I'm sitting in the "Heritage Room" at Hillsdale right now. It's a fancy room off the side of the library here with semi-comfortable (although not terribly) seats, lots of "key books" which means hyperbolic, dogmatic, propaganda about how great the constitution is or was or how awesome the United States could be or (the worst) how capitalism is the best.
Heritage, they call it.
But I think that's as far off-base as you could get, thinking about what this all really is, and what heritage actually is.
Perhaps, as Americans, this is our heritage...a "celebration" of our past through the lens of the "great" things that make America America. That...and a lot of Eagle statues...I think there are about 12 of them in a room that's around 15 by 20 feet. I guess I can buy that. But I'm not sure I'm a fan of the assumption that all Americans, as Americans, necessarily share the same Heritage. Actually, I am positive that we do not. Indeed, it is one of our overlooked strengths as a country that we do, indeed, not share said Heritage.
That being said, it's an easy heritage for upper middle class white people to embrace. The Swiss-German side of me doesn't care that much about the Swiss-German part of my past (save for the oppressed Anabaptist bit), so why shouldn't people who are fully white and usually rich for generations embrace, fully, a heritage defined by a country that writes its own history as victors?
Well.....the truth, probably, would be a reason why that shouldn't be the case. I don't see any pictures of oppressed people groups on the walls...no paintings of the trail of tears or land traded for a few small pox blankets and a bottle of whiskey...I don't see any signs of slavery or any African men with but two-thirds their face. The American heritage, which is not just lauded but heavy-handedly worshiped here at Hillsdale, was built upon the backs of people who "don't look like us."
I'm probably being unfair, just because I'm sitting in this room. My own belief that ultimately nothing good can come from capitalism doesn't help. But there aren't even any signs of celebrated diversity in here. For a school that has nearly as many lincolns as they do eagles, Jim Crow is de facto the modus operandi.
As I try to figure out, more and more, what it means for me to be a person of mixed race, I'm beginning, more and more, to feel at least slightly more out of place at Hillsdale. Most of the time, I'm the least white person in the room. For anyone that has seen me or met me, that should be a joke...but it's almost always true.
I know I probably won't get to do or see much changing around here, but for the present moment, I'll be conscious of what it does mean to be who and what I am while I'm here..and I won't let an opportunity slip that could at least steer one or two student's ethnic journeys.....we're all on them or should be and the first step is acknowledgement.
-Zack
"If ever I wasn't the greatest...I musta missed it"
-Kanye West
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