The Seventh Generation and Barak Obama
For many years, I have tried to live by the creed of dedication to the seventh generation.
Depending on who you listen to the concept is either a foreshadowing of Native people's return to sovereignty and re-centering human culture around the needs of the planet or living your life in such a way that you are protecting the interests of the seventh generation in the future. At twenty five years a generation, that's 175 years from now. There are days when the changes we need to enact in our daily lives seem overwhelming and trying to survive another year, seems enough to worry about, let alone protecting the planet for the people who will be born in the year 2183.
Tuesday night my mom and I watched Barak Obama's speech acknowledging that he has become the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee and hopefully the next President of the United States of America. We all know this is a historic moment, but while we watched him, I reflected.
My mom immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s, encountered segregated beaches in New York and New Jersey, witnessed the birth of the civil rights movement and gave birth to me in 1960. Mr. Obama was born one year later according to some sources on the Internet so he and I are of the same generation. If the generation of our parents, the ones who registered voters in the south, the ones who desegregated schools, the ones who marched on Washington, DC are the first generation, then Mr. Obama and I are the second generation and the third generation is of voting age today and dreaming of a new world.
I have grown up with the civil rights movement, the images on television, the bitter words spoken in fear of change, the courageous men and women who dared to fall in love with people not of their racial background, and the hopes of people who raised bi-racial children in a world not yet ready to accept that love is more important than color. The changes seemed painfully slow and yet, collectively we are miles away from where we were in 1958.
From this point forward, I will look at the quest to care for the seventh generation a bit differently. While walking the road for the children of 2183, we are changing the lives of the children who will be born in 2033. I only hope we live up to that which the world demands of us today.
Just a shout out to the men and women who will be writing thoughts like these in the year 2058. May we have done all that you expected of us.
Depending on who you listen to the concept is either a foreshadowing of Native people's return to sovereignty and re-centering human culture around the needs of the planet or living your life in such a way that you are protecting the interests of the seventh generation in the future. At twenty five years a generation, that's 175 years from now. There are days when the changes we need to enact in our daily lives seem overwhelming and trying to survive another year, seems enough to worry about, let alone protecting the planet for the people who will be born in the year 2183.
Tuesday night my mom and I watched Barak Obama's speech acknowledging that he has become the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee and hopefully the next President of the United States of America. We all know this is a historic moment, but while we watched him, I reflected.
My mom immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s, encountered segregated beaches in New York and New Jersey, witnessed the birth of the civil rights movement and gave birth to me in 1960. Mr. Obama was born one year later according to some sources on the Internet so he and I are of the same generation. If the generation of our parents, the ones who registered voters in the south, the ones who desegregated schools, the ones who marched on Washington, DC are the first generation, then Mr. Obama and I are the second generation and the third generation is of voting age today and dreaming of a new world.
I have grown up with the civil rights movement, the images on television, the bitter words spoken in fear of change, the courageous men and women who dared to fall in love with people not of their racial background, and the hopes of people who raised bi-racial children in a world not yet ready to accept that love is more important than color. The changes seemed painfully slow and yet, collectively we are miles away from where we were in 1958.
From this point forward, I will look at the quest to care for the seventh generation a bit differently. While walking the road for the children of 2183, we are changing the lives of the children who will be born in 2033. I only hope we live up to that which the world demands of us today.
Just a shout out to the men and women who will be writing thoughts like these in the year 2058. May we have done all that you expected of us.
posted by Karin Zirk at
5:06 PM
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