We hold these truths to be self-evident

In commenting at this post, before Anne returned to her senses, er, to this blog, Mike referred to Woodrow Wilson's racism.  In my rejoinder, I hoped that we are at least moving forward in the correct direction.  I had also noted about the founding fathers--"slave owners on the one hand, but talking the big talk about all men being created equal and about freedom."

Why not explore that some more?

Consider Thomas Jefferson.  He was the main author of the Declaration of Independence.  Jefferson was only 33 years old when he drafted that.  Only 33!  With soaring, majestic, rhetoric, Jefferson tells us:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

The same Jefferson was a big time slave owner.   Writing at the Scientific American, John Horgan says that it was more than a small blemish; Jefferson was "an egregious hypocrite, who willfully betrayed the ideals he espoused."

"Willfully" is the key word here.  I.e., Jefferson knew better, and yet continued with his slave owning.

Jefferson was a “brutal hypocrite” even when judged by the standards of his time, according to historian Paul Finkelman. He notes that “while many of his contemporaries, including George Washington, freed their slaves during and after the revolution--inspired, perhaps, by the words of the Declaration--Jefferson did not.” Jefferson also “dodged opportunities to undermine slavery or promote racial equality,” Finkelman writes. As a Virginia state legislator Jefferson “blocked consideration of a law that might have eventually ended slavery in the state.” As President he purchased the Louisiana Territory but “did nothing to stop the spread of slavery into that vast ‘empire of liberty.’” Finkelman accuses Jefferson of being “deeply racist,” noting that he called blacks “inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind.”

Pause.  Think about this.  Jefferson writes that "all men are created equal."  Many of his notable contemporaries, including Washington, freed their slaves consistent with the spirit of the revolution and the very idea that "all men are created equal."  Yet, Jefferson not only did not free his slaves, he even resisted legislative attempts to free them!

The public "doesn't know enough about Jefferson's poor record on issues of race."

"I don't think you go around honoring people for behavior that was truly awful, and Jefferson's relationship with slavery and race was truly awful, even from his own times," Finkelman said. "This is not looking back from now," he stressed.
...
"George Washington ceased using white overseers to manage his plantations before he became president," and gave the positions to slaves "as a prelude to emancipating them in his will," Finkelman said. Jefferson never took such a step. "Washington famously said that he did not take men to the market like cattle, but Jefferson sold nearly 100 slaves in the 1790s," Finkelman said.

Which is why I appreciate Horgan's use of the word "willfully" when it comes to Jefferson's slave ownership.  Not only Jefferson knew better, his contemporaries were freeing slaves whereas he continued to treat them worse than cattle.

Horgan runs quite a list of Jefferson's hypocrisy.  He ends with this:

The United States has come a long way since Jefferson’s era. Our moral progress is exemplified by the fact that a black man is President. But this country still falls far short of its professed ideals of peace, equality, justice and liberty for all. Perhaps if Jefferson had set a better ethical example, we would have come further by now. 

If Jefferson had set a better example by freeing his slaves, and as a legislator and president if he had championed the rights of blacks, perhaps our history would have been different.  Maybe we would have moved much faster in the correct direction towards Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and I would not be worried about the possibility of a racist in the White House making a speech in 2019 marking the four hundredth anniversary of twenty captive Africans sold into slavery in the British colonies in North America!

Praise be to the mothers for the awesome Moringa dishes!

I would never have imagined reading about "Murungaikkai" in the New Yorker.  Another example of why I am such a fan of this magazine that I have been a subscriber for years now!

Before I get on the autoethnography train, a quick note first on Murungaikkai.  In the old country, drumstick is the English word for that.  You can, therefore, imagine my confusion when I was fresh off the boat and when I came across chicken drumstick ;)

The vegetable drumstick is from Moringa tree.  The New Yorker essay, which is about the moringa as superfood, notes:

In India, where Moringa was first domesticated, two thousand years ago, the pods are commonly used in a popular dish called sambhar, which subdues their flavor in a rich gravy.

I never cared for murungaikkai in the sambhar.  My favorite though was the dish my mother made with the tender leaves from the moringa tree: முருங்கை இலை பொரிச்ச குழம்பு   I drool now thinking about that dish.  Food is not merely about calories and nutrition; they are important pieces of the human stories that help me understand my existence.

Source

In the old culture, centuries of experimentation with various plants resulted in the kinds of tasty foods that my mother and other women in the extended family cooked.  Many of those are now being replaced by "modern" foods at such speeds that I wonder whether I will ever get to eat that dish after my mother dies; perhaps, I will wander about like the food critic, Anton Ego, whose memories of his mother's cooking are kindled by the ratatouille ;)

The New Yorker comments about the moringa leaf:

Its leaves, like cilantro, taste best when removed from their chewy stems, a tedious process when cooking large quantities. Both the leaves and the pods contain an oil that gives them a bold, peppery flavor—like arugula, but stronger—which can be off-putting to some palates.

