Tommee, against white supremacy

Tommee and I both come from gothic birth families bristling with incest, suicide, guns, alcohol, and epic feuds over somebody's land and money. Underlying all this suffering is the history of white supremacy and its affect on all of us, including the poor whites who were Tommee's ancestors and mine, and we often come back to that thought in our conversations, as we did this morning. She is reading, with great excitement, Edward Baptist's excellent history, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism . (Google it if you're interested, I can't get the link to work.) Baptist describes "slave labor camps" known popularly in the USA as "plantations," and he describes how the uniquely American love affair with guns is built on the fear of slave uprisings. 

Over coffee we talked, as we always do, about religion, sex, and politics as well as books (she'll now read the Sally Mann I'm presently immersed in), art, and our own terribly flawed parenting. We agree that no matter how hard we tried, and no matter how much better we were than our parents, we weren't nearly good enough. That's the bottom line. Can't undo it, can't fix it, can't compensate for it now. We just have to sit with these uncomfortable truths. Capitalism. Slavery. Inadequate parenting. Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. And Tommee, as you see, has a kind of inner radiance and long-fingered, expressive hands.