.
To be honest, I much prefer whitewashing the memory of my grandfather’s racist
convictions—it’s just more pleasant to remember the nicer, more uplifting
qualities of the man, of which there were plenty. I mean really, don’t most of
us want in some way to redeem our ancestors or loved ones as we try to make
narratives of their past? How many eulogies tend to erase flaws, errors in the
past, ironically in honor of memory? And I know I am not alone in this. How do
you deal with your progenitors own falls from grace? What’s your story of
Garden when you are a son of Adam or a daughter of Eve? You don’t have to
actually answer; that was pretty rhetorical. We’re not getting that
participatory in the performance today. At least, not yet.
