The Message

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

And I was in that world, even as I walked haltingly through Yad Vashem, which is, among other things, a grand narrative of conquered ancestors built by their conquering progeny. I can see that, now that I have walked the land. But there was a time when I took my survey from afar, and invoked this same land to service my own, more narrow story. It hurts to tell you this. It hurts to know that in my own writing I have done to people that which, in this writing, I have inveighed against—that I have reduced people, diminished people, erased people. I want to tell you I was wrong. I want to tell you that your oppression will not save you, that being a victim will not enlighten you, that it can just as easily deceive you. I learned that here. In Haifa. In Ramallah. And especially here at Yad Vashem. So this is another story about writing, about power, about settling accounts, a story not of redemption but of reparation.

Just wow. Have to still do the work no matter what you've been through. Not above it.