grad school angst

I am sitting in a class, with a professor who is reading his notes to us... notes he gave to us.

Really? This has never happened to me before in my education, and it is not effective for me. I could be doing a million other things and read this at my leisure. My presence here is inconsequential... at least as of now.

what is interesting thus far...

This story begins with the story of Portugal working its way down the west coast of Africa, trading slaves and gold. This was a violent story. Resistance meant violence and pillaging. Malacca was one of the great conquests in terms of trade. Reaching the straits of Malacca opened an entire new world of trade. But it did not stop there. The places can be listed like a reading of the war dead. Dates, place and names as “Christianity” spread with colonialism. Power made love to religion, bedded down with the new nation states. Just like an illicit affair, I want to avert my eyes, politely act as if nothing happened and move on.

This is not possible. Affairs seep into life, changing everything from large to small interactions from that moment forward. The way that Christianity spread, as unpleasant as it may seem, has forever altered the history of many people and places and continues, to this day, to impact individual lives. So I must look, longer and deeper than I would like, at the ugliness of my people.