12/1/2024
My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,
Your comings & goings have me ruminating about the 1980’s today. I wish I could tell my young self to not be preoccupied with what others thought. As we both know, youth is wasted on the young.
Thanks for coming home early to mark World AIDS Day. Your attention to the plight of those who deal with the disease should bring them some comfort. I hope we all recall the devastation of the disease & mourn the unfortunate loss of so many. I had a colleague who died in 1986 & could never openly tell us he had AIDS. He was a creative, energetic, empathetic man, adored by the 7th & 8th graders he taught & his death reverberated throughout the community. I understand that the quilt humanized the disease & helped citizens to recognize more should be done to stop it. We still have a way to go & I appreciate your attention to the cause.
Your trip to Angola this evening has me recalling how its civil war was a fixture of the news stream for my early adulthood. I was never too clear on the details, but in reading about it today, the country bears a resemblance to Burma. Ethnic armies battling for power with outside forces contributing to the conflict. I hope the one in Burma does not last as long. Seeing the prosperity in Luanda gives me hope that Burma will one day be restored.
The NYT cited Stephen Lubkemann, an anthropology professor at George Washington University, who claims that “a vast majority of African Americans have Angolan ancestry.” They also reported that members of your admin, Wanda Tucker & Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III have been to Angola. When you visit the National Slavery Museum, I hope you will bring some attention to Pres. João Lourenço’s efforts to rehabilitate the town of Massangano, where the slave ships docked on the Cuanza River. It’s time for us to acknowledge our fraught history & begin to heal.
I invite you to join me in “Wisdom’s Spiraling Dance.” More on that in future letters.
BYBS,
