I've been watching the TV show Underground. It's about the underground "railroad" in the United States—black people of the south trying to make their way north to freedom.
In Alabama yesterday, the Democrat Doug Jones won the senate election against a racist, homophobic, Trump-supporting sexual predator. That's fantastic news.
What's sad news is that 70% of white voters in Alabama voted for Roy Moore, the homophobic, racist, Trump-Supporting sexual predator.
Yuck.
This led me to thinking about something.
I think, while we all have biological ancestors, we also have moral ones.
In terms of our morality, I think our biological ancestry matters very little. This is especially true, if you're like me, and believe in reincarnation. Who cares if your grandfather was a Nazi? YOU might have been a Jew killed in a death camp. Who cares if one of your ancestors was a plantation owner with a hundred slaves? In a past life, you might have been one of those slaves.
Reincarnation or not, though, I think it's more important to look at moral ancestry.
I think every white person who voted for Roy Moore is a moral descendant of the American slave owners.
Donald Trump might not BE Hitler, but I think he is a moral descendant of Hitler. Every member of his team is a moral descendant of Nazis.
Americans who are pro-Trump and anti-immigration? The ones who don't care that people are being expelled from our country? The ones who say, Only the bad ones are being exported? I think they're the moral descendants of all the German bystanders—the ones who might not have directly murdered Jews but didn't mind that it was happening.
All the black women and men who sacrificed their time to go and vote for the sake of ALL Americans? They are the moral descendants of every black person throughout history who has found the strength to fight back.
The 30% of white people in Alabama? I think many of them are the moral descendants of the people throughout history that stood up in small ways and big ways to try and make things better for those unfairly cursed with less privilege.
We hear people say things like, Why do I need to be sorry? What my ancestors did is not my fault! When it comes to biological ancestry, I think these people have it right. We can't be fairly blamed for what are parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. did. We can't even really be blamed for what our moral ancestors did...unless we bring reincarnation into the picture. But we CAN be compared to our moral ancestors. And we can be validly hated for all that.