Ah, but when cooked like how my mother does, those leaves are magical elixirs.

The mothers who cooked and served the moringa leaves for their families were treating us to superfood, which is now eagerly sought after by the affluent:

For now, Moringa is gaining more popularity among wealthy, Western superfood enthusiasts than among the underserved populations of the dry tropics. Powdered Moringa leaves have become a trendy ingredient in power bars and smoothies in recent years. “We’re hoping Moringa becomes the new kale,” Lisa Curtis, the twenty-eight-year-old founder of Kuli Kuli, a San Francisco-based company that specializes in Moringa snack bars, powders, and energy shots, told me. The Kuli Kuli Web site, which refers to Moringa alternately as a “miracle tree” and a “supergreen,” states that the plant roundly outperforms kale, with “2 x protein, 4 x calcium, 6 x iron, 1.5 x fiber, 97 x vitamin B12.” (Olson said that he hasn’t seen data to support these nutritional claims, but that the nutrient profile of Moringa oleifera “does at least rival or exceed that of milk, yogurt, and eggs, serving for serving.”) Superfood fans are already biting: this past year, Whole Foods began carrying Kuli Kuli’s products nationwide. According to Curtis, the company sold a million dollars in Moringa products in the first six months of 2016.

What is unfortunate is this: It is not clear whether people, especially in the poorer countries, understood the value of the moringa:

Olson is skeptical of the Moringa fad within wealthy health-food enclaves. “Trumpeting dried Moringa as the cure du jour for people in the rich West misses the real potential of this plant,” he said. He sees Moringa as a kind of anti-superfood—not something to be frittered away as a luxury supplement, like açaí berries sprinkled on oatmeal, but to be used as a staple, an essential form of sustenance. Fahey agreed. “When you look at maps of the areas in the world where Moringa grows, and then at maps where populations are undernourished, it’s amazing—they almost exactly overlap,” he told me. And, given the pressures of climate change, this correlation may strengthen in the coming decades.

If only my grandmothers were alive to chuckle at how an age old practice is now being labeled as superfood, and that too in a world that will rapidly become hot and dry!

Wikipedia includes this about moringa:

It can also be used for water purification and hand washing, and is sometimes used in herbal medicine

Both Wiki and the New Yorker essay missed out on another important feature of the moringa--its status as an aphrodisiac.  Wait till the scientists figure that out; your inboxes will soon be flooded with moringa spam emails ;)

On the Fourth of July

My parents, in 1957

(A re-post, slightly modified)

Right from when I was a kid—a long time ago in India—I was familiar with the importance of the Fourth of July in the United States because of a family connection: My parents lost their freedom (ha ha) when they got married on the very day that Americans celebrate their independence day.

So, yes, anniversary greetings to my parents.

I left the old country behind years ago.  After gaining American citizenship, the Fourth of July is, of course, way too special for me.

Perhaps it is a typical immigrant emotion after all when I think that my adopted country is special because I consciously weighed the alternatives and worked to come to America. The American citizenship was not a result of an accident of being born here.  It was not an ovarian lottery that I won.

Immigrating to America or any other country is so easy now unlike a few generations ago when most of the world’s population stayed at, or close to, the places where they were born and raised.  We humans are now seemingly on the move all the time. We move from one region to another within a country, and migrate across international borders, to strange places where they might speak strange languages and eat strange foods.  The surroundings.are alien to us. As a student remarked last term, it is amazing that humans give up everything known and familiar and go somewhere far away.  Yet, we move.  Because, moving is better than staying put.

In our family, many, many decades ago, my grandfather too had an opportunity to move away, when he was offered a job in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) because of his valued metallurgy qualifications from a reputed Indian university.

If grandfather had sailed on that ship, my family’s history would have taken a different turn.  I might not even be blogging this for you to read.

However, he was compelled to reject that offer and stay back in India.

My grandmother and great-aunt always got excited to narrate this story.  Grandfather had no choice but to reject the offer.  Not because the job did not pay enough--the offer was apparently a phenomenal one. But, his mother, who was deeply rooted in the traditions, threatened to commit suicide if he went too far away from her!

The distance was not all that much either.  Grandfather's hometown, Sengottai, and Ceylon’s capital city, Colombo, are not even 250 miles apart. But, it was 250 miles in the days before telephone and planes and emails!  Grandfather's mother had justifiable reasons to worry.  He then ended up taking a job that was relatively close by.  A job for which he was tremendously overqualified.  A dutiful family man he was.

In contrast to that, a few decades later, I traveled half-way around the world, in order to be here in the US.  20,000 kilometers!

America has been home since the day I landed in Los Angeles, and more northward migration since then.  To quote from the musical, West Side Story, “I like to be in America, okay by me in America.”

At Skinner Butte