12/5/2024

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            How does it feel to be back home? Does the WH feel like home? Will you continue to have people waiting on you after Jan 20? I’m still not used to having a helper in the house even after 3 years of having a wonderful caregiver spending 8-10 hours of week with my husband. She’s super helpful, almost like a member of the family, yet her presence is somehow disruptive & I prefer to be at work when she’s here. Do you feel at ease when staff are fussing over you?

            Perhaps my agitation comes from an aversion to hierarchy. I don’t like having her in a subordinate position, being at our beck & call. I prefer to take care of myself or to get help from loved ones.

            I like to think these sentiments would have prevented me from being an enslaver. I like to think that I would have teamed up with John Woolman, seeing the evils of slavery, alerting enslavers that they were “man-stealers” & persuading them to manumit their enslaved people. I will never know.

            Slavery is on my mind due to your visit to the National Museum of Slavery in Luanda. I appreciated your remarks that “history can be hidden, (but) it cannot & should not be erased… It’s our duty to face our history — the good, the bad and the ugly, the whole truth.”

            I’m grateful that Wanda Tucker, descendent of the 1st enslaved person born in America, was on hand for the event.

            Did you learn about Queen Nzinga? I am eager to learn more about how she negotiated with the Portuguese & led troops into battle, dressed as a man, took the title of ngola or king, & kept male concubines.

            I’m hopeful a woman like her emerges in Burma to bring folks together & negotiate for peace. SPoW, the AP says, “the ethnic Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) declared a unilateral ceasefire with the junta while pledging to join China-brokered peace efforts, as Beijing continues to detain its chief.” Do you think it will hold?

            BYBS,