Provincial?

I went to college in Boston. It was there I learned the word used to describe Boston and the northeastern part of Massachusetts was “provincial”. This is where the first people settled in our country; there is history, and their self-governing, traditional, tight community of New Englanders.

I just read the 2009 book called New York: The Novel by David Rutherfurd. This book has many narrators, beginning with the families that arrived in Manhattan as Dutch and British merchants, destroying the Indian fishing villages. We follow families that evolve through the Gilded Age, the Civil War, the 1929 crash, and beyond. The connections and lessons run deep. It is also about the American opportunity.

What has struck me the most is how each era is similar to what is happening in our country today; although different, it is still history repeating itself. Each chapter conveys how we might have left England, but the corruption, the elitism, the power, the abuse, came over on the boats, and it has never stopped showing up. How do we change that?

Everyone has woken up to what trauma means, how to be more aware, and some can call it “woke,” but to me, it means we can be a better society. The “Me Too” movement made progress, but we need more. How women and children are abused is mind-boggling, and why don’t we start making the victims the most important person in the room? How people manage and behave in work settings has changed, and thank god. What I witnessed in the early 80’s, I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through that.

Racism still exists because it is taught to exist. We continue to repeat history by failing to break with the past. Transparency, empathy, honesty, and accountability would certainly be a change in the right direction. We have such an ugly past, and many try to erase the history books and rewrite them without the bad behavior that existed, but you can’t because it must be retaught. We pretend to be “provincial” in that going to church on Sunday means all can be forgiven.

You can’t make a better future without acknowledging and understanding the past. We have yet to learn this. When are we going to have a leader who can change the direction our country is taking now? We can only hope.