Dr. Angel Acosta Took Us Through the Inequality Timeline

400 Years Of Inequality.

I joined the Collective Trauma Summit, with Thomas Hübl.

One gathering was with Angel Acosta, in which he took us through the 400 Years Of Inequality timeline.

It was an observance of history. A history baked into our bones, into the land, into the collective of humanity. It rips at our skin; it soothes us to sleep.

History includes the flourishing and degradation of humanity, and everything in-between.

Observance of this timeline; the history of the formation of the USA, a relatively short time frame where a lot has happened. A relatively small section of human experience. A significant area of the current world stage.

The timeline moves through some profound sections; the native indigenous invitation to see reality:

“You are here as strangers.”

To the land, to its people who tended it for thousands of years; connected and entwined.

It moves through to Soujourner Truth’s:

Am I not a woman and a sister?

The inequity as both a woman, and a black person.

Then:

We, the people, who formed the whole union

An invitation to contemplate on who it was that formed the union, and how they created it.

The timeline image contains a lot of information and a lot of events that evoke the emotional experience. I cried on several occasions; it prompted anger, sadness, despair, joy, excitement, hope, hopelessness.

Looking over such a complex and rich history is bound to expose the full human experience.

It moves through the civil rights movements. Rodney King’s beating as one of the first instances of recorded police brutality, Trayvon Martin shot for walking through the wrong neighbourhood after going to buy some skittles, Breonna Taylor shot as she slept.

…

At the end of the timeline, the statement is:

Respect my existence, or expect my resistance.

It speaks to me, as all of the human stories of oppression speak. Never a time has there been an oppressed human that has lain down in spirit; there’s always some form of resistance.

At the end of the reading, Dr Acosta invited everyone to journal for ten minutes. This is what came up for me:

I cried for the indigenous brothers and sisters; too late. Better late, than never. The more I live, the less I understand. The more I care. The shame and difficulty of not knowing this complicated history fully; the disturbance. How could I have known?

I cried for the indigenous brothers and sisters displaced by the strange pilgrims with no interest in the land but to make human progress with it.

I cried for the pilgrims; who bore no relationship to their deep connection with the land, through their trauma of plague, the common ground taken, women being burned in front of their eyes, the forced labour of an industrialising nation society.

Progress; the inevitable march, pushing us forward like a rifle butt in the lower back. Coaxing us on, and tentatively we step, against our own will.

And to the best of our ability; amongst frozen emotion and energy.

Indigenous folk look on perplexed at our disconnection; the white ghosts. They never saw the like or level before.

They won’t be appeased by anything but the market. I can’t speak to their humanity.

The clanking of machinery.

Gunshot mastery of divine power.

Gun powder to give humans the ability of Zeus’ thunderbolt.

How did we use this power?

We used it to hoard and maim the land and culture.

Humanity’s hands were closed in a tight fist and drawn up away from the Earth; clenching tightly around our hearts for fear of stealth or hardship.

Whatever ‘other’ is alive within our hearts, lives within us. Drives behaviour.

We rage in fragility because we know our arguments are futile. That the rationality we have invested in and idolised, doesn’t add up to the full picture. Still, we invested.

They don’t stand up on all occasions; to love.

The foolhardy narratives are narrow and fearful, and we run from our knowledge of our deep humanity and ancestry; so that when we see it embodied, flashing in the glint of the whites of another’s eye, jealousy steals us, and rage fills our blood.

We run from ourselves.

We are hungering for connection;
We are hungering for healing;
We are hungering for progress in spirit;
We are hungering to heal the frozen trauma.
We don’t know how.

…

Dr Acosta then went onto explain some inspiring words that we may draw from:

Ubuntu

Bishop Tutu described the definition of this word:

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu — the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It talks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality — Ubuntu — you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

Sawubona

Is a Zulu term that means:

“I see you, you are important to me, and I value you.”

In response to this greeting, people usually say with “Shiboka”, which means:

“I exist for you”.

Namaste

Nama means bow, as means I, and te means you. Therefore, namaste literally means “bow me you” or “I bow to you.”

The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us, located in the heart chakra. The gesture is an acknowledgement of the soul in one by the soul in another.

To finish the session, Adam Bauer sang some particularly poignant lyrics:

You are here as strangers,

May we see you as souls,

We witness the trail of tears,

We declare black lives matter,

We breathe into our history,

We acknowledge what’s real.

The illusion of separateness is resolved in love,

We are all held in grace.

…

This work isn’t for the faint of heart, and it is so important to understand.

If you are searching for clarity, then this work can provide you with that. It’ll take some emotional ability and humble soul-searching.